"Oh, and do you, by any chance, want to deliver your opinion as well before I go on writing?" Fenoglio asked him sharply. "Anything in particular you fancy? You want me to put a heroic glass man into the story, or a fat woman who always knows best and will drive the Adderhead to such distraction that he'll hand himself over to the White Women of his own free will? That would be one solution, I suppose."
Meggie came up to him and put her hand on his shoulder. "You don't know how much longer you'll need, do you?" Her voice sounded so desolate. Not at all like a voice that had already changed this world several times.
"It won't be long now." Fenoglio took great care to sound confident. "The words are coming. They -"
He fell silent.
From outside came the hoarse, long-drawn-out cry of a falcon. Again and again. The guards' alarm signal. Oh no.
The nest into which Fenoglio had settled hung over a branch broader than any street in Ombra, but once again he felt dizzy when he climbed down the ladder Doria had made him so that he wouldn't have to let himself down on a rope. On the Black Prince's orders, ropes woven by the robbers from bark and climbing plants had been stretched everywhere. In addition, the tree itself had so many air-roots and branches hanging down that there was always something to hold on to. Yet none of that could make you forget the deep void yawning under the slippery boughs. The fact is, Fenoglio, you're no squirrel, he told himself as he clung to a few woody shoots and peered down. But for an old man, you're not doing too badly up here.
"They're hauling in the ropes!" Signora Loredan, unlike him, was surprisingly agile as she moved through the air along the wooden paths.
"I can see that for myself!" growled Fenoglio. They were hauling up all the ropes that went down to the foot of the tree. That boded no good.
Farid came climbing down to them. He often joined the guards posted by the Black Prince in the top branches of the tree. Heavens, how could any human being climb like that? The boy was almost as good at it as his marten.
"Torches! They're coming closer!" he said breathlessly. "And do you hear the dog barking?" He looked accusingly at Fenoglio. "Didn't you say no one knew about this tree? Didn't you claim it had been forgotten, and the nests with it?"
Blaming him. Of course. Something goes wrong, and it's all Fenoglio's fault!
"Well? Dogs find forgotten places, too!" he snapped at the boy. "Why not ask who wiped out our tracks? Where's the Black Prince?"
"Down on the ground with his bear. Trying to hide him. The stupid creature just refuses to be hauled up!"
Fenoglio listened. Sure enough, he heard dogs. Damn it, damn it, damn it!
"So what about it?" Of course Signora Loredan was acting as if none of it bothered her at all. "They can't get us down, can they? A tree like this must be easy to defend!"
"They can starve us out, though."
Farid understood more about situations like this, and Elinor Loredan suddenly looked rather anxious after all. And who was she staring at?
"Ah, so now I'm your last hope again, is that right?" Fenoglio imitated her voice. "Write something, Fenoglio, go on! It can't be all that difficult!"
The children clambered out of the nests where they slept. They ran along the branches as if they were meadow footpaths, peering down in alarm. They looked like pretty beetles in the gigantic tree. Poor little things.
Despina ran to Fenoglio. "They can't get up the tree, can they?"
Her brother just looked at him.
"Of course not," said Fenoglio, although Ivo's eyes accused him of lying. Ivo was spending more and more time with Roxane's son, Jehan, these days. The two boys got on well. They both knew too much about the world for lads of their age.
Farid took Meggie's arm. "Battista says we ought to get the children into the top nests. Will you help me?"
Of course she nodded – she still liked him far too much – but Fenoglio held her back. "Meggie stays here. I might need her."
Naturally, Farid immediately knew what he was talking about. In his black eyes Fenoglio saw the reborn Cosimo riding through the streets of Ombra and the dead men lying among the trees in the Wayless Wood.
"We don't need your words!" said the boy. "I'll send fire raining down on them if they try to climb up!"
Fire? An alarming word in a forest.
"Well, perhaps I can think of something better," said Fenoglio, and sensed Meggie's desperate eyes on him. What about my father? they asked. Yes, what about him? Which set of words was more urgent now? Damn it, damn it, damn it!
A few of the children began crying, and below him Fenoglio saw the torches that Farid had mentioned. They shone in the night like fire-elves but with far more menace.
Farid led Despina and Ivo away with him. The other children followed. Darius went to them, his thin hair untidy from sleep, and took the small hands that reached out in search of his. He glanced in concern at Elinor, but she just stood there staring darkly at the depths below, her hands clenched into fists.
"Let them come!" she said fiercely, her voice shaking. "I hope the bear will eat them all! I hope those men who hunt children will all be hacked to pieces!"
A lunatic of a woman, but she took the words right out of Fenoglio's mouth. Meggie's eyes were still fixed on him.
"Why are you looking at me like that? What am I supposed to do, Meggie?" he asked. "This story is telling itself in two places again. Which of them needs the words more urgently? Am I supposed to grow a second head, or -?"
He stopped abruptly.
Signora Loredan was still firing off a salvo of curses at the ground below. "Child murderers! Vermin! Cockroaches in armor! You ought to be crushed underfoot!"
"What was that you just said?" Fenoglio sounded more brusque than he had intended.
Elinor looked at him blankly.
Crushed underfoot…! Fenoglio stared at the torches down below. "Yes!" he whispered. "Yes. It could be rather dangerous. But how am I to…?"
He turned and swiftly climbed the ladder to his nest again. The nest where the words were hatched out. That was the place for him now.
But of course Loredan followed him.
"You have an idea?"
He did, and he certainly wasn't going to let her know that, once again, she had given it to him. "I have an idea, that's right. Meggie, be ready, please."
Rosenquartz handed him a pen. He was afraid; Fenoglio saw it in his glass face. It was a deeper pink than usual. Or had he been sneaking wine again? For the two glass men were now eating grated bark like their wild cousins, and the result was a little green mingling with Rosenquartz's pale pink. Not a very good color combination.
Fenoglio put a blank sheet of paper on the board that Doria had so cleverly cut to size for him. For heaven's sake, he'd never yet managed to write two stories at once!
"What about my father, Fenoglio?" Meggie kneeled down beside him. She looked so desperate!
"He still has time." Fenoglio dipped his pen in the ink. "Get Farid to look into the fire if you're worried, but I can assure you
it's not easy to repair a coach wheel in a hurry. The Adderhead won't be at the castle for a day or so at most. And I promise, as soon as I've dealt with what's going on here I'll get back to writing the words for the Bluejay. Don't look so sad! How are you going to help him if the Milksop shoots us all out of this tree? Now, give me the book. You know the one I mean."
He knew where to look. He had described them at the very beginning, in the third or fourth chapter.
"Come on, tell us!" Loredan's voice was quivering with impatience. "What are you going to do?" She came closer to get a look at the book, but Fenoglio slammed it shut in front of her nose.
"Be quiet!" he thundered, not that that made any difference to the noise coming in from outside. Was the Milksop here already?