Inkdeath

23. THE GRAVEYARD OF THE STROLLING PLAYERS

The strolling players' graveyard lay above a deserted village. Carandrella. It had kept its name, although the inhabitants had left long ago. Why and where they went no one knew now – an epidemic, some said, while others spoke of famine, and others again of two warring clans who had slaughtered each other and driven out any survivors. Whichever story was true, it wasn't in Fenoglio's book, nor was this graveyard where the peasants had buried their dead among the Motley Folk, so that now they slept side by side forever.

A narrow, stony path wound its way from the abandoned cottages up the furze-grown slope and ended on a rocky headland. Standing there you could look far south over the treetops of the Wayless Wood toward Argenta, where the sea lay somewhere beyond the hills. The dead of Carandrella, they said in Lombrica, have the best view in the country.

A crumbling wall surrounded the graves. The gravestones were of the pale stone that was also used to build houses here. Stones for the living, stones for the dead. Names were incised on some of them, scratched clumsily as if whoever wrote them had learned the letters only to preserve the sound of a beloved name, rescuing it from the silence of death.

Meggie felt as if the stones were whispering those names to her as she walked past the graves – Farina, Rosa, Lucio, Renzo. Those stones that bore no names seemed like closed mouths, sad mouths that had forgotten how to speak. But perhaps the dead didn't mind what their names had once been?

Mo was still talking to Orpheus. The Strong Man was sizing up his bodyguard, Oss, as if wondering which of them had the broader chest.

Mo. Don't do it! Please.

Meggie looked at her mother, and abruptly turned her face away when Resa returned her glance. She was so angry with her. It was all because of Resa's tears, and because she had ridden off to see Orpheus, that Mo was here now.

The Black Prince had come with them as well as the Strong Man – and Doria, although his brother had told him to stay behind. Like Meggie, he was standing among the graves, looking around him at the things lying in front of the gravestones: faded flowers, a wooden toy, a shoe, a whistle. A fresh flower lay on one grave. Doria picked it up. The flower was white, like the beings they were waiting for. When he saw Meggie looking at him he came over to her. He really wasn't at all like his brother. The Strong Man wore his brown hair short, but Doria's was wavy and shoulder length. Sometimes Meggie felt as if he had come out of one of the old fairy-tale books that Mo had given her when she'd just learned to read. The pictures in the books had been yellow with age, but Meggie used to look at them for hours, firmly convinced that the fairies featured in some of the tales had painted them with their tiny hands.

"Can you read the letters on the stones?" Doria was still holding the white flower as he stopped in front of her. Two fingers of his left hand were stiff. His father had broken them long ago in a drunken rage when Doria tried to protect his sister from him. At least, that was how the Strong Man told the story.

"Yes, of course." Meggie looked her father's way again. Fenoglio had sent him a message, delivered by Battista. You can't trust Orpheus, Mortimer! All useless.

Don't do it, Mo. Please!

"I'm looking for a name." Doria sounded shyer than usual. "But I can’t… I can’t read. It's my sister's name."

"What was she called?"

If the Strong Man was right, Doria had been fifteen on the very day when the Milksop was going to hang him. Meggie thought he looked older. "Ah, well," the Strong Man had said. "Could be he's older. My mother's not that good at counting. She can't even remember my birthday."

"Her name was Susa." Doria looked at the graves as if the name alone could conjure up his sister. "My brother says she's supposed to be buried here, only he can't remember just where."

They found the gravestone. It was overgrown with ivy, but the name was still clearly legible. Doria bent down and moved the ivy leaves aside. "She had hair as bright as yours," he said. "Lazaro says my mother turned her out because she wanted to go and live with the strolling players. He never forgave her for that."

"Lazaro?"

"My brother. You call him the Strong Man." Doria traced the letters with his finger. They looked as if someone had scratched them into the stone with a knife. The first S was overgrown with moss.

Mo was still talking to Orpheus. Orpheus handed him a sheet of paper: the words he had written at Resa's request. Was Mo going to read them this very night, if the White Women really did appear? Would they all be back in Elinor's house before it was day? Meggie didn't know whether the idea made her feel sad or relieved. She didn't want to think about it, either. All she wanted was for Mo to get on his horse and ride away again, and for her mother's tears never to have brought him here.

Farid was standing a little way off with Jink on his shoulder. At the sight of him, Meggie's heart felt the same chill as when she looked at Resa. Farid had taken Orpheus's demand to Mo knowing what danger it could mean for her father, knowing, too, that if the deal went through they might never see each other again. But all that meant nothing to Farid. He cared for only one person, and that was Dustfinger.

"They say you come from far away, you and the Bluejay." Doria had drawn the knife from his belt and was scratching the moss away from his sister's name. "Is it different there?"

What could she say to that? "Yes," she murmured at last. "Very different."

"Really? Farid says there are coaches that can drive without horses, and music that comes out of a tiny black box."

Meggie couldn't help smiling. "Yes, that's right," she said quietly.

Doria placed the white flower on his sister's grave and stood up. "Is it true that there are flying machines in that country, too?"

How curious he was! "I once tried making myself wings. I even flew a little way with them, but not very far."

"Yes, there are flying machines there as well," replied Meggie distractedly. "Resa can draw them for you."

Mo folded the sheet of paper that Orpheus had given him. Her mother went over to him and began talking to him urgently. Why bother? He wouldn't listen to her. "There's no other way, Meggie," was all he had said, when she herself had begged him not to agree to the offer made by Orpheus. "Your mother is right. It's time to go back. This is getting more dangerous every day." And what could she say to that? The robbers had moved camp three times over the last few days because of the Piper's patrols, and they had heard that women were going to Ombra Castle all the time, claiming to have seen the Bluejay, in the hope of saving their children. Oh, Mo.

"He'll come to no harm," said Doria behind her. "You wait and see, even the White Women love his voice."

Nonsense. Nothing but poetic nonsense!

When Meggie went over to Mo her boots left traces in the hoarfrost as if a ghost had been walking over the graveyard. Mo's face was so serious. Was he afraid? Well, what do you think, Meggie? she asked herself. He wants to call the White Women. They're made of nothing but longing, Meggie.

Farid looked awkwardly away as she passed him.

"Please! You don't have to do it!" Resa's voice sounded far too loud among all the dead, and Mo gently laid his hand on her lips.

"I want to," he said. "And you mustn't be afraid. I know the White Women better than you think." He tucked the folded sheet of paper into her belt. "There. Take good care of it. If for any reason I'm unable to read it, then Meggie will do it."

If for any reason I'm unable to read it… if they kill me with their cold white hands, the way they killed Dustfinger. Meggie opened her mouth – and shut it again when Mo looked at her. She knew that look. No arguing. Forget it, Meggie.

"Good. Very well, then. I've done my part of the bargain. I… er, I don't think we should wait any longer!" Orpheus was visibly impatient. He was stepping from foot to foot, with an unctuous smile on his lips. "They're said to like it when the moon is shining, before it disappears behind the clouds…"

Mo just nodded and signaled to the Strong Man, who gently led Resa and Meggie away from the graves to an oak growing at the side of the graveyard. At a gesture from his brother, Doria joined them under the tree.

Orpheus, too, took a couple of steps back, as if it were too dangerous to stand beside Mo now.

Mo exchanged a glance with the Black Prince. What had he told him? That he was going to try calling the White Women only for Dustfinger's sake? Or did the Prince know about the words that act would buy the Bluejay? No, surely not.

Side by side, the two of them walked among the graves. The bear trotted after them. As for Orpheus, he and his bodyguard hurried over to the oak where Meggie and Resa were standing. Only Farid stayed put as if rooted to the spot, on his face both fear of the beings whom Mo was about to summon and longing for the man they had taken away with them.

A light wind blew over the graveyard, cool as the breath of those they were waiting for, and Resa instinctively took a step forward, but the Strong Man drew her back.

"No," he said quietly, and Resa stood still in the shade of the branches and stared, like Meggie, at the two men who had now stopped in the middle of the graveyard.

"Show yourselves, daughters of Death!"

Mo's voice sounded as calm as if he had called on them many times before. "You remember me, don't you? You remember Capricorn's fortress, you remember following me into the cave, and how faintly my heart beat against your white fingers. The Bluejay wants to ask you about a friend. Where are you?"

Resa put a hand to her heart. It must be beating as fast as Meggie's.

The first White Woman appeared right beside the gravestone where Mo was standing. She had only to reach out her arm to touch him, and she did touch him, as gently as if she were greeting a friend.

The bear moaned and lowered his head. Then he retreated step by step and did something he had never done before. He left his master's side. But the Black Prince stood his ground next to Mo, although his dark face showed fear such as Meggie had never seen on it before.

Mo's face, however, gave nothing away when the pale fingers caressed his arm. The second White Woman appeared to his right. She put her hand to his breast, to the place where his heart was beating. Resa cried out and took another step forward, but the Strong Man held her back again.

"They won't harm him. Watch!" he whispered to her.

Another White Woman appeared, then a fourth, and a fifth. They surrounded Mo and the Black Prince until Meggie saw the two men only as shadows among those misty figures. They were so beautiful – and so terrible – and for a moment Meggie wished Fenoglio could see them, too. She knew how proud he would have been of the sight, proud of the flightless angels he had created.

More and more kept coming. They seemed to form from the white vapor that Mo and the Prince exhaled into the air. Why were there so many? Meggie saw the same enchantment that she felt on Resa's face, too, even on Farid's, although he was so frightened of ghosts.

But then the whispering began, in voices that seemed as ethereal as the pale women themselves. It grew louder and louder, and enchantment turned to fear. Mo's outline blurred, as if he were dissolving in all the whiteness. Doria looked at his brother in alarm. Resa called Mo's name. The Strong Man tried to hold her back once more, but she tore herself away and began to run. Meggie ran after her, plunging into the mist of translucent bodies. Faces turned to her, as pale as the stones over which she stumbled. Where was her father?

She tried to push the white figures aside, but she only reached into a void again and again, until suddenly she touched the Black Prince. There he stood, his face ashen, his sword in his trembling hand, looking around him as if he had forgotten where he was. But the White Women were no longer whispering. They dissolved like smoke blowing in the wind. The night seemed darker when they were gone. So dark. And so terribly cold.

Resa called Mo's name again and again, and the Prince looked around desperately, his useless sword in his hand.

But Mo was not there.