Inkspell (69 page)

Chapter 70 – The Pen and The Sword

“Of course not,” said Hermione. “Everything we need is here on this paper.”

– J. K. Rowling,
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Mo worked all night, while the storm raged outside as if Fenoglio’s world could not accept that soon immortality would arrive in it. Meggie had tried to stay awake, but finally she had nodded off again, head on the table, and he had put her to bed as he had done so many times before.

Marveling yet again to see how big she was now. Almost grown-up. Almost.

Meggie woke as he snapped the clasps shut. “Good morning,” he said as she raised her head from the pillow – and hoped it would really be a good morning. Outside, the sky was turning red like a face with the blood streaming back into it. The clasps held well. Mo had filed them so that no part of them pricked or dug into the fingers. They held the blank pages together as firmly as if Death were already between them. The leather he had been given for the binding had a reddish tinge, and it surrounded the wooden boards of the covers like their natural skin. The back was gently rounded, the stitching firm, the quires carefully planed. But the fact was that none of that mattered with this book. No one would read it. No one would keep it beside his bed to leaf through its pages again and again. The book was eerie for all its beauty, even Mo felt that, although it was the work of his own hands. It seemed to have a voice that whispered barely perceptible words, words that were not to be found on its blank pages. But they existed.

Fenoglio had written them, in a place far away, where women and children now wept for their dead husbands and fathers. Yes, the clasps were important.

Heavy footsteps echoed along the corridor outside the door. Soldiers’ footsteps. They came closer and closer. Outside, the night was fading. The Adderhead was taking Mo at his word.
By
the time the sun rises ..

Meggie quickly got out of bed, passed her hand over her hair, and smoothed down her creased dress.

“Is it finished?” she whispered.

He nodded and took the book from the table. “Do you think the Adderhead will like it?”

The Piper opened the door, with four men following him. His silver nose sat on his face as if it had grown from the flesh.

“Well, Bluejay? Have you finished?”

Mo inspected the book from all sides. “Yes, I think so,” he said, but when the Piper put out his
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hand he hid it behind his back. “Oh no,” he said. “I’m keeping this until your master has kept his side of the bargain.”

“You are?” The Piper smiled in derision. “Don’t you think I know ways of taking it from you? But hold on to it for a while. Fear will make you weak at the knees soon enough.”

It was a long way from the part of the Castle of Night where the ghosts of forgotten women lived to the halls where the Adderhead held court. The Piper walked behind Mo all the way with his curiously arrogant gait, stiff as a stork, so close behind that Mo felt his breath on the nape of his neck. Mo had never been in most of the corridors along which they marched, yet he felt as if he had walked down them all before – in the days when he read Fenoglio’s book over and over again as he tried to bring Resa back. It was a strange feeling to be here himself, behind the words on the page – and looking for her again.

He had read about the hall whose mighty doors opened for them, too, and when he saw Meggie’s look of alarm he knew only too well what other dreadful place it reminded them both of.

Capricorn’s red church had not been half as magnificent as the Adderhead’s throne room, but thanks to Fenoglio’s description Mo had recognized the model at once. Red-washed walls, column ranged beside column on both sides, except that, unlike those in Capricorn’s church, these were faced with scales of silver. Capricorn had even taken the idea of a statue from the Adderhead, but the sculptor who immortalized the Silver Prince clearly knew his trade better.

Capricorn had not tried to imitate the Adderhead’s throne. It was in the shape of a nest of silver vipers, two of them rearing up with their mouths fixed and wide open, so that the Adderhead’s hands could rest on their heads. The lord of the Castle of Night was magnificently clad, despite the early hour, as if to welcome his immortality with due honor. He wore a cape of silvery-white heron feathers over garments of black silk. Behind him, like a flock of birds with bright plumage, stood his court: administrators, ladies’ maids, servants – and among them, dressed in the ashen gray of their guild, a number of physicians.

Mortola was there, too, of course. She stood in the background, almost invisible in her black dress. If Mo had not been looking out for her he would have missed her. There was no sign of Basta, but Firefox was standing next to the throne, arms crossed under his fox-fur cloak. He was staring their way with hostility, but to Mo’s surprise his dark looks were aimed not at him but mainly at the Piper.

It’s a game
, thought Mo as he walked past the silver columns.
Fenoglio’s game. If only it hadn’t
felt so real.
How quiet it was in the red hall, in spite of all the people. Meggie looked at him, her face so pale under her fair hair, and he gave her the most encouraging smile his lips could manage – feeling thankful that she couldn’t hear how fast his heart was beating.

The Adderhead’s wife sat beside him. Meggie had described her perfectly: an ivory porcelain doll. Behind them stood the nurse with the eagerly awaited son. Mo had never wanted a son, only a daughter. Resa had teased him about it when they didn’t yet know what their baby would be. The child’s crying sounded strangely lost in the great hall. Even the rain beating against glazed windows high above them drowned out the shrill little voice.

It’s a game
, thought Mo once more when he was standing before the steps of the throne,
only a
game
.
If only he’d known more about the rules.
There was someone else present whom they knew. Taddeo the librarian, head humbly bent, stood right behind the Adderhead’s throne and gave Mo an anxious smile.

The Adderhead looked even more exhausted for lack of sleep than he had on their last meeting.

His face was blotched and full of shadows, his lips colorless. Only the rubies in the corners of his nostrils shone red. Who could say how many sleepless nights he had spent? For a moment it seemed to Mo as if all his life had gone into the rubies at the corners of his nose.

“Good, so you have really finished,” he said. “Of course, you’re in a hurry to see your wife again, I’m sure. I’ve been told she asks about you every day. That’s love, I expect, isn’t it?”

A game, only a game
. . It didn’t feel like that. Nothing had ever seemed more real than the hatred that Mo felt at this moment, as he looked at that coarse and arrogant face. And he felt something else beating in his breast again: his new, cold heart. Or was it just his old heart, burned out with hatred?

The Adderhead made a sign to the Piper, and the silver -nosed man stepped commandingly toward Mo. He found it hard to put the book into the man’s gloved hands. After all, there was nothing else that could save them now. The Piper noticed his reluctance, smiled scornfully at him – and took the book up the steps to his master. Then, with a brief glance at Firefox, he stationed himself right beside the throne with an arrogant air, as if there were no more important man in the hall.

“Beautiful. Beautiful indeed!” The Adderhead caressed the white pages of the book. “Whether or not he’s a robber, he knows something about bookbinding, don’t you agree, Firefox?”

“There are men of many trades among the robbers,” was all that Firefox replied. “Why not an accursed bookbinder, too?”

“How true, how true. Did you all hear that?” The Adderhead looked at his colorfully clad retinue, inviting approval. “It seems to me that my herald still thinks I’d have let a little girl trick me. Yes, he believes I’m a credulous fool by comparison with his old master, Capricorn.”

Firefox was about to protest, but the Adderhead silenced him with a gesture. “Do not speak!”

was all he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “In spite of my very obvious folly, I have thought of a way to prove which of the two of us is wrong.” With a nod of the head, he summoned Taddeo to his side. Eager to oblige, the librarian approached him, taking pen and ink from the folds of his flowing robe.

“It’s perfectly simple, Firefox!” You could tell that the Adderhead liked the sound of his own voice. “You, and not I, will be the first to write your name in this book! Taddeo here has assured me that the letters can be removed again with a scraper that Balbulus once designed specially for that purpose, leaving no trace. No one will be able to see even a shadow of your writing on the pages. So you write your name – which I know you are able to do – we give the Bluejay a sword, and he runs it through your body. Isn’t that a fabulous idea? Won’t it prove beyond doubt whether or not this book can do what his daughter promised me?”

A game
. Mo saw fear spread over Firefox’s face like a rash.

“Well, come along!” the Adderhead derided him, opening the book and leafing through the blank pages, as if lost in thought. “Why do you suddenly look so pale? Isn’t such a game precisely to your taste? Come along, write your name in it. Not the name you’ve given yourself, but the one you were born with.”

Think.
Mo saw one of the guards surrounding him and Meggie draw his sword.
What are you
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going to do? What?
He felt Meggie’s horrified gaze, felt her fear like a chill beside him.

Firefox looked around as if searching for a face that might offer help, but no one stepped forward, not even Mortola. She stood there with her lips compressed so tightly that they were almost white, and if her glance could have killed as her poisons often did, the book would not have helped the Adderhead. As it was, however, he just smiled at her and put the pen in his herald’s hand. Firefox stared at the sharpened quill as if he were not sure what to do with it.

Then he dipped it ceremoniously in the ink – and wrote.

“Excellent!” The Piper took the book from his hand the moment he had finished. The Adderhead waved to one of the servants waiting with dishes full of fruit and cakes at the foot of the silver columns. “Well, what are you waiting for, Firefox? Try your luck!” Honey dripped from his fingers as he pushed one of the cakes between his lips.

Firefox, however, stood there, still staring at the Piper, whose long arms were wound around the book as if he were holding a baby. He responded to Firefox’s glance with a nasty smile. Firefox abruptly turned his back to him and the Adderhead and came down the steps.

Mo removed Meggie’s hand from his arm and pushed her gently aside, although she resisted.

The men-at-arms standing around retreated, with incredulity on their faces, as if clearing a stage. Except for the one who had drawn his sword and now held it out to Mo. Was this still Fenoglio’s game? It would be like him. When Mo had entered the hall just now he’d have given one of his eyes for a sword, but he didn’t want this one. He wanted it as little as the roles some other people wanted him to play, whether Fenoglio or the Adderhead. He had always hated games like this, games played by the strong with someone weaker, the cat with the helpless mouse. . He hated them, even when the mouse was a murderer and fire-raiser.

When Firefox stopped at the foot of the steps, hesitating as if he were wondering whether there might not be some way out for him after all, one of the men-at-arms went up to him and took his sword from its sheath.

“Here, Bluejay, take it.” The soldier who was holding his sword out to Mo was getting impatient, and Mo remembered the night when he had picked up Basta’s sword and chased him and Capricorn out of his house. He still remembered just how heavy the weapon had felt in his hand, how the bright blade caught the light. .

“No, thank you,” Mo said, stepping back. “Swords are not among the tools of my trade. I thought I’d proved that with the book.”

The Adderhead wiped the honey off his fingers, removed a few cake crumbs from his lips, and looked him up and down. “Oh, come on, Bluejay!” he said in a tone of mild surprise. “You heard.

We don’t expect any great skill in swordplay. All you have to do is run it through his body. It really isn’t difficult!”

Firefox was staring at Mo. His eyes were clouded with hatred.
Look at him, you fool
, Mo told himself.
He’d run you through with that sword on the spot, so why don’t you do it to him?
Meggie understood why not. He saw it in her eyes. Perhaps the Bluejay might take that sword, but not her father.

“Forget it, Adder,” he said out loud. “If you have an account to settle with your bloodhound, see to it yourself. Ours is a different agreement.”

The Adderhead looked at him with as much interest as if some exotic animal had wandered into his hall. Then he laughed. “I like your answer!” he cried. “Indeed I do. And do you know something? It finally shows me I’ve caught the right man. You are the Bluejay, without any doubt. He’s said to be a sly fox. But all the same I’ll keep my bargain.”

And so saying, he nodded to the man-at-arms who was still offering Mo the sword. Without hesitation, the man turned and thrust the long blade through the body of his master’s herald, so fast that Firefox did not even manage to flinch back.

Meggie screamed. Mo drew her close and hid her face against his chest. But Firefox stood there, staring in bewilderment at the sword sticking out of his body as if it were a part of him.

With a self-satisfied smile, the Adderhead looked around, enjoying the silent horror in the hall around him. Firefox took the sword sticking out of his body and pulled out the blade very slowly, his face distorted, but without swaying on his feet. And the great hall became as still as if all present had stopped breathing.

As for the Adderhead, he applauded. “Well, look at that!” he cried. “Is there anyone here in this hall who thinks he could have survived that sword stroke? He’s just a little pale, that’s all – am I right, Firefox?”