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quarters. Amily shared a suite there with her father—which made him wonder, would she be willing to live in his stable room with him? There was just about the same amount of space as she had to herself in the suite, but the level of creature comforts probably wasn’t as high . . .
    He hadn’t quite made up his mind whether or not to kiss her, but she took care of the situation by throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him. He was not in the least unwilling to kiss her back and was just a little bit disappointed when she broke it off.
    “Here’s the list of what’s going on and a map of the Fair,” she said, handing two pieces of reused paper to Lena. “I made two copies.” Mags got just a glimpse of what was on the other side; it looked like some sort of very dull document. That was the norm up here at the Palace; there were a lot of things that stopped having relevance after a while, and the backs of them got used for writing-practice, after-lessons work, and anything else that didn’t need pristine paper. He’d once written an entire series of assignments on the backs of harvest reports from decades gone by.
    The wagon left from one of the small gates in the wall around the Palace-Collegium complex, the one that usually admitted the supply wagons. In fact, this actually was a supply wagon, with high, slat sides; low on comfort but very capacious. The four of them squeezed themselves into spots along one side on the plain wooden wagon bed. No one had thought about how they’d rattle and jounce all the way down to the Fair, but, then, most of them were too excited to care. There was just enough room that Bear and Lena, and Mags and Amily, could put their heads together over their lists and the map and make some rough plans.
    “Lydia is even more organized than me,” Amily said, pointing out the merchants in the list that she had underlined and the rough area of the Fair each would be in. “Then again, she’s the Princess—she probably sent someone down to hunt things out for her. She wants a perfume from here, some tinctures from here, some specially good pens and ink from this man.”
    Mags started to ask why Lydia hadn’t just had that same footman pick the things up for her—then he realized why. First, a Royal Footman wouldn’t bargain. Second, a Royal Footman would be cheated, probably by being sold inferior goods for an inflated price. And third, a Royal Footman would not have the knowledge that Lydia’s friends did. Bear could make sure the perfume was pure and not adulterated and vouch for the quality of the tinctures, while Lena, as a Bardic Trainee, was something of an expert in pens and inks, and might just try out as many as a dozen of the former before she picked out the ones that Lydia would want.
    They had to be some sort of special pen, though, to be superior to the ones supplied to the Palace. He wondered just what on earth that was all about.
    As he glanced over the list of contests, he didn’t see much he was terribly interested in. For one thing, at least so far as he was concerned, he had to actually know at least some of the contestants to have any interest in the outcome. For another, things like “grain-sack hurling” and “pig catching” didn’t exactly sound . . . exciting.
    “I think the contests today are a wash,” Bear said, craning his neck around.
    “The good contests are all on the last three days, Lydia says,” put in Amily. “And we’ll all be back at lessons.”
    “Look, if I wanta see archery that’ll make m’ eyes bulge, I’ll just ask Weaponsmaster for a demonstration,” Mags pointed out. “Now, look here, there’s a whole tent full of jugglers and tumblers and rope dancers, and the like! What’s that about?”
    “You pay your penny, go in, and stay as long as you like,” Amily told him. “They have seats, and they change performers and acts. Kind of like if the performers at the wedding had come to us instead of us going ’round