"As if you didn't know!" said one of them, a tall, thin man shaken by a dry cough. "The Adderhead's looking for him. He'll send his men-at-arms here. He'll have us all hanged for hiding him."
"I'm telling you again!" Resa took Mo's hand and held it very tight. "He's not a robber or anyone else out of your stories! We've only been here a few days! My husband is a bookbinder, that's his trade, he isn't anything else!"
The way they were looking at her!
"I've seldom heard a worse lie!" The two-fingered man's mouth twisted. He had an unpleasant voice. Judging by his brightly patterned clothing, he was one of the players who put on comic shows in marketplaces, loud, coarse farces to make the spectators laugh all their troubles away. "What would a bookbinder be doing in Capricorn's old fortress in the middle of the Wayless Wood? People never go there of their own free will, what with the White Women and the other horrors haunting the ruins. And why would Mortola bother with a bookbinder? Why would she shoot him with some witchy weapon no one's ever heard of before?"
The others nodded agreement – and took another step toward Mo. What was she to do? What could she say? What use was it having a voice if no one would listen to her? "Don't let it worry you, not being able to speak," Dustfinger had often told her. "People tend not to listen, anyway, right?"
Perhaps she could call for help, but who was going to come? Cloud-Dancer had set off early in the morning with Nettle, when the leaves had still been tinged red by the light of the rising sun, and the women who brought Resa food and sometimes kept watch beside Mo for her, to let her get a few hours' sleep, had gone down to the nearby river with the children. There were only a few old men outside the cave, and they had come here because they were tired of other people and were waiting to die. They weren't likely to help her.
"We won't hand him over to the Adderhead; we'll just take him back to where Nettle found you. To that accursed fortress." It was the man with the cough again. He had a raven sitting on his shoulder. Resa knew such ravens from the days when she had sat in marketplaces writing documents and petitions – their owners trained them to steal a few extra coins while they were performing their own tricks.
"The songs say that the Bluejay protects the Motley Folk," the raven's owner went on. "And those he's supposed to have killed threatened our women and children. We appreciate that, we've all sung the songs about him, but we're not ready to be strung up for his sake."
They'd made up their minds long ago. They were going to take Mo away. Resa wanted to shout at them, but she simply had no strength left for shouting. "It will kill him if you take him back there!" Her voice was hardly louder than a whisper.
They didn't care about that; Resa saw it in their eyes. Why should they? she thought. What would she do if the children out there were hers? She remembered a visit that the Adderhead had paid to Capricorn's fortress, to see an enemy of theirs executed. Since that day she had known what someone who enjoyed inflicting pain on others looked like.
Before Resa could stop her, the woman with the clawlike fingers kneeled down beside Mo and pushed up his sleeve. "There, see that?" she said triumphantly. "He has the scar, just as the songs describe it – where the Adder's dogs bit him."
Resa hauled her away so violently that the woman fell at her companions' feet. "Those dogs weren't the Adderhead's. They belonged to Basta!"
The name made them start nervously, but all the same they didn't leave. Sootbird helped the woman to her feet, and Twofingers went closer to Mo. "Come on!" he told the others.
Let's pick him up."
They all joined him; only the fire-eater hesitated.
"Oh please, believe me!" Resa pushed their hands away. "How can you think I'd lie to you? What thanks would that be forall your help?"
No one took any notice of her. Twofingers pulled away theblanket that Nettle had given them to cover Mo. It was cold in the cave at night.
"Well, fancy that! Visiting our guests. How kind of you."
How they spun around! Like naughty children caught in the act. A man was standing in the entrance to the cave. For a moment Resa thought it was Dustfinger and wondered, in bewilderment, how Cloud-Dancer could possibly have brought him so quickly. But then she saw that the man the six of them were staring at so guiltily was black. Everything about him was black: his long hair, his skin, his eyes, even his clothes. And beside him, almost a head taller, stood a bear as black as his master.
"These must be the visitors Nettle told me about, I expect?" The bear ducked his head, grunting, as he followed the man into the cave. "She says they know an old friend of mine, a very good friend. Dustfinger. Of course, you've all heard of him, haven't you? And I'm sure you know that his friends have always been my friends, too. The same applies to his enemies, of course."
The six moved aside with some haste, as if to give the stranger a better view of Resa. The fire-eater laughed nervously. "Why, what are you doing here, Prince?"
"Oh, this and that. Why are there no guards outside? Do you think the brownies have lost their taste for our provisions?" He walked slowly toward them. His bear dropped to all fours and lumbered after him, puffing and snorting, as if he didn't like the cramped cave.
Prince! They called him "Prince." Of course. The Black
Prince! Fenoglio's book had told Resa his story, and she had heard his name in the Ombra market, too, from the maids in Capricorn's fortress, even from Capricorn's men. Yet she had never seen him face-to-face. When Fenoglio's story had first swallowed her up he had been a knife-thrower, a bear-tamer… and Dustfinger's friend since the two of them had been barely half as old as Meggie was now.
The others drew aside as he stepped up to them with his bear, but the Prince ignored them. He looked down at Resa. There were three knives in his brightly embroidered belt: slender, shiny knives, although no strolling player was allowed to carry weapons. "That's to make it easier to skewer them," Dustfinger had often said mockingly.
"Welcome to the Secret Camp," said the Black Prince, his glance going to Mo's bloodstained bandages. "Dustfinger's friends are always welcome here – even if it may not look like it just now." He looked ironically at the others standing around there. Only the two-fingered man defiantly returned his gaze, but then he, too, bent his head.
The Prince went on looking down at Resa. "Where did you meet Dustfinger?"
What was she to say? In another world? The bear was sniffing the bread lying beside her. His hot breath, the breath of a beast of prey, made her shudder. Tell the truth, Resa, she thought. You don't have to say what world it happened in.
"I worked as a maid for the fire-raisers for several years," she said. "I ran away, but a snake bit me. Dustfinger found me and helped me. I'd have died but for him." Yes, he hid me, she continued the story in her mind, but Basta and the others soon found me, and they half killed Dustfinger.
"What about your husband? I hear he's not one of us." The black eyes explored her face. They seemed to be well versed in detecting lies.
"She says he's a bookbinder, but we know better!" The two-fingered man spat out his words contemptuously.
"So what do you know?" The Prince looked at them, and they fell silent.
"He is a bookbinder! Give him paper, glue, and leather, and once he's better he'll show you." Don't cry, Resa, she told herself. You've cried quite enough these last few days.
The thin man coughed again.
"Very well, you heard her." The Prince crouched down beside her on the ground. "These two stay here until Dustfinger arrives to confirm their story. He'll soon tell us if this is only a harmless bookbinder or that robber you're always going on about. Dustfinger knows your husband, too, doesn't he?"
"Oh yes," replied Resa softly. "He's known him longer than he's known me."
Mo turned his head and whispered Meggie's name.
"Meggie? Is that your name?" The Prince pushed the bear's muzzle away as the animal sniffed the bread again.
"It's our daughter's name."
"You have a daughter? How old is she?" The bear rolled on his back for his belly to be scratched, as if he were a dog.
"Thirteen."
"Thirteen? Almost the same age as Dustfinger's daughter."
Dustfinger's daughter? He'd never said anything to her about any daughter.
"So why are you all still standing around?" the Prince snapped at the others. "Bring fresh water! Can't you see he's feverish?"
The two women hurried away, relieved, or so it seemed to
Resa, to have a good reason to leave the cave. But the men stood around indecisively.
"Suppose it really is him, though, Prince?" asked the thin man. "And suppose the Adderhead hears about him before Dustfinger gets here?" He coughed so hard that he had to press his hand to his chest.
"Suppose he's who? The Bluejay? Nonsense! There's probably no such man, and even if there is, since when have we given up people who are on our own side? And suppose the songs are true, and he's protected your women and your children…"
"Songs are never true." The two-fingered man's eyebrows were as dark as if he had blackened them with soot. "He's probably no better than any other highwayman, a murderer greedy for gold, nothing more…"
"Perhaps, or perhaps not," retorted the Prince. "I see only an injured man and a woman asking for our help."
The men did not reply, but the glances they cast Mo were still hostile.
"Now get out, and hurry up about it!" the Prince said angrily. "How's he to get better with you staring at him like that? Or do you think his wife likes your ugly mugs? Go and make yourselves useful, there's plenty of work outside."
And they did go, sullenly slouching away like men who had not done what they came to do.
"He isn't the Bluejay!" Resa whispered, when they had left.
"Very likely not!" The Prince stroked his bear's round ears. "But I'm afraid our friends out there are convinced he is. And the Adder has put a high price on the Bluejay's head."
"A high price?" Resa looked at the entrance to the cave. Two of the men were still standing there. "They'll come back," she whispered, "and try to take him away after all."
But the Black Prince shook his head.
"Not while I'm here. And I'll stay until Dustfinger arrives. Nettle said you'd sent him a message, so I expect he'll soon be here to tell them you're not lying, won't he?"
The women came back with a basin of water. Resa dipped a scrap of fabric in it to cool Mo's brow. The pregnant woman leaned over her and put a few dried flowers in her lap. "Here," she whispered. "Put this on his heart. It brings luck."
Resa stroked the dried flower heads. "They obey you," she said to the Prince, when the women had gone again. "Why?"
"Oh, because they've chosen me as their leader," replied the Prince. "And because I'm a very good knife-thrower."