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someone.”
    One of the Riders scratched his head as a horse pawed the ground restlessly, and another
     let out his breath in an impatient snort. “That leaves us thin on the ground for strategy,
     Captain.”
    Gennie shrugged. “It’s what we’ve got, until we know how they work together.”
    “Keep away from the Foot, get the Riders to the fences and scrum there?” Jeffers shook
     his head. “That’ll make for a slow game.”
    She made a wry face. “It’s not a demonstration, we aren’t trying to impress anyone,
     and most of the people here are likely to drift in and out of watching the game. The
     ones that care about Kirball love a good scrum, so we won’t disappoint anyone who
     cares. For the rest? We’re just one of the entertainments. It won’t matter if it’s
     slow; they’ve got plenty of other things to go watch and listen to. The thing is this—I
     really want to avoid having an injury. Some people would take that for a bad omen,
     and I know the Royals would be upset.”
    Mags didn’t like to think about that. He’d had his fill of omens and what people made
     of them. He didn’t want any omens marring Sedric and Lydia’s wedding. He knew at first
     hand how people could blow such things up and twist them around.
    One of their own Foot raised a finger. Gennie nodded at him. “You know, there’s something
     nobody’s tried for a while,” he said. “Taking the flag while everyone’s tied up with
     a long scrum.”
    “Nobody’s tried it ’cause nobody ever leaves the goal unguarded even in a long scrum,”
     Jeffers objected. Which was true; although it was, theoretically, still a viable strategy,
     in practice it was impossible to pull off.
    “Aye, but that was when the Mindspeakers were only chatting to their own teams.” The
     fellow looked straight at Mags. “But what if our Mindspeaker was to make a mistake
     and let slip something to both teams?”
    It took Mags a moment to get the gist of what the fellow was suggesting.
    Gennie gazed at him in undisguised admiration. “You sneaky beggar!” she exclaimed.
     “Mags, what do you think?”
    “That it’d be nothing to slip control and let both sides hear what I was telling you
     all,” he confirmed. “It’s a lot harder to keep things confined, and no one would think
     twice about it in the middle of the game.”
    “Narvil can’t do that,” offered one of the other Riders. “He has to head-talk one
     person at a time.”
    “The only problem I can see is it’s awful hard for one Mindspeaker to lie to another,”
     he pointed out. “The truth tends to leak through, no matter what you try.”
    “It’ll be in the heat of a scrum,” Pip put in thoughtfully. “The Horse and Foot don’t
     have Gifts, and they won’t know it’s a lie. All we really need is confusion for a
     moment; we don’t really need to convince anyone of anything for very long.”
    The Companions nodded or otherwise indicated their agreement, as Mags sensed that
     they approved of this. That made him feel a good bit better about it. If the Companions
     felt he could do this, then he’d give it the best try he could.
    “I like this plan more and more,” Gennie said with glee. “But we can’t use it more
     than once, so we’ll have to pick our time carefully.” She considered the Foot thoughtfully.
     “You know, we could do something else, if you lads are game for it. All
four
of you make for the flag, then when one of you has it, hide it, split up, and run
     like billy-oh for our side. When they realize one of you has it, they won’t know
which
one, and that will force them to split up too. And meanwhile, they’ll still have
     to watch the ball, or we’ll take it over and keep them away from it. We might even
     get a chance at a goal.”
    “What about our goal?” Pip wanted to know.
    Gennie looked penetratingly at Mags. “Think you and Dallen can hold it alone?”
    Mags thought for a moment and then got an idea. “Nothing in the