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  on the face. But Ombra belonged to the Adderhead. His soldiers were everywhere. Suppose one of them recognized the man who had been their dark lord’s prisoner a few months ago?

  ‘Mo …’ The words were on the tip of Meggie’s tongue. She had often thought them over these last few days but never ventured to speak them aloud, because she wasn’t sure whether she really meant them. ‘Don’t you sometimes think we ought to go back? I do. Back to Elinor and Darius. I know I persuaded you to stay, but … but the Adderhead is still looking for you, and you go out at night with the robbers. Maybe Resa doesn’t notice, but I do! We’ve seen it all, the fairies and nymphs, the Wayless Wood and the glass men …’ It was so difficult to find the right words, words which could also explain to her what she herself was feeling. ‘Perhaps … perhaps it’s time. I know Fenoglio isn’t writing any more, but we could ask Orpheus. He’s jealous of you anyway. I’m sure he’d be glad if we went away and left him the only reader in this story!’

  Mo just looked at her, and Meggie knew his answer. They had changed places. Now he was the one who didn’t want to go back. On the table, with the coarsely-made paper and the knives provided by Fenoglio, lay a bluejay’s tail feather.

  ‘Come here!’ Mo perched on the edge of the table and drew her to his side, the way he had done countless times when she was a little girl. That was long ago, so long ago! As if it were in another story, and the Meggie in it was a different Meggie. But when Mo put his arm around her shoulders she was back in that story for a moment, feeling safe, protected, without the longing that now felt as if it had always lived in her heart … the longing for a boy with black hair and soot on his fingers.

  ‘I know why you want to go back,’ said Mo quietly. He might have changed, but he could still read her thoughts as easily as his own. ‘How long since Farid was last here? Five days? Six?’

  ‘Twelve,’ said Meggie in a miserable voice, and buried her face against his shoulder.

  ‘Twelve? What a faithless fellow. Shall we ask the Strong Man to tie a few knots in his skinny arms?’

  Meggie had to laugh. What would she do if someday Mo wasn’t there any more to make her laugh?

  ‘I haven’t seen it all yet, Meggie,’ he said. ‘I still haven’t seen Balbulus’s books, and they matter the most. Handwritten books, Meggie, illuminated books, not stained by the dust of endless years, not yellowing and trimmed again and again … no, the paint has only just dried on their pages, the bindings are supple. Who knows, maybe Balbulus will even let me watch him at work for a while. Imagine it! I’ve so often wished that I could see one of those tiny faces being painted on the parchment, just once, and the tendrils beginning to twine around an initial, and …’

  Meggie couldn’t help it, she had to smile. ‘All right, all right,’ she said, and put her hand over his mouth. ‘All right,’ she repeated. ‘We’ll ride to see Balbulus, but together.’

  As we used to, she added in her thoughts. Just you and me. And when Mo was about to protest she closed his mouth again. ‘You said it yourself! Back in the disused mine.’ The mine where Dustfinger had died … Meggie repeated Mo’s words in a soft voice. She seemed to remember every word that had been spoken in those days, as if someone had written them on her heart. ‘Show me the fairies, Meggie. And the water-nymphs. And the book illuminator in Ombra Castle. Let’s find out how fine his brushes really are.’

  Mo straightened up and began sorting out the tools lying on the table, as he always used to in his workshop in Elinor’s garden.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I expect those were my words,’ he said, without looking at her. ‘But the Adderhead’s brother-in-law rules Ombra now. What do you think your mother would say if I put you in such danger?’

  Her mother. Yes …

  ‘Resa doesn’t have to know. Please, Mo! You must take me with you! Or … or I’ll tell Gecko to tell the Black Prince what you’re planning. Then you’ll never get to Ombra!’

  He turned his face away, but Meggie heard him laughing softly. ‘That’s blackmail. Did I teach you how to be a blackmailer?’

  With a sigh, he turned back and looked at her for a long time. ‘Oh, very well,’ he said at last. ‘Let’s go to see the pens and brushes together. After all, we were together in the Adderhead’s Castle of Night. Ombra Castle can’t be so very dark by comparison, can it – although his brother-in-law rules it now?’

  He stroked his black sleeve. ‘I’m glad bookbinders here don’t wear a costume as yellow as glue,’ he said, as he put the book of Resa’s drawings into a saddlebag. ‘As for your mother – I’ll fetch her from Roxane’s after we’ve been to the castle, but don’t tell her anything about our expedition. I expect you’ve guessed why she feels sick in the mornings, haven’t you?’

  Meggie looked at him blankly – and then suddenly seemed to herself very, very stupid.

  ‘A brother or a sister? Which would you rather have?’ Mo looked so happy. ‘Poor Elinor. Did you know she’s been waiting for that news ever since we moved in with her? And now we’ve taken the baby away to another world with us.’

  A brother or a sister. For a while, when Meggie was little, she had pretended she had an invisible sister. She used to make her daisy tea and bake sand cakes.

  ‘But … how long have you two known?’

  ‘The baby comes from the same story as you do, if that’s what you mean. From Elinor’s house, to be precise. A flesh and blood child, not made of words, not made of ink and paper. Although … who knows? Perhaps we’ve only slipped out of one story and into another. What do you think?’

  Meggie looked around, saw the table, the tools, the feather – and Mo’s black clothes. Wasn’t all this made of words? Fenoglio’s words. The house, the farmyard, the sky above them, the trees, the rocks, the rain, the sun and the moon. Yes, what about us? Meggie thought. What are we made of? Resa, me, Mo and the baby on its way. She didn’t know the answer any more. Had she ever known it?

  It seemed as if the things around her were whispering of all that would be and all that had been, and when Meggie looked at her hands she felt as if she could read letters there, letters saying: and then a new child was born.

  5

  Fenoglio Feels Sorry for Himself

  ‘What is it?’ Harry asked shakily.

  ‘This? This is called a Pensieve,’ said Dumbledore. ‘I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind.’

  J.K. Rowling,

  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

  Fenoglio was lying in bed, as he had so often in these last few weeks. Or was it months? It didn’t matter. Morosely, he looked up at the fairies’ nests above his head. They had all been abandoned except one, which poured out a constant stream of chattering and giggling. It shimmered in iridescent colours like a patch of oil on water. Orpheus’s doing! The fairies in this world were blue, for heaven’s sake! It said so in black and white in his book. What did that idiot think he was doing, creating fairies in all the colours of the rainbow? And to make it even worse, the rainbow-coloured fairies drove away the blue ones wherever they went. Rainbow-coloured fairies, spotted brownies, and apparently there were some four-armed glass men around the place too. Fenoglio’s head ached at the mere thought of it. And not an hour passed when he didn’t think of it, and wonder what Orpheus was writing now in his fine big house, where he held court as if he were the most important man in Ombra!

  Fenoglio sent Rosenquartz to spy on the place almost every day, but it couldn’t be said that the glass man showed much talent for the job. Far from it. Fenoglio also suspected that Rosenquartz sometimes stole off to Seamstresses’ Alley to chase glass women instead of going to Orpheus’s house. Your fault, Fenoglio, he told himself grumpily, you should have written a little more sense of duty into their glass heads. Which is not, I am afraid, the only thing you omitted to do …

  He was reaching for the jug of red wine standing by his bed to comfort himself for this depressing f
act when a small, rather breathless figure appeared at the skylight above. At last. Rosenquartz’s limbs, usually pale pink, had turned carmine. Glass men couldn’t sweat. They just changed colour if they’d been making a strenuous effort, another rule that Fenoglio himself had made, although with the best will in the world he couldn’t now say why. But what did the foolish fellow think he was doing, clambering over the roof tops like that, with limbs that would smash if the stupid creature so much as fell off a table? A glass man certainly wasn’t the ideal spy, but then again their small size made them very inconspicuous – and, fragile as their limbs were, their transparency undoubtedly came in useful on secret reconnaissance missions.

  ‘Well, what’s he writing? Come on, out with it!’ Fenoglio picked up the jug and made his way over to the glass man barefoot. Rosenquartz demanded a thimbleful of red wine in return for his spying activities, which – as he never tired of emphasizing– were not among the standard duties of a glass man, and thus called for extra payment. The thimble of wine wasn’t too high a price, Fenoglio had to admit, but then so far Rosenquartz hadn’t found out very much, and in addition the wine disagreed with him. It made him even more contrary than usual – and had him belching for hours on end.

  ‘Can’t I even get my breath back before making my report?’ he snapped.

  That was Rosenquartz for you: contrary. And always so quick to take offence!

  ‘You’re breathing now, aren’t you? And you can obviously talk as well!’ Fenoglio plucked the glass man off the thread that he had fastened to the skylight so that Rosenquartz could let himself down from it, and carried him over to the table. He’d exchanged his writing desk for it in the marketplace.

  ‘I repeat,’ he said, giving Rosenquartz his thimbleful from the wine jug, ‘what is he writing?’

  Rosenquartz sniffed the wine and wrinkled his nose, which was now dark red. ‘Your wine is getting worse and worse!’ he observed in injured tones. ‘I ought to ask for some other kind of fee!’

  Annoyed, Fenoglio removed the thimble from his glass hands. ‘You haven’t even earned this one yet!’ he thundered. ‘Admit it, once again you haven’t found anything out. Not the least little thing.’

  The glass man folded his arms. ‘Oh, haven’t I?’

  It was enough to drive a man crazy. And you couldn’t even shake him for fear of breaking off an arm, or even his head.

  Looking grim, Fenoglio put the thimble back on the table.

  Rosenquartz dipped his finger in and licked the wine off it. ‘He’s written himself another treasure.’

  ‘What, yet again? For heaven’s sake, he gets through more silver than the Milksop!’ It always annoyed Fenoglio that he hadn’t thought of that idea himself. On the other hand, he’d have needed someone to read his words aloud and turn them into jingling coins, and he wasn’t sure whether Meggie or her father would have lent their tongues to something so prosaic. ‘Right. A treasure. What else?’

  ‘Oh, he’s certainly writing something, but he doesn’t seem very pleased with it. Did I tell you before that he has two glass men working for him now? You remember the four-armed one he was boasting of all over town?’ Rosenquartz lowered his voice as if his next words were too terrible to be spoken. ‘They say he threw him at the wall in a rage! Everyone in Ombra’s heard about it, but Orpheus pays well –’ Fenoglio ignored the glass man’s reproachful gaze as he made this remark – ‘so now he has these two brothers working for him, Jasper and Ironstone. The elder brother’s a monster! He—’

  ‘Two? What does that fool want two glass men for? Is he so busy mucking about with my story that one isn’t enough to sharpen his quills for him?’ Fenoglio felt anger turning his stomach, although it was good news that the four-armed glass man had come to grief. Perhaps it was beginning to dawn on Orpheus that his creations weren’t worth the paper he wrote them on.

  ‘Good. Tell me more.’

  Rosenquartz said nothing. He had folded his arms with an injured expression. He didn’t like being interrupted.

  ‘Good God, don’t be so coy about it!’ Fenoglio pushed the wine a little closer to him. ‘What else is he writing? Exotic new prey for the Milksop to hunt? Horned lapdogs for the ladies at court? Or maybe he’s decided my world could do with some spotted dwarves?’

  Rosenquartz dipped his finger in the wine again. ‘You’ll have to buy me new trousers,’ he remarked. ‘I tore these with all that horrible climbing about. They’re worn out anyway. It’s all right for you to go around however you please, but I didn’t come to live with humans just to be worse dressed than my cousins in the forest.’

  There were days when Fenoglio would gladly have snapped the glass man in half. ‘Trousers? Why would I be interested in your trousers?’ he asked tartly.

  Rosenquartz took a deep draught from the thimble – and spat the wine out on to his glass feet. ‘Pure vinegar!’ he said crossly. ‘Did I get bones thrown at me for this? Did I make my way through pigeon droppings and over broken tiles for this? Don’t look so sceptical. That Ironstone threw chicken bones at me when he caught me looking at Orpheus’s papers! He tried to push me out of the window!’

  Sighing, he wiped the wine off his feet. ‘Very well. There was something about horned wild boar, but I could hardly decipher it, and then something else about singing fish – pretty silly stuff, if you ask me – and quite a lot about the White Women. Four-Eyes is obviously collecting everything the strolling players sing about them …’

  ‘Yes, yes, all Ombra knows! Did it take you so long just to find that out?’ Fenoglio buried his face in his hands. The wine really wasn’t much good. His head seemed heavier every day. Damn it!

  Rosenquartz took another mouthful, even though he made a face as he swallowed it. That glass idiot! He’d have another bellyache by tomorrow, if not sooner. ‘Well, never mind that. This is my last report!’ he announced between belches. ‘I’m never going spying again! Not as long as that Ironstone works there. He’s as strong as a brownie, and they say he’s already broken the arms off at least two glass men!’

  ‘Yes, yes, all right. You’re a terrible spy anyway,’ muttered Fenoglio as he staggered back to his bed. ‘Admit it, you’re far keener to chase the glass women in Seamstresses’ Alley. Just don’t think I don’t know about it!’

  With a groan, he lay down on his straw mattress and stared up at the empty fairies’ nests. Was there any more wretched existence than the life of a writer who had run out of words? Was there a worse fate than having to watch someone else twist your own words, adding colourful touches – in very bad taste – to the world you’d made? No room in the castle for him now as court poet, no chest full of fine clothes, no horse of his own – no, he was back in the little room in Minerva’s attic. And it was a marvel that she’d taken him in again, considering that his words and songs had made sure she had no husband now, and no father for her children. All Ombra knew what part Fenoglio had played in Cosimo’s war. It was amazing they hadn’t hauled him out of bed yet and killed him, but no doubt the women of Ombra had their hands too full keeping starvation at bay. ‘Where else would you go?’ was all Minerva had said when she opened her door to find him standing there. ‘They don’t need a poet up at the castle now. I suppose they’ll be singing the Piper’s songs in future.’ And there, of course, she was right. The Milksop loved the silver-nosed man’s bloodthirsty verses – when he wasn’t composing a few poorly rhymed lines himself, all about his hunting prowess.

  Luckily, at least Violante sent for Fenoglio now and then, never guessing, of course, that he brought her words stolen from poets in another world. But Her Ugliness didn’t pay particularly well. The Adderhead’s own daughter was poorer than the new governor’s court ladies, so Fenoglio also worked as a scribe in the marketplace, which naturally had Rosenquartz telling anyone who would listen how low his master had sunk. But who paid any attention to a glass man’s chirping little voice? Let the silly transparent fellow talk! Fenoglio had forsworn words for ever, no matter how in
vitingly Rosenquartz laid a blank piece of parchment on the table every evening. He was never going to write a single word again – except those he stole from others, and the dry, bloodless twaddle he had to put down on paper or parchment for wills, sales agreements and similar stuff. The time for living words was over. They were deceitful, murderous, bloodsucking monsters black as ink and bringing nothing but misfortune. He wasn’t going to help them do it any more, not he. A walk through the streets of Ombra, empty of men these days, and he needed a whole jug of wine to keep off the gloom that had deprived him of any zest for life since Cosimo’s defeat.

  Beardless boys, decrepit old men, cripples and beggars, travelling merchants who hadn’t yet heard that there wasn’t a copper coin to be made in Ombra now, or who did business with those leeches up in the castle – that was what you saw these days in the once lively streets. Women with eyes reddened from weeping, fatherless children, men from beyond the forest hoping to find a young widow or an abandoned workshop here … and soldiers. Yes, there were plenty of soldiers in Ombra. They took what they wanted, day after day, night after night. No house was safe from them. They called it compensation for war crimes, and they had a point. After all, Cosimo had been the attacker – Cosimo, his most beautiful and innocent creation (or so, at least, Fenoglio had thought). Now he lay dead in a sarcophagus in the crypt beneath the castle. Minerva claimed that Violante went down there every day, officially to mourn her dead husband but really – so people whispered – to meet her informers. They said Her Ugliness didn’t even have to pay her spies. Hatred of the Milksop brought them to her by the dozen. Of course. You had only to look at the fellow – that perfumed, pigeon-breasted hangman, governor only by the grace of his brother-in-law, the Adderhead. If you painted a face on an egg it would bear a striking resemblance to him. And no, Fenoglio hadn’t made him up. Once again, the story had produced the Milksop entirely by itself.

  As his first official act, he had ordered a document to be hung up by the castle gates, listing the punishments that would be meted out in Ombra for various crimes from now on – with pictures, so that those who couldn’t read would know what threatened them too. The loss of an eye for this offence, the loss of a hand for that one, whippings, the pillory, branding, blinding. Fenoglio looked away whenever he passed that notice, and when he was out with Minerva’s children he put his hand over their eyes if they had to cross the marketplace, where most of the punishments were inflicted (although Ivo always wanted to peek). Of course they could still hear the screams.

  Luckily there weren’t too many offenders left to be punished in this city without men. Many of the women had left with their children, travelling far away from the Wayless Wood that no longer protected them from the prince who ruled on the other side of it, the immortal Adderhead.

  And yes, Fenoglio thought, that had undoubtedly been his idea. But more and more rumours were being heard all the time, whispering that the Adderhead took little pleasure in his immortality.

  There was a knock at the door. Who could that be? Oh, the devil, was he forgetting everything these days? Of course! Where was the damn note that crow had brought yesterday evening? Rosenquartz had been scared to death when he’d suddenly seen the bird perching on the skylight. Mortimer was coming to Ombra. Today! And wasn’t he, Fenoglio, supposed to meet him outside the castle gates? This visit was a reckless notion. There were ‘Wanted’ posters up for the Bluejay on every street corner. Luckily the picture on them wasn’t in the least like Mortimer, but all the same … Another knock.

  Rosenquartz stayed where he was, beside his thimble. A glass man wasn’t even any good at opening doors! Fenoglio felt sure Orpheus didn’t have to open his door for himself. Apparently his new bodyguard was so large he could hardly get through the city gate. Bodyguard! If I ever do write again, thought Fenoglio, I’ll get Meggie to read me a giant here, and we’ll see what the calf’s-head has to say about that.

  The knocking was getting rather impatient.

  ‘Coming, coming!’ Fenoglio stumbled over an empty wine jug as he looked for his trousers. Laboriously he climbed into them. How his bones ached! The hell with old age. Why hadn’t he written a story in which people were young for ever? Because it would be boring, he thought as he hopped over to the door, one leg in the scratchy trousers. Deadly boring.

  ‘Sorry, Mortimer!’ he called. ‘The glass man forgot to wake me up at