Inkdeath (60 page)

Yes, you left them with the Black Prince, but I know about the cave where they’re hiding. I assume that my useless brother-in-law has captured them by now and will be taking them to Ombra." Ah, that really got through to Mortimer. Guess who told the Adderhead about the cave, noble robber, thought Orpheus, smiling broadly when Mortimer looked at him.

"So now The Adderhead drove his gloved fist into his prisoner’s chest just where Mortola had wounded him. "What are the prospects? Can you reverse your own trick? Can you cure the Book you so craftily used to deceive me?"

Mortimer hesitated for only a moment. "Of course," he replied. "If you give it to me."

Very well. Orpheus had to admit that Mortimer’s voice still sounded impressive, even in these dire straits (although his own sounded far, far better). But the Adderhead wasn’t to be beguiled this time. He struck Mortimer in the face so hard that he fell to his knees.

"Do you seriously expect to fool me again?" he snarled. "How stupid do you think I am? No one can cure this Book! Dozens of your fellow craftsmen have died to give me that information. No it’s past saving, which means that my flesh will rot for all eternity, and every day I’ll be tempted to write the three words in it myself and put an end to all this. But I have thought of a better solution and I’ll require your services for it once more after all, which is why I am truly grateful to my daughter for taking such good care of you. Because, of course," he added, glancing at the Piper, "I know what a hot temper my silver-nosed herald has."

The Piper was going to say something, but the Adderhead merely raised his hand impatiently and turned back to Mortimer.

"What kind of solution?" The famous voice sounded hoarse. Was the Bluejay afraid now after all? Orpheus felt like a boy enjoying a particularly exciting passage in a book. I hope he’s afraid, he thought. And I hope this is one of the last chapters he appears in.

Mortimer’s face twisted when the Piper pressed his knife against his ribs. Oh yes, he’s obviously made the wrong enemies in this story, thought Orpheus. And the wrong friends. But that was high-minded heroes for you. Stupid.

"What kind of solution?" The Adderhead scratched his itching flesh. "You’ll bind me another book, what else? But this time you won’t go unobserved for a single second.

And once this new book with its spotlessly white pages protects me from Death again, we’ll write your name in the other one — so that you can know for a while how it feels to be rotting alive. After that I’ll tear it to pieces, page by page, and watch as you feel your flesh tearing and you beg the White Women to come for you.

Doesn’t that sound like a solution satisfactory to all parties?"

Ah. A new White Book. Not a bad idea, thought Orpheus. But my name would suit its brand-new pages so much better! Stop dreaming, Orpheus, he told himself.

The Piper had his knife to Mortimer’s throat. "Well, what’s your answer, Bluejay?

Want me to carve it into you with my knife?"

Mortimer said nothing.

"Answer!" the Piper snarled at him. "Or shall I do it for you? There’s only one answer, anyway.

Mortimer still said nothing, but Violante appointed herself to speak for him. "Why should he help you if you’re going to kill him in any case?" she asked her father.

The Adderhead shrugged his heavy shoulders. "I could let him die in a rather less painful way, or just send his wife and daughter to the mines instead of killing them.

After all, we’ve bargained for those two once before."

"But this time they’re not in your hands." Mortimer’s voice sounded as if he were very far away. He’s going to say no, thought Orpheus in astonishment. What a fool.

"Not yet, but they soon will be." The Piper let his knife slide down Mortimer’s chest, and its point traced a heart over the place where the real one beat. "Orpheus has given us a very detailed description of the place where they’re hiding. You heard.

The Milksop is presumably taking them to Ombra at this very moment."

For the second time Mortimer looked at Orpheus, and the hatred in his eyes was sweeter than the little cakes that Oss was sent to buy for him in Ombra market every Friday. Well, there’d be no more Oss now. Unfortunately, the Night-Mare had eaten him when it slipped out of Fenoglio’s words — it had taken Orpheus some time to get it under control. But he could always find a new bodyguard.

"You can get down to work at once. Your noble patroness, very usefully, has made sure everything you’ll need is here!" spat the Piper, and this time blood flowed when he pressed his knife against Mortimer’s throat, "Obviously, she wanted to provide every last detail to make us think you were really still alive only to cure the Book.

What a farce. Ah, well, she always had a weakness for strolling players."

Mortimer ignored the Piper as if he were invisible. He looked only at the Adderhead.

"No," he said. The word hung heavily in the dark hall. "I will not bind you another book. Death would not forgive me a second time for that."

Violante instinctively took a step toward Mortimer, but he took no notice of her.

"Don’t listen to him!" she told her father. "He’ll do it! Just give him a little time."

Oh, so she really was fond of the Bluejay. Orpheus frowned. One more reason to wish him to the devil.

The Adderhead looked thoughtfully at his daughter. "Why would you want him to do it?"

"Well, you . . ." For the first time Violante’s voice betrayed uncertainty. "He’ll make you well again."

"So?" The Silver Prince was breathing heavily. "You want to see me dead. Don’t deny it. I like that! It shows that my blood flows in your veins. Sometimes I think I really should put you on the throne of Ombra. You’d certainly fill the position better than my silver-powdered brother-in-law."

"Of course I would! I’d send six times as much silver to the Castle of Night, because I wouldn’t be squandering it on banquets and hunting parties. But for that you must leave me the Bluejay — once he’s done what you want."

Impressive. She was actually still making conditions. Oh yes, I like her, thought Orpheus. I like her very much. She just has to have her weakness for lawless bookbinders driven out of her. But then . . . what possibilities!

Obviously, the Adderhead was appreciating his daughter more and more as well. He laughed louder than Orpheus had ever heard him laugh before. "Look at her!" he cried. "Bargaining with me even though she stands there empty-handed! Take her to her room," he ordered one of his soldiers. "But watch her carefully. And send Jacopo to her. A son should be with his mother. You, however," he said, turning to Mortimer, "will finally agree to my demand, or I’ll have my bodyguard torture a yes out of you."

The Piper, aggrieved, lowered his knife when Thumbling stepped out of the darkness. Violante cast him an uneasy glance, and resisted when the soldier dragged her away with him — but Mortimer still remained silent.

"Your Grace!" Orpheus took a respectful step forward (at least, he hoped it looked respectful). "Let me get him to consent!"

A whispered name (for you just have to call the creatures by their right names, like dogs), and the Night-Mare emerged from Orpheus’s shadow.

"Not the Night-Mare!" the Piper said forcefully. "You want to see the Bluejay dead on the spot, like the Fire-Dancer? No." Lie had Mortimer hauled to his feet again.

"Didn’t you hear? I’m dealing with this, Piper." Thumbling took off his black gloves.

Orpheus tasted disappointment like bitter almonds on his tongue. What a chance to show the Adderhead how useful he was! If he’d only had Fenoglio’s book so that he could use it to write the Piper right out of this world. And that Thumbling fellow, too.

"My lord! Please, listen to me!" He stepped in front of the Adderhead. "May I ask for the answer to an additional question to be extracted from the prisoner in the course of what, I’m sure, he will find a rather uncomfortable process? You’ll remember the book I told you about, the book that can change this world in any way you like!

Please get him to say where it is!"

But the Adderhead just turned his back. "Later," he said, and dropped back, with another groan, into the chair where the shadows hid him. "We’re talking about only one book now, a book with white pages. You can start, Thumbling," said his gasping voice in the darkness. "But take care of his hands."

When Orpheus felt the sudden chill on his face, he thought at first that the night wind was blowing through the black-draped windows. But there they were, standing beside the Bluejay, as white and terrible as they had been in the graveyard of the strolling players. They surrounded Mortimer like flightless angels, their limbs made of mist, their faces white as bleached bone. The Piper stumbled back so hastily that he fell and cut himself on his own knife. Even Thumbling’s face lost its look of indifference. And the soldiers who had been guarding Mortimer flinched back like frightened children.

It couldn’t be true! Why were they protecting him? As thanks to him for tricking them more than once? For stealing Dustfinger away from them? Orpheus felt the Night-Mare cower like a beaten dog. So even the Night-Mare feared them? No. No, for heaven’s sake! This world really must be rewritten. And he was the man to do it.

Yes, indeed. He’d find a way.

What were they whispering?

The pale light spread by the daughters of Death drove away the shadows where the Adderhead was concealed, and Orpheus saw the Silver Prince fighting for breath in his dark corner, putting his shaking hands over his eyes. So he was still afraid of the White Women, even though he had killed so many men in the Castle of Night to prove that he wasn’t. All lies. The Adderhead, in his immortal body, was breathless with fear.

But Mortimer stood among Fenoglio’s angels of death as if they were a part of him—

and smiled.

Of course the Adderhead had Violante locked in her mother’s former chamber. He knew very well that she would just hear the many lies his late wife had told her all the more clearly there. It couldn’t be true. Her mother had never lied to her. Mother and father had always meant good and bad, truth and lies, love and hate. It had been so simple! But now her father had taken that from her, too. Violante searched inside herself for her pride and the strength she had always preserved, but all she found was an ugly little girl sitting in the dust of her hopes, at the heart of her mother’s shattered image.

She leaned her forehead against the barred door and listened for the Bluejay’s screams, but she heard only the guards talking outside her door. Oh, why hadn’t he said yes? Because he thought she’d still be able to shield him? Thumbling would soon teach him better. She couldn’t help thinking of the minstrel whom her father had had quartered because he had sung for her mother, and the servant who had brought her books and was starved to death in a cage outside her window. She had given him parchment to eat. How could she have promised the Bluejay protection when those who were on her side had always gone to their deaths?

"Thumbling will slice strips off his skin!" Jacopo’s voice hardly reached her. "They say he does it so skillfully that his victims don’t die. He’s said to have practiced on dead bodies!"

"Be quiet!" She felt like slapping his pale face. He was growing more and more like Cosimo every day, although he would so much rather have been like his grandfather.

"You can’t hear anything from here. They’ll take him down to the cellar near the dungeons. I’ve been there. All the instruments are still in place rusty, but they’re still fit for use: chains, knives, screws, iron spikes.

Violante looked at him, and he fell silent. She went to the window, but the cage where they had first imprisoned the Bluejay was empty. Only the Fire-Dancer lay dead outside it. Strange that the ravens hadn’t touched him. As if they were afraid to.

Jacopo took the plate of food that one of the maids had brought him and sulkily picked at it. How old was he now? She couldn’t remember. At least he’d stopped wearing that tin nose since the Piper had made fun of him for it.

"You like him."

"Who?"

"The Bluejay."

"He’s better than any of them." Once again she listened at the door. Why hadn’t he said yes? Then perhaps she might yet have been able to save him.

"If the Bluejay makes another book, will Grandfather still go on smelling so bad? I think he will. I think he’ll just fall down dead someday. He looks dead already, really." How indifferent he sounded. A few months ago Jacopo had still adored her father. Were all children like that? How would she know? She had just one child.

Children.. . Violante still saw them running out of the castle gate in Ombra and into their mothers’ arms. If the Bluejay died for them, were they really worth it?

"I don’t like looking at Grandfather anymore!" Jacopo shuddered and put his hands over his eyes. "If he dies I’ll be king, won’t I?" The chill in his clear voice both impressed and alarmed Violante.

"No, you won’t. Not after your father attacked him. His own son will be king. King in the Castle of Night and in Ombra."

"But he’s only a baby."

"So his mother will reign for him. And the Milksop." What’s more, Violante added in her thoughts, your grandfather is still immortal, and no one seems able to do anything about it. Not for all eternity.

Jacopo pushed his plate aside and strolled over to Brianna. She was embroidering a picture of a horseman who looked suspiciously like Cosimo, although Brianna said he was the hero of an old fairy tale. It did Violante good to have Brianna with her again, although the girl had been even more silent than usual since the Night-Mare had killed her father. Perhaps she had loved him after all. Most daughters loved their fathers.

"Brianna!" Jacopo thrust a hand into her beautiful hair. "Read to me. Go on. I’m bored."

"You can read for yourself. In fact, you can read very well." Brianna removed his fingers from her hair and went on with her embroidery.

"I’ll fetch the Night-Mare!" Jacopo’s voice rose shrilly, as it always did when he didn’t get his own way. "I’ll fetch it to eat you like your father. Oh no, I forgot, it didn’t eat him. He’s lying dead out in the courtyard, with ravens pecking around him."