Elinor saw Mortimer close his eyes for a moment, as if hoping that Basta and Mortola would have disappeared when he opened them again. But, naturally, no such thing happened.

“Call her!” ordered Mortola, as she stared at Mortimer with such hatred in her eyes that Elinor felt afraid.

“Who?” he asked, without taking his eyes off Basta.

“Don’t pretend to be more stupid than you are!” Mortola said crossly. “Or do you want me to let Basta cut the same pattern on your wife’s face as he did on the fire-eater’s?”

Basta ran his thumb lovingly over the gleaming blade.

“If by ‘little witch’ you mean my daughter,” replied Mortimer huskily, “she isn’t here.”

“Oh no?” Mortola hobbled toward him. “Be careful what you say. My legs are aching after that endless drive to get here, so I’m not feeling particularly patient.”

“She isn’t here,” Mortimer repeated. “Meggie has gone away, with the boy you took the book from. He asked her to take him to Dustfinger, she did it – and she went with him.”

Mortola narrowed her eyes incredulously. “Nonsense!” she exclaimed. “How could she have done it without the book?” But Elinor saw the doubt in her face.

Mortimer shrugged. “The boy had a handwritten sheet of paper with him – the one that sent Dustfinger back, apparently.” “That’s impossible!” Orpheus looked at him in astonishment. “Are you seriously saying your daughter read herself into the story, using my words?”

“Oh, so you’re this Orpheus, are you?” Mortimer returned his glance, not in a very friendly way.

“Then you’re responsible for the loss of my daughter.”

Orpheus straightened his glasses and gave Mortimer an equally hostile look. Then, abruptly, he turned to Mortola. “Is this man Silvertongue?” he demanded. “He’s lying! I’m sure of it! He’s lying! No one can read themselves into a story. He can’t, his daughter can’t, no one can. I’ve tried it myself, hundreds of times. It doesn’t work!”

“Yes,” said Mortimer wearily. “That’s just what I thought, too. Until four days ago.”

Mortola stared at him. Then she signaled to Basta. “Shut them up in the cellar!” she ordered.

“And then look for the girl. Search the whole house.”

Chapter 13 - Fenoglio

“I do practice remembering, Nain,” I said. “Writing and reading and remembering.”

“That you should!” said Nain sharply. “Do you know what happens each time you write a thing down? Each time you name it? You sap its strength.”

– Kevin Crossley-Holland, The Seeing Stone

It wasn’t easy to get past the guards at the gate of Ombra after dark, but Fenoglio knew them all.

He had written many love poems for the heavily built oaf who barred his way with his spear tonight – and very successful they were, he had been told. Judging by the fool’s appearance, he’d be needing to call on Fenoglio’s services again.

“But mind you’re back before midnight, scribbler!” the ugly fellow grunted before letting him pass. “That’s when the Ferret takes over from me, and he’s not interested in your poems, even though his girl can read.”

“Thanks for the warning!” said Fenoglio, giving the stupid fellow a false smile as he pushed past him. As if he didn’t know that the Ferret was not to be trifled with! His stomach still hurt when he remembered how that sharp-nosed fellow had dug the shaft of his spear into it, when he’d tried pushing past him with a couple of well-chosen words. No, there’d be no bribing the Ferret, not with poems or any other written gifts. The Ferret wanted gold, and Fenoglio didn’t have too much of that, or at least not enough to waste it on a guard at the city gates.

“Midnight!” he cursed quietly as he stumbled down the steep path. “As if that wasn’t just when the strolling players wake up!”

His landlady’s son carried the torch ahead of him. Ivo was nine years old and full of insatiable curiosity about all the wonders of his world. He was always fighting his sister for the honor of carrying the torch when Fenoglio went to visit the strolling players. Fenoglio paid Ivo’s mother a few coins a week for a room in the attic. The price included the washing, cooking, and mending that Minerva did for him, too. In return, Fenoglio told her children bedtime stories and listened patiently as she told him what a stubborn oaf her husband could be at times. The fact was, Fenoglio had struck lucky.

The boy scurried along ahead of him with increasing impatience. He could hardly wait to reach the brightly colored tents, where music played and firelight shone among the trees. He kept looking around reproachfully, as if Fenoglio were taking his time on purpose. Did he think an old man could go as fast as a grasshopper?

The Motley Folk had pitched camp where the ground was so stony that nothing would grow on it, behind the cottages where the peasants who farmed the Laughing Prince’s land lived. Now that the prince of Ombra no longer wanted to hear their jests and songs, they came less often than before, but luckily the prince’s grandson wanted players to entertain him on his birthday, so this Sunday they would at last come streaming through the city gates: fire-eaters and tightrope-walkers, animal-tamers and knife throwers, actors, buffoons, and many a minstrel whose songs came from Fenoglio’s pen.

For Fenoglio liked writing for the Motley Folk: merry songs, sad songs, songs to make you laugh or weep, as the spirit moved him. He couldn’t earn more than a few copper coins for those songs; the strolling players’ pockets were always empty. If his words were to earn gold then he must write for princes or for a rich merchant. But when he made the words dance and pull faces, when he wanted to write tales of peasants and robbers, of ordinary folk who didn’t live in castles or eat from golden plates, then he wrote for the strolling players.

It had taken some time for them to accept him into their tents. Only when more and more wandering minstrels were singing Fenoglio’s songs, and their children were asking for his stories, did they stop turning him away. And now even their king invited Fenoglio to sit beside his fire, as he had tonight. Although not a drop of royal blood ran in his veins, this man was known as the Black Prince. The Prince took good care of his Motley subjects, and they had chosen him to lead them twice already. It was better not to ask where all the gold he gave so generously to the sick and crippled came from, but Fenoglio knew one thing: He himself had invented the Prince.

Oh yes, I made them all! he thought, as the music came more clearly through the night air. He had made up the Prince and the tame bear that followed him like a dog, and CloudDancer who, sad to say, fell off his rope, and many more, even the two rulers who believed that they laid down the law in this world. Fenoglio had not yet seen all his creations, but every time he suddenly met one in flesh and blood it made his heart beat faster – although he couldn’t always remember whether any particular one of them had really sprung from his own pen, or came from somewhere else. .

There were the tents at last, bright as windblown flowers in the black night. Ivo began running so fast that he almost fell over his own feet. A dirty boy with hair as unkempt as an alley cat’s fur came out to meet them, hopping on one leg. He grinned challengingly at Ivo – and ran away on his hands. Lord, these players’ children performed such contortions, you might think they had no bones in their bodies!