"Maybe some of us had better stay down here," Elfbane put in. "We have to go hunting and -"
"Oh, you can hunt up there!" Farid interrupted. "There are flocks of birds, and I've seen large squirrels, and creatures like rabbits with fingers that cling to the branches. Though there are wild cats up there as well…"
The women looked at one another, frightened. "… and bats, and long-tailed brownies," Farid went on. "There's a whole world up there! It has caves in it, and a lot of the branches are so wide you can easily walk along them. Flowers and mushrooms grow there! It's fabulous. Wonderful!"
Fenoglio was smiling all over his wrinkled face, like a king hearing praise of his domain, and even Elinor looked wistfully up the rough trunk for the first time. Some of the children wanted to climb the tree at once, but the women stopped them. "Go and collect leaves," they told them, "and moss and birds' feathers – anything you can find to make soft linings."
The sun was already low as the robbers began stretching ropes, weaving nets, and building wooden platforms to be hauled up the tall trunk. Battista went back with some of the men to wipe out their tracks, and Meggie saw the Black Prince looking at his bear, at a loss. How was he going to get the bear up the tree? What would happen to the packhorses? So many questions, and he still wasn't at all sure that they had outrun the Milksop.
Meggie was just helping Minerva to tie creepers together to make a net for provisions when Fenoglio drew her aside, a conspiratorial expression on his face.
"You won't believe this!" he murmured to her when they were standing among the mighty roots of the tree. "And don't you dare tell Loredan about it. She'd only accuse me of having delusions of grandeur again!"
"What don't you want me to tell her?" Meggie looked at him blankly.
"Weil, that boy, you know who I mean – the one who keeps looking at you and brings you flowers and turns Farid green with jealousy. Doria…"
Above them the crown of the tree was bathed with red in the light of the setting sun, and the nests hung among its branches like black fruits.
Feeling embarrassed, Meggie turned her face away. "What about him?"
Fenoglio looked around as if afraid that Elinor might appear behind him the next moment. "Meggie," he said, lowering his voice, "I think I made him up, too, just like Dustfinger and the Black Prince!"
"Oh, nonsense, what are you talking about?" Meggie whispered back. "Doria probably wasn't even born when you were writing your book!"
"Yes, yes, I know! That's the confusing part of it! All these children," said Fenoglio, with a sweeping gesture toward the children searching busily for moss and feathers under the trees, "my story lays them like eggs, entirely without my aid. It's a very fertile story! But that boy…" Fenoglio lowered his voice as if Doria could hear him, although he was far away with Battista, kneeling on the forest floor and turning knives into machetes and saws. "Meggie, this is where it gets so crazy: I wrote a story about him, but the character with his name was grown-up! And even stranger – the story was never published! Presumably it's still lying in a drawer in my old desk, or my grandchildren have made it into balls of paper to throw for the cats!"
"But that's impossible. He can't be the same person." Meggie unobtrusively glanced at Doria. She liked the sight of him, she liked it very much. "What's this story about?" she asked. "What does this grown-up Doria do?"
"He builds castles and city walls. He even invents a flying machine, a clock to measure time, and" – here Fenoglio looked at Meggie – "and a printing machine for a famous bookbinder."
"Really?" Meggie suddenly felt warm, the way she used to when Mo had told her a particularly good story. For a famous bookbinder. Just for a moment she forgot all about Doria and thought only of her father. Perhaps Fenoglio had already written the words that would keep Mo alive, perhaps he'd written them long ago. Oh, please, she begged Fenoglio's story, let the bookbinder be Mo!
"Doria the Enchanter, I called him," Fenoglio whispered. "But it's with his hands that he works enchantment, like your father. And now, listen to this: It gets even better! This Doria has a wife who is said to come from a distant land, and she often gives him his ideas in the first place. Isn't that strange?"
"What's so strange about it?" Meggie felt herself blushing, and just at that moment Farid looked at her. "Did you give her a name?" she asked Fenoglio.
Awkwardly, the old man cleared his throat. "Well, you know I sometimes neglect my women characters a bit, and I couldn't find the right name, so I just called her his wife."
Meggie had to smile. Yes, that was very like Fenoglio, "Doria has two stiff fingers on his left hand," she pointed out, "So how could he do all the things you say?"
"But I wrote him those stiff fingers!" cried Fenoglio out loud, forgetting to be quiet, Doria raised his head and glanced at them, but luckily the Black Prince went up to him just at that moment.
"His father broke them," Fenoglio went on more quietly. "When he was drunk. He was going to hit Doria's sister, and Doria tried to protect her."
Meggie leaned back against the tree trunk. She felt as if she could hear its heart beating behind her, a gigantic heart in the wood. It was all a dream, just a dream. "What was this sister's name?" she asked. "Susa?"
"How should I know?" retorted Fenoglio. "I can't remember everything. Maybe she didn't have a name any more than his wife did. Anyway, it will just make him all the more famous later when people find out he can build such marvels in spite of his stiff fingers!"
"I see," murmured Meggie – and caught herself wondering what Doria would look like when he grew up. "That's a lovely story," she said.
"I know," agreed Fenoglio, leaning back with a self-satisfied sigh against the tree he had described in his book so many years ago. "But not a word to the boy about all this, of course."
"Of course not. Did you leave any more stories like that in your desk drawers? Do you know what will happen to Minerva's children, and to Beppe and Fire-Elf?"
Fenoglio never got around to answering that question.
"Well, isn't that wonderful!" Elinor was standing in front of them with her arms full of moss. "Tell me, Meggie, isn't the fellow beside you the laziest man in this world – and any other? Everyone else is working while he stands here staring into space!"
"Oh yes, and what about Meggie?" Fenoglio retorted indignantly. "Anyway, you'd none of you have anything to do if the laziest man in all the worlds hadn't thought up this tree and the nests in its branches!"
Elinor was not in the least impressed. "We're probably all going to break our necks in those wretched nests" was all she said. "And I'm not sure if this is any better than the mines."
"Calm down, Loredan. In any case, the Piper wouldn't want you for the mines," replied Fenoglio. "You'd get stuck in the first tunnel."
Meggie left them to their quarrel. Lights were beginning to dance among the trees. At first Meggie thought they were glowworms, but when some of them settled on her arms she saw that they were tiny moths, shining as if moonlight clung to them.
A new chapter, she thought, looking up at the nests. A new place. And Fenoglio can tell me about Doria's future, but he doesn't know what his story is going to say about my father. Why didn't Resa take me with her?
"Because your mother is a clever woman," Fenoglio would have told her. "Who but you is going to read my words if I find the right ones? Darius? No, Meggie, you're the best teller of this tale. If you really want to help your father, your place is here beside me. And Mortimer would certainly see it just the same way!"
Yes, she supposed he would.
One of the moths settled on her hand, shining on her finger like a ring. This Doria has a wife who is said to come from a distant land, and she often gives him his ideas in the first place. Yes. That really was strange.