Fenoglio opened his mouth – and closed it again, helplessly. His head was full of a thousand questions. How did she get here? What about Dustfinger? Where was her father? And what about Capricorn? Was he dead? Had her plan worked? If so, why was Basta still alive? The questions drowned each other out like humming insects, and Fenoglio dared not ask any of them while the Black Prince stood there, never taking his eyes off him.
“I see you know these two,” he remarked.
Fenoglio just nodded. Yes, where had he seen the boy sitting beside Meggie before? Wasn’t he with Dustfinger on that strange day when, for the first time, he met one of his own creations face to face?
“Er . . they’re relations of mine,” he stammered. What a pitiful lie for a storyteller!
The Prince’s mocking eyes sparkled. “Relations .. well, imagine that! I must say they don’t look very like you.”
Meggie unwound her arms from Fenoglio’s neck and stared at the Prince.
“Meggie,” said Fenoglio, “may I introduce the Black Prince?” With a smile, the Prince made her a bow.
“The Black Prince! Oh yes.” Meggie repeated his name almost reverently. “And that’s his bear!
Farid, come here. Look!” Farid, of course. Fenoglio remembered him now. Meggie had often talked about him. The boy stood up, but not before hastily swallowing the very last of the soup in his bowl. He kept well behind Meggie, at a safe distance from the bear.
“She absolutely insisted on coming!” he said, wiping his greasy mouth on his arm. “Really! I didn’t want to bring her, but she’s as obstinate as a camel.”
Meggie was obviously about to make some sharp retort, but Fenoglio put his arm around her shoulders. “My dear boy,” he told Farid, “you have no idea how glad I am to see Meggie here! I could almost say she’s all I needed in this world to make me happy!”
He hastily took his leave of the Prince and drew Meggie and Farid away with him. “Come with me!” he whispered, as they made their way past the tents. “We have a great deal to talk about, a very great deal, but we can do it better in my room without strange ears to overhear us. It’s getting late, anyway, and the guard at the gate won’t let us back into the city after midnight.”
Meggie just nodded abstractedly and looked at the hurry and bustle all around her, wide-eyed, but Farid pulled his arm away from Fenoglio’s grasp. “I can’t come with you. I have to look for Dustfinger!”
Fenoglio looked disbelievingly at him. So it was really true? Dustfinger was “Yes, he’s back,” said Meggie. “The women said Farid might find him at the house of the minstrel woman he once lived with. She has a farm up there on the hill.”
“Minstrel woman?” Fenoglio looked the way Meggie’s finger was pointing. The hill she meant was only a black outline in the moonlit night. Of course! Roxane. He remembered her. Was she really as wonderful as he had described her?
The boy was shifting impatiently from foot to foot. “I have to go,” he told Meggie. “Where can I find you?”
“In Cobblers’ and Saddlers’ Alley,” replied Fenoglio, answering for Meggie. “Just ask for Minerva’s house.”
Farid nodded. He went on looking at Meggie.
“It’s not a good idea to start a journey by night,” said Fenoglio, although he had a feeling that this boy wasn’t interested in his advice. “The roads here aren’t what you’d call safe. Particularly not at night. There are robbers, vagabonds .. ”
“I can look after myself.” Farid took a knife from his belt. “Take care, Meggie.” He reached for her hand, then turned abruptly and disappeared among the strolling players. It did not escape Fenoglio that Meggie turned to look back at him several times.
“Heavens, poor lad!” he growled, shooing a couple of children out of the way as they came flocking up to beg him for a story again. “He’s in love with you, am I right?”
“Oh, don’t!” Meggie let go of his hand, but he had made her smile. “All right, I’ll hold my tongue!
Does your father know you’re here?”
That was the wrong question. Her guilty conscience was plain to see in her face.
“Dear me! Very well, you must tell me all about it. How you came here, what all this talk of Basta and Dustfinger means, everything! You’ve grown! Or have I shrunk? My God, Meggie, I’m so glad you’re here! Now we can get this story back under control! With my words and your voice –”
“Under control? What do you mean?” She suspiciously examined his face. She had often seen him look just like that in the past, when they were Capricorn’s prisoners – his brow wrinkled, his eyes as clear as if they could look straight into your heart. But this wasn’t the place for explanations.
“Later!” whispered Fenoglio and drew her on. “Later, Meggie. There are too many ears here.
Damn it, where’s my torchbearer now?”
Chapter 15 – Strange Sounds on a Strange Night
How silent lies the world
Within fair twilight furled,
Bringing such sweet relief!
A quiet room resembling,
Where, without fear or trembling,
You sleep away day’s grief.
– Matthias Claudius, Evening Song
Later, when Meggie tried to remember the way they went to Fenoglio’s room, she could see only a few blurred pictures in her mind’s eye – a guard who tried to bar their way with his spear, but sullenly let them pass when he recognized Fenoglio, dark alleys down which they followed a boy with a torch, then a steep flight of steps, creaking underfoot as it led them up the side of a gray wall. She felt so dizzy with weariness as she followed Fenoglio up these steps that he felt quite anxious and took her arm a couple of times.
“I think we’d better wait until morning to tell each other what’s happened since we last met,” he said, propelling her into his room. “I’ll ask Minerva to bring you up a straw mattress later, but you’ll sleep in my bed tonight. Three days and nights in the Wayless Wood. Inky infernos, I’d probably have died of sheer fright!”
“Farid had his knife,” murmured Meggie. The knife had indeed been a comfort when they were sleeping in the treetops by night, and those growling, grating noises came up to them from below. Farid had always kept it ready at hand. “And when he saw ghosts,” she said sleepily, as Fenoglio lit a lamp, “he made a fire.” “Ghosts? There aren’t any ghosts in this world, or at least none that I wrote into it. What did you eat all that time?” Meggie groped her way over to the bed.
It looked very inviting, even if it was only a straw mattress and a couple of coarse blankets.
“Berries,” she murmured. “Lots of berries, and the bread we took with us from Elinor’s kitchen –
and rabbits, but Farid caught those.”
“Good heavens above!” Fenoglio shook his head, incredulous.
It was really good to see his wrinkled face again, but right now all Meggie really wanted to do was sleep. She took off her boots, crept under the scratchy blankets, and stretched out her aching legs. “What gave you the crazy idea of reading yourself and Farid into the Wayless Wood?
Why not arrive here? Dustfinger must have told the boy a few things about this world.”
