— 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 FireDancer’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?"
Dustfjflger painted a fiery heart on the floor.
Violarite 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, then 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.
"My mother and her sisters loved birds. So my grandfather didn’t just have them painted on the walls, he had live birds brought here from the most distant lands and filled these cages with them. He had the cages covered in winter, but my mother crept in under the covers. Sometimes she would sit for hours in one of the cages, until the nursemaids found her and plucked the birds’ feathers from her hair."
She hurried on. A covered passage under a gateway, another courtyard. Kennels, hunting scenes on the walls, and above it all the sound of the water of the lake, so far away and yet so close. Of course Violante’s mother loved birds, thought Mo. She wished she had wings, too. No doubt she and her sisters dreamed of flying away when they climbed into the cages and waited for their fine dresses to be covered with feathers.
It saddened him to think of the three lonely girls, but all the same he would have loved to show Meggie the cages and the painted birds, the unicorns and dragons, the Hall of a Thousand Windows, even the Impregnable Bridge that seemed to be hovering over the lake when you looked down on it from above. You’ll tell Meggie about all this one day, he said to himself, as if just imagining it could make the words true.
Another staircase, another covered bridge like a tunnel suspended between the towers. The door at which Violante stopped was stained black, like all the doors in the castle. The wood had swelled, and she had to brace her shoulder against it to open it.
"It’s terrible!" she said, and she was right. Mo couldn’t make out much in the long room. Two narrow windows let in only a little light and air, but even if he hadn’t been able to see anything he would have smelled it. The books were stacked like firewood by the damp walls, and the cold air smelled so strongly of mold that he put his hand over his mouth and nose.
