Dustfinger let them stop for a brief rest only when he saw that Meggie was staggering with exhaustion. When the sun was once again so low in the sky that it touched the tree-tops they reached the crest of a hill, and Meggie saw the dark ribbon of a road running through the green of the forest down below. A collection of buildings stood beside it: a long, low house, with stables round a yard.
‘The only inn close to the border,’ Dustfinger whispered to them. ‘They probably left their horses there. You can move considerably faster on foot in the forest. Everyone who wants to go south and down to the sea stops to rest at this inn: couriers, traders, even a few of the strolling players, though everyone knows that the landlord is one of the Adderhead’s spies. If we’re lucky we’ll be there before the party we’re following, because they won’t be able to get down the slopes with the handcart and the prisoners. They’ll have to go the long way round, but we can take the direct route and wait for them at the inn.’
‘And then what?’ For a moment Meggie thought she saw the same anxiety in his eyes that had driven her into the woods by night. But who was he anxious about? The Black Prince, the other strolling players … her mother? She still clearly remembered that day in Capricorn’s crypt when he had begged Resa to escape with him and leave her daughter behind….
Perhaps Dustfinger had remembered it too. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ he asked.
‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ she murmured, bending her head. ‘I’m just worried.’
‘And for good reason,’ he said, abruptly turning his back on her.
‘But what are we going to do when we’ve caught up with them?’ Farid was hurrying unsteadily after him.
‘I don’t know,’ Dustfinger said as he began looking for a way down the slope, keeping in the cover of the trees. ‘I thought one of you might have some idea, since you were so keen to come along.’
The route he took led downhill so steeply that Meggie could hardly keep her footing, but then she suddenly saw the road – stony, and rutted with channels where water had once flowed down from the hills. On the other side were the stables and the house she had seen from the top of the hill. Dustfinger waved her over to a place by the roadside where the undergrowth would shield her from curious eyes.
‘No, they don’t seem to be here yet, but they must arrive soon!’ he said quietly. ‘They may even stay the night, fill their bellies and get drunk to forget the terrors of the forest. I can’t show my face over there while it’s still light. Given my luck, one of Capricorn’s fire-raisers who’s working for the Adderhead now will cross my path. But you,’ he said, placing a hand on Farid’s shoulder, ‘you can go over there safely. If anyone asks where you’re from, just say your master’s sitting in the inn drinking. Count the soldiers, count the prisoners, and see how many children are among them. Understand? Meanwhile I’ll take a look further along the road. I have a kind of idea.’
Farid nodded, and lured Gwin over to him.
‘I’ll go with him!’ Meggie expected Dustfinger to forbid her to go with Farid, but he just shrugged his shoulders.
‘As you like. I can’t keep you here. I just hope your mother doesn’t give herself away when she recognizes you. And another thing!’ He took hold of Meggie’s arm as she was about to follow Farid. ‘Don’t take it into your head that we can do anything for your parents. Perhaps we can free the children, even a few of the adults if they run fast enough. But your father won’t be able to run, and your mother will stay with him. She won’t leave him on his own, any more than she would leave you behind that other time. We both remember it, don’t we?’
Meggie nodded and turned her face away, so that he wouldn’t see her tears. But Dustfinger gently turned her round and wiped them from her cheeks. ‘You really are very like your mother,’ he said softly. ‘She never wanted anyone to see her cry either – however good her reasons for tears.’ His face looked strained as he scrutinized the two of them again ‘Well, you’re dirty enough,’ he commented. ‘Anyone would take you for a stable boy and a kitchen-maid. We’ll meet behind the stables as soon as it’s dark. Now, off you go.’
They didn’t have long to wait.
Meggie and Farid had been hanging around the stables for barely an hour when they saw the procession of prisoners come down the road – women, children, old men, hands tied behind their backs and soldiers on both sides of them. These men were not armed, no helmets hid their sullen features, but they all wore their master’s snake emblem on their breasts, silver-grey cloaks, and swords at their belts. Meggie recognized their leader at once: it was Firefox. And judging by his face, he didn’t seem to like travelling on foot very much.
‘Don’t stare at them like that!’ whispered Farid, as Meggie stood there rooted to the spot. He dragged her behind one of the carts standing around the yard. ‘Your mother’s not hurt. Did you see her?’ Meggie nodded. Yes, Resa was walking between two other women, one of them pregnant. But where was Mo?
‘Hey!’ bellowed Firefox, as his men drove the prisoners into the yard. ‘Whose are those carts? We need more room.’
The soldiers pushed the carts aside, handling one of them so roughly that its load of sacks slipped off. A man hurried out of the inn – probably the cart’s owner – a protest already on his lips, but when he saw the soldiers he bit it back and shouted at the grooms, who quickly righted the cart again. Traders, farmers, servants – more and more people came crowding out of the stables and the main building to see the cause of all the noise in the yard. A fat, perspiring man made his way through the turmoil to Firefox, faced him with a hostile expression, and let fly a torrent of angry words.
‘All right, all right!’ Meggie heard Firefox growl. ‘But we need space. Can’t you see we have prisoners with us? Would you rather we drove them into your stables?’
‘Yes, yes, use one of the stables!’ cried the fat man in relief, beckoning to a couple of his servants who were standing there staring at the prisoners, some of whom had fallen to their knees just where they were, their faces pale with exhaustion and fear.
‘Come on!’ Farid whispered to Meggie, and side by side they pushed their way past the muttering farmers and traders, past the servants still clearing the burst sacks out of the yard, past the soldiers casting hopeful glances at the inn. No one seemed to be taking very much notice of the prisoners, but it was hardly necessary: none of them looked as if they still had the strength to escape. Even the children, whose legs might have been fast enough for them to run, were clinging to their mothers’ skirts, empty-eyed, or staring in fear at the armed men who had brought them here. Resa was supporting the pregnant woman. Yes, her mother was uninjured; Meggie could see that much, although she avoided coming too close to her, in case Dustfinger was right to fear that Resa would give herself away if she recognized her. How desperately she was looking around! She took the arm of a soldier, whose beardless face made him look only a boy, and then—
‘Farid!’ Meggie couldn’t believe it. Resa was talking. Not with her hands, but with her mouth. Her voice could hardly be heard in all this noise, but it was her voice. How could it be possible? The soldier didn’t listen to her, but pushed her roughly away, and Resa turned. The Black Prince and his bear were pulling a cart into the yard. They had been harnessed to it like oxen. A chain was wound around the bear’s black muzzle, another round his throat and chest. But Resa had eyes for neither the bear nor the Prince – she kept looking at the cart, and Meggie immediately realized what that meant.
Without a word, she took off. ‘Meggie!’ Farid called after her, but she wasn’t listening. No one could stop her. The cart was a ramshackle thing. First she saw only the man with the injured leg, one of the strolling players holding a child on his lap. Then she saw Mo.
She thought her heart would never beat again. He was lying there with his eyes closed, under a dirty blanket, but all the same Meggie saw the blood. His shirt was soaked in it, the shirt he liked best to wear, although the sleeves had worn thin. Meggie forgot ev
erything: Farid, the soldiers, Dustfinger’s warning, where she was, why she was here. She just stared at her father and his still face. The world was suddenly an empty place, very empty, and her heart was a cold, dead thing.
‘Meggie!’ Farid reached for her arm. He hauled her away with him, ignoring her resistance, and held her close when she began to sob.
‘He’s dead, Farid! Did you see him? Mo … he’s dead!’ She kept stammering that terrible word. Dead. Gone. For ever.
She pushed Farid’s arm away. ‘I must go to him.’ Bad luck clings to this book, Meggie, nothing but bad luck, even if you don’t believe me. Hadn’t he told her that in Elinor’s library? How much every one of those words hurt now. Death had been waiting in the book. His death.
‘Meggie!’ Farid was still holding her firmly. He shook her as if he had to wake her up. ‘Meggie, listen. He’s not dead! Do you think they’d be dragging him along with them if he was?’
Would they? She wasn’t sure of anything any more.
‘Come with me. Come on!’ Farid pulled her away with him. He pushed his way casually through the crowd, as if none of the hurry and bustle interested him. Finally, with an indifferent expression on his face, he stopped by the stable into which the soldiers were herding the prisoners. Meggie wiped away her tears and tried to look equally indifferent, but how could she when her heart, coming back to life, felt as if someone had cut it in two?
‘Do you have enough for us to eat there?’ she heard Firefox ask. ‘We’re ravenous after our journey through that accursed forest.’
Meggie saw them push Resa into the dark stable with the other women, while two soldiers released the Black Prince and his bear.
‘Of course I have enough!’ said the fat landlord indignantly. ‘And you won’t recognize your horses, their coats are so glossy!’
‘So I should hope,’ replied Firefox. ‘Otherwise the Adderhead will make sure you’re not landlord of this hovel much longer. We ride at daybreak tomorrow. My men and the prisoners can stay in the stable, but I want a bed – and a bed to myself, too, not one I have to share with a crowd of snoring, farting strangers.’
‘Of course, of course!’ The landlord nodded eagerly. ‘But what about that monster?’ He pointed anxiously at the bear. ‘He’ll scare the horses. Why didn’t you kill him and leave him in the forest?’
‘Because the Adderhead wants to hang him along with his master,’ replied Firefox, ‘and because my men believe all the nonsense they hear about him – folk say he’s a Night-Mare who likes to take the shape of a bear, so it’s a bad idea to fire an arrow into his coat.’
‘A Night-Mare?’ The landlord chuckled nervously. He obviously seemed to think the story not impossible. ‘Never mind what he is, he’s not going into my stable. Tie him up behind the bakehouse if you like. Then perhaps the horses won’t smell him.’ The bear growled in a low tone as one of the soldiers pulled him along on his chain, but as they were forced away behind the main building the Black Prince spoke to him soothingly, in a quiet voice, as if comforting a child.
The cart with Mo and the injured old man on it was still in the yard. A few servants were standing around, gossiping to each other, presumably trying to work out exactly who had been captured on the Adderhead’s orders. Was the rumour already spreading that the man lying as if dead on the cart was the Bluejay? The soldier with the beardless face shooed the servants away, took the child off the cart and pushed him towards the stable too. ‘What about the wounded prisoners?’ he called to Firefox. ‘Do we just leave those two on the cart where they are?’
‘And find that they’re dead in the morning, or gone? What are you thinking of, you fool? One of them’s the reason why we went into that damned forest, right?’ Firefox turned to the landlord again. ‘Is there a physician among your guests?’ he asked. ‘I have a prisoner who must be kept alive because the Adderhead plans a magnificent execution for him. It’s no real fun with a dead man, if you see what I mean.’
Must be kept alive … Farid pressed Meggie’s hand and smiled triumphantly at her.
‘Oh yes, of course, of course!’ The landlord looked curiously at the cart. ‘It’s a nuisance, for sure, if condemned men die before their execution. I hear that’s happened twice this year already. However, I can’t offer you a physician. I do have a moss-woman helping out in the kitchen, though. She’s set many of my guests to rights in her time.’
‘Good! Send for her!’
The landlord impatiently beckoned to a boy leaning by the stable door. Firefox called two of his soldiers to him. ‘Go on, get the wounded men into the stable too!’ Meggie heard him say. ‘Double guards outside the door, and four of you keep watch on the Bluejay tonight, understand? No wine, no mead, and anyone who falls asleep will be sorry for it!’
‘The Bluejay?’ The landlord stared in amazement. ‘You have the Bluejay on that cart?’ When Firefox cast him a warning glance, he quickly put his fat fingers to his mouth. ‘Not a word!’ he uttered. ‘No one will hear a word of it from me.’
‘I should hope not,’ growled Firefox, and looked around as if to make sure that no one else had heard what he said.
When the soldiers lifted Mo off the cart, Meggie instinctively took a step forward, but Farid dragged her back. ‘Meggie, what’s the matter with you?’ he hissed. ‘If you carry on like this they’ll shut you up too. Do you think that will help anyone?’
Meggie shook her head. ‘He really is still alive, Farid, isn’t he?’ she whispered. She was almost afraid to believe it.
‘Yes, of course. I told you so. Don’t look so sad. Everything will turn out all right, you wait and see!’ Farid caressed her forehead and kissed the tears from her eyelashes.
‘Hey, you two lovebirds, get away from the horses!’
The Piper was standing before them. Meggie bent her head, although she was sure he wouldn’t recognize her. She had been just a girl in a dirty dress when he almost rode her down in Ombra market place. Today he was once again more splendidly clothed than any of the strolling players Meggie had yet seen. His silken garments shimmered like a peacock’s tail, and the rings on his fingers were genuine silver, like the nose on his face. Obviously the Adderhead paid well for songs that pleased him.
The Piper looked hard at them again, and then strolled over to Firefox. ‘Well, so you’re back from the forest!’ he called from some way off. ‘And with rich booty, so I’ve heard. Looks as if one of your spies wasn’t lying for a change. Good news for the Adderhead at last.’
Firefox replied, but Meggie wasn’t listening. The snotty-nosed boy came back with the moss-woman, a short little creature who hardly came up to his shoulder. Her skin was grey as beech-bark, her face as wrinkled as a shrivelled apple. Moss-women, healers … before Farid realized what she meant to do, Meggie had slipped away from him. The moss-woman would know how Mo really was. She made her way as close as she could to the little woman, until only the boy stood between them. The moss-woman’s smock was stained with meat-juices from the spit, and her feet were bare, but she inspected the men standing around her with fearless eyes.
‘Sure as I live, a genuine moss-woman,’ growled Firefox, while his men retreated from the tiny woman as if she were as dangerous as the Black Prince’s bear. ‘I thought they never came out of the forest. But yes, apparently they know something about healing. Don’t folk say that old witch Nettle’s mother was a moss-woman?’
‘Yes, but her father was useless.’ The little woman scrutinized Firefox as intently as if she were trying to find out what kind of blood flowed in his veins. ‘You drink too much,’ she observed. ‘Just look at your face. Carry on like this and your liver will soon burst like an over-ripe pumpkin.’
A ripple of laughter ran through the onlookers, but a glance from Firefox silenced them. ‘Listen, you’re not here to give me advice, she-gnome!’ he snapped at the moss-woman. ‘I want you to look at one of my prisoners. He has to reach the Adderhead’s castle alive.’
‘Yes, I know all that,’ r
eplied the moss-woman, still examining his face with disapproval. ‘So that your master can kill him by all the rules of the executioner’s trade. Fetch me water. Hot water and clean towels. And I want someone to help me.’
Firefox nodded to the boy. ‘If you want a helper, pick one for yourself,’ he growled, and surreptitiously felt his stomach, where he presumably supposed his liver was located.
‘One of your men? No, thank you.’ The moss-woman wrinkled up her little nose scornfully, and looked around until her eye fell on Meggie. ‘That one will do,’ said the little creature. ‘She doesn’t look too stupid.’
And before Meggie knew it, one of the soldiers took her roughly by the shoulder. The last thing she saw before she stumbled into the stable after the moss-woman was the expression of alarm on Farid’s face.
42
A Familiar Face
Believe me. Sometimes when life looks to be at its grimmest, there’s a light hidden at the heart of things.
Clive Barker,
Abarat
Mo was conscious as the moss-woman knelt down beside him. He sat leaning back against the damp wall, his eyes searching all the prisoners crouching in the dimly lit stable, looking for Resa’s face. He didn’t see Meggie until the little woman impatiently beckoned her over. Of course he realized at once that even a smile would have given her away, but it was so hard for him not to take her in his arms, so hard to hide the joy and fear that struggled for his heart at the sight of her.
‘What are you standing around for?’ the old woman snapped at Meggie. ‘Come here, you stupid thing!’ Mo could have shaken her, but Meggie just knelt down quickly beside her and took the blood-stained bandages that the old woman was none too gently cutting away from his chest. Don’t stare at her, thought Mo, forcing his eyes to look anywhere else: at the old woman’s hands, at the other prisoners, not at his daughter. Had Resa seen her too? She’s all right, he thought. Yes, definitely. She wasn’t any thinner than usual, and she didn’t seem to be sick or injured either. If only he could at least have exchanged a word with her!
‘By fairy-spit, what’s the matter with you?’ asked the little woman roughly as Meggie almost spilled the water she was handing her. ‘I might just as well have taken one of the soldiers.’ She began feeling Mo’s injuries with her bark-like fingers. It hurt, but he clenched his teeth so that Meggie wouldn’t notice.
‘Are you always so hard on her?’ he asked the old woman.
The little moss-woman muttered something incomprehensible without looking at him, but Meggie ventured a quick glance, and he smiled at her, hoping she wouldn’t notice the concern in his eyes, his alarm at seeing her again in this of all places, among all the soldiers. Be careful, Meggie, he tried to tell her with his eyes. How her lips were quivering, probably with all the words that she couldn’t say aloud, any more than he could! But it was so good to see her. Even in this place. In all those days and nights of fever, he had so often felt sure that he would never see her face again!
‘Hurry up, can’t you?’ Suddenly Firefox was standing right behind Meggie, and at the sound of his voice she quickly bowed her head and held the bowl of water out to the little old woman again.
‘This is a nasty wound!’ remarked the moss-woman. ‘I’m surprised you’re still alive.’
‘Yes, strange, isn’t it?’ Mo was as much aware of Meggie’s glance as if it were the pressure of her hand. ‘Perhaps the fairies whispered a few words of healing in my ear.’
‘Words of healing?’ The moss-woman wrinkled up her nose. ‘What kind of words would those be? Fairies’ gossip is as stupid and useless as fairies themselves.’
‘Well, then someone else must have whispered them to me.’
Mo saw how pale Meggie turned as she helped the moss-woman to re-bandage his wound, the wound that hadn’t killed him. It’s nothing, Meggie, he wanted to say, I’m fine – but all he could do was look at her again, only in passing, as if her face meant no more to him than any other.
‘Believe it or not,’ he told the old woman, ‘I did hear the words. Beautiful words. At first I thought it was my wife’s voice, but then I realized it was my daughter’s. I heard her voice as clearly as if she were sitting here beside me.’