Inkspell

56. THE WRONG EARS

Roxane brought Meggie an oil lamp before leaving her alone in the room where they would be sleeping. "Written words need light, that's the awkward thing about them," she said. "But if these words are really as important as you all say, I can understand that you want to read them alone. I've always thought my singing voice sounds best when I'm on my own, too." She was already in the doorway when she added, "Your mother – do she and Dustfinger know each other well?"

Meggie almost replied: I don't know. I never asked my mother. But at last she said, "They were friends." She did not mention the resentment she still felt when she thought of how Dustfinger had known where Resa was, all those years, and hadn't told Mo. But Roxane asked no more questions, anyway. "If you need any help," was all she said before she left the room, "you'll find me with the Barn Owl."

Meggie waited until her footsteps along the dark corridor had died away. Then she sat down on one of the straw mattresses and put the sheets of parchment on her lap. What would it be like, she couldn't help thinking as the words lay spread out before her, simply to do it for fun, just once? What would it be like to feel the magic of the words on her tongue when it wasn't a matter of life or death, good or bad luck? Once, in Elinor's house, she had been almost unable to resist that temptation, when she had seen a book that she'd loved as a small child – a book with mice in frilly dresses and tiny suits making jam and going for picnics. She had stopped the first word from forming on her lips by closing the book, though, because she'd suddenly seen some dreadful pictures in her mind. One of the dressed-up mice in Elinor's garden surrounded by its wild relations, who would never in a million years dream of making jam. And an image of a little frilly dress, complete with a gray tail, in the jaws of one of the cats that regularly roamed among Elinor's rhododendron bushes. Meggie had never brought anything out of the words on the page just for fun, and she wasn't going to do it this evening, either.

"The whole secret, Meggie," Mo had once told her, "is in the breathing. It gives your voice strength and fills it with your life. And not just yours. Sometimes it feels as if when you take a breath you are breathing in everything around you, everything that makes up the world and moves it, and then it all flows into the words." She tried it. She tried to breathe as calmly and deeply as the sea – the sound of the surf came into the room from outside – in and out, in and out, as if she could capture its power in her voice. The oil lamp that Roxane had brought in filled the bare room with warm light, and outside one of the women healers walked softly by.

"I'm just going on with the story!" whispered Meggie. "I'm going on with the story. That's what it's waiting for. Come on!" She pictured the massive figure of the Adderhead pacing sleeplessly up and down in the Castle of Night, never guessing that there was a girl who planned to whisper his name in Death's ear this very night.

She took the letter that Fenoglio had written her from her belt. It was as well that Dustfinger hadn't read it.

Dear Meggie, it said, I hope that what I'm sending won't disappoint you. It's odd, but I have found that obviously I can write only what doesn't contradict anything I wrote about the Inkworld earlier. I have to keep the rules I made myself, even though I often made them unconsciously.

I hope your father is all right. From what I hear he is now a prisoner in the Castle of Night – and I must admit that I am not entirely blameless there. Yes, I admit it. After all, as you will have found out by now, I used him as a living model for the Bluejay. I am sorry, but I really did think it was a good idea at the time. He made an excellent and noble robber in my imagination, and how could I guess that he would ever really come into my story? Well, be that as it may, he's here, and the Adderhead won't set him free just because I write a new passage saying so. I didn't make him that way, Meggie. The story must be true to itself, that's the only way to do it, so I can only send you these words. At first they may do no more than delay your father's execution, but I hope they will ultimately lead to his freedom after all. Trust me. I believe the words I enclose are the only possible way of bringing this story to a truly happy ending, and you like stories with happy endings, don't you?

Go on with my story, Meggie, before it goes on with itself!

I would have liked to bring you the words myself, but I have to keep an eye on Cosimo. I am rather afraid that in his case we made it a little too easy for ourselves. Take care of yourself, give my good wishes to your father when you see him again (which I hope will be soon) and to the boy who worships the ground under your feet, too – oh yes, and tell Dustfinger, though I don't suppose he'll like it, that his wife is much too beautiful for him.

Love and kisses,

Fenoglio

P.S. Since your father is still alive, I have wondered whether perhaps the words I gave you for him in the forest worked after all? If so, Meggie, then that could be only because I made him one of my characters, in a way – which would mean that some good came of the whole Bluejay story, don't you think?

Oh, Fenoglio. What a master he was in the art of turning everything to his own advantage!

A breath of wind came through the window as Meggie reread the letter, making the sheets of parchment move as if the story itself were impatient and wanted to hear the new words. "Yes, all right. Here I go," whispered Meggie.

She had not often heard her father read aloud, but she remembered exactly how Mo gave every word the right sound, every single word…

It was quiet in the room, very quiet. The whole Inkworld – every fairy, every tree, even the sea – seemed to be waiting for her voice. "Night after night," Meggie began, "the Adderhead could get no rest. His wife slept soundly and deeply. She was his fifth wife, and younger than his three eldest daughters. Her body, pregnant with his child, was a mound under the bedclothes. It must be a boy this time; she had already borne him two daughters. If this child was another girl he would disown her, just as he had repudiated his other wives. He would send her back to her father or to some lonely castle in the mountains.

Why could she sleep, although she feared him, while he paced up and down the magnificent bedchamber like an old dancing bear in its cage?

Because he alone felt the truly great fear. The fear of Death.

Death waited outside the windows, outside the glass panes paid for by selling his strongest peasants. Death pressed its ugly face against them as soon as darkness swallowed up his castle like a snake swallowing a mouse. He had more torches lit every night, more candles, yet still the fear came – to make him shake and fall on his knees because they trembled so much, to show him his future: the flesh falling from his bones, the worms eating him, the White Women leading him away. The Adderhead pressed his hands to his mouth so that the guards outside the door would not hear him sobbing. Fear. Fear of the end of all his days, fear of the void, fear, fear, fear. Fear that Death was already in his body somewhere, invisible, growing and flourishing and eating him away – the one enemy he could never defeat, never burn or stab or hang, the one enemy from whom there was no escaping.

One night, blacker and more endless than any that had gone before, the fear was particularly terrible, and he had them all woken, as he quite often did, all who were sleeping peacefully in their beds instead of trembling and sweating like him: his wife, the useless physicians, the petitioners, scribes, administrators, his herald, the silver-nosed minstrel. He had the cooks driven into the kitchen to prepare him a banquet, but as he was sitting at his table, his fingers dripping with fat from the freshly roasted meat, a girl came to the Castle of Night. She walked fearlessly past the guards and offered him a deal: a bargain with Death.

That was how it would be. Because she was reading it. How the words made their way out through Meggie's lips. As if they were weaving the future. Every sound, every character a thread… Meggie forgot everything around her: the infirmary, the straw mattress she was sitting on, even Farid and his unhappy face as he watched her go. She went on spinning Fenoglio's story; that was why she was here, spinning it out of threads of sound with her breath and her voice – to save her father and her mother. And this whole strange world that had enchanted her.

When Meggie heard the agitated voices she thought at first that they were coming out of the words, but they grew louder and louder. Reluctantly, she raised her head. She hadn't read it all yet. There were still a few sentences waiting, waiting for her to teach them to breathe. Look at the words on the page, Meggie, she told herself. Concentrate!

She gave a start when a dull knocking resounded through the infirmary. The voices grew louder, she heard hasty footsteps, and Roxane appeared in the doorway. "They've come from the Castle of Night!" she whispered. "They have a picture of you, a strange picture. Quick, come with me!"

Meggie tried to put the parchment in her sleeve until she could read those last few sentences, but then thought better of it and pushed it down the neck of her dress. She hoped it would not show under the firm fabric. She could still taste the words on her tongue, she still saw herself standing before the Adderhead just as she had read it, but Roxane reached for her hand and pulled her along. A woman's voice came down the colonnade, Bella's voice, and then the voice of a man, loud and commanding. Roxane did not let Meggie's hand go but led her on, past the doors behind which the patients slept or else lay awake listening to their own heavy breathing.

The Barn Owl's room was empty. Roxane took Meggie in with her, bolted the door, and looked around. The window was barred, and the steps were coming closer. Meggie thought she heard the Barn Owl's voice, and another voice, rough and threatening. Then, suddenly, there was silence. They had stopped outside the door. Roxane put her arm around Meggie's shoulders.

"They're going to take you with them!" she whispered as the Barn Owl talked to the intruders on the other side of the door. "We'll send word to the Black Prince. He has spies in the castle. We'll try to help you, understand?"

Meggie just nodded.

Someone was hammering on the door. "Open up, little witch, or do we have to come and get you?"

Books, books everywhere. Meggie retreated among the stacks of volumes. There wasn't a single book here she could have gone to for help, even if she'd wanted to. The knowledge in them could give her no aid. She'd have needed a story for that, but she remembered looking for a suitable story in vain in Capricorn's house. She glanced at Roxane in search of help – and saw the same helplessness on Roxane's face, too.

What would happen if they took her away with them? So many sentences were still unread. Meggie tried desperately to remember just where she had been interrupted…

More hammering on the door. The wood groaned; it would soon splinter and break. Meggie went to the door, pushed back the bolt, and opened it. She couldn't count the soldiers standing out in the narrow corridor, but there were a great many of them.

They were led by Firefox; Meggie recognized him in spite of the scarf he had tied over his mouth and nose. They all had such scarves wound around their faces, and their eyes above the cloth were terrified. I hope you've all caught the plague here, thought Meggie. I hope you die like flies. The soldier beside Firefox stumbled back as if he had heard her thoughts, but it was Meggie's face that frightened him. "Witch!" he exclaimed, staring at what Firefox held in his hand. Meggie recognized the narrow silver frame at once. It was her photograph, from Elinor's library.

A murmur arose among the men-at-arms. But Firefox put his hand roughly under her chin, making her turn her face to him. "I thought so. You're the girl from the stable," he said. I'll admit you didn't look to me like a witch there!" Meggie tried to turn her head away, but Firefox's hand did not let go. "Well done!" he said to a girl who was standing among the men-at-arms looking lost. Her feet were bare, and she wore the same plain tunic as all the women who worked in the infirmary. Carla, wasn't that her name?

She bent her head and looked at the piece of silver that the soldier pressed into her hand as if she'd never seen such a beautiful, shiny coin before. "He said I'd get work," she whispered almost inaudibly. "In the castle kitchen. The minstrel with the silver nose said so."

Firefox shrugged scornfully. "You've come to the wrong man here," he said, turning his back to her heedlessly. "And this time I'm to take you, too, sawbones," he said to the Barn Owl. "You've let the wrong sort of visitors through your gate once too often. I told the Adderhead it was high time to light a fire here, a great fire. I can still do that kind of thing extremely well, but he wouldn't hear of it. Someone's told him his death will come out of a fire. Since then he won't let us light anything but candles."

There was no missing his contempt for his master's weakness.

The Barn Owl looked at Meggie. I'm sorry, said his eyes. And she read a question in them, too: Where's Dustfinger? Yes, where?

"Let me go with her." Roxane went up to Meggie and tried to put an arm around her shoulders again, but Firefox pushed her roughly back.

"Only the girl in the witch picture," he said, "and the physician."

Roxane, Bella, and a few of the other women followed them to the gate leading out to the sea. The surf shone in the moonlight, and the beach lay there deserted, except for a few footprints that no one, luckily, examined closely. The soldiers had brought horses for their prisoners. Meggie's laid its ears back when one of the soldiers put her on its back. Only when it was trotting toward the mountains with her did she dare to look surreptitiously around. But there was no sign of Dustfinger and Farid. Except for the footprints in the sand.