The Castle in the Lake had been built to protect a few unhappy children from the world, but the longer Mo walked in its corridors the more he felt as if it had been waiting for another task to fulfil one day: to drown the Bluejay in his own darkness between its painted walls. Dustfinger’s fiery wolf ran ahead as if it knew the way, and while Mo followed he killed four more soldiers. The castle belonged to the Fire-Dancer and the Bluejay, he read it in their faces, and the anger that Orpheus aroused in him made him strike so often that their blood drenched his black clothes. Black. Orpheus’s words had turned his heart black too.
You ought to have asked them which way to go instead of killing them, he thought bitterly as he bent to pass through an arched gateway. A flock of doves fluttered up. No swifts. Not one. Where was Resa? Well, where did he suppose? In the Adderhead’s bedchamber, searching for the Book he had once bound to save her. A swift could fly fast, very fast, and his own steps were heavy as lead from the words Orpheus had written.
There. Was that the tower into which the Adderhead had retreated? It was as Dustfinger had described it. Two more soldiers … they staggered back in horror when they saw him. Kill them quickly, Mo, before they scream. Blood. Blood as red as fire. Hadn’t red once been his favourite colour? Now the sight of it made him feel ill. He clambered over the dead men, took the silver-grey cloak from one of them, put on the other man’s helmet. Maybe the disguise would spare him the killing if he met any more of them.
The next corridor looked familiar, but there were no guards in sight. The wolf loped on, but Mo stopped outside a door and pushed it open.
The dead books. The Lost Library.
He lowered his sword and went in. Dustfinger’s sparks glowed in here too, burning the smell of mould and decay out of the air.
Books. He leant the bloodstained sword against the wall, stroked their stained spines, and felt the burden of the words lifting from his shoulders. He was not the Bluejay, not Silvertongue, just Mortimer. Orpheus had written nothing about the bookbinder.
Mo picked up a book. Poor thing, it was a wreck. He took up another and then another – and heard a rustling sound. His hand immediately went to his sword, and Orpheus’s words reached for his heart again.
A few piles of books fell over. An arm pushed its way past all the printed corpses, followed by a second arm, without a hand. Balbulus.
‘Ah, it’s you they’re looking for!’ He straightened up, ink on the fingers of his left hand. ‘Since I hid in here from the Piper, not a soldier’s come through this door until today. I expect the mouldy smell keeps them away. But today there’ve been two here already. They’ve certainly kept a better watch on you than on me! So, how did you escape them?’
‘With the help of fire and feathers,’ said Mo, leaning his sword against the wall again. He didn’t want to remember. He wanted to forget the Bluejay, just for a few moments, and find happiness instead of misery among parchment and leather-bound covers.
Balbulus followed his glance. No doubt he saw the longing in it. ‘I’ve found a few books that are still good for something. Do you want to see them?’
Mo listened for sounds outside. The wolf was silent, but he thought he heard voices. No. They died away again.
Just for a few moments, then.
Balbulus gave him a book not much bigger than his hand. It had a few holes nibbled in it, but it had obviously escaped mildew. The binding was very well made. His fingers had missed leafing through written pages so much. His eyes were so hungry for words that carried him away, instead of capturing and controlling him. How very much his hand wanted to hold a knife that cut not flesh but paper.
‘What’s that?’ whispered Balbulus.
It had turned dark. The fire on the walls had gone out, and Mo couldn’t see the book in his hands any more.
‘Silvertongue?’
He turned.
Dustfinger stood in the doorway, a shadow rimmed with fire.
‘I’ve been talking to Orpheus.’ His voice sounded different. The composure that Death had left in him was gone. His old desperation, almost forgotten by both of them, was back.
‘What’s happened?’
Dustfinger lured fire back out of the darkness and made it build a cage among the books, a cage with a girl in tears inside it.
Brianna. Mo saw on Dustfinger’s face the same fear he had so often felt himself. Flesh of his flesh. Child. Such a powerful word. The most powerful of all.
Dustfinger had only to look at him, and Mo read it all in his eyes: the Night-Mare watching his daughter, the price he would have to pay to ransom her.
‘So?’ Mo listened for sounds outside. ‘Are the soldiers already out there?’
‘I haven’t laid the trail yet.’
Mo sensed Dustfinger’s fear sharply, as if Meggie were the girl in the cage, as if it were her weeping that came out of the fire.
‘What are you waiting for? Lead them here!’ he said. ‘It’s time my hands bound a book again – even if the job must never be finished. Let them capture the bookbinder, not the Bluejay. They won’t notice the difference. And I’ll banish the Bluejay forever, bury him deep in the dungeon cell below, with the words that Orpheus wrote.’
Dustfinger breathed into the darkness, and instead of the cage the fire formed the sign that Mo had imprinted on the spines of so many books: a unicorn’s head. ‘If that’s what you want,’ he said quietly. ‘But if you’re playing the bookbinder again, then what part is mine?’
‘Your daughter’s rescuer,’ said Mo. ‘My wife’s protector. Resa has gone to look for the White Book. Help her to find it, and bring it to me.’
So that I can write the end in it, he thought. Three words, that’s all it takes. And suddenly a thought occurred to him and made him smile in all the darkness. Orpheus had not written anything at all about Resa, not a single binding word. Who else had he forgotten?
68
Back
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,
That, if I then had wak’d after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me; that, when I wak’d
I cried to dream again.
William Shakespeare,
The Tempest, Act 3 Scene 2
Roxane was singing again. For the children who couldn’t sleep for fear of the Milksop. And everything Meggie had ever heard about her voice was true. Even the tree seemed to be listening to her, the birds in its topmost branches, the animals living among its roots, the stars in the dark sky. There was so much comfort in Roxane’s voice, although what she sang was often sad, and Meggie heard her longing for Dustfinger in every word. It was a comfort to hear about longing, even if it filled her heart to the brim. Longing for sleep free of fear, and carefree days, for firm ground underfoot, a full stomach, the streets of Ombra, mothers … and fathers.
Meggie was sitting high up in the tree, outside the nest where Fenoglio had sat writing. She didn’t know who 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 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 leant 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 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 round. 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 towards the mighty feet and climbed on to one of its toes as if it were a lifeboat.
But the giant looked up at the crying children enquiringly, 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!’
69
In the Adderhead’s Bedchamber
And there are so many stories to tell, too many, such an excess of intertwined lives events miracles places rumors, so dense a commingling of the improbable and the mundane!
Salman Rushdie,
Midnight’s Children
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