Inkdeath

69. THE ADDERHEAD'S BEDCHAMBER

Resa flew after one of the servants who were carrying buckets of blood and water to the Adderhead's bedchamber. He sat there in a silver tub, red up to his neck, gasping and cursing, such a terrible sight that Resa feared for Mo more than ever. What revenge would make up for such suffering?

Thumbling looked around when she flew to the wardrobe by the door, but she ducked in good time. It could be useful to be small. Dustfinger's sparks were burning on the walls. Three soldiers were flicking at them with damp cloths, while the Adderhead put his bloodstained hand over his smarting eyes. His grandson stood beside the tub, arms folded, as if that would protect him from his grandfather's bad temper. What a small, thin child he was, as handsome as his father and delicately built like his mother. But unlike Violante, Jacopo didn't resemble his grandfather at all, although he imitated the Adderhead's every gesture.

"She didn't." He thrust out his chin. He had copied that from his mother, although presumably he didn't know it.

"Oh no? Then who else helped the Bluejay if not your mother?"

A servant poured the contents of his bucket over the Adderhead's back. Resa felt sick when she saw the blood running over the pale nape of his neck. Jacopo, too, looked at his grandfather with both fear and disgust – and quickly glanced away when the Adderhead caught him at it.

"Yes, you just look at me!" he snarled at his grandson. "Your mother helped the man who did this to me."

"She didn't. The Bluejay has flown away! Everyone says he can fly, and they say he's invulnerable, too."

The Adderhead laughed. His breath whistled. "Invulnerable? I'll show you just how invulnerable he is once I've caught him again. I'll give you a knife and you can find out for yourself."

"But you won't catch him."

The Adderhead smacked his hand down in the bath of blood, splashing Jacopo's pale tunic with red. "Watch out. You're getting more and more like your mother."

Jacopo seemed to be wondering whether this was a good thing or not.

Where was the White Book? Resa looked around her. Chests, clothes thrown over a chair, the bed untidy. The Adderhead slept poorly. Where did he hide it? His life depended on the Book, his immortal life. Resa looked for a casket, perhaps a precious cloth in which it was wrapped, even though it stank and was rotting… but suddenly the room went completely dark, so dark that only sounds remained: the splashing of the bloody water, the soldiers breathing hard, Jacopo's cry of alarm.

"What's that?"

Dustfinger's sparks had suddenly died down. Resa felt the bird's heart in her breast beating even faster than usual. What had happened? Something must have happened, and it couldn't be anything good.

One of the soldiers lit a torch, putting his hand around the flame to keep it from dazzling his master.

"At last!" The Adderhead's voice sounded both relieved and surprised. He waved to the servants, and they went on pouring the contents of their buckets over his itching skin. Where had they caught all the fairies? Fairies slept at this time of year.

The door opened as if the story itself were answering her, and Orpheus came in. "Well?" he asked with a deep bow. "Were there enough fairies, Your Highness? Or shall I get you some more?"

"This will do for the time being." The Adderhead filled his hands with the red water and dipped his face into it. "Do you have anything to do with the fire going out?"

"Do I have anything to do with it?" Orpheus smiled with such self-satisfaction that Resa longed to fly down and peck his pale face to pieces with her beak. "I do indeed," he went on. "I've persuaded the Fire-Dancer to change sides."

No. It couldn't be true. He was lying.

The bird in her pecked at a fly, and Jacopo looked up. Keep your head down, Resa, she told herself, even though it's dark. She wished the feathers on her breast and throat weren't so white.

"Good. But I hope you didn't promise him any reward for it!" The Adderhead plunged deep into the bloody water. "He's made me a laughingstock to my men. I want to see him dead, and dead beyond recall this time. But that can wait. What about the Bluejay?"

"The Fire-Dancer will lead us to him. For no reward at all." The words were terrible enough, but the beauty of Orpheus's voice made them even worse. "He'll lay a trail of flames, and your soldiers will only have to follow it."

No. No. Resa began trembling. Dustfinger surely hadn't betrayed Mo again. No.

A suppressed cry came from her bird-breast, and Jacopo looked up at her again. But even if he did see her, there was nothing there but a trembling swift lost in the dark human world.

"Is everything ready for the Bluejay to set to work at once?" asked Orpheus. "The sooner he's finished, the sooner you can kill him."

Oh, Meggie, what kind of being did you read here? Resa thought desperately. With his shining glasses and flatteringly beautiful voice, Orpheus seemed to her like a demon.

The Adderhead heaved himself out of his bath, groaning. He stood there as bloodstained as a newborn child. Jacopo instinctively flinched back, but his grandfather beckoned him closer.

"My lord, you need to stay in the bath longer for the blood to take effect!" said one of the servants.

"Later!" replied the Adderhead impatiently. "You think I want to be sitting in the tub when they bring me my worst enemy? Give me those towels!" he told Jacopo sharply. "And quick, or do you want me to put you in the dark cell with your mother? Did I say you were getting more like her? No, it's your father you look like – more and more like him all the time."

With a black look, Jacopo handed him the towels lying ready beside the tub.

"Clothes!"

The servants hurried over to the chests, and Resa hid in the dark again, but the voice of Orpheus followed her like a deadly scent.

"Your Grace, I… er…" He cleared his throat. "I've kept my promise. The Bluejay will soon be your prisoner again, and he'll bind you a new book. I think I've earned a reward."

"Oh, do you?" The servants were putting black garments on the Adderhead's bloodred skin. "And what were you thinking of?"

"Well. Do you remember the book I mentioned to you? I would still very much like to have it back, and I'm sure you can find it for me. But if that can't be done at once" – oh, the vanity of the gesture as he smoothed his pale, fair hair! – "I would also accept your daughter's hand in marriage as my reward for the delivery of the Bluejay."

Orpheus.

Resa thought of the day when she had first set eyes on him, in Elinor's house, accompanied by Mortola and Basta. At the time she had only noticed that he didn't resemble the men with whom Mortola usually liked to surround herself. He looked strangely harmless, almost innocent, with that childlike face. How stupid she had been. He was worse than any of them, much, much worse.

"Your Highness." That was the Piper's voice. Resa hadn't heard him come in. "We've caught the Bluejay. Him and the book illuminator. Shall we bring the Jay straight to you?"

"Aren't you going to tell us how you caught him?" purred Orpheus. "Did you pick up his scent with that silver nose of yours?"

The Piper replied in as reluctant a voice as if every word bit his tongue. "The Fire-Dancer gave him away. With a trail of flames."

Resa wanted to spit out the seeds so that she could shed human tears.

But Orpheus laughed out loud, happy as a child. "And who told you about that trail? Come on, out with it!"

It took the Piper a long time to answer. "You, who else?" he said hoarsely at last. "And someday I'll find out what devilry you used to do it."

"Well, he's done it, anyway!" said the Adderhead. "After you let the Jay escape twice. Take the prisoner to the Hall of a Thousand Windows. Chain him to the table where he's to bind the book, and have every move he makes watched. If this new book makes me sick, too, I'll cut out your heart with my own hands, Piper, and believe me, a heart's not as easily replaced as a nose."

Bird-thoughts were obscuring Resa's mind. It frightened her, but how was she to reach Mo without wings? And even if you do fly to him, she asked herself, what then? Are you going to peck out the Piper's eyes so that he can't see the Bluejay escape? Fly away, Resa, it's all over, she thought. Save your unborn child even if you can't save its father. Go back to Meggie. Birdlike fears filled her, birdlike fears and human pain – or was it the other way around? Was she going crazy? Crazy like Mortola?

She perched there, trembling, waiting for the bedchamber to empty and for the Adderhead to go and see his prisoner. Why did Dustfinger give him away? she wondered. Why? What did Orpheus promise him? What can be worth more than the life Mo gave him back?

The Adderhead, Orpheus, the Piper, the soldiers, two servants with the cushions to support their master's aching flesh – Resa saw them all go, but just as she thought she was alone and was putting her head over the edge of the wardrobe, there stood Jacopo staring straight up at her.

One of the servants came back to fetch the Adderhead his coat.

"See that bird up there?" Jacopo asked. "Catch it for me!"

But the servant dragged him unceremoniously to the door. "You don't give the orders around here! Go and see your mother. I'm sure she'll be glad of company where she is now!"

Jacopo resisted, but the servant pushed him roughly through the doorway. Then he closed the door – and came over to the wardrobe. Resa retreated. She heard him pushing something in front of the wardrobe. Fly into his face, she told herself. But then where? The door was closed, the windows draped. The servant threw a black coat at her. She fluttered against the door, against the walls, heard the man cursing. Where could she go? She flew up to the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, but something hit her wing. It hurt, it hurt badly, and she fell.

"You just wait, I'll wring your neck! Who knows, maybe you won't taste bad. Sure to be better than what our fine master gives us to eat." Hands reached for her. She tried to fly away, but her wing hurt, and the man's fingers held on tightly. In desperation, she pecked them with her beak. "Let it go!"

Bewildered, the servant turned, and Dustfinger struck him to the ground. There was fire behind him. A traitor's fire. Gwin was staring hungrily at her, but Dustfinger shooed him away. Resa tried to peck his hands when he reached for her, but she had no strength left, and he carefully lifted her from the floor and stroked her feathers.

"What's the matter with your wing? Can you move it?"

The bird in her trusted him, as all wild creatures did, but her human heart remembered what the Piper had said. "Why did you give Mo away?"

"Because that's what he wanted. Spit the seeds out, Resa! Have you forgotten that you're human?"

Perhaps I want to forget it, she thought, but she obediently spat the little seeds out into his hand. This time none were missing, but she still felt the bird growing stronger and stronger inside her. Small and large, large and small, skin with feathers, skin without feathers… She stroked her arms, felt fingers again, not claws, felt tears in her eyes, a woman's tears.

"Did you see where the White Book is hidden?"

She shook her head. Her heart was so glad that it could love Mo again.

"We have to find it, Resa," Dustfinger whispered. "Your husband is going to bind the Adder another book, remembering his old trade and forgetting the Bluejay, and in that way he will be safe from Orpheus's words. But that book must never be finished, do you understand?"

Yes, she understood. They looked everywhere by the light of the fire, groping among damp towels, clothes and boots, swords, pitchers, silver salvers, and embroidered cushions. They even reached into the bloody water. When they heard footsteps outside, Dustfinger dragged the unconscious servant with him, and they hid behind the wardrobe on which Resa had been perching. For a bird, the room had seemed as large as a whole world, but now it seemed too cramped to breathe in. Dustfinger placed himself in front of Resa to protect her, but the servants who came in were too busy emptying their master's bath of blood to notice anything. They cursed as they cleared the damp towels away, covering up for their disgust at the Adderhead's rotting flesh with mockery. Then they carried the tub out and left Dustfinger and Resa alone again.

Search… in every corner, in every chest, in and under the tumbled bed. Search for the Book.