Inkspell (33 page)

Fenoglio paled slightly under his sunburn. “How do you know I wrote those songs?”

Her Ugliness just laughed. “I’m the Adderhead’s daughter, have you forgotten? Of course I have
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my spies! They’re good, too! Are you afraid I’ll tell my father who wrote the songs? Don’t worry, we say only the bare minimum to each other. And he’s more interested in what the songs are about than in the man who wrote them. Although if I were you I’d stay this side of the forest for now!”

Fenoglio bowed, forcing a smile. “I shall take your advice to heart, Highness,” he said.

The door with brass letters on it latched heavily into place as Fenoglio pulled it shut. “Curse it!”

he muttered. “Curse it, curse it.”

“What’s the matter?” Meggie looked at him with concern. “Is it what she said about Cosimo?”

“No, nonsense! But if Violante knows who writes the songs about the Bluejay, then so does the Adderhead! He has many more spies than she does, and suppose he doesn’t keep to his own side of the forest much longer? Well, there’s still time to do something about it .. Meggie,” he whispered, as they went down the steep spiral staircase. “I told you I had a model for the Bluejay.

Do you want to guess who it was?” He looked expectantly at her.

“I like to base my characters on real people,” he whispered in conspiratorial tones. “Not every writer does that, but in my experience it makes them more lifelike. Facial expressions, gestures, the way someone walks, a voice, perhaps a birthmark or a scar – I steal something here, something there, and then they begin to breathe, until anyone hearing or reading about them thinks they can touch them! I didn’t have a wide choice for the Bluejay. My model couldn’t be too old, nor too young, either, and not fat or short, of course, heroes are never short, fat, or ugly – in real life, maybe, but never in stories .. no, the Bluejay had to be tall and good-looking, attractive to other people –”

Fenoglio fell silent. Footsteps were coming down the stairs, quick footsteps, and Brianna appeared on the massive steps above them.

“Excuse me,” she said and looked around guiltily, as if she had stolen away without her mistress’s knowledge. “That boy do you know who taught him to play with fire like that?” She looked at Fenoglio as if she wanted to hear the answer more than anything, and yet as if at the same time there was nothing she feared hearing more. “Do you know?” she asked again. “Do you know his name?”

“Dustfinger,” replied Meggie, speaking for Fenoglio. “Dustfinger taught him.” And only when she spoke the name for the second time did she realize who Brianna reminded her of, her face and the shimmer of her red hair.

Chapter 28 – The Wrong Words

If all you have of me is your red hair

what else in me was good or ill may fare

like faded flowers drifting in the water.

– Paul Zech, after Francois Villon, “The Ballade of Little Florestan”

Dustfinger was just chasing Jink out of Roxane’s henhouse when Brianna came riding into the yard. The sight of her almost stopped his heart. The dress she wore made her look like a rich merchant’s daughter; since when did maidservants wear such clothes? And the horse she was riding didn’t suit this place, either, with its expensive harness, its gold-studded saddle, and the deep black coat that shone as if three grooms had spent all day brushing it. A soldier in the Laughing Prince’s livery rode with her. He scrutinized the simple house and the fields, his face expressionless. But Brianna looked at Dustfinger. She thrust out her chin just as her mother so often did, straightened the comb in her hair – and looked at him.

He wished he could have made himself invisible. How hostile her glance was, her expression both adult and that of an injured child! She was so like her mother. The soldier helped her to dismount and then took his horse to drink at the well, acting as if he had neither eyes nor ears.

Roxane came out of the house. Brianna’s arrival obviously surprised her as much as him. “Why didn’t you tell me he was back?” Brianna snapped. Roxane opened her mouth – and shut it again.

Go on, say something, Dustfinger, he told himself. The marten leaped off his shoulder and disappeared behind the stable.

“I asked her not to.” How hoarse his voice sounded. “I thought I’d rather tell you myself.”
But
your father is a coward
, he added to himself,
afraid of his own daughter.

She was looking at him so angrily, in exactly her old way. Except that now she was too grown-up to hit him.

“I saw that boy,” she said. “He was at the festival, and today he was breathing fire for Jacopo.

He did it just like you.” Dustfinger saw Farid appear. He stayed behind Roxane, but Jehan pushed past him, glanced anxiously at the soldier, and then ran to his sister. “Where did you get that horse?” he asked. “Violante gave it to me. As thanks for taking her with me by night to see the strolling players.”

“You take her with you?” Roxane sounded concerned. “Why not? She loves their shows! And the Black Prince says it’s all right.” Brianna didn’t look at her mother.

Farid went over to Dustfinger. “What does she want here?” he whispered. “She’s Her Ugliness’s maid.”

“And my daughter, too,” replied Dustfinger.

Farid stared incredulously at Brianna, but she took no notice of him. It was on her father’s account that she had come.

“Ten years!” she said accusingly. “You stayed away for ten years, and now you come back just like that? Everyone said you were dead! They said you’d moldered away in the Adderhead’s dungeons! They said the fire-raisers had handed you over to him because you wouldn’t tell them all your secrets!”

“I did tell them,” said Dustfinger tonelessly. “Almost all my secrets.” And they used them to set another world on fire, he added in his thoughts. A world without a door to let me out again, so that I could come back.

“I dreamed of you!” Brianna’s voice rose so high that her horse shied away. “I dreamed the men-at-arms tied you to a stake and burned you! I could smell the smoke and hear you trying to talk to the fire, but it wouldn’t obey you and the flames devoured you. I had that dream almost every night! I still do! I was afraid of going to sleep for ten whole years, and now here you are, hale and hearty, as if nothing had happened! Where – have you – been?”

Dustfinger glanced at Roxane – and saw the same question in her eyes. “I couldn’t come back,”

he said. “I couldn’t. I tried, believe me, I tried.”

The wrong words. They were true a hundred times over, yet they sounded like a lie. Hadn’t he always known it? Words were useless. At times they might sound wonderful, but they let you down the moment you really needed them. You could never find the right words, never, and where would you look for them? The heart is as silent as a fish, however much the tongue tries to give it a voice.

Brianna turned her back on him and buried her face in her horse’s mane, while the soldier went on standing by the well, acting as if he were nothing but thin air.

And that’s what I wish I was, too, thought Dustfinger.
Just thin air.

“But it’s the truth! He couldn’t come back!” Farid stationed himself protectively in front of Dustfinger. “There wasn’t any way! It’s exactly like he says – he was in an entirely different world, but it’s as real as this one. There are many, many worlds, they’re all different, and they’re written down in books!”

Brianna turned to him. “Do I look like a little girl who still believes in fairy tales?” she asked scornfully. “Once, when he stayed away so long that my mother’s eyes were red with crying every morning, the other strolling players told me stories about him. They said he was talking to the fairies, or he’d gone to see the giants, or he was down at the bottom of the sea looking for a fire that even water can’t put out. I didn’t believe the stories even then, but I liked them. Now I don’t. I’m not a little girl anymore. Not by any means. Help me mount my horse!” she ordered the soldier.

He obeyed without a word. Jehan stared at the sword hanging from his belt.

“Stay and eat with us!” said Roxane.

But Brianna just shook her head and turned her horse in silence. The soldier winked at Jehan, who was still gazing at his sword. They rode away on their horses, which seemed much too large for the narrow, stony path leading to Roxane’s farm.

Roxane took Jehan indoors with her, but Dustfinger stayed out by the stable until the two riders had disappeared into the hills. Farid’s voice quivered with indignation when he finally broke the
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silence. “But you really couldn’t come back!”

“No .. but you must admit your story didn’t sound very convincing.” “It’s exactly what happened, all the same!”

Dustfinger shrugged and looked at the place in the distance where his daughter had disappeared. “Sometimes even I think I only dreamed it all,” he murmured.

A chicken squawked angrily behind them.

“Where the devil is Jink?” With a curse, Dustfinger opened the stable door. A white hen fluttered past him into the open; another fowl lay in the straw, her feathers bloody. A marten was sitting beside her.

“Jink!” Dustfinger scolded. “Damn it, didn’t I tell you to leave the chickens alone?” The marten looked at him.

Feathers were sticking to the animal’s muzzle. He stretched, raised his bushy tail, came to Dustfinger, and rubbed against his legs like a cat.

“Well, what do you know?” whispered Dustfinger. “Hello, Gwin.” His death was back.

Chapter 29 – New Masters

Tyrants smile with their last breath

For they know that at their death,

Tyranny just changes hands,

Serfdom lives on in their lands.

– Heinrich Heine, “King David”

The Prince of Sighs, once the Laughing Prince, died scarcely a day after Meggie had been to the castle with Fenoglio. He died at dawn, and the men-at-arms rode into Ombra three days later.

Meggie was in the marketplace with Minerva when they came. After her father-in-law’s death Violante had ordered the guard at the city gate to be doubled, but there were so many men-at-arms that the guards let them in without offering any resistance. The Piper rode at their head, his silver nose like a beak in the middle of his face, as shiny as if he had polished it up specially for the occasion. The narrow streets echoed with the snorting of horses, and it was quiet as the mounted men appeared among the buildings. The street cries of traders, the voices of women crowding around the stalls, all fell silent when the Piper reined in his horse and disapprovingly scrutinized the crowd.

“Make way!” he called. His voice sounded oddly strained, but what else would you expect of a man who had no nose? “Make way for the envoy of the Adderhead. We are here to pay his last respects to your dead prince and ensure that his grandson takes his rightful place as his heir.”

The silence continued, but then a single voice was raised. “Thursday’s market day in Ombra, always was, so if you gentlemen would like to dismount, we can get on with it!”

The Piper looked for the speaker among the faces staring up at him, but the man was hidden by the crowd. A murmur of agreement rose in the marketplace.

“Oh, so that’s it!” cried the Piper through the confused voices. “You think we rode right through that accursed forest just to dismount here and make our way through a rabble of stinking peasants. As soon as the cat’s dead the mice dance on the table. But I have news for you. There’s a cat in your miserable town again, a cat with sharper claws than the old one!”

Without another word, he turned in the saddle, raised his black-gloved hand – and gave his men a signal.

Then he rode his horse straight into the crowd.

The silence that had been weighing down so heavily on the marketplace was torn like rending cloth. Screams rose in its enclosed space. More and more horsemen rode in from among the houses around it, so heavily armed they looked like iron reptiles, their helmets drawn so far down that you could see only their mouths and their eyes between nose guard and rim. There was a clinking of spurs, a clashing of greaves, and breastplates so brightly polished that they reflected the crowd’s horrified faces. Minerva pushed her children out of the way. Despina stumbled, and Meggie was going to her aid when she herself tripped over a couple of cabbages and fell flat. A stranger pulled her to her feet just before the Piper rode her down. Meggie heard his horse snorting above her, felt his gleaming spurs brush her shoulder. She took shelter behind a potter’s overturned stall, although she cut her hands on his broken pots. Trembling, she crouched among the shards, surrounded by smashed barrels and sacks that had burst open, watching helplessly as others, less lucky, fell under the horses’ hooves. The mounted men struck out at many in the crowd with their feet or the shafts of their spears. Horses shied, reared, and kicked at pots and people’s heads.