Inkdeath (66 page)

Meggie was sitting high up in the tree, outside the nest where Fenoglio had sat writing. She didn’t know whom to worry about first: Fenoglio and the Black Prince; Farid, who had followed the giant with Battista; or Doria, who had climbed down again to find out if the Milksop had really left. She tried not even to think of her parents, but suddenly Roxane began the song about the Bluejay that Meggie loved most, because it described his captivity in the Castle of Night with his daughter.

Some of the songs were more heroic, but only this one also spoke of her father, and it was her father she missed. Mo? she would so much have liked to ask, putting her head on his shoulder. Do you think the giant is taking Fenoglio to his children as a toy? Do you think he’ll tread on Farid and Battista and crush them if they try to rescue the Prince? Do you think anyone can love two boys with just one heart? Have you seen Resa? And how are you, Mo, how are you?

"Has the Bluejay killed the Adderhead yet?" one of the children had asked Elinor only yesterday. "Will he come back soon to save us from the Milksop?"

"Of course he will!" Elinor had replied, glancing at Meggie. Of course.

"The boy’s not back yet," she heard Elfbane say to Woodenfoot down below her.

"Shall I go and look for him?"

"Why do that?" replied Woodenfoot, lowering his voice. "He’ll come back if he can.

And if he doesn’t, then they’ve caught him. I’m sure the soldiers are down there somewhere. I just hope Battista will be careful when he comes back himself."

"How can he be careful?" asked Elfbane, with a grim laugh. "The giant behind him, the Milksop in front of him, and the Prince probably dead. We’ll soon be striking up our own last song, and it won’t sound half as good as the songs Roxane sings."

Meggie buried her face in her arms. Don’t think about it, Meggie, she told herself, just don’t think about it. Listen to Roxane. Dream that everything will be all right.

That they’ll all come back safe and sound: Mo, Resa, Fenoglio, the Black Prince, Farid and Doria. What does the Milksop do to prisoners? No, don’t think about it, don’t ask such questions.

Voices drifted up from down below. Leaning forward, she tried to make something out in the darkness. Was that Battista’s voice? She saw fire, just a small flame, but it gave a bright light. There was Fenoglio! And the Black Prince on a stretcher beside him.

"Farid?" she called down.

"Hush!" hissed Elfbane, and Meggie pressed her hand to her mouth. The robbers were letting down ropes and a net to take up the Prince.

"Quick, Battista!" Roxane’s voice sounded so different when she wasn’t singing.

"They’re coming!"

She didn’t need to say any more. Horses snorted among the trees, twigs broke under the tread of many boots. The robbers threw down more ropes, and some let themselves down the trunk. Arrows came out of the darkness. Men swarmed out from the surrounding trees like silver beetles. "Wait and see—they’ll bide their time until Battista comes back. With the Prince!" Hadn’t Doria said so? That was why he had gone down himself And he hadn’t come back.

Farid made the fire flare up. He and Battista placed themselves in front of the Black Prince to protect him. The bear was with them, too.

"What is it? What’s going on?" Elinor was kneeling beside Meggie, her hair in wild confusion as if bristling with fear. "I’d actually dropped off to sleep, would you believe it?"

Meggie did not reply. What could she do? Oh, what could she do? She made her way over to the forked branch where Roxane and the other women were kneeling. Only two of the robbers were with them. All the others were letting themselves down the trunk to help the Prince, but it was a long way to the ground, a terribly long way, and a rain of arrows came from below. Two men fell, screaming, and the women covered the children’s eyes and ears.

"Where is he?" Elinor leaned so far forward that Roxane pulled her back by force.

"Where is he?" she cried again. "Someone tell me, is that old fool still alive?"

Fenoglio looked up at them as if he had heard her voice, his lined face full of fear, the fighting all around him. One man fell dead at his feet, and Fenoglio picked up his sword.

"Look at that, will you?" cried Elinor. "What’s he’s doing? Does he think he can play the hero in his own damn story?"

I must go down, thought Meggie, I must help Farid and look for Doria! Where was he? Lying dead somewhere among the trees? No, he can’t be. Fenoglio wrote about him! Wonderful things. He can’t be dead. All the same.

She ran to the ropes, but Elfbane stopped her. "Climb up the tree!" he said urgently.

"All the women and children must get as far up the tree as they can!"

"Oh yes, and what are we going to do when we reach the top?" snapped Elinor. "Wait for them to pick us off?"

There was no answer to that question.

"They have the Prince!" Minerva’s voice sounded so desperate that everyone looked around. Some of the women began sobbing. Sure enough, they had the Black Prince.

They were dragging him off the stretcher where he lay. The bear lay motionless beside him with an arrow in his coat. Battista had been captured, too. Where was Farid?

Where the fire was.

Farid made it bite and burn, but Sootbird was there, too, his leathery face pale above his red-and-black costume. Fire ate fire; the flames licked up the trunk. Meggie thought she could hear the tree groaning. Several smaller trees had already caught fire. The children were crying hard enough to melt anyone’s heart.

Oh, Fenoglio, thought Meggie, we don’t have much luck with the people we call to our aid. First Cosimo, now the giant.

The giant.

His face appeared among the trees as suddenly as if the mere word had summoned him. His skin had turned dark as the night, and he wore the reflection of the stars on his brow. One foot trod out the fire that was eating at the roots of their tree. The other foot missed Farid and Sootbird so narrowly that Meggie’s own scream echoed in her ears.

"Yes! Yes, he’s back!" she heard Fenoglio shout. He staggered toward the mighty feet and climbed onto one of its toes as if it were a lifeboat.

But the giant looked up at the crying children inquiringly, as if he had come for something that he couldn’t find.

The Milksop’s men abandoned their prisoners and ran for their lives again, with their lord in front on his snow-white horse. Only Sootbird stood his ground with a small troop, sending his fire to lick at the giant. The giant stared at the flames, bewildered, and stumbled back when they caught his toes.

"No, please!" Meggie called down. "Please don’t go away again. Help us!"

And suddenly Farid was standing on the giant’s shoulder, making flakes of fire rain down from the night. They settled on the clothes of Sootbird and his men like burning burrs, until they flung themselves down on the forest floor and rolled over and over on the dry leaves. As for the giant, he looked at Farid in astonishment, plucked him off his shoulder as easily as a moth, and placed him on his raised palm.

How large his fingers were. Terribly large. And how small Farid looked standing there beside them.

Sootbird and his men were still beating at their burning clothes. The giant stared down at them, irritated. He rubbed his ear as if their screams hurt him, closed his hand around Farid as if he were a precious find, and with the other hand flicked the screaming men away into the forest like a child brushing a spider off its clothes.

Then he put his hand to his ear again and looked up at the tree, still searching for something — as if he had suddenly remembered what he had come for.

"Roxane!"

It was Darius’s voice that Meggie heard echoing through the tree, hesitant and firm at the same time. "Roxane! I think he came back because of you. Sing!"

Resa flew after one of the servants who were carrying buckets of blood and water to the Adderhead’s bedchamber. He sat there in a silver tub, red up to his neck, gasping and cursing, such a terrible sight that Resa feared for Mo more than ever. What revenge would make up for such suffering?

Thumbling looked around when she flew to the wardrobe by the door, but she ducked in good time. It could be useful to be small. Dustfinger’s sparks were burning on the walls. Three soldiers were flicking at them with damp cloths, while the Adderhead put his bloodstained hand over his smarting eyes. His grandson stood beside the tub, arms folded, as if that would protect him from his grandfather’s bad temper. What a small thin child he was, as handsome as his father and delicately built like his mother. But unlike Violante, Jacopo didn’t resemble his grandfather at all, although he imitated the Adderhead’s every gesture.

"She didn’t." He thrust out his chin. He had copied that from his mother, although presumably he didn’t know it.

"Oh no? Then who else helped the Bluejay if not your mother?"

A servant poured the contents of his bucket over the Adderhead’s back. Resa felt sick when she saw the blood running over the pale nape of his neck. Jacopo, too, looked at his grandfather with both fear and disgust — and quickly glanced away when the Adderhead caught him at it.

"Yes, you just look at me!" he snarled at his grandson. "Your mother helped the man who did this to me."

"She didn’t. The Bluejay has flown away! Everyone says he can fly, and they say he’s invulnerable, too."

The Adderhead laughed. His breath whistled. "Invulnerable? I’ll show you just how invulnerable he is once I’ve caught him again. I’ll give you a knife and you can find out for yourself."

"But you won’t catch him."

The Adderhead smacked his hand down in the bath of blood, splashing Jacopo’s pale tunic with red. "Watch out. You’re getting more and more like your mother."

Jacopo seemed to be wondering whether this was a good thing or not.

Where was the White Book? Resa looked around her. Chests, clothes thrown over a chair, the bed untidy. The Adderhead slept poorly. Where did he hide it? His life depended on the Book, his immortal life. Resa looked for a casket, perhaps a precious cloth in which it was wrapped, even though it stank and was rotting. . . but suddenly the room went completely dark, so dark that only sounds remained: the splashing of the bloody water, the soldiers breathing hard, Jacopo’s cry of alarm.

"What’s that?"

Dustfinger’s sparks had suddenly died down. Resa felt the bird’s heart in her breast beating even faster than usual. What had happened? Something must have happened, and it couldn’t be anything good.

One of the soldiers lit a torch, putting his hand around the flame to keep it from dazzling his master.

"At last!" The Adderhead’s voice sounded both relieved and surprised. He waved to the servants, and they went on pouring the contents of their buckets over his itching skin. Where had they caught all the fairies? Fairies slept at this time of year.

The door opened as if the story itself were answering her, and Orpheus came in.

"Well?" he asked with a deep bow. "Were there enough fairies, Your Highness? Or shall I get you some more?"

"This will do for the time being." The Adderhead filled his hands with the red water and dipped his face into it. "Do you have anything to do with the fire going out?"

"Do I have anything to do with it?" Orpheus smiled with such self-satisfaction that Resa longed to fly down and peck his pale face to pieces with her beak. "I do indeed," he went on. "I’ve persuaded the Fire-Dancer to change sides."

No. It couldn’t be true. He was lying.

The bird in her pecked at a fly, and Jacopo looked up. Keep your head down, Resa, she told herself, even though it’s dark. She wished the feathers on her breast and throat weren’t so white.

"Good. But I hope you didn’t promise him any reward for it!" The Adderhead plunged deep into the bloody water. "He’s made me a laughingstock to my men. I want to see him dead, and dead beyond recall this time. But that can wait. What about the Bluejay?" "The Fire-Dancer will lead us to him. For no reward at all." The words were terrible enough, but the beauty of Orpheus’s voice made them even worse. "He’ll lay a trail of flames, and your soldiers will only have to follow it."

No. No. Resa began trembling. Dustfinger surely hadn’t betrayed Mo again. No.

A suppressed cry came from her bird-breast, and Jacopo looked up at her again. But even if he did see her, there was nothing there but a trembling swift lost in the dark human world.

"Is everything ready for the Bluejay to set to work at once?" asked Orpheus. "The sooner he’s finished, the sooner you can kill him."

Oh, Meggie, what kind of being did you read here? Resa thought desperately. With his shining glasses and flatteringly beautiful voice, Orpheus seemed to her like a demon.

The Adderhead heaved himself out of his bath, groaning. He stood there as bloodstained as a newborn child. Jacopo instinctively flinched back, but his grandfather beckoned him closer.

"My lord, you need to stay in the bath longer for the blood to take effect!" said one of the servants.

"Later!" replied the Adderhead impatiently. "You think I want to be sitting in the tub when they bring me my worst enemy? Give me those towels!" he told Jacopo sharply. "And quick, or do you want me to put you in the dark cell with your mother?

Did I say you were getting more like her? No, it’s your father you look like—more and more like him all the time."

With a black look, Jacopo handed him the towels lying ready beside the tub.

"Clothes!"

The servants hurried over to the chests, and Resa hid in the dark again, but the voice of Orpheus followed her like a deadly scent.

"Your Grace, I . . . er He cleared his throat. "I’ve kept my promise. The Bluejay will soon be your prisoner again, and he’ll bind you a new book. I think I’ve earned a reward."

"Oh, do you?" The servants were putting black garments on the Adderhead’s bloodred skin. "And what were you thinking of?"

"Well. Do you remember the book I mentioned to you? I would still very much like to have it back, and I’m sure you can find it for me. But if that can’t be done at once"