“That’s it. That will be my first piece of advice. To let the players back again,” murmured Fenoglio. “And if he doesn’t send for me by this evening I’ll go to him unasked. What’s the ungrateful fellow thinking of? Does he suppose men get brought back from the dead every day?”

“I thought he’d never been dead at all.” Rosenquartz clambered up to his nest. He was out of reach there, as he very well knew. “What about Meggie’s father, then? Do you think he’s still alive?”

“How should I know?” replied Fenoglio irritably. He didn’t want to be reminded of Mortimer.

“Well, at least no one can blame me for that mess!” he growled. “I can’t help it if they’re all knocking my story around, like a tree that just has to be thoroughly pruned to make it bear fruit.”

“Pruned?” Rosenquartz piped up. “No, they’re adding things. Your story is growing – growing like a weed! And not a particularly pretty one, either, if you ask me.”

Fenoglio was just wondering whether to throw the inkwell at him when Minerva put her head around the door.

“A messenger, Fenoglio!” Her face was flushed, as if she had run too fast. “A messenger from the castle! He wants to see you! Cosimo wants to see you!”

Fenoglio hurried to the door, smoothing down the tunic that Minerva had made him. He had been wearing it for days, it was badly crumpled, but there was no helping that now. When he had tried to pay Minerva for it she had just shaken her head, saying he’d paid already – with the stories he told her children day after day, evening after evening. It was a fine tunic, though, even if fairy tales for children had paid for it.

The messenger was waiting down in the street outside the house, looking important and frowning impatiently. He wore the black mourning cloak, as if the Prince of Sighs were still on the throne.

Oh well, it will all be different now, thought Fenoglio. It will most definitely be different. From now on I, and not my characters, will be telling this story again.

His guide didn’t even look around at him as he hurried along the streets after the man. Surly oaf!

Fenoglio thought. But this character probably really was a product of his, Fenoglio’s, pen one of the many anonymous people with whom he had populated this world so that his main characters wouldn’t be rattling around it on their own.

A number of men-at-arms were loafing around outside the stables in the Outer Courtyard of the castle. Fenoglio wondered, with annoyance, what they were doing there. Cosimo’s men were pacing back and forth up on the battlements, like hounds set to keep watch on a pack of wolves.

The men-at-arms stared up at them with hostility. Yes, you look at that, thought Fenoglio. There’ll be no leading part in my story for your dark lord, only a death fit for a thoroughgoing villain.

Perhaps he’d invent another one sometime, for stories soon get boring without a proper villain, but it was unlikely that Meggie would lend him her voice to call such a character to life.

The guards at the Inner Gate raised their spears.

“What’s all this?” Fenoglio heard the Adderhead’s voice the moment he set foot in the Inner Courtyard. ‘Are you telling me he’s still keeping me waiting, you lousy fur-faced creature?”

A softer voice answered, apprehensive and scared. Fenoglio saw the Laughing Prince’s dwarfish servant, Tullio, facing the Adderhead. He only came up to the prince’s silver-studded belt. Two of the Laughing Prince’s guards stood behind him, but the Adderhead was at the head of at least twenty heavily armed men: an intimidating sight, even if Firefox wasn’t with them, nor was there any sign of the Piper.

“Your daughter will receive you, sir.” Tullio’s voice shook like a leaf in the wind.

“My daughter? If I want Violante’s company I’ll summon her to my own castle. No, I want to see this dead man who’s come to life! So you will now take me to Cosimo at once, you stinking brownie bastard!”

The unfortunate Tullio began trembling. “The Prince of Ombra,” he began again, in a thread of a voice, “will not receive you!”

These words made Fenoglio stumble back as if he had been struck in the chest – right into the nearest rosebush, where the thorns caught in his new tunic. What was going on? Cosimo wouldn’t receive the Adderhead? Was that part of his own plan?

The Adderhead thrust out his lips as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. The veins at his temples stood out, dark on his blotched and ruddy skin. His lizard-like eyes stared down at Tullio. Then he took the crossbow from the nearest soldier’s hand and, as Tullio ducked like a frightened rabbit, aimed at one of the birds in the sky above. It was a good shot. The bird fell right at the Adderhead’s feet, its yellow feathers red with blood. A gold-mocker: Fenoglio had invented them especially for the castle of the Prince of Sighs. The Adderhead bent and pulled the arrow out of its tiny breast.

“Here, take that!” he said, pressing the dead bird into Tullio’s hand. “And tell your master that he has obviously left his common sense behind in the realm of the dead. I’ll allow that to be some excuse this once, but should he send you to me with such an outrageous message when next I visit him, he’ll get not a bird back but you with an arrow in your breast. Will you tell him that?”

Tullio stared at the bloodstained bird he was holding and nodded.

As for the Adderhead, he turned on his heel and waved to his men to follow him. Fenoglio’s guide bent his head timorously as they marched past. Look him straight in the eye! Fenoglio told himself as the Adderhead passed so close to him that he thought he could smell his sweat. You invented him! But instead he hunched his head between his shoulders, like a tortoise sensing danger, and did not move until the Inner Gate had closed behind the last of the men-at-arms.

Tullio was still waiting at the door that had shut behind the Adderhead, staring at the dead bird in his hand. “Should I show it to Cosimo?” he asked, looking distressed, as they came up to him.

“Oh, have it roasted in the kitchen and eat it if you like!” Fenoglio’s guide snarled at him. “But get out of my way.”

The throne room hadn’t changed since Fenoglio’s last visit. The windows were still hung with black. The only light came from candles, and the blank eyes of the statues stared at everyone who approached the throne itself. But now their living, breathing model sat on the throne, resembling his stone copies so much that the dark hall seemed to Fenoglio like a house of mirrors.

Cosimo was alone. Neither Her Ugliness nor her son was to be seen. There were only six guards standing in the background, almost invisible in the dim light.

Fenoglio stopped at a suitable distance from the steps up to the throne and bowed. Although it was his opinion that no one in this or any other world deserved to have him – Fenoglio – bow his head to them, certainly not those whom his own words had called to life, nevertheless he, too, had to observe the rules of the game in this world of his own creation. Here it was as natural to bow to nobles dressed in silk and velvet as it had been to shake hands in his old world.

Go on, then, old man, bow, even if it hurts your back, he thought, bending his head a little more humbly. You fixed it this way yourself.

Cosimo examined him as if he were not sure whether he remembered his face. He was dressed entirely in white, which emphasized his likeness to the statues even more.