Inkspell

6. THE INN OF THE STROLLING PLAYERS

It took Dustfinger two whole days to get through the Wayless Wood. He met very few people on the way: a few charcoal-burners blackened with soot, a ragged poacher with two rabbits slung over his shoulder and hunger written large on his face, and a group of the prince's game wardens, armed to the teeth, probably on the trail of some poor devil who had shot a deer to feed his children. None of them saw Dustfinger. He knew how to pass unseen, and only on the second night, when he heard a pack of wolves howling in the nearby hills, did he dare to summon fire.

Fire. So different in this world and the other one. How good it would be to hear its crackling voice again at last, and to be able to answer. Dustfinger collected some of the dry wood lying around among the trees, with wax-flowers and thyme rambling over it. He carefully unwrapped the fire-elves' stolen honey from the leaves that kept it moist and supple and put a tiny morsel in his mouth. How scared he had been the first time he tasted the honey! Scared that his precious booty would burn his tongue forever and he would lose his voice. But that fear had proved groundless. The honey did burn your mouth like red-hot coals, but the pain passed away – and if you bore it long enough, then afterward you could speak to fire, even with a mere human tongue. The effect of a tiny piece lasted for five or six months, sometimes almost a year. Just a soft whisper in the language of the flames, a snap of your fingers, and sparks would leap crackling from dry wood, damp wood, even stone.

At first the fire licked up from the twigs more reluctantly than it had in the old days – as if it couldn't really believe he was back. But then it began to whisper and welcomed him more and more exuberantly, until he had to rein in those wildly leaping flames, imitating the sound of their crackling until the fire sank lower, like a wildcat that will crouch down and purr if you stroke its fur carefully enough.

While the fire devoured the wood and its light kept the wolves away, Dustfinger found himself thinking of the boy again. He couldn't count the many nights when he'd had to tell Farid how fire spoke, for the boy knew only mute and sullen flames. "Heavens above," he muttered to himself as he warmed his fingers over the glowing embers, "you're still missing him!" He was glad that the marten at least was still with the boy, to keep him company as he faced the ghosts he saw everywhere.

Yes, Dustfinger did miss Farid. But there were others whom he had been missing for ten long years, missing them so much that his heart was still sore with longing. It was with those people crowding his mind that he strode out, more impatiently with every passing hour, as he approached the outskirts of the forest and what lay beyond it – the world of humans. It was not just his longing for fairies, little glass men, and water-nymphs that had tormented him in the other world, nor his desire to be back in the silence under the trees. There weren't many human beings he had missed, but he had missed those few all the more fiercely.

He had tried so hard to forget them since the day he came, half-starved, to Silvertongue's door, and Silvertongue had explained that there could be no way back for him. It was then he had realized that he must choose. Forget them, Dustfinger – how often he had told himself that! – forget them, or the loss of them all will drive you mad. But his heart simply did not obey. Memories, so sweet and so bitter… they had both nourished and devoured him for so many years. Until a time came when they began to fade, turning faint and blurred, only an ache to be quickly pushed away because it went to your heart. For what was the use of remembering all you had lost?

Better not remember now, either, Dustfinger told himself as the trees around him became younger and the canopy of leaves above grew lighter. Ten years – it's a long time, and many may be lost and gone by now.

Charcoal-burners' huts appeared among the trees more and more often now, but Dustfinger did not let the soot-blackened men see him. Outside the forest, people spoke of them slightingly, for the charcoal-burners lived deeper in the forest than most dared to go. Craftsmen, peasants, traders, princes: They all needed charcoal, but they didn't like to see the men who burned it for them in their own towns and villages. Dustfinger liked the charcoal-burners, who knew almost as much about the forest as he did, although they made enemies of the trees daily. He had sat by their fires often enough, listening to their stories, but after all these years there were other stories he wanted to hear, tales of what had been going on outside the forest, and there was only one place to hear those: in one of the inns that stood along the road.

Dustfinger had one particular inn in mind. It lay on the northern outskirts of the forest, where the road appeared among the trees and began to wind uphill, past a few isolated farms, until it reached the city gate of Ombra, the capital city of Lombrica, the Laughing Prince's realm.

The inns on the road outside Ombra had always been places where the strolling players called the Motley Folk met. They offered their skills there to rich merchants, tradesmen, and craftsmen, for weddings and funerals, for festivities to celebrate a traveler's safe return or the birth of a child. They would provide music, earthy jokes, and conjuring tricks for just a few coins, taking the audience's minds off their troubles large and small. And if Dustfinger wanted to find out what had been happening in all the years he was away, then the Motley Folk were the people to ask. The players were the newspapers of this world. No one knew what went on in it better than these travelers who were never at home anywhere.

Who knows? thought Dustfinger as he walked down the road, with the autumn sun, by now low in the sky, on his face. If I'm lucky I may even meet old acquaintances.

The road was muddy and full of puddles. Cartwheels had made deep ruts in it, and the hoofprints left by oxen and horses were full of rainwater. At this time of year it sometimes rained for days on end, as it had yesterday, when he had been glad to be under the trees where the leaves caught the rain before it drenched him to the skin. The night had been cold, all the same, and his clothes were clammy even though he had slept beside his fire. He was glad that the sky was clear today, apart from a few shreds of cloud drifting over the hills.

Luckily, he had found a few coins in his old clothes. He hoped they would be enough for a bowl of soup. Dustfinger had brought nothing with him from the other world. What would he do here with the printed paper they used for money in that world? Only gold, silver, and ringing copper counted in this one, with the local prince's head on the coins if possible. As soon as his money was gone he'd have to look for a marketplace where he could perform, in Ombra or elsewhere.

The inn that was his destination hadn't changed much in the last few years, either for better or for worse. It was as shabby as ever, with a few windows that were hardly more than holes in the gray stone walls. In the world where he had been living until three days ago, it was unlikely that any guests at all would have crossed such a grubby threshold. But here the inn was the last shelter available before you entered the forest, the last chance of a hot meal and a place to sleep that wasn't damp with dew or rain… and you got a few lice and bugs thrown in for free, thought Dustfinger as he pushed open the door.

It was so dark in the room inside that his eyes took a little while to adjust to the dim light. The other world had spoiled him with all its lights, with the brightness that made even night into day there. It had accustomed him to seeing everything clearly, to thinking of light as something you could switch on and off, available whenever you wanted. But now his eyes must cope again with a world of twilight and shadows, of long nights as black as charred wood, and houses from which the sunlight was often shut out, because its heat was unwelcome.

All the light inside the inn came from the few sunbeams falling through the holes that were the windows. Dust motes danced in them like a swarm of tiny fairies. A fire was burning in the hearth under a battered black cauldron. The smell rising from it was not particularly appetizing, even to Dustfinger's empty stomach, but that didn't surprise him. This inn had never had a landlord who knew the first thing about cooking. A little girl hardly more than ten years old was standing beside the cauldron, stirring whatever was simmering in it with a stick. Some thirty guests were sitting on rough-hewn benches in the dark, smoking, talking quietly, and drinking.

Dustfinger strolled over to an empty place and sat down. He surreptitiously looked around for a face that might seem familiar, for a pair of the Motley trousers that only the players wore. He immediately saw a lute-player by the window, negotiating with a much better dressed man than the musician himself, probably a rich merchant. No poor peasant could afford to hire an entertainer, of course. If a farmer wanted music at his wedding he must play the fiddle himself. He couldn't have afforded even the two pipers who were also sitting by the window. At the table next to them, a group of actors were arguing in loud voices, probably about who got the best part in a new play. One still wore the mask behind which he hid when they acted in the towns' marketplaces. He looked strange sitting there among the others, but then all the Motley Folk were strange – with or without masks, whether they sang or danced, performed broad farces on a wooden stage or breathed fire. The same was true of their companions – traveling physicians, bonesetters, stonecutters, miracle healers. The players brought them customers.

Old faces, young faces, happy and unhappy faces, there were all of those in the smoke-filled room, but none of them seemed familiar to Dustfinger. He, too, sensed he was being scrutinized, but he was used to it. His scarred face attracted glances everywhere, and the clothes he wore did the rest – a fire-eater's costume, black as soot, red as the flames that he played with, but that others feared. For a moment he felt curiously strange amid all this once-familiar activity, as if the other world still clung to him and could be clearly seen: all the years, the endless years since Silvertongue plucked him out of his own story and stole his life without intending to, as you might crush a snail-shell in passing.

"Hey, who have we here?"

A hand fell heavily on his shoulder, and a man leaned over him and stared at his face. His hair was gray, his face round and beardless, and he was so unsteady on his feet that for a moment Dustfinger thought he was drunk. "Why, if I don't know that face!" cried the man incredulously, grasping Dustfinger's shoulder hard, as if to make sure it was really flesh and blood. "So where've you sprung from, my old fire-eating friend? Straight from the realm of the dead? What happened? Did the fairies bring you back to life? They always were besotted with you, those little blue imps."

A few men turned to look at them, but there was so much noise in the dark, stuffy room that not many people noticed what was going on.

"Cloud-Dancer!" Dustfinger straightened up and embraced the other man. "How are you?"

"Ah, and there was I thinking you'd forgotten me!" Cloud-Dancer gave a broad grin, baring large, yellow teeth.

Oh no, Dustfinger had not forgotten him – although he had tried to, as he had tried to forget the others he had missed. Cloud-Dancer, the best tightrope-walker who ever strolled around the rooftops. Dustfinger had recognized him at once, in spite of his now gray hair and the left leg that was skewed at such a curiously stiff angle.

"Come along, we must drink to this. You don't meet a dead friend again every day." He impatiently drew Dustfinger over to a bench under one of the windows. A little sunlight fell through it from outside. Then he signaled to the girl who was still stirring the cauldron and ordered two goblets of wine. The little creature stared at Dustfinger's scars for a moment, fascinated, and then scurried over to the counter. A fat man stood behind it, watching his guests with dull eyes.

"You're looking good!" remarked Cloud-Dancer. "Well fed, not a gray hair on your head, hardly a hole in your clothes. You even still have all your teeth, by the look of it. Where've you been? Maybe I should set out for the same place myself – seems like a man can live pretty well there."

"Forget it. It's better here." Dustfinger pushed back the hair from his forehead and looked around. "That's enough about me. How have you been yourself? You can afford wine, but your hair is gray, and your left leg…"

"Ah, yes, my leg." The girl brought their wine. As Cloud-Dancer searched his purse for the right money, she stared at Dustfinger again with such curiosity that he rubbed his fingertips together and whispered a few fire-words. Reaching out his forefinger, he smiled at her and blew gently on the fingertip. A tiny flame, too weak to light a fire but just bright enough to be reflected in the little girl's eyes, flickered on his nail and spat out sparks of gold on the dirty table. The child stood there enchanted, until Dustfinger blew out the flame and dipped his finger in the goblet of wine that Cloud-Dancer pushed over to him.

"So you still like playing with fire," said Cloud-Dancer, as the girl cast an anxious glance at the fat landlord and hurried back to the cauldron. "My own games are over now, sad to say."

"What happened?"

"I fell off the rope, I don't dance in the clouds anymore. A market trader threw a cabbage at me – I expect I was distracting his customers' attention. At least I was lucky enough to land on a cloth-merchant's stall. That way I broke my leg and a couple of ribs, but not my neck."

Dustfinger looked at him thoughtfully. "Then how do you make a living now that you can't walk the tightrope?"

Cloud-Dancer shrugged. "Believe it or not, I can still go about on foot. I can even ride with this leg of mine – if there's a horse available. I earn my living as a messenger, although I still like to be with the strolling players, listening to their stories and sitting by the fire with them. But it's words that nourish me now, even though I can't read. Threatening letters, begging letters, love letters, sales contracts, wills – I deliver anything that can be written on a piece of parchment or paper. And I can be relied upon to carry a spoken message, too, when it's been whispered into my ear in confidence. I make quite a good living, although I'm not the fastest messenger money can hire. But everyone who gives me a letter to deliver knows that it really will reach the person it's meant for. And a guarantee of that is hard to find."

Dustfinger believed him. For a few gold pieces you can read the prince's own letters, that was what they used to say even in his own time. You just had to know someone who was good at forging broken seals, "How about our other friends?" Dustfinger looked at the pipers by the window. "What are they doing?"

Cloud-Dancer took a sip of wine and made a face. "Ugh! I should have asked for honey in this. The others, well" – he rubbed his stiff leg – "some are dead, some have just disappeared like you. Look over there, behind the farmer staring so gloomily into his tankard," he said, jerking his head at the counter. "There's our old friend Sootbird, with a laugh fixed on his face like a tattoo, the worst fire-eater for miles around, although he still tries to copy you and wonders why fire would rather dance for you than him."

"He'll never find out." Dustfinger glanced surreptitiously at the other fire-eater. As far as he remembered, Sootbird could juggle burning torches well enough, but fire didn't dance for him. He was like a hopeless lover rejected again and again by the girl of his choice. Long ago, feeling sorry for the man's futile efforts, Dustfinger had given him some fire-elves' honey, but even with its aid Sootbird hadn't understood what the flames were telling him.

"I've heard that he works with powders bought from alchemists now," Cloud-Dancer whispered across the table, "and that's an expensive pastime, if you ask me. The fire bites him so often that his hands and arms are quite red from it. But he doesn't let it get at his face. Before he performs he smears it with grease until it shines like bacon fat."

"Does he still drink after every show?"

"After the show, before the show, but he's still a good-looking fellow, don't you think?"

Yes, so he was, with his friendly, ever-smiling face. Sootbird was one of those entertainers who lived on the glances of others, on laughter and applause, on knowing that people will stop to look at them. Even now he was entertaining the others who were leaning against the counter with him. Dustfinger turned his back; he didn't want to see the old mixture of admiration and envy in the other man's eyes. Sootbird was not one of those he had missed.

"You mustn't think times are any easier now for the Motley Folk," said Cloud-Dancer across the table, low-voiced. "Since Cosimo's death the Laughing Prince doesn't let the likes of us into the markets except on feast days, and as for going up to the castle itself, that's only when his grandson demands entertainers loudly enough. Not a very nice little boy – he's already ordering his servants around and threatening them with whipping and the pillory. Still, he loves the Motley Folk."

"Cosimo the Fair is dead?" Dustfinger nearly choked on the sour wine.

"Yes." Cloud-Dancer leaned over the table, as if it wasn't right to speak of death and misfortune in too loud a voice. "He rode away scarcely a year ago, beautiful as an angel, to prove his princely courage and finish off the fire-raisers who were haunting the forest then. You may remember their leader, Capricorn?"

Dustfinger had to smile. "Oh yes. I remember him," he said quietly.

"He disappeared about the same time you did, but his gang carried on the same as ever. Firefox became their new leader. There wasn't a village nor a farm this side of the forest that was safe from them. So Cosimo rode away to put an end to their evil deeds. He smoked out the whole band, but he didn't come home himself. Since then, his father, who used to like eating so much that his breakfast alone could have fed three whole villages, has become known as the Prince of Sighs, too. For the Laughing Prince does nothing but sigh these days."

Dustfinger held his fingers in the dust motes dancing above him in the sun. "The Prince of Sighs!" he murmured. "Well, well. And what about His Noble Highness on the other side of the forest?"

"The Adderhead?" Cloud-Dancer looked around uneasily. "Hmm, well, I'm afraid he's not dead yet. Still thinks himself lord of the whole world. When his game wardens find a peasant in the forest with a rabbit he has the man blinded; he enslaves folk who don't pay their taxes and makes them dig the ground for silver until they're coughing up blood. The gallows outside his castle are always in use, and he likes to see a pair of Motley trousers dangling there best of all. Still, few speak ill of him, because he has more spies than this inn has bedbugs, and he pays them well. But you can't bribe Death," added Cloud-Dancer softly, "and the Adderhead is growing old. It's said that he's afraid of the White Women these days, and terrified of dying, so terrified that he falls to his knees by night and howls like a beaten dog. And they say his cooks have to make him calves' blood pudding every morning, because that's supposed to keep a man young, and he keeps a hanged man's finger bone under his pillow to protect him from the White Women. He's married four times in the last seven years. His wives get younger and younger, but still none of them has given him what he wants most dearly."

"So the Adderhead has no son yet?"

Cloud-Dancer shook his head. "No, but all the same his grandson will rule us some day, because the old fox married one of his daughters off to Cosimo the Fair – Violante, known to everyone as Her Ugliness – and she had a son by Cosimo before he went away to die. They say her father made her acceptable to the Laughing Prince by giving her a valuable manuscript to take for her dowry – and the best illuminator at his court into the bargain. Yes, the Laughing Prince was once as keen on written papers as on good food, but now his precious books are moldering away! Nothing interests him anymore, least of all his subjects. There are rumors that it's all gone exactly as the Adderhead planned, and that he himself made sure his son-in-law would never return from Capricorn's fortress, so that his grandson could succeed to the throne."

"The rumors are probably true." Dustfinger looked at the crowd in the stuffy room. Strolling peddlers, physicians, journeymen, craftsmen, players with darned sleeves. One man had an unhappy-looking brownie sitting on the floor beside him. Many looked as if they didn't know how they were going to pay for the wine they were drinking. There were few happy faces to be seen here, few faces free of care, sickness, and resentment. Well, what had he expected? Had he hoped that misfortune would have stolen away while he was gone? No. He had wanted to come back – that was all he'd hoped for in ten long years – not back to paradise, he'd just wanted to come home. Doesn't a fish want to be back in the water, even if there's a perch lying in wait for it?

A drunk staggered against the table and almost spilled the wine. Dustfinger reached for the jug. "And what about Capricorn's men? Firefox and the rest? Are they all dead?"

"In your dreams!" Cloud-Dancer laughed bitterly. "All the fire-raisers who escaped Cosimo's attack were welcomed to the Castle of Night with open arms. The Adderhead made Firefox his herald, and these days the Piper, Capricorn's old minstrel, sings his dark songs in the Castle of Silver Towers. He wears silk and velvet, and his pockets are full of gold."

"The Piper's still around?" Dustfinger passed his hand over his face. "Heavens, have you no good news at all to tell me? Something to make me glad to be home again?"

Cloud-Dancer laughed, so loudly that Sootbird turned and glanced at him. "The best news is that you're back!" he said. "We've missed you, Master of the Fire! They say the fairies sigh as they dance by night, since you left us so faithlessly, and the Black Prince tells his bear stories about you before falling asleep."

"So the Prince is still around, too? Good." Relieved, Dustfinger took a sip of the wine, although it really did taste vile. He hadn't dared to ask about the Prince, for fear he might hear something like Cosimo's sad story.

"Oh, he's doing fine!" Cloud-Dancer raised his voice as two peddlers at the next table began to quarrel. "Still the same – black as pitch, quick with his tongue and even quicker with his knife, never seen without his bear."

Dustfinger smiled. Yes, this was good news indeed. The Black Prince: bear-tamer, knife-thrower, probably still fretting angrily at the way of the world. Dustfinger had known him since they were both homeless, orphaned children. At the age of eleven they'd stood side by side in the pillory over on the far side of the forest, where they were born, and they'd still smelled of rotten vegetables two days later. They had both been born in Argenta, the Silver Land, the realm of the Adderhead.

Cloud-Dancer looked at his face. "Well?" he asked. "When are you finally going to ask the question you've been wanting to ask since I clapped you on the shoulder? Go on! Before I'm too drunk to answer you."

Dustfinger had to smile; he couldn't help it. Cloud-Dancer had always known how to see into other people's hearts, though you might not have thought so from his face. "Very well. What shall I… how is she?"

"At last!" Cloud-Dancer smiled with such self-satisfaction that two gaps in his teeth showed. "Well, first, she's still very beautiful. Lives in a house now, doesn't sing and dance anymore, doesn't wear brightly colored skirts, pins up her hair like a farmer's wife. She tends a plot of land up on the hill behind the castle, growing herbs for the physicians. Even Nettle buys from her. She lives on that, sometimes well, sometimes not so well, bringing up her children."

Dustfinger tried to look indifferent, but Cloud-Dancer's smile told him that he wasn't succeeding. "What about that spice merchant who was always after her?"

"What about him? He left years ago; he's probably living in some big house by the sea, growing richer with every sack of pepper his ships bring in."

"Then she didn't marry him?"

"No. She chose another man."

"Another man?" Once again Dustfinger tried to sound indifferent, and once again he failed.

Cloud-Dancer enjoyed keeping him in suspense for a while, and then went on. "Yes, another man. He soon died, poor fellow, but she has a child by him, a boy."

Dustfinger said nothing, listening to his own thudding heart. His stupid heart. "What about the girls?"

"Oh, the girls. Yes, them – I wonder who their father can have been?" Cloud-Dancer was smiling again, like a little boy who has pulled off a mischievous trick. "Brianna's as lovely as her mother already. Although she's inherited your red hair."

"And Rosanna, the younger?" Her hair was dark, like her mother's.

The smile on Cloud-Dancer's face disappeared as if Dustfinger had wiped it away. "The child has been dead a long time," he said softly. "There was a fever, two winters after you went away. Many died of it. Even Nettle couldn't help them."

Dustfinger drew bright, damp lines on the table with his forefinger, which was sticky from the wine. Dead. Much might be lost in the space of ten years. For a moment he tried desperately to remember her face, such a little face, but it blurred, as if he had spent too long over the attempt to forget it.

Amid all the noise, Cloud-Dancer sat with him in silence for a long time. Then at last he rose, ponderously; it wasn't easy to get up from the low bench with his stiff leg. "I must be off, my friend," he said. "I still have three letters to deliver, two of them up there in Ombra. I want to be at the city gate before dark, or the guards will have their little joke again and refuse to let me in."

Dustfinger was still drawing lines on the dark wood of the table. Two winters after you went away – the words stung like nettles in his head. "Where are the others camping at the moment?"

"Just outside the city wall of Ombra. Our prince's beloved grandson celebrates his birthday soon. Every entertainer and minstrel is welcome at the castle on that day."

Dustfinger nodded without raising his head. "I'll see. Maybe I'll go along, too." He abruptly rose from the hard bench. The girl by the hearth looked at them. His younger daughter would have been about her age now if the fever hadn't carried her off.

Together with Cloud-Dancer, he made his way past the crowded benches and chairs to the door. It was still fine outside, a sunny autumn day, clad in bright foliage like a strolling player.

"Come to Ombra with me!" Cloud-Dancer laid a hand on his shoulder. "My horse will carry two, and we can always find a place to sleep there."

But Dustfinger shook his head.

"Later," he said, looking down the muddy road. "It's time I paid a visit."