"Have you heard the latest, Inkweaver?" The Prince stroked his bear's black muzzle. "The Adderhead has put a price on the Bluejay's head."
"The Bluejay?" Fenoglio swallowed his wine the wrong way, and the physician thumped him on the back so hard that he spilled the hot drink over his fingers. "That's a good one!" he gasped, once he had his breath back. "Well, don't let anyone say words are just noise and hot air! The Adder will have to search a long time for that particular robber!"
How oddly they were looking at him! As if they knew more than he did. But more about what?
"Haven't you heard yet, Inkweaver?" said Sootbird quietly. "Your songs seem to be coming true! The Adderhead's tax-gatherers have already been robbed twice by a man in a bird mask, and one of his game wardens, a man famous for enjoying every kind of cruelty, is said to have been found dead in the forest with a feather in his mouth. Guess what bird the feather came from?"
Fenoglio glanced incredulously at the Prince, but he was looking at the fire, stirring the embers with a stick.
"But… but that's astonishing!" cried Fenoglio – and then hastily lowered his voice as he saw the others looking anxiously around. "Astonishing news, I mean!" he went on in an undertone. "Whatever's going on – well, I'll write another song this minute! Suggest something! Go on! What would you like the Bluejay to do next?"
The Prince smiled, but the physician looked at Fenoglio with scorn. "You talk as if it were all a game, Inkweaver!" he said.
"You sit in your own room, scribbling a few words on paper, but whoever's playing the part of your robber risks his neck, for he's certainly made of flesh and blood, not just words!"
"Yes, but no one knows his face, because the Bluejay wears a mask. Very clever of you, Inkweaver. How is the Adderhead to know what face to look for? A mask like that is very useful. Anyone can wear it." It was the actor speaking. Baptista. Yes, of course, that was his name. Did I make him up? Fenoglio wondered. Well, never mind; no one knew more about masks than Baptista, perhaps because his face was disfigured by pockmarks. Many of the actors got him to make them leather masks showing laughter or tears.
"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."