Inkspell

33. FAIRYDEATH

At first Dustfinger didn't believe Farid when he told him what he had seen and heard in Fenoglio's room. Even the old man couldn't be crazy enough to meddle with Death's handiwork. But then, that same day, a couple of women buying herbs from Roxane had the same story to tell as the boy: Cosimo the Fair had come back, they said, back from the dead.

"Women say the White Women fell so deeply in love with him that at last they let him go," said Roxane. "And men say he'd just been hiding from his ugly wife for a while."

Crazy stories, thought Dustfinger, but not half as crazy as the truth.

The women had nothing to say about Brianna. He didn't like to think of her up at the castle. No one knew what might happen there next. It seemed that the Piper was still in Ombra with half a dozen men-at-arms. Cosimo had sent the rest of them out of the city, and they were waiting outside the walls for their own lord's arrival. For there was a widespread rumor that the Adderhead would come in person to see this prince who had risen from the dead. He wasn't going to accept the idea of Cosimo's taking the throne from his grandson again so easily.

"I'll ride to Ombra myself and see how she is," said Roxane. "They probably wouldn't even let you through the Outer Gate. But there's something else you can do for me."

The women had not come just for the herbs and to pass on the gossip about Cosimo. They had brought Roxane an order from Nettle, who was in Ombra treating two sick children in the dyers' quarter. She needed a root of fairydeath, dangerous medicine that killed as often as it cured. The old woman hadn't said for what poor devil she needed the root. "Just that it's a man at the Secret Camp who's injured, and Nettle is going back there this evening," said Roxane. "And another thing… Cloud-Dancer was with her. It seems he's carrying a message for you."

"A message? For me?"

"Yes, from a woman." Roxane looked at him for a moment, and then went into the house to get the root.

"You're going to Ombra?" Farid was there behind Dustfinger so suddenly that he jumped.

"I am, and Roxane is riding to the castle," he said. "So you stay here to keep an eye on Jehan."

"And who's going to keep an eye on you?"

"Me?"

"Yes." What a look Farid was giving him! And the marten, too. "To stop it from happening." Farid spoke so softly that Dustfinger could hardly hear him. "Stop what it says in the book."

"Oh, that." The boy was watching him as anxiously as if he might fall down dead any minute. Dustfinger had to suppress a smile, although it was his own death they were discussing. "Did Meggie tell you about it?"

Farid nodded.

"Very well. Forget it, do you hear me? The words are written. Maybe they'll come true, maybe not."

But Farid shook his head so vigorously that his black hair fell over his forehead. "No!" he said. "No, they won't come true! I swear it. I swear it by the djinns that howl in the desert and the ghosts that eat the dead, I swear it by everything I fear!"

Dustfinger looked thoughtfully at him. "You crazy boy!" he said. "But I like your oath. We'd better leave Gwin here, then, and you can keep him!"

Gwin did not approve. He bit Dustfinger's hand when he was put on his chain, snapped at his fingers, and chattered even more angrily when Jink got into his master's backpack.

"You're taking the new marten with you and the old one must be put on the chain?" asked Roxane, when she came back to them with the root for Nettle.

"Yes. Because someone said he'd bring me bad luck."

"Since when have you believed that kind of thing?"

Indeed, since when? Since I met an old man who claims to have made up you and me, thought Dustfinger. Gwin was still hissing; he had seldom seen the marten so angry. Without a word he took the chain off Gwin's collar again. And ignored Farid's look of alarm.

All the way to Ombra Gwin sat on Farid's shoulders, as if to show Dustfinger that he hadn't forgiven him yet. And the moment Jink put his nose out of the backpack, Gwin bared his teeth and snarled so menacingly that Farid had to hold his muzzle shut a couple of times.

The gallows outside the city gates were empty; only a few ravens were perched on the wooden beams. Even though Cosimowas back, Her Ugliness was still administering justice in Ombra just as she had done in his father's lifetime, and she did not think well of hangings – perhaps because, as a child, she had seen too many men dangling from a rope with their tongues blue and their faces bloated.

"Listen," Dustfinger said to Farid as they stopped beneath the gallows, "while I take Nettle the root and ask Cloud-Dancer for the message I'm told he has for me, you go and find Meggie. I must talk to her."

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.