‘Fenoglio!’ Farid roughly shook him awake.
The old man turned over on his back with a grunt that would have done the Prince’s bear credit. Then he opened his eyes and stared at Farid as if seeing his dark face for the very first time. ‘Oh, it’s you!’ he growled, dazed with sleep, and propped himself on his elbows. ‘The boy who came back from the dead. Something else that I never wrote! What do you want? Do you know I was just having my first good dream for days?’
‘You must write us something!’
‘Write something? I’m never going to write again. Haven’t we seen what comes of it? I have this fabulous idea about the book of immortality that will set the good characters free and bring the Adderhead to his death in the most subtle way. And what happens? The Adder is immortal now, and the forest is full of corpses again! Robbers, strolling players, the two-fingered man – dead! Why do I keep making them up if this story is only going to kill them? Oh, this thrice-accursed story! It’s in love with Death!’
‘But you must bring him back!’ Farid’s lips were trembling. ‘You made the Adderhead immortal, so why not him?’
‘You’re talking about Dustfinger, aren’t you?’ Fenoglio sat up and rubbed his face, sighing heavily. ‘Yes, he’s dead now too, dead as a doornail, but I’d planned that a long way back, as you perhaps remember. Be that as it may, Dustfinger is dead, you were dead … Minerva’s husband, Cosimo, the boys who rode with him, they’re all dead! Can’t this story think of anything else? I’ll tell you something, my boy. I’m not its author any more. No, the author is Death, the Grim Reaper, the Cold Man, call him what you like. It’s his dance, and never mind what I write he’ll take my words and make them serve him!’
‘Nonsense!’ Farid was no longer even wiping away the tears that streamed down his face. ‘You must fetch him back. It wasn’t his death at all, it was mine! Make him breathe again! It will only take a few words. After all, you did it for Cosimo and for Silvertongue.’
‘Just a moment – Meggie’s father wasn’t dead yet,’ Fenoglio soberly pointed out. ‘And as for Cosimo, he only looked like Cosimo – how many more times do I have to explain that? Meggie and I made a brand-new Cosimo, and unfortunately it went terribly wrong. No!’ He reached into his belt, produced something resembling a handkerchief, and blew his nose nosily. ‘This is not a story in which the dead come to life! All right, I admit I brought immortality into it, yes. But that’s different from bringing back the dead. No, when someone is dead here, he stays dead! It’s the same in this world as in the one I come from. Dustfinger got around that rule very cleverly on your behalf. Perhaps I wrote the sentimental story that gave him the idea myself … I really don’t remember, but never mind, there are always gaps. And he paid for your life with his own. That’s always been the only trade-off that Death will accept. Who’d have thought it? Dustfinger, of all people, gets so fond of a good-for-nothing boy that he ends up dying for him. I admit it’s a much better idea than the one about the marten, but it isn’t mine. Oh no! So if you’re looking for someone to blame, then blame yourself. Because one thing is certain, my boy –’ and so saying he jabbed his finger roughly into Farid’s thin chest – ‘and it’s that you don’t belong in this story! And if you hadn’t taken it into your head to wangle your way into it, Dustfinger would still be alive—’
Farid punched Fenoglio in the face before Meggie could pull him back.
‘How can you say a thing like that?’ she shouted at Fenoglio as Farid, sobbing, put his arms around her. ‘Farid saved Dustfinger at the mill. He’s protected him ever since he arrived here—’
‘Yes, yes, all right!’ growled Fenoglio, feeling his nose. It hurt. ‘I’m a heartless old man, I know. But although you may not believe it, I felt dreadful when I saw Dustfinger lying there. And then Roxane’s tears, appalling, really appalling. All the wounded men, Meggie, all the dead, so many dead … no, Meggie, the words don’t obey me any more. Except when it suits them. They’ve turned against me like snakes.’
‘Exactly. You’re a failure, a miserable failure!’ Farid shook Meggie off. ‘You don’t know your own trade. But someone else does. The man who brought Dustfinger here. Orpheus. He’ll get him back, you wait and see. Write him here! You can at least do that! Yes, write Orpheus here at once or … or … I’ll tell the Adderhead you were going to kill him, I’ll tell all the women in Ombra it’s your fault their menfolk are dead … I’ll … I’ll …’
He stood there with his fists clenched, quivering with rage and despair. But the old man just looked at him. Then, with difficulty, he rose to his feet. ‘Do you know something, my boy?’ he said, putting his face very close to Farid’s. ‘If you’d asked me nicely I might have tried, but not this way. No, no! Fenoglio must be asked, not threatened. I still have that much pride left.’
At this Farid looked like going for him again, but Meggie held him back. ‘Fenoglio, stop it!’ she shouted at the old man. ‘He’s desperate, can’t you see that?’
‘Desperate? So what? I’m desperate too!’ Fenoglio snapped at her. ‘My story is foundering in misfortune, and these hands here,’ he said, holding them out to her, ‘don’t want to write any more! I’m afraid of words, Meggie! Once they were like honey, now they’re poison, pure poison! But what is a writer who doesn’t love words any more? What have I come to? This story is devouring me, crushing me, and I’m its creator!’
‘Fetch Orpheus!’ said Farid hoarsely. Meggie could hear how much trouble he was taking to control his voice, to banish the rage from it. ‘Bring him here, and let him write it for you! Teach him what you know, the way Dustfinger taught me everything! Let him find the right words for you. He loves your story, he told Dustfinger so himself! He even wrote you a letter when he was a boy.’
‘Did he?’ For a moment Fenoglio sounded almost like his old inquisitive self.
‘Yes, he admires you! He thinks this is the best of all stories, he said so!’
‘Really?’ Fenoglio sounded flattered. ‘Well, it isn’t bad. That is to say, it wasn’t bad.’ He looked thoughtfully at Farid. ‘A pupil. A pupil for Fenoglio,’ he murmured. ‘A writer’s apprentice. Hm. Orpheus …’ He spoke the name as if he had to taste it. ‘The only poet who ever challenged Death … appropriate.’
Farid was looking at him so hopefully that it went to Meggie’s heart again. But Fenoglio smiled, even though it was a sad smile.
‘Look at him, Meggie!’ he said. ‘He has the same pleading look as my grandchildren could turn on to wheedle anything out of me. Does he look at you the same way when he wants something from you?’
Meggie felt herself blushing. However, Fenoglio turned back to Farid. ‘You know we’ll need Meggie’s help, don’t you?’
Farid nodded, and looked at her.
‘I’ll read it,’ she said quietly. ‘If Fenoglio writes it, I’ll read it.’ And get the man who helped Mortola to bring my father here and almost kill him into this story, Meggie added in her thoughts. She tried not to think of what Mo would say about the deal.
However, Fenoglio already seemed to be searching for words in his mind. The right words – words that would not betray and deceive him. ‘Very well,’ he muttered abstractedly, ‘let’s get down to work one last time. But where am I going to find paper and ink? Not to mention a pen and a helpful glass man? Poor Rosenquartz is still in Ombra.’
‘I have paper,’ said Meggie, ‘and a pencil.’
‘That’s very beautiful,’ said Fenoglio when she put her notebook in his lap. ‘Did your father bind it?’
Meggie nodded.
‘There are some pages torn out.’
‘Yes, for a message to my mother and the letter I sent you. The one that Cloud-Dancer brought you.’
‘Oh. Oh yes. Him.’ For a moment Fenoglio looked dreadfully tired. ‘Books with blank pages,’ he murmured. ‘They seem to be playing more and more of a part in this story, don’t you think?’ Then he asked Meggie to leave him alone with Farid so that the boy could tell him about Orph
eus. ‘To be honest,’ he whispered to Meggie, ‘I think he vastly over-estimates the man’s abilities! What has this fellow Orpheus done? Put my own words together in a different order, that’s all. But I’ll admit I’m curious to meet him. It takes a fair amount of megalomania to give yourself a name like that, and megalomania is an interesting character trait.’
Meggie did not share his opinion, but it was too late to go back on her promise. She would read again. For Farid this time. She went quietly back to her parents, laid her head on Mo’s chest and fell asleep hearing his heartbeat in her ear. Words had saved him; why shouldn’t they do the same for Dustfinger? Even if he had gone far, far away … didn’t the words of this world rule even the land of silence?
73
The Bluejay
The world existed to be read. And I read it.
L.S. Schwartz,
Ruined by Reading
Resa and Meggie were asleep when Mo woke, but he felt as if he couldn’t breathe among all the stones and the dead a moment longer. The men guarding the entrance of the mine greeted him with a nod as he came climbing up to them. Pale morning light was seeping through the crevice that led to the outside world; the air smelled of rosemary, thyme, and the berries on Mortola’s poisonous trees. Mo’s senses were constantly confused by the way the familiar mingled with the strange in Fenoglio’s world – and by the fact that the strange features often struck him as more real than the others.
The guards were not the only men Mo met at the entrance to the mine. Five more were leaning against the walls of the gallery, among them Snapper and the Black Prince himself.
‘Ah, here comes the most wanted robber between Ombra and the sea!’ said Snapper, low-voiced, as Mo came towards them. They examined him like some new kind of animal, of which they had heard the strangest stories. And Mo felt more than ever like an actor who had stepped on stage with the unpleasant feeling that he knew neither the play nor his part in it.
‘I don’t know how the rest of you feel,’ said Snapper, glancing round at the others, ‘but I always thought some writer had made up the Bluejay. And that the only man who might lay claim to that feathered mask was our own Black Prince, even if he doesn’t entirely match the description in the songs. So when folk said the Bluejay was a prisoner in the Castle of Night, I thought they just wanted to hang some other poor fellow because he happened to have a scar on his arm. But then,’ he said, looking Mo up and down as extensively as if assessing him by every line of every song he had ever heard about the Bluejay, ‘then I saw you fight in the forest … and his sword-blade flashes through them like a needle through the pages, isn’t that what one of the songs says? A good description, indeed!’
Oh yes, Snapper? thought Mo. Suppose I were to tell you that the Bluejay was really made up by a writer, just like you?
How furtively they were all looking at him.
‘We must get away from here,’ said the Prince into the silence. ‘They’re combing the forest all the way down to the sea. They’ve already found two of our hiding-places and smoked them out – they haven’t yet come upon the mine, but only because they don’t expect us to be so close to their own back door.’ The bear grunted, as if amused by the stupidity of the men-at-arms. The grey muzzle in the furry black face, the clever little amber eyes – Mo had liked the bear even in the book, although he had imagined him slightly larger. ‘Tonight half of us will take the injured to the Badger’s Earth,’ the Black Prince continued, ‘and the others will go to Ombra with me and Roxane.’
‘And where does he go?’ Snapper was looking at Mo. Then they all looked at him. Mo felt as if their eyes were fingering his skin. Eyes full of hope, but what for? What had they heard about him? Were people already telling stories about what had happened at the Castle of Night, about the book full of blank pages, and Firefox’s death?
‘He has to get away from here, what else do you think? A long way away!’ The Prince picked a dead leaf out of the bear’s coat. ‘The Adderhead will be looking for him, even though he’s spreading word everywhere that Mortola was responsible for the attack in the forest.’ He nodded to a thin boy, at least a head shorter than Meggie, who was standing among the men. ‘Tell us again what the crier announced in your village.’
‘This,’ began the boy in a hesitant voice, ‘this is the Adderhead’s promise: If the Bluejay ever ventures to show his face in Argenta again, he will die the slowest death that the executioners of the Castle of Night have ever given anyone. And the man who brings him in will be rewarded with the Bluejay’s weight in silver.’
‘Better start starving yourself, then, Bluejay,’ mocked Snapper, but none of the others laughed.
‘Did you really make him immortal?’ It was the boy who asked this question.
Snapper laughed out loud. ‘Listen to the lad! I expect you think the Prince can fly too, eh?’
But the boy took no notice of him. He was still looking at Mo. ‘They say you yourself can’t die,’ he said in a low voice. ‘They say you made yourself a book like that too, a book of white pages with your death held captive in it.’
Mo had to smile. Meggie had so often looked at him wide-eyed, just like that. Is it a true story, Mo? Come on, tell me! They were all waiting for his answer, even the Black Prince. He saw it in their faces.
‘Oh, I can die all right,’ he said. ‘Believe me, I have come very close. As for the Adderhead, however – yes, I have made him immortal. But not for long.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ The smile had long since frozen on Snapper’s coarse-featured face.
Mo was looking not at him but at the Black Prince when he answered. ‘I mean that at present nothing can kill the Adderhead. No sword, no knife, no disease. The book I have bound for him protects him. But the same book will be his undoing, for he will have only a few weeks to enjoy it.’
‘Why’s that?’ It was the boy again.
Mo lowered his voice when he replied, just as he did when he was sharing a secret with Meggie. ‘Oh, it’s not particularly difficult to ensure that a book doesn’t live long, you know. Particularly not for a bookbinder. And that’s my trade, although so many people seem to think differently. Normally it’s not my job to kill a book – on the contrary, I’m usually called in to save the lives of books – but in this case I’m afraid I had to do it. After all, I didn’t want to be guilty of letting the Adderhead sit on his throne for all eternity, passing the time by hanging strolling players.’
‘Then you are a wizard!’ Snapper’s voice was hoarse.
‘No, really, I’m not,’ replied Mo. ‘Let me say it once again: I’m a bookbinder.’
They were staring at him again, and this time Mo wasn’t sure whether there might not be some fear mingled with the respect in their eyes.
‘Off you all go now!’ The Prince’s voice broke the silence. ‘Go and make litters for the injured.’ They obeyed, although every one of them cast a last glance at Mo before they walked away. Only the boy gave him a bashful smile too.
As for the Black Prince, he signalled to Mo to go with him.
‘A few weeks,’ he repeated when they were in the gallery where he and the bear slept, away from the others. ‘How many exactly?’
How many? Even Mo couldn’t tell for sure. If they didn’t notice what he had done for the time being, it would all be quite quick. ‘Not very many,’ he replied.
‘And they won’t be able to save the book?’
‘No.’
The Prince smiled. It was the first smile Mo had seen on his dark face. ‘That’s consoling news, Bluejay. It saps one’s courage to fight an immortal enemy. But you do know, don’t you, that he’ll only hunt you down all the more pitilessly when he realizes that you’ve tricked him?’
So he would, indeed. That was why Mo hadn’t told Meggie, had done what had to be done in secret, while she was asleep. He hadn’t wanted the Adderhead to see the fear in her face.
‘I don’t intend to come back to this side of the forest,’ he told the Prince.
‘Perhaps there’ll be a good hiding-place for us somewhere near Ombra.’
The Prince smiled again. ‘I’m sure there will be,’ he said, and looked at Mo as intently as if he meant to see straight into his heart. Go on, try it, thought Mo. Look into my heart and tell me what you find there, because I don’t know myself any more. He remembered reading about the Black Prince for the first time. What a fabulous character, he had thought, but the man now standing before him was considerably more impressive than the image of him that the words had conjured up. Perhaps a little smaller, though. And a little sadder.
‘Your wife says you’re not the man we take you for,’ said the Prince. ‘Dustfinger said the same. He told me that you come from the country where he spent all those years when we thought he was dead. Is it very different from here?’
Mo couldn’t help smiling. ‘Oh yes. I think so.’
‘How? Are people happier there?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Perhaps! Hm.’ The Prince bent, and picked up something lying on the blanket under which he slept. ‘I’ve forgotten what your wife calls you. Dustfinger had a strange name for you: Silvertongue. But Dustfinger is dead, and to everyone else you will be the Bluejay now. Even I find it difficult to call you anything else, after seeing you fight in the forest. So this belongs to you here in future. Unless you decide to go back after all … back to the country where you came from, and where I suppose you have another name.’
Mo had never before seen the mask that the Prince was holding out to him. The leather was dark and damaged here and there, but the feathers shone brightly: white, black, yellowish-brown, blue. The colours of a bluejay.
‘This mask has been celebrated in many songs,’ said the Black Prince. ‘I allowed myself to wear it for a while, and several of us have done so too, but now it is yours.’
In silence, Mo turned the mask this way and that in his hands. For a strange moment he felt an urge to put it on, as if he had done so many times before. Oh yes, Fenoglio’s words were powerful, but words they were, nothing but words – even if they had been written for him. Any actor, surely, could choose the part he played?
‘No,’ he said, handing the mask back to the Prince. ‘Snapper is right; the Bluejay is a fantasy, an old man’s invention. Fighting, I assure you, is not my trade.’
The Prince looked at him thoughtfully, but he did not take the mask. ‘Keep it all the same,’ he said. ‘It’s too dangerous for anyone to wear it now. And as for your trade – none of us here was born a robber.’
Mo said nothing to that. He just looked at his fingers. It had taken him a long time to wash off all the blood on them after the fight in the forest.
He was still standing there holding the mask, alone in the dark gallery that smelled of the long-forgotten dead, when he heard Meggie’s voice behind him.
‘Mo?’ She looked at his face with concern. ‘Where have you been? Roxane is setting out soon, and Resa wants to know if we’re going with her. What do you say?’
Yes, what did he say? Where did he want to go? Back to my workshop, he thought. Back to Elinor’s house. Or did he?