“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 skillful 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 toward them, the girl raised her head as if he had called her name. Incredulously, she stared at him – and put down her spoon.
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 together in Capricorn’s house.
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 afire, but still. .”