"Quiet, bear!" he gasped. He could hardly get the words past his lips; he had bitten them in his pain until they bled. But the bear went on howling and snorting as if his own life were at stake.
"Let me by." Resa pushed them all aside, even Minerva, and took the Prince's face between her hands.
"Look at me!" she said. "Please, look at me!"
She wiped the sweat from his brow and looked into his eyes.
Roxane came back with a few roots in her hand, and the magpie flapped its way over to Gecko's shoulder.
Resa stared at it.
"Strong Man!" she said, so quietly that no one but Meggie heard her. "Catch that bird."
The magpie jerked its head as the Black Prince writhed in Minerva's arms.
The Strong Man looked at Resa, his face streaming with tears, and nodded. But when he took a step toward Gecko, the magpie flew away and perched on a ledge high up below the roof of the cave.
Roxane kneeled beside Resa.
"He's lost consciousness," said Minerva. "And see how shallow his breathing is!"
"I've seen cramps like these before." Resa's voice was trembling. "The berries that cause them are dark red, not much bigger than a pinhead. Mortola liked to use them because they're easily mixed with food, and they bring a very painful death. There are two of the trees they grow on just below this cave! I've warned the children not to eat the berries." She looked up at the magpie again.
"Is there an antidote?" Roxane straightened her back. The Black Prince lay there as if dead, and the bear pushed his muzzle into his master's side and moaned like a human being.
"Yes. A flower with tiny white blooms that smell of carrion." Resa was still looking up at the bird. "The root alleviates the effect of the berries."
"What's wrong with him?" Fenoglio made his way past the women, a look of concern on his face. Elinor was with him. The pair of them had spent all morning in Fenoglio's corner of the cave, arguing about what was good in his story and what wasn't. Whenever someone came near them they lowered their voices like conspirators, as if any of the children or the robbers could have understood what they were talking about.
Elinor put her hand to her mouth with alarm when she saw the Black Prince lying there motionless. She looked incredulous, as if she had found a wrongly printed page in a book.
"Poisoned." The Strong Man stood up, clenching his fists. His face was the dark red color that it usually turned only when he was drunk. He took Gecko by his scrawny neck and shook him like a rag doll. "Did you do this?" he cried. "Or was it Snapper? Come on, tell us or I'll beat it out of you! I'll break all your bones until you're writhing in agony, too!"
"Let him go!" Roxane snapped. "That's not going to help the Prince now!"
The Strong Man let go of Gecko and started sobbing. Minerva put her arms around him. But Resa looked up at the magpie again.
"The plant you describe sounds like deathbud," Roxane told her, while Gecko, coughing, rubbed his neck and cursed the Strong Man roundly. "It's very rare. And even if it grew here it would have died down in the cold long ago. Isn't there anything else?"
The Black Prince came to his senses and tried to sit up, but he fell back with a groan. Battista kneeled down beside him and looked at Roxane in search of help. The Strong Man, too, turned his tearful eyes on her like a pleading dog.
"Don't stare at me like that!" she cried, and Meggie heard the desperation in her voice. "I can't help him. Try giving him retchwort," she told Minerva. "And I'll go and look for deathbud roots, though I'm afraid there's not much point."
"Retchwort will only make it worse," said Resa in a toneless voice. "Believe me, I've seen this often enough."
The Black Prince gasped in agony and buried his face against Battista's side. Then his body suddenly went limp, as if it had lost its battle against the pain. Roxane quickly kneeled down beside him, putting her ear to his chest and her fingers on his mouth. Meggie tasted her own tears on her lips, and the Strong Man began sobbing like a child.
"Still alive," said Roxane. "But only just."
Gecko slipped away, probably to tell Snapper what was going on. But Elinor whispered something to Fenoglio. He turned away angrily, but Elinor held him back and went on talking insistently to him. "Don't make such a fuss!" Meggie heard her whisper. "Of course you can do it! Are you going to leave him to die?"
Meggie was not the only one to have heard those last words. The Strong Man, bewildered, mopped the tears off his face. The bear groaned again and nuzzled his master's side. But Fenoglio still stood there, staring at the unconscious Prince. Then he took a hesitant step in Roxane's direction.
"This… er… this flower, Roxane…"
Elinor stayed right behind him, as if she had to make sure he said the right thing. Fenoglio looked at her in annoyance.
"What?" Roxane looked at him.
"Tell me more about it. Where does it grow? How tall is it?"
"It likes moist, shady places, but why ask? I told you, it'll have died down in the frost long ago."
"White flowers, tiny. Shady, moist surroundings." Fenoglio passed his hand over his tired face. Then he turned abruptly and took Meggie's arm.
"Come with me," he told her in a low voice. "We must hurry."
"Moist and shady," he murmured as he led Meggie off with him. "Right, so if they grew at the entrance of a brownie's burrow, protected by the warm air coming out of the burrow where a few brownies are hibernating… yes, that makes sense. Yes!"
The cave was almost empty. The women had taken the children out so that they wouldn't hear the Prince's cries of pain. A few small groups of robbers still sat there in silence, staring at one another as if wondering which of them had tried to kill their leader. Snapper was near the entrance with Gecko, and he returned Meggie's glance with such a black expression that she quickly looked the other way.
Fenoglio, however, did not avoid his eyes. "I wonder if it was Snapper," he whispered to Meggie. "Yes, I really do wonder."
"If anyone ought to know, it's you!" muttered Elinor, who had followed them. "Who else made up that horrible fellow?"
Fenoglio spun around as if something had stung him. "Now you listen to me, Loredan! I've been patient with you so far because you're Meggie's aunt -"
"Great-aunt," Elinor corrected him, unmoved.
"Whatever. I never invited you into this story, so you will kindly spare me any remarks about my characters in future!"
"Oh, will I?" Elinor's voice rose. It was loud enough to echo right through the huge cave. "And suppose I'd spared you my comment just now? Your befuddled brain would never have thought of getting the flower here by -"
Fenoglio pressed his hand roughly over her mouth. "How many more times do I have to tell you?" he hissed. "Not a word about writing, understand? I haven't the faintest desire to be drawn and quartered as a wizard because of a stupid woman."
"Fenoglio!" Meggie pulled him forcibly away from Elinor. "The Black Prince! He's dying!"
Fenoglio stared at her for a fraction of a second, as if he thought her interruption was in the worst possible taste, but then, without a word, he retreated to the corner where he slept. Stony-faced, he cleared a wineskin aside and found a bundle of papers under a few clothes. To Meggie's surprise, most of the sheets already had writing on them.
"Curse it all, where's Rosenquartz?" he muttered as he took a blank sheet. "Out and about with Jasper again, no doubt. The moment two of them get together they forget their work and go looking for wild glass women. As if the glass women would give one of those pink good-for-nothings so much as a glance!"