Inkheart (37 page)

They met no one on the way back to their hiding place, only a fox who slunk away with hunger in his eyes. Gwin was eating a bird inside the walls of the burnt-out cottage. Its feathers were shadows in the darkness.

"Has she always been mute?" asked the boy as Dustfinger lay down under the trees to sleep.

"As long as I've known her," replied Dustfinger, turning his back to the boy. Farid lay down beside him. He had made this his habit from the first, and however often Dustfinger moved away the boy was always close beside him when he woke up.

"The photograph in your backpack," he said. "It is her."

"So?"

The boy did not reply.

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"If you've taken a fancy to her," Dustfinger mocked him, "forget it. She's one of Capricorn's favorite maids. She's even allowed to take him his breakfast and help him get dressed."

"How long has she been with him?"

"Five years," said Dustfinger. "And in all that time Capricorn has never once let her leave the village. She can't even go out of the house very often. She ran away twice, but she never got far.

One of those times a snake bit her. She never told me how Capricorn punished her, but I know she never tried to run away again."

There was a rustling behind them. Farid jumped, but it was only Gwin. The marten was licking his muzzle as he leaped and landed on the boy's stomach. Laughing, Farid plucked a feather out of his fur. Gwin snuffled busily around the boy's chin and nose, as if he had missed him, then he disappeared into the night again.

"He really is a nice marten!" whispered Farid.

"No, he's not," said Dustfinger, pulling his thin blanket up to his chin. "He probably likes you because you smell like a girl."

Farid's only answer was a long silence.

"She looks like her," he said at last, just as Dustfinger was dropping off to sleep. "Silvertongue's daughter, I mean. She has the same mouth and the same eyes, and she laughs in the same way."

"Nonsense!" said Dustfinger. "There's not the slightest resemblance. They both have blue eyes, that's all. It's not unusual here. Hurry up and go to sleep."

The boy obeyed. He wrapped himself in the sweater that Dustfinger had given him and turned his back to his companion. Soon he was breathing as peacefully as a baby. But Dustfinger lay awake all night, staring at the stars.

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Chapter 34 – Capricorn’s Secrets

"If I were to be made a knight," said the Wart, staring dreamily into the fire, "I should...

pray to God to let me encounter all the evil in the world in my own person, so that if I
conquered there would be none left, and, if I were defeated, I would be the one to suffer
for it."

"That would be extremely presumptuous of you," said Merlin, "and you would be
conquered, and you would suffer for it."

–
T. H. White,
The Sword in the Stone

Capricorn received Meggie and Fenoglio in the church. About a dozen of his men were with him.

He was sitting in the new black leather armchair they had installed under Mortola's supervision, and this time, for once, his suit was not red but pale yellow, like the morning daylight filtering in through the windows. He had them brought to him early, while the mist still hung above the hills, with the sun swimming in it like a ball floating in murky water.

"By all the letters of the alphabet!" whispered Fenoglio as he and Meggie walked down the nave of the church with Basta close behind them. "He really does look exactly the way I imagined him.

'Colorless as a glass of milk.' I think that's how I put it."

He began walking faster, as if he couldn't wait to see his creation at close quarters. Meggie could hardly keep up with him, and Basta held him back before he had reached the steps. "Here, what's the idea?" he hissed. "Not so fast — and bow, understand?"

Fenoglio merely glanced scornfully at him and remained perfectly upright. Basta raised his hand, but when Capricorn almost imperceptibly shook his head he lowered it again like a rebuked child. Mortola was standing beside Capricorn's chair, her arms folded like wings behind her back.

"You know, Basta, I still wonder what you were thinking of not to bring her father, too!" said Capricorn, letting his gaze wander from Meggie to Fenoglio's turtlelike face.

"He wasn't there. I told you." Basta sounded injured. "Was I supposed to sit around waiting for him like a toad beside a pond? He'll soon be here of his own accord! We all know how besotted he is with his daughter. I'll bet my knife he'll be here by tomorrow at the latest!"

"Your knife? But you've already mislaid your knife once recently." The mockery in Mortola's voice made Basta grind his teeth.

"You're slipping, Basta!" remarked Capricorn. "Your hot temper clouds your judgment. But let's move on to this other souvenir of yours."

Fenoglio had never taken his eyes off Capricorn. He was looking at him like a painter seeing one of his pictures again after many long years, and judging by the expression on his face what he saw pleased him. Meggie couldn't see a trace of fear in his eyes, just incredulous curiosity and satisfaction — with himself. She also saw that Capricorn did not care for that expression at all.

He wasn't used to being inspected as fearlessly as this old man was scrutinizing him now, not even by his men.

"Basta has told me some strange things about you, Signer . . . ?"

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"Fenoglio."

Meggie was watching Capricorn's face. Had he ever read the name on the cover of
Inkheart
just below the title itself?

"Even his voice sounds the way I imagined!" Fenoglio whispered to her. She thought he was captivated, like a child looking at a caged lion — except that Capricorn wasn't in a cage. At a signal from him Basta jammed his elbow into the old man's back so roughly that Fenoglio was left gasping for air.

"I don't like whispering in my presence," Capricorn said softly, while Fenoglio was still struggling to get his breath back. "As I said, Basta has told me a strange story — he says you claimed to be the man who wrote a certain book — what was its name again?"

"Inkheart."
Fenoglio rubbed his aching back. "Its title is
Inkheart
because it's about a man whose wicked heart is as black as ink, filled with darkness and evil. I still like the title."

Capricorn raised his eyebrows — and smiled. "And how am I supposed to take that? As a compliment, maybe? After all, it's my story you're talking about."

"No, no, it's mine. You just appear in it."

Meggie saw Basta look inquiringly at Capricorn, but he shook his head again very slightly, and Fenoglio's back was spared for the time being.

"How interesting. So you're sticking to your lies." Capricorn uncrossed his legs and rose from his chair. With slow strides, he came down the steps.

Fenoglio smiled conspiratorially at Meggie.

"What are you grinning for?" Capricorn's voice was as sharp as Basta's knife now. He stopped right in front of Fenoglio.

"Oh, I was only thinking that vanity is one of the qualities I gave you, vanity and" — Fenoglio paused for effect before continuing — "and a few other weaknesses that I expect you'd rather I didn't mention in front of your henchmen."

Capricorn examined him in silence, a silence that seemed to last an eternity. Then he smiled. It was a faint, thin smile, little more than a lift at the corners of his mouth, while his eyes scanned the church as if he had entirely forgotten Fenoglio. "You're a shameless old man," he said. "And a liar in the bargain. But if you hope to impress me with your barefaced lying and boasting the way you've impressed Basta, I must disappoint you. Your claims are ridiculous, just as you are, and it was more than stupid of Basta to bring you here because now we have to get rid of you, somehow."

Basta turned pale. He hurried over to Capricorn, head lowered in submission. "But suppose he isn't lying?" Meggie heard him whisper to Capricorn. "They both say we will all die if we touch the old man."

Capricorn gave him a look of such contempt that Basta flinched backward as if he had been struck.

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Fenoglio, however, looked as if he were enjoying himself hugely. It seemed to Meggie that he was watching the whole scene as if it were a play performed especially for him. "Poor Basta!" he said to Capricorn. "You're doing him a great injustice again, for he's right. Suppose I'm not lying?

Suppose I really did invent you both — you and Basta? Will you simply dissolve into thin air if you do anything to me? It seems very likely."

Capricorn laughed, but Meggie sensed he was thinking over what Fenoglio had said, and it made him uneasy — even if he was taking great pains to hide his concern under a mask of indifference.

"I can prove I am what I say I am!" said Fenoglio, so quietly that apart from Capricorn only Basta could hear his words. "Shall I do it here, in front of your men and those women? Shall I tell them about your parents?"

All was quiet in the church now. No one moved, neither Basta nor the other men waiting at the foot of the steps. Even the women cleaning the floor under the tables straightened up to look at Capricorn and the strange old man. Mortola was standing beside his chair, her chin jutting out as if that would help her to hear what they were whispering about.

Capricorn inspected his cufflinks in silence. They were like drops of blood on his pale shirt.

Then, at last, he turned his colorless eyes to Fenoglio's face again.

"Say what you like, old man! But if you value your life say it so that only I can hear." He spoke softly, but Meggie heard the fury in his voice, suppressed with difficulty but lurking behind every word. She had never felt more afraid of him.

Capricorn signed to Basta, who reluctantly took a few steps backward.

"I suppose the child can hear what I have to say?" asked Fenoglio, putting his hand on Meggie's shoulder. "Or are you afraid of her, too?"

Capricorn did not even look at Meggie. He had eyes only for the old man who had invented him.

"Well, come on, let's hear you, even if you have nothing to say! You're not the first person to try saving his skin in this church with a few lies, but if you hedge your bets any longer I'll tell Basta to wrap a pretty little viper around your neck. I always keep a few around the place for such occasions."

Even this threat didn't particularly impress Fenoglio. "Very well," he said, looking all around him as if sorry not to have a larger audience, "where shall I begin? First, something basic: A storyteller never writes down everything he knows about his characters. There's no need for readers to know everything. Some of it is better kept secret between the author and his creations. Take him, for instance," he added, pointing to Basta. "I always knew he was a very unhappy boy before you picked him up. As it says in another very fine book, it's terribly easy to persuade children that they are worthless. Basta was convinced of it. Not that you taught him any better, oh no! Why would you? But suddenly here was someone to whom he could devote himself, someone who told him what to do — he'd found a god, Capricorn, and if you treated him badly, well, who says that all gods are kindly? Most of them are stern and cruel, wouldn't you agree? I didn't write all this in the book. I knew it, that was enough. But never mind Basta now, let's move on to you."

Capricorn's eyes did not move from Fenoglio. His face was as rigid as if it had turned to stone.

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"Capricorn."
Fenoglio's voice sounded almost tender as he spoke the name. He gazed over Capricorn's shoulder as if he had forgotten that the man he was talking about was standing right in front of him and no longer existed only in an entirely different world between the covers of a book. "He has another name, too, of course, but even he doesn't remember it. He has called himself Capricorn since he was fifteen, after the star sign under which he was born. Capricorn the unapproachable, unfathomable, insatiable, who likes to play God or the devil as the fancy takes him. The devil doesn't have a mother, though, does he?" Fenoglio then looked Capricorn in the eye. "But
you
do."

Meggie looked up at the Magpie. She had come to the edge of the steps, listening, her bony hands clenched into fists.

"You like to spread the rumor that she was of noble birth," Fenoglio went on. "Indeed, it sometimes even pleases you to say she was a king's daughter, and your father, you claim, was an armorer at her father's court. A very nice story, too. Shall I tell you my version?"

For the first time, Meggie saw something like fear on Capricorn's face, a nameless fear without beginning or end, and behind it hatred rose like a vast black shadow.

Meggie felt sure Capricorn wanted to strike Fenoglio to the ground, but his fear was too strong, leaving him helpless to act.

Did Fenoglio see that, too?

"Go on, tell your story. Why not?" Capricorn's eyes were unblinking, like a snake's.

Fenoglio smiled as mischievously as one of his grandsons. "Very well, let's go on. The tale of the court armorer was all lies, of course." Meggie still had a feeling that the old man was enjoying himself enormously. He might have been teasing a kitten. Did he know so little about his own creation? "Capricorn's father was an ordinary blacksmith," he went on, refusing to let the cold rage in Capricorn's eyes distract him. "He made his son play with hot coals, and sometimes he beat him almost as hard as he beat the iron he forged. There were blows if the boy ever showed pity, and more blows for shedding tears, and for every time the lad said, 'I can't' or ‘I’ll never do it.' Power is all that counts,' he taught his son. 'Rules are made by the strongest, so be sure that you're the one who makes them.' Capricorn's mother thought that was the only real truth in the world, and she told her son day in, day out that one day he would be the strongest of all. She was no princess but a serving maid, with coarse hands and roughened knees, and she followed her son like a shadow, even when he began to be ashamed of her and invented a new mother and new father for himself. She admired him for his cruelty; she loved to see the terror he spread abroad. And she loved his ink-black heart. Your heart is a stone, Capricorn, a black stone with about as much human sympathy as a lump of coal, and you are very, very proud of that."