"This little pigeon's supposed to take a look at what she's to read this evening, " Basta explained. "So she won't stumble over the words like Darius and spoil everything. " He beckoned impatiently to Meggie. "Come on. "
Meggie took a step toward him but then stopped. "First, I want to know what happened last night, " she asked. "I heard shots. "
"Oh, that!" Basta smiled. His teeth were almost as white as his shirt. "I've an idea your father was planning to visit you, but Cockerell wouldn't let him in. "
Meggie stood there as if rooted to the spot. Basta took her arm and pulled her roughly away with him. Fenoglio tried to follow them, but Basta slammed the door in his face. Fenoglio called something after her, but Meggie couldn't hear what it was. There was a rushing sound in her ears as if she were listening to her own blood running far too fast through her veins.
"He managed to get away, if that makes you feel any better, " said Basta, shoving her toward the staircase. "Not that that means much, come to think of it. When Cockerell shoots at the cats, they seem to dodge the bullets, too. He's such a useless shot. But they're usually found dead in a corner somewhere later. "
Meggie kicked his shin with all her might and raced away down the stairs, but Basta soon caught up with her. His face distorted with pain, he grabbed her by the hair and hauled her in front of him. "Don't you try that again, sweetheart!" he hissed. "You can think yourself lucky you're the main attraction at our festivities this evening, or I'd wring your skinny little neck here and now."
Meggie did not try it again. Even if she had wanted to she wouldn't have had the chance. Basta kept hold of her hair, pulling her along behind him as if she were a disobedient dog. The pain brought tears to Meggie's eyes, but she kept her face turned away so Basta couldn't see them. He took her down to the cellars. She hadn't been in this part of Capricorn's house before. The ceiling was even lower than the one in the shed where she, Mo, and Elinor had first been imprisoned. The walls were whitewashed, like the walls in the upper stories of the house, and there were just as many doors. Most of them looked as if it had been a long time since they'd been opened, and heavy padlocks hung in front of some of them. Meggie thought of the safes Dustfinger had talked about, and the gold Mo had brought tumbling into Capricorn's church.
They didn't get him, she thought. Of course not. The man with the limp doesn't shoot well. Basta said so himself.
At last, they stopped outside a door. It was made of different wood than the other doors down here, wood with a beautiful grain like a tiger's coat that shimmered with a tinge of red under the naked electric bulbs that lit the cellars.
"And let me tell you," Basta whispered to Meggie before he knocked on the door, "if you're as impertinent to Mortola as you are to me she'll leave you in one of those nets in the church until you're so hungry you'll be gnawing at the ropes. Compared to her heart, mine's as soft as a little girl's cuddly toy." His peppermint-scented breath wafted into Meggie's face. She would never again be able to eat anything smelling of peppermint.
The Magpie's room was large enough to hold a dance in. The walls were red, like the walls in the church, but you couldn't see much of them. They were covered with photo graphs in gold frames, photographs of houses and people crammed close together on the walls like a crowd in a space too small for it. In the middle, framed in gold like the photos but much larger, hung a portrait of Capricorn. Even Meggie could see that whoever had painted it was no more skilled at his trade than the sculptor who had carved the statue in the church. Capricorn's features in the picture were rounder and softer than in real life, and his curiously feminine mouth lay like a strange fruit below the nose, which was a little too short and broad. It was only his eyes that the painter had caught perfectly. As cold as they were in the flesh, they looked down on Meggie like the eyes of a man examining a frog he is about to slit open to see what it looks like inside. No face, she had learned in Capricorn's village, is as terrifying as a face without pity.
The Magpie sat, curiously rigid, in a green velvet armchair directly below her son's portrait. She looked unaccustomed to sitting down – like a constantly busy woman who resented having to stop, but whose body forced her to rest, Meggie saw that the old woman's legs were swollen above her ankles. They bulged formlessly below her bony knees. Noticing her glance, the Magpie pulled her skirt well down over those knees.
"Have you told her what she's here for?" She found standing up difficult. Meggie watched her support herself with one hand on a little table, her lips pressed together. Basta seemed to enjoy her frailty; a smile played around his mouth until the Magpie looked at him, wiping it away with a single icy glance. Impatiently, she beckoned Meggie over. Basta prodded her in the back when she didn't move.
"Come here. I want to show you something. " With slow but firm steps, the Magpie walked over to a chest of drawers that looked much too heavy for its gracefully curved legs. Two lamps stood on it, their shades patterned with flowery tendrils. Between them was a wooden casket, decorated all the way around with a pattern of tiny holes. When the Magpie opened its lid Meggie flinched back. Two snakes, thin as lizards and not much longer than Meggie's lower arm, lay in the casket.
"I always keep my room nice and warm so this pair don't get too sleepy, " explained the Magpie, opening the top drawer of the chest and taking out a glove. It was made of stout black leather and was so stiff she had difficulty forcing her gnarled hand into it. "Your friend Dustfinger played a nasty trick on poor Resa when he asked her to look for that book," she continued, reaching into the box and grasping one of the snakes firmly behind its flat head.
"Come here!" she ordered Basta and held the wriggling snake out to him. Meggie saw from his face that everything in him felt revulsion, but he came closer and took the creature. He held the scaly body well away from him as it wound and twisted in the air.
"As you see, Basta doesn't care for my snakes!" said the Magpie with a smile. "He never did, not that that means much. As far as I know Basta doesn't like anything but his knife. He also believes that snakes bring bad luck, which of course is pure nonsense. " Mortola handed Basta the second snake. Meggie saw the viper's tiny poison fangs when it opened its mouth. For a moment, she almost felt sorry for Basta.
"Well, don't you think this is a good hiding place?" asked the Magpie, reaching into the casket yet again. This time she brought out a book. Meggie would have known what book it was even if she hadn't recognized the colored jacket. "I've often kept valuables in this casket, " continued the Magpie. "No one knows about it and its contents apart from Basta and Capricorn. Poor Resa searched high and low for this book – she's a brave creature – but she didn't get as far as my casket. As it happens, she likes snakes. I've never met anyone who feels less fear of them than Resa, although she's been bitten now and then, isn't that so, Basta?" The Magpie took off her glove and looked scornfully at him. "Basta likes to use snakes to scare women who reject his advances. It didn't work with Resa. How did it go exactly – didn't she finally put the snake outside your door, Basta?"
Basta did not reply. The snakes were still twisting and turning in his hands. One of them had wound its tail around his arm.
"Put them back in the casket, " the Magpie ordered. "But be careful not to hurt them. " Then she returned to her arm chair with the book. "Sit down!" she said, pointing to the foot stool beside her.
Meggie obeyed. Surreptitiously, she looked around her. Mortola's room reminded her of a fairy-tale treasure chest filled to the brim. But there was too much of everything – too many golden candlesticks, too many lamps, rugs, pictures, vases, china ornaments, silk flowers, gilded bells.
The Magpie looked at her smugly. In her plain black dress she sat there like a cuckoo that has forced its way into another bird's nest. "A fine room for a domestic servant, don't you think?" she said with satisfaction. "Capricorn knows how to value me."
"But he still makes you live in the cellar!" replied Meggie. "Even though you're his mother. " If only words could be swallowed
– caught and slipped quickly back between your lips.
The Magpie looked at her with such hatred that Meggie already felt the woman's bony fingers on her throat. But Mortola just sat there, her birdlike eyes looking fixedly at Meggie. "Who told you that? The old sorcerer?"
Meggie clamped her lips together and looked at Basta. He probably hadn't heard a word; he was just putting the second snake back in the casket. Did he know Capricorn's little secret? Before she could wonder about that anymore Mortola put the book on her lap.
"A word about this to anyone here, or indeed anywhere else, " hissed the Magpie, "and I personally will prepare your next meal. A little extract of monkshood, a few shoots of yew or perhaps a couple of hemlock seeds in the sauce-how do you fancy that? I can assure you you'd find it a hard meal to digest. Now, start reading."
Meggie stared at the book on her lap. When Capricorn held it up in the church she hadn't been able to make out the picture on the jacket. Now she had a chance to see it at close range. There was a landscape in the background that looked like a slightly different version of the hills surrounding Capricorn's village. But the foreground showed a heart, a black heart surrounded by red flames.
"Go on, open it!" snapped the Magpie.
Meggie obeyed. She opened the book at the page beginning with the N and the horned marten perched on it. How long ago was it since she had stood in Elinor's library looking at the same page? An eternity, a whole lifetime?
"Wrong page. Go on, " the Magpie told her. "Find the page with the corner turned down. "
Wordlessly, Meggie obeyed. There was no picture on that page or the one opposite it. Without thinking she smoothed out the corner with her thumbnail. Mo hated to see dog-eared pages.
"What's the idea? Do you want to make it difficult for me to find the place again?" hissed the Magpie. "Begin with the second paragraph, but mind you don't read aloud. I don't want to find the Shadow here in my room. "
"How far should I go? I mean, how far am I to read this evening?"
"How should I know?" The Magpie leaned over and rubbed her left leg. "How long does it usually take you to read your fairies and tin soldiers and so forth out of their stories?"
Meggie lowered her head. Poor Tinker Bell. "I can't say, " she murmured. "It depends. Sometimes it happens soon, sometimes not until after many pages, or not at all."
"Well, read the whole chapter, that ought to be enough! And you can leave out the 'not at all' business. " The Magpie rubbed her other leg. They were both wrapped in bandages that could be seen through the dark stockings she wore. "What are you staring at?" she snapped at Meggie. "Can you read me something out of a book to do my legs good? Do you know a story with a cure for old age and death in it, little witch that you are?"
"No, " whispered Meggie.
"Then don't gawp so stupidly, look at the book. Mind you notice every word. I don't want to hear you stumble once tonight, no stammering, no mispronunciations, understood? This time Capricorn is to get exactly what he wants. I will see to that. "
Meggie let her eyes wander over the letters. She wasn't taking in a word of what she read; she could think of nothing but Mo and the shots fired in the night. But she pretended to be reading, on and on, while Mortola never took her eyes off her. Finally, she raised her head and closed the book. "Finished, " she said.
"What, already?" The Magpie looked at her suspiciously.
Meggie did not reply. She glared at Basta. He was leaning on Mortola's armchair looking bored. "I'm not going to read that aloud this evening, " she said. "You shot my father last night. Basta told me. I won't read a word. "
The Magpie turned to Basta. "What was the idea of that?" she asked angrily. "Do you think the child will read better if you break her silly heart? Tell her you missed him and get on with it."
Basta lowered his head like a boy caught doing wrong by his mother. "I did tell her, well… almost," he growled. "Cockerell's a terrible shot. Your father didn't suffer so much as a scratch."
Meggie closed her eyes with relief. She felt warm and wonderful. Everything was all right, or at least what wasn't all right soon would be.
Happiness made her bold. "There's something else, " she said. Why should she be afraid? They needed her. She was the only one who could read their wretched Shadow out of the book for them; no one else could do it – except Mo, and they hadn't caught him yet. They would never catch him now, ever.
"What is it?" The Magpie smoothed her sternly pinned-up hair. What had she looked like when she was Meggie's age? Had her lips been so mean even then?
"I will read only if I can see Dustfinger again. Before he…" She did not end the sentence.
"What for?"
Because I want to tell him we're going to try to save him and because I think my mother is with him, thought Meggie, but naturally she did not say so out loud. "I want to tell him I'm sorry, " she replied instead. "After all, he helped us."
Mortola's mouth twisted mockingly. "How touching!" she said.
I only want to see her once, close-up, thought Meggie. Perhaps it isn't her after all. Perhaps…
"Suppose I say no?" The Magpie was watching her like a cat playing with a young and inexperienced mouse.
But Meggie had been expecting that question. "Then I will bite my tongue!" she said. "I will bite it so hard that it swells right up and I won't be able to read aloud this evening."
The Magpie leaned back in her chair and laughed. "Hear that, Basta? The child is no fool!" Basta only grunted. But Mortola studied Meggie, almost benevolently. "I'll tell you something: Yes, you can have your silly little wish. But about this evening: Before you read, I want you to have a good look at my photographs."
Meggie glanced around.
"Look at them closely. Do you see all those faces? Every one of those people made an enemy of Capricorn, and none of them was ever heard from again. The houses you see in the photographs are no longer standing either, not one of them, they have all been burned down. Think of those photos when you're reading, little witch. Should you stumble over the words, or get any silly notions about simply holding your tongue, then your face will soon be looking out of one of these pretty gold frames, too. But if you do well we'll let you go back to your father. Why not? Read like an angel tonight, and you'll see him again! I've been told that his voice clothes every word in silk and satin, turns it into flesh and blood. And that's how you are to read aloud, not uncertainly and stammering like that fool Darius. Do you understand?"
Meggie looked at her. "I understand!" she said quietly, although she knew for certain that the Magpie was lying.
They would never let her go back to Mo. He would have to come and get her.
49. BASTA'S PRIDE AND DUSTFINGER'S CUNNING
"Still, I wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales. We're in one, of course; but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards. And people will say: 'Let's hear about Frodo and the Ring!' And they'll say: 'Yes, that's one of my favorite stories.'"
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Two Towers from The Lord of the Rings
Basta was grumbling to himself nonstop as he escorted Meggie over to the church. "Bite her tongue, would she? Since when has the old woman fallen for that kind of thing? And who has to take this little madam to the crypt? Basta, of course! What am I supposed to be – the only male maidservant in the place?"
"Crypt?" Meggie had thought the prisoners were still in the nets, but she could see no trace of them when she and Basta entered the church, and Basta had impatiently pushed her past the columns.
"Yes, the crypt, " he spat. "Where we put the dead and those who soon will be. Down here. Get on with it. I've got better things to do today than baby-sit Miss Silvertongue."
The stairs to which he was pointing were steep and led down into darkness. The treads were worn and so uneven that Meggie stumbled at every other step. Down below it was so dark that at first she didn't realize the stai
rcase had come to an end, and she was feeling for the next step with her foot when Basta pushed her roughly forward. "What's the idea now?" she heard him say with a curse. "Why's the damn lantern out again?" A match flared, and Basta's face appeared out of the darkness.
"Visitor for you, Dustfinger, " he announced derisively as he lit the lantern. "Silvertongue's little girl wants to say good bye. Her father brought you into this world and his daughter will make sure you leave it again tonight. I wouldn't have let her come, but the Magpie's going soft in her old age. The child actually seems fond of you. It can hardly be your pretty face, can it?" Basta's laugh echoed unpleasantly back from the damp walls.
Meggie went up to the grating behind which Dustfinger stood. She looked at him only briefly, then gazed over his shoulder. Capricorn's maid was sitting on a stone coffin. The lantern Basta had lit gave only a dim light, but it was enough for Meggie to recognize her face. It was the face from Mo's photograph, except that the hair surrounding it was darker now, and there was no sign of any smile.
As Meggie came closer to the grating her mother lifted her head and was now looking at her as if nothing else in the world existed.
"Mortola let her come here?" said Dustfinger. "That's hard to believe. "
"The girl threatened to bite her own tongue. " Basta was still standing on the stairs, playing with the rabbit's foot he wore around his neck as a lucky charm.
"I wanted to say I'm sorry. " Meggie was speaking to Dustfinger, but as she spoke she looked at her mother, who was still sitting on the stone coffin.
"What for?" Dustfinger smiled his strange smile.
"For what I must do this evening. For reading aloud from the book. " If only she could have let the two of them know Fenoglio's plan.
"Right, now you've said your piece!" barked Basta impatiently. "Come on, the air down here could make your voice hoarse. "
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