“Meggie!” Farid was still holding her firmly. He shook her as if he had to wake her up. “Meggie, listen. He’s not dead! Do you think they’d be dragging him along with them if he was?” Would they? She wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
“Come with me. Come on!” Farid pulled her away with him. He pushed his way casually through the crowd, as if none of the hurry and bustle interested him. Finally, with an indifferent expression on his face, he stopped by the stable into which the soldiers were herding the prisoners. Meggie wiped away her tears and tried to look equally indifferent, but how could she when her heart, coming back to life, felt as if someone had cut it in two?
“Do you have enough for us to eat there?” she heard Firefox ask. “We’re ravenous after our journey through that accursed forest.”
Meggie saw them push Resa into the dark stable with the other women, while two soldiers released the Black Prince and his bear.
“Of course I have enough!” said the fat landlord indignantly. “And you won’t recognize your horses, their coats are so glossy!”
“So I should hope,” replied Firefox. “Otherwise the Adderhead will make sure you’re not landlord of this hovel much longer. We ride at daybreak tomorrow. My men and the prisoners can stay in the stable, but I want a bed – and a bed to myself, too, not one I have to share with a crowd of snoring, farting strangers.”
“Of course, of course!” The landlord nodded eagerly. “But what about that monster?” He pointed anxiously at the bear. “He’ll scare the horses. Why didn’t you kill him and leave him in the forest?”
“Because the Adderhead wants to hang him along with his master,” replied Firefox, “and because my men believe all the nonsense they hear about him – folk say he’s a Night-Mare who likes to take the shape of a bear, so it’s a bad idea to fire an arrow into his coat.”
“A Night-Mare?” The landlord chuckled nervously. He obviously seemed to think the story not impossible. “Never mind what he is, he’s not going into my stable. Tie him up) behind the bakehouse if you like. Then perhaps the horses won’t smell him.” The bear growled in a low tone as one of the soldiers pulled him along on his chain, but as they were forced away behind the main building the Black Prince spoke to him soothingly, in a quiet voice, as if comforting a child.
The cart with Mo and the injured old man on it was still in the yard. A few servants were standing around, gossiping to one another, presumably trying to work out exactly who had been captured on the Adderhead’s orders. Was the rumor already spreading that the man lying as if dead on the cart was the Bluejay? The soldier with the beardless face shooed away the servants, took the child off the cart and pushed him toward the stable, too. “What about the wounded prisoners?” he called to Firefox. “Do we just leave those two on the cart where they are?”
“And find that they’re dead in the morning, or gone? What are you thinking of, you fool? One of them’s the reason why we went into that damned forest, right?” Firefox turned to the landlord again. “Is there a physician among your guests?” he asked. “I have a prisoner who must be kept alive because the Adderhead plans a magnificent execution for him. It’s no real fun with a dead man, if you see what I mean.”
Must be kept alive .. Farid pressed Meggie’s hand and smiled triumphantly at her.
“Oh yes, of course, of course!” The landlord looked curiously at the cart. “It’s a nuisance, for sure, if condemned men die before their execution. I hear that’s happened twice this year already.
However, I can’t offer you a physician. I do have a moss woman helping out in the kitchen, though. She’s set many of my guests to rights in her time.”
“Good! Send for her!”
The landlord impatiently beckoned to a snotty-nosed boy leaning by the stable door. Firefox called two of his soldiers to him. “Go on, get the wounded men into the stable, too!” Meggie heard him say. “Double guards outside the door, and four of you keep watch on the Bluejay tonight, understand? No wine, no mead, and anyone who falls asleep will be sorry for it!”
“The Bluejay?” The landlord stared in amazement. “You have the Bluejay on that cart?” When Firefox cast him a warning glance, he quickly put his fat fingers to his mouth. “Not a word!” he uttered. “No one will hear a word of it from me.”
“I should hope not,” growled Firefox, and looked around as if to make sure that no one else had heard what he said.
When the soldiers lifted Mo off the cart, Meggie instinctively took a step forward, but Farid dragged her back. “Meggie, what’s the matter with you?” he hissed. “If you carry on like this they’ll shut you up, too. Do you think that will help anyone?”
Meggie shook her head. “He really is still alive, Farid, isn’t he?” she whispered. She was almost afraid to believe it.
“Yes, of course. I told you so. Don’t look so sad. Everything will turn out all right, you wait and see!” Farid caressed her forehead and kissed the tears from her eyelashes.
“Hey, you two lovebirds, get away from the horses!”
The Piper was standing before them. Meggie bent her head, although she was sure he wouldn’t recognize her. She had been just a girl in a dirty dress when he almost rode her down in the Ombra marketplace. Today he was once again more splendidly clothed than any of the strolling players Meggie had yet seen. His silken garments shimmered like a peacock’s tail, and the rings on his fingers were genuine silver, like the nose on his face. Obviously, the Adderhead paid well for songs that pleased him.
The Piper looked hard at them again, and then strolled over to Firefox. “Well, so you’re back from the forest!” he called from some way off. “And with rich booty, so I’ve heard. Looks as if one of your spies wasn’t lying for a change. Good news for the Adderhead at last.”
Firefox replied, but Meggie wasn’t listening. The snotty-nosed boy came back with the moss-woman, a short little creature who hardly came up to his shoulder. Her skin was gray as beech bark, her face as wrinkled as a shriveled apple. Moss-women, healers . . Before Farid realized what she meant to do, Meggie had slipped away from him. The moss-woman would know how Mo really was. She made her way as close as she could to the little woman, until only the boy stood between them. The moss-woman’s smock was stained with meat juices from the spit, and her feet were bare, but she inspected the men standing around her with fearless eyes.
“Sure as I live, a genuine moss-woman,” growled Firefox, while his men retreated from the tiny woman as if she were as dangerous as the Black Prince’s bear. “I thought they never came out of the forest. But yes, apparently they know something about healing. Don’t folk say that old witch Nettle’s mother was a moss-woman?”
“Yes, but her father was useless.” The little woman scrutinized Firefox as intently as if she were trying to find out what kind of blood flowed in his veins. “You drink too much,” she observed.
“Just look at your face. Carry on like this and your liver will soon burst like an overripe pumpkin.”
A ripple of laughter ran through the onlookers, but a glance from Firefox silenced them. “Listen, you’re not here to give me advice, she-gnome!” he snapped at the moss-woman. “I want you to look at one of my prisoners. He has to reach the Adderhead’s castle alive.”
