The Robin And The Kestrel

All of his earlier convictions went flying off like scattered birds; and if Robin had not pulled him down off his perch and dragged him out, he probably would have remained there, clinging to the alabaster Saint, and wondering if he should prostrate himself as so many others were doing, and pray for forgiveness for his doubts.

He did not really take in Robin's expression until they got outside. Then he got one of the great shocks of his life, for her eyes burned with anger, fiery and certain, and her face was a cold mask donned to hide her true feelings.

She pulled him along until they reached their wagon, then shoved him roughly at the rear door as a hint to unlock it. He did so, hands shaking, and they both climbed in. Once they were inside, and not before, she finally spoke.

'Convinced, were you?' she said, her words hot with rage, although she whispered to keep her voice from carrying outside the wooden walls, 'Just like all those other fools out there. You saw Padrik perform real miracles, didn't you? With your own eyes! Damn the man! May real demons come and snatch his soul and carry it down to the worst of his nightmare hells!'

'B-b-b-b-but _' Jonny couldn't get any more than that out.

'Produces alms from thin air, does he? Well so can I!' And before he could say or do anything, she showered him with coins that came from out of nowhere. 'I can heal the blind and the deaf, too, if they were never blind nor deaf in the first place!'

'B-but the l-leper _' he managed.

She snorted. 'Flour and water paste make the open sores, paint makes the skin pale, and you can wash it all right off. It's an old beggar's trick. Remember how he passed his hands over the 'leper's' limbs? He was wiping them with a damp sponge hidden in the big sleeves of that robe.'

The c-c-c-cripples _'

Her eyes narrowed. 'Think a minute. The only one you actually saw 'healed' of anything was the first one. The rest simply showed up on crutches and danced off without them. Here _'

She sat down on the bed and did something with her boots, spreading her skirts over her legs to hide them as the first cripple's trews had hid his. And as soon as she sat down, sure enough, one of her legs was longer than the other. The right was longer by far than the left, by a good two inches.

Kestrel felt his eyes goggling. 'H-h-how _'

'You'll see in a second. Take my feet in your hands the way Padrik did.' He followed her instructions, taking her feet, one in each hand. 'Now, pretend to pull on the left one, but push slowly on the right one.'

He did so; as soon as he began he realized what she had done. She had pulled her right boot down, and as he pushed on the right foot, he pushed her foot back into place within the boot.

The skirts hid most of what was going on; distance would take care of the rest. And because attention had been focused on the short leg, it would appear that the shorter leg was being straightened, not the other being shortened. 'You see?' she said, jumping down onto the floor of the wagon again, and stamping to get her feet back into the boots properly. 'You see what he's doing? Tricks and chicanery, and probably every one of the people his miracles cure is someone from the Abbey here! The light that struck the Priest came from a mirror he had hidden in his palm; I saw him get into position to catch a gold-colored sunbeam coming through the stained-glass windows. Remember how he held his hands over his head when he prayed? He must have the location of every sunbeam in the Cathedral charted and timed!'

'Th-the p-prophecies w-were p-pretty vague,' Kestrel said, feeling his confidence and conviction returning with a rush of relief.

'And if you get a big enough crowd of people in a place, someone is going to match the 'widow who has lost a sum of money' and the 'tradesman searching for the son that ran away.' Gypsy fortune- tellers work that way all the time, when they don't have the true gift of sighting the future.' Her expression was still angry, however. Whatever had put her in a rage, it was not that he had temporarily been convinced of Padrik's genuineness.

'B-but the d-d-d-demon _' he ventured, wondering at the truly grim set to her mouth,

'That is what got me so mad!' she said, gritting her teeth in anger. 'Someone has been teaching Padrik Gypsy magic! Everything else is the brand of chicanery that professional beggars and false preachers have been doing for hundreds of years, but he could not have simulated that possession without the help of Gypsy magic! Spitting fire_that's done with a mouth full of a special liquid in a bladder you keep in your cheek_remember how close the man was to the candles? He even knocked one over, and that was the one that he used to light the liquid as he spit it out. Vomiting pins is something only we know how to do. The first batch of holy water had a secret dye in it that only turns red after it touches another dye, which you paint on the skin; the water droplets left behind looked like blisters because you expected blisters to be there. The 'sizzle' came from someone dropping real holy water into one of the incense burners while everyone was watching the show; I watched him and I saw the steam. And the smoke when the 'demon' left the body is another one of our tricks! The howl came from someone frightening a peafowl up in one of the towers_either that, or they've trained it to cry on command.' She spread her hands wide,