Inkdeath (70 page)

Mo put down his knife and rubbed his tired eyes. The swift spread her wings as if she were waving to him, and Mo quickly bent his head so that the Piper’s attention wouldn’t be drawn to her. But he looked up again when the silver-nosed man uttered a curse. Fire was licking from the walls.

It could mean only one thing: Brianna was free.

"Why are you smiling like that, Bluejay?" The Piper came up to him and drove his fist into Mo’s stomach, doubling him up. The swift above their heads cried out.

"Do you think your fiery friend will come to make amends for betraying you?" the silver-nosed man whispered. "Don’t rejoice too soon! This time I’m going to chop off his head. We’ll see if he can come back from the dead without that!"

The Bluejay would have liked to thrust the bookbinder’s knife into that heartless breast, but once again Mo, the bookbinder, sent him away. What are you waiting for?

asked the Jay. The White Book? No one’s going to find it! Well, then, Mo retorted, why should Ifight anymore? Without the Book I’m dead anyway, and so is my daughter.

Meggie. The bookbinder and the Bluejay were the same man only in sharing their fears for her.

The door opened, and a small, thin figure made its way into the firelit hall. Jacopo.

He came toward Mo, taking small steps. Did he want to tell the Bluejay about his mother? Or had his grandfather sent him to find out how Mo was getting on with binding the new book?

Violante’s son stopped close to Mo, but he was looking at the Piper.

"Will it soon be ready?" he asked.

"If you don’t keep him from his work," replied the silver-nosed man.

Jacopo put a hand under his tunic and brought out a book. He had wrapped it in a brightly colored cloth. "I want the Bluejay to cure this book for me. It’s my favorite."

He opened it, and Mo forgot to breathe. Pages soaked in blood.

Jacopo was looking at him.

"Your favorite book? There’s only one book the Bluejay’s supposed to bother with.

So get out!" The Piper poured himself a goblet of wine. "Go to the kitchen and tell them to send up more meat and wine."

"I only want him to take a look at it!" Jacopo’s voice sounded as defiant as ever.

"Grandfather said I could get him to do that. You can ask him if you like." He was passing Mo a short, worn pencil that could easily be hidden in the hand. That was better than the knife much, much better.

The Piper put a piece of meat in his mouth and washed it down with wine. "You’re lying," he said. "Has your grandfather told you what I do to liars?"

"No, what?" Jacopo thrust out his chin just as his mother did and took a step toward the silver-nosed man.

The Piper wiped his greasy fingers on a snow-white napkin and smiled.

Mo clutched the pencil in his fingers and opened the White Book.

"First I cut their tongues out," said the Piper.

Jacopo took another step toward him.

"Oh yes?"

HEART.

Mo’s fingers shook as he traced each letter.

"Yes. After all, it’s not easy to tell lies without a tongue. Although—wait, I did once know a mute beggar who told me shameless lies. He talked with his fingers."

"So?"

The Piper laughed. "So I cut them off, one by one."

Keep looking up, Mo, or he’ll realize that you’re writing.

SPELL.

Only one more word now. A single word.

The Piper glanced at him. He looked at the open book. Mo hid the pencil in his closed fist.

The swift spread her wings again. She wanted to help him. No, Resa! But the bird was already in the air, flying above the Piper’s head.

"I saw that bird before!" said Jacopo. "In my grandfather’s bedchamber."

"Did you indeed?" The Piper looked at the ledge where the swift had now settled. He snatched a crossbow from one of the soldiers.

No! Resa, fly away!

Just one more word, but all Mo saw was the little bird.

The Piper shot, and the swift fluttered upward. The arrow missed, and she flew straight into the Piper’s face.

Write, Mo! He pressed the pencil down onto the blood-soaked paper.

The Piper’s silver nose slipped when he struck out at the swift.

DEATH.

The Adderhead was freezing. He was freezing even in his sleep, although he clutched the cushion to his sore chest, the cushion containing the Book that protected him from eternal cold. Even his dreams, heavy with poppy juice, couldn’t warm him anymore. Dreams of the tortures he would inflict on the Bluejay. Once he had dreamed only of love in this castle. But wasn’t that only right and proper? Hadn’t the love he found here tormented him as much as his rotting flesh?

Oh, how cold he was. Even his dreams seemed to be covered with hoarfrost. Dreams of torture, dreams of love. He opened his eyes, and the painted walls stared at him with the eyes of Violante’s mother. That damn poppy juice. This damn castle. And why was the fire back? The Adderhead groaned and pressed his hands to his eyes, but the sparks seemed to burn even beneath his lids.

Red. Red and gold. Light as sharp as a knife blade, and out of the fire came the whispering, the whispering he had feared ever since he first heard it at a dying man’s side. Trembling, he peered through his swollen fingers. No. No, it couldn’t be true. It was the poppy juice making him imagine them. Nothing else. He saw four of them all standing around his bed, white as snow no, whiter—and they were whispering the name he had been born with. Over and over again, as if to remind him that he hadn’t always had the skin of a serpent.

It was the poppy juice, only the poppy juice.

The Adderhead thrust a trembling hand into the cushion to take out the Book, to hold it up and so ward them off, but their white fingers were already reaching into his breast.

How they were looking at him! With the eyes of all the dead he had sent to them.

And then they whispered his name again.

And his heart stood still.

The White Woman appeared as soon as Mo closed the blood-soaked Book again. At the sight of her the Piper forgot the swift, and Violante’s son hid under the table to which Mo was chained. But this daughter of Death hadn’t come to take the Bluejay away. She was here to give him his freedom, and Resa saw the relief on Mo’s face.

At that moment he forgot everything. Resa saw that, too. Perhaps he hoped, for a split second, that the story had been told to the end at last. But the Piper hadn’t died with his master. For a few precious moments fear held him transfixed, but when the White Woman disappeared she took his fear with her, and Resa spread her wings once more. She spat out the seeds as she flew at the Piper, so that she would get back hands she could use to help, feet that could run. But the bird was reluctant to leave her, and she still had claws as she landed on the flagstones right beside the two men.

Mo looked down at her in alarm, and before Resa could realize what danger she was putting him in, the Piper had taken the chains binding him to the table, to wind them around his own hand. Mo fell to his knees as the Piper tugged the chains. He was holding the knife he had been using to cut paper, but what good was a bookbinder’s knife against a sword or a crossbow?

Desperately, Resa fluttered up on the table, retching in the frantic hope that there might be a seed still under her tongue, but her feathery prison would not let her go, and the Piper pulled at Mo’s chains again.

"Your pale angel was in a hurry to leave this time!" he said scornfully. "Why didn’t she undo your chains for you? But don’t worry, we’ll leave you plenty of time to die, time enough for your white friends to come back again. Now, go on working."

With difficulty, Mo straightened up. "Why should I?" he asked, pushing the White Book over to the Piper. "Your master won’t be needing any second book now. That’s why the White Woman came here. I’ve written the three words in this one. See for yourself. The Adderhead is dead."

The Piper stared at the bloodstained binding. Then he looked under the table, where Jacopo was cowering like a small, frightened animal.

"Is he indeed?" he said, drawing his sword. "Well, if that’s so. . . I’ve no objection to immortality myself. So, as I said, go on working."

His soldiers began to whisper.

"Quiet!" the Piper snapped, pointing to one of them with his gloved hand. "You. Go to the Adderhead and tell him the Bluejay claims he’s dead."

The soldier hurried away. The others watched him go with fear in their eyes. But the Piper put the point of his sword to Mo’s chest. ‘You’re not working yet!"

Mo stepped as far back as the chains would allow, the knife in his hand. "There won’t be any other book. No book with white pages. Off you go, Jacopo! Run to your mother and tell her everything will be all right."

Jacopo crawled out from under the table and ran for it. The Piper didn’t even look at him as he disappeared. "When the Adderhead‘s son was born I advised him to dispose of Cosimo’s little bastard," he said, looking at the White Book. "But he wouldn’t hear of it. Stupid of him."

The soldier he had sent to the Adderhead came stumbling back into the dark hail, out of breath.

"The Jay’s telling the truth!" he gasped. "The Adderhead is dead, and the White Women are everywhere."

The other soldiers lowered their crossbows.

"L-l-let’s go back to Ombra, sir!" stammered one of them. "This castle is bewitched.

We can take the Bluejay with us!"

"A good idea," said the Piper. And he smiled.

No.

Resa fluttered into his face once more, pecking the smile from his lips. It was the bird who did it — or was it the woman, the wife? She heard Mo cry out as the Piper struck at her with his sword. The blade cut deep into her wing. She fell, and suddenly she had human limbs again, as if the Piper had cut the bird out of her. The Piper stared at her in disbelief, but as he raised his sword Mo thrust the knife deep into his chest, right through his expensive clothes. And the Piper looked at him in astonishment as he died.

His soldiers, however, were still there. Mo snatched the Piper’s sword and drove them back, away from his wife. But there were too many of them, and he was still chained to the table. Soon there was blood everywhere, on his chest, on his hands and arms. Was it his own?

They were going to kill him, and once again Resa could only watch, stand by and watch, as she had done so often in the course of this story. But suddenly fire was consuming the chains, and Dustfinger stood over her to protect her, with the marten on his shoulder. Beside him stood Jacopo.

"Is she dead, too?" Resa heard the boy ask as the soldiers ran from the fire, screaming.

"No," Dustfinger answered. "It’s only her arm that’s wounded."

"But she was a bird!" said Jacopo.

"Yes." That was Mo’s voice. "Don’t you think that sounds like a good story?"

It was suddenly so quiet in the great hall. No more fighting, no screams, only the crackling of the fire as it talked to Dustfinger.

Mo kneeled down beside Resa. There was blood everywhere, but he was alive, and once again she had a human hand to take his. And all was well.

Orpheus was reading frantically, he realized that himself. He was reading in too loud a voice and much too fast. As if his tongue were trying to thrust the words through the bookbinder’s body like knives. He had written him the torments of hell in revenge for the Piper’s mocking smile. That smile still haunted him. How small it had made him, just when he was feeling so full of grandeur! But at least there’d soon be no more smiling for the Bluejay.

Ironstone stirred the ink and looked at him anxiously. His fury obviously showed clearly on his face, written there in small beads of sweat.

Concentrate, Orpheus, he told himself— and tried again. There were a few words that he could hardly decipher because the letters ran together so unsteadily, drunk with his rage. Why did he feel as if he were reading the words into a void? Why did they seem like pebbles being dropped down a well, where their echo was lost in the darkness? Something was wrong. He’d never felt like this before when he was reading aloud.

"Ironstone!" he ordered the glass man. "Run to the Hall of a Thousand Windows and see how the Bluejay is doing. He ought to be doubled up in agony like a poisoned dog by now."

The glass man lowered the twig he was using to stir the ink and looked at him in alarm. "But . . . but, master, I don’t know the way."

"Don’t make such a stupid fuss, or do you want me to ask the Night-Mare if it fancies a glass man for a change? Turn right outside this room and then go straight ahead.

Ask the guards the way!"

Unhappily, Ironstone set off. Silly creature! Fenoglio really might have thought up a less ridiculous kind of assistant to help scribes. But that was the trouble with this world — at heart, it was childish. Why had he loved the book so much when he was a child? Well, for that very reason! But now he was grown-up, and it was time this world grew up, too.

Another sentence — and once again the strange feeling that the words were dying away even before he spoke them. Damn it!

Dizzy with rage, he was reaching for the inkwell to throw it at the painted wall when he suddenly heard loud shouts outside. Orpheus put the inkwell back on the table and listened. What was all this? He opened his door and looked down the corridor. There were no guards outside the Adderhead’s bedchamber anymore, and two servants ran past him in a state of great agitation! By all the devils in hell, what did this mean?

And why was Dustfinger’s fire burning on the walls again?

Orpheus hurried out into the passage and stopped outside the Adderhead’s door. It was open, and the Silver Prince lay dead on his bed, his eyes open so wide that it wasn’t difficult to guess what his last sight had been.

Instinctively, Orpheus looked around before he went up to the bed, but of course the White Women had left long ago. They had what they’d been waiting so long for. But how? How had it happened?

"Yes, you’ll have to look for a new master, Four-Eyes!"