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

“Yes.” CloudDancer 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?” CloudDancer 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 CloudDancer 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?”

CloudDancer 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!” CloudDancer 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?”

CloudDancer 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!” CloudDancer 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. CloudDancer 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. CloudDancer 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!” CloudDancer 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 CloudDancer’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.