Roxane

Roxane is Dustfinger's wife. She has three children: Brianna, Rosanna and Jehan. Jehan is from a second marriage after she thought Dustfinger had left for good. Rosanna died during Dustfinger's absence due to a disease.

Before and after marrying Dustfinger
In her twenties and thirties, she had been courted by several wealthy merchants and offered apartments in their homes. A spice merchant would send her presents for more than a year, and a cloth merchant sent a trunk, which had been a heavy load for his servants to carry, full to the brim with costly dresses embroired with pearls. The Adderhead had also invited her to his castle to sing and dance for him, even through he thought poorly of the Motley Folk.

She began seeing Dustfinger and he would constantly come to see her at night. During that time she kept dancing and singing for the Adderhead, and once she encountered the Adderhead's herald Capricorn's henchman Basta, who proposed to her, with threats and flattery, such as gifts, but she refused. Jealously, he vowed to find the identity of the man she preferred to him. Somehow he found out, and lay in wait for Dustfinger. Dustfinger got away, but Basta slashed his face, leaving three long scars.

She married Dustfinger, and the two would travel with the strolling players, or by themselves, and loved each other. They rarely retured to Roxane's home, but instead, traveled to see the country. After the birth of her first child, Brianna, Roxane preferred to remain at home and rest stopped traveling, so Dustfinger left her for weeks but always returned to her, to the annoyance of the merchants who still wanted to marry her. After five years, the couple had another daughter, Rosanna, and resented the fact that Dustfinger spent so much time away from home as a fire-eater. When Dustfinger was read into the real world, Roxane thought that he had left her and that he was never coming back, due to the fact no one could could explain where he was, so she eventually remarried, this time to a farmer. Prior to her second marriage, two years after Dustfinger's disappearance, illness stroked the land, and Rosanna passed away. Roxane buried her behind the house where her daughter always used to play. As a consequence of Dustfinger's disappearance and Rosanna's death due to illness, Roxane also stopped singing and became a healer.

Roxane bought a small farmhouse to grow her herbs, and pinned her hair up like a farmer's wife; didn't sing or dance anymore. During her greiving, she married for the second time, and gives birth to a son, Jehan. Unfortuanately, the fire-raisers set fire to their barn; her husband ran to save the live stock and died. After the incident, she raised Jehan by herself at their repaired farmhouse and stayed there. Jehan got the honor of playing with Jacopo, the Adderhead's grandson. A few years after, Brianna moved out to go work in the castle even though Roxane disagreed, saying that she didn't approve of royalty.

Dustfinger's return
Ten years after his disappearance, Dustfinger found a way back to the Inkworld and was reunited with Roxane. At this time, she was living in a charcoal burner's hut. Dustfinger noticed that "the hut would have fit three times into one of the hallways where Roxane used to dance." Roxane's home is small and she has healing plants hanging from her roof and a large garden outside where she and Jehan work each day. Roxane also appeared to have a goose that served as a watchdog and scares strangers off by flapping her wings and making loud noises. Roxane has a tense relationship with Dustfinger after he comes back, due to the fact that he cannot explain the circumstances of his disappearance and to the fact that she believed that Farid, Dustfinger's apprentice, was his son by another woman.

Their relationship was ambiguous, although it became clear that they still loved each other and that Dustfinger cared deeply for his daughter Brianna. When Dustfinger died, he burned Roxane's name to the wall as his last act. Her grief was deep, and she guards his body jealously, revealing the location of his grave to no one.

Roxane had been somewhat jealous of Resa, for she taught Dustfinger. However, the two form a friendship, and Roxane helped Resa coping with her second pregnancy.

Roxane was with the robbers, Meggie, Fenoglio and his glass man, and many other people. She was grateful when Mortimer Folchart brought Dustfinger back from the dead. When Dustfinger returned, he promised to stay with her forever. Roxane cured some robbers by her herbs. When Doria brought news about that the Milksop already knowing the robbers' hideout, the camp fled to a tree and together they built the human nests. The camp settled there, yet the Milksop still found them somehow, but ran away with his men when a giant came. Roxane sang songs to make the giant sleep.

Later, she stayed and raised Jehan with Dustfinger on her farm.

Physical attributes
Roxane is described as being very beautiful, with black hair usually tied in a bun, but she used to wear it down in her days with the Motley Folk. Roxane used to be a minstrel woman who lived with the Motley Folk. People said that her voice was so beautiful that it could make stone burst into flower.

Behind the scenes

 * In the film Inkheart, Roxane's name was spelled as "Roxanne" in the end-credit.