Inkspell (19 page)

“Tongues?” Instinctively, Fenoglio felt his own. “Does he mean my songs, too?”

No one answered him. The men said nothing. The sound of a woman singing came from a tent behind them – a lullaby as sweet and peaceful as if it came from another world – a world of
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which one could only dream.

“I’m always telling my Motley subjects: Don’t go near the Castle of Night!” The Prince put a piece of meat dripping with fat in the bear’s mouth, wiped his knife on his trousers, and returned it to his belt. “To think that we’re just food for crows to the Adderhead – mere carrion! But since the Laughing Prince took to weeping instead of laughing, they’ve all had empty pockets and empty bellies. That’s what sends them over there. There are many rich merchants in Argenta, far more than on this side of the forest. It’s not for nothing they call it the Silver Land.”

Devil take it. Fenoglio rubbed his aching knees. What had become of his good mood? Vanished –

like the fragrance of a flower trodden underfoot. Gloomily, he took another sip of honeyed wine.

The children came flocking around him again, begging for a story, but Fenoglio sent them away.

He couldn’t make up stories when he was in a bad temper.

“And there’s another thing,” said the Prince. “The Strong Man picked up a boy and a girl in the forest today. They told a strange story: They said Basta, Capricorn’s knife-man, was back, and they’re here to warn an old friend of mine about him Dustfinger. I expect you’ve heard of him?”

“Mmph?” Fenoglio nearly choked on his wine with surprise. “Dustfinger? Yes, of course, the fire-eater.”

“The best there’s ever been.” The Prince cast a quick glance at Sootbird, but he was just showing the physician a sore tooth. “He was thought to be dead,” the Prince went on, lowering his voice.

“No one’s heard anything of him for over ten years. There were countless tales of how and where he died, but luckily none of them seem to be true. However, Dustfinger’s not the only man the boy and girl are looking for. The girl was also asking about an old man, a writer with a face like a tortoise. You, by any chance?” Fenoglio couldn’t find a word in his head that would do for an answer. Saying no more, the Prince took his arm and pulled him to his feet. “Come along!” he added, as the bear lumbered along behind them, grunting. “The two of them were half-starved, said something about being deep in the Wayless Wood. The women are just feeding them now.”

A boy and a girl .. Dustfinger . . Fenoglio’s thoughts were racing, although unfortunately his head was not at its clearest after two goblets of wine.

More than a dozen children were squatting in the grass under a lime tree on the outskirts of the camp. Two women were ladling out soup for them. The children greedily spooned the thin brew up from the wooden bowls that had been put into their dirty hands.

“See how many they’ve rounded up again!” the Prince whispered to Fenoglio. “We shall all go hungry because of their soft hearts.”

Fenoglio just nodded as he looked at the thin faces. He knew how often the Black Prince himself picked up hungry children. If they turned out to have any talent for juggling, standing on their heads, or other tricks that would bring a smile to people’s faces and lure a few coins out of their pockets, then the Motley Folk took them in and let them join the company of the strolling players, going from market to market, from town to town. “There they are.” The Prince pointed to two heads bending particularly low over their bowls. When Fenoglio moved toward them, the girl raised her head as if he had called her name. Incredulously, she stared at him – and put down her spoon.

Meggie.

Fenoglio returned her gaze with such astonishment that she had to smile. Yes, it really was Meggie. He remembered that smile very well, even if she hadn’t often had reason to show it when they were imprisoned together in Capricorn’s house.

She leaped up, pushed past the other children, and flung her arms around his neck. “Oh, I knew you were still here!” she cried, between laughter and tears. “Did you really have to write those wolves into your story? And then the Night-Mares and the Redcaps – they threw stones at Farid and went for his face with fingers like claws. It was a good thing Farid could make afire, but still. .”

Fenoglio opened his mouth – and closed it again, helplessly. His head was full of a thousand questions. How did she get here? What about Dustfinger? Where was her father? And what about Capricorn? Was he dead? Had her plan worked? If so, why was Basta still alive? The questions drowned each other out like humming insects, and Fenoglio dared not ask any of them while the Black Prince stood there, never taking his eyes off him.

“I see you know these two,” he remarked.

Fenoglio just nodded. Yes, where had he seen the boy sitting beside Meggie before? Wasn’t he with Dustfinger on that strange day when, for the first time, he met one of his own creations face to face?

“Er . . they’re relations of mine,” he stammered. What a pitiful lie for a storyteller!

The Prince’s mocking eyes sparkled. “Relations .. well, imagine that! I must say they don’t look very like you.”

Meggie unwound her arms from Fenoglio’s neck and stared at the Prince.

“Meggie,” said Fenoglio, “may I introduce the Black Prince?” With a smile, the Prince made her a bow.

“The Black Prince! Oh yes.” Meggie repeated his name almost reverently. “And that’s his bear!

Farid, come here. Look!” Farid, of course. Fenoglio remembered him now. Meggie had often talked about him. The boy stood up, but not before hastily swallowing the very last of the soup in his bowl. He kept well behind Meggie, at a safe distance from the bear.

“She absolutely insisted on coming!” he said, wiping his greasy mouth on his arm. “Really! I didn’t want to bring her, but she’s as obstinate as a camel.”

Meggie was obviously about to make some sharp retort, but Fenoglio put his arm around her shoulders. “My dear boy,” he told Farid, “you have no idea how glad I am to see Meggie here! I could almost say she’s all I needed in this world to make me happy!”

He hastily took his leave of the Prince and drew Meggie and Farid away with him. “Come with me!” he whispered, as they made their way past the tents. “We have a great deal to talk about, a very great deal, but we can do it better in my room without strange ears to overhear us. It’s getting late, anyway, and the guard at the gate won’t let us back into the city after midnight.”

Meggie just nodded abstractedly and looked at the hurry and bustle all around her, wide-eyed, but Farid pulled his arm away from Fenoglio’s grasp. “I can’t come with you. I have to look for Dustfinger!”

Fenoglio looked disbelievingly at him. So it was really true? Dustfinger was “Yes, he’s back,” said Meggie. “The women said Farid might find him at the house of the minstrel woman he once lived with. She has a farm up there on the hill.”

“Minstrel woman?” Fenoglio looked the way Meggie’s finger was pointing. The hill she meant was only a black outline in the moonlit night. Of course! Roxane. He remembered her. Was she really as wonderful as he had described her?

The boy was shifting impatiently from foot to foot. “I have to go,” he told Meggie. “Where can I find you?”

“In Cobblers’ and Saddlers’ Alley,” replied Fenoglio, answering for Meggie. “Just ask for Minerva’s house.”

Farid nodded. He went on looking at Meggie.

“It’s not a good idea to start a journey by night,” said Fenoglio, although he had a feeling that this boy wasn’t interested in his advice. “The roads here aren’t what you’d call safe. Particularly not at night. There are robbers, vagabonds .. ”

“I can look after myself.” Farid took a knife from his belt. “Take care, Meggie.” He reached for her hand, then turned abruptly and disappeared among the strolling players. It did not escape Fenoglio that Meggie turned to look back at him several times.

“Heavens, poor lad!” he growled, shooing a couple of children out of the way as they came flocking up to beg him for a story again. “He’s in love with you, am I right?”

“Oh, don’t!” Meggie let go of his hand, but he had made her smile. “All right, I’ll hold my tongue!

Does your father know you’re here?”

That was the wrong question. Her guilty conscience was plain to see in her face.

“Dear me! Very well, you must tell me all about it. How you came here, what all this talk of Basta and Dustfinger means, everything! You’ve grown! Or have I shrunk? My God, Meggie, I’m so glad you’re here! Now we can get this story back under control! With my words and your voice –”

“Under control? What do you mean?” She suspiciously examined his face. She had often seen him look just like that in the past, when they were Capricorn’s prisoners – his brow wrinkled, his eyes as clear as if they could look straight into your heart. But this wasn’t the place for explanations.

“Later!” whispered Fenoglio and drew her on. “Later, Meggie. There are too many ears here.

Damn it, where’s my torchbearer now?”

Chapter 15 – Strange Sounds on a Strange Night

Within fair twilight furled,

Bringing such sweet relief!

A quiet room resembling,

Where, without fear or trembling,

You sleep away day’s grief.

– Matthias Claudius,
Evening Song

Later, when Meggie tried to remember the way they went to Fenoglio’s room, she could see only a few blurred pictures in her mind’s eye – a guard who tried to bar their way with his spear, but sullenly let them pass when he recognized Fenoglio, dark alleys down which they followed a boy with a torch, then a steep flight of steps, creaking underfoot as it led them up the side of a gray wall. She felt so dizzy with weariness as she followed Fenoglio up these steps that he felt quite anxious and took her arm a couple of times.

“I think we’d better wait until morning to tell each other what’s happened since we last met,” he said, propelling her into his room. “I’ll ask Minerva to bring you up a straw mattress later, but you’ll sleep in my bed tonight. Three days and nights in the Wayless Wood. Inky infernos, I’d probably have died of sheer fright!”

“Farid had his knife,” murmured Meggie. The knife had indeed been a comfort when they were sleeping in the treetops by night, and those growling, grating noises came up to them from below. Farid had always kept it ready at hand. “And when he saw ghosts,” she said sleepily, as Fenoglio lit a lamp, “he made a fire.” “Ghosts? There aren’t any ghosts in this world, or at least none that I wrote into it. What did you eat all that time?” Meggie groped her way over to the bed.

It looked very inviting, even if it was only a straw mattress and a couple of coarse blankets.

“Berries,” she murmured. “Lots of berries, and the bread we took with us from Elinor’s kitchen –

and rabbits, but Farid caught those.”

“Good heavens above!” Fenoglio shook his head, incredulous.

It was really good to see his wrinkled face again, but right now all Meggie really wanted to do was sleep. She took off her boots, crept under the scratchy blankets, and stretched out her aching legs. “What gave you the crazy idea of reading yourself and Farid into the Wayless Wood?

Why not arrive here? Dustfinger must have told the boy a few things about this world.”

“Orpheus’s words.” Meggie couldn’t help yawning. “We only had Orpheus’s words, and
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Dustfinger had gotten Orpheus to read him into the forest.”

“Of course. Sounds just like him.” She felt Fenoglio pulling the blankets up to her chin. “I’d better not ask you who this Orpheus is. We’ll talk again tomorrow. Sleep well. And welcome to my world!”

Meggie just managed to open her eyes once more. “Where are you going to sleep?”

“Don’t worry about me. A few of Minerva’s relations come in every night to share the family’s beds downstairs, and one more won’t make much difference. You soon get used to a little less comfort, I assure you. I only hope her husband doesn’t snore as loud as she says.”

Then he closed the door behind him, and Meggie heard him laboriously making his way down the steep wooden staircase, cursing quietly to himself. Mice scurried through the rafters over her head (at least, she hoped they were mice) and the voices of the sentries guarding the nearby city wall drifted in through the only window. Meggie closed her eyes. Her feet hurt, and the music from the strolling players’ camp was still ringing in her ears.
The Black Prince
, she thought,
I’ve seen the Black Prince .. and the city gate of Ombra .. and I’ve heard the trees
whispering to one another in the Wayless Wood.
If she could only have told Resa all about it. Or Elinor. Or Mo. But more than likely Mo never wanted to hear another word about the Inkworld.

Meggie rubbed her tired eyes. Fairies’ nests clung to the beams in the roof above the bed, just as Fenoglio had always wanted, but nothing moved behind the dark entrance holes where the fairies flew into them. Fenoglio’s attic room was a good deal larger than the one where he and Meggie had been kept prisoner by Capricorn. As well as the bed he had so generously let her have, there was a wooden chest, a bench, and a writing desk made of dark wood, gleaming and adorned with carvings. It did not go with the rest of the furniture: the roughly made bench, the simple chest. You might have thought it had strayed here out of another story, just like Meggie herself. An earthenware jug stood on it, containing a whole set of quill pens, there were two inkwells ..