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  ‘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.

  28

  The Wrong Words

  If all you have of me is your red hair

  and my whole-hearted laughter

  what else in me was good or ill may fare

  like faded flowers drifting in the water.

  Paul Zech, after François 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.

  ‘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 mouldered 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 any more. 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 silence. ‘But you really couldn’t come back!’

  ‘No … but you must admit your story didn’t sound very likely.’

  ‘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.

  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 market place 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 market place.

  ‘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.

  Then he rode his horse straight into the crowd.

  The silence that had been weighing down so heavily on the market place 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 market place 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 market place 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?’

  ‘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 rather 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 her skirt up 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 tear-stained face. The clank of armour was still echoing in her ears, the snorting and whinnying, the screaming – the screams of people who wore no armour.

  ‘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 her skirt down 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 Adderhead! 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 market place. And the Adderhead’s banner was already being hoisted above the castle.

  30

  Cosimo
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  ‘Yes,’ said Abhorsen. ‘I am a necromancer, but not of the common kind. Where others of the art raise the dead, I lay them back to rest …’

  Garth Nix,

  Sabriel

  It was dark when Fenoglio finally put his pen aside. All was still in the alley below. It had been quiet there all day, as if the people had fled indoors like mice hiding from the cat.

  ‘Have you finished?’ asked Meggie, as Fenoglio leaned back and rubbed his weary eyes. Her voice sounded faint and afraid, not like a voice that could awaken a prince and bring him to life, but after all, she had already made a monster rise from Fenoglio’s words, even if that was long ago – and Mo, not she, had read the very last words.

  Mo. After what had happened in the market place, she missed him more than ever.

  ‘Yes, I’ve finished!’ Fenoglio sounded as pleased with himself as he had in Capricorn’s village, when he and Meggie between them first planned a way to alter his story. All had ended well that time, but now … now she was in the story herself. Did that make Fenoglio’s words stronger or weaker? Meggie had told him about Orpheus’s rule – that it was better to use only words that were in the story already – but Fenoglio had just dismissed the idea. ‘Nonsense. Remember how we wrote a happy ending before for the Steadfast Tin Soldier? Did I stop to make sure I was using