Inkdeath

30. SOOTBIRD'S FIRE

Fenoglio was happy. He was happy even though Ivo and Despina had taken it into their heads to drag him off to the marketplace, where Sootbird was giving yet another show. The criers had been announcing it for days, and naturally Minerva wasn't letting the children go alone. The Milksop had had a platform specially made so that everyone could watch his court fire-eater's incompetent performance. Did they hope such things would make the people forget that the Fire-Dancer was back? Never mind, not even Sootbird could cast a shadow over Fenoglio's cheerful mood. His heart hadn't been so light since he had set off with Cosimo for the Castle of Night. And he wasn't going to think of what had happened after that; no, that chapter was closed. His story had struck up a new song, and whose doing was that? His own! Who else had brought the Bluejay into the story, the man who had run rings around the Piper and the Milksop and brought the Fire-Dancer back from the dead? What a character! Orpheus's creations were grotesque by comparison: garishly colored fairies, dead unicorns, dwarves with a blue tinge to their hair. Yes, that Calf's-Head could bring such creatures into being, but only he, Fenoglio, could think up men like the Black Prince and the Bluejay. Well – he had to admit that only Mortimer had made the Bluejay flesh and blood. But the words had come first, all the same, and it was he who had written them, every single one!

"Ivo! Despina!" Where were they, damn it? It was easier to catch Orpheus's rainbow-colored fairies than those children! Hadn't he told them not to run too far ahead? Children were swarming all over the street, coming out of all the houses to forget, at least for an hour or so, the burdens the world had laid on their frail shoulders. It was no fun being a child in these dark times. The boys had become men too young, and the girls found their mothers' sadness hard to bear.

At first Minerva hadn't wanted to let Ivo and Despina go. There were too many soldiers in town, and too much work waiting at home, but Fenoglio had won her over, although he didn't like the thought of the stink that Sootbird would be spreading again. On a day when he was so happy, however, he wanted the children to be happy, too, and while Sootbird put on his pathetic show he would simply dream of Dustfinger breathing fire in Ombra's marketplace in the near future. Or he would imagine the Bluejay riding into Ombra and chasing the Milksop out of the gates like a mangy dog, knocking the silver nose off the Piper's face, and then, together with the Black Prince, founding a realm of justice, ruled by the people! Or perhaps not entirely. This world hadn't

reached that point yet, but never mind. It would be wonderful, it would move all hearts, and he, Fenoglio, had set the story on the course that would save it when he had written the first song about the Bluejay. In the end he'd done everything right! Well, perhaps Cosimo had been a mistake, but where would the excitement be in a story if it wasn't dark from time to time?

"Inkweaver! Where are you?" Ivo was waving to him impatiently. Did the boy think an old man could just wriggle like an eel through this tide of children's bodies? Despina turned and smiled in relief when Fenoglio waved to her. But then her little head disappeared among all the others again.

"Ivo!" called Fenoglio. "Ivo, keep an eye on your sister, can't you?

Good heavens, he'd never known how many children there were in Ombra! Many of them were dragging their smaller brothers and sisters along after them as they flocked to the marketplace. Fenoglio was the only grown man to be seen, and few of the mothers had come. No doubt most of the children had stolen away on the sly – from workshops and stores, from housework or the stables. They had even come from the surrounding farms in their poor shabby clothes. Their clear voices were like the twittering of a flock of birds among the buildings. It was unlikely that Sootbird had ever had such an excited audience before.

He was already standing on the platform in the black-and-red costume worn by fire-eaters, but his clothes weren't patched together from rags like those of his brothers in the trade. They were made of the finest velvet, as befitted a prince's favorite. His ever-smiling face gleamed with the grease he used to protect it from the flames, but by now the fire had licked it so often that it looked like the masks Battista made from leather.

Sootbird was smiling again now as he looked down on the sea of little faces, crowding around the platform as eagerly as if he could release them from all their troubles, from hunger, from their mothers' sadness, and from missing their dead fathers. Fenoglio saw Ivo at the very front, but where was Despina? Ah, over there, right beside her big brother. She waved excitedly to him, and he waved back as he joined the mothers waiting outside the houses. He heard them whispering about the Bluejay, and how he'd protect their children now that he had brought the Fire-Dancer back from the dead. Yes, the sun was shining on Ombra again. Hope was back, and he, Fenoglio, had given it a name. The Bluejay…

Sootbird took off his cloak, which was so heavy and expensive that the price of it could surely have fed all the children crowded there in the marketplace for months. A brownie climbed up to him on the platform, hung about with bags full of the alchemists' powders that the inept fire-eater fed to the flames to make them obey him. Sootbird still feared the fire. You could see that clearly. Perhaps he feared it now more than ever, and Fenoglio felt uncomfortable, watching him begin his show. Flames sprayed and hissed, breathing out poison-green smoke that made the children cough. The fire formed shapes: menacing fists, claws, snapping mouths. Sootbird had been learning. He no longer waved a couple of torches around and breathed flames so poorly that everyone whispered Dustfinger's name. The fire he was playing with, though, seemed to be quite different. It was fire's dark brother, a nightmare made of flames, but the children watched the bright, evil spectacle, both fascinated and frightened. They jumped when the fire reached red claws out to them, and groaned in relief when it turned to nothing but smoke – although the smoke still hung in the air, acrid and making their eyes water. Was what people whispered true? Was it a fact that this smoke befuddled your senses so that you saw more than was really there? Well, if so, it doesn't work for me, thought Fenoglio as he rubbed his smarting eyes. A set of wretched conjuring tricks, that's all I see!

Tears were running down his nose, and when he turned to wipe the soot and smoke out of his eyes he saw a boy come stumbling down the road from the castle. The lad was older than the children in the square, old enough to be one of Violante's beardless soldiers, but he wore no uniform. His face seemed strangely familiar to Fenoglio. Where had he seen him before?

"Luc!" the boy shouted. "Luc! Run! All of you run!" He stumbled, fell, and crawled into a doorway just in time before the man pursuing him on horseback could ride him down. It was the Piper. He reined in his horse, while behind him a dozen men-at-arms surged along the road down from the castle. More of them came from every direction, Smiths' Alley, Butchers' Alley. They were coming out of every street and alley that led to the marketplace, riding in almost leisurely fashion on their great horses, armored like their masters.

But the children kept staring up at Sootbird, suspecting nothing. They hadn't heard the boy's cries of warning. They didn't see the soldiers. They just stared at the fire while their mothers called their names. By the time the first of them turned, it was too late. The men-at-arms drove back the weeping women, while more and more soldiers surged out of every street, enclosing the children in a ring of iron.

Horrified, the little ones spun around. Amazement suddenly turned to pure fear. And the way they cried! How was Fenoglio ever to forget that crying? He stood there helplessly, his back to a wall, while five men-at-arms kept their lances pointed at him and the women. No more were needed. Five lances to keep the little group in check. One of the women ran for it all the same, but a soldier rode her down. Then they formed a circle of swords as Sootbird, at a nod from the Piper, extinguished his flames and bowed to the weeping children with a smile.

They drove them up to the castle like a flock of lambs. Some of the little ones were so frightened that they ran here and there among the horses and were left lying on the paving of the road like broken toys. Fenoglio called the names of Ivo and Despina, but his voice merged with all the others, with all the screaming and sobbing. When the men-at-arms let the mothers go, he, too, stumbled over to the children who had been left behind, bleeding. He stared at the pale faces, terrified of recognizing Despina or Ivo. They weren't there, but Fenoglio felt as though he knew the faces all the same. Such small faces. Too young to die, too young for pain and terror. Two White Women appeared, his angels of death. And the mothers bent over the children and closed their ears to that white whispering. Three were dead, two boys and a girl. They no longer needed the White Women to make the crossing to the other side.

The lad who had stumbled along the street shouting his warning in vain was kneeling beside one of the dead boys. He stared up at the platform, his young face old with hatred. But Sootbird was gone, as if he had dissolved into the venomous smoke that hung in dense swathes over the marketplace. Only the brownie still stood there looking down, dazed, at the women bending over the children. Then, as slowly as if he had fallen out of ordinary time, he began collecting the empty bags left behind by Sootbird. A few of the women had run after the soldiers and the children they were taking away. The rest kneeled there, wiped blood from the foreheads of the injured, and felt their small limbs.

Fenoglio couldn't bear it anymore. He turned and walked back, unsteadily, to the street where Minerva's house stood. Women came the other way, brought out of their houses by the screaming. They ran past him. It was too much! Too much! Minerva herself came running toward him. He stammered a few broken words, pointed to the castle. She ran after the other women.

It was such a fine day. The sun was as warm as if winter were still a long way off.

How was he ever going to forget that weeping? Fenoglio was amazed that his legs could still carry his tear-drenched heart up the stairs.

"Rosenquartz!" He supported himself on his table, looked for parchment, paper, anything he could write on. "Rosenquartz! Damn it all, where are you?"

The glass man peered out of the nest where Orpheus's rainbow-colored fairies lived. What the devil was he doing up there? Wringing their silly necks?

"If you were thinking of sending me off to spy on Orpheus again, forget it!" Rosenquartz called down to him. "That Ironstone has gone and pushed the glass man Orpheus got to replace his brother out of the window! He's so badly smashed he looks like the remains of a wine bottle!"

"I don't need you to go spying!" snapped Fenoglio, in a voice muffled by tears. "Sharpen me some pens! Get stirring that ink, and jump to it!"

Ah, this weeping.

He sank down on his chair and buried his face in his hands. Tears ran through his fingers and dripped onto the table. Fenoglio couldn't remember ever having cried so much. Even Cosimo's death had left him dry-eyed. Ivo! Despina!

He heard the glass man landing on his bed. Hadn't he told him not to jump out of the fairy nests? Never mind. Let him break his glass neck if he liked. So much misfortune! There must be an end to it, or his old heart really would break!

He heard Rosenquartz hastily clambering up the table leg. "Here you are," said the glass man in a muted voice, offering him a freshly sharpened quill.

Fenoglio wiped the tears away from his face with his sleeve. His fingers were shaking as he took the pen. The glass man pushed a piece of paper over to him and quickly set about stirring the ink.

"Where are the children?" he asked. "Weren't you going to the marketplace with them?"

Another tear. It fell on the blank sheet, and the paper greedily soaked it up. Just like this wretched story, thought Fenoglio. Feeding on tears! Suppose Orpheus had written what happened in the marketplace? Folk said he had hardly left his house since the day of Dustfinger's visit to him, and he kept throwing bottles out of the window. In his rage, could he have written words to kill a few children?

Stop it, Fenoglio, don't go thinking about Orpheus! Write something yourself! He wished the paper wasn't so blank. "Come on!" he whispered. "Come here, words, will you? They're children! Children! Save them!"

"Fenoglio?" Rosenquartz was looking at him with concern. "Where are Ivo and Despina? What's happened?"

But all Fenoglio could do was bury his face in his hands again. Where were the words to open those accursed castle gates, break the lances, roast Sootbird in his own fire?

It was Minerva who told Rosenquartz what had happened – when she came back from the castle without her children. The Piper had made another speech.

"He says he's tired of waiting," Minerva told him in a toneless voice. "He's giving us a week to bring him the Bluejay. Or he'll take our children away to the mines!"

Then she went down to her empty kitchen, where no doubt the bowls from which Ivo and Despina had eaten that morning still stood. And Fenoglio sat there in front of the blank sheet of paper, which showed nothing but the traces of his tears. Hour after hour, until late into the night.