The robbers began climbing, while the screams of the soldiers rang through the forest, retreating farther into the distance all the time. However, now it was the giant's turn to stop and stare up at the children, who in turn were staring down at him with both delight and terror on their little faces.
"They like human children. That's the problem," Fenoglio had murmured to Meggie before she began to read. "After a time they begin catching them, like butterflies or hamsters. But I've tried to write one here who's too lethargic to do that. Although it presumably means he won't be a very clever specimen."
Did the giant look clever? Meggie couldn't say. She had imagined him as quite different. His mighty limbs were not grossly massive, and he moved only a little more ponderously than the Strong Man. For a moment, as he stood there among the trees, it seemed to Meggie that he, not the robbers, was the right size for this forest. His eyes were strange. They were rounder than human eyes and rather like a chameleon's. The same could be said of his skin. The giant was naked, like the fairies and elves, and his skin changed color with every movement he made. When he first appeared it had been pale brown, like the bark of a tree, but now it was patterned with red like the last of the berries hanging in an almost leafless hawthorn bush that came up to his knees. Even his hair changed color – sometimes green, then suddenly pale like the sky. All this made him almost invisible among the trees. As if the air were moving. As if the wind, or the spirit of this forest, had taken visible shape in him.
"Aha! Here he is at last! Fabulous!" Fenoglio appeared behind Meggie so suddenly that she almost stumbled off the branch where she was standing. "Yes, we know our craft, you and I! I wouldn't say a word against your father, but in my view you're the true mistress of this art. You're still child enough to see the pictures behind the words as clearly as only children can. Which is probably why this giant doesn't look at all the way I imagined him."
"But I didn't imagine him like this, either," Meggie said in a whisper, as if any loud word might attract the giant's attention.
"Really? Hm." Fenoglio took a cautious step forward. "Well, never mind that, I can't wait to hear what Signora Loredan thinks of him, I really can't."
Meggie could see what Doria, for one, thought of the giant. He was perched in the crown of the tree and couldn't take his eyes off the apparition. And Farid was looking as captivated as he usually did only when Dustfinger was showing him a new trick, while Jink, sitting on his lap, bared his teeth in alarm.
Meggie felt pleased. She had done it again! She had used Fenoglio's words and her voice to go on telling the story. And, as on those other occasions, she felt exhausted and proud at the same time – and a little afraid of what she had summoned up.
"So now, do you have the words for my father ready?"
"The words for your father? No, but I'm working on them." Fenoglio rubbed his lined forehead as if he had to wake up a few thoughts slumbering there. "I'm afraid a giant wouldn't be much help to your father, but trust me. I'll get that done tonight, too. When the Adderhead reaches the castle, Violante will receive him with my words, and the two of us will bring this story to a good ending once and for all. Oh, he really is magnificent!" Fenoglio leaned forward to get a better look at his creation. "Although I wonder where he gets those chameleon eyes. I never wrote a word about them! Never mind, it makes him look… well, interesting. Perhaps I ought to write a few more giants like him here. It's a shame they hide away in the mountains now."
The robbers did not appear to agree with him. They were still climbing the ropes as hastily as if the Milksop's men were after them. By now only the Black Prince and his bear stood at the foot of the tree.
"What's the Prince still doing down there?" Fenoglio leaned so far forward that Meggie instinctively grabbed his tunic. "For heaven's sake, why doesn't he leave the damn bear alone? These giants don't have particularly good eyesight. He'll be trodden underfoot if the giant stumbles just once!"
Meggie tried to haul the old man back. "The Black Prince would never leave the bear alone, you know he wouldn't!"
"But he must!" She had seldom seen Fenoglio so concerned. Obviously, he really was fonder of the Prince than of most of his characters.
"Come on up!" he called down to him. "Come on, Prince!"
But the Black Prince went on talking to his bear as if the animal were a sulky child, while the giant stood there staring up at the children. Several women shrieked when he reached out his hand. They pulled the children away, but however far the giant stretched, his mighty fingers couldn't reach the nests, just as Fenoglio had said.
"Made to measure!" the old man whispered. "See that, Meggie?" Yes, this time he obviously had thought of everything.
The giant looked disappointed. He reached up once more, and then took a step to one side. His heel missed the Black Prince by no more than a twig's breadth. The bear roared and stood up on his hind legs – and the giant, in surprise, looked down at what was there between his feet.
"Oh no!" faltered Fenoglio. "No, no, no!" he shouted down to his creation. "Not him! Leave the Prince alone. That's not what you're here for! Go after the Milksop. Take some of his men, if you want anyone! Go on, go away!"
The giant raised his head, looking to see who was shouting like that, but then he bent and picked up the Prince and the bear with as little ceremony as Elinor picking caterpillars off her roses.
"No!" stammered Fenoglio. "What's going on now? What went wrong this time? He'll break every bone in the Prince's body!"
The robbers hung from their ropes, frozen rigid. One of them threw his knife down at the giant's hand. The giant pulled it out with his lips like a thorn and dropped the Black Prince as he might have dropped a toy. Meggie flinched as he struck the ground and lay there without moving. She heard Elinor scream, while the giant hit out at the men on the ropes as if they were wasps trying to sting him.
Everyone was shouting in confusion. Battista ran to one of the ropes to go to the Prince's aid. Farid and Doria followed him, and even Elinor ran after him, while Roxane stood there, horrified, with her arms around two crying children. As for Fenoglio, he was shaking at the ropes hanging from the tree in helpless fury.
"No!" he shouted down once more. "No, you just can't do that!"
And suddenly one of the ropes tore away and he fell into the void below. Meggie tried to grab him, but she arrived too late. Fenoglio was falling, with an expression of surprise on his wrinkled face, and the giant caught him in midair like a ripe fruit dropping from the tree.
The children had stopped screaming. The women and the robbers were silent, too, as the giant sat down at the foot of the tree and examined his catch. He put the bear carelessly on the ground, but as he did so his glance fell on the unconscious Prince, and he picked him up again. Roaring, the bear went to his master's aid, but the giant just flicked him away with his hand. Then he rose to his feet, looked up at the children one last time, and strode away with Fenoglio in his right hand and the Black Prince in his left.
59. THE BLUEJAY'S ANGELS
I ask you:
What would you do if you were me? Tell me. Please tell me!
But you are far from this. Your fingers turn the strangeness of these pages that somehow connect my life to yours. Your eyes are safe. The story is just another few hundred pages of your mind. For me, it's here. It's now.
Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger
Orpheus had seen Violante for the first time at one of the Milksop's banquets, and even then he had wondered what it would be like to rule Ombra at her side. All his maids were more beautiful than the Adderhead's daughter, but Violante had something that they did not possess: arrogance, ambition, the lust for power. All of that appealed to Orpheus, and when the Piper led her into the Hall of a Thousand Windows his heart beat faster as he saw how high she still held her head even though she had staked everything on a single card and lost.
Her gaze passed over them all as if they were the losers – her father, Thumbling, the Piper. She had onl
y a fleeting glance for Orpheus, but never mind. How was she to know what a prominent part he would play in the future? The Adderhead would still be stuck in the mud with a broken wheel if he hadn't read him four new coach wheels on the spot. How everyone had stared! Even Thumbling had learned to respect him.
The Hall of a Thousand Windows had no windows anymore. Thumbling had had them draped with black cloth, and only half a dozen torches gave light in the darkness, just enough of it to show the Adderhead the face of his worst enemy.
When they pushed Mortimer in, Violante's haughty mask cracked, but she quickly pulled herself together. Orpheus saw, with satisfaction, that they had not treated the Bluejay particularly gently, but he could still stand, and the Piper had certainly made sure his hands were unharmed. They could have cut out his tongue, though, thought Orpheus, thus putting an end to all the fulsome praise of his voice once and for all. But then it occurred to him that Mortimer still had to tell him where Fenoglio's book was, since Dustfinger hadn't given its whereabouts away.
The torchlight fell only on Mortimer. The Adderhead sat in darkness. He clearly didn't want to give his prisoner the satisfaction of seeing his bloated body. Anyone could smell it, though.
"Well, Bluejay? Did my daughter describe this meeting of ours rather differently to you? Very likely." The Adderhead's breath rattled in his throat like an old man's. "I was very glad when Violante suggested this castle as our meeting place, although the journey here wasn't easy. The castle gave me happiness once before, if not for very long. And I was sure that her mother hadn't told her about the secret passage. She told her daughter a great deal about this castle, but little of it had anything to do with reality."
Violante's face remained expressionless. "I don't know what you're talking about, Father," she said. What an effort she was making not to look at Mortimer. Touching.
"No, you don't know anything, that's the point." The Adderhead laughed. "I often had people posted to overhear what your mother told you in the Old Chamber. All the stories about her happy childhood days, the sweet lies told to make her ugly little daughter dream of a place so different from the castle where she really grew up. Reality isn't usually much like what we say about it, but you always confused the words with the truth. Just the same as your mother – you could never distinguish between what you want and the way things really are, could you?"
Violante did not reply. She simply stood there, as upright as ever, staring into the darkness where her father was concealed.
"When I met your mother for the first time in this hall," the Adderhead went on in his hoarse voice, "she wanted nothing but to get away from here. She'd have tried to run away if her father had given her any chance. Did she tell you that one of her sisters fell to her death climbing out of one of these windows? Or that she herself was almost drowned by the water-nymphs when she tried swimming across the lake? Presumably not. Instead, she made out that I forced her father to give me her hand in marriage and took her away from here against her will. Who knows? Perhaps she even believed that story herself in the end."
"You're lying." Violante was trying very hard to sound composed. "I don't want to hear any more."
"But hear it you will," said the Adderhead, unmoved. "It's time you stopped hiding behind pretty stories and heard the facts. Your grandfather was only too inclined to make sure that any suitors of his daughters disappeared. So your mother showed me the tunnel – the one that enabled the Piper to get into the castle entirely unnoticed. She was madly in love with me at the time, whatever she may have said to you."
"Why are you telling me these lies?" Violante still held her head high, but her voice was trembling. "It wasn't my mother who showed you the tunnel. It must have been one of your spies. And she never loved you, either."
"Believe what you like. I assume you don't know very much about love." The Adderhead coughed, and rose with a groan from the chair where he was sitting. Violante retreated as he stepped into the torchlight.
"Yes, see what your noble robber has done to me," said the Adderhead as he slowly approached Mortimer. It was getting more and more painful for him to walk, Orpheus had seen that often enough on the endless journey to this bleak castle, but the Silver Prince still stood as straight as his daughter.
"But let's not discuss the past anymore," he said when he was so close to Mortimer that his prisoner had the full benefit of the odor he gave off, "or about the way my daughter may have envisaged this bargain. Convince me that it really doesn't make sense for me to flay you alive at once – and do the same to your wife and daughter. Yes, you left them with the Black Prince, but I know about the cave where they're hiding. I assume that my useless brother-in-law has captured them by now and will be taking them to Ombra."
Ah, that really got through to Mortimer. Guess who told the Adderhead about the cave, noble robber, thought Orpheus, smiling broadly when Mortimer looked at him.
"So now…" The Adderhead drove his gloved fist into his prisoner's chest just where Mortola had wounded him. "What are the prospects? Can you reverse your own trick? Can you cure the Book you so craftily used to deceive me?"
Mortimer hesitated for only a moment. "Of course," he replied. "If you give it to me."
Very well. Orpheus had to admit that Mortimer's voice still sounded impressive, even in these dire straits (although his own sounded far, far better). But the Adderhead wasn't to be beguiled this time. He struck Mortimer in the face so hard that he fell to his knees.
"Do you seriously expect to fool me again?" he snarled. "How stupid do you think I am? No one can cure this Book! Dozens of your fellow craftsmen have died to give me that information. No, it's past saving, which means that my flesh will rot for all eternity, and every day I'll be tempted to write the three words in it myself and put an end to all this. But I have thought of a better solution, and I'll require your services for it once more after all, which is why I am truly grateful to my daughter for taking such good care of you. Because, of course," he added, glancing at the Piper, "I know what a hot temper my silver-nosed herald has."
The Piper was going to say something, but the Adderhead merely raised his hand impatiently and turned back to Mortimer.
"What kind of solution?" The famous voice sounded hoarse. Was the Bluejay afraid now after all? Orpheus felt like a boy enjoying a particularly exciting passage in a book. I hope he's afraid, he thought. And I hope this is one of the last chapters he appears in.
Mortimer's face twisted when the Piper pressed his knife against his ribs. Oh yes, he's obviously made the wrong enemies in this story, thought Orpheus. And the wrong friends. But that was high-minded heroes for you. Stupid.
"What kind of solution?" The Adderhead scratched his itching flesh. "You'll bind me another book, what else? But this time you won't go unobserved for a single second. And once this new book with its spotlessly white pages protects me from Death again, we'll write your name in the other one – so that you can know for a while how it feels to be rotting alive. After that I'll tear it to pieces, page by page, and watch as you feel your flesh tearing and you beg the White Women to come for you. Doesn't that sound like a solution satisfactory to all parties?"
Ah. A new White Book. Not a bad idea, thought Orpheus. But my name would suit its brand-new pages so much better! Stop dreaming, Orpheus, he told himself.
The Piper had his knife to Mortimer's throat. "Well, what's your answer, Bluejay? Want me to carve it into you with my knife?"
Mortimer said nothing.
"Answer!" the Piper snarled at him. "Or shall I do it for you? There's only one answer, anyway."
Mortimer still said nothing, but Violante appointed herself to speak for him. "Why should he help you if you're going to kill him in any case?" she asked her father.
The Adderhead shrugged his heavy shoulders. "I could let him die in a rather less painful way, or just send his wife and daughter to the mines instead of killing them. After all, we've bargained for those two once before."
"But this time
they're not in your hands." Mortimer's voice sounded as if he were very far away. He's going to say no, thought Orpheus in astonishment. What a fool.
"Not yet, but they soon will be." The Piper let his knife slide down Mortimer's chest, and its point traced a heart over the place where the real one beat. "Orpheus has given us a very detailed description of the place where they're hiding. You heard. The Milksop is presumably taking them to Ombra at this very moment."
For the second time Mortimer looked at Orpheus, and the hatred in his eyes was sweeter than the little cakes that Oss was sent to buy for him in Ombra market every Friday. Well, there'd be no more Oss now. Unfortunately, the Night-Mare had eaten him when it slipped out of Fenoglio's words – it had taken Orpheus some time to get it under control. But he could always find a new bodyguard.
"You can get down to work at once. Your noble patroness, very usefully, has made sure everything you'll need is here!" spat the Piper, and this time blood flowed when he pressed his knife against Mortimer's throat. "Obviously, she wanted to provide every last detail to make us think you were really still alive only to cure the Book. What a farce. Ah, well, she always had a weakness for strolling players."
Mortimer ignored the Piper as if he were invisible. He looked only at the Adderhead. "No," he said. The word hung heavily in the dark hall. "I will not bind you another book. Death would not forgive me a second time for that."
Violante instinctively took a step toward Mortimer, but he took no notice of her.
"Don't listen to him!" she told her father. "He'll do it! Just give him a little time." Oh, so she really was fond of the Bluejay. Orpheus frowned. One more reason to wish him to the devil.
The Adderhead looked thoughtfully at his daughter. "Why would you want him to do it?"
"Well, you…" For the first time Violante's voice betrayed uncertainty. "He'll make you well again."
"So?" The Silver Prince was breathing heavily. "You want to see me dead. Don't deny it. I like that! It shows that my blood flows in your veins. Sometimes I think I really should put you on the throne of Ombra. You'd certainly fill the position better than my silver-powdered brother-in-law."
Inkdeath ti-3 Page 47
