Inkspell (37 page)

“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
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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?”

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,
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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.”

The wind this evening, so eagerly playing Sounds like blades that someone is swinging
—

On the instrument of the trees densely growing ..

– Montale,
Poems

At first Dustfinger didn’t believe Farid when he told him what he had seen and heard in Fenoglio’s room. Even the old man couldn’t be crazy enough to meddle with Death’s handiwork.

But then, that same day, a couple of women buying herbs from Roxane had the same story to tell as the boy: Cosimo the Fair had come back, they said, back from the dead.

“Women say the White Women fell so deeply in love with him that at last they let him go,” said Roxane. “And men say he’d just been hiding from his ugly wife for a while.” Crazy stories, thought Dustfinger, but not half as crazy as the truth.

The women had nothing to say about Brianna. He didn’t like to think of her up at the castle. No one knew what might happen there next. It seemed that the Piper was still in Ombra with half a dozen men-at-arms. Cosimo had sent the rest of them out of the city, and they were waiting outside the walls for their own lord’s arrival. For there was a widespread rumor that the Adderhead would come in person to see this prince who had risen from the dead. He wasn’t going to accept the idea of Cosimo’s taking the throne from his grandson again so easily.

“I’ll ride to Ombra myself and see how she is,” said Roxane. “They probably wouldn’t even let you through the Outer Gate. But there’s something else you can do for me.”

The women had not come just for the herbs and to pass on the gossip about Cosimo. They had brought Roxane an order from Nettle, who was in Ombra treating two sick children in the dyers’

quarter. She needed a root of fairydeath, dangerous medicine that killed as often as it cured. The old woman hadn’t said for what poor devil she needed the root. “Just that it’s a man at the Secret Camp who’s injured, and Nettle is going back there this evening,” said Roxane. “And another thing .. CloudDancer was with her. It seems he’s carrying a message for you.” “A message? For me?”

“Yes, from a woman.” Roxane looked at him for a moment, and then went into the house to get the root.

“You’re going to Ombra?” Farid was there behind Dustfinger so suddenly that he jumped.

“I am, and Roxane is riding to the castle,” he said. “So you stay here to keep an eye on Jehan.”

“And who’s going to keep an eye on you?” “Me?”

“Yes.” What a look Farid was giving him! And the marten, too.

“To stop it from happening.” Farid spoke so softly that Dustfinger could hardly hear him. “Stop what it says in the book.”

“Oh, that.” The boy was watching him as anxiously as if he might fall down dead any minute.

Dustfinger had to suppress a smile, although it was his own death they were discussing. “Did Meggie tell you about it?”

Farid nodded.

“Very well. Forget it, do you hear me? The words are written. Maybe they’ll come true, maybe not.”

But Farid shook his head so vigorously that his black hair fell over his forehead. “No!” he said.

“No, they won’t come true! I swear it. I swear it by the djinns that howl in the desert and the ghosts that eat the dead, I swear it by everything I fear!”

Dustfinger looked thoughtfully at him. “You crazy boy!” he said. “But I like your oath. We’d better leave Gwin here, then, and you can keep him!”

Gwin did not approve. He bit Dustfinger’s hand when he was put on his chain, snapped at his fingers, and chattered even more angrily when Jink got into his master’s backpack.

“You’re taking the new marten with you and the old one must be put on the chain?” asked Roxane, when she came back to them with the root for Nettle.

“Yes. Because someone said he’d bring me bad luck.” “Since when have you believed that kind of thing?”