The longer Mo followed her, the more it seemed to him that this painted world was exactly what Violante's nearsighted eyes wanted to see. Perhaps she felt safer in a world resembling the scenes in Balbulus's books – invented, easily controlled, timeless and unchanging, every corner of it familiar.
Would Meggie have liked to see painted unicorns from her window, he wondered, eternally green hills, clouds that were always the same? No, he answered himself, Meggie would have climbed up to the towers like him.
"Did your mother ever tell you if she was really happy here?" Mo couldn't keep the doubt out of his voice, and Violante heard it The girlish softness that changed her face so much disappeared at once, and the Adderhead's daughter was back.
"Of course! Very happy. Until my father made my grandfather give him her hand in marriage and took her away to the Castle of Night!" She looked at him defiantly, as if her mere gaze could force him to believe her – and to love this castle.
There was one room that didn't let you forget the outside world. Mo first found it when he was exploring on his own, searching for someplace where he wouldn't feel that he was a prisoner again, if in a beautifully painted dungeon this time. Daylight dazzled him as he suddenly stepped into a hall in the west wing of the castle. It had so many windows that they turned the walls into lace. Light, reflected from the water of the lake, danced on the ceiling, and the mountains seemed to line up outside as if they wanted nothing more than to be seen through all those windows. The beauty of the view took Mo's breath away, although it was a dark beauty, and his eyes instinctively went to the somber mountain slopes in search of any trace of human beings. He filled his lungs with the cold air carried in on the wind, and did not see that he was not alone until he turned and looked south, to where Ombra lay somewhere beyond the mountains. Dustfinger was sitting in one of the windows, the wind in his hair, his face turned toward the cold sun.
"The strolling players call it the Hall of a Thousand Windows," he said, without turning, and Mo wondered how long he had been sitting there. "They say that Violante's mother and sisters had poor eyesight because their father would never let them look into the distance, for fear of what awaited them there. Daylight began to hurt their eyes. They couldn't even make out the pictures on the walls of their rooms clearly anymore, and a physician who came here with a couple of the Motley Folk told Violante's grandfather that his daughters would go blind unless he let them see the real world now and then. So the Prince of Salt – that was what people called him, because he'd made a fortune in the salt trade – had these windows made in the walls and ordered his daughters to look out of them for an hour every day. But while they did so a minstrel had to tell them about the terrors of the outside world – the heartlessness and cruelty of human beings, disease running rife and hungry wolves – so that they'd never want to go out into it and leave their father."
"What a strange story." As Mo went over to Dustfinger's side he could feel the Fire-Dancer's longing for Roxane as strongly as if it were his own.
"It's only a story now," said Dustfinger. "But it all really happened, here in this place." He blew a gentle breath into the cool air, and beside them three girls were formed out of fire. They stood close together, staring into the distance, where the mountains were as blue as yearning.
"It's said they tried to run away with the strolling players several times. Their father tolerated the Motley Folk only because they brought him news from other princely courts. But neither the girls nor the strolling players ever got any farther than the first trees. Their father had them caught and brought his daughters back to the castle. As for the strolling players, he had them tied up there" – Dustfinger pointed to a rock on the banks of the lake – "and the girls had to stand at the window" – (the figures did exactly what Dustfinger described) – "freezing cold and trembling with fear, until giants came and dragged the strolling Players away."
Mo couldn't take his eyes off the fiery girls. The flames depicted their fear and loneliness as expressively as Balbulus could have done with his brush. No, Violante's mother had not been happy in this castle, whatever her daughter said.
"What's he doing?"
Suddenly, Violante was standing behind them. Brianna and Tullio were with her.
Dustfinger snapped his fingers, and the flames lost their human form and twined around the window like a fiery plant. "Don't worry. There'll just be a little soot left on the stones, and for the moment," he added, glancing at Brianna, who was staring into the flames as if enchanted, "it looks beautiful, don't you think?"
It did. The fire surrounded the window with red leaves and flowers of gold. Tullio instinctively took a step toward it, but Violante roughly pulled him back to her side. "Put it out, Fire-Dancer!" she ordered Dustfinger. "This minute."
Shrugging his shoulders, Dustfinger obeyed. A whisper, and the fire went out. Violante's anger did not impress him, and that alarmed the Adderhead's daughter. Mo could see it in her eyes.
"It did look beautiful, don't you agree?" he asked, passing his finger over the sooty sill. It was as if he could still see the three girls standing at the window.
"Fire is never beautiful," said Violante with scorn. "Have you ever seen anyone die by fire? They burn for a long time."
She obviously knew what she was talking about. How old had she been when she first saw someone die at the stake, how old when she first saw a hanging? How much darkness could children bear before darkness became a part of them forever?
"Come with me, Bluejay!" Violante turned abruptly. "There's something I want to show you. Only you! Brianna, get some water and wash off that soot."
Brianna hurried away without a word, but not without casting a quick glance at her father, who held Mo back as he was about to follow Her Ugliness.
"Beware of her!" he whispered. "Princes' daughters have a weakness for mountebanks and robbers."
"Bluejay!" Violante's voice was sharp with impatience. "Where are you?"
Dustfinger painted a fiery heart on the floor.
Violante was waiting on the staircase in the tower as if afraid of the windows. Perhaps she liked shadows because she still felt the mark on her cheek from which her cruel nickname came. Meggie had been called very different pet names when she was little: "my pretty," "sweetheart," "honey,"… Meggie had grown up in the certainty that the mere sight of her filled Mo with love. Presumably, Violante's mother had shown her daughter that kind of love, but everyone else had looked at her and shuddered, or felt pity at the most. Where had Violante hidden, as a child, from all those glances of dislike and all that pain? Had she taught her heart to despise everyone who could show the world a pretty face? Poor Adder's daughter, thought Mo as he saw her standing on the dark staircase, so lonely in her dark heart… No, Dustfinger was wrong, Violante loved nothing and no one, not even herself.
She hurried down the steps as if running away from her own shadow. She always walked fast and impatiently, picking up her long skirts as if cursing the clothes women had to wear in this world at every step she took.
"Come with me. I want to show you something. My mother always told me the library of this castle was in the north wing, with the unicorn pictures. I don't know when it was moved, or why, but see for yourself… the tower guardroom, the scribe's room, the women's room," she whispered as she walked. "The bridge to the north tower, the bridge to the south tower, the aviary courtyard, the hounds' courtyard…" She really did move around the castle as if she had lived in it for years.
How often had she studied the books describing this place! Mo could hear the lake as she led him through a courtyard containing empty cages, gigantic cages made of metalwork as elaborate as if the bars were meant to be substitute trees for the birds inside. He heard water breaking on the stones, but the walls surrounding this courtyard were painted with beech and oak trees, with flocks of birds sitting in their branches: sparrows, larks, wild doves, nightingales and falcons, crossbills and robin redbreasts, woodpeckers and hummingbirds dipping their beaks into red flowers. A blue jay sat beside a swallow.