‘Yes. A flower with tiny white blooms that smell of carrion.’ Resa was still looking up at the bird. ‘The root alleviates the effect of the berries.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’ Fenoglio made his way past the women, a look of concern on his face. Elinor was with him. The pair of them had spent all morning in Fenoglio’s corner of the cave, arguing about what was good in his story and what wasn’t. Whenever someone came near them they lowered their voices like conspirators, as if any of the children or the robbers could have understood what they were talking about.
Elinor put her hand to her mouth with alarm when she saw the Black Prince lying there motionless. She looked incredulous, as if she had found a wrongly printed page in a book.
‘Poisoned.’ The Strong Man stood up, clenching his fists. His face was the dark red colour that it usually turned only when he was drunk. He took Gecko by his scrawny neck and shook him like a rag doll. ‘Did you do this?’ he cried. ‘Or was it Snapper? Come on, tell us or I’ll beat it out of you! I’ll break all your bones until you’re writhing in agony too!’
‘Let him go!’ Roxane snapped. ‘That’s not going to help the Prince now!’
The Strong Man let go of Gecko and started sobbing. Minerva put her arms round him. But Resa looked up at the magpie again.
‘The plant you describe sounds like deathbud,’ Roxane told her, while Gecko, coughing, rubbed his neck and cursed the Strong Man roundly. ‘It’s very rare. And even if it grew here it would have died down in the cold long ago. Isn’t there anything else?’
The Black Prince came to his senses and tried to sit up, but he fell back with a groan. Battista knelt down beside him and looked at Roxane in search of help. The Strong Man too turned his tearful eyes on her like a pleading dog.
‘Don’t stare at me like that!’ she cried, and Meggie heard the desperation in her voice. ‘I can’t help him. Try giving him retchwort,’ she told Minerva. ‘And I’ll go and look for deathbud roots, though I’m afraid there’s not much point.’
‘Retchwort will only make it worse,’ said Resa in a toneless voice. ‘Believe me, I’ve seen this often enough.’
The Black Prince gasped in agony and buried his face against Battista’s side. Then his body suddenly went limp, as if it had lost its battle against the pain. Roxane quickly knelt down beside him, putting her ear to his chest and her fingers on his mouth. Meggie tasted her own tears on her lips, and the Strong Man began sobbing like a child.
‘Still alive,’ said Roxane. ‘But only just.’
Gecko slipped away, probably to tell Snapper what was going on. But Elinor whispered something to Fenoglio. He turned away angrily, but Elinor held him back and went on talking insistently to him. ‘Don’t make such a fuss!’ Meggie heard her whisper. ‘Of course you can do it! Are you going to leave him to die?’
Meggie was not the only one to have heard those last words. The Strong Man, bewildered, mopped the tears off his face. The bear groaned again and nuzzled his master’s side. But Fenoglio still stood there, staring at the unconscious Prince. Then he took a hesitant step in Roxane’s direction.
‘This … er … this flower, Roxane …’
Elinor stayed right behind him, as if she had to make sure he said the right thing. Fenoglio looked at her in annoyance.
‘What?’ Roxane looked at him.
‘Tell me more about it. Where does it grow? How tall is it?’
‘It likes moist, shady places, but why ask? I told you, it’ll have died down in the frost long ago.’
‘White flowers, tiny. Shady, moist surroundings.’ Fenoglio passed his hand over his tired face. Then he turned abruptly and took Meggie’s arm.
‘Come with me,’ he told her in a low voice. ‘We must hurry.’
‘Moist and shady,’ he murmured as he led Meggie off with him. ‘Right, so if they grew at the entrance of a brownie’s burrow, protected by the warm air coming out of the burrow where a few brownies are hibernating … yes, that makes sense. Yes!’
The cave was almost empty. The women had taken the children out so that they wouldn’t hear the Prince’s cries of pain. A few small groups of robbers still sat there in silence, staring at one another as if wondering which of them had tried to kill their leader. Snapper was near the entrance with Gecko, and he returned Meggie’s glance with such a black expression that she quickly looked the other way.
Fenoglio, however, did not avoid his eyes. ‘I wonder if it was Snapper,’ he whispered to Meggie.’ Yes, I really do wonder.’
‘If anyone ought to know it’s you!’ muttered Elinor, who had followed them. ‘Who else made up that horrible fellow?’
Fenoglio spun round as if something had stung him. ‘Now you listen to me, Loredan! I’ve been patient with you so far because you’re Meggie’s aunt—’
‘Great-aunt,’ Elinor corrected him, unmoved.
‘Whatever. I never invited you into this story, so you will kindly spare me any remarks about my characters in future!’
‘Oh, will I?’ Elinor’s voice rose. It was loud enough to echo right through the huge cave. ‘And suppose I’d spared you my comment just now? Your befuddled brain would never have thought of getting the flower here by—’
Fenoglio pressed his hand roughly over her mouth. ‘How many more times do I have to tell you?’ he hissed. ‘Not a word about writing, understand? I haven’t the faintest desire to be drawn and quartered as a wizard because of a stupid woman.’
‘Fenoglio!’ Meggie pulled him forcibly away from Elinor. ‘The Black Prince! He’s dying!’
Fenoglio stared at her for a fraction of a second, as if he thought her interruption was in the worst possible taste, but then, without a word, he retreated to the corner where he slept. Stony-faced, he cleared a wineskin aside and found a bundle of papers under a few clothes. To Meggie’s surprise, most of the sheets already had writing on them.
‘Curse it all, where’s Rosenquartz?’ he muttered as he took a blank sheet. ‘Out and about with Jasper again, no doubt. The moment two of them get together they forget their work and go looking for wild glass women. As if the glass women would give one of those pink good-for-nothings so much as a glance!’
Paying no attention to the written pages, he put them aside. So many words. How long ago had he begun writing again? Meggie tried reading the first of the sheets. ‘Only a few ideas,’ muttered Fenoglio when their eyes met. ‘Trying to see how all this could yet end well. What part your father will play in the story …’
Meggie’s heart turned over, but Elinor got in ahead of her.
‘Aha! So it was you who wrote all that about Mortimer after all: letting himself be taken prisoner, then riding to that castle, while my niece cries her eyes out at night!’
‘No, it wasn’t me!’ Fenoglio snapped at her angrily, as he quickly hid the written sheets under his clothes again. ‘I didn’t have him talking to Death either – though I must say I really like that part of the story. I tell you, these are just some ideas! Useless scribbling that leads nowhere! And it’ll probably be the same with what I’m trying to do now. But I’ll have a shot at it all the same. So kindly be quiet! Or do you want to talk the Black Prince into his grave?’
As Fenoglio dipped his pen in the ink, Meggie heard a slight sound behind her. With a clearly embarrassed expression, Rosenquartz emerged from behind the rock on which Fenoglio’s writing things stood. The pale green face of a wild glass woman appeared behind him. Without a word, she scurried away past Fenoglio and Meggie.
‘I don’t believe it!’ thundered the old man, in such a loud voice that Rosenquartz put his hands over his ears. ‘The Black Prince is at death’s door, and you’re gadding about with a wild glass woman!’
‘The Prince?’ Rosenquartz looked at Fenoglio in such dismay that he calmed down at once. ‘But, but—’
‘Stop all that gabbling and stir the ink!’ Fenoglio snapped. ‘And if you were going to say something clever like, “But the Prince is such a good man!” that never
kept anyone alive yet in any world, did it?’ He dipped his pen in the ink so vigorously that it splashed Rosenquartz’s pink face, but Meggie saw that the old man’s fingers were shaking. ‘Come on, then, Fenoglio!’ he whispered to himself. ‘It’s only a flower. You can do it!’
Rosenquartz was watching him with concern, but Fenoglio just stared at the blank sheet before him. He stared at it like a torero facing a bull.
‘The entrance to the brownie burrow where the plant grows lies where Elfbane sets his snares!’ he murmured. ‘And the flowers smell so horrible that the fairies give them a wide berth. But moths love them, grey moths with wings patterned as if a glass man had painted tiny death’s-heads on them. Can you see them, Fenoglio? Yes …’
He put pen to paper, hesitated – and began to write.
New words. Fresh words. Meggie thought she could hear the story taking a deep breath. Nourishment at last, after all the time when Orpheus had merely fed it with Fenoglio’s old words.
‘There we are! He only has to be brought up to the mark, you see. He’s a lazy old man,’ Elinor whispered to her. ‘Of course he can still do it, even if he won’t believe it himself. You don’t forget that kind of thing. I mean, could you forget how to read?’
I don’t know, Meggie was going to reply, but she said nothing. Her tongue was waiting for Fenoglio’s words. Healing words. Like the words she had once read for Mo.
‘Why is the bear howling like that?’ Meggie felt Farid’s hands on her shoulders. She supposed he had been off in some place where the children couldn’t find him, to try conjuring up fire again, but judging by his glum face the flames had refused to show anything.
‘Oh no! Him too!’ cried the exasperated Fenoglio. ‘Why did Darius and I pile up all these rocks? So that anyone and everyone can march into my bedroom? I need peace! This is a matter of life and death!’
‘Life and death?’ Farid looked at Meggie in alarm.
‘The Black Prince … he … he …’ Elinor was trying to sound composed, but her voice was shaking.
‘Not another word!’ said Fenoglio, without looking up. ‘Rosenquartz! Sand!’
‘Sand? Where am I supposed to find sand?’ Rosenquartz’s voice rose shrilly.
‘Oh, you really are useless! Why do you think I dragged you off to this wilderness with me? For a nice holiday so that you can chase green glass women?’ Fenoglio blew on the wet ink and handed Meggie the sheet he had just written. He looked unsure of himself.
‘Make them grow, Meggie!’ he said. ‘A few last healing leaves, warmed by the breath of sleeping brownies, picked before the winter freezes them.’
Meggie stared at the paper. There it was again, the story she had last heard when she had brought Orpheus here.
Yes. The words obeyed Fenoglio once again. And she would teach them how to live.
45
Written and Unwritten
The characters have their own lives and their own logic, and you have to act accordingly.
Isaac Bashevis Singer,
Advice to Writers
Roxane found the plants exactly where Fenoglio had described: in the entrance of a brownie burrow where Elfbane set his snares. And Meggie, holding Despina’s hand, watched again as the words that she had only just read became reality.
The leaves and flowers defied the cold wind, as if the fairies had planted them so that they could dream of summer when they saw them. But the smell rising from the flowers was the odour of decomposition and decay, and it had given the plant its name: deathbud. The flowers were put on graves to placate the White Women.
Roxane brushed the moths off the leaves, dug up two plants and left two others, for fear of angering the wood-elves. Then she hurried back to the cave, where the White Women were already standing at the Black Prince’s side, grated the roots, brewed them using the method Resa had described to her, and spooned the hot liquid into the Prince’s mouth. He was already very weak, yet what they had hardly dared to hope for happened: the brew lessened the effect of the poison, lulled it to sleep, and brought back the strength of life.
And the White Women disappeared, as if Death had called them to another place.
Those last sentences had been easy to read, but many anxious hours passed before they too became reality. The poison was not giving in without a struggle, and the White Women came and went. Roxane strewed herbs to keep them away, as she had learnt to do from Nettle, but the pale faces kept appearing again, barely visible against the grey walls of the cave, and a time came when Meggie felt they were looking not just at the Prince, but at her too.
Don’t we know you? their eyes seemed to ask. Didn’t your voice protect the man who has been ours twice? Meggie returned their glance for little longer than it takes to draw a breath, yet she immediately felt the longing that Mo had spoken of: longing for a place that lay far beyond all words. She took a step towards the White Women to feel their cool hands on her beating heart, to let them wipe away all her fear and pain, but other hands held her back, warm, firm hands.
‘Meggie, for heaven’s sake don’t look at them!’ Elinor murmured. ‘Come on, let’s get you out into the fresh air. Why, you’re as pale as those creatures themselves!’
And she wouldn’t take no for an answer, but led Meggie outside to where the robbers were consulting together and the children played under the trees, as if they had forgotten what was going on in the cave. The grass was white with hoarfrost, white as the figures waiting for the Black Prince, but the spell of the White Women was broken as soon as Meggie heard the children’s laughter. They were throwing fir cones for the marten and shouting as he chased them. Life seemed so much stronger than death, death so much stronger than life. Like the ebb and flow of the tide.
Resa was standing outside the cave too, wrapping her arms around herself for warmth, although the Strong Man had put a rabbit-skin cloak over her shoulders. ‘Have you seen Snapper?’ she asked Elinor. ‘Or Gecko and his magpie?’
Battista joined them. He looked exhausted. This was the first time he had left the Prince’s side. ‘They’ve gone,’ he said. ‘Snapper, Gecko and ten others. They went after the Bluejay as soon as it was clear that the Prince wasn’t likely to be able to follow him.’
‘But Snapper hates Mo!’ Resa’s voice was so loud that several robbers turned to look at her, and even the children paused their game. ‘Why would he want to help him?’
‘I’m afraid he has no intention of helping him,’ Battista replied quietly. ‘He’s been telling the others he’s going because the Bluejay plans to betray us and make his own bargain with Violante. And he said your husband hasn’t told us the whole truth about the White Book.’
‘What kind of truth?’ Resa’s voice was failing her.
‘Snapper says,’ Battista replied quietly, ‘that the Book doesn’t just make its owner immortal, it makes him immensely rich. That sounds a lot more tempting to most of our men than immortality. They’d betray their own mothers for a book like that. So why, they ask themselves, wouldn’t the Bluejay plan on doing the same to us?’
‘But that’s all lies! The Book makes its owner immortal, nothing more.’ Meggie didn’t care that her voice was rising. Let them all hear her, all of them putting their heads together, whispering about her father!
Elfbane turned to her, an unpleasant smile on his thin face. ‘Oh yes? And how would you know that, little witch? Didn’t your father keep it a secret from you that the Book was making the Adderhead’s flesh rot on his bones?’
‘What if he did?’ Elinor asked Elfbane angrily, putting a protective arm around Meggie. ‘She still knows one thing: she can certainly trust her father more than a poisoner. Because who else poisoned the Prince if not your beloved Snapper?’
There was a rather unfriendly murmuring among the robbers, and Battista drew Elinor over to his side.
‘Mind what you say!’ he whispered to her. ‘Not all Snapper’s friends went with him. And if you ask me, poison doesn’t sound much like Snapper. A knife, yes
, but poison …’
‘Oh no? Then who else would it be?’ Elinor retorted.
Resa looked up at the sky as if the answer might be found there. ‘Did Gecko take his magpie with him?’ she asked.
Battista nodded. ‘Yes, luckily. The children are scared of it.’
‘With good reason.’ Resa looked up at the sky again, and then at Battista. ‘What exactly does Snapper mean to do?’ she asked. ‘Tell me.’
Battista just shrugged wearily. ‘I don’t know. Maybe he’s going to try to steal the Book from the Adderhead before he reaches the Castle in the Lake. Or maybe he’s going straight there to get it for himself after the Bluejay has written the three words in it. Whatever his plan is, there’s nothing we can do. The children need us, and until the Prince gets better he needs us too. Remember, Dustfinger is with the Bluejay. Snapper won’t have an easy time of it with the pair of them! Now forgive me, but I must go back to the Prince.’
Snapper won’t have an easy time of it with the pair of them! Yes, but what if he really did steal the White Book from the Adderhead on the way, and the Adderhead arrived at the Castle in the Lake knowing that even the Bluejay couldn’t help him now? Wouldn’t he kill Mo then and there? And even if Mo did get a chance to write those three words on the blank pages … what if Snapper poisoned him afterwards, as ruthlessly as he’d presumably poisoned the Prince, just to get his hands on the Book?
What if, what if … those questions kept Meggie awake even when all had long been sleeping around her, and finally she got up to go and see how the Black Prince was.
He was sleeping. The White Women had gone, but his dark face was still as grey as if their hands had bleached his skin. Minerva and Roxane were taking turns to sit at his side, and Fenoglio was with them, as if he must watch over his own words if they were to remain effective.
Fenoglio … Fenoglio could write again.
What did the sheets of paper he had hidden under his clothes say?
‘Why did you make up the Bluejay for your robber songs, why didn’t you just write about the Black Prince?’ Meggie had asked him long ago.
‘Because the Prince was tired,’ Fenoglio had replied. ‘The Black Prince needed the Bluejay as much as the poor people who whispered his name at night. The Prince had been part of this world for too long to believe it could really be changed. And his men never doubted that he was flesh and blood like them. They’re not nearly so sure about your father. Do you understand now?’
Meggie understood only too well. But Mo was flesh and blood, and she was sure that Snapper didn’t doubt it. When she returned to the sleepers,