"A poor man can aspire to Helen of Troy if he so desires," said Kornglow. "And in his fancy she may well respond to him above all men, and find him more desirable than delectable Paris himself. In a dream, whatever you want can happen. And is this not a sort of a dream, Your Excellency?"

"Yes, I suppose it is," Azzie said. "Well, sir, if we were to grant your wish, we'd have to have you enn.o.bled in order that there be no impediment of station to the marriage ceremony."

"I'd be willing," Kornglow said.

"We'd also have to get Lady Cressilda's consent," Aretino pointed out.

"Leave that to me when the time comes," Azzie said. "Well, it's a challenge, Kornglow, but I think we can swing it."

Aretino frowned and said, "There's the fact that the lady is already married, my lord, that might stand as some impediment."

"We have clerks in Rome to take care of details like that," Azzie said. He turned to Kornglow. "There are a few things you will have to do. Are you ready to go to a little trouble?"

"Why, yes, sir, so long as it be not too strenuous. A man should not be taken out of his native temper even by the most outrageous of good fortune, and my own native temper is of a laziness so extreme that did the world but know about it they'd declare me a prodigy."

"There's nothing too difficult ahead of you," Azzie promised. "I think we can dispense with the usual sword fighting, since you were not educated to it."

Azzie fished in his waistcoat pocket and found one of his magical keys. He handed it to Kornglow, who turned it over and over in his fingers.

"You will go from here," Azzie said, "and the key will take you to a doorway. You will pa.s.s through it, and find a magic horse with a magic candlestick in his saddlebag. Mounting him, you will find your adventure, and, at the end of it, your Cressilda of the cornsilk hair."

"Great!" Kornglow said. "It is wonderful when good fortune comes easy like this!"

"Yes," Azzie said, "ease of acquisition is one of the great things of this world, and a moral I hope to preach to men: namely, good fortune comes easy, so why sweat it?"

"It is a wonderful moral!" Kornglow said. "I love this story!" Clutching the key, he rushed out of the room.

Azzie smiled benignly. "Another happy customer."

"There's someone new at the door," said Aretino.

Chapter 2.

Mother Joanna sat in her room at the inn. She was more than a little afraid.

Outside, in the hallways, she could hear occasional scuffling sounds. They might have come from anything, natural or supernatural, but Joanna suspected they emanated from pilgrims who had decided to take Sir Antonio up on his offer and were on their way to his chambers.

Despite her holy office, Joanna was not unacquainted with human desire. There were things she wanted for herself, and, not being a moderate person, these desires burned in her immoderately. She was a political mother superior, not a religious one, and had looked upon her job much as the taking on of any other great enterprise. Her nunnery at Gravelines, with its seventy-two nuns and a host of servants and people to look after the animals, was an enterprise similar to that of a small town. Joanna had reveled in it from the very beginning. She might have been made for this. She had never been like other little girls, playing with dolls and dreaming of marriage. Even as a child she had been fond of giving orders to her birds and spaniels-You sit there, and you there - scolding them while she gave them tea.

This practice of giving orders had not left her when she grew to womanhood. Matters might have been different had she been beautiful, but she had taken after the Mortimer side of the family. She had the great white face of the

Mortimers, the short, dry, lifeless hair, the stocky body more suited to laboring with spade and plough than to the languors of the pursuits of love. She wanted to be rich, and feared by all, and service in the Church had seemed the way to get it. She was conventionally pious, but her piety ran afoul of her practicality, which told her that here was an opportunity to get what she wanted rather than waiting forever until the Pope was induced to advance her to some larger nunnery.

She thought and thought, and she paced up and down her little room, taking note of her desires and asking herself which of them was paramount. Each time she heard a sound outside, she started; it seemed that all of the others were taking advantage of Sir Antonio's offer to give them their hearts' desires. Soon the required seven would be made up, and she would have no further chance. Finally she decided to act.

Mother Joanna crept out of her chamber and made her way silently down the inn's dark pa.s.sageways. She climbed the stairs to the second level and winced when they creaked. Coming at last to the door to Sir Antonio's room, she took her courage into her hands, reached up, and tapped lightly upon it.

Azzie's voice from the other side said, "Come in, my dear. I've been expecting you."

She had many questions. Azzie found her tiresome, but he managed to rea.s.sure her. When he came to inquire as to her heart's desire, however, he found her less than forthcoming. A look of sad embarra.s.sment came across her broad white face.

"What I want," she said, "is something I do not even care to speak about. It is too shameful, too demeaning."

"Come on," Azzie said. "If you can't tell your demon, who can you tell?"

Joanna seemed about to speak, then, jerking a thumb at Aretino, said, "What about him? Must he hear, too?"

"Of course. He is our poet," Azzie said. "How else can he record our adventures save he be present? To make no record of these notable adventures were crime indeed, one that would condemn us to the vast unconsciousness of unrecorded life in which most people live out their lives. But Aretino will immortalize us, my dear! Our poet will take our exploits, no matter how slight they might seem, and weave them into deathless verse."

"Well, sir demon, you persuade me," Joanna said. "I confess to you, then, that ever in my dreams I would be a great Tighter of wrong of the public sort, receiving all manner of adulation in ballads for my accomplishments. Something like a female Robin Hood-with lots of time in between exploits for hunting."

"I'll figure out something," Azzie said. "We'll get started right away. Take this key." He told Mother Joanna what was coming up in the way of rings, doorways, magic candlesticks, and magic horses, and sent her on her way.

"And now, Aretino," Azzie said, "I think we have time for a tankard of wine before the next supplicant. How do you think it's going so far?"

"Frankly, sir, I have no idea. Plays are usually laid out beforehand, with everything made clear in advance. In this drama of yours, all is muddy and uncertain. What does this fellow Kornglow stand for? Is he Overweening Pride? Bucolic Humor? Unquenchable Courage? And Mother Joanna-is she to be despised or pitied? Or a little of both?"

"It is confusing, isn't it?" Azzie said. "But very lifelike, I think you'll agree."

"Oh, no doubt. But how are we to find suitable moral dicta in all this?"

"Don't worry, Aretino, no matter what the characters do, we'll find a way of making it represent what we have been speaking about all along. The playwright gets the last word, you must remember, and therefore is in a position to say that his idea is proven whether it is or not. Now pa.s.s that bottle this way."

Chapter 3.

When Kornglow returned to the corner of the old stable he was more than a little surprised to see a horse tethered where there had been none before. It was a tall white stallion, and its ears p.r.i.c.ked forward as Kornglow approached it. How had this n.o.ble steed gotten here? Then he saw that he was in a different place entirely from where he'd thought he was. The magic key must have led him through one of those doorways Azzie had been speaking about, and his adventure could already be launched.

He had to make sure. Espying the saddlebags that the horse wore, Kornglow opened the one nearest him and reached in. His hand encountered something ma.s.sy and metallic, thin, and long. He pulled it halfway out. A candlestick! And unless he missed his guess, it was made of solid gold. He slid it back carefully into the saddlebag.

The horse whinnied at him, as though inviting him to get up and ride away, but Kornglow shook his head, left the stable, and looked around outside. The stately manor house not twenty yards from him was unmistakably the house of Lord Rodrigo Sforza, the selfsame house where Kornglow had had his first and only glimpse of Lady Cressilda.

It was her house. She was inside.

But Lord Sforza was also undoubtedly inside. As were his servants, retainers, guards, torturers...

There was no sense in rushing into this. Compunction cast its dark wings over him, and Kornglow took thought. Now, for the first time, he considered his adventure, and found it more than a little daft. It was always n.o.bles who were doing this sort of thing. Well, sometimes commoners were involved in the folktales. But was he the stuff folk- story heroes were made of? He doubted it. He knew he was gifted with a swift turn of fantasy; otherwise he wouldn't have gotten himself into this in the first place. But was he the man to persevere through it? Was the lady worth it?

"Why, sir," said a soft voice at his elbow, "you do bend your gaze on the manor house as if someone very special were awaiting you there."

Kornglow turned. Beside him was a diminutive milkmaid in peekaboo bodice and full pleated skirt. She had tousled dark curly hair, a pert expression, a full and curvaceous figure for so small a person, and a smile that was both gentle and lascivious. An unbeatable combination.

"That's Lord Sforza's house, isn't it?" Kornglow asked.

"That it is," the milkmaid said. "Were you thinking of kidnapping Lady Cressilda?"

"Why do you say that?" Kornglow asked.