Torches had been lit around the platform, a strange half-hexagon jutting into the open space, and also at intervals in a ring around the marketplace itself, so that the playgoers could see enough to put one foot in front of another without coming to grief in the mud. A canopy had been erected, so that the more exalted citizens amongst the audience might have some shelter from whatever of the elements might play upon Coleraine that night. Andrew and I preferred to stand in the open with the commons, the better to observe without ourselves being observed. The platform was decorated with ribbons and streamers of many colours, and at its back was painted a scene that conjured up dreams of a far country, of warm winds, olive groves and vineyards, things I had heard of but would never see. Images of bright pink blossoms tumbling over balustrades of the whitest marble told us there was a place where mud and dirt and grime were not the constant lot of those who lived there.
