Read The Secular Wizard - Wis in Rhyme - 4 for Free Online Page B

follow him home.
    "' "'Tis not so far." The youth frowned, his gaze still on the fruit seller. "We could journey home easily enough, to pass the holidays with our parents."
    "You do well enough here," the older woman protested.
    "Well enough, but still we must give two parts in three to Sir Gar-lin!" said the girl. "'Twould be sweet indeed to have shoes for the lit-tie one, when she is old enough to walk."
    "There's truth in that," the young husband admitted.
    "We have built ourselves new houses," the fruit seller boasted.
    "No more of such tumbledown huts as we had seven years ago! We live behind walls of wattle and daub now, and new straw for the thatch every year!"
    "A cottage," the girl murmured, eyes shining. "A true cottage!"
    "Are you going to make love to that turnip, or buy it?" the peasant behind the vegetables growled.
    Matt came out of his reverie with a start, realizing that he'd been squeezing the turnip for several minutes. "No, I guess not." He put it back. "Kind of soft on one side-I think it might be rotten."
    "Rotten! Do you say my produce is bad?"
    Matt surveyed the rest of the display with a jaundiced eyerub-bery carrots, sickly looking parsnips, and radishes that had a distinctly brown tinge to them. "I've seen sounder produce in a silo."
    "THIIIEEEF!" the man yelled. "Ho! Watchmen! Here is a hedge sorcerer who steals!"
    " Shhhh! Hush it up!" Matt glanced around frantically-this wasn't exactly the way to be inconspicuous when you were trying to gather information. "Shut up, will you? I'll buy it, then!
    I'll give you a real, genuine copper penny! A whole penny, for that one measly turnip!
    "THIIIEF! " the man called again. "HO! HO, THE WATCH!"
    "Okay, forget it!" Matt turned away, meaning to walk fastbut before he'd gone two steps, a hand the size of a loaf clapped down on his shoulder and swung him around to confront the men of the Watch.
    "Where do you think you're going, peasant?" Well, what was Matt supposed to say? "I'm not really a peasant, I'm just dressed like one because I wanted to wear something comfortable"? "Hi there, boys, I'm the Lord Wizard of Merovence, glad to see you're on the ball"? He was supposed to be gathering information in disguise, not starting a riot. How was he going to get out of this one, without letting them know who he really was? "I didn't steal anything, watchmen-I just refused to buy."
    "Because he said the turnip was rotten!" the peasant shouted.
    "If it was, he must have turned it himself, because when I brought it, it was-" His eye lit with inspiration. "-it was sound! All my vegetables were good! Now look at them! Why he should hate me so much as to turn my produce bad, I can't thinkI've never met him before in my life!"
    "Or mine," Matt snarled. "What would I want your moldy vegetables for?"
    "Moldy! Do you hear, watchmen? He has turned them to mold!"
    "This is a serious charge, fellow," the beefy watchman said.
    "If
    what he says is true, you have practiced magic without leave from the t! It

coun
    "How about if I had leave from the queen?" The watchman gave him a sour smile. "Oh, aye, and how if I had a gold sovereign for every word you've said? What would a ragtag road conjurer like you know of the queen?"
    For a moment Matt was tempted to conjure up a dozen gold coins, just to prove the man wrong-tempted to reveal himself as really being the Lord Wizard of Merovence; but he reminded himself that if he did, he could forget about learning anything more in this market F
    about the discontent that was brewing here by the southern border with Latruria. He improvised fast. "But I'm not even a conjurer!
    just a packman looking for something to pack!" The watchman frowned. "This man accuses you of turning his vegetables bad."
    "And he did!" the peasant cried. "Would I have set out from La-truria with a cartful of vegetables that were not sound? What could I hope to get for them?"
    The same as any con man hopes for, Matt thought, but aloud he said, "There! See? You've