"Aha! Here he is at last! Fabulous!" Fenoglio appeared behind Meggie so suddenly that she almost stumbled off the branch where she was standing. "Yes, we know our craft, you and I! I wouldn't say a word against your father, but in my view you're the true mistress of this art. You're still child enough to see the pictures behind the words as clearly as only children can. Which is probably why this giant doesn't look at all the way I imagined him."
"But I didn't imagine him like this, either," Meggie said in a whisper, as if any loud word might attract the giant's attention.
"Really? Hm." Fenoglio took a cautious step forward. "Well, never mind that, I can't wait to hear what Signora Loredan thinks of him, I really can't."
Meggie could see what Doria, for one, thought of the giant. He was perched in the crown of the tree and couldn't take his eyes off the apparition. And Farid was looking as captivated as he usually did only when Dustfinger was showing him a new trick, while Jink, sitting on his lap, bared his teeth in alarm.
Meggie felt pleased. She had done it again! She had used Fenoglio's words and her voice to go on telling the story. And, as on those other occasions, she felt exhausted and proud at the same time – and a little afraid of what she had summoned up.
"So now, do you have the words for my father ready?"
"The words for your father? No, but I'm working on them." Fenoglio rubbed his lined forehead as if he had to wake up a few thoughts slumbering there. "I'm afraid a giant wouldn't be much help to your father, but trust me. I'll get that done tonight, too. When the Adderhead reaches the castle, Violante will receive him with my words, and the two of us will bring this story to a good ending once and for all. Oh, he really is magnificent!" Fenoglio leaned forward to get a better look at his creation. "Although I wonder where he gets those chameleon eyes. I never wrote a word about them! Never mind, it makes him look… well, interesting. Perhaps I ought to write a few more giants like him here. It's a shame they hide away in the mountains now."
The robbers did not appear to agree with him. They were still climbing the ropes as hastily as if the Milksop's men were after them. By now only the Black Prince and his bear stood at the foot of the tree.
"What's the Prince still doing down there?" Fenoglio leaned so far forward that Meggie instinctively grabbed his tunic. "For heaven's sake, why doesn't he leave the damn bear alone? These giants don't have particularly good eyesight. He'll be trodden underfoot if the giant stumbles just once!"
Meggie tried to haul the old man back. "The Black Prince would never leave the bear alone, you know he wouldn't!"
"But he must!" She had seldom seen Fenoglio so concerned. Obviously, he really was fonder of the Prince than of most of his characters.
"Come on up!" he called down to him. "Come on, Prince!"
But the Black Prince went on talking to his bear as if the animal were a sulky child, while the giant stood there staring up at the children. Several women shrieked when he reached out his hand. They pulled the children away, but however far the giant stretched, his mighty fingers couldn't reach the nests, just as Fenoglio had said.
"Made to measure!" the old man whispered. "See that, Meggie?" Yes, this time he obviously had thought of everything.
The giant looked disappointed. He reached up once more, and then took a step to one side. His heel missed the Black Prince by no more than a twig's breadth. The bear roared and stood up on his hind legs – and the giant, in surprise, looked down at what was there between his feet.
"Oh no!" faltered Fenoglio. "No, no, no!" he shouted down to his creation. "Not him! Leave the Prince alone. That's not what you're here for! Go after the Milksop. Take some of his men, if you want anyone! Go on, go away!"
The giant raised his head, looking to see who was shouting like that, but then he bent and picked up the Prince and the bear with as little ceremony as Elinor picking caterpillars off her roses.
"No!" stammered Fenoglio. "What's going on now? What went wrong this time? He'll break every bone in the Prince's body!"
The robbers hung from their ropes, frozen rigid. One of them threw his knife down at the giant's hand. The giant pulled it out with his lips like a thorn and dropped the Black Prince as he might have dropped a toy. Meggie flinched as he struck the ground and lay there without moving. She heard Elinor scream, while the giant hit out at the men on the ropes as if they were wasps trying to sting him.
Everyone was shouting in confusion. Battista ran to one of the ropes to go to the Prince's aid. Farid and Doria followed him, and even Elinor ran after him, while Roxane stood there, horrified, with her arms around two crying children. As for Fenoglio, he was shaking at the ropes hanging from the tree in helpless fury.
"No!" he shouted down once more. "No, you just can't do that!"
And suddenly one of the ropes tore away and he fell into the void below. Meggie tried to grab him, but she arrived too late. Fenoglio was falling, with an expression of surprise on his wrinkled face, and the giant caught him in midair like a ripe fruit dropping from the tree.
The children had stopped screaming. The women and the robbers were silent, too, as the giant sat down at the foot of the tree and examined his catch. He put the bear carelessly on the ground, but as he did so his glance fell on the unconscious Prince, and he picked him up again. Roaring, the bear went to his master's aid, but the giant just flicked him away with his hand. Then he rose to his feet, looked up at the children one last time, and strode away with Fenoglio in his right hand and the Black Prince in his left.
59. THE BLUEJAY'S ANGELS
I ask you:
What would you do if you were me? Tell me. Please tell me!
But you are far from this. Your fingers turn the strangeness of these pages that somehow connect my life to yours. Your eyes are safe. The story is just another few hundred pages of your mind. For me, it's here. It's now.
Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger
Orpheus had seen Violante for the first time at one of the Milksop's banquets, and even then he had wondered what it would be like to rule Ombra at her side. All his maids were more beautiful than the Adderhead's daughter, but Violante had something that they did not possess: arrogance, ambition, the lust for power. All of that appealed to Orpheus, and when the Piper led her into the Hall of a Thousand Windows his heart beat faster as he saw how high she still held her head even though she had staked everything on a single card and lost.
Her gaze passed over them all as if they were the losers – her father, Thumbling, the Piper. She had only a fleeting glance for Orpheus, but never mind. How was she to know what a prominent part he would play in the future? The Adderhead would still be stuck in the mud with a broken wheel if he hadn't read him four new coach wheels on the spot. How everyone had stared! Even Thumbling had learned to respect him.
The Hall of a Thousand Windows had no windows anymore. Thumbling had had them draped with black cloth, and only half a dozen torches gave light in the darkness, just enough of it to show the Adderhead the face of his worst enemy.