50
s quirked. "I doubt it's changed any in the past hour."
"You can't tell; it might have."
"You can tell," Kade said, but began to lay out the cards for the fortune anyway.
Corrine, the other heroine, appeared out of one of the back rooms carrying two dresses visible only as tumbled confections of sparkled fabric and lace. "What do you think, this blue or that blue?"
Both women paused to give the matter serious consideration. "That one," Silvetta said finally.
"I think so," Kade agreed.
"What are you wearing?" Corrine asked her.
Kade suspected she was anxious to make sure she wasn't going to be outshone by the woman playing her maid. With a shrug of one shoulder, Kade indicated the loose red gown she wore over the low-necked smock. "This."
"You can't wear that," Silvetta objected.
"I'm playing a maid." She laughed. "What else should I wear?"
The free fortune-telling had won Silvetta over completely. She said, "At least let me curl your hair."
Kade ran a hand through fine limp hair that the dusty sunlight was temporarily transforming into spun gold. Ordinarily she considered it the color of wheat suffering from rotting blight. "With an iron?"
"Of course, you goose, what else?"
"I hate that."
Corrine draped the gowns over a chair and said, "The thing to do is to attract attention to yourself. There's plenty of men there, gentlemen, lords, wealthy men, on the lookout for mistresses. Of course, it's not often you can get something permanent, you understand, but it's worth a go."
"Really?" Kade asked, her tone a shade too ingenuous, but not so much so that the other two women suspected subtle mockery.
"Much better than an actor," Silvetta said, and jerked her head in the direction of the tavern entrance. The actor who played the Arlequin stood there talking to one of the tavern-keeps, having just come in from the street. He was darkly handsome, clean-shaven after the current fashion in Adera, and didn't look a