Now this story was growing darker with each day that passed, too.
"It'll be better if I go alone. " Farid dug the stick so hard into the ground that it broke in his fingers. "I'm used to slinking into strange villages, strange palaces, and houses – it was my job in the old days. If you know what I mean. "
Silvertongue nodded.
"They always sent me, " Farid went on. "Who'd be afraid of a thin young boy? I could sniff around everywhere without arousing suspicion. When did the guards change? Which was the best way of escape? Where did the richest man in the village live? If all went well they gave me enough to eat. If it didn't they beat me like a dog. "
"They?" asked Elinor.
"The thieves, " replied Farid.
The two adults fell silent. And Dustfinger still wasn't back. Farid looked toward the village and saw the first rays of the sun rising above its rooftops.
"Very well. You may be right," said Silvertongue. "You go down alone and find out what we need to know, but first untie us. If you don't we won't be able to help you if they do catch you. And I don't fancy sitting here tied up like this when the first snake wriggles past. "
The woman looked as frightened as if she already heard it rustling through the dead leaves. But Farid looked thought fully at Silvertongue's face, trying to decide whether his eyes could trust him as his ears already did. Finally, he stood up without a word, took the knife Dustfinger had given him from his belt, and cut them both free.
"My God, I'm never letting anyone tie me up like that again!" said Elinor, rubbing her arms and legs. "I feel as numb as a rag doll. How are you, Mortimer? Can you still feel your feet?"
Farid looked at her curiously. "You don't look like his wife. Are you his mother?" he asked, nodding in Silvertongue's direction.
Elinor's face came out in more red blotches than a toad stool. "Good Lord above, no! What makes you think that? Do I really look so old?" Glancing down at herself, she sighed.
"Yes, I probably do. All the same, I'm not his mother. I'm not Meggie's mother either, in case that's your next question. My children were all made of paper and printer's ink, and that man, " she said, pointing to the rooftops of Capricorn's village shining through the trees, "that man down there destroyed a great many of them. Believe me, he'll regret it. "
Farid looked at her doubtfully. He couldn't imagine Capricorn being afraid of a woman, certainly not one who got out of breath when she climbed a hill and was scared of snakes. No, if the man with the pale eyes feared anything it would be what most people feared – death. And Elinor didn't look as if she knew much about killing. Nor did Silvertongue.
"The girl…" Farid hesitated before asking, "Where is her mother?"
Silvertongue went over to the cold fireplace and took a piece of the bread lying among the soot-blackened stones. "She went away long ago, " he said. "Meggie was just three. What about your own mother?"
Farid shrugged his shoulders and looked up at the sky. It was as blue as if the night had never been. "I'd better go now, " he said, putting his knife away and picking up Dustfinger's backpack. Gwin was sleeping close to it, curled up between the roots of a tree. Farid picked him up and put him in the pack. The marten sleepily protested, but Farid tickled his head and strapped up the pack.
"Why are you taking that marten?" asked Elinor in surprise. "The smell of him could give you away. "
"He may be useful, " replied Farid, pushing the tip of Gwin's bushy tail into the backpack, too. "He's clever. Cleverer than a dog or a camel, anyway. He understands what you say to him, and maybe he'll find Dustfinger. "
"Farid. " Silvertongue was searching his pockets and took out a piece of paper. "I don't know if you'll be able to find out where they're keeping Meggie prisoner, " he said, hastily scribbling something with the stump of a pencil, "but if possible can you try to see that she gets this note?"
Farid took the piece of paper and looked at it. "What does it say?" he asked.
Elinor took the note from his hand. "Heavens above, Mortimer, what's this?" she asked.
Silvertongue smiled. "Meggie and I have often sent secret messages in this writing – she's much better at it than I am. Don't you recognize it? It comes from a book. We're not far away, it says. Don't worry. We'll soon get you out. Mo, Elinor, and Farid. Meggie will be able to read the message, but no one else will. "
"Aha!" murmured Elinor, giving Farid the note back. "Yes, if it falls into the wrong hands it's better that way. After all, perhaps some of those fire-raisers can read. "
Farid folded the note until it was about the size of a coin, then put it in his pants pocket. "I'll be back when the sun is above those hills at the latest, " he said. "Or if I'm not -"
"If you're not, I'll come and look for you, " Silvertongue ended the sentence.
"And so will I, of course, " added Elinor, looking fierce.
Farid did not think that was a good idea, but he didn't say so. He left, going the same way that Dustfinger had gone the night before, disappearing as if the ghosts who lurked in the darkness had eaten him alive.
42. A FURRY FACE ON THE WINDOWSILL
"It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards. "
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Flatnose brought Meggie and Fenoglio their breakfast, and this morning it was more than bread and a few olives. He put a basket of fruit on the table for them, and a plate of small, sweet cakes. But Meggie didn't at all like the smile he served up at the same time.
"All for you, princess!" he grunted, pinching her cheek with his clumsy fingers. "To strengthen your little voice. There's been a lot of excitement since Basta told us about the execution. Well, like I always said, there has to be more to life than hanging up a few dead roosters and shooting cats. "
Meggie exchanged a glance with Fenoglio. The old man was staring at Flatnose with an expression of disgust that suggested he couldn't believe such a creature had slipped from his pen.
"Yes, to be sure, it's been a terribly long time since we had a nice execution!" continued Flatnose, on his way back to the door. "It'd attract too much attention, they always said. And when someone really had to disappear – well, the word was to go carefully! Make it look like an accident. Is that any fun? You bet it isn't. Not like it used to be, a good execution with eating and drinking and dancing and music, that's the way to do it in style! And so we will this time – just like we did back in the good old days!"
Fenoglio took a sip of the black coffee that Flatnose had brought him and choked.
"Don't you fancy that kind of thing, grandpa?" Flatnose looked at him sneeringly. "Take my word for it, Capricorn's executions are something to remember!"
"Who do you think you're telling?" muttered Fenoglio unhappily.
At that moment someone knocked on the door. Flatnose had left it ajar, and Darius the reader put his head around it.
"Sorry!" he breathed, looking at Flatnose as anxiously as a bird obliged to get close to a hungry cat. "I – er – I'm to get the girl to read something aloud. Capricorn's orders. "
"Really? Well, let's just hope she reads something useful out of a book this time. Basta showed me the fairy. She doesn't even sprinkle any fairy dust, however hard you shake her. " Flatnose looked at Meggie with a mixture of dislike and respect. Perhaps he thought she was some kind of a witch. "Knock when you want to come out again, " he grunted, pushing past Darius.
Darius nodded and stood there for a moment before sitting down at the table with Meggie and Fenoglio, looking embarrassed. He stared greedily at the fruit until Fenoglio pushed the basket over to him. Tentatively, he took an apricot and put it into his mouth as if he thought he would never in his life taste anything so delicious again.
"Good heavens, it's only an apricot!" laughed Fenoglio. "Not exactly a rare fruit in these latitudes. "
Darius spat the apricot stone out into his hand, still looking awkward. "Whenever they shut me up in this room, " he said timidly, "they gave me nothing but dry bread. And they to
ok my books away, too, but I managed to hide some of them, and when the hunger got too bad I looked at the pictures in them. The best was a picture of apricots. I sometimes sat for hours staring at the painted fruit with my mouth watering. Ever since then I just can't control myself when I see apricots. "
Meggie took another apricot from the basket and put it into his hand. "Did they often shut you up?" she asked.
The thin little man shrugged. "Yes, whenever I didn't read something out of a book properly, " he replied evasively. "Well, that meant all the time, really. Then they finally gave up because they realized that my reading didn't exactly improve when they frightened me. On the contrary. Take Flatnose, for instance. " He lowered his voice, casting a nervous glance at the door. "I read Flatnose out while Basta was standing beside me with his knife. Well…" He raised his narrow shoulders regretfully.
Meggie looked at him sympathetically. Then she asked hesitantly, "Did you ever read any women out of that story?"
Fenoglio looked at her uneasily.
"Certainly, " Darius replied. "I read Mortola out of the book! She says I made her older and as rickety as a chair cob bled together badly, but I really don't think I got too much wrong with her. Luckily Capricorn agreed."
"Any younger women?" Meggie was looking at neither Darius nor Fenoglio.
"Oh yes, " Darius sighed. "On the same day as I read Mortola out. I remember it very well. Capricorn was living up in the north then, at a lonely, half-ruined farm in the mountains, and there weren't many local girls around. I myself was living not far away, in my sister's house. I worked as a teacher, but in my free time I read aloud now and then in libraries and schools, or for children's parties, and sometimes on warm summer evenings I even read in a square or cafe. I loved reading aloud."
His gaze wandered to the window, as if he could catch a glimpse there of those long-forgotten, happier days. "I think Basta noticed me when I was reading aloud at a party in the village – a passage from Dr. Dolittle – and all of a sudden there was a bird flying around. I really didn't know I had the gift – perhaps it was something to do with Basta being there. Anyway, when I went home Basta caught me as if I were a stray dog and took me to Capricorn. First he made me read gold out of books, like your father did," he said, smiling sadly at Meggie, "but then I had to read Mortola out for him, and after that he told me to read his maidservants out, too. It was terrible." Darius pushed his glasses up on his nose with trembling fingers. "I was so scared. How can you read aloud well when you're terrified? He made me try three times. Oh, I felt so sorry for them – I don't want to talk about it!" He buried his face in his hands, which were as bony as an old man's. Meggie thought she heard him sob, and for a moment she hesitated to ask her next question, but then she did.
"The maid they call Resa, " she said, her heart beating in her mouth. "Was she one of them?"
Darius took his hands away from his face. "Yes, she came out quite by chance, " he said huskily. "Capricorn had really wanted another of them, but suddenly there was Resa, and at first I thought I'd got it right for once. She looked so beautiful, almost improbably beautiful with her golden hair and her sad eyes. But then we realized she couldn't speak. Well, that didn't bother Capricorn; in fact I think he liked it. " He searched his pants pocket and brought out a crumpled hand kerchief. "I really could read better once, " he said, sniffing. "But this constant fear… May I?" With a sad smile he took another apricot and bit into it. Then he wiped the juice from his mouth with his sleeve, cleared his throat, and gazed straight at Meggie. His eyes looked curiously large behind the thick lenses of his glasses.
"At the – er – festivities that Capricorn's planning, " he said, lowering his gaze and running his finger awkwardly along the edge of the table, "the idea, as you probably know, is for you to read from Inkheart. The book's being kept in a secret place until that time comes. Only Capricorn knows where it is. So you won't see it before the – er – occasion. Which means that we're to use another book for the latest test Capricorn wants of your talents. Luckily, there are a few other books in this village, not many, but anyway, I've been told to choose something suitable. " He raised his head again and gave a small, slight smile. "Fortunately, I didn't have to look for gold and such treasures this time. All Capricorn wants is proof of your skill, and so, " he said, pushing a small book over the table, "so I chose this one. "
Meggie bent over the cover. "Collected Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, " she read aloud. She looked at Darius. "They're beautiful stories. "
"Yes, " he breathed. "Sad, but very, very beautiful. " Reaching over the table, he opened the book for Meggie at a place that he had marked with a couple of long blades of grass slipped between the yellowed pages. "First I thought of my favorite story, the one about the nightingale. Maybe you know it?"
Meggie nodded.
"But the fairy you read out of the book yesterday isn't happy in the jug where Basta has put her, " Darius went on, "so I thought it might be better if you tried the tin soldier."
The tin soldier. Meggie did not reply at once. The brave tin soldier in his little paper boat – she imagined him suddenly appearing beside the fruit basket. "No!" she said. "No. I've told Capricorn already, I won't read anything out of a book for him, not even as a test. Tell him I can't do it anymore. Just tell him I tried and nothing came out of the story!"
Darius gave her a sympathetic look. "Oh, I would, " he said quietly. "Really I would. But it's the Magpie -" he said, quickly putting his hand to his mouth as if he had said too much. "Sorry, I mean the housekeeper, of course, Signora Mortola – it's her you have to read aloud to. I've only chosen the story. "
The Magpie. An image of her flashed into Meggie's mind, watching her with her birdlike eyes. Suppose I bite my tongue? she thought. Very hard. She had done that a few times by mistake, and once her tongue had swelled up so much she had to talk to Mo in sign language for two days. She looked at Fenoglio for help.
"Do it!" he said, to her surprise. "Read aloud to the old woman, but make it a condition that you can keep the tin soldier. Tell her anything you like – say you want to play with him because you're bored to death – and then ask for something else: some sheets of paper and a pencil. Say you want to draw pictures, understand? If she agrees we'll take it from there. "
Meggie didn't understand a word of this, but before she could ask Fenoglio what he was planning the door opened, and there was the Magpie herself.
Darius leaped to his feet so quickly at the sight of her that he pushed Meggie's plate off the table. "Oh, I'm sorry, so sorry!" he stammered, picking up the broken pieces in his bony fingers. He cut his thumb so deeply on the last piece that blood dripped to the wooden floorboards.
"Get up, you fool!" snapped Mortola. "Have you shown her what she's to read from?"
Darius nodded and looked unhappily at his bleeding thumb.
"Then get out. You can help the women in the kitchen. There are chickens to be plucked. "
Darius made a face, looking disgusted, but he bowed and disappeared into the corridor, but not without casting Meggie a last sympathetic glance.
"OK!" said the Magpie, waving to her impatiently. "Start reading – and put your mind to it."
Meggie read the tin soldier out of the story. It was as if he simply fell from the ceiling. "He dropped down three stories to the street and his bayonet stuck in the earth between two cobble stones. " The Magpie reached for him before Meggie could and stared at him as if he were just a painted toy, while he looked back at her with horror in his eyes. Then she put him in the pocket of her coarse-knit woolen jacket.
"Please can I have him?" stammered Meggie, just as the
Magpie reached the doorway. Fenoglio placed himself behind her as if to cover her back, but the Magpie just looked at Meggie with her sharp-nosed gaze. "I – I mean, there's nothing you'd want to do with him, " Meggie went on uncertainly, "and I'm so bored. Please. "
The Magpie looked at her, unmoved. "You can have him back when Capricorn ha
s seen him, " she said, and then she was gone.
"The paper!" cried Fenoglio. "You forgot to ask for paper and pencil!"
"I'm sorry, " murmured Meggie. She hadn't forgotten, it was just that she didn't dare ask the Magpie for anything else.
"Ah, well, I'll just have to get it by other means, " said Fenoglio. "The only question is, how?"
Meggie went over to the window, rested her forehead on the pane, and looked down at the garden, where a couple of Capricorn's maids were busy tying up tomato plants. What would Mo say, she wondered, if he knew I can do it, too? "Who did you read out, Meggie? Poor Tinker Bell and the Steadfast Tin Soldier?"… "Yes," murmured Meggie, tracing an invisible M on the pane with her finger. Poor fairy, poor tin soldier, poor Dustfinger and – she thought again of the woman with the dark blond hair. "Resa," she whispered. TeResa. Teresa was her mother's name.
She was about to turn away from the window when out of the corner of her eye she saw something appearing above the sill outside – a small furry face. Meggie retreated in alarm. Do rats climb walls? Yes, but that wasn't a rat – the animal's muzzle wasn't pointed enough. She quickly ran back to the windowpane.
Gwin.
The marten was sitting on the narrow sill, looking in at her with sleepy eyes.
"Basta!" muttered Fenoglio behind her. "Yes, Basta will get me the paper. That's a good idea."
Meggie opened the window very slowly, so that Gwin wouldn't take fright and perhaps fall off the sill. Even a marten would break all his bones if he fell into the paved yard from this height. She put out her hand, still very slowly. Her fingers trembled as she stroked Gwin's back. Then she grabbed him before his little teeth could snap at her and quickly lifted him into the room. She looked anxiously down, but none of the maids had noticed anything. They were all bending over the vegetable patch, their clothes drenched with perspiration from the heat of the sun burning down on their backs.
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