Violante felt her breath coming fast, her own blood roaring in her ears. Yes, it could work. But it was a dangerous plan, and far more dangerous for the Bluejay than for her. Nonsense, it will work, said her reason, her cool reason, but her heart was beating so fast that she felt dizzy. Once he's in the castle, her reason kept asking, how are you going to protect him? What about the Piper and the Milksop?
"Your Highness?"
Brianna's voice sounded different. As if something in her had broken. Good! I hope she sleeps badly, thought Violante. I hope her beauty fades while she's on her knees scrubbing floors. But when she turned and looked at Brianna, all she wanted was to hold her close and laugh with her again, the way they used to laugh.
"There's something else I'm to tell you." Brianna didn't lower her eyes when she looked at Violante. She was still as proud as ever. "These herbs will taste very bitter. They will help only if you use them properly. In the worst case, they can even be deadly. It's all up to you."
As if she had to have that explained to her! But Brianna was still looking at her. Protect him, said her eyes. If you don't, then all is lost!
Violante stood up straight as a ramrod.
"I understand you very well!" she said brusquely. "I am sure that the children will be very much better in three days' time. Their troubles will be over, and I'll use the herbs with all the necessary care. Take that message back. And now go. Tullio will escort you back to the gates."
Brianna sank into another curtsy. "Thank you. I know they'll be in the best of hands with you." She rose hesitantly. "I know you have plenty of maids," she added quietly, "but if you ever want my company again, please send for me! I miss you." She uttered the last words so softly that Violante could hardly hear them.
I miss you, too. The words were on the tip of Violante's tongue, but she didn't let them pass her lips. Be quiet, heart, you stupid, forgetful thing.
"Thank you," she said. "But I don't feel like hearing songs at present."
"No. Of course not." Brianna turned as pale as when Violante had hit her, after she had been with Cosimo and then lied to Violante about it. "But who's reading to you? Who's playing with Jacopo?"
"I'm reading to myself." Violante was proud of the cold rejection in her voice, although her heart felt so differently. "As for Jacopo, I don't see much of him. He goes around wearing a tin nose that he had the smith make him, he sits on the Piper's knee, and he tells everyone he'd never have been stupid enough to let Sootbird entice him into the marketplace."
Brianna put her hand to her throat. She really did wear a coin there. "Do you sometimes see him, too?"
"See who?"
"Cosimo. I see him every night in my dreams. And in the day I sometimes feel as if he were standing behind me."
Stupid creature. In love with a dead man. What did she still love about him? His beauty was food for worms now, and what else was there in Cosimo for anyone to love? No, Violante had buried her love with him. It had gone away like the silly happiness you feel after a jug of wine.
"Would you like to go down to the vault?" Violante couldn't believe that her mouth had uttered those words.
Brianna was looking at her incredulously.
"Tullio will take you down. But don't expect too much – you'll find no one but the dead there. Tell me, Brianna," she added (ugly Violante, cruel Violante), "were you disappointed when the Bluejay brought your father and not Cosimo back from the dead?"
Brianna bent her head. Violante had never been able to find out whether she loved her father or not. "I would very much like to go down to the vault," she said quietly. "If you'll allow me."
Violante nodded to Tullio, and he took Brianna's hand.
"Three more days and everything will be all right," said Violante, when Brianna was at the door. "Injustice is not immortal. It can't be!"
Brianna nodded, as abstractedly as if she hadn't been listening. "Send for me," she said again.
Then she was gone, and Violante was already missing her as the door closed. So? she thought. Is there any feeling you understand better? Losing people and missing them – that's what your life consists of.
She folded up the Bluejay's letter and went over to the tapestry that had hung in her bedchamber since she first slept there at the age of seven. It showed a unicorn hunt, woven in a time when unicorns had been creatures of fantasy and were not carried dead through Ombra after a hunt. But even the unicorns of fantasy had had to die. Innocence doesn't live long in any world. Ever since Violante had met the Bluejay the unicorn had reminded her of him. She had seen the same innocence in his face.
How are you going to protect him, Violante? How?
Wasn't it the same in all stories? Women didn't protect the unicorns. They brought them to their death.
The guards at her door looked tired, but they hastily straightened their backs when she came out. Child-soldiers. They both had small siblings down in the dungeon.
"Wake the Piper!" she told them. "Tell him I have important news for my father."
Her father. The word never failed to take effect, but none tasted more unpleasant to her. Just six letters, and she felt small and weak and so ugly that people avoided looking at her. She remembered her seventh birthday only too well. It was the only day when her father had obviously been happy to have such an unattractive child. "A good revenge!" he had told her mother. "Giving my ugliest daughter to my enemy's handsome son for his wife."
Father.
When would there be no one she had to call father anymore?
She pressed the Bluejay's letter to her heart.
Soon.
34. BURNT WORDS
Time seemed to have just gone, in big clumps, or all the day was happening at once or something, I was wondering so hard about what was to come, I was watching so hard the differences from our normal days. I wished I had more time to think, before she went right down, all the way down; my mind was going breathless, trying to get all its thinking done.
Margo Lanagan, Black Juice
They were setting off at sunrise. The Piper had accepted Mo's conditions: The children of Ombra would be set free as soon as the Bluejay kept his promise and handed himself over to the Adderhead's daughter. Some of the robbers were going to disguise themselves as women and wait outside the castle with the mothers, and Dustfinger would accompany Mo to Ombra as a fiery warning to the Piper. But the Bluejay would ride into the castle alone.
Don't call him that, Meggie, she told herself.
There were only a few hours now until dawn. The Black Prince was sitting by the fire, wide awake, with Battista and Dustfinger, who didn't appear to need any sleep at all now that he was back from the dead. Farid was sitting beside him, of course and Roxane. But Dustfinger's daughter had moved into Ombra Castle. Violante had taken Brianna back on the morning when the Piper had announced his agreement with the Bluejay.
Mo wasn't sitting by the fire with them. He had gone to lie down and get some sleep, and Resa was with him. How could he sleep tonight? The Strong Man was sitting outside the tent as if he must at least keep watch over the Bluejay.
"You should sleep, too, Meggie," Mo had told her when he saw her sitting a little way from the others under the trees, but Meggie had only shaken her head. It was rainy, and her clothes were as damp and chilly as her hair, but it wasn't much better inside the tents, and she didn't want to lie there with the rain telling her how the Piper would greet her father.
"Meggie?" Doria sat down in the wet grass beside her. His hair was wavy from the rain. "Are you riding to Ombra, too?"
She nodded. Farid glanced at them.