Meggie felt dizzy with fear as he led her on. Suppose Mortola showed the letter to the Adderhead? Suppose, suppose…?
"Get moving!" growled Firefox, pushing her up a flight of stairs. As if numbed, Meggie stumbled up the steep steps. Fenoglio, she thought, Fenoglio, help me. Mortola knows about our plan.
"Stop!" Firefox brutally grabbed her by the hair. Four men-at-arms were on guard outside a door with three bolts over it. A nod of the head from Firefox told them to open it.
Mo, thought Meggie. They really are taking me to him. And that thought extinguished any others. Even thoughts of Mortola.
60. FIRE ON THE WALL
Lo, on the whiteness of the wall,
Behold, appeared a human hand,
Which wrote and wrote, in letters tall,
A Fiery message for the land.
Heinrich Heine, "Belshazzar"
All was quiet in the wide, dark corridors as Dustfinger and Farid stole into the Castle of Night. Only wax dripped from a thousand candles on the stone flags that all bore the Adderhead's coat of arms. Servants hurried past them in soft-soled shoes, and maids scuttled by with bent heads. Guards stood in endless passages and outside doorways so high that they seemed to have been made for giants, not ordinary humans. Every one of them bore the emblematic creature of the Adderhead – the snake striking at its prey – in scales of silver, and huge mirrors hung beside the doors. Farid kept stopping in front of them to look into the polished metal and reassure himself that he really was invisible.
Dustfinger made an acorn-sized flame dance on his hand so
that the boy could follow him. Servants were carrying delicious things to eat out of one of the halls they passed. Their aroma reminded Dustfinger painfully of his invisible stomach, and when he pushed his way past the servants as soundlessly as the Adderhead's snake, he heard them talking in muted tones about a young witch and a deal that was to save the Bluejay from the gallows. Dustfinger, as invisible as their voices, listened to them and did not know which of his emotions was the stronger: relief that Fenoglio's words were obviously coming true again, or fear of those words and the invisible threads spun by the old man, threads to catch even the Adderhead and make him dream of immortality, although Fenoglio had recorded his death in writing long ago. But had Meggie really read those deadly words before they took her away? "Now what?" Farid whispered. "Did you hear that? They've shut up Meggie with Silvertongue in one of the towers! How do I get there?" His voice was shaking – heavens, what a plague love was! Anyone who claimed otherwise had never yet felt that wretched trembling of the heart.
"Forget it!" Dustfinger whispered to the boy. "The dungeons in the tower have strong doors. Even invisible you wouldn't get through them. And the place will be swarming with guards. After all, they still think they've caught the Bluejay. You'd do better to steal into the kitchen and listen to the maids and the menservants – you always learn something interesting that way. But be careful! I repeat: Invisible doesn't mean immortal."
"How about you?"
"I'm going to venture down to the dungeons under the castle, where the less valuable prisoners are held, to find the Barn Owl and Meggie's mother. See that fat marble statue there? Must be some ancestor of the Adderhead. We'll meet there. And don't even think of following me! Farid?"
But the boy had already gone. Dustfinger suppressed a soft curse. He just hoped no one heard the boy's lovesick heart thudding!
It was a long, dark way to the dungeons. One of the women healers who worked for the Barn Owl had told him where the entrance lay. None of the guards he passed even turned their heads as Dustfinger slipped by them. Two were lounging around at the mouth of the damp corridor, lit only by a single torch, with the door to the dungeons at the end of it. Beyond that door the way went on down, down into the deadly entrails of the Castle of Night, which digested human beings like a stony stomach, now and then excreting a few dead bodies. There was another snake on the door that no one ever wished to enter, but here the silver adder was coiled around a skull.
The guards were quarreling – it was something to do with Firefox – but Dustfinger had no time to eavesdrop. He was only glad that all their attention was on each other as he slipped past. The door creaked slightly when he opened it, just wide enough to get through – his heart almost stopped as he did it – but the guards didn't turn around. What wouldn't he give for a fearless heart like Farid's, even if it made you reckless! It was so dark beyond the door that, for a moment, he had to summon fire before his invisible feet made their way down the steps, and just in time. They were steep and well trodden, worn away by the people whom the dungeons had swallowed up. Fear and desperation rose to greet him like vapors from the depths. The steps were said to lead as far down under the hill as the castle towers rose to the sky above it, but Dustfinger had never met anyone who could confirm this tale. Of those he had known who were taken down here, he had never seen a single one alive again.
Dustfinger, Dustfinger, he thought before starting on the downward climb, this is a dangerous path to take just to pass the time of day with two old friends, and your visit won't even do them much good. However, he had run after the Barn Owl for years just as Farid was now running after him, and as for Resa – perhaps he recalled her name last to convince himself that he was certainly not climbing down this damned stairway on her account.
Unfortunately, even invisible feet make sounds, but luckily he only met guards once. Three warders passed him at such close quarters that he could smell the garlic on their breath, and he only just managed to press close to the wall in time to stop the fattest of them from bumping into him. During the rest of the dark downward climb, he met no one. There was a torch burning every few feet along the rough-hewn walls, so different from the finely chiseled masonry in the castle above. Dustfinger twice passed a room where more guards were sitting, but they never even raised their heads as he stole by, more quietly than a breath of air and equally invisible.
When the stairs finally came to an end, he almost collided with a warder pacing up and down a candlelit corridor with a bored expression on his face. Soundlessly, he slipped past the man. He peered into dungeons scarcely larger than holes, too low for anyone to stand up in. Others were large enough to take fifty men. It would certainly be easy simply to forget a prisoner down here, and Dustfinger's heart contracted as he imagined how Resa must be feeling in this darkness. She had been a prisoner before, for so many years, and after that her freedom had lasted barely a year.
He heard voices, and followed them along another corridor until they grew louder. A small, bald-headed man came toward him. He passed so close that Dustfinger held his breath – but the man didn't notice him, just muttered something about stupid women and disappeared around the corner. Dustfinger pressed his back against the damp wall and listened. Someone was weeping – a woman, and someone else was speaking soothingly to her. There was only one cell at the end of the corridor: a dark, barred cavern with a torch burning beside it. How was he to get past those damned bars? He went close to them. There sat Resa, stroking another woman's hair to comfort her, while Twofingers sat beside them playing a sad tune on a little flute. No one could have done it half as well with all ten fingers as he did with seven. Dustfinger didn't know the others: neither the women with Resa nor the other men. There was no sign of the Barn Owl. Where had they taken him? Had he perhaps been imprisoned with Silvertongue?
He looked around, listened. Somewhere a man laughed, probably one of the warders. Dustfinger held a finger in the burning torch, whispered fire-words until a flame leaped from his fingertip like a sparrow picking up crumbs. When he had first shown Farid how to write his name on a wall in fire, the boy's black eyes had almost popped out of his head. Yet it was perfectly easy. Dustfinger put his hand between the bars and passed his finger over the rough stone. Resa, he wrote, and saw Twofingers lower his flute and stare at the burning letters. Resa turned. Heavens, how sad she looked! He should have come sooner. A good thing her daughter
couldn't see her like this.
She rose, took a step toward her name, and hesitated. Still with his finger, Dustfinger drew a fiery line like an arrow pointing his way. She came close to the bars and stared at the empty air, incredulous and baffled.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "You won't see my face today, but it's still as scarred as ever."
"Dustfinger?" She reached into the air, and his invisible fingers took her hand. She was actually speaking! The Black Prince had told him she could speak again, but he hadn't believed him.
"What a beautiful voice!" he whispered. "I always imagined it would be something like that. When did you get it back?"
"When Mortola shot Mo."
Twofingers was still staring at her. The woman Resa had been comforting turned to them, too. Just so long as they didn't say anything…
"How are you?" she whispered. "How is Meggie?"
"Well. Better off than you, for sure. She and the writer got together to change this story for the better."
Resa was clinging to the bars with one hand and to his own hand with the other. "Where is she now?"
"Probably with her father." He saw the horror in her face. "Yes, I know, he's up in the tower, but that's what she wanted. It's all part of the plan Fenoglio has thought up."
"How is he? How's Mo?"
Jealousy still gave him a pang. The heart was a stupid thing. "Said to be better, and thanks to Meggie he's not going to be hanged for the time being, so don't look so sad. Your daughter and Fenoglio have thought of a very clever way to save him. Him, and you, and all the others…" Steps approached. Dustfinger let go of Resa's hand and moved back, but the footsteps went past and away again.
"Are you still there?" Her eyes searched the darkness.
"Yes." He took hold of her fingers once more. "We only ever seem to meet in dungeons now! How long does it take your husband to bind a book?"
"Bind a book?"
He heard footsteps again, but this time the sound died away more quickly.
"Yes. It's a crazy story, but since Fenoglio has written it and your daughter has read it, no doubt it will come true."
She put her other hand through the bars until her fingers met his face. "You really are invisible! How do you do it?" She sounded as curious as a little girl. She was curious about everything she didn't know. He had always liked that in her.
"Only an old fairy trick!" Her fingers stroked his scarred cheek. Why can't you help her, Dustfinger? he thought. She'll go mad down here! Suppose he struck one of the warders down? But there was still that endless staircase to climb, and after it the castle, the wide courtyard, the bare hilltop – nowhere to hide her, no tree to conceal her. Only stones and soldiers.
"What about your wife?" Her voice was beautiful. "Did you find her?"
"Yes."
"What did you tell her?"
"About what?"
"The time you were away."
"Nothing."
"I've told Mo everything."
Yes, no doubt she had. "Well, Silvertongue knows what you're talking about, but I don't think Roxane would have believed me, do you?"
"No, probably not." For a moment she bent her head as if she were remembering – remembering the time he couldn't tell Roxane about. "The Black Prince told me you have a daughter, too," she whispered. "Why didn't you ever tell me about her?"
Twofingers and the woman with the tearstained face were still staring at them. With luck they believed by now that they had imagined the fiery letters. There was only a faint trace of soot left on the wall, and it was not unusual, after all, for people to begin talking to the empty air in dungeons.
"I had two daughters." Dustfinger jumped as someone screamed somewhere. "The elder is around Meggie's age, but she's angry with me. She wants to know where I was for those ten years. Perhaps you know a pretty story I can tell her?"
"What about the other one?"
"She's dead."
Resa just pressed his hand. "I'm sorry."
"Yes. So am I." He turned. One of the warders was standing at the end of the corridor. He called something to another warder, and then walked on, looking sullen.
"Three weeks, maybe four!" Resa whispered. "That's how long Mo would need, depending on the thickness of the book."
"Good, then that's not so bad." He put his hand through the bars and stroked her hair. "A couple of weeks are nothing to all those years in Capricorn's house, Resa! Remember that every time you feel like beating your head against these bars. Promise me."
She nodded. "Tell Meggie I'm well!" she whispered. "And tell Mo, too, please. You'll be talking to him as well, won't you?"
"Yes, of course!" lied Dustfinger. What harm did it do to promise her that? For what else could he do to help her? The other woman began sobbing again. Her weeping echoed back from the moldering walls, louder and louder.
"Damn it all, shut your gob there!"
Dustfinger pressed close to the wall as the warder approached. He was a fat fellow, a hulk of a man, and Dustfinger held his breath as he stopped right beside him. For a terrible moment Twofingers was staring straight at Dustfinger as if he could see him, but then his eyes moved on, searching the darkness, perhaps for more fiery letters on the wall.
"Don't cry!" Resa tried to calm the woman as the warder struck the bars with his stick. Dustfinger could hardly find a corner to retreat into. The weeping woman buried her face in Resa's skirt, and the warder turned with a grunt and trudged away again. Dustfinger waited until the sound of his footsteps had died away before returning to the bars. Resa was kneeling beside the woman, whose face was still buried in her dress, and talking to her softly.
"Resa!" he whispered. "I must go. Did they bring an old man down here tonight? A physician, he calls himself the Barn Owl."
She came back to the bars. "No," she whispered, "but the warders were talking about a physician they've arrested. He has to treat all the sick people in the castle before they shut him up with us."
"That'll be him. Give him my greetings." It was hard for him to leave her alone in the dark like this. He would have liked to free her from her cage, just as he set fairies free in marketplaces, but Resa wouldn't be able to fly away.
At the foot of the stairs, two warders were joking about the hangman whose work Firefox was only too keen to take over. Dustfinger slipped past them, quick as a lizard, but all the same one of them turned his way with a confused expression. Perhaps the smell of fire that Dustfinger wore like a second coat had risen to his nostrils.
61. IN THE TOWER OF THE CASTLE OF NIGHT
You never came out the way you came in.
Francis Spufford, The Child That Books Built
Mo was asleep when they brought Meggie to him. It was only the fever that made him sleep, numbing the thoughts that kept him awake hour after hour, day after day, while he listened to his own heartbeat in the draughty cell where they had put him, high in one of the silver towers. The moon was still shining through the barred windows when the approaching footsteps roused him.
"Wake up, Bluejay!" The light of a torch fell into the cell, and Firefox pushed a slender figure through the door.
Resa? What kind of dream was this? A good one, for a change?
But it was not his wife they had brought. It was his daughter.
With difficulty, Mo sat up. He tasted Meggie's tears on his face as she hugged him so hard that he drew in his breath sharply with pain.
Meggie. They had caught her, too.
"Mo? Say something!" She took his hand and looked at his face with concern. "How are you?" she whispered.
"Well, fancy that!" mocked Firefox. "The Bluejay really does have a daughter. I expect she's about to tell you she's here of her own free will, as she tried to make the Adderhead believe. She's done a deal with him, and it's supposed to save your neck. You should have heard the fairy tales she told. You could always sell her and her angel's tongue to the strolling players."
Mo didn't even ask what he was talking about. He drew Meggie clo
se as soon as the guard had bolted the door behind Firefox, kissed her hair, her forehead, took her face between his hands. He had been so sure that he'd seen that face for the last time in the stable in the forest. "Meggie, for God's sake," he said, leaning his back against the cold wall, since he could still hardly stand. He was so glad to see her there. So glad and so dismayed, too. "How did they catch you?"
"Never mind that. Everything will be all right, believe me!" She put her hand on his shirt where there was still dried blood on it. "You looked so sick in the stable… I thought I'd never see you again."
"I thought the same when I found that letter on your pillow." He stroked the tears off her lashes as he had so often done before over the years. How tall she was, hardly a child anymore, although he could still clearly see the child in her. "Oh, heavens, it's so good to see you, Meggie. l know I shouldn't say so. A good father would say: Dear daughter, do you have to get yourself locked up every time I do?"
She had to laugh, but he saw the concern in her eyes. She passed her fingers over his face as if she were finding shadows that hadn't been there before. Perhaps the White Women had left their fingerprints behind, even though they hadn't taken him away with them.
"Don't look at me like that! I'm better, much better, and you know why." He brushed the hair back from her forehead; it was so like her mother's. The thought of Resa hurt like a sharp thorn. "Those were powerful words. Did Fenoglio write them for you?"
Meggie nodded. "And he wrote more for me, too," she whispered in his ear. "Words that will save you. You and Resa and all the others."
Words. His whole life seemed to be woven from words. His life, and his death, too.
"They took your mother and the others to the dungeons under the castle." He remembered Fenoglio's description only too well: The dungeons under the Castle of Night, where fear clung to the walls like mold, and no ray of sun ever warmed the black stones.
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