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  "Where are the others?" Mortola demanded while the wardrobe-man looked around him with a foolish expression. The sight of all those books seemed to fill him with boundless astonishment. He was probably wondering what on earth anyone would do with so many.

  "The others? I don't know who you're talking about." Elinor thought her voice sounded remarkably steady for a woman half dead with terror.

  Mortola's small, round chin jutted aggressively. "You know perfectly well. I'm talking about Silvertongue and his witch of a daughter, and that maidservant, the one he calls his wife. Shall I get Basta to set fire to a few of your books, or will you call the three of them for us of your own accord?"

  Basta? Basta's afraid of fire, Elinor wanted to reply, but she refrained. It wasn't difficult to hold a lighted match to a book. Even Basta, who feared fire so much, would probably be capable of that small action, and the wardrobe-man didn't look bright enough to be afraid of anything. I just have to keep stalling, thought Elinor. After all, they don't know about the workshop in the garden, or about Darius, either.

  "Elinor?" she heard Darius call at that very moment. Before she could reply, Basta's hand was over her mouth again. She heard Darius come down the corridor with his usual rapid tread. "Elinor?" he called again. Then the footsteps stopped as abruptly as his voice.

  "Surprise, surprise!" purred Basta. "Aren't you glad to see us, Stumbletongue? A couple of old friends come to pay you a visit!" Basta's left hand was bandaged, Elinor noticed when he took his fingers away from her mouth, and she remembered the hissing creature that Farid said had slipped through the words in Dustfinger's place. What a pity it didn't eat more of our knife-happy friend, she thought.

  "Basta!" Darius's voice was little more than a whisper.

  "That's right, Basta! I'd have been here much sooner, believe you me, but they put me in jail for a while on account of something that happened years ago. No sooner was Capricorn gone than all the people who'd been too scared to open their mouths suddenly felt very brave. Well, never mind. You could say they did me a favor, because who do you think they put in my cell one fine day? I never could get him to tell me his real name, so let's call him by the name he's given himself: Orpheus!" He slapped the man so hard on the back that he stumbled forward. "Yes, our good friend Orpheus!" Basta put an arm around his shoulders. "The Devil did me a real favor when he made Orpheus, of all people, my cellmate – or perhaps our story is so keen to have us back that it sent him? Well, one way or another, we had a good time, didn't we?"

  Orpheus did not look at him. He straightened his jacket in embarrassment and inspected Elinor's bookshelves.

  "Hey, just look at him!" Basta dug his elbow roughly into Orpheus's ribs. "You wouldn't believe how often I've told him there's nothing to be ashamed of in going to jail, particularly when your prisons here are so much more comfortable than our dungeons at home. Come on, tell them how I found out about your invaluable gifts. How I caught you one night reading yourself that stupid dog out of the book! Reading himself a dog! Lord knows, I could think of better ideas."

  Basta laughed nastily, and Orpheus straightened his tie with nervous fingers. "Cerberus is still in the car," he told Mortola. "He doesn't like it there at all. We ought to bring him in!"

  The wardrobe-man turned to the door. He obviously had a soft spot for animals, but Mortola stopped him with an impatient gesture.

  "The dog stays where it is. I can't stand that creature!" Frowning, she looked around Elinor's hall. "Well, I expected your house to be bigger than this," she said, with assumed disappointment. "I thought you were rich."

  "So she is!" Basta flung his arm so roughly around Orpheus's neck that his glasses slipped down his nose. "But she spends all her money on books. What would she pay us for the book we took from Dustfinger, do you think?" He pinched Orpheus's round cheeks. "Yes, our friend here made good juicy bait for the fire-eater. He may look like a bullfrog, but even Silvertongue can't make the words obey him so well, let alone Darius. Ask Dustfinger – Orpheus sent him home as if nothing could be easier! Not that the fire-eater will -"

  "Hold your tongue, Basta!" Mortola interrupted him abruptly. "You've always liked the sound of your own voice. Well?" She impatiently tapped her stick on the marble tiles that were Elinor's pride and joy. "Where are they? Where are the others? I shan't ask again!"

  Come on, Elinor told herself, lie to them. Lie yourself blue in the face! Quick! But she hadn't even opened her mouth when she heard the key in the lock. Oh no! No, Mortimer! she prayed silently. Stay where you are! Go back to the workshop with Resa, shut yourselves up there, but please, please don't come in just now!

  Of course her prayers made not the slightest difference.

  Mortimer opened the door, came in with his arm around Resa's shoulders – and stopped abruptly at the sight of Orpheus. Before he had entirely grasped what was going on, the man built like a wardrobe had closed the door behind him in obedience to a signal from Mortola.

  "Hello there, Silvertongue!" said Basta in a menacingly soft voice, as he snapped his knife open in front of Mortimer's face. "And isn't this our lovely mute Resa? Excellent! Two birds with one stone. All we need now is the little witch."

  Elinor saw Mortimer close his eyes for a moment, as if hoping that Basta and Mortola would have disappeared when he opened them again. But, naturally, no such thing happened.

  "Call her!" ordered Mortola, as she stared at Mortimer with such hatred in her eyes that Elinor felt afraid.

  "Who?" he asked, without taking his eyes off Basta.

  "Don't pretend to be more stupid than you are!" Mortola said crossly. "Or do you want me to let Basta cut the same pattern on your wife's face as he did on the fire-eater's?"

  Basta ran his thumb lovingly over the gleaming blade.

  "If by 'little witch' you mean my daughter," replied Mortimer huskily, "she isn't here."

  "Oh no?" Mortola hobbled toward him. "Be careful what you say. My legs are aching after that endless drive to get here, so I'm not feeling particularly patient."

  "She isn't here," Mortimer repeated. "Meggie has gone away, with the boy you took the book from. He asked her to take him to Dustfinger, she did it – and she went with him."

  Mortola narrowed her eyes incredulously. "Nonsense!" she exclaimed. "How could she have done it without the book?" But Elinor saw the doubt in her face.

  Mortimer shrugged. "The boy had a handwritten sheet of paper with him – the one that sent Dustfinger back, apparently."

  "That's impossible!" Orpheus looked at him in astonishment. "Are you seriously saying your daughter read herself into the story, using my words?"

  "Oh, so you're this Orpheus, are you?" Mortimer returned his glance, not in a very friendly way. "Then you're responsible for the loss of my daughter."

  Orpheus straightened his glasses and gave Mortimer an equally hostile look. Then, abruptly, he turned to Mortola. "Is this man Silvertongue?" he demanded. "He's lying! I'm sure of it! He's lying! No one can read themselves into a story. He can't, his daughter can't, no one can. I've tried it myself, hundreds of times. It doesn't work!"

  "Yes," said Mortimer wearily. "That's just what I thought, too. Until four days ago."

  Mortola stared at him. Then she signaled to Basta. "Shut them up in the cellar!" she ordered. "And then look for the girl. Search the whole house."

  13. FENOGLIO

  "I do practice remembering, Nain," I said. "Writing and reading and remembering."

  "That you should!" said Nain sharply. "Do you know what happens each time you write a thing down? Each time you name it? You sap its strength."

  Kevin Crossley-Holland, The Seeing Stone

  It wasn't easy to get past the guards at the gate of Ombra after dark, but Fenoglio knew them all. He had written many love poems for the heavily built oaf who barred his way with his spear tonight – and very successful they were, he had been told. Judging by the fool's appearance, he'd be needing to call on Fenoglio's services again.

  "But mi
nd you're back before midnight, scribbler!" the ugly fellow grunted before letting him pass. "That's when the Ferret takes over from me, and he's not interested in your poems, even though his girl can read."

  "Thanks for the warning!" said Fenoglio, giving the stupid fellow a false smile as he pushed past him. As if he didn't know that the Ferret was not to be trifled with! His stomach still hurt when he remembered how that sharp-nosed fellow had dug the shaft of his spear into it, when he'd tried pushing past him with a couple of well-chosen words. No, there'd be no bribing the Ferret, not with poems or any other written gifts. The Ferret wanted gold, and Fenoglio didn't have too much of that, or at least not enough to waste it on a guard at the city gates.

  "Midnight!" he cursed quietly as he stumbled down the steep path. "As if that wasn't just when the strolling players wake up!"

  His landlady's son carried the torch ahead of him. Ivo was nine years old and full of insatiable curiosity about all the wonders of his world. He was always fighting his sister for the honor of carrying the torch when Fenoglio went to visit the strolling players. Fenoglio paid Ivo's mother a few coins a week for a room in the attic. The price included the washing, cooking, and mending that Minerva did for him, too. In return, Fenoglio told her children bedtime stories and listened patiently as she told him what a stubborn oaf her husband could be at times. The fact was, Fenoglio had struck lucky.

  The boy scurried along ahead of him with increasing impatience. He could hardly wait to reach the brightly colored tents, where music played and firelight shone among the trees. He kept looking around reproachfully, as if Fenoglio were taking his time on purpose. Did he think an old man could go as fast as a grasshopper?

  The Motley Folk had pitched camp where the ground was so stony that nothing would grow on it, behind the cottages where the peasants who farmed the Laughing Prince's land lived. Now that the prince of Ombra no longer wanted to hear their jests and songs, they came less often than before, but luckily the prince's grandson wanted players to entertain him on his birthday, so this Sunday they would at last come streaming through the city gates: fire-eaters and tightrope-walkers, animal-tamers and knife-throwers, actors, buffoons, and many a minstrel whose songs came from Fenoglio's pen.

  For Fenoglio liked writing for the Motley Folk: merry songs, sad songs, songs to make you laugh or weep, as the spirit moved him. He couldn't earn more than a few copper coins for those songs; the strolling players' pockets were always empty. If his words were to earn gold then he must write for princes or for a rich merchant. But when he made the words dance and pull faces, when he wanted to write tales of peasants and robbers, of ordinary folk who didn't live in castles or eat from golden plates, then he wrote for the strolling players.

  It had taken some time for them to accept him into their tents. Only when more and more wandering minstrels were singing Fenoglio's songs, and their children were asking for his stories, did they stop turning him away. And now even their king invited Fenoglio to sit beside his fire, as he had tonight. Although not a drop of royal blood ran in his veins, this man was known as the Black Prince. The Prince took good care of his Motley subjects, and they had chosen him to lead them twice already. It was better not to ask where all the gold he gave so generously to the sick and crippled came from, but Fenoglio knew one thing: He himself had invented the Prince.

  Oh yes, I made them all! he thought, as the music came more clearly through the night air. He had made up the Prince and the tame bear that followed him like a dog, and Cloud-Dancer who, sad to say, fell off his rope, and many more, even the two rulers who believed that they laid down the law in this world. Fenoglio had not yet seen all his creations, but every time he suddenly met one in flesh and blood it made his heart beat faster – although he couldn't always remember whether any particular one of them had really sprung from his own pen, or came from somewhere else…

  There were the tents at last, bright as windblown flowers in the black night. Ivo began running so fast that he almost fell over his own feet. A dirty boy with hair as unkempt as an alley cat's fur came out to meet them, hopping on one leg. He grinned challengingly at Ivo – and ran away on his hands. Lord, these players' children performed such contortions, you might think they had no bones in their bodies!

  "Off you go, then!" growled Fenoglio when Ivo looked pleadingly at him. After all, he didn't need the torch anymore. Several fires were burning among the tents, which often consisted of little more than a few grubby lengths of cloth stretched over ropes between the trees. Fenoglio looked around with a sigh of satisfaction as the boy raced away. Yes, this was just as he'd imagined the Inkworld as he wrote his story: bright and noisy, full of life. The air smelled of smoke, of roast meat, of rosemary and thyme, horses, dogs and dirty clothes, pine needles and burning wood. Oh, he loved it! He loved the hurry and bustle, he even loved the dirt. He loved the way life here was lived before his very eyes, not behind locked doors. You could learn anything in this world: how the smith shaped the metal of a sickle in the fire, how the dyer mixed his dyes, how the tanner removed hair from leather and how the cobbler cut it to shape to make shoes. Nothing happened behind closed doors. It was all going on, in the alleyways, on the road, in the marketplace, here among shabby tents, and he, Fenoglio – still as curious as a boy – could watch, although the stench of the leather was mordant and the dye tubs sometimes took his breath away. Yes, he liked this world of his. He liked it very much – although he couldn't help seeing that not everything was working out the way he had intended.

  It was his own fault. I should have written a sequel, thought Fenoglio, making his way through the crowd. I could still write one, here and now, and change everything, if only I had someone to read it aloud! Of course he had looked for another Silvertongue, but in vain. No Meggie, no Mortimer, not even someone like that man Darius who was more than likely to botch the job… and Fenoglio could play only the part of a writer whose fine words didn't exactly keep him in luxury, while the two princes he had invented ruled his world after their own fashion. Annoying, extremely annoying.

  One of those princes above all gave him cause for concern – the Adderhead.

  He reigned to the south of the forest, high above the sea, sitting on the silver throne of the Castle of Night. As an invented character, not by any means a bad one. A bloodhound, a ruthless slave driver – but after all, the villains are the salt in the soup of a story. If you can keep them under control. It was for this purpose that Fenoglio had thought up the Laughing Prince, a ruler who would rather laugh at the broad jokes of the strolling players than wage war, and his magnificent son, Cosimo. Who could have guessed that Cosimo would simply die, and then his father would collapse with grief like a cake taken out of the oven too soon?

  Not my fault! How often Fenoglio had told himself that. Not my idea, not my fault! But it had happened all the same. As if some diabolical scribbler had intervened, going on with the story in his place and leaving him, Fenoglio, the creator of this whole world, with nothing but the role of a poor writer!

  Oh, stop that. You're not so poor, Fenoglio, he thought as he stopped beside a minstrel sitting among the tents, singing one of Fenoglio's own songs. No, he wasn't poor. The Laughing Prince, who was now the Prince of Sighs, would hear only Fenoglio's laments for his dead son, and Balbulus, the most famous illuminator far and wide, had to record the stories Fenoglio wrote for the prince's grandson, Jacopo, in his own hand, on the most costly of parchment. No, he really wasn't so poor!

  And moreover, didn't his words now seem to him better in a minstrel's mouth than pressed between the pages of a book, to lie there gathering dust? He liked to think of them as free, owing no one allegiance. They were too powerful to be given in printed form to any fool who might do God knew what with them. Looked at that way, it was reassuring to think that there were no printed books in this world. Books here were handwritten, which made them so valuable that only princes could afford them. Other folk had to store the words in their heads or listen to minstrels si
nging them.

  A little boy tugged at Fenoglio's sleeve. His tunic had holes in it, and his nose was running. "Inkweaver!" He brought out a mask from behind his back, the kind of mask worn by the actors, and quickly put it over his eyes. There were feathers, light brown and blue, stuck to the cracked leather. "Who am I, Inkweaver?"

  "Hmm!" Fenoglio wrinkled his lined brow as if he had to think hard about it.

  The mouth below the mask drooped in disappointment. "The Bluejay! I'm the Bluejay, of course!"

  "Of course!" Fenoglio pinched the child's red little nose.

  "Will you tell us another story about him today? Please!"

  "Maybe! I must admit, I imagine his mask as rather more impressive than yours. What do you think? Shouldn't you look for a few more feathers?"

  The boy took off his mask and looked at it crossly. "They're not very easy to find."

  "Take a look down by the river. Even blue jays aren't safe from the cats that go hunting there." He was about to move away, but the boy held on tight. Thin as the children of the strolling players might be, they had strong little hands.

  "Just one story. Please, Inkweaver!"

  Two other children joined him, a girl and a boy. They looked expectantly at Fenoglio. Ah, yes, the Bluejay stories. He'd always told good robber tales – his own grandchildren had liked them, too, back in the other world. But the stories he thought up here were much better. You heard them everywhere these days: The Incredible Deeds of the Bravest of Robbers, The Noble and Fearless Bluejay. Fenoglio still remembered the night he had made up the Bluejay. His hand had been trembling with rage as he wrote. "The Adderhead's caught another of the strolling players," the Black Prince had told him that night. "It was Crookback this time. They hanged him at noon yesterday."