Balbulus had listened to him without any expression on his face. “What an unusual opinion, Inkweaver!” he said. “For my part, I think highly of the immortality of my work and very poorly of minstrels. But why don’t you go in to Violante? She’ll probably have to leave soon, to hear some peasant’s woes or listen to a merchant complaining of the highwaymen who make the roads unsafe. It’s almost impossible to get hold of acceptable parchment these days. Robbers steal it and offer it for sale in the markets at outrageous prices! Have you any idea how many goats must be slaughtered for me to write down one of your stories?”
“About one for each double spread,” said Meggie, earning another icy look from Balbulus.
“Clever girl,” he said, in a tone that made his words sound more like blame than praise. “And why? Because those fools the goat herders drive them through thorns and prickly bushes, without stopping to think that their skins will be needed for parchment!”
“Oh, come, I keep telling you!” said Fenoglio, steering Meggie and Farid toward the library door.
“Paper, Balbulus. Paper is the material of the future.”
“Paper!” she heard Balbulus mutter scornfully. “Good heavens, Inkweaver, you’re even crazier than I thought.”
Meggie had visited more libraries with Mo than she could count. Many had been larger than the Laughing Prince’s, but few were more beautiful. You could still see that it had once been its owner’s favorite place. The only trace of Cosimo here was a white stone bust; someone had laid roses in front of it. The tapestries on the high walls were finer than those in the throne room, the sconces heavier, the colors warmer, and Meggie had seen enough in Balbulus’s workshop to guess what treasures surrounded her here. They stood chained to the shelves, not spine beside spine like the books in Elinor’s library, but with the cut edge facing forward, because that was where the title was. In front of the shelves were rows of desks, presumably reserved for the latest precious acquisitions. Books lay on them, chained like sisters in the shelves, and closed so that no harmful ray of light could fall on Balbulus’s pictures. In addition all the library windows were hung with heavy fabric; obviously the Prince of Sighs knew what damage sunlight did to books. Only two windows let in the light that might harm them. Her Ugliness stood in front of one window, bending so low over a book that her nose almost touched the pages.
“Balbulus is getting better and better, Brianna,” she said.
“He’s greedy! A pearl, just for letting you into your father-in-law’s library!” Her maidservant was standing at the other window looking out, while Violante’s son tugged at her hand.
“Brianna!” he whined. “Come on! This is boring. Come on out into the courtyard. You promised.”
“He uses the money from the pearls to buy new pigments! How else would he get them, when no one in this castle will pay gold for anything but statues of a dead man?” Violante jumped when Fenoglio closed the door behind him, guiltily hiding the book behind her back. Only when she saw who it was did her face relax. “Fenoglio!” she said, pushing her mousy brown hair back from her forehead. “Must you scare me like that?” The mark on her face was like a paw-print.
Fenoglio smiled and put his hand to the bag at his belt. “I’ve brought you something.”
Violante’s fingers closed greedily on the red stone. Her hands were small and rounded like a child’s. She quickly reopened the book she had hidden behind her back and held the beryl up to one of her eyes.
“Come on, Brianna, or I’ll tell them to cut off your hair!” Jacopo took a handful of the maid’s hair and pulled it so hard that she screamed. “That’s what my grandfather does. He shaves them bald, the minstrel girls and the women who live in the forest. He says they turn into owls by night and screech outside your windows till you’re dead in your bed.”