time to let the rustling branches sing her to sleep. Nonsense! She ruffled herself up, shook her silly little head, called her own name back to mind. Mortola. Mortola. Capricorn’s mother …
What was that? The crow on Gecko’s shoulder jerked its head and spread its wings. Snapper unsteadily got to his feet, drew his sword, and shouted to the others to do the same. But there stood the Adder’s men already, among the trees. Their leader was a lean, hawk-faced man, his eyes as expressionless as the eyes of a corpse. Almost casually, he thrust his sword into the first robber’s chest. Three soldiers attacked Snapper. He slit them open, although his hand must still be hurting from Mortola’s teeth, but his men were dying like flies around him. Folk would sing songs about them, yes, but they’d be songs mocking the fools who had thought they could ambush the Adderhead as easily as any rich merchant.
Mortola gave another pitiful cry, while swords were plunged into the bodies below her. These helpers had been no use at all. Now she had no one left but Orpheus, with his ink-magic and his velvety voice.
The hawk-faced man wiped his sword on a dead robber’s cloak and looked around. Mortola instinctively ducked, but her magpie form stared greedily down at the glittering weapons, at the rings and belt buckles. How pretty they’d look in her nest, shining bright enough to bring down the stars from the sky by night!
None of the robbers was left standing. Even Snapper was on his knees by now. The hawk-faced man made a sign to his soldiers, and they dragged Snapper over to him. Die now, fool, thought Mortola bitterly. And the old woman you planned to strike down will watch you die!
The hawk-faced man asked Snapper something, hit him in the face, asked again. Mortola put her head on one side so as to hear them better and fluttered a few branches farther down, staying under cover of the needles.
‘He was dying when we set out.’ Snapper’s voice still sounded defiant, but it was also hoarse with fear. The Black Prince. They were talking about him. I did it, Mortola wanted to cackle. I, Mortola, poisoned him! Ask the Adderhead if he remembers me!
She flew lower still. Was the lean killer talking about children? He knew about the cave, did he? How? If only her stupid head could think straight!
One of the soldiers drew his sword, but the hawk-faced leader told him brusquely to sheathe it again. He stepped back, signalling to his men to do so too. Snapper, still on his knees among his dead companions, raised his head in surprise. But the magpie, who had been about to fly down to pull rings off dead fingers and peck at silver buttons, froze on her branch and shook with fear, because something in her stupid bird-brain was crying out: death, death, death! And there it came, mildewed black among the trees, panting like a huge dog, shapeless yet somehow human – a Night-Mare. Snapper fell to pleading instead of cursing, and the hawk-faced man watched him with his dead eyes as his followers retreated far into the trees. But the Night-Mare made for Snapper as if night itself were opening a mouth full of a thousand teeth, bringing him the worst of all deaths.
Well, so what? Away with him, thought Mortola as her feathered body shook like an aspen tree. Away with the fool! He was no use to me. Orpheus must help me now. Orpheus …
Orpheus. It was as if the name took shape the moment it came into her mind.
No, it couldn’t be so. It couldn’t be Orpheus suddenly standing there under the trees, with the Night-Mare cowering like a dog at his foolish smile.
Who told the Adderhead about the robbers, Mortola? Who told him?
Orpheus examined the trees with his glassy eyes. Then he raised his pale, plump hand and pointed to the magpie, who ducked when his finger swung her way.
Fly, Mortola, she thought. Fly!
The arrow hit her in mid-air, and pain drove the bird away. She no longer had wings as she fell, falling and falling through the cold air. Human bones broke when she hit the ground. And the last thing she saw was Orpheus’s smile.
52
The Dead Men in the Forest
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
Wallace Stevens,
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
On, further and further on. Resa was feeling sick again, but she didn’t say so. Whenever the Strong Man turned to look anxiously at her she smiled, so that he wouldn’t slow down because of her. Snapper had more than half a day’s start on them, and she was trying not to think about the magpie at all.
Go on, she told herself, go on. It’s only a little sickness. Chew the leaves Roxane gave you and keep going. The forest through which they had been walking for days was darker than the Wayless Wood. She had never been in this part of the Inkworld before. It was like opening a new chapter, one she’d never yet read. ‘The strolling players call it the forest where night sleeps,’ the Strong Man had told her as they were passing through a ravine so dark, even by day, that she could hardly see her hand before her eyes. ‘But the moss-women have given it the name of the Bearded Forest, because of all the healing lichens growing on the trees.’ Resa liked that name better. With the frost lying on them, many trees did indeed look like ancient, bearded giants.
The Strong Man was good at reading tracks, but even Resa could have followed the trail left by Snapper and his men. Their footprints had frozen in many places, as if time had stopped. In other places they were obliterated by the rain, as if it had washed away the men themselves at the same time. The robbers hadn’t taken any trouble to conceal their tracks. Why should they? They were the pursuers.
It rained a lot. At night the rain often turned to hail, but luckily there were enough evergreen trees under whose branches they could keep reasonably dry. At sunset it turned bitterly cold, and Resa was very glad of the fur-lined coat that the Strong Man had given her. Thanks to that coat and the coverings of moss that he cut from the trees for them both, she could sleep at night in spite of the cold.
Go on, Resa, she thought, keep going. The magpie flies fast, and Snapper is quick with his knife. A bird uttered a hoarse cry in the trees above her, and she looked up in alarm, but it was only a crow and not a magpie gazing down at her.
‘Caw!’ The Strong Man replied to the black bird with a croak of his own (even the owls talked to him), and then suddenly stopped. ‘What the devil’s that?’ he murmured, scratching his shorn head.
Resa too stopped, alarmed. ‘What’s the matter? Have you lost the way?’
‘Me? Not in a thousand years, not in any forest in the world! Certainly not this one.’ The Strong Man bent down and investigated the tracks on the fallen leaves, now frozen stiff. ‘My cousin taught me to poach here. He showed me how to talk to the birds and make blankets from the bearded lichen on the trees. And he showed me the Castle in the Lake. No, Snapper’s lost his way, not me. He’s bearing much too far west!’
‘Your cousin?’ Resa looked at him curiously. ‘Is he among the robbers too?’
The Strong Man shook his head. ‘He joined the fire-raisers,’ he said, without looking at Resa. ‘Disappeared when Capricorn did and never came back. He was a tall, ugly fellow, but I was always stronger, even when we were both little boys. I often wonder what’s become of him. He may have been one of those damn fire-raisers, but he was still my cousin, see what I mean?’
Tall and ugly … Resa thought back to Capricorn’s men. Flatnose? Oh, Strong Man, Mo’s voice brought him to his death, she thought. Would you still go on protecting Mo if you knew? Yes, he probably would.
‘Let’s follow Snapper’s tracks,’ she said. ‘I want to know why he strayed from his path!’
They found him and his men very soon, in a clearing brown with withered leaves. The dead men lay there as if the trees had shed them along with their foliage. Ravens were already pecking at their flesh. Resa shooed the birds away – and stepped back in horror when she saw Snapper’s body.
‘What did that?’
‘A Night-Mare!’ The Stron
g Man’s reply was barely audible.
‘A Night-Mare? But they kill through fear, nothing else. I’ve seen it!’
‘Yes, but only if they’re prevented from eating their victims. They eat them too if they’re allowed.’
Mo had once given her a dragonfly’s cast-off case. Every limb could still be traced under the empty skin it had shed. There wasn’t much more than that left of Snapper. Resa threw up there and then beside the dead men.
‘I don’t like this.’ The Strong Man examined the blood-soaked leaves. ‘Looks almost as if the men who killed them watched the Night-Mare eat him … as if they’d brought it with them, like the Prince brings his bear!’ He looked around, but nothing stirred. Only the ravens perched in the trees, waiting.
The Strong Man drew Gecko’s cloak over his dead face. ‘I’m going to follow the trails and find out where the killers came from.’
‘You don’t need to.’ Resa bent over one of the dead robbers and raised his left hand. The thumb was missing. ‘Your little brother told me the Adderhead has a new bodyguard, a man known as Thumbling. They say he used to be one of the torturers in the Castle of Night until his master promoted him. Doria says he’s notorious for cutting a thumb off every man he kills. He makes little pipes out of the thumb-bones to mock the Piper with them … and it seems he has a very large collection.’ Resa began trembling, even though she no longer had to fear Snapper. ‘She’ll never be able to protect him,’ she whispered. ‘Violante can’t protect Mo. They’ll kill him!’
The Strong Man helped her to her feet and awkwardly put his arms around her.
‘What do we do now?’ he asked. ‘Go back?’
But Resa shook her head. The killers had a Night-Mare with them. A Night-Mare. She looked round.
‘The magpie,’ she said. ‘Where’s the magpie? Call her!’
‘I told you, she doesn’t sound like a real bird,’ said the Strong Man, but all the same he imitated a magpie’s cry. There was no reply, but just as the Strong Man was about to try again Resa saw the dead woman.
Mortola was lying a little way from the others, with an arrow in her breast. Resa had often imagined what it would feel like to see the woman she had served for so long lying dead at last. She had so often wanted to kill Mortola herself, but now she felt nothing at all. A few black feathers lay beside the corpse in the snow, and the fingernails of Mortola’s left hand were still like a bird’s claws. Resa bent down and took the bag from Mortola’s belt. There were some tiny black seeds in it, the same as the seeds still sticking to Mortola’s pale lips.
‘Who’s that?’ The Strong Man stared at the old woman in disbelief.
‘The woman who used to mix poisons for Capricorn. You must have heard of her. She was his mother.’
The Strong Man nodded, and involuntarily took a step back.
Resa tied Mortola’s bag to her own belt. ‘When I was one of her maids …’ (she couldn’t help smiling at the surprise in the Strong Man’s eyes) ‘… when I was still one of her maids, it was said that Mortola had discovered a plant with seeds that could change your shape. Little Death, the other maids called it, and they whispered that it sent you crazy if you used it too often. They showed me the plant – it can be used as a deadly poison too, but I always thought its other quality was just a fairy tale. Obviously I was wrong.’ Resa picked up one of the magpie feathers and laid it on Mortola’s pierced breast. ‘And they also said that Mortola had given up using Little Death after a fox nearly killed her in her bird-shape. But as soon as I saw the magpie in the cave I felt sure it was her.’
She rose to her feet.
The Strong Man pointed to the bag at her belt. ‘Sounds to me like you’d better leave those seeds here.’
‘Should I?’ replied Resa. ‘Yes, maybe you’re right. Come on, let’s go. It will soon be dark.’
53
Human Nests
Take note:
words hide in the night
in caves of music and image.
Still humid and pregnant with sleep
they turn in a winding river and by neglect are transformed.
Carlos Drummond de Andrade,
Looking for Poetry
Meggie’s feet were so cold that she could hardly feel her toes, in spite of her boots. They were still the pair she had brought from the other world. Only on their endless march over the last few days had they all realized what good shelter the cave had offered from the coming winter – and how flimsy their clothes were. The rain was even worse than the cold. It dripped off the trees and turned the ground to mud that froze when evening came. One little girl had already sprained her ankle, and Elinor was carrying her. Everyone who could was carrying one of the smaller children, though there weren’t enough of them to go round. Snapper had taken his men with him, and Resa and the Strong Man had gone too.
The Black Prince carried three children at once, two in his arms and one on his back, although he was still hardly eating anything, and Roxane kept making him stop to rest. Meggie pressed her face into the hair of the little boy who was clinging round her neck. Beppe. He reminded her of Fenoglio’s grandson. Beppe didn’t weigh much – the children hadn’t had enough to eat for days – but after all the hours that Meggie had spent trudging through the mud with the little boy in her arms he seemed as heavy as an adult. ‘Meggie, sing me one of those songs!’ he kept saying, and she sang in a soft voice that was reedy with weariness. Songs about the Bluejay, of course. By now she sometimes forgot that she was also singing about her father. When she closed her eyes now and then in sheer exhaustion she saw the castle Farid had shown her in the fire, a growth of dark stone reflected on a misty lake. She’d tried desperately to catch a sight of Mo somewhere among the walls, but she couldn’t see him.
She was alone. She was even more alone now that Resa had gone. In spite of Elinor, in spite of Fenoglio, in spite of all the children, and definitely in spite of Farid. But out of this feeling of being abandoned, which only Doria could sometimes dispel, something else had grown: a sense that she must protect those who, like herself, were on their own, without father or mother, seeking shelter in a world that was as strange to them as to Meggie, although these children had never known any other.
Fenoglio himself, who was leading them, had only written about this world without knowing it, yet now they had nothing but his words to guide them.
He was walking at the front with the Black Prince. Despina clung to his back, though she was older than some of the children who had to walk. Her brother was up ahead with the older boys. They were running about among the trees as though they didn’t feel tired at all. The Black Prince kept calling them back, telling them to do as the older girls did and carry the little ones. Farid and Doria were so far in advance of the rest of the party that Meggie hadn’t seen them for nearly an hour. They were looking for the tree that Fenoglio had described to the Black Prince, so persuasively that the Prince had decided they should set off at once. And indeed, what other hope did they have?
‘How much further?’ Meggie heard Despina ask, not for the first time.
‘Not very far now, not very far,’ replied Fenoglio, but did he really know?
Meggie had heard him telling the Black Prince about the human nests. They look like huge fairies’ nests, but people lived in them, Prince! Many people. They built the nests when giants started coming for their children, and they chose such a tall tree that even the largest giants couldn’t reach up to it.
‘Which goes to show,’ he had whispered to Meggie, ‘that it’s sensible not to make your giants too big when you’re writing a story about them!’
‘Human nests?’ she had whispered back. ‘Have you only just thought that up?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! What makes you think that?’ Fenoglio sounded offended. ‘Have I asked you to read them into existence? No. This world is so well equipped that you can manage very well without stopping to make up something new every five minutes – although that fool Orpheus thinks otherwis
e. I hope by now he’s begging in the streets of Ombra – that’d serve him right for making my fairies rainbow-coloured!’
‘Beppe, walk for a little, will you?’ Meggie put the boy down, although he resisted, and instead picked up a little girl who was so tired that she could hardly keep on her feet.
‘How much further?’ A question that she had asked Mo so often herself, on those endless drives when they were going to cure another few sick books. ‘Not far now, Meggie!’ She could almost hear her father’s voice, and for a moment her weariness made her imagine he was putting his jacket around her cold shoulders, but it was only a branch brushing against her back, and when she slipped on the wet leaves that covered the ground like a carpet, only Roxane’s hand kept her from falling.
‘Careful, Meggie,’ she said, and for a moment her face seemed as familiar as Resa’s.
‘We’ve found the tree!’ Doria appeared in front of them so suddenly that some of the smaller children hid, alarmed, behind the grown-ups. He was drenched with rain and trembling with cold, but he looked happy – happier than he had been for many days.
‘Farid stayed there. He’s going to climb the tree and see if the nests are still fit to live in!’ Doria spread his arms wide. ‘They’re huge! We’ll have to construct something to help us haul the little ones up, but I have an idea.’
Meggie had never heard him talk so fast or so much before. One of the little girls ran towards him, and Doria picked her up and whirled her round in a circle with him, laughing. ‘The Milksop will never find us up there!’ he cried. ‘Now we only have to learn to fly and we can live as free as the birds!’
The children all began talking excitedly, until the Black Prince raised his hand. ‘Where is the tree?’ he asked Doria. His voice was heavy with fatigue. Sometimes Meggie feared that the poison had broken something in him, casting a shadow over the light that had always been a part of him before.
‘Right ahead, there!’ Doria pointed through the trees that dripped with rain.