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yelled at the children who scampered away.
    ‘It is market day, Master Constable,’ Hern said. ‘All we ask is that you let us set up a stall in your town square that we may sell our wares.’ He clicked his fingers and the scampering children stood stock still, their faces solemn, their eyes staring. ‘Then I may feed my children.’
    Fludd stood blinking again, trying to take in the bizarre and motley crew in front of him, the painted wagons and the swarthy men, the dappled horses and the fluttering flags. And above all, the suddenly silent children, like sentinels in the morning.
    ‘One day,’ he said, as though waking from a spell. ‘One stall. My men and I will be watching. And if you’re not gone by cock-shut time, Hern the Egyptian, I’ll hang you myself, while your children look on.’
    It didn’t quite work out that way. Henry Whetstone usually liked being Mayor of Cambridge. It gave him a chance to line his fur-edged pockets, distribute largesse to his friends and relatives, acquiring more friends and relatives in the process and it was pleasant to hear the vicar of St Mary’s ask the Lord to watch over his soul every Sunday. But that Monday morning was not usual. For three hours before he arrived at the Courthouse in St Mary’s Square, a queue of angry petitioners had been assembling in the pouring rain, getting angrier by the minute as the water splashed off their hat brims and trickled down their necks. He had their complaints in front of him now, dashed off quickly in a scribble by his harassed clerks who had borne the full wrath of the good townsfolk. Others, angrier still, were not content to leave their complaints with a clerk. They wanted to see the Mayor in person: it was disgraceful; there ought to be a law against it; there was a law against it; they hadn’t voted for the man in the first place.
    ‘“Disgraceful”,’ the Mayor read from piled papers in front of him. ‘“There ought to be a law against it”.’ He threw the documents down, gnawing his lip with fury as he glared at Joe Fludd. ‘What do we pay you, Fludd, to guard this town?’
    Not enough, was the man’s silent answer, but he remembered what his Allys had told him and behaved himself. ‘My constabulary allowance is…’
    ‘I know what it is!’ Whetstone thundered. The jovial, red-faced merchant was anything but jovial this morning and if his face got much redder, he was liable to explode. Purple tinges were beginning to mottle his cheeks. His gout always played him up in wet weather and now this. ‘You are aware of the law regarding Egyptians?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Tell me,’ Whetstone snapped, ‘just so that we are both sure.’
    ‘They are to be escorted from the town or county and taken to the nearest port.’
    ‘And if they refuse to go?’
    ‘They are to be hanged, sir, without the benefit of trial.’
    ‘Did you hang them?’
    ‘No, sir.’
    ‘Did you escort them to the nearest port?’
    ‘No, sir.’
    ‘Did you even escort them from the town?’
    ‘No sir.’
    ‘No,’ Whetstone growled. ‘No, you let them in, gave them a stall out there.’ He pointed to the square beyond his leaded window panes. ‘You allowed them to tell fortunes, read palms, carry out conjuring tricks.’ He held up a piece of paper. ‘Margaret Walker of Cherry Hinton is convinced she will not see another summer as a result of their auguries.’ He rummaged and found another one. ‘Nicholas Coke was told he will be hanged, drawn and quartered before Lady Day. These people are worried, Fludd. Worried. And they had to pay for the privilege. Then, there’s the stealing. Apples. Eggs. Four geese. How can they lift four live geese without anybody noticing?’
    Fludd had no answer.
    ‘Why did you let them in?’
    ‘I don’t know, sir,’ the Constable told him. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’
    ‘Where are they now?’
    ‘Making for a port, sir.’ Fludd could at least be positive about that.