Farid came climbing down to them. He often joined the guards posted by the Black Prince in the top branches of the tree. Heavens, how could any human being climb like that? The boy was almost as good at it as his marten.
"Torches! They're coming closer!" he said breathlessly. "And do you hear the dog barking?" He looked accusingly at Fenoglio. "Didn't you say no one knew about this tree? Didn't you claim it had been forgotten, and the nests with it?"
Blaming him. Of course. Something goes wrong, and it's all Fenoglio's fault!
"Well? Dogs find forgotten places, too!" he snapped at the boy. "Why not ask who wiped out our tracks? Where's the Black Prince?"
"Down on the ground with his bear. Trying to hide him. The stupid creature just refuses to be hauled up!"
Fenoglio listened. Sure enough, he heard dogs. Damn it, damn it, damn it!
"So what about it?" Of course Signora Loredan was acting as if none of it bothered her at all. "They can't get us down, can they? A tree like this must be easy to defend!"
"They can starve us out, though."
Farid understood more about situations like this, and Elinor Loredan suddenly looked rather anxious after all. And who was she staring at?
"Ah, so now I'm your last hope again, is that right?" Fenoglio imitated her voice. "Write something, Fenoglio, go on! It can't be all that difficult!"
The children clambered out of the nests where they slept. They ran along the branches as if they were meadow footpaths, peering down in alarm. They looked like pretty beetles in the gigantic tree. Poor little things.
Despina ran to Fenoglio. "They can't get up the tree, can they?"
Her brother just looked at him.
"Of course not," said Fenoglio, although Ivo's eyes accused him of lying. Ivo was spending more and more time with Roxane's son, Jehan, these days. The two boys got on well. They both knew too much about the world for lads of their age.
Farid took Meggie's arm. "Battista says we ought to get the children into the top nests. Will you help me?"
Of course she nodded – she still liked him far too much – but Fenoglio held her back. "Meggie stays here. I might need her."
Naturally, Farid immediately knew what he was talking about. In his black eyes Fenoglio saw the reborn Cosimo riding through the streets of Ombra and the dead men lying among the trees in the Wayless Wood.
"We don't need your words!" said the boy. "I'll send fire raining down on them if they try to climb up!"
Fire? An alarming word in a forest.
"Well, perhaps I can think of something better," said Fenoglio, and sensed Meggie's desperate eyes on him. What about my father? they asked. Yes, what about him? Which set of words was more urgent now? Damn it, damn it, damn it!
A few of the children began crying, and below him Fenoglio saw the torches that Farid had mentioned. They shone in the night like fire-elves but with far more menace.
Farid led Despina and Ivo away with him. The other children followed. Darius went to them, his thin hair untidy from sleep, and took the small hands that reached out in search of his. He glanced in concern at Elinor, but she just stood there staring darkly at the depths below, her hands clenched into fists.
"Let them come!" she said fiercely, her voice shaking. "I hope the bear will eat them all! I hope those men who hunt children will all be hacked to pieces!"
A lunatic of a woman, but she took the words right out of Fenoglio's mouth. Meggie's eyes were still fixed on him.
"Why are you looking at me like that? What am I supposed to do, Meggie?" he asked. "This story is telling itself in two places again. Which of them needs the words more urgently? Am I supposed to grow a second head, or -?"
He stopped abruptly.
Signora Loredan was still firing off a salvo of curses at the ground below. "Child murderers! Vermin! Cockroaches in armor! You ought to be crushed underfoot!"
"What was that you just said?" Fenoglio sounded more brusque than he had intended.
Elinor looked at him blankly.
Crushed underfoot…! Fenoglio stared at the torches down below. "Yes!" he whispered. "Yes. It could be rather dangerous. But how am I to…?"
He turned and swiftly climbed the ladder to his nest again. The nest where the words were hatched out. That was the place for him now.
But of course Loredan followed him.
"You have an idea?"
He did, and he certainly wasn't going to let her know that, once again, she had given it to him. "I have an idea, that's right. Meggie, be ready, please."
Rosenquartz handed him a pen. He was afraid; Fenoglio saw it in his glass face. It was a deeper pink than usual. Or had he been sneaking wine again? For the two glass men were now eating grated bark like their wild cousins, and the result was a little green mingling with Rosenquartz's pale pink. Not a very good color combination.
Fenoglio put a blank sheet of paper on the board that Doria had so cleverly cut to size for him. For heaven's sake, he'd never yet managed to write two stories at once!
"What about my father, Fenoglio?" Meggie kneeled down beside him. She looked so desperate!
"He still has time." Fenoglio dipped his pen in the ink. "Get Farid to look into the fire if you're worried, but I can assure you
it's not easy to repair a coach wheel in a hurry. The Adderhead won't be at the castle for a day or so at most. And I promise, as soon as I've dealt with what's going on here I'll get back to writing the words for the Bluejay. Don't look so sad! How are you going to help him if the Milksop shoots us all out of this tree? Now, give me the book. You know the one I mean."
He knew where to look. He had described them at the very beginning, in the third or fourth chapter.
"Come on, tell us!" Loredan's voice was quivering with impatience. "What are you going to do?" She came closer to get a look at the book, but Fenoglio slammed it shut in front of her nose.
"Be quiet!" he thundered, not that that made any difference to the noise coming in from outside. Was the Milksop here already?
Write, Fenoglio.
He closed his eyes. He could see him already. Very clearly. How exciting – given a task like this, writing was twice as much fun!
"What I mean is -"
"Elinor, do keep quiet!" he heard Meggie say.
And then the words came. Yes, this nest was a good place to write in.
56. FIRE AND DARKNESS
What was Right? What was Wrong? What distinguished Doing from Not Doing? If I were to have my time again, the old King thought, I would bury myself in a monastery for fear of a Doing which might lead to woe.
T. H. White, The Once and Future King
How many did you count?"
"Nearly fifty." They were trying hard to sound casual, but Violante's child-soldiers were frightened, and Mo wondered – not for the first time – whether they had ever really fought before, or if they knew about war only from the deaths of their brothers and fathers.
"Only fifty? Then he really does trust me!" There was no mistaking the triumph in Violante's voice. The Adderhead's daughter thought nothing of fear. It was an emotion that she was very good at suppressing – one among many – and Mo read contempt in her eyes when she saw the fear on her young soldiers' faces. But it could be seen on Brianna's face, too, and even on Tullio's furry features.
"Is the Milksop with him?"
The boys, as Mo still couldn't help calling them, shook their heads.
"What about the Piper? Surely he's brought the Piper, too, hasn't he?"
More head-shaking. Mo exchanged a glance of surprise with Dustfinger.
"To your posts!" Violante ordered. "We've discussed it often enough. You don't even let my father onto the bridge. He can send a single envoy, no more. We'll keep him waiting for two or maybe three days. That's what he himself does with his enemies."
"He won't like that."
"He's not meant to like it. Now, off you all go. I want to speak to the Bluejay alone." Violante cast Dustfinger an imperious glance. "Enti
rely alone."
Dustfinger did not move. Only when Mo nodded to him did he turn and leave, as silently as if he were the other man's shadow.
Violante went over to the window. They were in the room that had once been her mother's. On the walls, unicorns grazed peacefully among the spotted cats that Mo had often seen in the forest, and the window had a view of the aviary courtyard, with the empty cages and painted nightingales, now faded by daylight. The Adderhead seemed far, far away, in another world.
"So he hasn't brought the Piper," said Violante. "All the better. I suppose he sent him back to the Castle of Night, to punish him for letting you escape."
"Do you really think so?" Mo examined the peacefully grazing unicorns on the walls. They reminded him of other pictures, hunting scenes in which their white coats were pierced by lances. "Last night the White Women told me a different tale."
He could still hear them whispering: The Piper is preparing the way for him.
"Really? Well, be that as it may… if he's coming after all, then we must kill him, too. We can let the others go, but not the Piper."
Was she really so sure of herself?
Violante still had her back turned to him. "I'll have to have you bound again. Otherwise my father isn't likely to believe you're really my prisoner."
"I know. Get Dustfinger to do it. He knows how to tie people up so that they can easily free themselves." He learned it from a boy my daughter's in love with, added Mo in his mind. Where was Meggie now? With her mother, he hoped. And with the Black Prince. In safety.
"When my father is dead" – Violante spoke the word cautiously, so perhaps she wasn't so sure of succeeding as she made out – "the Milksop isn't going to give up the throne of Ombra to me without a fight. He'll probably get support from his sister in the Castle of Night. I hope you and I will still be allies?" For the first time she looked at him.
What was he to say? No, once your father is dead I'm going away. Was he?
Violante turned her back to him again before asking her next question. "Do you really have a wife?"
"Yes."
Princes' daughters have a soft spot for robbers and mountebanks.
"Send her away. I'll make you Prince of Ombra."
Mo thought he heard Dustfinger laughing. "I'm no prince, Your Highness," he replied. "I'm a robber – and a bookbinder. Two parts are more than enough for one man to play."
She turned again and scrutinized him as if she couldn't believe he meant it seriously. If only he could read her face better. But the mask Violante wore was even more inscrutable than those Battista made for performing his farces.
"You don't even want to think my offer over?"
"As I said, two parts are enough," repeated Mo, and for a moment Violante's face was so like her father's that his heart missed a beat.
"Very well. As you say," she said, "But I will ask you again when all this is over."
She looked out of the window once more. "I've told my soldiers to shut you up in the tower called the Needle. I won't consign you to one of the holes my grandfather used as dungeons. They're built so that the lake can fill them with just enough water to keep prisoners from actually drowning." She looked at him, as if to see whether the idea frightened him. Yes, it does, thought Mo. So?
"I will receive my father in the Hall of a Thousand Windows," Violante went on. "That's where he came to court my mother. I'll have you brought once I'm sure he has the White Book with him."
The way she put her hands together – it was like a schoolgirl reciting in class. He still felt affection for her; she moved him. He wanted to protect her from all the pain of the past and the darkness in her own heart, although he knew no one could do that. Violante's heart was a locked room, with dark pictures on the walls.
"You will pretend that you can heal the White Book, just as we planned. I'll have everything made ready – Balbulus has told me what you'd need – and when you seem to be starting work I'll distract my father's attention so that you can write the three words. I'll make him angry. That's usually the best way to distract him. He has a savage temper. If we're lucky he won't even notice you re-putting pen to paper. They say he has a new bodyguard, so that could be a problem. But I'm sure my men can deal with him."
My men. They're children, thought Mo, but fortunately Dustfinger was here, too. No sooner had the name come into his mind than Dustfinger himself stepped through the doorway.
"What do you want?" Violante snapped.
Dustfinger ignored her. "It's very quiet out there," he told Mo in a low voice. "The Adderhead is taking the news that he's to be kept waiting surprisingly well. I don't like it." He went back to the door and looked down the passage. "Where are the guards?" he asked Violante.
"Where would they be? I sent them down to the bridge. But two of my men are stationed in the courtyard. Now it's time for you to play the part of my prisoner, Bluejay. Yet another part. You see? Sometimes there are more than two." She went to the window and called to the guards, but only silence answered her.
Mo felt it at the same moment. He felt the story taking a new turn. Time suddenly seemed to weigh more heavily, and a strange uneasiness took hold of him. As if he were onstage and had missed his cue.
"Where are they?" Violante turned, and for a moment she looked almost as young and frightened as her soldiers. She went to the door and called for them again, but no one replied. Only the silence.
"Keep close to me!" Dustfinger whispered to Mo. "Whatever happens. Fire is sometimes a better defense than the sword."
Violante was still listening intently. The sound of footsteps was coming closer – stumbling, unsteady footsteps. Violante stepped back from the door as if afraid of what was coming. The soldier who collapsed at her feet was covered with blood – his own blood. It was the boy who had let Mo out of the sarcophagus. Did he know more about killing now?
He stammered something that Mo didn't understand until he bent over him. "The Piper… they're everywhere." The boy whispered more, but Mo couldn't make it out. He died with the faltering words still on his lips, mingling with his blood.
"Is there another entrance? One you haven't told us about?" Dustfinger seized Violante's arm roughly.
"No!" she stammered. "No!" And she tore herself away from him as if it were he who had killed the boy at her feet.
Mo reached for her hand and led her out into the corridor, away from the voices suddenly echoing through the silent castle on all sides. But their flight ended at the next set of steps. Dustfinger sent his marten scurrying off as soldiers barred their way, bloodstained men who hadn't been boys for a long time. Aiming crossbows at them, they drove them to the hall where Violante's mother and her sisters had learned to dance in front of a dozen silver mirrors. Now the Piper was reflected in them.
"Well, well, isn't the prisoner in chains? How careless, Your Ugliness." As always, the silver-nosed man held himself erect, proud as a peacock. But Mo was less surprised by the sight of him than by seeing the man at his side. Orpheus. He had never expected Orpheus to come here. He had forgotten him as soon as Dustfinger told him how he had taken the book, and all the words in it, away from him. You're a fool, Mortimer. As so often, his face showed what he was thinking, and Orpheus gloated over his surprise.
"How did you get into the castle?" Violante pushed away the men holding her and went up to the Piper, who might have been no more than an uninvited guest. His soldiers retreated before her as if they had forgotten who their master was. The Adderhead's daughter – it was a mighty title, even if she was the ugly daughter.
However, it did not impress the Piper. "Your father knew a more comfortable way in than that draughty bridge," he replied in a world-weary tone. "He thought you didn't know it, so it wouldn't be guarded. Obviously, it was your grandfather's best-kept secret, but in fact it was your mother who showed it to your father when she stole away from this castle with him. A romantic story, don't you think?"
"You're lying!" Violante looked around like a hunted animal,
but all she saw was her own reflection next to the Piper's.
"Really? Your men know better. I haven't had them all killed. Boys like them make excellent soldiers, because they still think themselves immortal." He took a step toward Mo.
"I could hardly wait to see you again, Bluejay. 'Send me on ahead,' I asked the Adderhead. 'So that I can catch you the bird who flew away from me. I'll stalk him like a cat, along secret ways, and seize him while he's still looking out just for you.'"
Mo wasn't listening. He read Dustfinger's thoughts as if they were his own. Now, Bluejay! they whispered, and as a fiery snake crawled up the legs of the soldier on his right he drove his elbow into the chest of the man behind him. Fire licked up from the floor, baring teeth of flame and setting light to the clothes of the men guarding them. Screaming, they staggered back, while the fire formed a protective ring around their two prisoners. Two solders raised their crossbows, but the Piper struck down their arms. He knew his master would not forgive him once more if he brought him the Bluejay dead. His face was pale with rage. But Orpheus smiled.
"Very impressive! It really is!" He went up to the fire and inspected the flames intently as if to find out how Dustfinger summoned them up. But then his gaze went to Dustfinger himself.
"No doubt you really could rescue the bookbinder all by yourself," he said gently. "But unluckily for him, you've made an enemy of me. What a mistake. I didn't come with the Piper. I serve his master now. He's waiting for night to fall before paying a call on the Bluejay, and he sent me ahead to prepare everything for his arrival. Including, among other things, the sad task of dispatching the Fire-Dancer to the realm of Death for the last time."
The regret in his voice sounded almost genuine, and Mo remembered the day in Elinor's library when Orpheus had bargained with Mortola for Dustfinger's life.
"That's enough talking. Get rid of him, Four-Eyes!" cried the Piper impatiently as his men tore off their burning clothes. "I want to get my hands on the Bluejay at last!"
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