They were all concentrating hard now, but Bess shook her head again.
‘I cannot understand it!’ she muttered to herself. ‘Why can I not see it?’
She seemed really distressed. Lief began to feel sorry for her.
‘Divide your new number by the number you first thought of,’ Bess ordered, frantically moving her hands over the glass ball.
Ten, Lief thought. Fifty divided by five is ten.
Bess drew a deep breath. Her hands slowed.
‘Better,’ she said softly. ‘Now, take away—ah yes!—take away seven, the number of magic! And then concentrate—concentrate hard on the number that remains.’
Ten minus seven, thought Lief. Three. Three… three… three…
The table slowed, and became still.
‘Ah… at last!’ Bess breathed. ‘I see it! The number in your minds is… three!’
Lief, Barda and Jasmine exclaimed and clapped.
‘Amazing!’ cried Barda. ‘How did you do it?’
Bess shrugged and straightened her shawls. ‘Who am I to try to explain the mysterious power of the glass?’ she said solemnly. But her eyes were twinkling behind her mask.
And suddenly, thinking over what had happened, Lief realised that she had been acting all the time. Her pretended hesitation and distress had disguised a very simple trick.
If you multiply a number by two and then by five, you are really multiplying it by ten! he thought. So if you then divide your total by the original number, ten will always be your answer. Take away seven from ten—and you are left with three.
So that was how Bess had ‘read’ their minds. Whichever number they started with, the end result would be three, every time!
He smiled beneath his mask.
‘The spinning table top is not so mysterious,’ Jasmine said boldly. ‘I have seen something a little like it before. I am sure you make it move by working a pedal under the table.’
Bess laughed heartily. ‘You are not easily impressed, young Jay,’ she said. ‘But of course you are right. I can make the table move and stop again with the slightest tap of my foot. It is just a little trick—to make the performance more interesting.’
‘It does that,’ said Barda. ‘But I still do not understand how—’
‘Ah, here are our drinks at last!’ Bess cried. She took the glass ball and set it carefully on the ground beside her chair.
Rust appeared carrying a loaded tray. ‘I fear there is no honey, Bess,’ she said, bending to place two small cakes, two cups and a stone jug on the table. ‘The last jar has disappeared from the food wagon. That young thief, Zerry, took it, no doubt. I do not know why you put up with him!’
‘Zerry has very light fingers,’ Bess agreed calmly, taking the cork from the jug and filling the cups with deep red wine. ‘After all, he has lived by thieving ever since he could walk.’
She handed one of the cups to Barda. ‘But that is just why I wanted him, Rust. If he can take a purse from a man’s coat, without that man noticing, he can learn to deceive an audience with ease. He will be a great magician one day.’
Rust sniffed and straightened up, tucking the empty tray under her arm.
‘Perhaps,’ she said darkly. ‘Though Plug says that he neglects his lessons, preferring to spend time with the horses. Perhaps—’ She broke off, and her hand flew to her mouth.
She was staring at Lief, her eyes bulging with shock.
‘Ah, you have noticed Lewin’s mask at last,’ said Bess lightly. ‘Does it not suit him?’
‘Bess!’ The fox-woman’s voice was a strangled whisper. ‘Bess, you cannot—’
‘You know better than to tell me what I can and cannot do, Rust!’ Bess growled. ‘Leave us at once!’
The fox-woman ducked her head and stumbled away.
There was an awkward silence. Then Bess sighed.
‘We must not let poor Rust spoil our pleasure,’ she said. ‘She respects our old traditions far too well, and will not see that rules must change with the times.’
She lifted her cup.
‘Good health!’ she said, and drank deeply.
‘Good health!’ Barda repeated. He sipped his own wine and smacked his lips. ‘Very good!’ he said.
From his pocket he took the little carved box that he had been trying to open ever since he came by it in the Os-Mine Hills. A small rod of polished wood protruded from one of the sides, very near the top. He passed the box to Bess.
‘Here is a puzzle for you,’ he said. ‘I thought I had solved it, but there is more than one lock. Would you like to try your skill?’
Bess took the little box in her enormous hands and turned it over with interest. Barda watched, grinning, as she pressed the carving here and there. He had spent hours working on the box in Broome. He was sure she would not be able to open it.
Lief moved restlessly, glancing over his shoulder at the activity around the central fire. He longed to go and join the crowd.
Bess glanced up. ‘You young ones run along and watch the entertainments for a time, if you wish,’ she said kindly. ‘Take your cakes with you. Berry and I will be cosy together here.’
Lief and Jasmine stood up with relief, picked up their cakes and left the table. From his perch in the tree, Kree silently watched them go.
‘Bess is being very pleasant to Uncle Berry,’ Jasmine said in a low voice, breaking off part of her cake and cautiously slipping it beneath her jacket for Filli. ‘Do you think she hopes to change his mind about leaving?’
‘Perhaps,’ Lief said absent-mindedly. He quickened his steps. He could not wait to become part of the life around the fire.
Together he and Jasmine plunged into the crowd. Jasmine was soon claimed by the dog-faced acrobats, who were forming their pyramid again. Lief wandered on alone in a happy dream, drinking in the amazing sights and sounds around him.
Jugglers, singers, musicians, magicians… Here a dragon-man breathing fire. There a tall thin man with the glistening head of a snake, tying himself in knots. Beside him, a squirrel-woman dancing with bare feet on a bed of hot coals…
Two girls in furry masks like Jasmine’s walked casually by on stilts.
‘Bess says I will be given the mask of my adulthood very soon,’ Lief heard one of them say to the other. ‘It will be a water bird, as I requested. At last! I have been eighteen for months!’
‘You are lucky, Neelie,’ said the other girl enviously. ‘Imagine! You will not have to live with the orphans any more. I am sick and tired of old frog-face Plug!’
‘Never mind,’ the first girl laughed. ‘You will be eighteen in summer, Lin. Then it will be your turn. Bess is very pleased by how hard we worked in the Field of Masks. She says she has enough purebond roots now to make many new adult masks. Enough for all the orphans as they come of age.’
They strode on, weaving gracefully through the crowd.
So—that is one mystery solved, in any case, Lief thought, fascinated. The roots from the field are not food. They are boiled until they dissolve, and Bess uses the mixture to make the inner skin of the special adulthood masks. It must be an ancient craft. No wonder its secrets are closely guarded.
He smiled after the girls, who were still chattering happily. How good it is to be among my own people, he found himself thinking. How wonderful to be part of this world… to have this feeling of safety and belonging. How wonderful, to be a Masked One…
But you are not really a Masked One, a small, clear voice said in his head. You are not part of this world at all. And you do not want to be! Only a few hours ago you could not wait to get away from it. Remember?
Lief tried to push the voice aside, but it would not leave him. As though it had made a gap in his mind through which a cold breeze blew, he shivered.
Suddenly he noticed Rust, Quill and Plug standing nearby. They were watching him, talking in low voices. When they saw him looking, they quickly turned away.
Lief felt a sudden pang of grief. Then he shook his head impatiently. Why should he care if they rejected him? Why should he long to be accepted as one of them?