Tullio took them to Balbulus, Tullio the furry-faced servant said in Fenoglio’s book to be the offspring of a brownie father and a moss-woman mother.
‘How are you?’ Fenoglio asked him as Tullio led them down the corridors. As if it had ever interested him how his creations were doing.
Tullio answered with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘They hunt me,’ he said, his voice barely audible. ‘Our new master’s friends – and he has a lot of them. They chase me along the passages and shut me in with the hounds, but Violante protects me. She protects me even though her son is one of the worst of them.’
‘Her son?’ Mo asked.
‘Yes, didn’t Meggie tell you about him?’ Fenoglio whispered back. ‘Jacopo, a real little devil. His grandfather in miniature, although he’s getting to look more like his father every day. Not that he ever shed a tear for Cosimo. Far from it. They say he daubed Cosimo’s bust in the crypt with Balbulus’s paints, and in the evenings he sits beside the Milksop or on Sootbird’s lap instead of keeping his mother company. It’s said he even spies on her for his grandfather the Adderhead.’
Mo had read nothing in Fenoglio’s book about the door outside which Tullio finally stopped, rather breathless after climbing so many steep flights of stairs. He instinctively put out his hand to stroke the letters that covered it. ‘They’re so beautiful, Mo,’ Meggie had murmured as the two of them sat high in their prison in the Castle of Night. ‘Intertwined as if someone had written them on the wood in liquid silver.’
Tullio raised his small, furry fist and knocked. The voice calling them in could belong to no one but Balbulus. Cold, self-satisfied, arrogant … the words Meggie had used to describe the best illuminator in this world were not nice ones. Tullio stood on tiptoe, took hold of the door handle – and then let go of it again in alarm.
‘Tullio!’ The voice echoing up the staircase sounded very young, but it seemed used to giving orders. ‘Where are you, Tullio? You must come and hold the torches for Sootbird.’
‘Jacopo!’ Tullio breathed the word as if it were the name of an infectious illness. He ducked and instinctively tried to shelter behind Mo’s back.
A boy of perhaps six or seven came running upstairs. Mo had never seen Cosimo the Fair. The Milksop had had all his statues smashed, but Battista still had a few coins with his picture on them. A face almost too beautiful to be real, that was how everyone described him. His son had obviously inherited that beauty, although as yet it was only developing on his still round, childish face. But it was not an endearing face. The boy’s eyes were watchful, and his mouth was as sullen as an old man’s. His black tunic had an embroidered pattern showing his grandfather’s emblematic adder with its flickering tongue, and even his belt was set with silver snakes, but around his neck dangled a silver nose – the Piper’s trademark.
Fenoglio cast Mo a glance of alarm and stood in front of him, as if that would hide him from the boy.
You must come and hold the torches for Sootbird. Now what, Mo? He instinctively glanced down the stairs, but Jacopo had come alone, and this castle was large. His hand went to his belt all the same.
‘Who’s that?’ Only the defiance in the clear voice sounded like a little boy’s. Jacopo was breathing heavily from all that stair-climbing.
‘He’s … er … he’s the new bookbinder, my Prince!’ replied Fenoglio, bowing. ‘I’m sure you remember how often Balbulus has complained of the clumsiness of our local bookbinders!’
‘And this one’s better?’ Jacopo folded his little arms. ‘He doesn’t look like a bookbinder. Bookbinders are old, and all pale because they sit indoors the whole time.’
‘Oh, we go out now and then too,’ replied Mo. ‘We go out to buy the best leather, new stamps, good knives, or to dry parchment in the sun if it’s damp …’
He found it difficult to feel afraid of the boy, although he had heard so much that was bad about him. Cosimo’s son reminded him of a boy he had known at school who was unlucky enough to be the headmaster’s son. He used to stalk around the school yard like a copy of his father – and he was afraid of everything and everyone in the world. That’s all very well, Mortimer, Mo told himself, but he was only a headmaster’s son. This is the grandson of the Adderhead, so take care.
Jacopo frowned and looked disapprovingly at him. Obviously he didn’t like the fact that Mo was so much taller than he was. ‘You didn’t bow! You have to bow to me.’
Mo felt Fenoglio’s warning glance and bowed his head. ‘My Prince.’
It was difficult. He would rather have chased Jacopo along the castle corridors in fun, the way he used to chase Meggie in Elinor’s house, just to see if the child in him would emerge, carefully hidden as it was behind his grandfather’s mannerisms.
Jacopo acknowledged his bow with a magnanimous nod, and Mo bowed his head again so that the boy wouldn’t see his smile.
‘My grandfather is having trouble with a book,’ remarked Jacopo in his arrogant voice. ‘A lot of trouble. Perhaps you can help him.’
Trouble with a book. Mo felt his heart miss a beat. In his mind’s eye he saw the book before him again, felt the paper between his fingers. All those blank pages.
‘My grandfather has had lots of bookbinders hanged already because of that book.’ Jacopo looked at Mo as if working out the size of the noose to fit his neck. ‘He even had one flayed because the man had promised he could make the book better. Will you try all the same? But you’d have to ride to the Castle of Night with me so that my grandfather can see I was the one who found you, not the Milksop.’
Mo managed to get out of answering that as the door covered with letters opened and a man came out, an expression of annoyance on his face.
‘What’s all this?’ he snapped at Tullio. ‘First there’s a knock but no one comes in, then so much talk that my brush slips. So, as you all clearly have not come to see me, I would be greatly obliged if you’d continue your conversation somewhere else. There are more than enough rooms in this castle where no real work is done.’
Balbulus … Meggie had described him very well. The slight lisp, the short nose and plump cheeks, the dark brown hair already receding from his forehead, although he was still quite a young man. An illuminator – and from what Mo had seen of his work, one of the best there had ever been, in either this world or his own. Mo forgot Jacopo and Fenoglio, he forgot the pillory and the boy in it, the soldiers down in the courtyard and even Sootbird. All he wanted was to go through that door. Even the glimpse of the workshop that he caught over Balbulus’s shoulder made his heart beat as fast as a schoolboy’s. He felt the same excitement as when he first held a book illustrated by Balbulus in his hand, when he was a prisoner threatened with death in the Castle of Night. This man’s work had made him forget all that. Letters flowing as easily as if there were no more natural occupation for the human hand than writing, and then the pictures. Living, breathing parchment!
‘I’ll talk to people where and when I like! I’m the Adderhead’s grandson!’ Jacopo’s voice was shrill. ‘I’m going to tell my uncle how impertinent you’ve been again. I’m going to tell him this minute! I’ll say he ought to take all your brushes away from you!’ With one last glance at Balbulus he turned. ‘Come on, Tullio. Or I’ll shut you in with the hounds!’
The little servant went to Jacopo’s side, head hunched between his shoulders, and the Adderhead’s grandson inspected Mo again from head to foot before turning and hurrying down the stairs again – suddenly just a child after all, in a hurry to see a show.
‘We ought to get out, Mortimer!’ Fenoglio whispered to him. ‘You should never have come to this place! Sootbird is here. It’s not good, not good at all.’
But Balbulus was already impatiently beckoning the new bookbinder into his workshop. What did Mo care about Sootbird? He could think of nothing but what awaited him behind the door with the silver letters all over it.
He had spent so many hours of his life poring over the art of illumination, bending close to s
tained pages until his back ached, following every brush stroke with a magnifying glass, and wondering how such marvels could be captured on parchment. All the tiny faces, all the fantastic creatures, landscapes, flowers, miniature dragons, insects, so real that they seemed to be crawling off the pages. Letters as artfully entwined as if their lines had begun to grow only on that parchment.
Was all that waiting for him on the desks in there?
Maybe. But Balbulus stood in front of his work as if he were its guardian, and his eyes were so expressionless that Mo wondered how a man who bent so cold a gaze on the world could paint such pictures. Pictures so full of strength and fire …
‘Inkweaver.’ Balbulus nodded to Fenoglio with a look that seemed to sum him up: the unshaven chin, the bloodshot eyes, the weariness in the old man’s heart. And what, Mo wondered, will he see in me?
‘So you’re the bookbinder?’ Balbulus inspected him as thoroughly as if he planned to capture him on parchment. ‘Fenoglio tells me truly wonderful things about your skill.’
‘Oh, does he?’ Mo couldn’t help sounding distracted. He wanted to see those pictures at long last, but once again the illuminator barred his way as if by chance. What did this mean? Let me see your work, thought Mo. You ought to feel flattered that I’ve risked my neck to come here for its sake. Good heavens, those brushes really were incredibly fine. And then there were the paints …
Fenoglio dug a warning elbow into his ribs, and Mo reluctantly tore himself away from the sight of all these wonders and looked into Balbulus’s expressionless eyes.
‘I’m sorry. Yes, I’m a bookbinder, and I am sure you will want to see a sample of my work. I didn’t have particularly good materials available, but …’ He put his hand under the cloak that Battista had made (stealing so much black fabric couldn’t have been easy), but Balbulus shook his head.
‘You don’t have to show me any evidence of what you can do,’ he said, never taking his eyes off Mo. ‘Taddeo, the librarian in the Castle of Night, has told me at length how impressively you proved your abilities there.’
Lost.
He was lost.
Mo sensed Fenoglio’s appalled glance on him. Yes, look at me, he thought. Are the words ‘reckless idiot’ written as black as ink on my forehead?
However, Balbulus smiled. His smile was as hard to fathom as his eyes.
‘Yes, Taddeo has told me about you at length.’ Meggie had given a good imitation of the way his tongue touched his teeth as he spoke. ‘Usually he is rather a reserved man, but he positively sung your praises to me in writing. After all, there aren’t many of your trade who can bind death itself in a book, are there?’
Fenoglio gripped his arm so hard that Mo could feel the old man’s fear. Did he think they could simply turn and walk out of the door? A guard would surely have been posted outside some time ago, and even if not, there were soldiers waiting at the bottom of the stairs. How quickly you got used to the way they could appear at any moment, armed with the power to take a man away, imprison him or kill him with impunity … how Balbulus’s colours glowed! Vermilion, sienna, burnt umber … how beautiful they were. Beauty that had lured him into a trap. Most birds were trapped with bread and a few tasty seeds, but the Bluejay could be caught by words and pictures.
‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about, highly esteemed Balbulus!’ stammered Fenoglio. His fingers were still clutching Mo’s arm. ‘The … er … librarian at the Castle of Night? No. No, Mortimer’s never worked on the other side of the forest. He comes from … from the north, yes, that’s it.’
What a terrible liar the old man was. You’d have thought someone who made up stories could tell better lies.
However that might be, Mo himself was no good at lying either, so he kept quiet, silently cursing his curiosity, his impatience, his recklessness, while Balbulus went on staring at him. What had made him think he could simply discard the part he was expected to play in this world by putting on a few black clothes? What had made him think he could go back to being Mortimer the bookbinder for a few hours here in Ombra Castle?
‘Oh, be quiet, Inkweaver!’ Balbulus snapped at Fenoglio. ‘Just how much of a fool do you think I am? Of course I knew who he was the moment you mentioned him. “A true master of his art.” Isn’t that how you put it? Words can be very treacherous, as you really should know by now.’
Fenoglio did not reply. Mo felt for the knife that the Black Prince had given him when they set out from Mount Adder. ‘From now on you must always have it with you,’ the Prince had told him, ‘even when you lie down to sleep.’ Mo had followed his advice, but what use would a knife be to him here? He’d be dead before he reached the foot of the stairs. For all he knew, maybe Jacopo himself had immediately realized who was standing in front of him and had raised the alarm too. Come quick, the Bluejay’s flown into the cage of his own free will!
I’m sorry, Meggie, thought Mo. Your father is an idiot. You rescued him from the Castle of Night only for him to get himself captured in another castle. Why hadn’t he listened to her when she saw Sootbird in the marketplace?
Had Fenoglio ever written a song about the Bluejay’s fear? The fear didn’t come when he had to fight, not then. It came when he thought of fetters, chains and dungeons, and desperation behind barred doors. Like now. He tasted fear on his tongue, felt it in his guts and his knees. At least an illuminator’s workshop is the right place for a bookbinder to die, he thought. But the Bluejay was back now, cursing the bookbinder for being so reckless.
‘Do you know what particularly impressed Taddeo?’ Balbulus flicked a little powdered paint off his sleeve. Yellow as pollen, it clung to the dark blue velvet. ‘Your hands. He thought it astonishing that hands which knew so much about killing could treat the pages of a book with such care. And you do have beautiful hands. Look at mine, now!’ Balbulus spread his fingers and examined them with distaste. ‘A peasant’s hands. Large and coarse. Would you like to see what they can do all the same?’
And at last he stood aside and waved them over, like a conjuror raising the curtain on his show. Fenoglio tried to hold Mo back, but if he’d fallen into the trap, then he meant at least to taste the bait that would cost him his life.
There they were. Illuminated pages even better than those he had seen in the Castle of Night. Balbulus had adorned one of them with nothing but his own initial. The B spread right across the parchment, clad in gold and dark green and sheltering a nest full of fire-elves. On the page beside it, flowers and leaves twined around a picture hardly the size of a playing card. Mo followed the tendrils with his eyes, discovered seed-heads, fire-elves, strange fruits, tiny creatures that he couldn’t name. The picture so skilfully framed showed two men surrounded by fairies. They were standing outside a village, with a crowd of ragged men behind them. One of the two was black and had a bear by his side. The other wore a bird mask, and the knife in his hand was a bookbinder’s knife.
‘The Black Hand and the White Hand of Justice. The Prince and the Bluejay.’ Balbulus looked at his work with barely concealed pride. ‘I’ll probably have to make some changes. You’re even taller than I thought, and your bearing … but what am I talking about? I’m sure you’re not anxious for this picture to resemble you too much – although of course it’s meant only for Violante’s eyes. Our new governor will never see it, because luckily there’s no reason for him to toil up all the stairs to my workshop. To the Milksop’s way of thinking, the value of a book is defined by the amount of wine it will buy. And if Violante doesn’t hide it well, he’ll soon have exchanged it – like all the other books my hands have made – for wine, or for a new silver-powdered wig. He can think himself truly lucky that I’m Balbulus the illuminator and not the Bluejay, or I’d be making parchment of his perfumed skin.’
The hatred in Balbulus’s voice was black as the night painted in his pictures, and for a moment Mo saw in those expressionless eyes a flash of the fire that made the illuminator such a master of his art.
&n
bsp; Footsteps resounded on the stairs, heavy and regular, footsteps of a kind that Mo had heard only too often in the Castle of Night. Soldiers’ footsteps.
‘What a pity. I really would have liked a longer chat!’ Balbulus heaved a regretful sigh as the door was pushed open. ‘But I’m afraid there are persons of much higher rank in this castle who want to talk to you.’
Three soldiers took Mo between them. Fenoglio watched in dismay as they tied his hands.
‘You can go, Inkweaver!’ said Balbulus.
‘But this – this is all a terrible misunderstanding!’ Fenoglio was trying really hard not to let his voice betray his fear, but even Mo wasn’t deceived.
‘Perhaps you shouldn’t have described him in such detail in your songs,’ Balbulus observed wearily. ‘To the best of my knowledge that’s been his undoing once before. By way of contrast, look at my pictures. I always show him with his mask on!’
Mo heard Fenoglio still protesting as the soldiers pushed him down the stairs. Resa! No, this time he didn’t have to fear for her. She was safe with Roxane at the moment, and the Strong Man was with her. But what about Meggie? Had Farid taken her to Roxane’s farm yet? The Black Prince would look after both of them. He’d promised that often enough. And, who knew, perhaps they’d find their way back – back to Elinor in the old house crammed with books right up to the roof, back to the world where flesh and blood wasn’t made of letters.
Mo tried not to think of where he would be by then. He knew just one thing: the Bluejay and the bookbinder would die the same death.
8
Roxane’s Pain
‘Hope,’ said Sleet bitterly. ‘I’ve learned to live without it.’
Paul Stewart,
Midnight Over Sanctaphrax
Resa often rode over to see Roxane, although it was a long way and the roads around Ombra grew more perilous with every passing day. But the Strong Man was a good bodyguard, and Mo let her go because he knew how many years she had lived in this world already, surviving even without him and the Strong Man.
Resa and Roxane had made friends tending the wounded together in the mine below Mount Adder, and their long journey through the Wayless Wood with a dead man had only deepened their friendship. Roxane never asked why Resa had wept almost as much as she did on the night when Dustfinger struck his bargain with the White Women. They had become friends not through talking, but by sharing experiences for which there were no words.
It was Resa who had gone to Roxane by night when she heard her sobbing under the trees far from the rest of the company, Resa who had embraced and comforted her, although she knew there was no comfort for the other woman’s sorrow. She did not tell Roxane about the day when Mortola shot Mo, leaving her alone with the fear that she had lost him for ever. Through all those many days and nights when she sat in a dark cave cooling his hot, feverish brow, she had only imagined how it would feel never to see him again, never to touch him again, never to hear his voice again. But the fear of pain was quite different from pain itself. Mo was alive. He talked to her, slept at her side, put his arms around her. Whereas Dustfinger would never put his arms around Roxane again. Not in this life. Roxane had nothing but memories left, and perhaps memories were sometimes worse than nothing.
And she knew that Roxane was feeling that pain for the second time. The first time, so the Black Prince had told Resa, the fire didn’t even leave Roxane her dead husband’s body. Perhaps that was why she guarded Dustfinger’s body so jealously. No one knew the place where she had taken him, to visit him when longing wouldn’t let her sleep.
It was when Mo’s fever kept returning at night, and he was sleeping badly, that Resa first rode to Roxane’s farm. She herself had often had