“What do you think you’re doing?” he said angrily, his voice low. “Do you want them to put you two in with the others?”
Meggie bowed her head. She had tears in her eyes again.
“She wants to go into the stable!” Farid whispered. “She thinks they’ll all be asleep! As if–”
Dustfinger closed the boy’s mouth with his hand again.
Voices rang out over the yard. Obviously, someone had brought the guards outside the stable something to eat. “Where’s the Black Prince?” he whispered, when all was still again.
“Between the bakehouse and the main building. Tell her she can’t go back into that stable! There are at least fifteen soldiers in there.”
“How many guarding the Prince?”
“Three.”
Three. Dustfinger glanced up at the sky. No moon. It was hidden behind the clouds, and the darkness was black as a cloak.
“Are you going to free him? Three aren’t many!” Farid sounded excited. Not a trace of fear in his voice. That fearlessness would be the death of him yet. “We can cut their throats before they make a sound. It’ll be easy.” He often said such things. Dustfinger kept wondering if it was just talk, or if he’d actually done something of the kind in the past.
“I can tell you’re ready for anything!” he said softly. “But you know very well I’m no good at cutting throats. How many prisoners are there?”
“Eleven women, three children, nine men not counting Silvertongue.”
“How is he?” Dustfinger looked at Meggie. “Have you seen him? Can he walk?” She shook her head.
“What about your mother?” She cast him a quick glance. She didn’t like it when he mentioned Resa. “Come on, is she all right?”
“I think so.” She put one hand to the stable wall, as if she could feel her parents behind it. “But I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. Please!” How pleadingly she was looking at him! “I’m sure they’re all asleep. I’ll be very careful!”
Farid cast a despairing glance up at the stars, as if such stupidity would make them break their eternal silence.
“The guards won’t sleep,” said Dustfinger. “So think up a good lie for them. Do you have anything to write with?”
Meggie looked at him incredulously, and for a moment Dustfinger saw her mother’s eyes. Then she quickly put her hand into the bag that she carried with her. “I have some paper with me,” she whispered, hastily tearing a page out of her little marbled notebook.
Like mother, like daughter. Never without the means of writing.
“You’re letting her do it?” Farid looked at him in astonishment.
“Yes.”
Meggie looked at him expectantly.
“Write that there’ll be a fallen tree lying across the road they take tomorrow. When it catches fire, everyone strong and young enough must run into the forest to the left. To the left: That’s important! Write that we’ll be waiting there to hide them. Did you get that down?”
Meggie nodded. Her pencil hurried over the paper. He could only hope that Resa would be able to decipher the tiny handwriting in the darkness of the stable, because he wouldn’t be there to make fire for her.
“Have you thought what you’re going to tell the guards?” he asked.
Meggie nodded. For a moment she looked almost like the little girl she had still been not much more than a year ago, and Dustfinger wondered whether it was a mistake, after all, to let her go –
but before he could change his mind she was off. She raced over the yard and disappeared into the inn. When she came back, she was carrying a jug.
“Please, the moss-woman sent me!” they heard her clear voice telling the guards. “I’m to take the children milk.”
“Look at that. Clever as a jackal!” whispered Farid as the guards moved aside. “And brave as a lioness.” There was so much admiration in his voice that Dustfinger couldn’t help smiling. The boy was definitely in love.
“Yes, she’s probably cleverer than both of us put together,” he whispered back. “And certainly braver, at least as far as I’m concerned.”
Farid just nodded. He was staring at the open stable door and smiled with relief when Meggie came out again.
“See that?” she whispered to him when she was back beside Farid. “It was perfectly easy.”
“Good!” said Dustfinger, beckoning Farid over to his side. “Then let’s cross our fingers and hope that what we have to do now is as easy. What about it, Farid? Do you feel like playing with fire?”
The boy carried out his task with as cool a head as Meggie. Apparently lost to the world but in a spot where the men guarding the Prince had a clear view of him, he began making fire dance as naturally as if he were standing in some peaceful marketplace, not in front of an inn that sheltered Firefox and the Piper. The guards nudged each other, laughed, glad of something to pass the time this sleepless night. Seems that I’m the only one here whose heart is beating faster, thought Dustfinger, as he stole past heaps of stinking offal and rotting vegetables. It looked as if the fat landlord’s cooks simply threw everything they couldn’t serve to the guests out here behind the house. A few rats scurried off when they heard Dustfinger’s footsteps, and the hungry eyes of a brownie glowed among the bushes. They had tied up the Prince next to a mountain of carcasses, and his bear just far enough away to keep him from reaching the bones. He squatted there, snorting unhappily through his muzzle, which was bound, now and then uttering a miserably muted howl.
The guards had stuck a torch in the ground not far away, but the flame went out at once when the wind carried Dustfinger’s quiet voice to it. Nothing was left but a faint glow – and the Black Prince raised his head. He knew at once who must be slinking around in the dark when the fire so suddenly died down. A few more quick and silent steps, and Dustfinger took cover behind the bear’s furry back.
“That boy’s really good!” whispered the Prince without turning around. A sharp knife would soon deal with the ropes binding him.
“Yes, very good. And afraid of nothing, unlike me.” Dustfinger examined the padlocks on the bear’s chains. They were rusty but not particularly difficult to open. “What do you say to a little walk in the forest? But the bear must be quiet, quiet as an owl. Can he do it?” He ducked when one of the guards turned, but the man had obviously just heard the maid who was coming out of the kitchen to tip a bucket of refuse onto the garbage heaps behind the building. She disappeared again, with a curious look at the bound Prince – and took with her the noise that had come spilling out of the doorway.
“What about the others?”
“Four guards outside the stable, another four told off by Firefox to guard Silvertongue, and there must be ten more guarding the other prisoners. It’s unlikely that we can distract the attention of all of them, certainly not for long enough to get the injured and crippled to safety.”
“Silvertongue?”
“Yes, the man they were looking for in your camp. What do you call him?” A padlock sprang open. The bear growled; perhaps Jink was making him uneasy. The second chain had better stay where it was for now, or he’d probably eat the marten. Dustfinger set about cutting the ropes tying up the Black Prince. He had to hurry, for they must be gone before Farid’s arms tired. The second padlock clicked. Another quick glance at the boy .. By the fire of the elves! thought Dustfinger. He throws the torches almost as high as I do now! But just as the Prince was throwing off his ropes, a fat man marched up to Farid with a maid and a soldier behind him. He shouted at the boy and pointed indignantly to the flames. Farid just smiled, skipped back while Gwin leaped around his legs, and went on juggling the burning torches. Oh yes, he was as clever as Meggie!
