Inkheart (38 page)

Capricorn went on playing with his cufflink, turning it around and looking at it as intently as if he were giving all his attention not to Fenoglio's words but to the little red piece of metal. When the old man fell silent, Capricorn carefully pulled the sleeve of his jacket down over his wrist and brushed a speck of fluff off his arm. With it, he seemed to have brushed off his anger — his pale, indifferent eyes no longer showed rage, hatred, or fear.

"That really is an amazing story, old man," he said in a quiet voice. "I like it. You're a born liar, so I shall keep you here — for the time being — until I tire of your stories."

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"Keep me here?" Fenoglio stood very straight. "I've no intention of staying here! What on earth

—"

But Capricorn put a hand over his mouth. "Not another word!" he hissed. "Basta has told me about your three grandchildren. If you give me any trouble, or tell your lies not to
me
but to my men, I shall get Basta to gift wrap a few young vipers and leave them outside your grandchildren's door. Do I make myself clear, old man?"

Fenoglio's head drooped as if Capricorn had broken his neck with nothing but a few softly spoken words. When he looked up again, fear showed in every wrinkle of his face.

With a satisfied smile, Capricorn put his hands in his pants pockets. "Yes, you all love something, softhearted as you are," he said. "Children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters, parents, dogs, cats, canary birds . . . There are no exceptions: farmers, shopkeepers, even policemen have families or at least keep a dog. You have only to look at her father!" Capricorn pointed at Meggie so suddenly, she jumped. "He'll come here even though he knows I won't let him go again, any more than I will let his daughter go. He'll come all the same. Isn't this world an amazing place?"

"Amazing indeed," murmured Fenoglio, and for the first time he looked at his creation with revulsion rather than admiration. Capricorn seemed to prefer that.

"Basta!" he called, beckoning him. Basta strolled over deliberately slowly. He was still looking sulky. "Take the old man to the room where we once locked Darius," Capricorn ordered. "And post a guard outside the door."

"You want me to take him into
your
house?" Basta sounded surprised.

"Yes, why not? After all, he claims to be almost like a father to me. Anyway, his tales amuse me."

Basta shrugged and grasped Fenoglio's arm. Meggie looked at the old man, horrified. She would soon be all alone with nothing but the windowless walls and a locked door. But Fenoglio reached for her hand before Basta could haul him away. "Leave the girl with me," he said to Capricorn.

"You can't shut her up in that hole again all by herself. And I promised her father I'd look after her."

Capricorn turned his back, looking indifferent. "As you like. Her father will be here soon in any case."

Yes, Mo would come. Meggie could think of nothing else as Fenoglio led her away with him, his arm around her shoulders as if he really could protect her from Capricorn and Basta and all the others. But he couldn't. Would Mo be able to protect her? Of course not. He mustn't come, she thought. Please. Perhaps he won't be able to find the way again! He mustn't come. Yet there was nothing she wanted more, nothing in the whole wide world.

184

Chapter 35 – Different Aims

Faber sniffed the book. "Do you know that books smell like nutmeg or some spice from a
foreign land? I loved to smell them when I was a boy."

–
Ray Bradbury,
Fahrenheit 451

It was Farid who saw the car. Dustfinger was lying under the trees as it came along the road. He was trying to think clearly, but since learning that Capricorn was back he couldn't pull his thoughts together. He still didn't know where to look for the book. The leaves of the trees cast shadows on his face, the sun sent white-hot needles down through the branches, and his forehead felt feverish. Basta and Flatnose were back, too, of course. What had he expected? Had he thought they'd stay away forever? "Why get so agitated, Dustfinger?" he whispered up at the leaves. "You didn't have to come back here. You knew it would be dangerous." Then he heard footsteps approaching, rapidly.

"A gray car!" Farid had run so fast he was gasping for breath as he flung himself down on the grass beside Dustfinger. "I think it's Silvertongue!"

Dustfinger jumped up. The boy knew what he was talking about. He really could tell those stinking metal beetles apart from one another. He himself had never got the knack of it.

He quickly followed Farid to where there was a view of the bridge. The road wound away from it toward Capricorn's village like a slow-moving snake. They didn't have much time if they wanted to stop Silvertongue. At top speed, they stumbled down the hillside. Farid was the first to reach the road. Dustfinger had always been proud of his own agility, but the boy was far nimbler, fast as a deer and with legs just as agile. And he was getting better at playing with fire now, too, as fascinated as a boy with a puppy.

Silvertongue braked sharply when he saw Dustfinger and Farid in the road. He looked tired, as if he had slept badly for the last few nights. Elinor was in the car beside him. Where had she sprung from? Hadn't she gone home to her book-lined tomb? And where was Meggie?

Silvertongue's face darkened when he saw Dustfinger. As he got out of the car he was rigid with anger. "Of course! You told them!" he cried, coming toward him. "You told them where we were!

Who else? What did Capricorn promise you this time?"

"I told who what?" Dustfinger retreated. "I never told anyone anything! Ask the boy."

But Silvertongue didn't so much as glance at Farid. The bookworm woman had gotten out, too.

She stood beside the car looking grim.

"The only person who told anyone anything was you!" Dustfinger accused him. "You told the old man about me even though you promised you wouldn't."

Silvertongue stopped in his tracks. It was so easy to make him feel guilty.

"Better hide the car under the trees there." Dustfinger pointed to the side of the road. "One of Capricorn's men could pass at any time, and they don't like to see strange cars here."

Silvertongue turned and looked down the road.

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"Surely you don't believe him?" cried Elinor. "Of course he's given you away, who else could?

The man starts telling lies the moment he opens his mouth."

"Basta took Meggie away." Silvertongue sounded hoarse, quite unlike himself, as if when he'd lost his daughter he had lost the sound of his voice, too. "They took Fenoglio as well — yesterday morning when I went to meet Elinor at the airport. We've been looking for the wretched village ever since. I had no idea how many deserted villages there are in these hills. It wasn't until we came to the barrier over the road that I felt sure we were on the right track at last."

Dustfinger said nothing but looked up at the sky. A few birds as black as Capricorn's men were flying south. He had not seen them bringing the girl in, but then he hadn't spent the whole day watching that accursed village.

"Basta was gone for several days. I thought he must be looking for the two of you," he said.

"You're lucky he didn't get hold of you, too."

"Lucky?" Elinor was still standing beside the car. "Tell him to get out of the way!" she told Silvertongue. "Or I'll run him down myself! He's been hand in glove with those miserable fire-raisers all along."

Silvertongue was still looking at Dustfinger as if he couldn't decide whether or not to believe him. "Capricorn's men broke into Elinor's house," he said at last. "They took all the books from her library into the garden and burned them."

Dustfinger had to admit that for a split second he felt something almost like satisfaction. What had the silly bookworm woman expected? Did she think Capricorn would simply forget her? He shrugged his shoulders and looked at Elinor, his face unreadable. "Only to be expected," he said.

"Only to be expected!" Elinor's voice almost cracked. Belligerent as a bull terrier, she marched up to him. Farid tried to bar her way, but she pushed him aside so roughly that he fell on the hot asphalt of the road. "Maybe you can fool the boy with your fire breathing and your colored balls, matchstick-eater!" she snapped at Dustfinger. "But it won't work with me! There's nothing left of the books in my library but a load of ash. The police were full of admiration for what those villains had done. 'At least they didn't burn your house down, Signora Loredan! Even your garden is all right except for the scorch mark on the lawn.' What do I care for the house? What do I care for the wretched lawn? They burned my most valuable books!"

Dustfinger saw the tears in her eyes, although she quickly turned her face aside, and suddenly something like sympathy did awake in him. Perhaps she was more like him than he'd thought: Her home, too, had consisted of paper and printer's ink. She probably felt as lost as he did in the real world. He didn't let her see his sympathy, of course, but hid it behind a mask of mockery and indifference, just as she hid her despair behind rage. "What did you expect? Capricorn knew where you lived. Anyone could foresee that he'd send his men out when you'd escaped him. He always takes revenge."

"Oh yes, and who told him where I live? You did!" Elinor swung her arm back with her fist clenched, but Far id caught it. He had grazed his knee on the road. "He didn't give anything away!" he cried. "Nothing at all. He's only here to steal something."

Elinor lowered her arm.

"So that's it!" Silvertongue went up to them. "You're here to get hold of the book. That's crazy!"

186

"Well, how about you? What are
you
planning to do?" Dustfinger looked at him scornfully.

"You're just going to walk into Capricorn's church and ask for your daughter back, are you?"

Silvertongue did not reply.

"He won't hand her over and you know it!" Dustfinger went on. "She's only the bait, and as soon as you've swallowed it the pair of you will be Capricorn's prisoners — for the rest of your lives, most likely."

"I wanted to call the police!" Elinor freed her arm crossly from Farid's brown hands. "But Mortimer was against it."

"Sensible of him! Capricorn would have abandoned Meggie up in the mountains and you'd never have seen her again."

Silvertongue looked up at the nearby mountains looming dark behind their foothills. "Wait until I've stolen the book!" said Dustfinger. "I'm going to creep into the village again tonight. I won't be able to get your daughter out the way I did last time because Capricorn has trebled the guards, and the whole village is lit up at night now, brighter than a jeweler's shop window, but perhaps I can find out where they're keeping her prisoner. Then you can do what you like with the information. And in return for my trouble you could try reading me back into the book. What about it?"

Dustfinger considered this a very reasonable proposition, but Silvertongue thought it over only briefly before shaking his head. "No," he said. "No, I'm sorry, I can't wait any longer. Meggie needs me." With these words he turned and went back to the car, but before he could get in Dustfinger barred his way.

"I'm sorry, too," he said, snapping open Basta's knife. "You know I don't like these things, but sometimes people have to be protected from their own stupidity. I'm not going to let you stumble into the village like a rabbit into a trap, just for Capricorn to shut you and your magic voice away. It won't help your daughter and it certainly won't help me."

At Dustfinger's signal, Farid had drawn his knife, too. Dustfinger had bought it for him in the village by the sea; it was a ridiculous little thing but Farid pressed it into Elinor's ribs so hard that she grimaced. "Good God, are you planning to slit me open, you little wretch?" she snapped at him. The boy jumped, but he did not remove his knife.

"Move the car off the road, Silvertongue!" ordered Dustfinger. "And don't get any silly ideas: The boy will keep his knife pressed at your bookworm friend's chest until you're back here with us."

Silvertongue obeyed. Of course. What else could he do? They tied him and Elinor to the trees just behind the burnt-out cottage, only a few paces from their own makeshift camp. Elinor scolded even louder than Gwin when he was pulled out of the backpack by his tail.

"Stop that!" Dustfinger told her. "It won't do any of us any good for Capricorn's men to find us here." That worked. She fell silent at once, as if she had swallowed her tongue. Silver-tongue had leaned his head back against the tree trunk and closed his eyes. Farid checked all the knots again carefully, but then Dustfinger beckoned him over.

"I want you to keep a watch on those two when I go down to the village tonight," he whispered.

"And don't start carrying on about ghosts again. After all, you won't be alone this time."

187

The boy looked at him with an injured expression, as if Dustfinger had taken his hand and thrust it into the fire. "But they're tied up!" he protested. "So what is there to watch? No one's ever managed to undo my knots. Word of honor. Please. I want to go with you! I can be your lookout or distract the guards. I can even get into Capricorn's house! I'm quieter than Gwin!"

But Dustfinger shook his head. "No," he said firmly. "Tonight, I'm going alone. If I want someone following me wherever I go I'll get myself a dog." And with that he left the boy.

It was a hot day. The sky above the hills was blue and cloudless, and there were hours yet to pass before darkness fell.

188

Chapter 36 – In Capricorn’s House

"It's the place that worries you," said Hazel. "I don't like it myself, but it won't go on
forever."

–
Richard Adams,
Watership Down

Two narrow metal bunks, one above the other against a whitewashed wall, a cupboard, a table by the window, a chair, an empty shelf with nothing but a candle on it. Meggie had hoped to be able to see the road or at least the parking area through the window, but the only view was of the yard below. A couple of Capricorn's maids were bending over the vegetable patch pulling out weeds, and chickens were pecking around in a wire-netting run in one corner. The walls surrounding the kitchen garden were high enough for a prison.