‘Yes, yes, folk hear all kinds of things in a fever!’ replied the moss-woman brusquely. ‘I’ve heard of those who swore the dead spoke to them. The dead, angels, demons … a fever will summon up whole troops of them.’ She turned to Firefox. ‘I have an ointment that will help him,’ she said, ‘and I’ll brew up something for him to drink. I can’t do any more.’ When she turned her back on them, Meggie quickly put her hand on Mo’s fingers. No one noticed, nor did they notice the gentle pressure he gave her hand in return. He smiled at her again, and only when the moss-woman turned again did he quickly look aside. ‘You ought to look at his leg too!’ he said, nodded towards the strolling player lying asleep beside him on the straw, exhausted.
‘No, she oughtn’t!’ Firefox interrupted. ‘It’s all one to me whether he lives or dies. You’re different.’
‘Oh, I see! You still think I’m that robber.’ Mo leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I suppose it’s no good if I tell you yet again that I’m not?’
By way of answer, Firefox just cast him a contemptuous glance. ‘Tell the Adderhead. Perhaps he’ll believe you,’ he said. Then he pulled Meggie roughly to her feet. ‘Go on, off with you both! That’ll do!’ he shouted at her and the moss-woman. His men pushed them both towards the stable door. Meggie tried to look round again, her eyes searching for her mother, sitting somewhere among the other prisoners, and looking towards Mo yet again, but Firefox grabbed her arm and forced her out of the door – leaving Mo wishing he had words at his command, words like those that had killed Capricorn. His tongue longed to taste them, longed to send them after Firefox and see him fall in the dust like his former master. But there was no one here to write the words for him. Only Fenoglio’s story was everywhere, surrounding them with horror and darkness – and presumably his own death was already planned for one of the next chapters.
43
Paper and Fire
‘Good, well, if that’s decided,’ came a weary voice from the opposite end of the dank hold. It was the gnokgoblin, still manacled and quite forgotten. ‘Then will someone please release me.’
Paul Stewart,
Midnight Over Sanctaphrax
Dustfinger saw the windows of the inn glowing like dirty yellow eyes as he stole across the road. Jink scurried ahead of him, little more than a shadow in the darkness. There was no moon tonight, and it was so dark in the yard and around the stables that even his own scarred face would just look like a pale patch.
There were guards outside the stable where the prisoners had been shut up, four guards, but they didn’t notice him. They were staring into the night, their faces bored, hands on their sword hilts, looking longingly again and again at the lighted windows opposite. Loud, drunken voices came from the inn – and then the sound of a lute, its strings well plucked, followed by singing in a curiously strained voice. Ah, so the Piper was back from Ombra too, and singing one of his songs, drunk with blood and the intoxication of killing. The presence of the man with the silver nose was yet another reason why he had to stay out of sight. Meggie and Farid were waiting behind the stables, as agreed, but they were arguing in such loud voices that Dustfinger came up behind the boy and put his hand over his mouth.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he said angrily, his voice low. ‘Do you want them to put you two in with the others?’
Meggie bowed her head. She had tears in her eyes again.
‘She wants to go into the stable!’ Farid whispered. ‘She thinks they’ll all be asleep! As if—’
Dustfinger closed the boy’s mouth with his hand again. Voices rang out over the yard. Obviously someone had brought the guards outside the stable something to eat. ‘Where’s the Black Prince?’ he whispered, when all was still again.
‘Between the bakehouse and the main building. Tell her she can’t go back into that stable! There are at least fifteen soldiers in there.’
‘How many guarding the Prince?’
‘Three.’
Three. Dustfinger glanced up at the sky. No moon. It was hidden behind the clouds, and the darkness was black as a cloak.
‘Are you going to free him? Three aren’t many!’ Farid sounded excited. Not a trace of fear in his voice. That fearlessness would be the death of him yet. ‘We can cut their throats before they make a sound. It’ll be easy.’ He often said such things. Dustfinger kept wondering if it was just talk, or if he’d actually done something of the kind in the past.
‘I can tell you’re ready for anything!’ he said softly. ‘But you know very well I’m no good at cutting throats. How many prisoners are there?’
‘Eleven women, three children, nine men not counting Silvertongue.’
‘How is he?’ Dustfinger looked at Meggie. ‘Have you seen him? Can he walk?’
She shook her head.
‘What about your mother?’ She cast him a quick glance. She didn’t like it when he mentioned Resa. ‘Come on, is she all right?’
‘I think so.’ She put one hand to the stable wall, as if she could feel her parents behind it. ‘But I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. Please!’ How pleadingly she was looking at him! ‘I’m sure they’re all asleep. I’ll be very careful!’
Farid cast a despairing glance up at the stars, as if such stupidity would make them break their eternal silence.
‘The guards won’t sleep,’ said Dustfinger. ‘So think up a good lie for them. Do you have anything to write with?’
Meggie looked at him incredulously, and for a moment Dustfinger saw her mother’s eyes. Then she quickly put her hand into the bag that she carried with her. ‘I have some paper with me,’ she whispered, hastily tearing a page out of her little marbled notebook.
Like mother, like daughter. Never without the means of writing.
‘You’re letting her do it?’ Farid looked at him in astonishment.
‘Yes.’
Meggie looked at him expectantly.
‘Write that there’ll be a fallen tree lying across the road they take tomorrow. When it catches fire, everyone strong and young enough must run into the forest to the left. To the left: that’s important! Write that we’ll be waiting there to hide them. Did you get that down?’
Meggie nodded. Her pencil hurried over the paper. He could only hope that Resa would be able to decipher the tiny handwriting in the darkness of the stable, because he wouldn’t be there to make fire for her.
‘Have you thought what you’re going to tell the guards?’ he asked.
Meggie nodded. For a moment she looked almost like the little girl she had still been not much more than a year ago, and Dustfinger wondered whether it was a mistake, after all, to let her go – but before he could change his mind she was off. She raced over the yard and disappeared into the inn. When she came back, she was carrying a jug.
‘Please, the moss-woman sent me!’ they heard her clear voice telling the guards. ‘I’m to take the children milk.’
‘Look at that. Clever as a jackal!’ whispered Farid as the guards moved aside. ‘And brave as a lioness.’ There was so much admiration in his voice that Dustfinger couldn’t help smiling. The boy was definitely in love.
‘Yes, she’s probably cleverer than both of us put together,’ he whispered back. ‘And certainly braver, at least as far as I’m concerned.’
Farid just nodded. He was staring at the open stable door – and smiled with relief when Meggie came out again.
‘See that?’ she whispered to him when she was back beside Farid. ‘It was perfectly easy.’
‘Good!’ said Dustfinger, beckoning Farid over to his side.
‘Then let’s cross our fingers and hope that what we have to do now is as easy. What about it, Farid? Do you feel like playing with fire?’
The boy carried out his task with as cool a head as Meggie. Apparently lost to the world, but in a spot where the men guarding the Prince had a clear view of him, he began making fire dance as naturally as if he were standing in some peaceful market place, not i
n front of an inn which sheltered Firefox and the Piper. The guards nudged each other, laughed, glad of something to pass the time this sleepless night. Seems that I’m the only one here whose heart is beating faster, thought Dustfinger as he stole past heaps of stinking offal and rotting vegetables. It looked as if the fat landlord’s cooks simply threw everything they couldn’t serve to the guests out here behind the house. A few rats scurried off when they heard Dustfinger’s footsteps, and the hungry eyes of a brownie glowed among the bushes. They had tied the Prince up next to a mountain of carcasses, and his bear just far enough away to keep him from reaching the bones. He squatted there, snorting unhappily through his muzzle, which was bound, now and then uttering a miserably muted howl.
The guards had stuck a torch in the ground not far away, but the flame went out at once when the wind carried Dustfinger’s quiet voice to it. Nothing was left but a faint glow – and the Black Prince raised his head. He knew at once who must be slinking around in the dark when the fire so suddenly died down. A few more quick and silent steps, and Dustfinger took cover behind the bear’s furry back.
‘That boy’s really good!’ whispered the Prince, without turning round. A sharp knife would soon deal with the ropes binding him.
‘Yes, very good. And afraid of nothing, unlike me.’ Dustfinger examined the padlocks on the bear’s chains. They were rusty, but not particularly difficult to open. ‘What do you say to a little walk in the forest? But the bear must be quiet, quiet as an owl. Can he do it?’ He ducked when one of the guards turned, but the man had obviously just heard the maid who was coming out of the kitchen to tip a bucket of refuse on to the garbage heaps behind the building. She disappeared again, with a curious look at the bound Prince – and took with her the noise that had come spilling out of the doorway.
‘What about the others?’
‘Four guards outside the stable, another four off told by Firefox to guard Silvertongue, and there must be ten more guarding the other prisoners. It’s unlikely that we can distract the attention of all of them, certainly not for long enough to get the injured and crippled to safety.’
‘Silvertongue?’
‘Yes, the man they were looking for in your camp. What do you call him?’ A padlock sprang open. The bear growled; perhaps Jink was making him uneasy. The second chain had better stay where it was for now, or he’d probably eat the marten. Dustfinger set about cutting the ropes tying up the Black Prince. He had to hurry, for they must be gone before Farid’s arms tired. The second padlock clicked. Another quick glance at the boy … by the fire of the elves! thought Dustfinger. He throws the torches almost as high as I do now! But just as the Prince was throwing off his ropes, a fat man marched up to Farid with a maid and a soldier behind him. He shouted at the boy and pointed indignantly to the flames. Farid just smiled, skipped back while Gwin leaped around his legs, and went on juggling the burning torches. Oh yes, he was as clever as Meggie! Dustfinger signed to the Prince to go with him. The bear groped his way along after them, following his master’s low voice. A pity he really was only a bear and not a Night-Mare. There’d have been no need to tell one of those to keep quiet. But at least he was black, as black as his master, and the night swallowed them up as if they were a part of it.
‘We’ll meet down on the road by the fallen tree.’ The Prince nodded, and disappeared into the darkness. As for Dustfinger, he set off in search of the boy and Resa’s daughter.
The soldiers were all shouting in confusion in the yard now it was clear that the Black Prince had escaped; even the Piper had come out of the inn. But neither Farid nor the girl could be seen. The soldiers began searching the outskirts of the forest and the slope behind the house, carrying torches. Dustfinger whispered words into the night until the fire felt sleepy, and torch after torch was extinguished as if the slight breeze had blown them out. The men stopped in the middle of the road, feeling uneasy, and looked around with eyes full of fear – fear of the dark, fear of the bear, fear of everything else that roamed the woods by night.
None of them dared go as far as the place where the fallen tree was blocking the road. The forest and the hills were as quiet as if no human foot had ever trodden there. Gwin was perched on the tree-trunk, and Farid and Meggie were waiting on the other side under the trees. The boy had a bleeding lip, and the girl had laid her head wearily against his shoulder. Embarrassed, she straightened up as Dustfinger emerged in front of them.
‘Is he free?’ asked Farid.
Dustfinger put a hand under his chin and looked at the split lip. ‘Yes. Whatever happens tomorrow, the Prince and his bear will lend us a hand. How did you do that?’ The two martens scurried past him and disappeared into the forest side by side.
‘Oh, it’s nothing. One of the soldiers tried to grab me, but I got away. Well, tell me, was I good?’ As if he didn’t know the answer.
‘So good that I’m beginning to worry. If you carry on like this I’ll soon be out of a job.’
Farid smiled. How sad Meggie looked, though. She seemed as lost as the child they had found in the looted camp. It wasn’t difficult to imagine how she was feeling, even if, like Dustfinger himself, you had never known your parents. Acrobats, some of the women among the strolling players, a travelling physician … he had had many substitutes for them. Any of the Motley Folk who looked after abandoned children were like their parents. Well, say something to her, Dustfinger, anything, he thought. You often used to cheer her mother up. Though usually it was just for a short time … stolen time.
‘Listen.’ He knelt down in front of Meggie and looked at her. ‘If we really manage to free some of them tomorrow, the Black Prince will take them to safety – but the three of us will follow the others.’
She looked at him as distrustfully as if he were a worn tightrope that she must walk high in the air.
‘Why?’ she asked quietly. When she spoke in a low tone you didn’t guess at the power that her voice could exert. ‘Why do you want to help them?’ She didn’t have to spell it out: last time you didn’t. Back in Capricorn’s village. What could he say? That it was easier to stand by and watch in a strange world than in your own?
‘Let’s say I may have something to make up for,’ he said at last. He knew he didn’t have to explain what he meant. They both remembered that night, in another tale, when he had betrayed her to Capricorn. And there’s something else too, he almost added, I think your mother has been a captive long enough. But he didn’t say that. He knew that Meggie wouldn’t have liked it.
A good hour later the Black Prince joined them, uninjured and with his bear.
44
The Burning Tree
Do you see the tongues of fire
Darting, flickering higher and higher?
Do you see the flames all dancing,
Flaring, off the dry wood glancing?
James Krüss,
Fire
Resa’s feet were bleeding. The road was stony, and wet with the morning dew. They all had their hands bound again, except the children. She had been terrified that the soldiers wouldn’t let them walk with the other prisoners, but would load them on to the cart instead. ‘Cry if they try to make you get up there!’ she had whispered to the little ones. ‘Cry and scream until they let you walk with us.’ But luckily that hadn’t been necessary. How scared the three children looked – two girls and a boy, not counting the baby still inside Mina’s belly.
The elder girl, who was just six, was walking between Resa and Mina. Whenever Resa glanced at her she wondered what Meggie had looked like at that age. Mo had shown her photographs, wonderful photographs taken in all the years she herself had missed, but those weren’t her own memories but his. And Meggie’s.
Brave Meggie. Resa’s heart still contracted when she remembered how her daughter had passed her the sheet of paper in the stable. Where was she now? Was she watching them from somewhere in the forest?
Only when the hue and cry over the Black Prince had broken out had she been able to r
ead the note, by the light of the torch left burning overnight in the stable. None of the others could read, so she had been able to pass on Dustfinger’s news to the women sitting near her only in whispers. After that, there had been no chance to tell the men too, but the ones who could walk would run anyway. Resa was to look after the children, and they knew what they were to do.
The other girl and the boy were walking between their mother and the woman with claw-like fingers who had wanted to take Mo back to Capricorn’s fortress. Resa had said nothing to her about Dustfinger’s news, and every glance the woman cast her said: I was right, too! But Mina smiled when she looked at Resa, Mina with her round belly, who could have thought she had good reason to hate her for what had happened. Perhaps the flowers she gave Resa in the cave really had brought luck. Mo was better, much better – after she had thought for so many endless hours that every breath he drew would be his last. Now that the Prince had escaped, a horse was pulling the cart with Mo on it. The bear had set the Prince free, they whispered, which finally proved that he was indeed a Night-Mare. His ghostly glance had made the chains disappear, and he had turned himself into a human being and cut his master’s bonds. Resa wondered whether that human being had a scarred face.
When all the noise had begun in the night she had been so scared for Dustfinger, Meggie and the boy, but next morning the fury on the soldiers’ faces told her that they had got away.
But where was the fallen tree Meggie had mentioned in her note?
The little girl beside her was clinging to her dress. Resa smiled at the child – and sensed the Piper looking down at her from his horse. She quickly turned her head away. Luckily neither he nor Firefox had recognized her. She had often enough listened to the Piper’s bloodthirsty songs in Capricorn’s fortress – the minstrel still had a human nose on his face in those days – and she had polished Firefox’s boots, but fortunately he had not been one of those who chased her and the other maids.
Up above the prisoners’ heads the soldiers were describing, at the tops of their voices, what their master would do to the Black Prince once he’d caught him and his enchanted bear again. Now that they were on horseback once more their tempers had clearly improved. From time to time the Piper turned in his saddle and contributed some particularly cruel idea. Resa would have liked to put her hands over the ears of the little girl beside her. The child’s mother was not among the prisoners, but was wandering the country with some of the other strolling players, happy in the belief that her daughter was safe in the Secret Camp.
The girl would run. So would the other children with their mother.