“If you are seriously suggesting that I’m to blame for it,” said Rosenquartz in his ringing little voice, “then this is the last time I hold your pens for you, and I’m going straight off to look for a scribe who won’t expect me to work before breakfast.”
“All right, all right, I’m not blaming you. I smudged the P myself!” Fenoglio winked at Meggie.
“He’s easily offended,” he whispered confidentially to her. “His pride is as fragile as his limbs.”
The glass man turned his back on Fenoglio without a word, picked up the rag he had used to clean the pen, and tried to wipe a still-damp inkspot off his arm. His limbs were not entirely colorless, like those of the glass people who had lived in Elinor’s garden. Everything about him was pale pink, like the flowers of a wild rose. Only his hair was slightly darker.
“You didn’t say anything about my new song,” Fenoglio pointed out. “Wonderful, don’t you agree?”
“Not bad,” replied Rosenquartz without turning around, and he began polishing up his feet.
“Not bad? It’s a masterpiece, you maggot-colored, ink smudging pen-holder!” Fenoglio struck the desk so hard that the glass man fell over on his back like a beetle. “I’m going to market today to get a new glass man, one who knows about these things and will appreciate my robber songs, too!” He opened a longish box and took out a stick of sealing wax. “At least you haven’t forgotten to get a flame for the wax this time!” he growled. Rosenquartz snatched the sealing wax from his hand and held it in the flame of the candle that stood beside the jug. His face expressionless, he placed the melting end of the wax on the parchment roll, waved his glass hand over the red seal a couple of times, and then cast Fenoglio an imperious glance, whereupon Fenoglio solemnly pressed the ring he wore on his middle finger down onto the soft wax.
“F for Fenoglio, F for fantasy, F for fabulous,” he announced. “There we are.”
“B for breakfast would sound better just now,” said Rosenquartz, but Fenoglio ignored this remark.
“What did you think of the song for the prince?” he asked Meggie.
“I… er . . I couldn’t read it all because you two were quarrelling,” she said evasively. She didn’t want to make Fenoglio even gloomier by saying that the lines struck her as familiar. “Why does the Laughing Prince want such a sad poem?” she asked instead.
“Because his son is dead,” replied Fenoglio. “One sad song after another, that’s all he wants to hear since Cosimo’s death. I’m tired of it!” Sighing, he put the parchment back on his desk and went over to the chest standing under the window.
“Cosimo? Cosimo the Fair is dead?” Meggie couldn’t conceal her disappointment. Resa had told her so much about the Laughing Prince’s son: Everyone who saw him loved him, even the Adderhead feared him, his peasants brought their sick children to him because they believed anyone as beautiful as an angel could cure all sicknesses, too. .
Fenoglio sighed. “Yes, it’s terrible. And a bitter lesson. This story isn’t my story anymore! It’s developed a will of its own.” “Oh no, here we go again!” Rosenquartz groaned. “His story! I’ll never understand all this talk. Maybe you really ought to go and see one of those physicians who cure sick minds.”
“My dear Rosenquartz,” Fenoglio replied, “all this talk, as you call it, is above your transparent little head. But believe me, Meggie knows just what I’m talking about!” He opened the chest, looking cross, and took out a long, dark blue robe. “I ought to get a new one made,” he muttered.
“Yes, I definitely ought to. This is no robe for a man whose words are sung up and down the land, a man commissioned by a prince to put his grief for his son into words! Just look at the sleeves!
Holes everywhere. In spite of Minerva’s sprigs of lavender, the moths have been at it.”
“It’s good enough for a poor poet,” remarked the glass man in matter-of-fact tones.
Fenoglio put the robe back in the chest and let the lid fall into place with a dull thud. “One of these days,” he said, “I am going to throw something really hard at you!”
This threat did not seem to bother Rosenquartz unduly. The two went on wrangling about this and that; it seemed to be a kind of game they played, and they had obviously forgotten Meggie’s presence entirely. She went to the window, pushed aside the fabric over it, and looked out. It was going to be a sunny day, although mist still lingered above the hills surrounding the city.
Which was the hill where the house of the minstrel woman stood, the place where Farid hoped to find Dustfinger? She had forgotten. Would he come back if he actually found the fire-eater, or would he just go off with him, like last time, forgetting that she was here, too? Meggie didn’t even try to work out just how that idea made her feel. There was enough turmoil in her heart already, so much turmoil that she’d have liked to ask Fenoglio for a mirror, just to see herself for a moment – her own familiar face amid all the strangeness surrounding her, all the strange feelings in her heart. But instead she let her gaze wander over the misty hills.
How far did Fenoglio’s world go? Just as far as he had described it? “Interesting!” he had whispered, back when Basta had dragged the two of them off to Capricorn’s village. “Do you know, this place is very like one of the settings I thought up for Inkheart?” It must have been Ombra he meant. The hills around Ombra really did look like those over which Meggie had escaped with Mo and Elinor when Dustfinger set them free from Capricorn’s dungeons, except that these seemed even greener, if that was possible, and more enchanted. As if every leaf suggested that fairies and fire-elves lived under the trees. And the houses and streets you could see from Fenoglio’s room might have been in Capricorn’s village, if they hadn’t been so much noisier and more colorful.
“Just look at the crowds – they all want to go up to the castle today,” said Fenoglio behind her.
“Traveling peddlers, peasants, craftsmen, rich merchants, beggars, they’ll all be going there to celebrate the birthday, to earn or spend a few coins, to enjoy themselves, and most of all to stare at the grand folk.”
Meggie looked at the castle walls. They rose above the russet rooftops almost menacingly. Black banners on the towers flapped in the wind.
“How long has Cosimo been dead?”
“Hardly a year yet. I’d just moved into this room. As you can imagine, your voice took me straight to where it plucked the Shadow out of the story: the middle of Capricorn’s fortress.
Fortunately, all was hopeless confusion there because the monstrous Shadow had disappeared, and none of the fire-raisers noticed an old man suddenly standing among them looking foolish. I spent a couple of dreadful days in the forest, and unfortunately I didn’t, like you, have a clever companion who could use a knife, catch rabbits, and kindle fire with a couple of dry twigs. But the Black Prince himself finally picked me up imagine how I stared when he was suddenly there in front of me. I didn’t think I knew any of the men who were with him, but I’ll admit that I could never remember the minor characters in my stories very clearly – only vaguely, if at all.
