‘I really came to give you this,’ he said, putting his hand into the breast of his doublet. He looked around before handing the Prince the sealed letter, but in this milling throng it was difficult to see if anyone who didn’t belong to the Motley Folk was watching them.
The Prince took the letter with a nod and tucked it into his belt. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘You’re welcome!’ replied Fenoglio, trying to ignore the bear’s bad breath. The Prince couldn’t write, any more than most of his motley subjects could, but Fenoglio was happy to do it for him, particularly when it was something like this he wanted. The letter was for one of the Laughing Prince’s head foresters. His men had attacked the strolling players’ women and children on the road three times. No one else seemed to mind, neither the Laughing Prince in his grief nor the men who were supposed to do justice in his place, for the victims were only strolling players. So the king of the players himself was going to do something about it: the man would find Fenoglio’s letter on his doorstep that very night. Its contents would prevent him from sleeping in peace, and with luck would keep him away from women wearing the brightly coloured skirts of the Motley Folk in future. Fenoglio was rather proud of his threatening letters, almost as proud as he was of his robber songs.
‘Have you heard the latest, Inkweaver?’ The Prince stroked his bear’s black muzzle. ‘The Adderhead has put a price on the Bluejay’s head.’
‘The Bluejay?’ Fenoglio swallowed his wine the wrong way, and the physician thumped him on the back so hard that he spilled the hot drink over his fingers. ‘That’s a good one!’ he gasped, once he had his breath back. ‘Well, don’t let anyone say words are just noise and hot air! The Adder will have to search a long time for that particular robber!’
How oddly they were looking at him! As if they knew more than he did. But more about what?
‘Haven’t you heard yet, Inkweaver?’ said Sootbird quietly. ‘Your songs seem to be coming true! The Adderhead’s tax gatherers have already been robbed twice by a man in a bird mask, and one of his game wardens, a man famous for enjoying every kind of cruelty, is said to have been found dead in the forest with a feather in his mouth. Guess what bird the feather came from?’
Fenoglio glanced incredulously at the Prince, but he was looking at the fire, stirring the embers with a stick.
‘But … but that’s astonishing!’ cried Fenoglio – and then hastily lowered his voice as he saw the others looking anxiously around. ‘Astonishing news, I mean!’ he went on in an undertone. ‘Whatever’s going on – well, I’ll write another song this minute! Suggest something! Go on! What would you like the Bluejay to do next?’
The Prince smiled, but the physician looked at Fenoglio with scorn. ‘You talk as if it were all a game, Inkweaver!’ he said. ‘You sit in your own room, scribbling a few words on paper, but whoever’s playing the part of your robber risks his neck, for he’s certainly made of flesh and blood, not just words!’
‘Yes, but no one knows his face, because the Bluejay wears a mask. Very clever of you, Inkweaver. How is the Adderhead to know what face to look for? A mask like that is very useful. Anyone can wear it.’ It was the actor speaking. Baptista. Yes, of course, that was his name. Did I make him up? Fenoglio wondered. Well, never mind; no one knew more about masks than Baptista, perhaps because his face was disfigured by pock marks. Many of the actors got him to make them leather masks showing laughter or tears.
‘The songs give a detailed description of him, though.’ Sootbird gave Fenoglio a searching look.
‘So they do!’ Baptista leaped to his feet, put his hand to his shabby belt as if he wore a sword there, and peered around as if looking for an enemy. ‘He’s said to be tall. That’s no surprise. Heroes usually are.’ Baptista began prowling up and down on tiptoe. ‘His hair,’ he said, stroking his own head, ‘is dark, dark as moleskin, if we’re to believe the songs. Now, that’s unusual. Most heroes have golden hair, whatever you take golden hair to look like. We know nothing about his origins, but one thing’s for sure –’ and here Baptista assumed a haughty expression – ‘none but the purest princely blood flows in his veins. How else would he be so brave and noble?’
‘No, you’re wrong there!’ Fenoglio interrupted him. ‘The Bluejay is a man of the people. What kind of a robber gets born in a castle?’
‘You heard the poet!’ Baptista looked as if he were wiping the haughtiness right away from his brow with his hand. The other men laughed. ‘So let’s get to the face behind the feathered mask.’ Baptista ran his fingers over his own ruined face. ‘Of course he’s handsome and distinguished – and pale as ivory! The songs don’t say so, but we know that a hero’s skin is pale. With due respect, Your Highness!’ he added, bowing mockingly to the Black Prince.
‘Oh, don’t mind me! I’ve no objection!’ was all the Prince said, his expression unchanged.
‘Don’t forget the scar!’ said Sootbird. ‘The scar on his left arm where the dogs bit him. It’s mentioned in every song. Come along, roll up your sleeves. Let’s see if the Bluejay is by any chance here among us!’ He looked challengingly around him, but only the Strong Man, laughing, pushed up his sleeve. The others sat in silence.
The Prince smoothed back his long hair. He had three knives at his belt. The strolling players, even the man they called their king, were forbidden to carry arms, but why should they keep laws that failed to protect them? Folk said the Prince was so skilful with a knife that he could aim at the eye of a dragonfly and hit it. Just as Fenoglio had once written.
‘Whatever he looks like, this man who’s making my songs come true, I drink to him. Let the Adderhead search for the man I described. He’ll never find him!’ Fenoglio raised his goblet to the company. He was feeling in the best of moods, almost intoxicated, and certainly not with the terrible wine. Well, he thought, and who says so, Fenoglio? You do! You write something and it comes true! Even without anyone to read it aloud …
But the Strong Man spoiled his mood. ‘To be honest, Inkweaver, I don’t feel like celebrating,’ he growled. ‘They say the Adderhead is paying good silver these days for the tongue of every minstrel who sings songs mocking him. And they also say he has quite a collection of tongues already.’
‘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 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 towards them, the girl raised her head as if he had called her name. Incredulously, she stared at him – and put her spoon down.
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 in Capricorn’s house together.
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 a fire, 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, fancy 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 round 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?’
15
Strange Sounds on a Strange Night
How silent lies the world
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 grey 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 to 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 her boots off, 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 Dustfinger had got 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