Inkdeath Page 31

  Yes, what about them? No one knew the answer to that. ‘Violante will throw them all out once her father’s dead!’ said Minerva. But Meggie still found it hard to trust Her Ugliness.

  ‘He’ll be all right, Meggie!’ Elinor kept saying. ‘Don’t look so sad. If I get the hang of this whole story – which isn’t so easy, since our good friend the author there likes making things complicated,’ she added with a reproachful glance at Fenoglio, ‘– then they won’t touch a hair of your father’s head, because he has to cure that Book for the Adderhead. Which presumably he can’t do, but that’s another problem. Anyway, you wait and see. Everything will end well!’

  If only Meggie could have believed her, as she used to believe Mo. ‘It will be all right, Meggie!’ That was all he had to say, and she would lay her head against his shoulder in the certain knowledge that he would fix everything. How long ago that was. So very long ago.

  The Black Prince had sent Gecko’s tame crows to Ombra – to the Barn Owl and his informers in the castle – and Resa stood outside the cave for hours on end, searching the sky for black feathers. But the only bird Gecko brought into the cave on the second day was a bedraggled magpie, and in the end it was Farid, not one of the crows, who brought them news of the Bluejay.

  He was shaking with cold when one of the guards took him to the Black Prince, and his face had the forlorn expression it wore every time Dustfinger had sent him away. Meggie took Elinor’s hand as he stammered out his news: Violante was taking Mo to her mother’s castle as her prisoner. Dustfinger would follow them. The Piper had hit and threatened Mo … Violante had been afraid he would kill him. Resa buried her face in her hands, and Roxane put an arm around her.

  ‘Her mother’s castle? But Violante’s mother is dead!’ By now Elinor knew her way around Fenoglio’s story better than its author himself. She moved among the robbers as if she had always been one of them, got Battista to sing her minstrel songs, asked the Strong Man to show her how to talk to the birds, and made Jasper explain how many different kinds of glass men there were. She kept tripping on the hem of her peculiar dress, she had smudges on her forehead and spiders in her hair, but Elinor looked happier than she had ever been before.

  ‘It’s the castle where her mother grew up. Dustfinger knows it.’ Farid took a bag from his belt and wiped some soot off the leather. Then he looked at Meggie. ‘We made spiders and wolves out of fire to protect your father!’ There was no mistaking the pride in his voice.

  ‘But all the same Violante thought he wasn’t safe in the castle.’ Resa’s voice sounded accusing: you can’t protect him, in fact, none of you can protect him. He’s on his own.

  ‘The Castle in the Lake.’ The Black Prince spoke its name as if he did not particularly like Violante’s idea either. ‘There are many songs about that castle.’

  ‘Dark songs,’ added Gecko. The magpie had flown to him and was perching on his shoulder. It was a skinny bird, and it stared at Meggie as if it would like to peck her eyes out.

  ‘What kind of songs?’ Resa’s voice was husky with fear.

  ‘Oh, ghost stories, that’s all. Fanciful nonsense!’ Fenoglio pushed past Resa. Despina was clinging to his hand. ‘The Castle in the Lake was abandoned long ago, so people fill it with stories, but that’s all they are.’

  ‘How reassuring!’ The glance that Elinor cast Fenoglio made his face turn red.

  He was in a gloomy mood. Since their arrival at the cave he had been complaining non-stop about the cold, the crying children, or the stench of the bear. Most of the time he sat behind a wall of stones he had built in the darkest corner of the cave, quarrelling with Rosenquartz. Only Ivo and Despina could get a smile out of him – and Darius, who had joined the old man as soon as they had arrived at the cave and, as he helped Fenoglio to build his wall, started timidly asking him about the world he had created. ‘Where do the giants live?’ ‘Do water-nymphs live longer than human beings?’ ‘What kind of country lies beyond the mountains?’ Darius obviously asked the right questions, for Fenoglio didn’t lose patience with him as he had with Orpheus.

  The Castle in the Lake.

  Fenoglio shook his head when Meggie went to him to find out more about the place to which Her Ugliness was taking her father. ‘It wasn’t among the main scenes of the story,’ was all he would say, grumpily. ‘One of many settings. Just scenery! Read my book if you want to know more about it – if Dustfinger ever lets it out of his hands again, that is! If you ask me, he ought really have given it to me, although we still don’t seem to be on speaking terms. After all, I wrote it, but there we are. At least Orpheus doesn’t have it any more.’

  The book.

  In fact Dustfinger had passed Inkheart on long ago, but Meggie kept that knowledge to herself, for Farid had asked her to.

  He had handed it over to her mother as swiftly as if Basta might emerge behind him to steal it, just as he had back in the other world. ‘Dustfinger says it will be safest with you, because you know how powerful the words in it are,’ he had murmured. ‘The Black Prince doesn’t understand that. But keep it hidden and let nobody know you have it! Orpheus mustn’t get it back. Dustfinger is fairly sure, though, that he won’t look for it in your hands.’

  Resa had taken the book only with some reluctance, and finally she hid it in the place where she slept. Meggie’s heart beat faster as she took it out from under the blanket. She hadn’t held Fenoglio’s book in her hands since Mortola had given it to her in Capricorn’s arena to read the Shadow into being. It was a strange feeling to open it now that she was in the world it described, and for a moment Meggie feared the pages might suck in everything around her. The rocky ground where she was sitting, the blanket under which her mother slept, the white ice-moth that had lost its way in the cave, the children laughing as they ran after it … had all that really come into existence between these covers? The book seemed so meaningless compared to the marvels it described, just a few hundred printed pages and a dozen pictures not half as good as those that Balbulus painted, all in a silvery-green linen binding. Yet it wouldn’t have surprised Meggie to find her own name on the pages, or the names of her mother, Farid, or Mo – although, no, her father bore another name in this world.

  Meggie had never had the chance to read Fenoglio’s whole story. Where was she to begin now? Was there a picture of the Castle in the Lake? She was quickly leafing through the pages when she suddenly heard Farid’s voice behind her.

  ‘Meggie?’

  She closed the book guiltily, as if every word in it was a secret. How stupid of her. This book didn’t know anything about all her fears, it knew nothing of the Bluejay, nor even of Farid …

  She didn’t think of him now as often as she used to. It was almost as if, with Dustfinger’s return, the chapter about Farid and herself had ended, and the story was beginning again, extinguishing part of the tale it had told before with every new word.

  ‘Dustfinger gave me something else to bring back here.’ Farid glanced at the book on her lap as if it were a snake. But then he knelt down beside her and took from his belt the soot-blackened bag that his fingers had been caressing while he delivered his news to the Prince.

  ‘He gave it to me for Roxane,’ said Farid quietly, as he sprinkled a fine circle of ashes on the rocky ground. ‘But you looked really upset, so …’

  He didn’t finish his sentence. Instead he whispered words that only he and Dustfinger understood – and the fire suddenly licked up from the ashes as if it had been sleeping there. Farid lured it out, praised and enticed it, until it burnt with such heat that the heart of the flames became white as paper, and a picture appeared, difficult to make out at first, then more and more distinct.

  Hills, densely wooded … soldiers on a narrow path, many soldiers … two women riding among them. Meggie recognized Brianna at once by her hair. The woman in front of her must be Her Ugliness, and there – with Dustfinger beside him – rode Mo. Meggie instinctively put her hand out to him, but Farid held her finge
rs fast.

  ‘He has blood on his face,’ she whispered.

  ‘The Piper.’ Farid spoke to the flames again, and the picture spread out, showing the path turning towards mountains that Meggie had never seen before, much higher than the hills around Ombra. Snow lay on the way ahead, as it did on the slopes in the distance, and Meggie saw Mo breathing into his cold hands. He looked so strange in the fur-trimmed cloak he wore – like a character in a fairy tale. He is a character in a fairy tale, Meggie, a voice inside her whispered. The Bluejay … was he still her father too? Had Mo ever looked so serious? Her Ugliness turned to him; of course it was Her Ugliness, who else? They were talking, but the fire showed only silent images.

  ‘You see? He’s all right. Thanks to Dustfinger.’ Farid stared into the fire with longing, as if that could take him back to Dustfinger’s side. Then he heaved a sigh and blew gently on the flames until they turned dark red as if blushing at the pet names he soothed them with.

  ‘Will you follow him?’

  Farid shook his head. ‘Dustfinger wants me to look after Roxane.’ Meggie could sense his bitterness for herself. ‘What will you do?’ He looked at her with the question in his eyes.

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’

  Whisper words, that’s all I can do, she added in her mind. All the words the minstrels sing about the Bluejay: how he calms the waves with his voice, how he is invulnerable and fast as the wind, how the fairies protect him, and the White Women watch over his sleep. Words. They were the only means she had of protecting Mo, and she whispered them day and night, in every private moment, sending them after him like the crows that the Black Prince had sent to Ombra.

  The flames had gone out, and Farid was heaping up the warm ashes with his hands when a shadow fell on him. Doria stood behind them, holding hands with two children. ‘Meggie, the woman with the loud voice is looking for you.’

  The robbers had many names for Elinor. Meggie couldn’t help smiling, but Farid cast a none-too-friendly glance at Doria. He carefully put the ashes back in his bag, and rose to his feet. ‘I’ll be with Roxane,’ he said, kissing Meggie on the mouth. He hadn’t done that for weeks. Then he pushed past Doria and strode away without looking back once.

  ‘He kissed her!’ one of the children whispered to Doria, just loud enough for Meggie to hear. The child was a girl, and she blushed when Meggie returned her gaze, and hastily hid her face in Doria’s side.

  ‘So he did,’ Doria whispered back. ‘But did she kiss him back?’

  ‘No!’ said the boy on his right, sizing up Meggie as if wondering whether kissing her would be fun.

  ‘That’s a good thing, then,’ said Doria. ‘A very good thing.’

  42

  An Audience with the Adderhead

  You cannot fully read a book without being alone. But through this very solitude you become intimately involved with people whom you might never have met otherwise, either because they have been dead for centuries or because they spoke languages you cannot understand. And nonetheless, they have become your closest friends, your wisest advisors, the wizards that hypnotize you, the lovers you have always dreamed of.

  Antonio Munoz Molina,

  The Power of the Pen

  Just after midnight the Adderhead’s retinue reached Ombra. Orpheus had made Oss wait under the gallows by the city gate for three nights on end, so that he would be sure to hear of the Silver Prince’s arrival as soon as the Milksop did.

  All was ready. The Piper had had every door and window in the castle draped with black cloth so that it would be night there for his master even during the day, and the felled trees that the Milksop intended to burn on the castle hearths lay ready in the courtyard, although everyone knew that no fire could drive away the cold that had made its way into the Adderhead’s flesh and bones. The one man who could perhaps have done it had escaped from the castle dungeons, and all Ombra wondered how the Silver Prince would take that news.

  Orpheus sent Oss to the castle that very night. After all, it was common knowledge that the Adderhead hardly slept at all.

  ‘Say I have information of the utmost importance for him. Say it’s about the bookbinder and his daughter.’ Having little confidence in his bodyguard’s intellectual capacities, he repeated the words half a dozen times, but Oss did his errand well. After just over three hours, hours spent by Orpheus pacing restlessly up and down his study, he came back with the message that the audience was granted, but only on condition Orpheus went to the castle at once, since the Adderhead must rest before he set out again.

  Set out again? Aha. So he’s playing his daughter’s game! Orpheus thought as he hurried up the path to the castle. Very well. Then it’s up to you to show him he can’t win the game without your help! Involuntarily he licked his lips to keep them smooth for this great task. Never before had he spun his web around such magnificent prey. Curtain up, he whispered to himself again and again. Curtain up!

  The servant who led him through the black-draped corridors to the throne-room said not a single word. It was hot and dark in the castle. Like hell, thought Orpheus. And wasn’t that suitable? Didn’t people often compare the Adderhead with the devil himself? You had to hand it to Fenoglio, this was a villain of real stature. Beside the Adderhead, Capricorn had been just a cheap play-actor, an amateur – although no doubt Mortola saw it differently. But who cared what Mortola thought now?

  A shudder of delight ran down Orpheus’s plump shoulders. The Adderhead! Sprung from a clan that had cultivated the art of evil for generations. There was no cruel act that at least one of his ancestors hadn’t committed. Cunning, the lust for power, total lack of any conscience: those were the family’s outstanding characteristics. What a combination! Orpheus was excited. His hands were damp and sweating like a boy’s on his first date. Again and again he ran his tongue over his teeth as if to sharpen them that way, prepare them for the right words. ‘Believe me,’ he heard himself saying, ‘I can lay this world at your feet, I can make it into anything you like, but for that you must find me a certain book. It is even more powerful than the Book that made you immortal, far more powerful!’

  Inkheart … no, he wasn’t going to think of the night he had lost it, not now, and he certainly wasn’t going to think of Dustfinger!

  It was no lighter in the throne-room than in the corridors. A few lost-looking candles burnt among the columns and around the throne. On Orpheus’s last visit (as far as he could remember, that was when he had delivered the dwarf to the Milksop), the way to the throne had been lined by stuffed animals, bears, wolves, spotted great cats, and of course the unicorn he had written here, but they were all gone now. Even the Milksop was bright enough to realize that in view of the sparse taxes he had sent to his brother-in-law, these hunting trophies were unlikely to impress the Adderhead. Nothing but darkness filled the great hall now, making the black-clad guards between the columns almost invisible. Only their weapons glinted in the flickering light of the fire that burnt behind the throne. Orpheus went to great pains to stride past them looking unimpressed, but unfortunately he stumbled over the hem of his coat twice, and when he finally stood in front of the throne itself, the Milksop was sitting there, and not his brother-in-law.

  Orpheus felt a stab of disappointment, sharp as a knife. He quickly bowed his head to hide it, and tried to find the right things to say, flattering but not too servile. Talking to the powerful called for special skills, but he’d had practice. There had always been people more powerful than he was in his life. His father had been the first, never satisfied with his awkward son who liked books better than working in his parents’ shop: those endless hours among the dusty shelves, an ever-friendly smile when he had to serve the tourists who flocked in instead of leafing through a book with hasty fingers, avidly looking for the place where he had last had to leave the world of print. Orpheus couldn’t count the slaps he’d earned over his forbidden passion for reading. One every tenth page was probably about it, but the price had never seemed too hig
h. What was a slap for ten pages of escapism, ten pages far from everything that made him unhappy, ten pages of real life instead of the monotony that other people called the real world?

  ‘Your Grace!’ Orpheus bent his head even lower. What a ridiculous sight the Milksop was under his silver-powdered wig, his scrawny neck emerging so pathetically from his heavy velvet collar. His pale face was as expressionless as ever – as if his creator had forgotten to give it eyebrows, just sketching in the eyes and lips lightly.

  ‘You want to speak to the Adderhead?’ Even the Milksop’s voice was not impressive. Malicious tongues mocked it, saying he wouldn’t have to change it very much to use it as a decoy call to the ducks he liked shooting out of the sky.

  How that feeble fool is sweating, thought Orpheus as he smiled deferentially. Well, I expect I’d be sweating in his place. The Adderhead had come to Ombra to kill his worst enemy, only to discover instead that his herald and his brother-in-law had let their valuable prisoner get away. Really, it was amazing that they were both still alive.

  ‘Yes, Your Honour. Whenever it is convenient to the Silver Prince!’ Orpheus was delighted to realize that in this empty hall his voice sounded even more effective than usual. ‘I have information for him that could be of the greatest significance.’

  ‘About his daughter and the Bluejay?’ The Milksop plucked at his sleeves with a deliberately bored expression. Perfumed bonehead.

  ‘Indeed.’ Orpheus cleared his throat. ‘As you know, I have important clients, influential friends. News comes to my ears that doesn’t even reach castles. This time it is alarming news, and I want to make sure that your brother-in-law hears of it.’

  ‘And what might this news be?’

  Careful, Orpheus!

  ‘As to that, Your Grace …’ he really was taking great pains to sound regretful, ‘I would rather tell it only to the Adderhead himself. After all, it concerns his daughter.’

  ‘Whom he will hardly feel like discussing at present!’ The Milksop adjusted his wig. ‘Sly, ugly creature!’ he uttered. ‘Abducts my prisoner to steal the throne of Ombra from me! Threatens to kill him if her own father doesn’t follow her into the mountains like a dog! As if it hadn’t been difficult enough to catch that puffed-up Bluejay! But why do I bother to tell you all this? I suppose because you brought me the unicorn. The best hunt of my life.’ In melancholy mood, he stared at Orpheus with eyes almost as pale as his face. ‘The more beautiful the game the greater the pleasure of killing it, don’t you agree?’

  ‘Words of wisdom, Your Highness, words of wisdom!’ Orpheus bowed again. The Milksop loved people to bow to him.

  Glancing nervously at the guards, he now leant down to Orpheus. ‘I would so much like another unicorn!’ he whispered. ‘It was a huge success with all my friends. Do you think you can get me another? Maybe a little larger than the last one?’

  Orpheus gave the Milksop a confident smile. What a talkative, empty-headed fool he was, but then – every story needed such characters. They usually died quite early on. It was to be hoped that this general rule held good for the Adderhead’s brother-in-law.

  ‘Naturally, Your Highness! That ought not to be any problem,’ murmured Orpheus, choosing every word with care, even though this princely fool wasn’t worth the trouble. ‘But first I must speak to the Silver Prince. Rest assured that my information really is of the utmost importance. And you,’ he added, giving the Milksop a crafty smile, ‘will receive the throne of Ombra. Get me an audience with your immortal brother-in-law and the Bluejay will meet his well-deserved end at last. Violante will be punished for her deceitfulness, and for your triumphal celebrations I’ll get you a Pegasus, which will surely impress your friends even more than the unicorn. You could hunt it with both crossbows and hawks!’

  The Milksop’s pale eyes widened with delight. ‘A Pegasus!’ he breathed as he impatiently waved one of the guards over. ‘Fabulous indeed! I’ll get you your audience, but let me advise you,’ and here he lowered his voice to a whisper, ‘not to go too close to my brother-in-law. The stink coming off him has already killed two of my