Chapter 27 - Violante
There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any courser like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!
– Emily Dickinson, The Poems of Emily Dickinson
Fenoglio simply persuaded Farid to go up to the castle with them. “This will work out very well,”
he whispered to Meggie. “He can entertain the prince’s spoiled brat of a grandson and give us a chance to get Violante to talk in peace.”
The Outer Courtyard lay as if deserted that morning. Only a few dry twigs and squashed cakes showed that there had been festivities here. Grooms, blacksmiths, stable lads were all going about their work again, but an oppressive silence seemed to weigh down on everyone within the walls. On recognizing Fenoglio, the guards of the Inner Castle let them pass without a word, and a group of men in gray robes, grave-faced, came toward them beneath the trees of the Inner Courtyard. “Physicians!” muttered Fenoglio, uneasily watching them go. “More than enough of them to cure a dozen men to death. This bodes no good.”
The servant whom Fenoglio buttonholed outside the throne room looked pale and tired. The Prince of Sighs, he told Fenoglio in a whisper, had taken to his bed during his grandson’s celebrations and hadn’t left it since. He would not eat or drink, and he had sent a messenger to the stonemason carving his sarcophagus telling him to hurry up with it.
But they were allowed in to visit Violante. The prince would see neither his daughter-in-law nor his grandson. He had sent away even the physicians. He would have no one near him but his furry-faced page, Tullio.
“She’s where she ought not to be, again!” The servant was whispering, as if he could be heard by the sick prince in his apartments as he led them through the castle. A carved likeness of Cosimo looked down on them in every corridor. Now that Meggie knew about Fenoglio’s plans, the stony eyes made her even more uncomfortable. “They all have the same face!” Farid whispered to her, but before Meggie could explain why, the servant was beckoning them silently up a spiral staircase.
“Does Balbulus still ask such a high price for letting Violante into the library?” asked Fenoglio quietly as their guide stopped at his door, which was adorned with brass letters.
“Poor thing, she’s given him almost all her jewelry,” the servant whispered back. “But there you are, he used to live in the Castle of Night, didn’t he? Everyone knows that those who live on the other side of the forest are greedy folk. With the exception of my mistress.”
“Come in!” called a bad-tempered voice when the servant knocked. The room they entered was so bright that it made Meggie blink after walking through all those dark passages and up the 146
dark stairs. Daylight fell through high windows onto several intricately carved desks. The man standing at the largest of them was neither young nor old, and he had black hair and brown eyes that looked at them without any cordiality as he turned to them.
“Ah, the Inkweaver!” he said, reluctantly putting down the hare’s foot he held in his hand.
Meggie knew what it was for; Mo had told her often enough. Rubbing parchment with a hare’s foot made it smooth. And there were the colors whose names Mo had repeated over and over to her. Tell me again! How often she had plagued Mo with that demand! She never tired of the sound of them: lapis lazuli, orpiment, violet, malachite green. What makes them still shine like that, Mo? she had asked. After all, they’re so old! What are they made of? And Mo had told her –
told her how you made them, all those wonderful colors that shone even after hundreds of years as if they had been stolen from the rainbow, now protected from air and light between the pages of books. To make malachite green you pounded wild iris flowers and mixed them with yellow lead oxide; the red was made from murex shells and cochineal insects .. They had so often stood together looking at the pictures in one of the valuable manuscripts that Mo was to free from the grime of many years. Look at those delicate tendrils, he had said, can you imagine how fine the pens and brushes must be to paint something like that, Meggie? He was always complaining that no one could make such implements anymore. And now she saw them with her own eyes, tiny pens as fine as hairs and brushes, whole sets of them standing in a glazed jug: brushes that could conjure up flowers and faces no bigger than a pinhead on parchment or paper. You moistened them with a little gum arabic to make the paint cling better. Her fingers itched to pick a brush out of the set and take it away with her for Mo. . He ought to have come just for this, she thought, to stand here in this room.
An illuminator’s workshop .. Fenoglio’s world seemed twice, three times as wonderful. Elinor would have given one of her little fingers to be standing here now, thought Meggie. She was about to move toward one of the desks to take a closer look at it all, the brushes, the pigments, the parchment, but Fenoglio held her back.
“Balbulus!” He sketched a bow. “And how is the master today?” There was no mistaking the mockery in his voice. “The Inkweaver wants to see the Lady Violante,” said the servant in a low voice.
Balbulus pointed to a door behind him. “Well, you know where the library is. Or perhaps we had better rename it the Chamber of Forgotten Treasures.” He lisped slightly, his tongue touching his teeth as if it didn’t have enough room in his mouth. “Violante is just looking at my latest work, or what she can see of it. I finished copying out the stories for her son last night. I’d rather have used the parchment for other texts, I must admit, but Violante insisted.”
“Well, I’m sorry you had to waste your art on such frivolities,” replied Fenoglio, without so much as glancing at the work Balbulus had before him at the moment. Farid did not seem interested in the picture, either. He looked at the window, where the sky outside shone a brighter blue than any of the paints sticking to the fine brushes. But Meggie wanted to see how good Balbulus was at his art, and whether his haughty attitude was justified. Unobtrusively, she took a step forward. She saw a picture framed in gold leaf, showing a castle among green hills, a forest, magnificently dressed riders among the trees, fairies fluttering around them, and a White Stag turning to flee. Never before had she seen such a picture. It glowed like stained glass like a window placed on the parchment. She would have loved to look at it more closely, see the faces, the horses’ harnesses, the flowers and clouds, but Balbulus cast her such an icy glance that she retreated, blushing.
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“That poem you brought yesterday,” said Balbulus in a bored voice, as he bent over his work again, “it was good. You ought to write such things more often, but I know you prefer writing stories for children or songs for the Motley Folk. And why? Just for the wind to sing your words?
The spoken word is nothing, it hardly lives longer than an insect! Only the written word is eternal.”
“Eternal?” Fenoglio made the word sound as if there could be nothing more ridiculous in the world. “Nothing’s eternal – and what happier fate could words have than to be sung by minstrels? Yes, of course they change the words, they sing them slightly differently every time, but isn’t that in itself wonderful? A story wearing another dress every time you hear it – what could be better? A story that grows and puts out flowers like a living thing! But look at the stories people press in books! They may last longer, yes, but they breathe only when someone opens the book. They are sound pressed between the pages, and only a voice can bring them back to life! Then they throw off sparks, Balbulus! Then they go free as birds flying out into the world. Perhaps you’re right, and the paper makes them immortal. But why should I care? Will I live on, neatly pressed between the pages with my words? Nonsense! We’re none of us immortal; even the finest words don’t change that, do they?”
Balbulus had listened to him without any expression on his face. “What an unusual opinion, Inkweaver!” he said. “For my part, I think highly of the immortality of my work and very poorly of minstrels. But why don’t you go in to Violante? She’ll probably have to leave soon, to hear some peasant’s woes or listen to a merchant complaining of the highwaymen who make the roads unsafe. It’s almost impossible to get hold of acceptable parchment these days. Robbers steal it and offer it for sale in the markets at outrageous prices! Have you any idea how many goats must be slaughtered for me to write down one of your stories?”
“About one for each double spread,” said Meggie, earning another icy look from Balbulus.
“Clever girl,” he said, in a tone that made his words sound more like blame than praise. “And why? Because those fools the goat herders drive them through thorns and prickly bushes, without stopping to think that their skins will be needed for parchment!”
“Oh, come, I keep telling you!” said Fenoglio, steering Meggie and Farid toward the library door.
“Paper, Balbulus. Paper is the material of the future.”
“Paper!” she heard Balbulus mutter scornfully. “Good heavens, Inkweaver, you’re even crazier than I thought.”
Meggie had visited more libraries with Mo than she could count. Many had been larger than the Laughing Prince’s, but few were more beautiful. You could still see that it had once been its owner’s favorite place. The only trace of Cosimo here was a white stone bust; someone had laid roses in front of it. The tapestries on the high walls were finer than those in the throne room, the sconces heavier, the colors warmer, and Meggie had seen enough in Balbulus’s workshop to guess what treasures surrounded her here. They stood chained to the shelves, not spine beside spine like the books in Elinor’s library, but with the cut edge facing forward, because that was where the title was. In front of the shelves were rows of desks, presumably reserved for the latest precious acquisitions. Books lay on them, chained like sisters in the shelves, and closed so that no harmful ray of light could fall on Balbulus’s pictures. In addition all the library windows were hung with heavy fabric; obviously the Prince of Sighs knew what damage sunlight did to books. Only two windows let in the light that might harm them. Her Ugliness stood in front of one window, bending so low over a book that her nose almost touched the pages.
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“Balbulus is getting better and better, Brianna,” she said.
“He’s greedy! A pearl, just for letting you into your father-in-law’s library!” Her maidservant was standing at the other window looking out, while Violante’s son tugged at her hand.
“Brianna!” he whined. “Come on! This is boring. Come on out into the courtyard. You promised.”
“He uses the money from the pearls to buy new pigments! How else would he get them, when no one in this castle will pay gold for anything but statues of a dead man?” Violante jumped when Fenoglio closed the door behind him, guiltily hiding the book behind her back. Only when she saw who it was did her face relax. “Fenoglio!” she said, pushing her mousy brown hair back from her forehead. “Must you scare me like that?” The mark on her face was like a paw-print.
Fenoglio smiled and put his hand to the bag at his belt. “I’ve brought you something.”
Violante’s fingers closed greedily on the red stone. Her hands were small and rounded like a child’s. She quickly reopened the book she had hidden behind her back and held the beryl up to one of her eyes.
“Come on, Brianna, or I’ll tell them to cut off your hair!” Jacopo took a handful of the maid’s hair and pulled it so hard that she screamed. “That’s what my grandfather does. He shaves them bald, the minstrel girls and the women who live in the forest. He says they turn into owls by night and screech outside your windows till you’re dead in your bed.”
“Don’t look at me like that!” Fenoglio whispered to Meggie. “I didn’t invent this little horror.
Here, Jacopo!” He dug his elbow imperatively into Farid’s ribs as Brianna went on trying to free her hair from the child’s small fingers. “Look, I’ve brought someone to see you.”
Jacopo let go of Brianna’s hair and examined Farid with little enthusiasm. “He doesn’t have a sword,” he pointed out.
“A sword! Who needs a sword?” Fenoglio wrinkled his nose. “Farid is a fire-eater.” Brianna raised her head and looked at Farid. But Jacopo was still inspecting him as unenthusiastically as ever.
“Oh, this stone is wonderful!” his mother murmured. “My old one wasn’t half so good. I can make them all out, Brianna, every character. Did I ever tell you how my mother taught me to read by making up a little song for each letter?” She began to chant quietly: ” A brown bear bites off a big bit of B . . I didn’t see particularly well even then, but she traced them on the floor very large for me, laying them out with flower petals or little stones. A, B, C, the minstrel plays for me. ”
“No,” said Brianna. “No, you never told me.”
Jacopo was still staring at Farid. “He was at my party!” he said. “He threw torches.”
“That was nothing, just a children’s game.” Farid was looking patronizingly at the boy, as if he himself and not Jacopo were the prince’s son. “I can do other tricks, too, but I don’t think you’re old enough for them.”
Meggie saw Brianna hide a smile as she took the comb out of her pale red hair and pinned it up again. She did it very prettily. Farid was watching her, and for the first time in her life Meggie wished that she had such lovely hair, although she wasn’t sure that she could manage to put a 149
comb in it so gracefully. Luckily, Jacopo attracted Farid’s attention again by clearing his throat and folding his arms. He had probably copied the mannerism from his grandfather.
“Show me or I’ll have you whipped.” The threat sounded ridiculous, uttered in such a shrill voice
– yet at the same time it was more terrible than if it had come from an adult mouth.
“Oh, will you?” Farid’s face gave nothing away. He had obviously learned a thing or two from Dustfinger. “And what do you think I’d do to you then?”
This left Jacopo speechless, but just as he was about to appeal to his mother for support Farid reached out his hand to the boy. “Very well, come along, then.”
Jacopo hesitated, and for a moment Meggie was tempted to take Farid’s hand herself and follow him into the courtyard, instead of listening to Fenoglio trying to follow a dead man’s trail, but Jacopo moved faster. His pale, stubby fingers gripped Farid’s brown hand tightly, and when he turned in the doorway his face was that of a happy, perfectly ordinary little boy. “He’s going to show me tricks, did you hear?” he said proudly, but his mother didn’t even look up.
“Oh, what a wonderful stone,” was all she whispered. “If only it wasn’t red, if only I had one for each eye –”
“Well, I’m working on a way around that, but I’m afraid I haven’t found the right glassmaker yet.” With a sigh, Fenoglio dropped into one of the chairs invitingly arranged among the reading desks. They all bore the old coat of arms on their leather upholstery, the one where the lion was not shedding tears, and the leather of some was so worn that you could clearly tell how many hours the Laughing Prince had once spent here – until grief sapped his pleasure in books.
“A glassmaker? Why a glassmaker?” Violante gazed at Fenoglio through the beryl. It looked almost as if her eye was made of fire.
“Glass can be ground to make your eyes see better, much better than through a stone, but there isn’t a glazier in Ombra who knows what I’m talking about!”
“Oh, I know, only the stonemasons are good for anything in this place! Balbulus says there’s not a single decent bookbinder in all Lombrica.”
I could tell you the name of a good one, thought Meggie instinctively, and for a moment she wished Mo were here, so much that it hurt. But Her Ugliness was looking at her book again.
“There are good glaziers in my father’s realm,” she said, without glancing up. “He’s had several windows in his castle filled in with glass. He had to sell off a hundred of his peasants to go for soldiers to pay for it.” Violante seemed to consider the price well worth paying.
I don’t think I like her, thought Meggie, as she went slowly from desk to desk. The bindings of the books lying on them were beautiful, and she would have loved to hide at least one of them under her dress, so that she could look at it in Fenoglio’s room at her leisure, but the chips holding the chains in place were firmly riveted to the wooden covers of the books.
“You’re welcome to look at them.” Her Ugliness spoke to Meggie so suddenly that she jumped.
Violante was still holding the red stone up to her eye, and Meggie was reminded of the blood red jewels at the corners of the Adderhead’s nostrils. His daughter resembled her father more than she probably knew.
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“Thank you,” murmured Meggie, and opened one. She remembered the day when Mo had shown her how to open an old book without using her fingers. He had handed her a book with two brass clasps holding its wooden covers together. She had looked at him, baffled, and then, smiling at her, he had struck the front of the book with his fist so hard that the clasps snapped open like little mouths, and the book was opened as if by a ghostly hand.
But the book that Meggie opened in the Laughing Prince’s library showed no sign of age, as that other book had done. No speck of mold disfigured the parchment, no beetles or bookworms had nibbled it, like some of the manuscripts she had seen when Mo restored them. The years were not kind to parchment and paper; a book had many enemies, and in time it withered like a human body. “Which tells us, Meggie,” Mo always said, “that a book is a living thing!” If only she could have shown him this one!
Very, very carefully she turned the pages – yet her mind was not entirely on what she was doing, for the wind blew Farid’s voice into the room like the memory of another world. Meggie listened to what was going on outside as she snapped shut the clasps of the book again. Fenoglio and Violante were still talking about useless bookbinders. Neither of them was taking any notice of her, and Meggie stole over to one of the darkened windows and peered through the gap in the curtains. Her glance fell on a walled garden, beds full of brightly colored flowers, and Farid standing among them letting flames lick their way up his bare arms, just as Dustfinger had done the first time Meggie saw him breathing fire back in Elinor’s garden, before he betrayed her. .
Jacopo was laughing exuberantly. He clapped – and then stumbled back in alarm as Farid sent the torches whirling through the air like Catherine wheels. Meggie couldn’t help smiling; Dustfinger had certainly taught him a lot, even if Farid couldn’t yet breathe fire quite so high in the air as his teacher.
“Books? No, I told you, Cosimo never came in here!” Violante’s voice suddenly sounded considerably sharper, and Meggie turned around. “He thought nothing of books, he loved dogs, good boots, a fast horse .. there were days when he even loved his son. But I don’t want to talk about him.”
Laughter drifted up from outside again. Brianna joined Meggie at the window. “The boy’s a very good fire-eater,” she said.
“Really?” Her short-sighted mistress looked at her. “I thought you didn’t like fire-eaters. You’re always saying they’re feckless folk.”
“This one’s good. Much better than Sootbird.” Brianna’s voice sounded husky. “I noticed him at the celebrations.”
“Violante!” Fenoglio sounded impatient. “Could we forget about that fire-breathing boy for a moment? Very well, so Cosimo didn’t like books. These things happen. But surely you can tell me a little more about him!”
“Why?” Her Ugliness raised the beryl to her eye again. “Let Cosimo rest in peace, he’s dead! The dead don’t want to linger here. Why won’t anyone understand that? And if you want to know some secret about him – well, he had none! He could talk about weapons for hours on end. He liked fire-eaters and knife-throwers and wild rides through the night. He had the smiths show him how to forge a sword, and he fenced for hours with the guards down in the courtyard until he’d mastered every trick they knew, but when the minstrels struck up their songs he began 151
yawning after the first verse. He wouldn’t have cared for any of the songs you’ve written about him. He might have liked the robber songs, but as for the idea that words can be like music, making the heart beat faster . . he had no ear for that! Even executions interested him more than words, although he never enjoyed them the way my father does.”
“Really?” Fenoglio sounded surprised but by no means disappointed. “Wild rides through the night,” he murmured. “Fast horses. Yes, why not?”
Her Ugliness wasn’t listening to him. “Brianna!” she said. “Take this book. If I praise Balbulus enough for his new pictures, perhaps he’ll leave it with us for a while.” Her maid took the book from her, an abstracted expression on her face, and went to the window again.
“But the people loved him, didn’t they?” Fenoglio had risen from his chair. “Cosimo was good to them .. to the peasants, the poor .. the strolling players.”
Violante stroked the mark on her cheek. “Yes, they all loved him. He was so handsome that you just had to love him. You couldn’t help it. But as for the peasants” – and she wearily rubbed her short-sighted eyes – “do you know what he always said about them? ‘Why are they so ugly?’ he asked. ‘Ugly clothes, ugly faces .. ‘When they brought their disputes to him he really did try to do justice fairly, but it bored him to tears. He could hardly wait to get away again, back to his father’s soldiers, his horse and his hounds. . ”
Fenoglio said nothing. He looked so baffled that Meggie almost felt sorry for him. Isn’t he going to make me read aloud after all? she wondered. And for a strange moment she felt something like disappointment.
“Come along, Brianna!” ordered Her Ugliness, but her maid did not stir. She was gazing down at the courtyard as if she had never seen a fire-eater before in her life.
Frowning, Violante went over to her. “What are you staring at?” she asked, squinting through the window with her short-sighted eyes.
“He .. he’s making flowers from fire,” stammered Brianna. “They start like golden buds and then they unfold like real flowers. I once saw something like that. . when I was very little. . ”
“Yes, very nice, but come along now.” Her Ugliness turned and made for the door. She had an odd way of walking, with her head slightly bent, yet carrying herself very upright. Brianna took a last look out the window before hurrying after her.
Balbulus was grinding colors when they entered his workshop: blue for the sky, russet and umber for the earth. Violante whispered something to him. Presumably, she was softening him up. She pointed to the book that Brianna was carrying for her. “I’ll be off now, Your Highness,”
said Fenoglio.
“Yes, you can go!” she told him. “But next time you visit me don’t ask questions about my late husband; bring me one of the songs you write for the minstrels instead. I like them very much, particularly those songs about the robber, the man who makes my father so angry. What’s his name? Oh yes – the Bluejay!”
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 152
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.
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Chapter 28 – The Wrong Words
If all you have of me is your red hair
and my wholehearted laughter
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.
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“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 155
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.
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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.
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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.
Then, just as suddenly as they had come, the men-at-arms were gone. Only the sound of their horses’ hooves could still be heard as they rode fast up the street to the castle. The marketplace was left looking as if a strong wind had blown through it, an ill wind breaking jugs and pots as well as human bones. There was a smell of fear in the air as Meggie crawled out from behind the barrels. Peasants were gathering up their trampled vegetables, mothers wiped tears from their children’s faces and blood from their knees, women stood looking at the broken earthenware dishes they had hoped to sell – and all was quiet in the marketplace again. Very quiet. The voices cursing the horsemen did so in undertones, and even the weeping and groaning were muted.
Minerva came over to Meggie, concern in her face, with the sobbing Despina and Ivo beside her.
“Yes, I think we have a new master now,” she said bitterly, helping Meggie to her feet. “Can you take the children home? I’ll stay here and see what I can do to help. There must be many broken bones, but luckily a few physicians can always be found here on market day.”
Meggie just nodded. She didn’t know how she felt. Afraid?
Angry? Desperate? There didn’t seem to be any word to describe the state of her heart. Silently, she took Despina and Ivo by the hand and set off home with them. Her knees hurt, and she was limping, but nonetheless she hurried along the alleys so fast that the children could hardly keep up.
“Now!” She uttered just that one word as she hobbled into Fenoglio’s room. “Let me read it now.
At once.” Her voice shook, and she had to lean against the bare wall because her grazed knees were trembling. Indeed, everything in her and about her was trembling.
“What’s happened?” Fenoglio was sitting at his desk. The parchment lying before him was covered with words. Rosenquartz stood beside him with a dripping pen in his hand, looking at Meggie in astonishment.
“We must do it now!” she cried. “This minute! They just rode into the middle of the crowd – into all those people!”
“Ah, so the soldiers are here already. Well, I told you we must hurry. Who was leading them?
Firefox?”
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“No, it was the Piper.” Meggie went over to the bed and sat down on it. Suddenly, she felt only fear, as if she were back kneeling among the toppled stalls again, and her fury had run out of steam. “There are so many of them!” she whispered. “It’s too late! What could Cosimo do against them?”
“You just leave that to me!” Fenoglio took the pen from the glass man’s hand and began writing again. “The Laughing Prince has many soldiers, too, and they’ll follow Cosimo once he’s back. Of course, it would have been better if you’d read him here while his father was still alive. The Laughing Prince was in too much of a hurry to die, but that can’t be helped now! Other things can be, though.” With his brow furrowed, he read through what he had written, crossed out a word here, added one there, and then waved his hand to the glass man. “Sand, Rosenquartz, hurry up!”
Meggie pulled up her skirt and looked at her injured knees.
One of them was beginning to swell. “But are you sure it will really be any better with Cosimo?”
she asked in a low voice. “From what Her Ugliness said about him, it didn’t sound like it.”
“Of course it will be better! What kind of question is that? Cosimo is one of the good characters and always was, never mind what Violante says. Anyway, when you read this aloud you’ll be bringing a new version of him here. An improved version, we might say.”
“But .. but why does there have to be a new prince here at all?” Meggie passed her sleeve over her tearstained face. The clank of armor was still echoing in her ears, the snorting and whinnying, the screaming – the screams of people who wore no armor.
“What can be better than a prince who does what we want?” Fenoglio took another sheet of parchment. “Just a few more lines,” he murmured. “I’ve almost finished. Oh, curse it, how I hate writing on parchment. I hope you ordered more paper, Rosenquartz.”
“Of course I did, long ago,” replied the glass man huffily. “But there haven’t been any deliveries for ages. The paper mill’s on the other side of the forest, remember?”
“Yes, a pity.” Fenoglio wrinkled his nose. “Very inconvenient, to be sure.”
“Fenoglio, listen to me, will you? Why don’t we read that robber here instead of Cosimo?” Meggie pulled down her skirt over her knees again. “You know – the robber in your songs! The Bluejay!”
Fenoglio laughed out loud. “The Bluejay? Good heavens! I’d like to see your face if– but joking aside, no – absolutely not! A robber’s not fit to rule, Meggie. Robin Hood didn’t become king!
Robbers are good for stirring up trouble, that’s all. I couldn’t even put the Black Prince on the throne here. This world is ruled by royalty, not robbers, entertainers, or peasants. That’s the way I made it, and I assure you it’s a royal prince we need.”
Rosenquartz sharpened another quill and dipped it in the ink, and Fenoglio began writing again.
“Yes,” Meggie heard him whispering. “Yes, this will sound wonderful when you read it aloud.
What a surprise for the Adder head! He thinks he can do what he likes in my world, do exactly as he pleases, but he’s wrong. He’ll play the part I give him and no other!”
Meggie rose from the bed and limped over to the window. It had begun to rain again; the sky was weeping as silently as the people in the marketplace. And the Adderhead’s banner was already being hoisted above the castle.