Farid went red, but he nodded. Dustfinger looked at his face with amusement. "What's all this? Did something besides Cosimo's return from the dead happen on the evening when you went to see her?"
"None of your business!" muttered Farid, blushing more deeply than ever.
A farmer, swearing profusely, was driving a cart laden with barrels toward the city gates. The oxen blocked the gateway, and the guards impatiently grabbed the reins. Dustfinger took this chance to get himself and Farid past them. "Bring Meggie here, all the same," he said as they parted on the other side of the gates. "And don't get so lovesick you lose your way."
He watched the boy until he had disappeared among the houses. No wonder Roxane thought Farid was his son. Sometimes he suspected his own heart of thinking the same.
34. CLOUD-DANCERS MESSAGE
Yes, my love,
This world of ours bleeds
With more pain than just the pain of love.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz, "The Love I Gave You Once,"
An Elusive Dawn
There could hardly be a worse smell in the world than the odor rising from the dyers' vats. The acrid stench rose to Dustfinger's nostrils even as he was making his way along the alley where the smiths plied their trade – tinkers mending pots and pans, blacksmiths shoeing horses, and on the other side of the road the armorers, who were considered superior to the other smiths and were arrogant as befitted their status. The sound of all the hammers beating on red-hot iron was almost as bad as the smell in the alley. The dyers had their hovels in the most remote part of Ombra; their stinking vats were never tolerated in the better parts of any town. But just as Dustfinger was approaching the gate separating their quarter from the rest of Ombra, a man coming out of an armorer's workshop collided with him.
The Piper. He was easily recognizable by his silver nose, although Dustfinger could remember the days when he had a nose of flesh and blood. Just your luck again, Dustfinger, he told himself, turning his head aside and trying to slip past Capricorn's minstrel quickly. Of all the men in this world, that bloodhound has to cross your path. He was beginning to hope that the Piper hadn't noticed who he had bumped into, but just as he thought he was safely past him the silver-nosed man seized his arm and swung him around.
"Dustfinger!" he said in the strained voice that had once sounded so different. It had always reminded Dustfinger of oversweet cakes. Capricorn had loved to listen to it more than any other voice, and the same was true of the songs it sang. The Piper wrote wonderful songs about fire-raising and murder, so wonderful that they almost made you believe there was no nobler occupation than cutting throats. Did he sing the same songs for the Adderhead – or were they too coarse-grained for the silver halls of the Castle of Night?
"Well, fancy that! I'm inclined to think just about everyone's coming back from the dead these days," said the Piper, while the two men-at-arms with him looked covetously at the weapons displayed outside the armorers' workshops. "I really thought Basta had sliced you up and then buried you years ago. Did you know he's back, too? He and the old woman, Mortola. I'm sure you remember her. The Adderhead was delighted to welcome her to his castle. You know how highly he always thought of her deadly concoctions."
Dustfinger hid the fear pervading his heart behind a smile. "Why, if it isn't the Piper!" he said. "Your new nose suits you much better than the old one. It tells everyone who your new master is and shows that it belongs to a minstrel who can be bought for silver."
The Piper's eyes had not changed. They were pale gray like the sky on a rainy day, and they stared at him with as fixed a gaze as the eyes of a bird. Dustfinger knew from Roxane how he had lost his nose, cut off by a man whose daughter he had seduced with his dark songs.
"You always did have a dangerously sharp tongue, Dustfinger," he said. "It's about time someone finally cut it out. Indeed, wasn't that tried once, and you got away only because the Black Prince and his bear protected you? Are they still looking after you? I don't see them anywhere." He looked around, his eye searching the scene.
Dustfinger cast a quick glance at the two men-at-arms. They were both at least a head taller than him. What would Farid say if he could see me now? he wondered. That I ought to have had him with me so that he could keep his vow? The Piper had a sword, of course, and his hand was already on the hilt. He obviously thought as little as the Black Prince did of the law forbidding strolling players to carry weapons. A good thing the smiths are hammering so loudly, thought Dustfinger, or no doubt everyone would hear my heart beating with fear.
"I must be on my way," he said, as casually as possible. "Give Basta my regards when you see him, and as for burying me, he hasn't done it yet." He turned – it was worth a try – but the Piper held his arm tightly.
"Of course, and there's your marten, too!" he hissed.
Dustfinger felt Jink's damp muzzle against his ear. It's the wrong marten, he thought, trying to calm his racing heart. The wrong marten. But had Fenoglio ever mentioned Gwin's name when he staged Dustfinger's death? With the best will in the world he couldn't remember. I'll have to ask Basta to give me back the book so that I can look it up, he thought bitterly. He signaled to Jink to get back into the backpack. Better not think about that.
The Piper was still holding his arm. He wore pale leather gloves, finely stitched like a lady's. "The Adderhead will soon be here," he told Dustfinger in an undertone. "He didn't care at all for the news of his son-in-law's strange return to life. He thinks the whole business is a wicked masquerade designed to cheat his defenseless grandson of the throne."
Four guards came down the street wearing the Laughing Prince's colors: Cosimo's colors now. Dustfinger had never in his life been so glad to see armed men. The Piper let go of his arm.
"We'll meet again soon," he hissed in his noseless voice.
"I daresay," was all that Dustfinger replied. Then he quickly pushed between a couple of ragged boys standing there and staring wide-eyed at a sword, made his way past a woman showing her battered cooking pot to one of the smiths, and disappeared through the dyers' gate.
No one followed him. No one seized him and hauled him back. You have too many enemies, Dustfinger, he thought. He didn't slow down until he came to the tubs from which the vapors of the liquid muck used by the dyers rose. The same miasma hung over the stream that carried the stinking brew under the city wall and down to the river. No wonder the river-nymphs were found only above the place where it flowed into the main waterway.
In the second house Dustfinger tried, they told him where to find Nettle. The woman he had been sent to had eyes red with weeping and was carrying a baby. Without a word, she beckoned him into her house, if a house it could be called. Nettle was bending over a little girl with red cheeks and glazed eyes. At the sight of Dustfinger she straightened up, looking grumpy.
"Roxane asked me to bring you this!"
She glanced briefly at the root, compressed her narrow lips, and nodded.
"What's wrong with the girl?" he asked. The child's mother had sat down by the bed again.
Nettle shrugged. She seemed to be wearing the same moss-green garment as she did ten years ago – and obviously she still liked him as little as ever.
"A high fever, but she'll survive," she replied. "It's not half as bad as the one that killed your daughter… while her father was off jaunting around the world!" She looked him in the face as she said that, as if to make sure that her words went home, but Dustfinger knew how to hide pain. He was almost as good at hiding pain as he was at playing with fire.