Inkdeath

4. INK-CLOTHES

A new morning woke Meggie, with pale light that fell on her l face and air as fresh as if no one had ever breathed it before. The fairies were twittering outside her window like birds that had learned to talk, and a blue jay screeched somewhere – if it really was a blue jay. The Strong Man could imitate any bird's call so well that it sounded as if the real thing were nesting in his broad chest. And they all answered him: larks, mockingbirds, woodpeckers, nightingales, and Gecko's tame crows.

Mo was awake, too. She heard his voice outside – and her mother's. Could Farid have come at last? She quickly rose from the straw mattress she slept on (what had sleeping in a bed felt like? She could hardly remember) and went to the window. She'd been waiting for Farid for days. He had promised to come. However, she saw no one out in the yard but her parents and the Strong Man, who smiled at her when he saw her standing at the window.

Mo was helping Resa to saddle one of the horses that had been waiting in the stables when they first came here. The horses were so beautiful that they must once have belonged to one of the Milksop's highborn friends, but as with many of the things the Black Prince brought, Meggie tried not to think too much about how they fell into the robbers' hands. She loved the Black Prince, Battista, and the Strong Man, but some of the others sent a shudder down her spine. Men like Snapper and Gecko, for instance, although the same men had rescued her and her parents on Mount Adder. "Robbers are robbers, Meggie," Farid often said. "The Prince does what he does for other people, but several of his men just want to fill their pockets without having to toil in the fields or in a workshop." Farid… She missed him so much that she felt ashamed of it.

Her mother was looking pale. Resa had often been sick over the last few days. That must be why she wanted to ride over and see Roxane. No one knew what to do in such cases better than Dustfinger's widow, except perhaps for the Barn Owl, but he himself hadn't been particularly well since the death of Dustfinger, and especially since the Adderhead had burned down the infirmary he'd run for so many years on the other side of the forest. No one knew what had become of Bella and all the other healers there.

A mouse, horned like Dustfinger's marten, scurried past as Meggie went outside, and a fairy whirred toward her and snatched at her hair, but by now Meggie knew just how to shoo them away. The colder the weather, the fewer fairies ventured out of their nests, but they were still on the hunt for human hair.

"Nothing keeps them warmer," Battista always said. "Except for bears' hair, and it's dangerous to pull that out."

The morning was so cool that Meggie wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. The clothes the robbers had found for them weren't as warm as the sweaters she'd have worn on a day like this in the other world, and she thought almost wistfully of the warm socks waiting for her in Elinor's cupboards.

Mo turned and smiled as she came toward him. He looked tired but happy to see her. He wasn't sleeping much. Often he would work late into the night in his makeshift workshop, using the few tools that Fenoglio had found him. And he was always going out into the forest, either alone or with the Prince. He thought Meggie didn't know, but several times when she had been standing by the window unable to sleep, waiting for Farid, she had seen the robbers come for him. They called to Mo with the blue jay's cry. Meggie heard it almost every night.

"Are you feeling any better?" She looked at her mother anxiously. "Perhaps it was those mushrooms we found the other day."

"No, it definitely wasn't the mushrooms." Resa looked at Mo and smiled. "Roxane is sure to know a herb that will help. Would you like to come with me? Brianna might be there; she doesn't work for Orpheus every day."

Brianna. Why would Meggie want to see her? Because they were almost the same age? After Cosimo's death and the massacre of Ombra's menfolk, Her Ugliness had thrown Brianna out as a belated punishment for having favored Cosimo's company over hers. So Brianna had come home to help Roxane in the fields at first, but now she was working for Orpheus. Just like Farid. By this time Orpheus had half a dozen maids. Farid said sarcastically that Cheeseface didn't even have to comb his own thin hair anymore. Orpheus hired only beautiful girls, and Brianna was very beautiful, so beautiful that beside her Meggie felt like a duck next to a swan. To make it even worse, Brianna was Dustfinger's daughter. "So? I don't even speak to her," Farid had said when Meggie asked about her. "She hates me, just like her mother." Still, he saw Brianna almost every day… and all the others. And it was almost two weeks since he had been to see Meggie.

"Well, are you coming with me?" Resa was still looking inquiringly at her, and Meggie felt herself blushing as if her mother had overheard all her thoughts.

"No," she said, "no, I think I'd rather stay here. The Strong Man will be riding with you, won't he?"

"Of course." The Strong Man had made it his business to protect Meggie and Resa. Meggie wasn't sure whether Mo had asked him to, or whether he simply did it to show his devotion to the Bluejay.

Resa let him help her up onto the horse. She often complained of the difficulty of riding in a dress and how she'd much rather have worn men's clothes in this world. "I'll be back before dark," she told Mo. "And maybe Roxane will have something to help you sleep better at night, too."

Then she disappeared among the trees with the Strong Man, and Meggie was alone with Mo, just as she had been in the old days when there were only the two of them.

"She really isn't well!"

"Don't worry, Roxane will know what to do." Mo glanced at the old bakehouse that he had made into his workshop. What were those black clothes he was wearing? Meggie wondered. "I have to go out myself, but I'll be back this evening. Gecko and Battista are in the stables, and the Prince is going to send Woodenfoot to be here, too, while the Strong Man's gone. Those three will look after you better than I can."

What was it she heard in his voice? A lie? He'd changed since Mortola all but killed him. He was more reserved and often as abstracted as if part of him had been left behind in the cave where he had almost died, or in the tower prison in the Castle of Night.

"Where are you going? I'll come with you." Meggie felt him start nervously as she put her arm through his. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing, nothing at all." He picked at his black sleeve and avoided her eyes.

"You've been out with the Prince again. I saw him in the farmyard last night. What happened?"

"It's nothing, Meggie. Really it isn't." He stroked her hair, an absent expression on his face, then turned and made for the bakehouse.

"Nothing at all?" Meggie followed him. The doorway was so low that Mo had to bend his head. "Where did you get those black clothes?"

"It's a bookbinder's outfit. Battista made it for me."

He went over to the table where he worked. Some leather lay on it, a few sheets of parchment, some thread, a knife, and the slim volume into which he had bound Resa's drawings over the last few weeks: pictures of fairies, fire-elves, and glass men, of the Black Prince and the Strong Man, Battista, and Roxane. There was one of Farid, too. The book was tied up as if Mo were taking it with him. The book, the black clothes…

Oh, she knew him so well.

"No, Mo!" Meggie snatched the book away and hid it behind her back. He might be able to deceive Resa but he couldn't deceive her.

"What is it?" He was trying really hard to look as if he had no idea what she meant. He was better at pretending than he used to be.

"You're planning to go to Ombra to see Balbulus. Are you out of your mind? It's far too dangerous!"

For a moment Mo actually considered telling her more lies, but then he sighed. "All right, I still can't fool you! I thought it might be easier now that you're almost grown-up. Stupid of me."

He put his arms around her and gently removed the book from her hands. "Yes, I want to see Balbulus. Before the books you've told me so much about are sold. Fenoglio will smuggle me into the castle as a bookbinder. How many casks of wine do you think the Milksop can buy for a book? They say half the library's gone already to pay for his banquets!"

"Mo, it's too dangerous! Suppose someone recognizes you?"

"Who? No one in Ombra has ever seen me."

"One of the soldiers could remember you from the dungeon in the Castle of Night. And they say Sootbird's in Ombra, too! A few black clothes aren't likely to deceive him."

"Oh, come on! When Sootbird last saw me I was half-dead. And another encounter with me will be the worse for him." His face, more familiar to her than any other, suddenly became the face of a stranger – and not for the first time. Cold, chilly.

"Don't look at me like that!" he said, smiling the chill away. But the smile didn't linger. "Do you know, my own hands seem strange to me, Meggie." He held them out to her as if she could see the change in them. "They do things I didn't even know they could do – and they do those things well."

Meggie looked at his hands as if they were another man's. She had so often seen them cutting paper, stitching pages together, stretching leather – or putting a bandage on her knee when she had cut it. But she knew only too well what Mo meant. She'd watched him often enough practicing behind the farm outbuildings with Battista or the Strong Man – with the sword he had carried ever since they were in the Castle of Night. Firefox's sword. Now he could make it dance as if his hands knew it as well as a paper knife or a bone folder for the pages in a book.

The Bluejay.

"I think I ought to remind my hands of their real trade, Meggie. I'd like to remind myself of it, too. Fenoglio has told Balbulus that he's found someone to repair and present his books as they deserve. But Balbulus wants to see this bookbinder before entrusting his works to him. That's why I'm going to ride to the castle and prove that I know my craft as well as he knows his. It's your own fault I can't wait to see his workshop with my own eyes at last! Do you remember all you told me about Balbulus and his brushes and pens, up in the tower of the Castle of Night?" He imitated her voice. "He's an illuminator, Mo! In Ombra Castle! The best of them all. You should see his brushes and his paints."

"Yes," she whispered. "Yes, I remember." She even remembered what he had replied: I'd really like to see those brushes. But she also remembered how afraid she had been for him back then.

"Does Resa know where you're going?" She put her hand on his chest, where there was only a scar now as a reminder that he had almost died.

He didn't need to answer. His guilty look said clearly enough that he hadn't told her mother anything about his plans. Meggie looked at the tools lying on the table. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was time to remind his hands of their trade. Maybe he could also play that part in this world, the part that he'd loved so much in the other one, even if it was said that the Milksop considered books even more unnecessary than boils on the face. But Ombra belonged to the Adderhead. His soldiers were everywhere. Suppose one of them recognized the man who had been their dark lord's prisoner a few months ago?

"Mo…" The words were on the tip of Meggie's tongue. She had often thought them over these last few days but never ventured to speak them aloud, because she wasn't sure whether she really meant them. "Don't you sometimes think we ought to go back? I do. Back to Elinor and Darius. I know I persuaded you to stay, but… but the Adderhead is still looking for you, and you go out at night with the robbers. Maybe Resa doesn't notice, but I do! We've seen it all, the fairies and nymphs, the Wayless Wood and the glass men…" It was so difficult to find the right words, words that could also explain to her what she herself was feeling. "Perhaps… perhaps it's time. I know Fenoglio isn't writing anymore, but we could ask Orpheus. He's jealous of you anyway. I'm sure he'd be glad if we went away and left him the only reader in this story!"

Mo just looked at her, and Meggie knew his answer. They had changed places. Now he was the one who didn't want to go back. On the table, with the coarsely made paper and the knives provided by Fenoglio, lay a blue jay's tail feather.

"Come here!" Mo perched on the edge of the table and drew her to his side, the way he had done countless times when she was a little girl. That was long ago, so long ago! As if it were in another story, and the Meggie in it a different Meggie. But when Mo put his arm around her shoulders she was back in that story for a moment, feeling safe, protected, without the longing that now felt as if it had always lived in her heart… the longing for a boy with black hair and soot on his fingers.

"I know why you want to go back," said Mo quietly. He might have changed, but he could still read her thoughts as easily as his own. "How long since Farid was last here? Five days? Six?"

"Twelve," said Meggie in a miserable voice, and buried her face against his shoulder.

"Twelve? What a faithless fellow. Shall we ask the Strong Man to tie a few knots in his skinny arms?"

Meggie had to laugh. What would she do if someday Mo wasn't there anymore to make her laugh?

"I haven't seen it all yet, Meggie," he said. "I still haven't seen Balbulus's books, and they matter the most. Handwritten books, Meggie, illuminated books, not stained by the dust of endless years, not yellowing and trimmed again and again… no, the paint has only just dried on their pages, the bindings are supple. Who knows, maybe Balbulus will even let me watch him at work for a while. Imagine it! I've so often wished that I could see one of those tiny faces being painted on the parchment, just once, and the tendrils beginning to twine around an initial, and…"

Meggie couldn't help it, she had to smile. "All right, all right," she said, and put her hand over his mouth. "All right," she repeated. "We'll ride to see Balbulus, but together."

As we used to, she added in her thoughts. Just you and me. And when Mo was about to protest she closed his mouth again. "You said it yourself! Back in the disused mine." The mine where Dustfinger had died… Meggie repeated Mo's words in a soft voice. She seemed to remember every word that had been spoken in those days, as if someone had written them on her heart. "Show me the fairies, Meggie. And the water-nymphs. And the book illuminator in Ombra Castle. Let's find out how fine his brushes really are."

Mo straightened up and began sorting out the tools lying on the table, as he always used to in his workshop in Elinor's garden.

"Yes. Yes, I expect those were my words," he said without looking at her. "But the Adderhead's brother-in-law rules Ombra now. What do you think your mother would say if I put you in such danger?"

Her mother. Yes…

"Resa doesn't have to know. Please, Mo! You must take me with you! Or… or I'll tell Gecko to tell the Black Prince what you're planning. Then you'll never get to Ombra!"

He turned his face away, but Meggie heard him laughing softly. "That's blackmail. Did I teach you how to be a blackmailer?"

With a sigh, he turned back and looked at her for a long time. "Oh, very well," he said at last. "Let's go to see the pens and brushes together. After all, we were together in the Adderhead's Castle of Night. Ombra Castle can't be so very dark by comparison, can it – although his brother-in-law rules it now?"

He stroked his black sleeve. "I'm glad bookbinders here don't wear a costume as yellow as glue," he said as he put the book of Resa's drawings into a saddlebag. "As for your mother – I'll fetch her from Roxane's after we've been to the castle, but don't tell her anything about our expedition. I expect you've guessed why she feels sick in the mornings, haven't you?"

Meggie looked at him blankly – and then suddenly seemed to herself very, very stupid.

"A brother or a sister? Which would you rather have?" Mo looked so happy. "Poor Elinor. Did you know she's been waiting for that news ever since we moved in with her? And now we've taken the baby away to another world with us."

A brother or a sister. For a while, when Meggie was little, she had pretended she had an invisible sister. She used to make her daisy tea and bake sand cakes.

"But… how long have you two known?"

"The baby comes from the same story as you do, if that's what you mean. From Elinor's house, to be precise. A flesh-and-blood child, not made of words, not made of ink and paper. Although… who knows? Perhaps we've only slipped out of one story and into another. What do you think?"

Meggie looked around, saw the table, the tools, the feather – and Mo's black clothes. Wasn't all this made of words? Fenoglio's words. The house, the farmyard, the sky above them, the trees, the rocks, the rain, the sun, and the moon. Yes, what about us? Meggie thought. What are we made of – Resa, me, Mo, and the baby on its way? She didn't know the answer anymore. Had she ever known it?

It seemed as if the things around her were whispering of all that would be and all that had been, and when Meggie looked at her hands she felt as if she could read letters there, letters saying: And then a new child was born.