from workshops and stores, from housework or the stables. They had even come from the surrounding farms in their poor shabby clothes, Their clear voices were like the twittering of a flock of birds among the buildings. It was unlikely that Sootbird had ever had such an excited audience before.
He was already standing on the platform in the black-and-red costume worn by fire-eaters, but his clothes weren’t patched together from rags like those of his brothers in the trade. They were made of the finest velvet, as befitted a prince’s favorite. His ever-smiling face gleamed with the grease he used to protect it from the flames, but by now the fire had licked it so often that it looked like the masks Battista made from leather.
Sootbird was smiling again now as he looked down on the sea of little faces, crowding around the platform as eagerly as if he could release them from all their troubles, from hunger, from their mothers’ sadness, and from missing their dead fathers. Fenoglio saw Ivo at the very front, but where was Despina? Ah, over there, right beside her big brother. She waved excitedly to him, and he waved back as he joined the mothers waiting outside the houses. Lie heard them whispering about the Bluejay, and how he’d protect their children now that he had brought the Fire-Dancer back from the dead. Yes, the sun was shining on Ombra again. Hope was back, and he, Fenoglio, had given it a name. The Bluejay. . .
Sootbird took off his cloak, which was so heavy and expensive that the price of it could surely have fed all the children crowded there in the marketplace for months. A brownie climbed up to him on the platform, hung about with bags full of the alchemists’ powders that the inept fire-eater fed to the flames to make them obey him. Sootbird still feared the fire. You could see that clearly. Perhaps he feared it now more than ever, and Fenoglio felt uncomfortable, watching him begin his show.
Flames sprayed and hissed, breathing out poison-green smoke that made the children cough. The fire formed shapes: menacing fists, claws, snapping mouths Sootbird had been learning. He no longer waved a couple of torches around and breathed flames so poorly that everyone Whispered Dustfinger’s name. The fire he was playing with, though, seemed to be quite different. It was fire’s dark brother, a flight made of flames, but the children watched the bright, evil spectacle, both fascinated and frightened. They jumped when the fire reached red claws out to them, and groaned in relief when it turned to nothing but smoke — although the smoke still hung U1 the air, acrid and making their eyes water. Was what people whispered true? Was it a fact that this smoke befuddled your senses so that you saw more than was really there? Well, if so, it doesn’t work for me, thought Fenoglio as he rubbed his smarting eyes. A set of wretched conjuring tricks, that’s all I see!
Tears were running down his nose, and when he turned to Wipe the soot and smoke out of his eyes he saw a boy come stumbling down the road from the castle. The lad was older than the children in the square, old enough to be one of Violante’s beardless soldiers but he wore no uniform. His face seemed strangely familiar to Fenoglio. Where had he seen him before?
"Luc!" the boy shouted. "Luc! Run! All of you run!" He stumbled, fell, and crawled into a doorway just in time before the man pursuing him on horseback could ride him down. It was the Piper. He reined in his horse, while behind him a dozen men-at-arms surged along the road down from the castle. More of them came from every direction, Smiths’ Alley, Butchers’ Alley. They were coming out of every street and alley that led to the marketplace, riding in almost leisurely fashion on their great horses, armored like their masters.
But the children kept staring up at Sootbird, suspecting nothing. They hadn’t heard the boy’s cries of warning. They didn’t see the soldiers. They just stared at the fire while their mothers called their names. By the time the first of them turned, it was too late. The men-at-arms drove back the weeping women, while more and more soldiers surged out of every street, enclosing the children in a ring of iron.
Horrified, the little ones spun around. Amazement suddenly turned to pure fear. And the way they cried! How was Fenoglio ever to forget that crying? He stood there helplessly, his back to a wall, while five men-at-arms kept their lances pointed at him and the women. No more were needed. Five lances to keep the little group in check.
One of the women ran for it all the same, but a soldier rode her down. Then they formed a circle of swords as Sootbird, at a nod from the Piper, extinguished his flames and bowed to the weeping children with a smile.
They drove them up to the castle like a flock of lambs. Some of the little ones were so frightened that they ran here and there among the horses and were left lying on the paving of the road like broken toys. Fenoglio called the names of Ivo and Despina, but his voice merged with all the others, with all the screaming and sobbing. When the men-at-arms let the mothers go, he, too, stumbled over to the children who had been left behind, bleeding. He stared at the pale faces, terrified of recognizing Despina or Ivo. They weren’t there, but Fenoglio felt as though he knew the faces all the same. Such small faces. Too young to die, too young for pain and terror. Two White Women appeared, his angels of death. And the mothers bent over the children and closed their ears to that white whispering. Three were dead, two boys and a girl.