‘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 jeweller’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 rucksack 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. Silvertongue 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.’
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 honour. Please. I want to go with you! I can be your look-out 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.
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 for ever.’
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 car park 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 about in a wire-netting run in one corner. The walls surrounding the kitchen garden were high enough for a prison.
Fenoglio was sitting on the lower bed, staring gloomily at the dusty floor. The wooden floorboards creaked whenever they stepped on them. Outside the door, Flatnose was protesting to Basta.
‘You want me to do what? No, find someone else for the job, dammit! I’d rather go over to the next village, put petrol-soaked rags outside someone’s door or hang a dead rooster from the window-frame. Or run round outside the house with a devil mask on, like Cockerell had to do last month, but I’m not cooling my heels here just to keep watch on an old man and a little girl! Get one of the lads. They’ll be glad to have a change from cleaning cars.’
But Basta wasn’t open to persuasion. ‘You’ll be relieved after supper,’ he said, and then he was gone. Meggie heard his footsteps retreating down the long corridor. There were five doors to pass, then go down the staircase, at the foot of the stairs turn left for the front door … She had carefully taken note of the way. But how was she to get past Flatnose? She went over to the window again and opened it. Just looking out made her feel dizzy. No, she couldn’t climb down. She’d break her neck.
‘Leave the window open,’ said Fenoglio behind her. ‘It’s so hot in here I feel as if I might melt.’
Meggie sat down on the bed beside him. ‘I’m going to run away,’ she whispered. ‘As soon as it gets dark.’
The old man looked at her incredulously, shaking his head very firmly. ‘Are you mad? It’s much too dangerous!’
Out in the corridor, Flatnose was still muttering angrily to himself.
‘I’ll say I have to go to the loo.’ Meggie was clutching her rucksack. ‘Then I’ll just run off.’
Fenoglio took her by the shoulders. ‘No!’ he whispered emphatically. ‘No, you won’t! We’ll think of something. Thinking up ideas is my job, remember?’
Meggie tightened her lips. ‘Yes, all right,’ she murmured, getting up to go back to the window. Dusk was already falling outside. I’m going to try, all the same, she thought as Fenoglio stretched out with a sigh on the narrow bed behind her. I’m not just going to sit here like bait! I shall run away before they catch Mo too.
And for the hundredth time, as she waited for darkness, she tried to push away the question that kept coming into her head: where was Mo? Why hadn’t he come?
37
Carelessness
‘You think this is a trap, then?’ the Count asked.
‘I always think everything is a trap until proven otherwise,’ the Prince answered. ‘Which is why I’m still alive.’
William Goldman,
The Princess Bride
It was still hot when the sun had gone down. There was not a breath of wind in the darkness, and the glow-worms were dancing above the dry grass as Dustfinger crept back to Capricorn’s village.
Two guards were strolling around the car park, and neither of them was wearing earphones, so Dustfinger took a different route to Capricorn’s house this time. The streets at the far end of the village had been so utterly destroyed by the earthquake which drove out the last villagers that Capricorn had not had them rebuilt. These streets were still blocked by the rubble of ruined walls, and it wasn’t very safe to walk there. Even after so many years, loose stones might fall. So Capricorn’s men avoided that part of the village, where dirty dishes left by its long-gone inhabitants still stood on many tables behind dilapidated front doors. There were no floodlights here, and even the guards seldom came this way.
Tumbled heaps of broken tiles and stones stood more than knee-high in the street that Dustfinger chose. They slipped beneath his feet as he clambered over them, and when he listened to the nocturnal sounds again, afraid the noise might have attracted someone’s attention, he saw a guard appear among the ruined houses. His mouth was dry with terror as he ducked behind the nearest wall. Swallows’ nests clung to it, one
above another. The guard was humming as he came closer. Dustfinger knew him; he had been with Capricorn for many years. Basta had recruited him from a village in another country. For Capricorn had not always lived among these hills. There had been other places, remote villages like this one, houses, abandoned farms, even a fortified castle once. But a day had always come when the web of fear so expertly spun by Capricorn tore, and the attention of the police was drawn to his men and what they were up to. Eventually the same thing would happen here.
The guard stood still to light a cigarette. Its smoke drifted to Dustfinger’s nostrils. Turning his head, he saw a thin white cat perched among the stones. It sat there perfectly still, its green eyes staring at him. ‘Sssh!’ he wanted to whisper. ‘Do I look dangerous? No, but that man there will shoot first you, then me.’ The green eyes went on staring. The white tail began twitching back and forth. Dustfinger looked at his dusty boots, at a twisted iron bar lying among the stones, anywhere but at the cat. Animals don’t like you to look them in the eye. Gwin bared his sharp teeth whenever Dustfinger looked straight at him.
The guard began humming again, the cigarette between his lips. At last, just as Dustfinger was beginning to feel he would be crouching behind this ruined wall for the rest of his life, the guard turned and strolled off. Dustfinger dared not move until the sound of his footsteps had died away. When he straightened up, feeling stiff, the cat raced away, spitting, and he stood there for a long time among the empty houses, waiting for his heartbeat to slow.
No other guard crossed his path, and soon he was vaulting over Capricorn’s wall. The scent of thyme greeted him, a heavy scent that usually filled the air only by day. But everything seemed to be aromatic this hot night, even the tomato plants and lettuces. Poisonous plants grew in the bed just outside the house. These the Magpie tended herself. Many a dead body in the village had smelled of oleander or henbane.
The window of the room where Resa slept was open, as usual. When Dustfinger imitated Gwin’s angry chattering a hand waved from the open window, and then quickly disappeared. He leaned against the grating over the door and waited. The sky above him was sprinkled with so many stars there hardly seemed to be any space left for the darkness. She’s sure to have found out something, he thought, but suppose she tells me Capricorn has locked the book in one of his safes?
The door behind the grating opened. It always squealed, as if complaining of being disturbed at night. Dustfinger turned, and looked into a strange girl’s face. She was young, perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old, her cheeks still chubby like a child’s.
‘Where’s Resa?’ Dustfinger clutched the grating. ‘What’s happened to her?’
The girl seemed to be transfixed by terror. She was staring at him as if she had never seen a scarred face before.
‘Did she send you down here?’ Dustfinger wished he could put his hands through the grating and shake this silly little goose. ‘Tell me! I don’t have all night.’ He ought not to have asked Resa to help him. He ought to have gone searching for the book himself. How could he have endangered her? ‘Have they shut her up somewhere? Tell me!’
The girl looked at something over his shoulders, and took a step back. Dustfinger spun round, to see whatever she had seen – and found himself looking into Basta’s face.
Dustfinger’s mind raced. Why hadn’t he heard anything? Basta was notorious for his silent tread, but Flatnose, who was with him, was no master of the art of stalking. And Basta had brought someone else too: Mortola was standing beside him. So it wasn’t just fresh air that she had been enjoying last night. Or had Resa betrayed him to her? The idea hurt.
‘I really didn’t expect you to venture here again,’ purred Basta, pushing him against the grating with the flat of his hand. Dustfinger felt the iron bars pressing into his back.
Flatnose was grinning as broadly as a child at Christmas. He always grinned like that when he was allowed to put the fear of death into someone.
‘And what have you to do with the lovely Resa?’ Basta snapped his knife open, and Flatnose’s smile widened as fear brought out beads of sweat on Dustfinger’s forehead. ‘I always said so!’ continued Basta as he slowly brought the tip of the knife closer to Dustfinger’s chest. ‘The fire-eater’s in love with Resa, I said, he’d devour her with his eyes if he could, but the others wouldn’t believe me. All the same – to think of a lily-livered coward like you venturing here!’
‘Ah, but he’s in love,’ said Flatnose, laughing.
But Basta merely shook his head. ‘No, our dirty-fingered friend wouldn’t have come here for love, he’s far too cold a fish. He’s here for the book. Am I right? You’re still homesick for those fluttering fairies and stinking trolls.’ Almost tenderly, Basta ran the knife across Dustfinger’s throat.
Dustfinger forgot how to breathe. The trick of it seemed to have escaped him.
‘Back to your room!’ the Magpie snapped at the girl behind him. ‘Why are you still standing around?’
Dustfinger heard the rustle of a dress, and a door closed abruptly.
Basta’s knife was still at his throat, but just as he was about to let the tip of it wander a little higher the Magpie seized his arm. ‘That’s enough!’ she commanded. ‘You can stop your little game now, Basta.’
‘That’s right, the boss said we were to bring him in uninjured.’ Flatnose’s voice made it clear how little he thought of this order.
Basta let the knife wander over Dustfinger’s throat one last time. Then, with a swift movement, he snapped it shut again.
‘What a shame!’ said Basta.
Dustfinger felt the man’s breath on his own skin. Basta’s breath smelled of mint, fresh and sharp. Apparently a girl he’d once wanted to kiss had told him he had bad breath. The girl had regretted it, but ever since then Basta chewed peppermint leaves from morning to night. ‘You’ve always given good sport, Dustfinger,’ he said as he stepped back, still holding the closed flick-knife.
‘Take him to the church!’ Mortola ordered. ‘I’ll go and tell Capricorn.’
‘Did you know the boss is very angry with your mute girlfriend?’ whispered Flatnose to Dustfinger as he and Basta dragged him between them. ‘She was always quite a favourite of his.’
For a split second Dustfinger felt almost happy.
So Resa hadn’t given him away.
All the same, he never ought to have asked her for help. Never.
38
A Quiet Voice
She liked his tears so much that she put out her beautiful finger and let them run over it.
Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies.
J.M. Barrie,
Peter Pan
Meggie did try her plan. As soon as it was dark she hammered on the door with her fist. Fenoglio woke with a start, but before he could stop her Meggie had called to the guard outside the door that she had to go to the loo. The man who had relieved Flatnose was a short-legged fellow with jug ears, who was amusing himself by swatting moths with a rolled-up newspaper. Over a dozen insects were already smeared on the white wall when he let Meggie out into the corridor.
‘I need to go too!’ cried Fenoglio, perhaps intending to dissuade Meggie from carrying out her plan, but the guard closed the door in his face. ‘One at a time!’ he grunted at the old man. ‘And if you can’t wait, you’ll just have to pee out of the window.’
Taking his newspaper with him as he escorted Meggie to the lavatory, he killed three more moths and a butterfly that was fluttering helplessly from wall to bare wall. Finally, he pushed a door open, the last door before the staircase to the ground floor. Just a few more steps, thought Meggie. I’m sure I can run downstairs faster than he can.
‘Please, Meggie, you must forget about running away!’ Fenoglio had kept whispering in her ear. ‘You’ll get lost. There’s nothing outside but wild country for miles! Your father w
ould be furious if he knew what you were planning.’
Oh no, he wouldn’t, Meggie had thought. But when she was in the little room which contained nothing but a lavatory and a bucket her courage almost failed her. It was so dark outside, so terribly dark. And it was still a long way to the door of Capricorn’s house.
I must try, she whispered to herself before she opened the door. I must, I must!
The guard caught up with her on the fifth stair. He carried her back over his shoulder, like a sack of potatoes. ‘And next time I’ll take you to the boss!’ he said before pushing her back into the room. ‘He’ll think up a good punishment for you.’
She cried for almost half an hour, while Fenoglio sat beside her staring unhappily into space. ‘It’s all right,’ he kept murmuring, but nothing was all right, nothing at all.
‘We don’t even have a light in here,’ she finally sobbed. ‘And they’ve taken my books away.’
At that Fenoglio reached under his pillow and put a torch on her lap. ‘I found it under my mattress,’ he whispered. ‘With a few books too. Who would have thought someone had hidden them there?’
Darius, the reader. Meggie could remember how the thin little man had come hurrying up the nave of Capricorn’s church with his pile of books. The torch must surely be his. How long had Capricorn kept him prisoner in this bare little room?
‘There was a blanket in the cupboard as well,’ whispered Fenoglio. ‘I put it on the top bunk for you. Can’t get up there myself, I’m afraid – when I tried the whole thing swayed like a ship at sea.’
‘I’d rather sleep in the top bunk anyway,’ murmured Meggie, rubbing her sleeve over her face. She didn’t want to cry any more. It was no good anyway.
Fenoglio had put some of Darius’s books on the bunk along with the blanket for her. Meggie carefully laid them out side by side. They were almost all books for grown-ups: a well-worn thriller, a book about snakes, another about Alexander the Great, the Odyssey. The only books for children were a collection of fairy tales and Peter Pan – and she had read Peter Pan at least half a dozen times already.
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