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  No one replied. Resa was clinging to Mortimer as if that would protect him from Basta’s knife, and Darius was cleaning his already spotless glasses for the hundredth time. By the time footsteps finally approached the cellar door, Elinor’s watch had stopped. Memories flooded into her weary mind as she rose, with difficulty, from the container of olive oil on which she had been sitting – memories of blank, windowless walls and musty straw. Her cellar was a more comfortable prison than Capricorn’s sheds, let alone the crypt under his church, but the same man opened the door – and Elinor was just as much afraid of Basta in her own house.

  When she had last seen him, he had been a prisoner himself, shut up in a cage by the master he adored. Had he forgotten that? How had Mortola persuaded him to serve her again in spite of it? The stupid idea of asking Basta didn’t even cross Elinor’s mind. She gave herself the answer: because a dog needs a master.

  Basta had the man built like a wardrobe with him when he came to fetch them. There were four of them, after all, and Basta remembered only too well the day when Dustfinger had escaped him. ‘Well, Silvertongue, I’m sorry it’s taken some time,’ he said in his soft, cat-like voice, as he pushed Mortimer down the corridor to Elinor’s library. ‘But Mortola just couldn’t decide what kind of revenge to take, now that your witchy daughter really has run for it.’

  ‘And what has she thought up?’ asked Elinor, although she was afraid of the answer. Basta was only too willing to tell her.

  ‘Well, first she was going to shoot you all and sink you in the lake, although we told her just burying you somewhere under the bushes out there would do. But then she decided it would be too merciful to let you die knowing the little witch has got away from her. No, Mortola really didn’t fancy that idea.’

  ‘Oh, didn’t she?’ Fear made Elinor’s legs so heavy that she stopped walking until the wardrobe-man impatiently pushed her on. But before she could ask what Mortola was planning to do instead of shooting them, Basta was already opening the door of her library and ushering them in with an ironic bow.

  Mortola was sitting enthroned in Elinor’s favourite armchair. Scarcely a pace away from her lay a dog with running eyes and a head broad enough for you to rest a plate on it. Its forelegs were bandaged, like Mortola’s own legs, and there was a bandage around its belly too. A dog! In her library! Elinor tightened her lips. This is probably the least of your worries just now, Elinor, she told herself. You’d better just ignore it.

  Mortola’s stick was leaning against one of the glass cases in which Elinor kept her most valuable books. The moon-faced man stood beside the old woman. Orpheus – what did the fool think he was doing, claiming such a name for himself? Or had his parents in all seriousness given it to him? At any rate, he looked as if he too had passed a sleepless night, which gave Elinor a certain grim satisfaction.

  ‘My son always said revenge was a dish best eaten cold,’ observed Mortola, as she looked at her prisoners’ exhausted faces. There was a pleased expression on her own. ‘I admit I wasn’t in any mood to take that advice yesterday. I’d have liked to see you all dead there and then, but the little witch’s disappearing act has given me time to think, and I’ve decided to postpone my revenge for a while, so that I can enjoy it all the more, and in cold blood.’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ muttered Elinor, earning a thrust from the butt of Basta’s rifle. But Mortola turned her birdlike gaze on Mortimer. She seemed to be seeing no one else: not Resa, not Darius, not Elinor, just him.

  ‘Silvertongue!’ She spoke the name with scorn. ‘How many have you killed with your velvet voice? A dozen? Cockerell, Flatnose, and finally, your crowning achievement, my son.’ The bitterness in Mortola’s voice was as raw as if Capricorn had died only last night, instead of over a year ago. ‘And you will die for killing him. You will die as sure as I’m sitting here, and I shall watch, as I had to watch the death of my son. But since I know from personal experience that nothing hurts more, in this or any other world, than the death of one’s own child, I want you to see your daughter die before you die yourself.’

  Mortimer stood there and didn’t turn a hair. Usually you could see all his feelings in his face, but at this moment even Elinor couldn’t have said what was going on inside him.

  ‘She’s gone, Mortola,’ was all he said, hoarsely. ‘Meggie’s gone, and I don’t think you can bring her back, or you’d have done it long ago, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Who said anything about bringing her back?’ Mortola’s narrow lips twisted into a joyless smile. ‘Do you think I intend to stay in this stupid world of yours any longer now I have the book? Why should I? No, I’m going to look for your daughter in my own world, where Basta will catch her like a little bird. And then I’ll give the two of you to my son as a present. There’ll be more festivities, Silvertongue, but this time Capricorn will not die. Oh no. He’ll sit beside me and hold my hand while Death takes first your daughter, and then you. Yes, that’s how it will be!’

  Elinor glanced at Darius, and saw in his face the incredulous astonishment that she herself felt. But Mortola was smiling superciliously.

  ‘Why are you staring at me like that? You think Capricorn is dead?’ Mortola’s voice almost cracked. ‘Nonsense. Yes, he died here, but what does that mean? This world is a joke, a masquerade such as the strolling players perform in market places. In our world, the real world, Capricorn is still alive. That’s why I got the book back from that fire-eater. The little witch said it herself, the night you killed him: he’ll always be there as long as the book exists. Yes, I know she meant the fire-eater, but what’s true of him is most certainly true of my son! They’re still there, all of them: Capricorn and Flatnose, Cockerell and the Shadow!’

  She looked triumphantly from one to another of them, but they all remained silent. Except for Mortimer. ‘That’s nonsense, Mortola!’ he said. ‘And you know it better than anyone. You were in the Inkworld yourself when Capricorn disappeared from it, together with Basta and Dustfinger.’

  ‘So? He went away, that’s all.’ Mortola’s voice was shrill. ‘And then he didn’t come back, but that means nothing. My son was always travelling on business. The Adderhead sometimes sent him a messenger in the middle of the night when he needed his services, and then he’d be gone the next morning. But he’s back now. Back and waiting for me to bring his murderer to his fortress in the Wayless Wood.’

  Elinor felt a crazy urge to laugh, but fear closed her throat. There’s no doubt about it, she thought, the old Magpie’s lost her wits! Unfortunately that doesn’t make her any less dangerous.

  ‘Orpheus!’ Mortola impatiently beckoned the moon-face to her side. Very slowly, as if to show that he obeyed her by no means as willingly as Basta did, he strolled over to her, taking a sheet of paper out of the inside pocket of his jacket as he did so. With a self-important expression, he unfolded it and laid it on the glass case with Mortola’s stick leaning on it. The dog, panting, watched every movement he made.

  ‘It won’t be easy!’ observed Orpheus as he leaned over the dog, affectionately patting its ugly head. ‘I’ve never tried reading so many people over all at once before. Perhaps it would be a better idea to do it one by one—’

  ‘No!’ Mortola brusquely interrupted him. ‘No, you’ll read us all over at once, as we agreed.’

  Orpheus shrugged. ‘Very well, just as you like. As I said, it’s risky because—’

  ‘Be quiet! I don’t want to hear this.’ Mortola dug her bony fingers into the arms of the chair. (I’ll never be able to sit in it again without thinking of her, thought Elinor.) ‘May I remind you of that cell? I was the one who paid for its door to open. A word from me and you’ll end up back there, without books or so much as a single sheet of paper. And, believe me, I’ll make sure you do just that if you fail. After all, you read the fire-eater over without much trouble, according to Basta.’

  ‘Yes, but that was easy, very easy! Like putting something back in its proper place.’ Orpheus looked out of Elinor’s windo
w as dreamily as if he were seeing Dustfinger vanish again, this time from the lawn outside. Frowning, he turned to Mortola. ‘It’s different with him,’ he said, pointing to Mortimer. ‘It’s not his story. He doesn’t belong in it.’

  ‘Nor did his daughter. Are you saying she reads better than you?’

  ‘Of course not!’ Orpheus stood up very straight. ‘No one reads better than me. Haven’t I proved that? Didn’t you yourself say Dustfinger spent ten years looking for someone to read him back?’

  ‘Yes, very well. No more talk, then.’ Mortola picked up her stick and rose to her feet, with difficulty. ‘Wouldn’t it be amusing if a ferocious cat slipped out of the pages, like the one that came through when the fire-eater left? Basta’s hand hasn’t healed yet, and he had a knife and the dog to help him.’ She gave Elinor and Darius a nasty look.

  Elinor took a step forward, ignoring the butt of Basta’s rifle. ‘What do you mean? I’m coming too, of course!’

  Mortola raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. ‘Oh, and who do you think decides that? Why would I want you with us? Or that stupid bungler Darius? I’m sure my son would have no objection to feeding you two to the Shadow as well, but I don’t want to make things too difficult for Orpheus.’ She pointed her stick at Mortimer. ‘We’re taking him with us. No one else.’

  Resa was clinging to Mortimer’s arm. Mortola went over to her, smiling. ‘Yes, little pigeon, I’m leaving you here too!’ she said, pinching her cheek hard. ‘It will hurt if I take him away from you again, won’t it? When you’ve only just got him back. After all those years …’

  Mortola signed to Basta, who reached roughly for Resa’s arm. She struggled, still clinging to Mortimer, with a desperate expression on her face that went to Elinor’s heart. But as she went to try and help Resa, the wardrobe-man barred her way. And Mortimer himself gently removed Resa’s hand from his arm.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘After all, I’m the only one in this family who hasn’t been to the Inkworld yet. And I promise you I won’t come back without Meggie.’

  ‘Very true, because you won’t come back at all!’ Basta mocked, as he pushed Resa hard towards Elinor. And Mortola was still smiling. Elinor would have loved to hit her. Do something, Elinor! she thought. But what could she do? Hold on to Mortimer? Tear up the sheet of paper that the moon-face was so carefully smoothing out on her glass case?

  ‘Well, can we begin now?’ asked Orpheus, licking his lips as if he could hardly wait to demonstrate his skill again.

  ‘Of course.’ Mortola leaned heavily on her stick and beckoned Basta to her side.

  Orpheus looked at him suspiciously. ‘You’ll make sure he leaves Dustfinger alone, right?’ he said to Mortola. ‘You promised!’

  Basta passed a finger over his throat and winked at him.

  ‘Did you see that?’ Orpheus’s beautiful voice broke. ‘You promised! That was my one condition. You leave Dustfinger in peace or I don’t read a single word!’

  ‘Yes, yes, all right, don’t shout like that or you’ll ruin your voice,’ replied Mortola impatiently. ‘We have Silvertongue. Why would I be interested in that wretched fire-eater? Go on, start reading!’

  ‘Hey, wait a minute!’ This was the first time Elinor had heard the wardrobe-man’s voice. It was curiously high for a man of his size – as if an elephant were speaking in a cricket’s chirping voice. ‘What happens to the others when you’re gone?’

  ‘How should I know?’ Mortola shrugged. ‘Let whatever comes here to replace us eat them. Make the fat woman your maid and Darius your bootboy. Anything you like, it’s all the same to me. Just start reading!’

  Orpheus obeyed. He went over to the glass case where the sheet of paper with his words on it was waiting, cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses.

  ‘Capricorn’s fortress lay in the forest where the first tracks of giants could be found.’ The words flowed over his lips like music. ‘It was a long time since anyone had seen the giants, but other and more alarming beings haunted the walls by night – Night-Mares and Redcaps, creatures as cruel as the men who had built the fortress. It was all of grey stone, as grey as the rocky slope behind it …’

  Do something! thought Elinor. Do something, it’s now or never, snatch that piece of paper from the moon-faced man’s hand, kick the Magpie’s stick away … but she couldn’t move a muscle.

  What a voice! And the magic of the words – they slowed her brain, making her drowsy with delight. When Orpheus read of prickly woodbine and tamarisk flowers, Elinor thought she could smell them. He really does read as well as Mortimer! That was the only thought of her own that would form in her head. And the others were no better off, they were all staring at Orpheus’s lips as if they could hardly wait for the next word: Darius, Basta, the wardrobe-man, even Mortimer – why, even the Magpie. They listened motionless, caught up in the sound of the words. Only one of them moved. Resa. Elinor saw her struggling against the magic as you might struggle in deep water, finally coming up behind Mortimer and flinging her arms around him.

  And then they had all disappeared: Basta, Mortola the Magpie – and Mortimer and Resa.

  18

  Mortola’s Revenge

  I do not dare,

  I do not dare to write it,

  if you die.

  Pablo Neruda,

  ‘The Dead Woman’,

  The Captain’s Verses

  It was as if a transparent picture, like stained glass, came down over what Resa had just been seeing – Elinor’s library, the backs of the books so carefully classified by Darius and ranged side by side – blurring it all, while the other picture itself became clearer. Stones eroded the books; soot-blackened walls replaced the bookshelves. Grass sprouted from Elinor’s wooden floorboards, and the white plaster of the ceiling gave way to a sky covered by dark clouds.

  Resa’s arms were still wound around Mo. He was the only thing that didn’t disappear, and she wouldn’t let go of him for fear of losing him again after all, as she had lost him once before. So long ago.

  ‘Resa?’ She saw the alarm in his eyes as he turned and realized that she had come too. Quickly, she put her hand over his mouth. Honeysuckle climbed up the black walls on their left. Mo put out his hand to the leaves, as if his fingers must feel what his eyes had already seen. Resa remembered that she had once done the same, touching everything, bewildered to find the world beyond the letters on the page so real.

  If she hadn’t heard the words Orpheus had spoken for herself, Resa wouldn’t have known where Mortola had made him read them all. Capricorn’s fortress had looked so different when she had last stood in its courtyard. There had been men everywhere, armed men on the flights of steps, at the gate, on the wall. Where the bakehouse had stood there was nothing now but charred beams, and it was by the stairway over there that she and the other maids used to beat the dust from the tapestry hangings, tapestries which Mortola placed on the walls of the bare rooms only on special occasions.

  Those rooms were gone. The walls of the fortress were crumbling and black from fire. Soot covered the stones as if someone had painted them with a black brush, and yarrow grew all over the once bare courtyard. Yarrow loved burned earth; it grew everywhere. Where a narrow stairway had once led up to the watch-tower, the forest was now making its way into Capricorn’s den. Young trees had taken root among the ruins, as if they had been just waiting to reclaim the place occupied by this human abode. Thistles grew in the gaping cavities of the windows, moss covered the ruined stairs, and ivy climbed to the charred wooden stumps that had once been Capricorn’s gallows. Resa had seen many men hanging on them.

  ‘What’s this?’ Mortola’s voice echoed from the dead walls. ‘What are these miserable ruins? This isn’t my son’s fortress!’

  Resa drew closer to Mo’s side. He still seemed numbed, almost as if he were waiting for the moment when he would wake up and see Elinor’s books again instead of the stones. Resa knew only too well how he was feeling. It was not so bad for her
this second time; after all, she wasn’t alone now, and she knew what had happened. But Mo seemed to have forgotten everything: Mortola, Basta – and why they had brought him here. Resa, however, had not forgotten, and she watched with a thudding heart as Mortola stumbled through the yarrow to the charred walls and felt the stones, as if she were running her fingers over her dead son’s face.

  ‘I’ll cut that man Orpheus’s tongue out with my own hands and serve it for supper!’ she exclaimed. ‘With chopped foxglove! Is this supposed to be my son’s fortress? Never!’

  Her head moved frantically back and forth like a bird’s as she looked around her. But Basta just stood there in silence, pointing his gun at Resa and Mo.

  ‘Well, say something!’ shouted the Magpie. ‘Say something, you fool!’

  Basta bent down and picked up a rusty helmet lying at his feet. ‘What do you expect me to say?’ he growled, throwing the helmet back into the grass with a gloomy expression, and giving it a kick that sent it clattering against the wall. ‘Of course it’s our castle. Didn’t you see the figure of the goat on the wall there? Even the carved devils are still standing, though they wear ivy crowns now – and look, there’s one of the eyes that Slasher liked to paint on the stones.’

  Mortola stared at the red eye to which Basta was pointing. Then she hobbled over to the remains of the wooden gate, now splintered, torn off its hinges, and barely visible under the brambles and tall stinging nettles. She stood there in silence, looking round her. As for Mo, he had finally come back to his senses.

  ‘What are they talking about?’ he whispered to Resa. ‘Where are we? Was this where Capricorn used to hide out?’

  Resa just nodded. However, the Magpie turned at the sound of Mo’s voice and stared at him. Then she came over to him, stumbling as if she felt dizzy.

  ‘Yes, this is his castle, but Capricorn isn’t here!’ she said in a dangerously low voice. ‘My son is not here. So Basta was right after all. He’s dead, here and in the other world too, dead, and what killed him? Your voice, your accursed voice!’ There was such hatred in her face that Resa instinctively tried to draw Mo away, somewhere, anywhere he would be safe from that glance. But there was nothing behind them except the sooty wall with the figure of Capricorn’s goat still displayed on it, a red-eyed goat with burning horns.

  ‘Silvertongue!’ Mortola spat the word out as if it were poison. ‘Killertongue suits you better. Your daughter couldn’t bring herself to utter the words that killed my son, but you – oh, you didn’t hesitate for a moment!’ Her voice was little more than a whisper as she went on: ‘I can still see you before me, as if it had happened only last night – taking the piece of paper from her hand and putting her aside. And then the words came out of your mouth, fine-sounding as everything you say, and when you’d finished my son lay dead in the dust.’ For a moment she put her fingers to her mouth as if to suppress a sob. When she let her hand drop again, her lips were still quivering.

  ‘How – how can this be?’ she went on, in a trembling voice. ‘Tell me, how is it possible? He didn’t belong in your false world at all. So how could he die there? Was that the only reason you lured him over with your wicked tongue?’ And again she turned and stared at the burned walls, her bony hands clenched into fists.

  Basta bent down again. This time he picked up an arrow point. ‘I’d really like to know what happened!’ he muttered. ‘I always said Capricorn wasn’t here, but what about the others? Firefox, Pitch-Eater, Humpback, the Piper, Slasher … are they all dead? Or are they in the Laughing Prince’s dungeon?’ He looked uneasily at Mortola. ‘What are we going to do if they’re all gone?’ Basta sounded like a boy afraid of the dark. ‘Do you want us to live in a cave like brownies until the wolves find us? Have you forgotten the wolves? And the Night-Mares, the fire-elves, all the other creatures crawling around the place … I for one haven’t forgotten them, but you would come back to this accursed spot where there are three ghosts lurking behind every tree!’ He reached for the amulet dangling around his neck, but Mortola did not deign to look at him.

  ‘Oh, be quiet!’ she said, so sharply that Basta flinched. ‘How often