interrupted Orpheus. ‘But if you want to say goodbye to him, do it now, because I’m going to take him with me.’
‘Take him with you? What do you mean?’ Farid barred her way. ‘Orpheus is here to bring him back!’
‘Get out of my sight!’ Roxane snapped at him. ‘The very first time I saw you coming to my farm, I knew you brought bad luck. You ought to be dead, not Dustfinger. That’s how it is and that’s how it stays.’
Farid flinched as if Roxane had struck him. He did not resist as she pushed him aside, and stood there with his shoulders drooping as she bent over Dustfinger.
Meggie couldn’t think of any way to comfort him, but her mother knelt down beside Roxane. ‘Listen!’ she said quietly. ‘Dustfinger brought Farid back from the dead by making the words of a story come true. Words, Roxane! In this world they make strange things happen, and Orpheus knows a lot about words.’
‘Oh yes, I do!’ Orpheus quickly went to Roxane’s side. ‘I made him a door of words so that he could come back to you, did he never tell you?’
Roxane looked at him disbelievingly, but the magic of his voice worked on her too. ‘Yes, believe me, I did it!’ Orpheus went on. ‘And I’ll write something to bring him back from the dead. I’ll find words as precious and intoxicating as the scent of a lily, words to beguile Death and open the cold fingers he has closed around Dustfinger’s warm heart!’ A delighted smile lit up his face, as if he were already relishing his great achievements to come.
But Roxane just shook her head, as if to free herself from the magic of his voice, and blew out the candles standing around Dustfinger. ‘Now I understand,’ she said, covering Dustfinger with his cloak. ‘You’re an enchanter. I only went to an enchanter once. After our younger daughter died. People who go to enchanters are desperate, and they know it. They live on false hopes like ravens preying on carrion. His promises sounded just as wonderful as yours. He promised me what I most desperately wanted. They all do. They promise to bring back what’s lost for ever: a child, a friend – or a husband.’ She drew the cloak over Dustfinger’s still face. ‘I’ll never believe such promises again. They only make the pain worse. I’ll take him back to Ombra with me and find a place there where no one will disturb him, not the Adderhead, not the wolves, not even the fairies. And he will still look as if he were only sleeping long after my hair is white, for I know from Nettle how you go about preserving the body even when the soul is long gone.’
‘You’ll tell me where that is, won’t you?’ Farid’s voice trembled, as if he knew Roxane’s answer already. ‘You’ll tell me where you’re taking him?’
‘No,’ said Roxane. ‘You least of all.’
77
Where Now?
The Giant rested back in his chair. ‘You’ve some stories left,’ he said. ‘I can smell them on your skin.’
Brian Patten,
The Story Giant
Farid watched as they laid the injured on litters under cover of night. The injured and the dead. Six robbers were standing among the trees listening for any sound that might mean danger. Only the tops of the silver towers were to be seen in the distance, bright in the starlight, yet it seemed to them all as if the Adderhead could see them. Could he sense it up in his castle when they stole soft-footed over Mount Adder? Who could tell what the Adderhead might be able to do now? Now that he was immortal, and as invincible as
Death itself?
But the night was still, as still as Dustfinger, who was to be taken back to Ombra on a cart drawn by the Black Prince’s bear. Meggie was going there too for the time being, to the other side of the forest, with Silvertongue and her mother. The Black Prince had told them of a village too poor and remote from any road to interest princes. He would hide them there, or on one of the nearby farms.
Should he go with them?
Farid saw Meggie looking at him. She was standing with her mother and the other women. Silvertongue was with the robbers, and hanging from his belt was the sword with which he had apparently killed Basta – and not just Basta. Almost a dozen men had died at his hands, so several of the robbers had told Farid, their voices lowered in respect. Amazing. Back in the hills around Capricorn’s village, Silvertongue couldn’t have killed a blackbird when they were in hiding together, let alone a human being. On the other hand, how had he himself learned to kill? The answer was not hard to find. Fear and rage. And there was enough of those in this story.
Roxane was with the robbers too. She turned her back on Farid when she noticed him looking at her. She treated him like air – as if he had never returned to the land of the living, as if he were only a ghost, an ill-intentioned ghost who had devoured her husband’s heart. ‘What was it like being dead, Farid?’ Meggie had asked him. But he couldn’t remember. Or perhaps he didn’t want to remember.
Orpheus was standing barely two paces away from him, shivering in the thin shirt he wore. The Prince had told him he must change his light-coloured suit for a dark cloak and woollen trousers. But in spite of the clothes he still looked like a cuckoo among sparrows. Fenoglio was watching Orpheus like an old tom cat keeping a wary eye on a young one who has invaded his territory. ‘He looks a fool!’ Fenoglio had whispered this comment to Meggie just loud enough for everyone to hear it. ‘Look at him. A callow youth, knows nothing about life, how is he going to be able to write? It might well be best to send him straight back, but never mind. There’s no saving this wretched story now anyway.’
He was probably right. But why hadn’t he at least tried to write Dustfinger back? Didn’t he care anything for the characters he had created? Was he just moving them like pawns in a game of chess, enjoying their pain?
Farid clenched his fists in helpless anger. I would have tried, he thought. A hundred times, a thousand times, for the rest of my life. But he couldn’t even read those strange little signs! The few that Dustfinger had taught him would never be enough to bring him back from where he was now. Even if he wrote his name in letters of fire on the walls of the Castle of Night, Dustfinger’s face would remain as terribly still as when he last saw it.
No, only Orpheus could try it. But he hadn’t written a single word since Meggie read him here. He just stood there – or paced up and down, up and down, while the robbers watched him suspiciously. The glances Silvertongue cast him were not very friendly either. He had turned pale when he saw Orpheus again. For a moment Farid had thought he would seize Cheeseface and beat him to a jelly, but Meggie had taken his hand and drawn him away. Whatever the two of them had said to each other, she wasn’t telling Farid. She had known that her father would not approve if she read Orpheus here, but she had done it all the same. For him. Was Orpheus interested in any of that? Oh no. He was still acting as if his own voice, not Meggie’s, had brought him here. Stuck-up, thrice-accursed son of a bitch!
‘Farid? Have you made up your mind?’ Farid came out of his gloomy thoughts. Meggie was standing in front of him. ‘You will come with us, won’t you? Resa says you can stay with us as long as you like, and Mo doesn’t mind either.’
Silvertongue was still standing with the robbers, talking to the Black Prince. Farid saw Orpheus watching the two of them … then he began pacing up and down once more, rubbed his forehead, smoothed back his hair, muttered as if talking to himself. Like a lunatic, thought Farid. I’ve pinned my hopes on a lunatic!
‘Wait here.’ He turned away from Meggie and went over to Orpheus. ‘I’m going with Meggie,’ he said brusquely. ‘You can go wherever you like.’
Cheeseface straightened his glasses. ‘What are you talking about? Of course I’m coming with you! After all, I want to see everything – the Wayless Wood, the Laughing Prince’s castle.’ He looked up at the hill. ‘And of course I’d have liked to see the Castle of Night too, but after what’s happened here, I suppose it isn’t a good time. Well, this is only my first day here … have you seen the Adderhead yourself? Is he very terrifying? I’d like to see those silver scales on the columns …’
‘
You’re not here to go sightseeing!’ Farid’s voice was choked with anger. What on earth was Cheeseface thinking of? How could he stand there looking around him as if he were on a pleasure trip, while Dustfinger would soon be lying in some dark crypt, or wherever Roxane planned to take him?
‘Oh no?’ Orpheus’s round face darkened. ‘Is that any way to talk to me? I’ll do as I like. Do you think I’ve finally arrived where I always wanted to be just to have a snotty boy, who has no business here anyway, order me about? You think words can simply be plucked from the empty air? This is all about Death, you stupid boy! It could take months for me to get the right idea. Who knows? You don’t call up ideas just like that, not even with fire, and we need a brilliant, a divine idea. Which means—’ Orpheus inspected his fingernails, ‘that I shall need a servant! Or do you want me to waste my time washing my own clothes and finding myself something to eat?’
The dog. The accursed dog. ‘Very well. I’ll be your servant too.’ Farid brought the words out only with difficulty. ‘If you will bring him back.’
‘Excellent!’ Orpheus smiled. ‘Then, for a start, get me some food. It looks as if we’re going to be embarking on a long and uncomfortable march.’
Farid gritted his teeth, but of course he obeyed. He would have scraped the silver from the towers of the Castle of Night to get Dustfinger breathing again.
‘Farid? What is it? Are you coming with us?’ Meggie stepped into his path as he ran past her, with bread and dried meat for Cheeseface in his pockets.
‘Yes – yes, we’re coming with you!’ He flung his arms round her neck, but only once he saw that Silvertongue’s back was turned to him. You never knew with fathers. ‘I’ll save him, Meggie!’ he whispered in her ear. ‘I’ll bring Dustfinger back. This story will have a happy ending. I swear!’
THE END
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