Inkdeath

2. ONLY A VILLAGE

The fairies were already beginning to dance among the trees, swarms of tiny blue bodies. Their wings caught the starlight, and Mo saw the Black Prince glancing anxiously at the sky. It was still as dark as the surrounding hills, but the fairies were never wrong. On a cold night like this, only the coming of dawn could lure them from their nests, and the village whose harvest the robbers were trying to save this time lay dangerously close to Ombra. As soon as daybreak came they must be gone.

A village like many others: only a dozen poor huts; a few barren, stony fields; and a wall that would hardly keep out a child, let alone a soldier. Thirty women without their menfolk, three dozen fatherless children. Two days ago the new governor's men had carried off almost the entire harvest of the neighboring village. The robbers had reached the place too late, but something could still be salvaged here. They'd spent hours digging, showing the women how to hide livestock and provisions underground…

The Strong Man was carrying the last hastily dug sackful of potatoes, his rough-hewn face red with effort. It turned the same color when he was fighting or drunk. Between them all, they lowered the sack into the hiding place they had made just beyond the fields, and Mo covered the entrance with a network of twigs to hide the storage pit from soldiers and tax-gatherers. By now, toads were croaking in the surrounding hills, as if to entice out the day, and the men on watch among the huts were getting restless. They'd seen the fairies, too. High time to get away, back into the forest where a hiding place could always be found, even though the new governor was sending more and more patrols out to the hills. The Milksop, the widows of Ombra called him. A good nickname for the Adderhead's puny brother-in-law. But the Milksop's greed for what few possessions his new subjects had was insatiable.

Mo rubbed his eyes. Heavens, he was tired. He'd hardly slept for days. There were just too many villages that they might yet be able to reach ahead of the soldiers.

"You look worn-out," Resa had said only yesterday when she woke up beside him, unaware that he hadn't come to bed beside her until the first light of dawn. He had said something about bad dreams, told her he'd been passing the sleepless hours by working on the book he was binding, a collection of her drawings of fairies and glass men. He hoped Resa and Meggie would be asleep again now when he came back to the lonely farmhouse that the Black Prince had found for them. It was east of Ombra, an hour's journey from the city on foot, and far from the land where the Adderhead still ruled, made immortal by a book that Mo had bound with his own hands.

Soon, thought Mo. Soon the book won't protect him anymore. But how often had he told himself that before? And the Adderhead was still immortal.

A girl hesitantly approached Mo. How old would she be? Six? Seven? Her hair was as blond as Meggie's, but it was a long time since Meggie had been so small. Shyly, she stopped a pace away from him.

Snapper emerged from the darkness and went over to the child. "Yes, go on, take a good look!" he whispered to the little girl. "That's really him – the Bluejay! He eats children like you for supper."

Snapper loved such jokes. Mo bit back the words on the tip of his tongue. "Don't believe a word he says!" he told her in a low voice. "Why aren't you asleep like everyone else?"

The child looked at him. Then she pushed up his sleeve with her small hands until the scar showed. The scar of which the songs told tales…

She looked at him, wide-eyed, with the same mixture of awe and fear he had now seen in so many faces. The Bluejay. The girl ran back to her mother, and Mo straightened up. Whenever his chest hurt where Mortola had wounded him, he felt as if the Bluejay – the robber to whom Fenoglio had given Mo's face and voice – had slipped in there to join him. Or had the Bluejay always been a part of him, merely sleeping until Fenoglio's world brought him to life?

Sometimes when they were taking meat or a few sacks of grain stolen from the Milksop's bailiffs to one of the starving villages, women would come up to him and kiss his hand. "Go and thank the Black Prince, not me," he always told them, but the Prince just laughed. "Get yourself a bear," he said. "Then they'll leave you alone."

A child began crying in one of the huts. A tinge of red was showing in the night sky, and Mo thought he heard hoofbeats. Horsemen, at least a dozen of them, maybe more. How fast the ears learned to tell what sounds meant, much faster than it took the eyes to decipher written words.

The fairies scattered. Women cried out and ran to the huts where their children slept. Mo's hand drew his sword as if of its own accord. As if it had never done anything else. It was the sword he had taken from the Castle of Night, the sword that once belonged to Firefox.

The first light of dawn.

Wasn't it said that they always came at first light because they loved the red of the sky? With any luck they'd be drunk after one of their master's endless banquets.

The Prince signaled to the robbers to take up their positions surrounding the village. It was only a couple of courses of flat stones, and the huts wouldn't offer much protection, either. The bear was snorting and grunting, and here they came now, out of the darkness: horsemen, more than a dozen of them, with the new crest of Ombra on their breasts, a basilisk on a red background. They had not, of course, been expecting to find men here. Weeping women, crying children, yes, but not men, and armed men at that. Taken aback, they reined in their horses. They were drunk. Good – that would slow them down.

They didn't hesitate for long, seeing at once that they were far better armed than the ragged robbers. And they had horses.

Fools. They'd die before they realized that weapons and horses weren't all that counted.

"Every last one of them!" Snapper whispered hoarsely to Mo. "We have to kill them all, Bluejay. I hope your soft heart understands that. If a single man gets back to Ombra, this village will burn tomorrow."

Mo merely nodded. As if he didn't know.

The horses neighed shrilly as their riders urged them toward the robbers, and Mo felt it again, just as he had on Mount Adder when he had killed Basta – that coldness of the blood. Cold as the hoarfrost at his feet. The only fear he felt was fear of himself.

But then came the screams. The groans. The blood. His own heartbeat, loud and much too fast. Striking and thrusting, pulling his sword out of the bodies of strangers, the blood of strangers wet on his clothes, faces distorted by hatred – or was it fear? Fortunately, you couldn't see much under their helmets. They were so young! Smashed limbs, smashed human beings. Careful, watch out behind you. Kill. Fast. Not one of them must get away.

"Bluejay."

One of the soldiers whispered the name before Mo struck him down. Perhaps he had been thinking, with his last breath, of all the silver he'd get for bringing the Bluejay's body back to Ombra Castle – more silver than he could ever take as loot in a whole lifetime as a soldier. Mo pulled his sword out of the man's chest. They had come without their body armor. Who needed armor against women and children? How cold killing made you, very cold, although your own skin was burning and your blood was flowing fever-hot.

They did indeed kill them all. It was quiet in the huts as they threw the bodies over the precipice. Two were their own men, whose bones would now mingle with those of their enemies. There was no time to bury them.

The Black Prince had a nasty cut on his shoulder. Mo bandaged it as best he could. The bear sat beside them, looking anxious. The child came out of one of the huts, the little girl who had pushed up his sleeve. From a distance she really did look like Meggie. Meggie, Resa… he hoped they'd still be asleep when he got back. How was he going to explain all the blood if they weren't? So much blood…

Sometime, Mortimer, he thought, the nights will overshadow the days. Nights of blood. Peaceful days – days when Meggie showed him everything she had only been able to tell him about in the tower of the Castle of Night. Nymphs with scaly skins dwelling in blossom-covered pools, footprints of giants long gone, flowers that whispered when you touched them, trees growing right up to the sky, moss-women who appeared between their roots as if they had peeled away from the bark… Peaceful days. Nights of blood.

They did what they could to cover up the traces of the fight and left, taking the horses with them. There was a note of fear in the stammered thanks of the village women as they left. They'd seen with their own eyes that their allies knew as much about killing as their enemies did.

Snapper rode back to the robbers' camp with the horses and most of the men. The camp was moved almost daily. At present it was in a dark ravine that became hardly any lighter even by day. They would send for Roxane to tend the wounded, while Mo went back to where Resa and Meggie were sleeping at the deserted farm. The Prince had found it for them, because Resa didn't want to stay in the robbers' camp, and Meggie, too, longed for a house to live in after all those homeless weeks.

The Black Prince accompanied Mo, as he so often did. "Of course. The Bluejay never travels without a retinue," mocked Snapper before they parted company. Mo, whose heart was still racing from all the killing, could have dragged him off his horse for that, but the Prince restrained him.

They traveled on foot. It meant a painfully long walk for their tired limbs, but their footprints were harder to follow than a trail left by horses' hooves. And the farm must be kept safe, for everything Mo loved was waiting there.

The house, and the dilapidated farm buildings, always appeared among the trees as unexpectedly as if someone had dropped and lost them there. There was no trace now of the fields where food for the farm had once been grown, and the path that used to lead to the nearest village had disappeared long ago. The forest had swallowed up everything. Here it was no longer called the Wayless Wood, the name it bore south of Ombra. Here the forest had as many names as there were local villages: the Fairy Forest, the Dark Wood, the Moss-Women's Wood. If the Strong Man was to be believed, the place where the Bluejay's hideout lay was called Larkwood. "Larkwood? Nonsense" was Meggie's response to that. "The Strong Man calls everything after birds! He even gives birds' names to the fairies, although they can't stand the birds. Battista says it's called the Wood of Lights, which suits it much better. Did you ever see so many glowworms and fire-elves in a wood? And all those fireflies that sit in the treetops at night…"

Whatever the name of the wood, Mo was always captivated afresh by the peace and quiet under its trees. It reminded him that this, too, was a part of the Inkworld, as much a part of it as the Milksop's soldiers. The first of the morning sun was filtering through the branches, dappling the trees with pale gold, and the fairies were dancing as if intoxicated in the cold autumn sunlight. They fluttered into the bear's furry face until he hit out at them, and the Prince held one of the little creatures to his ear, smiling as if he could understand what its sharp, shrill little voice was saying.

Had the other world been like this? Why could he hardly remember? Had life there been the same beguiling mixture of darkness and light, cruelty and beauty… so much beauty that it sometimes almost made you drunk?

The Black Prince had the farm guarded by his men day and night.

Gecko was one of the guards today. As Mo and the Prince came through the trees, he emerged from the ruined pigsty, a morose expression on his face. Gecko was always on the move. He was a small man whose slightly protuberant eyes had earned him his name. One of his tame crows was perched on his shoulder. The Prince used the crows as messengers, but most of the time they stole for Gecko from the markets; the amount they could carry away in their beaks always amazed Mo.

When he saw the blood on their clothes, Gecko turned pale. But the shadows of the Inkworld had obviously left the isolated farm untouched again last night.

Mo almost fell over his own feet with weariness as he walked toward the well. The Prince reached for his arm, although he, too, was swaying with exhaustion.

"It was a close shave this time," he said quietly, as if the peace were an illusion that could be shattered by his voice. "If we're not more careful the soldiers will be waiting for us in the next village. The price the Adderhead has set on your head is high enough to buy all of Ombra. I can hardly trust my own men anymore, and by this time even the children in the villages recognize you. Perhaps you ought to lie low here for a while."

Mo shooed away the fairies whirring in the air above the well, then let the wooden bucket down. "Nonsense. They recognize you, too."

The water in the depths below shone as if the moon were hiding there from morning. Like the well outside Merlin's cottage, thought Mo as he cooled his face with the clear water and cleaned the cut that a soldier had given him on his forearm. All we need now is for Archimedes to fly up on my shoulder, while Wart comes stumbling out of the wood…

"What are you smiling at?" The Black Prince leaned on the edge of the well beside Mo, while his bear lumbered around, snuffling, on ground that was wet with dew.

"A story I once read." Mo put the bucket of water down for the bear. "I'll tell it to you sometime. It's a good story, even though it has a sad ending."

But the Prince shook his head and passed his hand over his tired face. "If it ends sadly I don't want to hear it."

Gecko wasn't the only man who had been guarding the sleeping farm. Mo smiled when Battista stepped out of the tumbledown barn. Battista had no great opinion of fighting, but Mo liked him and the Strong Man best of all the robbers, and he found it easier to go out at night if one of them was watching over Resa and Meggie. Battista still did his clown act at fairs, even when his audience had hardly a penny to spare. "We don't want them forgetting how to laugh altogether!" he said when Snapper mocked him for it. He liked to hide his pockmarked face behind the masks he made for himself: laughing masks, weeping masks, whatever he felt like at the time. But when he joined Mo at the well he handed him not a mask but a bundle of black clothes.

"A very good morning to you, Bluejay," he said, with the same deep bow that he made to his audience. "Sorry I took rather a long time with your order, but I ran out of thread. Like everything else, it's hard to get in Ombra. But luckily Gecko here," he added, bowing in the man's direction, "sent one of his black-feathered friends off to steal me a few reels from one of the market traders. Thanks to our new governor, they're still rich."

"Black clothes?" The Prince looked inquiringly at Mo. "What for?"

"A bookbinder's garments. Binding books is still my trade, or have you forgotten? What's more, black is good camouflage by night. As for this," said Mo, stripping off his bloodstained shirt, "I'd better dye it black, too, or I can't very well wear it again."

The Prince looked at him thoughtfully. "I'll say it again, even though you don't want to listen. Lie low here for a few days. Forget the outside world, just as the world has forgotten this farm."

The anxiety in his dark face touched Mo, and for a moment he was almost tempted to give the bundle back to Battista. But only almost.

When the Prince had gone, Mo hid the shirt and his bloodstained trousers in the former bakehouse, now converted into his workshop, and put on the black clothes. They fit perfectly, and he was wearing them as he slipped back into the house just as the morning made its way in through the unglazed windows.

Meggie and Resa were still asleep. A fairy had lost her way in the gloom of Meggie's room. Mo lured her to his hand with a few quiet words. "Will you look at that?" Snapper always used to say. "Even the damn fairies love his voice. Looks like I'm the only person not to fall under its spell."

Mo carried the fairy over to the window and let her flutter out. He pulled Meggie's blanket up over her shoulders, the way he used to on all those nights when he and she had only each other, and he glanced at her face. How young she still looked when she was asleep. Awake, she seemed so much more grown-up. She whispered a name in her sleep. "Farid." Was it when you fell in love for the first time that you grew up?

"Where have you been?"

Mo spun around. Resa was standing in the open doorway, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

"Watching the fairies' morning dance. The nights are getting colder now. Soon they'll hardly leave their nests at all."

It wasn't exactly a lie. And the sleeves of the black tunic were long enough to hide the cut on his forearm. "Come with me, or we'll wake this big daughter of ours."

He drew her with him into the bedroom where they slept.

"What kind of clothes are those?"

"A bookbinder's outfit. Battista made it for me. Black as ink. Suitable, don't you think? I've asked him to make you and Meggie something, too. You'll be needing another dress soon."

He put his hand on her belly. You couldn't see it yet. A new child brought with them from the old world, although they had found out only in this one. It was barely a week since Resa had told him. "Which would you like," she'd asked, "a daughter or a son?" "Can I choose?" he had replied, trying to imagine what it would be like to hold tiny fingers in his hand again, so tiny that they could scarcely grasp his thumb. It was just the right time – before Meggie was so grown-up that he could hardly call her a child at all.

"The sickness is getting worse. I'll ride over to see Roxane later. She's sure to know what to do for it."

"Yes, she's sure to know." Mo took her in his arms.

Peaceful days. Nights of blood.