Chapter 30 - Cosimo

“Yes,” said Abhorsen. “I am a necromancer, but not of the common kind. Where others of the art raise the dead, I lay them back to rest …”

– Garth Nix, Sabriel

 

It was dark when Fenoglio finally put aside his pen. All was still in the alley below. It had been quiet there all day, as if the people had fled indoors like mice hiding from the cat.

“Have you finished?” asked Meggie, as Fenoglio leaned back and rubbed his weary eyes. Her voice sounded faint and afraid, not like a voice that could awaken a prince and bring him to life, but after all, she had already made a monster rise from Fenoglio’s words, even if that was long ago – and Mo, not she, had read the very last words.

Mo. After what had happened in the marketplace, she missed him more than ever.

“Yes, I’ve finished!” Fenoglio sounded as pleased with himself as he had in Capricorn’s village, when he and Meggie between them first planned a way to alter his story. All had ended well that time, but now .. now she was in the story herself. Did that make Fenoglio’s words stronger or weaker? Meggie had told him about Orpheus’s rule – that it was better to use only words that were in the story already – but Fenoglio had just dismissed the idea. “Nonsense. Remember how we wrote a happy ending before for the Steadfast Tin Soldier? Did I stop to make sure I was using only words out of his own story? No, I didn’t. Perhaps that rule applies to people like this man Orpheus, people who venture to mess around with other writers’ stories, but surely not for an author setting out to change his own!”

Meggie hoped he was right.

Fenoglio had crossed out a good deal, but his handwriting had indeed become more legible.

Meggie looked along the lines. Yes, this time they were Fenoglio’s own words, not stolen from any other writer…

“Good, isn’t it?” He dipped a piece of bread in the soup that Minerva had brought up for them hours ago and looked expectantly at Meggie. Of course the soup was cold. Neither of them could have even thought of eating until now, and Rosenquartz was the only one who had drunk some of the soup. It had made his whole body change color, until Fenoglio firmly took his tiny spoon away from him and asked if he wanted to kill himself.

“Leave that alone, Rosenquartz!” he now added sternly, as the glass man reached a transparent finger out to his dish again. “You’ve had quite enough! You know you can’t digest human food.

Do you want me to have to take you back to that physician who almost broke off your nose last time?”

“Eating sand all the time is so boring!” complained the glass man, withdrawing his finger with an injured air. “And the sand you bring me isn’t particularly tasty, either.”

“You ungrateful creature!” thundered Fenoglio. “When I go down to the river for it specially! And last time the river-nymphs thought it would be fun to pull me in. I nearly drowned, all because of you.”

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The glass man seemed unimpressed. Still looking injured, he sat down beside the jug full of quills, closed his eyes, and pretended to be asleep.

“Two of them have already died on me that way!” Fenoglio whispered to Meggie. “They just can’t resist our food. Stupid creatures.”

But Meggie was only half listening. She sat down on the bed with the parchment and read through it all again, word by word. Rain came in through the window, as if to remind her of another night – the night when she first heard of Fenoglio’s book and saw Dustfinger standing outside in the rain. Dustfinger had looked happy in the castle courtyard. Fenoglio was happy, too, and Farid, and Minerva and her children. And it must stay that way. I’ll read this for all of them, thought Meggie. For the strolling players, so that the Adderhead won’t hang them just for singing a song, for the peasants in the marketplace whose vegetables were trampled by those horses. What about Her Ugliness? Would it make Violante happy to have a husband again?

Would she notice that this was a different Cosimo? But the words would come too late for the Prince of Sighs. He would never hear of his son’s return.

“Well, say something!” Fenoglio’s voice sounded unsure of itself. “Don’t you like it?”

“Oh yes. Yes, I do. It’s lovely.”

Relief spread over his face. “Then what are you waiting for?” “About the mark on her face – oh, I don’t know – it sounds like magic, like an inkspell.”

“Oh, come on. I think it’s romantic, and that never hurts.”

“If you say so. It’s your story.” Meggie shrugged her shoulders. “But there’s one more thing.

Who’s going to disappear when he arrives?”

Fenoglio went pale. “Heavens, I’d entirely forgotten about that. Rosenquartz, go and hide in your nest!” he told the glass man. “Luckily, the fairies are out.”

“That’s no use,” said Meggie quietly, as the glass man made his way up to the empty fairies’ nest, where he used to sulk and sometimes sleep. “Hiding is no use at all.”

The sound of a horse’s hooves rose to them from the street outside. One of the men-at-arms was riding by. Obviously, the Piper wasn’t going to let the people of Ombra forget who their new master truly was, even in their sleep.

“Well, there’s a sign for us!” Fenoglio whispered to Meggie. “If that man disappears, he’s no loss.

Anyway, how do you know anyone will disappear at all? I think it happens only if you read someone here who leaves a gap to be filled in his own story. But our new Cosimo has no story of his own! He was born here, today, from these words!”

Well, he might be right.

The clatter of the hooves mingled with the sound of Meggie’s voice. ” It was a quiet night in Ombra, very quiet, ” she read. ” The wounds inflicted by the men-at-arms had not yet healed, and many never would. ” And suddenly she forgot about the fear she had felt in the morning and again thought only of her anger. She had felt so angry with men who encased themselves in armor and kicked women and children in the back with their iron shoes. The anger made her voice strong and full, ready to awaken new life. ” Doors and shutters were bolted, and behind them 161

 

the children cried, as quietly as if fear itself kept their mouths shut, while their parents peered out into the night, fearfully wondering how dark the future would be under their new master. But suddenly, hoof-beats echoed down the alley where the cobblers and saddlers lived. ” How easily the words came now! They flowed over Meggie’s tongue as if they had been just waiting to be read aloud, to be brought to life this very night. ” People hurried to their windows. They looked out in fear, expecting to see one of the men-at-arms or even the Piper himself with his silver nose, but someone else came riding up to the castle, and the sight of him, familiar as it was, yet turned their faces pale. For the new arrival who came riding through sleepless Ombra bore the face of their dead prince, Cosimo the Fair, who had been resting in his crypt so long. ”

His likeness rode down the street on a white horse, and he was as handsome as all the songs about the fair Cosimo said. He rode through the castle gateway with the Adderhead’s banner flying above it, reined in his horse in the quiet nocturnal courtyard, and for all who saw him there in the moonlight, sitting erect on his white horse, it was as if Cosimo had never been away.

Then all the weeping was over, the weeping and the fear. The people of Ombra rejoiced, and others came from the most remote villages to see the man who bore a dead prince’s face, and they whispered, ‘Cosimo is back. Cosimo the Fair has come back to take his father’s place and protect Ombra from the Adderhead.’

“And so it was. The savior of the city ascended the throne, and the birthmark on Her Ugliness’s face faded. Cosimo the Fair had his father’s court poet summoned and asked his advice, for he had been told how wise a man he was, and now a great new age began.”

Meggie lowered the parchment. A great new age ..

Fenoglio hurried to the window. Meggie had heard the sound, too – hoof beats – but she did not rise to her feet.

“That must be him!” whispered Fenoglio. “He’s coming, oh, Meggie, he’s coming! Listen!”

But Meggie still sat there looking at the written words on her lap. It seemed to her that they were breathing. Paper made flesh, ink made blood .. Suddenly she was tired, so tired that it seemed much too far to walk to the window. She felt like a child who had climbed down into the cellar all alone and now felt scared. If only Mo were here. .

“Any moment now! He’ll be riding by any moment now!” Fenoglio leaned so far out of the window that he was in danger of falling headfirst into the alley. At least he was still here – he hadn’t disappeared the way he did when she summoned the Shadow. But where else would he have gone? Meggie wondered. There seemed to be only one story left, this story, Fenoglio’s story. And it seemed to have no beginning and no end.

“Come on, Meggie!” In great excitement, he beckoned her over. “You read it wonderfully, oh yes, wonderfully well! But I suppose you know that. Some of the phrases weren’t among the best I’ve ever written, it was a little clumsy here and there, a little more dramatic color wouldn’t have hurt, but never mind, it worked! It definitely worked!”

There was a knock.

A knock on the door. Rosenquartz peered out of his nest, his face anxious, and Fenoglio turned, both alarmed and annoyed. “Meggie?” whispered a voice. “Are you there, Meggie?”

It was Farid.

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“What does he want here?” Fenoglio uttered a less than delicate curse. “Send him away. We really can’t do with having him around just now. Oh – oh, look! Here he comes! Meggie, you’re an enchantress!”

The hoof-beats were louder now. But Meggie did not go to the window; she walked to the door instead. Farid was standing outside, his face downcast. He looked almost as if he’d been crying.

“It’s Gwin, Meggie .. Gwin’s back,” he stammered. “I don’t know how he found me! I even threw stones to make him go away.”

“Meggie!” Fenoglio’s voice sounded worse than merely irritated. “Where are you?” Without a word, she took Farid’s hand and drew him over to the window with her.

A white horse was coming up the narrow alley. Its rider had black hair, and his face was as young and handsome as the face of the statues in the castle, but his eyes were not stony white; instead, they were bright and as dark as his hair. He was looking around as if he had just woken from a dream, and one that didn’t entirely fit in with what he now saw.

“Cosimo!” whispered Farid, bewildered. “The dead Cosimo.” “Not exactly,” Fenoglio whispered back. “First, he isn’t dead, as you can see for yourself, and second, he’s not that Cosimo. He’s a new one, a brand-new one, and Meggie and I have made him between us. Of course no one else will notice.”

“Not even his wife?”

“Well, maybe she will! But who cares about that? She hardly ever leaves the castle.”

Cosimo reined in his horse just a foot or two from Minerva’s house. Instinctively, Meggie stepped back from the window. “What about him?” she whispered. “Who does he himself think he is?”

“What a question! He thinks he’s Cosimo, of course!” replied Fenoglio impatiently. “Don’t get me confused, for heaven’s sake! All we’ve done is make sure the story goes on the way I originally planned it, no more and no less!”

Cosimo turned in his saddle and stared back down the street the way he had come – as if he had lost something but forgotten what it was. Then he clicked his tongue softly and urged his horse on, past Minerva’s husband’s workshop and the narrow house where the physician lived.

Fenoglio often complained of the man’s lack of skill in pulling teeth.

“That’s not a good idea.” Farid retreated from the window as if the Devil himself had gone riding by. “It’s bad luck to summon the dead.”

“He never was dead, damn it all!” snapped Fenoglio. “How often do I have to explain? He was born this very day, from my words and Meggie’s voice, so don’t talk such nonsense. What are you doing here, anyway? Since when do people come visiting decent girls in the middle of the night?”

Farid’s face flushed dark red. Then he turned without a word and went to the door.

“Leave him alone! He can visit me whenever he likes!” Meggie told Fenoglio sharply. The stairs were slippery with rain, and she didn’t catch up with Farid until he had reached the last step. He looked so sad.

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“What did you tell Dustfinger? Did you tell him how Gwin followed us?”

“No, I didn’t dare.” Farid leaned against the wall of the house and closed his eyes. “You should have seen his face when he saw the marten. Do you think he’ll have to die now, Meggie?”

She put out her hand and touched his face. He really had been crying. She could feel the dried tears on his skin.

“That’s what Cheeseface said!” She could hardly make out the words he was whispering. “He said I’d bring him bad luck.” “What are you talking about? Dustfinger should be glad to have you!”

Farid looked up at the sky. Rain was still falling. “I must go back,” he said. “That’s why I came. To tell you I must stay with him now. I have to look after him – do you understand? If I keep close by him, then nothing bad will happen. You can visit me, though, at Roxane’s farm! We’re there most of the time. Dustfinger is crazy about her, he hardly ever leaves her side. Roxane this, Roxane that .. ” There was no mistaking the jealousy in his voice.

Meggie knew how he felt. She still clearly remembered those first few weeks back at Elinor’s house, and her troubled heart when Mo spent hours going for walks with Resa and didn’t even ask if she would like to come, too. She remembered what it felt like to stand outside a closed door and hear her father’s laughter on the other side, laughter meant not for her but for her mother. “Why do you look like that?” Elinor had asked once, when she found Meggie watching the two of them in the garden. “Half his heart still belongs to you. Isn’t that enough?” She had felt so ashamed. At least Farid was only jealous of a stranger. She’d been jealous of her own mother.

“Please, Meggie! I must stay with him. Who else is going to look after him? Roxane? She doesn’t know anything about the marten, and anyway .. ”

Meggie turned her head away so that he wouldn’t see her disappointment. Bother Gwin! She traced small circles on the damp ground with her toe.

“You will come, won’t you?” Farid took her hands. “There are wonderful plants growing in Roxane’s fields, and she has a goose who thinks she’s a watchdog, and an old horse. Jehan, that’s her son, says there’s a linchetto living in the stable, don’t ask me what a linchetto is, but Jehan says if you fart at it, it runs away. Well, Jehan’s still just a baby, but I think you’d like him. . ”

“Is he Dustfinger’s son?” Meggie tucked her hair back behind her ear and tried to smile.

“No, but guess what? Roxane thinks I am. Imagine that! Please, Meggie! Come to Roxane’s, do!”

He put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her full on her mouth. His skin was wet with rain.

When she didn’t pull away, he took her face between his hands and kissed her again, on her forehead, on her nose, on her mouth once more. “You will come, won’t you? Promise!” he whispered.

Then he ran away, fleet-footed as always, ever since the day Meggie had first set eyes on him.

“You must come!” he called back to her once more, before disappearing into the dark passage leading out to the street. “Maybe you’d better stay with us for a while – Dustfinger and me, I mean! That old man is crazy. You don’t go playing games with the dead!”

Then he had gone, and Meggie was leaning against the wall of Minerva’s house, where Farid had been standing a moment ago. She passed her fingers over her mouth, as if she must make sure 164

 

that Farid’s kiss had not changed it in some way.

“Meggie?” Fenoglio was standing at the top of the stairs, a lantern in his hand. “What are you doing down there? Has the boy gone? What did he want? Standing around in the dark there with you!”

Meggie did not reply. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She just wanted to listen to what her bewildered heart was telling her.

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Chapter 31 – Elinor

 

Out in the world not much happened. But here in the special night, a land bricked with paper and leather, anything might happen, always did.

– Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

 

Elinor spent a couple of miserable days and nights in her cellar. The man built like a wardrobe brought them something to eat morning and evening – at least, they assumed it was morning and evening, always supposing that Darius’s watch was still keeping time. When the bulky figure first appeared with bread and a plastic bottle of water, she had thrown the bottle at his head. Or rather, she’d tried to, but the colossus ducked just in time and the bottle burst against the wall.

“Never again, Darius!” Elinor whispered when the wardrobe man, grunting contemptuously, had locked them in once more. “I was never going to let myself be locked up again, that’s what I swore back in that stinking cage, when those arsonists walked past the bars with their rifles and flicked burning cigarette butts in my face. And now here I am locked up in my own cellar!”

On the first night, she’d gotten up from the air mattress, which made all her bones ache, and thrown cans of food against the wall. Darius just crouched there on the blanket he had spread out over the cushion for the garden bench, looking at her wide-eyed. By the afternoon of the second day – or was it the third? Elinor was breaking jars, sobbing when she cut her fingers on the glass. Darius was just sweeping up the broken pieces when the wardrobe-man came to fetch her. Darius tried to follow, but the wardrobe-man pushed his thin chest so roughly that he stumbled and fell among the olives, preserved tomatoes, and all the other things that had spilled out of the jars when Elinor smashed them.

“Bastard!” she snapped at the colossus, but he just grinned, pleased as a child who has knocked down a tower of building bricks, and hummed to himself as he led Elinor to her library. Who says bad people can’t be happy, too? she thought as he opened the door and jerked his head, indicating that she should go in.

Her library was a shocking sight. There were dirty mugs and plates strewn around everywhere –

on the windowsill, on the carpet, even on the glass cases containing her greatest treasures and that wasn’t the worst of it. Her books were the worst. Hardly any of them were still in their right places. They were stacked on the floor among the unwashed coffee mugs, they were scattered in front of the windows. Many even lay flat on the floor, open, their spines upward.

Elinor couldn’t bear to look! Didn’t the monster know that was the way to break a book’s neck?

If he did, it didn’t bother him. Orpheus was sitting in her favorite armchair, his dreadful dog beside him holding something between its paws that looked suspiciously like one of her gardening shoes. Its master had draped his plump legs over one arm of the chair and was holding a beautifully illustrated book about fairies that Elinor had bought in an auction only two months ago, paying such a high price that it had made Darius bury his head in his hands.

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“That,” she said, her voice trembling slightly, “that is a very, very valuable book.”

Orpheus turned his head to her and smiled. It was the smile of a naughty boy. “I know!” he said in his velvety voice. “You have very, very many valuable books, Signora Loredan.”

“Yes, indeed,” replied Elinor icily. “That’s why I don’t stack them any old way, like egg cartons or slices of cheese. Each has its own place.”

This observation only made Orpheus smile even more broadly. He closed the book, after dog-earing one of the pages. Elinor drew in her breath sharply.

“Books aren’t glass vases, dear lady,” said Orpheus as he sat up in the chair. “They’re not as fragile or as decorative. They’re just books! It’s their contents that matter, and their contents won’t fall out if you stack them in a pile.” He ran his hand over his smooth hair, as if afraid his parting might have slipped. “Sugar says you wanted to speak to me?”

Elinor cast an incredulous glance at the wardrobe-man. “Sugar?”

The giant smiled, revealing such an extraordinary collection of bad teeth that Elinor didn’t have to wonder how he got his nickname.

“I certainly do. I’ve been wanting to speak to you for days. I insist on being let out of the cellar –

and my librarian, too! I’m sick of having to pee in a bucket in my own house, and not knowing whether it’s day or night. I order you to bring my niece and her husband back. They’re in the greatest danger, and it’s all your fault, and I order you to keep your fat fingers off my books, damn it!”

Elinor shut her mouth – and cursed herself with every curse she could call to mind. Oh no! What was Darius always telling her? What had she told herself hundreds of times, lying down there on that horrible air mattress? Control yourself, Elinor, be cunning, Elinor, watch your tongue – all useless. She had burst like a balloon blown up too far.

But Orpheus still sat there, with his legs crossed and that impudent smile on his face. “I could probably bring them back. Yes, probably!” he said, patting his dog’s ugly head. “But why should I?” His fat fingers stroked the cover of the book he had just so cruelly dog-eared. “A handsome cover, isn’t it? Rather sentimental, perhaps, and I don’t think of fairies quite like that, but all the same .. ”

“Yes, yes, I know it’s handsome, but I’m not interested in the cover just now!” Elinor was trying not to raise her voice, but she simply couldn’t keep it down. “If you can really bring them back, then for heaven’s sake get a move on and do it! Before it’s too late. The old woman is going to kill him, didn’t you hear her? She’s going to kill Mortimer!”

His expression indifferent, Orpheus straightened his crumpled tie. “Well, he killed Mortola’s son, as far as I can make out. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, as another – not entirely unknown

– book so forcibly puts it.”

“Her son was a murderer!” Elinor clenched her fists. She wanted to rush at the moon-face and snatch her book from his hands, hands that looked as soft and white as if they had never in their life done anything but turn the pages of a book. However, Sugar barred her way.

“Yes, yes, I know.” Orpheus heaved a heavy sigh. “I know all about Capricorn. I’ve read the 167

 

book telling his story more times than I can count, and I have to say he was a very good villain, one of the best I ever met in the realm of the written word. Just killing someone like that – well, if you ask me, it’s almost a crime. Although I’m glad of it for Dustfinger.”

Oh, if only she could have hit him just once, on his broad nose, on his smiling mouth!

“Capricorn had Mortimer abducted! He captured his daughter and kept his wife a prisoner for years on end!” Tears of rage and helplessness came into Elinor’s eyes. “Please, Mr. Orpheus or whatever your real name is!” She put all her strength and self-control into sounding reasonably friendly. “Please! Bring them back, and while you’re at it please bring Meggie back, too, before she gets trodden on by a giant or impaled on a spear in that story.” Orpheus leaned back and looked at her as if she were a picture on an easel. How naturally he had taken over her armchair

– as if Elinor herself had never sat there with Meggie beside her, or with Resa on her lap when she was still tiny, so many years ago. Elinor bit back her fury. Control yourself, Elinor, she thought, as she kept her eyes fixed on Orpheus’s pale, bespectacled face. Control yourself ! For the sake of Mortimer, and Resa, and Meggie!

Orpheus cleared his throat. “I don’t know what’s bothering you,” he said, examining his fingernails, which were bitten like a schoolboy’s. “I envy all three of them!”

It was a moment before Elinor realized what he was talking about. Only when he went on did it become clear.

“What makes you think they want to come back?” he asked softly. “If I were there I never would!

There’s nowhere in this world I’ve ever wanted to be half as much as on the hill where the Laughing Prince’s castle lies. I’ve walked through Ombra market countless times, I’ve looked up at the towers and the banners with the lion emblem. I’ve imagined what it would be like to wander through the Wayless Wood and watch Dustfinger stealing honey from the fire-elves. I’ve pictured the minstrel woman he loves, Roxane. I’ve stood in Capricorn’s fortress smelling the potions that Mortola brewed from monkshood and hemlock. The Adderhead’s castle often figures in my dreams, even today. Sometimes I’m in one of its dungeons, sometimes I’m stealing in through the gate with Dustfinger and looking up at the heads of minstrels set there on pikes by the Adderhead for singing the wrong song .. By all the words and letters in the world, when Mortola told me her name I thought she was crazy! Yes, she and Basta did look like the characters they claimed to be, but could it really be true that someone had brought them here out of my favorite book? Were there other people who could read aloud the way I can? I didn’t believe it until Dustfinger came up to me in that musty, ramshackle library. Oh God, how my heart beat when I saw his face with the three pale scars left by Basta’s knife! It beat faster than on the day I first kissed a girl. It really was him, the melancholy hero of my very favorite book.

And I helped him to disappear into it again, but what about me? Hopeless.” He laughed, a sad and bitter laugh. “I just hope he doesn’t have to die the death that idiot of an author intended for him.

No, he can’t! He’ll be all right, I’m sure he will. After all, Capricorn is dead and Basta’s a coward.

Do you know, I wrote to that Fenoglio, the author, when I was twelve, telling him he must change his story, or at least write a sequel in which Dustfinger comes back? He never answered my letter, any more than Inkheart ever had a sequel. Oh well.” Orpheus sighed deeply.

Dustfinger, Dustfinger . . Elinor compressed her lips. Who cared what happened to the matchstick-eater? Keep calm, Elinor, don’t go off the deep end again, you must be clever now, clever, go carefully. . Easier said than done.

“Listen, if you’d like to be in that book so much” – and this time she really did manage to make 168

 

her voice sound as if what she was saying didn’t matter all that much to her – “then why not just bring Meggie back? She knows how you can read yourself into a story. She’s done it! I’m sure she can tell you how to do it or read you over there, too.”

Orpheus’s round face darkened so suddenly that Elinor immediately knew she had made a bad mistake. How could she have forgotten what a vain, conceited creature he was?

“No one,” said Orpheus softly, rising slowly and menacingly from her chair, “no one can tell me anything about the art of reading. Certainly not a little girl!”

Now he’ll put you straight back in the cellar, thought Elinor. What am I going to do? Think, Elinor, try to find the right answer in your silly head! Do something! Surely you can think up something!

“Oh, of course not!” she stammered. “No one but you could have read Dustfinger back. No one.

But –”

“No buts. You watch out.” Orpheus posed as if he were about to sing an aria onstage and picked up the book lying on the chair where he had so carelessly put it down. He opened it right where the dog-ear disfigured the creamy white page, ran the tip of his tongue over his lips as if he had to smooth them so that the words would flow freely – and then his voice filled Elinor’s library again, the captivating voice that did not suit his outward appearance in the least. Orpheus read as if he were letting his favourite food melt in his mouth, relishing it, greedy for the sound of the letters, pearls melting on his tongue, words like seeds from which he was making life emerge.

Perhaps he really was the greatest master ever of his art. He certainly practiced it with the utmost passion.

“There is a tale of a certain shepherd, Tudur of Llangollen, who came across a troop of faeries, dancing to the tune of a tiny fiddler.” A faint chirping sound arose behind Elinor, but when she turned around there was no one to be seen but Sugar, listening to Orpheus’s voice with a bewildered expression on his face. ” Tudur tried to resist the enchanting strains, but finally, throwing his cap in the air and shouting, ‘Now for it, then, play away, old devil!’ he joined in. ”

The fiddling grew shriller and shriller, and when Elinor turned around this time she saw a man standing in her library, surrounded by small creatures dressed in leaves and prancing around on his bare feet like a dancing bear, while a step or so away a tiny little thing with a bellflower on its head was playing a fiddle hardly larger than an acorn.

“Immediately, a pair of horns appeared on the fiddler’s head and a tail sprouted from beneath his coat!” Orpheus let his voice swell until he was almost singing. ” The dancing sprites turned into goats, dogs, cats, and foxes, and they and Tudur spun around in a dizzying frenzy. ”

Elinor pressed her hands to her mouth. There they were, emerging from behind the armchair, leaping over the stacks of books, dancing on the open pages with their muddy hooves. The dog jumped up and barked at them.

“Stop it!” Elinor cried to Orpheus. “Stop it at once!” He closed the book with a triumphant smile.

“Chase them out into the garden!” he told Sugar, who was standing there transfixed. Confused, the man groped his way over to the door, opened it – and let the whole troop dance past him, fiddling, screeching, barking, bleating, on down Elinor’s corridor and past her bedroom, until the noise gradually died away.

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“No one,” repeated Orpheus, and now there was not the smallest trace of a smile to be seen on his round face, “no one can teach Orpheus anything about the art of reading. And did you notice?

Nothing disappeared! Maybe a few bookworms if there are any in your library, maybe a couple of flies. . ”

“Maybe a couple of motorists down on the road,” added Elinor in a hoarse voice, but unfortunately there was no hiding the fact that she was impressed.

“Maybe!” said Orpheus, carelessly shrugging his round shoulders.

“But that wouldn’t make any difference to my mastery, would it? And now I hope you understand something about the art of cooking, because I’m sick and tired of what Sugar serves up. And I’m hungry. I’m always hungry when I’ve been reading aloud.”

“Cooking?” Elinor practically choked on her rage. “You expect me to act as your cook in my own house?”

“Well, of course. Make yourself useful. Or do you want to give Sugar the idea that you and your stammering friend are superfluous to requirements? He’s in a bad mood, anyway, because he hasn’t yet found anything worth stealing in your house. No, we really don’t want to put any stupid notions into his head, do we?”

Elinor took a deep breath and tried to control her trembling knees. “No. No, we don’t,” she said, turned – and went into the kitchen.

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Chapter 32 – The Wrong Man

 

So she placed the healing herb in his mouth – he slept straightaway. She covered him most carefully. He still slept on the livelong day.

– Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parsifal

 

Resa and Mo were alone in the cave when they came in: two .women and four men. Two of the men had been sitting by the fire with Cloud-Dancer: Sootbird the fire-eater and Twofingers. His face was no friendlier by daylight, and the others, too, were looking so hostile that Resa instinctively moved closer to Mo. Only Sootbird seemed to feel awkward.

Mo was asleep. He had slept this uneasy, fevered sleep for many days now, and it made Nettle shake her head anxiously. The six strolling players stopped only a few paces away from him.

They loomed between Resa and the daylight coming in from outside. One of the women stepped out in front of the rest of them. She wasn’t particularly old, but her fingers were crooked like a bird’s claws.

“He must go!” she said. “Today. He’s not one of us, and nor are you.”

“What do you mean?” Hard as Resa was trying to sound calm, her voice shook. “He can’t go anywhere. He’s still too weak.”

If only Nettle had been there! But she had gone away muttering something about sick children –

and the root of an herb that might perhaps cure Mo’s fever. The six would have felt afraid of Nettle, they’d have been respectful and timid, but to the strolling players Resa was only a stranger, a desperate stranger with a mortally sick husband – even if none of them guessed just how much of a stranger she was in this world.

“It’s the children .. you must see how we feel!” The other woman was still very young, and she was pregnant. She placed one protective hand on her belly. “A man like him puts our children in danger, and Martha’s right, you don’t even belong to us. This is the only place where they let us stay. No one drives us away, but once they hear the Bluejay is here, that will be over. They’ll say we were hiding him.”

“But he isn’t this Bluejay! I told you so before. And who do you mean by ‘they’?”

Mo whispered something in his fever, his hand clutching Resa’s arm. She soothingly stroked his forehead and forced a little of the decoction that Nettle had made between his lips. Her visitors watched in silence.

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“As if you didn’t know!” said one of them, a tall, thin man shaken by a dry cough. “The Adderhead’s looking for him. He’ll send his men-at-arms here. He’ll have us all hanged for hiding him.”

“I’m telling you again!” Resa took Mo’s hand and held it very tight. “He’s not a robber or anyone else out of your stories! We’ve only been here a few days! My husband is a bookbinder, that’s his trade, he isn’t anything else!”

The way they were looking at her!

“I’ve seldom heard a worse lie!” The twofingered man’s mouth twisted. He had an unpleasant voice. Judging by his brightly patterned clothing, he was one of the players who put on comic shows in marketplaces, loud, coarse farces to make the spectators laugh all their troubles away.

“What would a bookbinder be doing in Capricorn’s old fortress in the middle of the Wayless Wood? People never go there of their own free will, what with the White Women and the other horrors haunting the ruins. And why would Mortola bother with a bookbinder? Why would she shoot him with some witchy weapon no one’s ever heard of before?”

The others nodded agreement – and took another step toward Mo. What was she to do? What could she say? What use was it having a voice if no one would listen to her? “Don’t let it worry you, not being able to speak,” Dustfinger had often told her. “People tend not to listen, anyway, right?”

Perhaps she could call for help, but who was going to come? Cloud-Dancer had set off early in the morning with Nettle, when the leaves had still been tinged red by the light of the rising sun, and the women who brought Resa food and sometimes kept watch beside Mo for her, to let her get a few hours’ sleep, had gone down to the nearby river with the children. There were only a few old men outside the cave, and they had come here because they were tired of other people and were waiting to die. They weren’t likely to help her.

“We won’t hand him over to the Adderhead; we’ll just take him back to where Nettle found you.

To that accursed fortress.” It was the man with the cough again. He had a raven sitting on his shoulder. Resa knew such ravens from the days when she had sat in marketplaces writing documents and petitions – their owners trained them to steal a few extra coins while they were performing their own tricks.

“The songs say that the Bluejay protects the Motley Folk,” the raven’s owner went on. “And those he’s supposed to have killed threatened our women and children. We appreciate that, we’ve all sung the songs about him, but we’re not ready to be strung up for his sake.”

They’d made up their minds long ago. They were going to take Mo away. Resa wanted to shout at them, but she simply had no strength left for shouting. “It will kill him if you take him back there!” Her voice was hardly louder than a whisper.

They didn’t care about that; Resa saw it in their eyes. Why should they? she thought. What would she do if the children out there were hers? She remembered a visit that the Adderhead had paid to Capricorn’s fortress, to see an enemy of theirs executed. Since that day she had known what someone who enjoyed inflicting pain on others looked like.

Before Resa could stop her, the woman with the claw like fingers kneeled down beside Mo and pushed up his sleeve. “There, see that?” she said triumphantly. “He has the scar, just as the 172

 

songs describe it – where the Adder’s dogs bit him.” Resa hauled her away so violently that the woman fell at her companions’ feet. “Those dogs weren’t the Adderhead’s. They belonged to Basta!”

The name made them start nervously, but all the same they didn’t leave. Sootbird helped the woman to her feet, and Twofingers went closer to Mo. “Come on!” he told the others. “Let’s pick him up.”

They all joined him; only the fire-eater hesitated.

“Oh please, believe me!” Resa pushed their hands away. “How can you think I’d lie to you? What thanks would that be for all your help?”

No one took any notice of her. Twofingers pulled away the blanket that Nettle had given them to cover Mo. It was cold in the cave at night.

“Well, fancy that! Visiting our guests. How kind of you.” How they spun around! Like naughty children caught in the act. A man was standing in the entrance to the cave. For a moment Resa thought it was Dustfinger and wondered, in bewilderment, how Cloud-Dancer could possibly have brought him so quickly. But then she saw that the man the six of them were staring at so guiltily was black. Everything about him was black: his long hair, his skin, his eyes, even his clothes. And beside him, almost a head taller, stood a bear as black as his master.

“These must be the visitors Nettle told me about, I expect?” The bear ducked his head, grunting, as he followed the man into the cave. “She says they know an old friend of mine, a very good friend. Dustfinger. Of course, you’ve all heard of him, haven’t you? And I’m sure you know that his friends have always been my friends, too. The same applies to his enemies, of course.” The six moved aside with some haste, as if to give the stranger a better view of Resa. The fire-eater laughed nervously. “Why, what are you doing here, Prince?”

“Oh, this and that. Why are there no guards outside? Do you think the brownies have lost their taste for our provisions?” He walked slowly toward them. His bear dropped to all fours and lumbered after him, puffing and snorting, as if he didn’t like the cramped cave.

Prince! They called him “Prince.” Of course. The Black Prince! Fenoglio’s book had told Resa his story, and she had heard his name in the Ombra market, too, from the maids in Capricorn’s fortress, even from Capricorn’s men. Yet she had never seen him face-to-face. When Fenoglio’s story had first swallowed her up he had been a knife-thrower, a bear-tamer . . and Dustfinger’s friend since the two of them had been barely half as old as Meggie was now.

The others drew aside as he stepped up to them with his bear, but the Prince ignored them. He looked down at Resa. There were three knives in his brightly embroidered belt: slender, shiny knives, although no strolling player was allowed to carry weapons. “That’s to make it easier to skewer them,” Dustfinger had often said mockingly.

“Welcome to the Secret Camp,” said the Black Prince, his glance going to Mo’s bloodstained bandages. “Dustfinger’s friends are always welcome here – even if it may not look like it just now.” He looked ironically at the others standing around there. Only the twofingered man defiantly returned his gaze, but then he, too, bent his head.

The Prince went on looking down at Resa. “Where did you meet Dustfinger?”

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What was she to say? In another world? The bear was sniffing the bread lying beside her. His hot breath, the breath of a beast of prey, made her shudder. Tell the truth, Resa, she thought. You don’t have to say what world it happened in.

“I worked as a maid for the fire-raisers for several years,” she said. “I ran away, but a snake bit me. Dustfinger found me and helped me. I’d have died but for him.” Yes, he hid me, she continued the story in her mind, but Basta and the others soon found me, and they half killed Dustfinger.

“What about your husband? I hear he’s not one of us.” The black eyes explored her face. They seemed to be well versed in detecting lies.

“She says he’s a bookbinder, but we know better!” The twofingered man spat out his words contemptuously.

“So what do you know?” The Prince looked at them, and they fell silent.

“He is a bookbinder! Give him paper, glue, and leather, and once he’s better he’ll show you.”

Don’t cry, Resa, she told herself. You’ve cried quite enough these last few days.

The thin man coughed again.

“Very well, you heard her.” The Prince crouched down beside her on the ground. “These two stay here until Dustfinger arrives to confirm their story. He’ll soon tell us if this is only a harmless bookbinder or that robber you’re always going on about. Dustfinger knows your husband, too, doesn’t he?”

“Oh yes,” replied Resa softly. “He’s known him longer than he’s known me.”

Mo turned his head and whispered Meggie’s name. “Meggie? Is that your name?” The Prince pushed the bear’s muzzle away as the animal sniffed the bread again.

“It’s our daughter’s name.”

“You have a daughter? How old is she?” The bear rolled on his back for his belly to be scratched, as if he were a dog.

“Thirteen.”

“Thirteen? Almost the same age as Dustfinger’s daughter.” Dustfinger’s daughter? He’d never said anything to her about any daughter.

“So why are you all still standing around?” the Prince snapped at the others. “Bring fresh water!

Can’t you see he’s feverish?”

The two women hurried away, relieved, or so it seemed to Resa, to have a good reason to leave the cave. But the men stood around indecisively.

“Suppose it really is him, though, Prince?” asked the thin man. “And suppose the Adderhead hears about him before Dustfinger gets here?” He coughed so hard that he had to press his hand to his chest.

“Suppose he’s who? The Bluejay? Nonsense! There’s probably no such man, and even if there is, since when have we given up people who are on our own side? And suppose the songs are true, 174

 

and he’s protected your women and your children .. ”

“Songs are never true.” The twofingered man’s eyebrows were as dark as if he had blackened them with soot. “He’s probably no better than any other highwayman, a murderer greedy for gold, nothing more. . ”

“Perhaps, or perhaps not,” retorted the Prince. “I see only an injured man and a woman asking for our help.”

The men did not reply, but the glances they cast Mo were still hostile.

“Now get out, and hurry up about it!” the Prince said angrily. “How’s he to get better with you staring at him like that? Or do you think his wife likes your ugly mugs? Go and make yourselves useful, there’s plenty of work outside.”

And they did go, sullenly slouching away like men who had not done what they came to do.

“He isn’t the Bluejay!” Resa whispered, when they had left.

“Very likely not!” The Prince stroked his bear’s round ears. “But I’m afraid our friends out there are convinced he is. And the Adder has put a high price on the Bluejay’s head.”

“A high price?” Resa looked at the entrance to the cave. Two of the men were still standing there.

“They’ll come back,” she whispered, “and try to take him away after all.”

But the Black Prince shook his head.

“Not while I’m here. And I’ll stay until Dustfinger arrives. Nettle said you’d sent him a message, so I expect he’ll soon be here to tell them you’re not lying, won’t he?”

The women came back with a basin of water. Resa dipped a scrap of fabric in it to cool Mo’s brow. The pregnant woman leaned over her and put a few dried flowers in her lap. “Here,” she whispered. “Put this on his heart. It brings luck.”

Resa stroked the dried flower heads. “They obey you,” she said to the Prince, when the women had gone again. “Why?” “Oh, because they’ve chosen me as their leader,” replied the Prince. “And because I’m a very good knife-thrower.”

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