the bait to buy your freedom, the most wonderful bait of all, decked out with the finest pale-blue feathers!’
He began humming, as he always did when he was pleased with himself, and picked up Mortimer’s letter again. What else had the Bluejay written?
It will be as you require. By the Devil’s cloven hoof, he was writing in the style of public proclamations, like the robbers of the old days. I will try to call up the White Women, and in return you will write words to take my wife and daughter back to Elinor’s house. But all you are to say about me is that I will follow them later.
Well, well. What was this?
Surprised, Orpheus lowered the sheet of paper. Mortimer wanted to stay? Why? Because his noble and heroic heart wouldn’t let him steal away now that the Piper had made his threat? Or did he just like playing the part of a robber too much?
‘Well, never mind which, noble Bluejay,’ said Orpheus softly (oh, how he liked the sound of his own voice!). ‘It won’t turn out the way you think it will. Because I have plans of my own for you!’
High-minded idiot! Hadn’t Mortimer ever read any tale of robbers right through? No happy ending for Robin Hood, for Angelo Duca, for Dick Turpin and all the rest of them. Why would there be a happy ending for the Bluejay? No, he was going to play just one part: the bait on the hook, a tasty bait – and one condemned to certain death.
And I will write the last song about him! thought Orpheus as he strode up and down with a spring in his step, as if he already felt the right words inside him all the way down to his toes. Good people, hear the amazing tale of the Bluejay who brought the Fire-Dancer back from the dead but then, sad to say, lost his own life. Heart-rending. Like Robin Hood’s death at the hands of the treacherous nun, or Angelo Duca’s end on the gallows beside his dead friend, with the hangman riding him to death on his shoulders. Yes, every hero needs a death like that. Even Fenoglio wouldn’t write it in any other way.
Ah, but he hadn’t finished reading the letter yet! What else did that most noble of robbers have to say? Hang a piece of blue cloth in the window when you have written the words. (How romantic! A real robber’s idea. He really did seem to be turning more and more into the character made by Fenoglio in his image!) I will meet you at the graveyard of the strolling players on the following night. Farid knows where it is. Come alone, bringing one servant at the most. I know you are on friendly terms with the new governor, and I will not show myself until I am certain that none of his men is with you. Mortimer. (Well, well, so he actually still signed his old name. Who did he think he was fooling?)
Come alone? Oh yes, I’ll come alone, thought Orpheus. And you won’t be able to see the words I’ve sent on ahead of you!
He rolled up the letter and slid it under his desk.
‘Everything ready, Ironstone? A dozen sharpened pens, ink stirred slowly while you take sixty-five breaths, a sheet of the best parchment?’
‘A dozen pens. Sixty-five breaths. The very best parchment.’
‘What about this list of words?’ Orpheus looked at his bitten fingernails. He had recently taken to bathing them in rosewater every morning, but unfortunately that just made them tastier. ‘Your useless brother left his footprints all over the words beginning with B.’
The list. The list of all the words used by Fenoglio in Inkheart, arranged in alphabetical order. He had only recently told Jasper to prepare it – his brother had terrible handwriting. But unfortunately the glass man had only just reached the letter D, so Orpheus still had to look everything up in Fenoglio’s book if he wanted to be sure that any words he used were in Inkheart too. It was a nuisance, but it had to be done, and so far his method had proved its merits.
‘All ready!’ Ironstone nodded eagerly.
Good! The words were already coming. Orpheus sensed them like a tingling of his scalp. As soon as he picked up the pen he could hardly dip it in the ink fast enough. Dustfinger … the tears still came to his eyes when he remembered seeing him lying dead in the mine. Certainly one of the worst moments of his life.
And how the promise he’d given Roxane had come to haunt him, even if she had never believed a word of it! He had given it with the dead man at his feet, ‘I’ll find words as precious and intoxicating as the scent of a lily, words to beguile Death and open the cold fingers he has closed around Dustfinger’s warm heart!’ He had been looking for those words ever since he arrived in this world – even if Farid and Fenoglio thought he did nothing but write unicorns and rainbow-coloured fairies into it. But after his first failed attempts he had accepted the bitter fact that beauty of sound alone was not enough in this case. Words like lilies would never bring Dustfinger back. Death demanded a more substantial price – a price paid in flesh and blood.
Incredible that he hadn’t hit upon the idea of Mortimer before – the man who had made Death a laughing stock to the living when he had bound an empty book to make the Adderhead immortal!
So away with him! This world needed only one silver tongue, and it was his. Once he had fed Mortimer to Death, and Fenoglio’s brain was wrecked by the drink, only he would go on telling this story, on and on – with a suitable part in it for Dustfinger and a not inconsiderable part for himself.
‘Yes, call up the White Women for me, Mortimer!’ whispered Orpheus as he filled the parchment with word after word in his elegant script. ‘You’ll never know what I’ve whispered into their pale ears first! “Look what I’ve brought you! The Bluejay. Take him to your cold lord with greetings from Orpheus, and give me the fire-eater in exchange.” Ah, Orpheus, Orpheus, they can say many things about you, but they can never call you stupid.’
He dipped his pen in the ink with a soft laugh – and spun round when the door opened behind him. Farid came in. Damn it, where was Oss? ‘What do you want?’ he snapped at the boy. ‘How often do I have to tell you to knock before coming in? Next time I’ll throw the inkwell at your stupid head. Bring me wine! The best we have.’
How the lad looked at him as he closed the door. He hates me, thought Orpheus.
He liked that idea. In his experience only the powerful were hated, and that was what he meant to be in this world.
Powerful.
23
The Graveyard of the Strolling Players
He sits down on a hill and sings. They are songs of magic, strong enough to wake the dead to life. Softly, cautiously, his song rises, then it grows louder and more insistent, until the turf opens up and the cold earth cracks.
Tor Age Bringsværd,
The Wild Gods
The strolling players’ graveyard lay above a deserted village. Carandrella. It had kept its name, although the inhabitants had left long ago. Why and where they went no one knew now – an epidemic, some said, while others spoke of famine, and others again of two warring clans who had slaughtered one another and driven any survivors out. Whichever story was true, it wasn’t in Fenoglio’s book, and nor was this graveyard where the peasants had buried their dead among the Motley Folk, so that now they slept side by side for ever.
A narrow, stony path wound its way from the abandoned cottages up the furze-grown slope, and ended on a rocky headland. Standing there you could look far south over the tree-tops of the Wayless Wood towards Argenta, where the sea lay somewhere beyond the hills. The dead of Carandrella, they said in Lombrica, have the best view in the country.
A crumbling wall surrounded the graves. The gravestones were of the pale stone that was also used to build houses here. Stones for the living, stones for the dead. Names were incised on some of them, scratched clumsily as if whoever wrote them had learned the letters only to preserve the sound of a beloved name, rescuing it from the silence of death.
Meggie felt as if the stones were whispering those names to her as she walked past the graves – Farina, Rosa, Lucio, Renzo. Those stones that bore no names seemed like closed mouths, sad mouths that had forgotten how to speak. But perhaps the dead didn’t mind what their names had once been?
Mo was still
talking to Orpheus. The Strong Man was sizing up his bodyguard Oss as if wondering which of them had the broader chest.
Mo. Don’t do it! Please.
Meggie looked at her mother, and abruptly turned her face away when Resa returned her glance. She was so angry with her. It was all because of Resa’s tears, and because she had ridden off to see Orpheus, that Mo was here now.
The Black Prince had come with them as well as the Strong Man – and Doria, although his brother had told him to stay behind. Like Meggie, he was standing among the graves, looking around him at the things lying in front of the gravestones: faded flowers, a wooden toy, a shoe, a whistle. A fresh flower lay on one grave. Doria picked it up. The flower was white, like the beings they were waiting for. When he saw Meggie looking at him he came over to her. He really wasn’t at all like his brother. The Strong Man wore his brown hair short, but Doria’s was wavy and shoulder-length. Sometimes Meggie felt as if he had come out of one of the old fairy-tale books that Mo gave her when she had just learnt to read. The pictures in the books had been yellow with age, but Meggie used to look at them for hours, firmly convinced that the fairies who featured in some of the tales had painted them with their tiny hands.
‘Can you read the letters on the stones?’ Doria was still holding the white flower as he stopped in front of her. Two fingers of his left hand were stiff. His father had broken them long ago in a drunken rage when Doria tried to protect his sister from him. At least, that was how the Strong Man told the story.
‘Yes, of course.’ Meggie looked her father’s way again. Fenoglio had sent him a message, delivered by Battista. You can’t trust Orpheus, Mortimer! All useless.
Don’t do it, Mo. Please!
‘I’m looking for a name.’ Doria sounded shyer than usual. ‘But I can’t … I can’t read. It’s my sister’s name.’
‘What was she called?’
If the Strong Man was right, Doria had been fifteen on the very day when the Milksop was going to hang him. Meggie thought he looked older. ‘Ah, well,’ the Strong Man had said. ‘Could be he’s older. My mother’s not that good at counting. She can’t even remember my birthday.’
‘Her name was Susa.’ Doria looked at the graves as if the name alone could conjure up his sister. ‘My brother says she’s supposed to be buried here, only he can’t remember just where.’
They found the gravestone. It was overgrown with ivy, but the name was still clearly legible. Doria bent down and moved the ivy leaves aside. ‘She had hair as bright as yours,’ he said. ‘Lazaro says my mother turned her out because she wanted to go and live with the strolling players. He never forgave her for that.’
‘Lazaro?’
‘My brother. You call him the Strong Man.’ Doria traced the letters with his finger. They looked as if someone had scratched them into the stone with a knife. The first S was overgrown with moss.
Mo was still talking to Orpheus. Orpheus handed him a sheet of paper: the words he had written at Resa’s request. Was Mo going to read them this very night, if the White Women really did appear? Would they all be back in Elinor’s house before it was day? Meggie didn’t know whether the idea made her feel sad or relieved. She didn’t want to think about it, either. All she wanted was for Mo to get on his horse and ride away again, and for her mother’s tears never to have brought him here.
Farid was standing a little way off with Jink on his shoulder. At the sight of him, Meggie’s heart felt the same chill as when she looked at Resa. Farid had taken Orpheus’s demand to Mo knowing what danger it could mean for her father, knowing too that if the deal went through they might never see each other again. But all that meant nothing to Farid. He cared for only one person, and that was Dustfinger.
‘They say you come from far away, you and the Bluejay.’ Doria had drawn the knife from his belt and was scratching the moss away from his sister’s name. ‘Is it different there?’
What could she say to that? ‘Yes,’ she murmured at last. ‘Very different.’
‘Really? Farid says there are coaches that can drive without horses, and music that comes out of a tiny black box.’
Meggie couldn’t help smiling. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said quietly.
Doria placed the white flower on his sister’s grave and stood up. ‘Is it true that there are flying machines in that country too?’ How curious he was! ‘I once tried making myself wings. I even flew a little way with them, but not very far.’
‘Yes, there are flying machines there as well,’ replied Meggie distractedly. ‘Resa can draw them for you.’
Mo folded the sheet of paper that Orpheus had given him. Her mother went over to him and began talking to him urgently. Why bother? He wouldn’t listen to her. ‘There’s no other way, Meggie,’ was all he had said, when she herself had begged him not to agree to the offer made by Orpheus. ‘Your mother is right. It’s time to go back. This is getting more dangerous every day.’ And what could she say to that? The robbers had moved camp three times over the last few days because of the Piper’s patrols, and they had heard that women were going to Ombra Castle all the time, claiming to have seen the Bluejay, in the hope of saving their children.
Oh, Mo.
‘He’ll come to no harm,’ said Doria behind her. ‘You wait and see, even the White Women love his voice.’
Nonsense. Nothing but poetic nonsense!
When Meggie went over to Mo her boots left traces in the hoarfrost as if a ghost had been walking over the graveyard. Mo’s face was so serious. Was he afraid? Well, what do you think, Meggie? she asked herself. He wants to call the White Women. They’re made of nothing but longing, Meggie.
Farid looked awkwardly away as she passed him.
‘Please! You don’t have to do it!’ Resa’s voice sounded far too loud among all the dead, and Mo gently laid his hand on her lips.
‘I want to,’ he said. ‘And you mustn’t be afraid. I know the White Women better than you think.’ He tucked the folded sheet of paper into her belt. ‘There. Take good care of it. If for any reason I’m unable to read it, then Meggie will do it.’
If for any reason I’m unable to read it … if they kill me with their cold white hands, the way they killed Dustfinger. Meggie opened her mouth – and shut it again when Mo looked at her. She knew that look. No arguing. Forget it, Meggie.
‘Good. Very well, then. I’ve done my part of the bargain. I … er, I don’t think we should wait any longer!’ Orpheus was visibly impatient. He was stepping from foot to foot, with an unctuous smile on his lips. ‘They’re said to like it when the moon is shining, before it disappears behind the clouds …’
Mo just nodded and signalled to the Strong Man, who gently led Resa and Meggie away from the graves to an oak growing at the side of the graveyard. At a gesture from his brother, Doria joined them under the tree.
Orpheus too took a couple of steps back, as if it were too dangerous to stand beside Mo now.
Mo exchanged a glance with the Black Prince. What had he told him? That he was going to try calling the White Women only for Dustfinger’s sake? Or did the Prince know about the words that act would buy the Bluejay? No, surely not.
Side by side, the two of them walked among the graves. The bear trotted after them. As for Orpheus, he and his bodyguard hurried over to the oak where Meggie and Resa were standing. Only Farid stayed put as if rooted to the spot, on his face both fear of the beings whom Mo was about to summon, and longing for the man they had taken away with them.
A light wind blew over the graveyard, cool as the breath of those they were waiting for, and Resa instinctively took a step forward, but the Strong Man drew her back.
‘No,’ he said quietly, and Resa stood still in the shade of the branches and stared, like Meggie, at the two men who had now stopped in the middle of the graveyard.
‘Show yourselves, daughters of Death!’
Mo’s voice sounded as calm as if he had called on them many times before. ‘You remember me, don’t you? You remember Ca
pricorn’s fortress, you remember following me into the cave, and how faintly my heart beat against your white fingers. The Bluejay wants to ask you about a friend. Where are you?’
Resa put a hand to her heart. It must be beating as fast as Meggie’s.
The first White Woman appeared right beside the gravestone where Mo was standing. She had only to reach out her arm to touch him, and she did touch him, as gently as if she were greeting a friend.
The bear moaned and lowered his head. Then he retreated step by step, and did something he had never done before. He left his master’s side. But the Black Prince stood his ground next to Mo, although his dark face showed fear such as Meggie had never seen on it before.
Mo’s face, however, gave nothing away when the pale fingers caressed his arm. The second White Woman appeared to his right. She put her hand to his breast, to the place where his heart was beating. Resa cried out and took another step forward, but the Strong Man held her back again.
‘They won’t harm him. Watch!’ he whispered to her.
Another White Woman appeared, then a fourth, and a fifth. They surrounded Mo and the Black Prince until Meggie saw the two men only as shadows among those misty figures. They were so beautiful – and so terrible – and for a moment Meggie wished Fenoglio could see them too. She knew how proud he would have been of the sight, proud of the flightless angels he had created.
More and more kept coming. They seemed to form from the white vapour that Mo and the Prince exhaled into the air. Why were there so many? Meggie saw the same enchantment that she felt on Resa’s face too, even on Farid’s, although he was so frightened of ghosts.
But then the whispering began, in voices that seemed as ethereal as the pale women themselves. It grew louder and louder, and enchantment turned to fear. Mo’s outline blurred, as if he were dissolving in all the whiteness. Doria looked at his brother in alarm. Resa called Mo’s name. The Strong Man tried to hold her back once more, but she tore herself away and began to run. Meggie ran after her, plunging into the mist of translucent bodies. Faces turned to her, as pale as the stones over which she stumbled. Where was her father?
She tried to push the white figures aside, but she only reached into a void again and again, until suddenly she touched the Black Prince. There he stood, his face ashen, his sword in his trembling hand, looking around him as if he had forgotten where he was. But the White Women were no longer whispering. They dissolved like smoke blowing in the wind. The night seemed darker when they were gone. So dark. And so terribly cold.
Resa called Mo’s name again and again, and the Prince looked round desperately, his useless sword in his hand.
But Mo was not there.
24