Tainted Gold Read Free Page B

face was anything but contrite. “You sure think fast on your feet.”
    “I’m used to it,” she admitted. “I get snookered into things all the time. It’s part of the fun.”
    “I’m Tucker Ferris,” he said, loosing her shoulders and offering her his right hand.
    “Quillen McCain,” she answered as she shook his hand. “Your makeup is really magnificent. You honestly look like you’re seventy-five years old.”
    “Thank you,” he said, half-bowing. “Actually, I’m only seventy-three.”
    Quillen laughed, and his whiskered smile spread into a grin that creased the layers of wrinkles around his blue eyes. Releasing her hand, he unfastened his brocade-trimmed cloak and flung it over a nearby boulder as he leaned against the thigh-high chunk of rock and fanned both hands at his face.
    “Is your beard getting hot?”
    “Very,” he replied, lifting the long, silky hair that lay against his shoulders and fanning it, too, at his face. “Hope I don’t sweat my wrinkles off. They’re a bitch to put on. You know, you were really terrific,” he repeated. “Maybe we could work something up between us. Not for every show, just whenever you have free time. By the way, what do you do around here? I mean, besides loiter in the back of crowds looking so attractive that I kept forgetting where I was in my routine.”
    “I’m a tale teller,” she replied, choosing to let the compliment pass.
    “No wonder you’re such a great ad-libber. So your time is pretty much your own?”
    “Pretty much.”
    “How about it then? Want to talk about it over lunch?”
    It was a pass—sort of. Though Quillen had no idea what kind of man lived under the white wig and beard, she was rather surprised to find herself seriously considering his invitation.
    “Honest,” he assured her, as he drew an imaginary “X” across his chest. “I’m as harmless as I look, although I lied, I’m not really seventy-three, I’m seventy-two.”
    Quillen laughed again and he grinned as he pushed up his sleeves. If those are the arms of a seventy-two-year-old man, she thought, I’ll eat my cloak.
    “All right,” she agreed, wondering what he looked like under his elaborate makeup. “I’ll meet you here about noon.”
    “Great. I’ll look forward to it.”
    “Me, too,” Quillen answered, and meant it as she turned away and smiled at him over her shoulder.
    Even though she figured Cassil was long gone, Quillen nonetheless searched the Weavers’ Glade, paused in the Children’s Dell long enough to tell two stories, then browsed through the shops in the Guildmaster’s Glen—looking for Cassil, not a bargain. Not that she knew what she’d do if she caught up with him—the festival was open to the public—but even giving him a piece of her mind would be satisfying. Of Tucker Ferris the wizard she thought very little, except to wonder where she’d heard the name Realgar before. It had sounded familiar when he’d first said it, yet she couldn’t remember from where. She’d have to ask him about it, she thought as she wormed her way through a knot of people near the scaled-down three-masted clipper permanently anchored in a broad inlet of the creek called the Pirates’ Cove, and heard a preteen girl in braces whine at her father that it was twelve-thirty and couldn’t they please have lunch now.
    Damn, Quillen swore silently as she hiked up her skirts and took off as fast as she could for the Gypsy Camp. The midday crowds were heavy, however, and it was slow going. Forty minutes late, winded and disgusted with herself, she pelted to a halt before the Wizard’s Cave as a sharp pain between her ribs—exertion, not disappointment, she rationalized—sat her down on the boulder to catch her breath. Glumly, she looked around at the deserted area and the extinguished fire and sighed. Oh, well, she couldn’t blame him—
    “Hey, finally! I thought I’d been stood up—for the first time in seventy-two years, I might add.”
    Her