Did he feel fear? The fear that had made him wake abruptly from sleep on so many nights, his fear of bars and fetters? Resa, leave the door open.
Dustfinger is with him, she thought, trying to comfort herself. Dustfinger is right behind him, and he left all his own fears behind with Death. But Dustfinger will stay with him only as far as the castle gates, whispered her heart, and the Piper is waiting beyond them. She felt her knees giving way again until suddenly Meggie's arm was under hers, holding it as firmly as if her daughter were the older of the two of them. Resa turned her face into Meggie's shoulder, while the women around her looked longingly at the castle gates, which were still firmly closed.
Mo reined in his horse. Dustfinger was still just behind him, his face as expressionless as only he could make it. She wasn't yet used to the sight of him without his scars. He looked so much younger. Many eyes rested on him, the Fire-Dancer whom the Bluejay had brought back from the dead.
"The Piper won't be able to touch him!" whispered the woman beside her, murmuring it like a magic spell. "No, how can he hold the Bluejay captive if even Death couldn't do it?"
Perhaps the Piper is more murderous than Death, Resa felt like replying, but she said nothing. She held her peace and looked up at the man with the silver nose.
"So here you really are! The Bluejay, in person!" His hoarse voice carried a long way in the silence that had settled over Ombra again. "Or do you still claim to be someone else, as you did back at the Castle of Night? How shabby you look. A dirty vagabond. I really thought you'd send someone in your place, hoping we wouldn't find him out behind the mask too soon."
"Oh, I don't think you as stupid as that, Piper!" Mo's face was full of contempt as he looked up at the silver-nosed man. "Although shouldn't we change your name and call you after your new trade in future? Butcher of Children, how do you like that?"
Resa had never heard such hatred in Mo's voice before. The voice that could call the dead back to life. How intently everyone was listening. And in spite of all the hate and anger in it, it still sounded so soft and warm by comparison with the Piper's.
"Call me what you like, bookbinder!" The Piper put his gloved hands on the battlements. "I hear you know something about butchery yourself. But why did you bring the fire-eater with you? I don't remember inviting him! Where are his scars? Did he leave them with the dead?"
The battlements caught fire just where the Piper was leaning, and the flames whispered words that only Dustfinger understood. The silver-nosed tyrant flinched back, cursing, and struck at the sparks that were settling on his fine clothes, while Jacopo ducked into safety behind his back and stared, fascinated, at the whispering fire.
"I left certain things with the dead, Piper. And I brought certain others back." Dustfinger didn't raise his voice, but the flames went out as if they were creeping away into the stone, to wait there for more words of fire. "I'm here to warn you not to treat your guest badly. Fire is as much his friend as mine now, and I don't have to tell you what a powerful friend it can be."
His face pale with anger, the Piper rubbed the soot from his gloves, but before he could reply the Milksop leaned over the battlements.
"Guest?" he cried. "Do you call that the right word for a robber who already has an appointment to meet the hangman in the Castle of Night?" His voice reminded Resa of the cackling of Roxane's goose.
Violante pushed him aside as if he were one of her servants. How small she was.
"The Bluejay is giving himself up as my prisoner, Governor! That was the agreement. And he is under my protection until my father comes." Her voice was sharp and clear, astonishingly strong for such a slight body, and for a moment Resa took heart. Perhaps she really can protect him after all, she thought, and saw the same hope on Meggie's face.
Mo and the Piper were still staring at each other. Their hatred seemed to spin threads between the two of them, and Resa couldn't help thinking of the knife that Battista had sewn so carefully into Mo's clothes. She didn't know whether it frightened or reassured her to know that he had it with him.
"Very well! Let's call him our guest!" the Piper called down. "Which means that we ought to show him our own special brand of hospitality! After all, we've been waiting for him long enough."
He raised his hand, still sooty from Dustfinger's fire, and the guards at the gate leveled their spears at Mo. Some of the women screamed. Resa thought she heard Meggie's voice, too, but she herself was mute with fear. The sentries on the towers bent their crossbows.
Violante put her son aside and took a step toward the Piper. But Dustfinger simply made the fire lick around his fingers as if he were playing with an animal, and Mo drew his sword. The Piper knew very well whose weapon it had once been.
"What's the idea? Send the children out, Piper!" Mo cried, and this time his voice was so cold that Resa hardly recognized it as his. "Send them out, or you can tell your master that the flesh will go on rotting on his bones because you couldn't bring him the Bluejay alive, only dead."
One of the women began sobbing. Another pressed her hand to her mouth. Just behind the two of them Resa saw Minerva, Fenoglio's landlady. Of course, her children were among the captives. But Resa didn't want to think of Minerva's children or the children of the other women. She saw nothing but the spears pointing at Mo's unarmed breast and the crossbows aimed at him from the walls.
"I'm warning you, Piper!" Once more Violante's voice allowed Resa to breathe again. "Let the children go."
The Milksop cast a longing glance at the crossbows. For a moment Resa was afraid he would give the order to shoot, so that he himself could lay the Bluejay at the Adderhead's feet, his own personal hunting trophy. But instead the Piper leaned forward and gave the guards a signal.
"Open the gates!" he said, in a deliberately weary tone. "Let the children out and the Bluejay in!"
Resa buried her head in her daughter's shoulder again. Meggie was still as self-controlled as her father, but she went on looking as if she feared to lose him the moment she took her eyes off him.
The gates slowly opened. They groaned and stuck until the guards pushed at them.
And then they came out. Children. So many children. They surged out as if they had been waiting behind the heavy gates for days. The little ones were in such a hurry to get outside the walls that they stumbled, but the bigger children helped them to their feet again. Fear was written on all their faces, a fear much greater than themselves. The youngest began running as soon as they saw their mothers, threw themselves into their waiting arms, and burrowed their way in among the women as if into a safe hiding place. But the older children walked back to freedom slowly, almost hesitantly. They looked distrustfully at the guards they had to pass, and stopped when they saw the two men waiting on their horses outside the gate.
"Bluejay!" It was only a whisper, but it came from many mouths, louder and louder until the name seemed to be written on the air. "Bluejay, Bluejay." The children nudged one another, pointed to Mo – and stared in awe at the sparks surrounding Dustfinger like a swarm of tiny fairies. "Fire-Dancer."
More and more children stopped in front of the two horses, surrounded their riders, touched them as if to see if the men they knew only from the songs sung secretly by their mothers at their bedsides were really flesh and blood. Mo leaned down from his horse. He waved the children aside, quietly saying something to them. Then he gave Dustfinger one last glance and turned his horse toward the open gateway.