Inkspell

46. ROXANE

Fenoglio waited for Roxane in a room in the castle where petitioners were usually received, ordinary folk who came here to tell Cosimo's administrators their troubles while a scribe recorded their words on paper (parchment being far too valuable for such purposes). Then they were sent away hoping that their prince would put his mind to their concerns sometime. But under the Laughing Prince that had not been very often, except at Violante's persuasion, so his subjects had usually settled their quarrels among themselves, with or without violence, depending on their temperament and their influence in the community. It was hoped that Cosimo would change all that soon…

"What am I doing here?" murmured Fenoglio, looking around the high-ceilinged, narrow room. He had still been in bed

(in much more comfort than at Minerva's house) when Her Ugliness's messenger had appeared. Violante sent her apologies, said the man, and since he was better with words than anyone else she knew, she asked him to talk to Roxane on her behalf. That was how the powerful acted – offloading the less pleasant tasks in life onto other people. But on the other hand… he had always hoped to meet Dustfinger's wife someday. Was she really as beautiful as his description of her?

With a sigh, he dropped into the armchair generally used by one of Cosimo's administrators. Since Cosimo's return, so many petitioners had flocked to the castle that in the future they were going to be allowed to come and put their cases on only two days of the week. Their prince had weightier matters on his mind just now than the troubles of a farmer whose neighbor had stolen his pig, a cobbler who had bought poor quality leather from a dealer, or a seamstress whose husband beat her every night when he came home drunk. Of course, there was a judge in every town of any size to settle such quarrels, but most of them had a poor reputation. Folk said, on both sides of the Wayless Wood, that you'd get your rights only if you filled the judges' pockets with gold. So those who had no gold went up to the castle to appeal to their angel-faced prince, without realizing that he had more than enough to do preparing for his war.

When Roxane entered the room she had two children with her: a girl of about five and an older boy, probably Brianna's brother, Jehan – the lad who had the dubious honor of playing with Jacopo now and then. She frowned as she scrutinized the tapestries on the walls celebrating the Laughing Prince's exploits in his youth. Unicorns, dragons, White Stags… Clearly nothing had been safe from his royal spear.

"Why don't we just go into the garden?" suggested Fenoglio, noticing her expression of disapproval and quickly rising from the princely chair. If anything, she was even more beautiful than his description of her. But after all, he had sought the most wonderful of words for her when he wrote the scene in Inkheart where Dustfinger saw her for the first time. Yet all at once, now that she so suddenly stood before him in the flesh, he felt as lovelorn as a silly boy. Oh, for goodness' sake, Fenoglio! he reproached himself. You made her up, and now you're staring at her as if this was the first time in your life you'd ever seen a woman! Worst of all, Roxane seemed to notice it.

"Yes, let's go into the garden! I've heard a great deal about it, but I've never seen it," she said with a smile that cast Fenoglio into total confusion. "But first, please tell me why you want to speak to me. Your letter said only that it was about Brianna."

Why he wanted to speak to her? Huh! He cursed Violante's jealousy, Cosimo's faithless heart, and himself, too. "Let's go into the garden first," he said. Perhaps it would be easier to tell her what Her Ugliness had instructed him to say in the open air.

But of course it was not.

The boy set off in search of Jacopo as soon as they were outside, but the girl stayed with Roxane, clinging to her hand as she went from plant to plant – and Fenoglio found he couldn't utter a word.

"I know why I was summoned," said Roxane, just as he was trying for the tenth time to find the right words. "Brianna didn't tell me herself, she'd never do that. But the maid who takes Cosimo his breakfast every morning often comes to me for advice about her sick mother, and she's told me that Brianna seldom leaves his room. Not even at night."

"Yes. Yes, that's it… Violante is concerned. And she hopes that you…" Oh, damn it, how his voice was faltering! He didn't know how to go on. This wretched confusion. His story clearly had too many characters in it. How was he to foresee everything they'd think of? It was downright impossible, particularly when a young girl's heart was involved. No one could expect him to understand anything about that.

Roxane scrutinized his face as if she were still waiting for the end of his sentence. You stupid old fool, surely you're not going to blush, Fenoglio thought – and felt the blood shoot into his wrinkled face as if to drive age out of it.

"The boy has told me about you," said Roxane. "Farid. He's in love with the girl who's staying with you – Meggie, isn't that right? When he speaks her name he looks as if he had a pearl in his mouth."

"Yes, I'm beginning to think that Meggie likes him, too."

What exactly, wondered Fenoglio uneasily, has the boy been saying about me? Telling her I made her up, and the man she loves, too – only to kill him off again?

The little girl was still clutching Roxane's hand. With a smile, she put a flower in the child's long, dark hair. You know something, Fenoglio? he thought. All this is nonsense! What makes you think you invented her? She must always have been here, long before you wrote your story. A woman like her can't possibly be made of nothing but words! You've been wrong all this time! They were here already, all of them: Dustfinger and Capricorn, Basta and Roxane, Minerva, Violante, the Adderhead… you merely wrote their story, but they didn't like it, and now they're writing it for themselves.

The little girl felt the flower with her fingers and smiled.

"Is she Dustfinger's daughter?" asked Fenoglio.

Roxane looked at him in surprise. "No," she said. "Our second daughter died long ago. But how do you come to know Dustfinger? He's never mentioned you to me."

You fool, Fenoglio, you stupid fool.

"Oh, I certainly know Dustfinger!" he stammered. "In fact, I know him very well. I often visit the strolling players, you see, when they pitch their tents here outside the city wall. That's where – er – where I met him."

"Really?" Roxane ran her fingers over a plant with feathery leaves. "I didn't know he'd been back there already." Her face thoughtful, she moved on to another flower bed. "Wild mallow. I grow it in my own fields. Isn't it beautiful? So useful, too…" She did not look at Fenoglio as she went on. "Dustfinger has gone. Yet again. All I had was a message to say he's following men of the Adderhead's troops who have kidnapped some of the strolling players. Her mother," she added, putting her arm around the girl, "is one of them. And the Black Prince, a good friend of his."

They'd captured the Prince, too? Fenoglio tried to hide his alarm. Obviously, matters were even worse than he'd thought – and what he was writing down on parchment was still no use.

Roxane felt the seed heads of a lavender bush. Their sweet scent immediately filled the air. "I'm told that you were there when Cloud-Dancer was killed. Did you know his murderer? I heard that it was Basta, one of the fire-raisers from the forest."

"I'm afraid what you heard was right." Not a night passed when Fenoglio did not see Basta's knife flying through the air. It pursued him into all his dreams.

"The boy told Dustfinger that Basta was back. But I hoped he wasn't telling the truth. I'm anxious" – she spoke so softly that Fenoglio could hardly make out her words – "so anxious that I keep finding myself just standing and staring at the forest, as if he might appear among the trees again at any moment, the way he did on the morning he came back." She picked a dried lavender head and shook some of the tiny seeds into her hand. "May I take these with me?"

"You can take anything you want," replied Fenoglio. "Seeds, runners, cuttings, so Violante told me to tell you – anything, if you'll persuade your daughter to keep Violante herself company in the future and not her husband."

Roxane looked at the seeds in her hand and then let a few of them fall lightly to the flower bed. "It won't work. My daughter hasn't listened to me for years. She loves the life up here, although she knows that I don't, and she's loved Cosimo ever since she first saw him ride out of the castle gate on his wedding day. She was barely seven then, and after that her heart was set on coming here to the castle, even if it meant working as a maid. If Violante hadn't once heard her singing down in the kitchen she'd probably still be emptying chamber pots, feeding kitchen scraps to the pigs, and sometimes stealing upstairs in secret to feast her eyes on the statues of Cosimo. Instead, she became like Violante's little sister… wore her clothes, looked after her son, sang and danced for her like one of the strolling players, like her own mother. Not with Motley skirts and dirty feet, not sleeping by the roadside and carrying a knife to defend herself against vagrants trying to creep in under her blanket by night, but in silken clothes and with a soft bed to sleep in. She wears her hair loose, all the same, just as I did, and she loves too much, exactly as I did. No," she said, placing the seeds in Fenoglio's hand. "Tell Violante that much as I would like to help her, I can't."

The little girl looked at Fenoglio. Where was her mother now?

"Listen," he told Roxane. Her beauty took his breath away. "Take as many seeds as you like. They'll grow and thrive in your fields much better than within these gray walls. Dustfinger has gone off with Meggie. I sent her a messenger. As soon as the man is back you'll hear everything he has to tell: where they are now, how long they'll stay away, everything!"

Roxane took the lavender from him again, picked a handful more, and carefully put them in the bag hanging from her belt. "Thank you," she said. "But if I don't hear from Dustfinger soon I shall set off in search of him myself. I've stayed here too often just waiting for him to come back safe and sound, and I can't get it out of my mind that Basta is back!"

"But how will you find him? The last news I heard from Meggie was that they were making for a mill known as the Spelt-Mill. It's on the far side of the forest in Argenta. That's dangerous country!"

Roxane smiled at him, like a woman explaining the way of the world to her child. "It will soon be dangerous here, too," she said. "Do you think the Adderhead won't have heard by now that Cosimo is having swords forged day and night? Perhaps you should look around for some other place to do your writing, before the fiery arrows come raining down on your desk."

Roxane's mount was waiting in the Outer Courtyard of the castle. It was an old black horse, thin and going gray around the muzzle. "I know the Spelt-Mill," she said, lifting the little girl up on the horse's back. "I'll ride past it, and if I don't find them there I'll try the Barn Owl's place. He's the best physician I know on either side of the forest, and he looked after Dustfinger as a boy. Perhaps he may have heard news of him."

Of course, the Barn Owl! How could Fenoglio have forgotten him? If Dustfinger ever had anything like a father, it was this man. He had been one of the physicians who went around with the strolling players from place to place, from market to market. Unfortunately, Fenoglio didn't know much more about him. Damn it all, he thought, how can you forget your own stories? And don't try making your age an excuse.

"If you see Jehan, send him home," said Roxane, as she swung herself up behind the girl on the horse. "He knows the way."

"Are you planning to ride through the Wayless Wood on that old nag?"

"This old nag will still carry me as far as I want," she said. The girl leaned back against Roxane's breast as she gathered up the reins. "Good-bye," she said, but Fenoglio held the horse back by the bridle. An idea had come to him, an idea born of desperation, but what else could he do? Wait for the mounted messenger he had sent, until it was too late?

"Roxane," he said, low-voiced, as he looked up at her, "I have to get a letter to Meggie. I've sent a horseman after her to tell me where she is and whether she's well, but he isn't back yet, and by the time I've sent him off again with the letter… (Don't tell her anything about Basta and Slasher, Fenoglio, it would only upset her unnecessarily!)… well, what I'm getting at is… (For heaven's sake, Fenoglio, don't stare at her like that, stammering like an old dotard!)… what I mean is, if you really do ride after Dustfinger, would you take my letter to Meggie with you? You'd probably find her sooner than any messenger I could send now." "What kind of a letter?" an inner voice mocked him. "A letter telling her that nothing has occurred to you?" But as usual, he ignored the voice. "It's a very important letter!" If he could have spoken even more softly he would have done so.

Roxane wrinkled her brow. Even that was a beautiful sight. "The last time you had anything to do with a letter, it cost Cloud-Dancer his life. Still, very well, bring it to me if you like. As I said, I'm not going to wait much longer."

The castle courtyard seemed strangely empty to Fenoglio when she had gone. Rosenquartz was waiting in his room beside the parchment, which was still blank, looking reproachful. "You know something, Rosenquartz?" Fenoglio said to the glass man, sitting down on his chair again with a sigh. "I think Dustfinger would wring my old neck if he knew how I gazed at his wife. But what does that matter – he'd like to wring my neck, anyway, one reason more or less makes no difference. He doesn't deserve Roxane, anyway, leaving her alone so often!"

"Someone's in a truly princely temper again!" remarked Rosenquartz.

"Be quiet!" growled Fenoglio. "This parchment is about to be covered with words. And I just hope you've stirred the ink properly!"

"The ink's not to blame if the parchment is still blank!" retorted the glass man.

Fenoglio didn't throw the pen at him, although his fingers itched to do so. The words that had passed Rosenquartz's pale lips were only the truth. How could the glass man help it if the truth was unpleasant?