Inkdeath (Inkworld 3)

Meggie didn’t answer. And Resa caressed her wet face once more and went back to the tent.

Burnt.

It was still dark, but a few freezing fairies were already beginning to dance. Mo would soon be setting out, and there was nothing that could stop him. Nothing.

Battista was sitting alone between the roots of the great oak that the guards climbed at night. You could see almost as far as Ombra from its highest branches. He was making a new mask. Meggie saw the blue feathers in his lap and knew who would soon be wearing it.

"Battista?" Meggie kneeled down beside him. The ground Was cold and damp, but the moss among the roots was as soft as the cushions in Elinor’s house.

He looked at her, his eyes full of sympathy. His glance Was even more comforting than Doria’s hands. "Ah, the Bluejay’s daughter," he said in the voice that the Strong Man called Battista’s marketplace voice. "What a beautiful sight at such a dark hour.

I’ve sewn your father a good place to hide a sharp knife. Can a poor strolling player ease your heart in some other way?"

Meggie tried to smile. She was so tired of tears. "Can you sing me a song? One of the songs the Inkweaver wrote about the Bluejay? It has to be one of those! The best you know. A song full of power and. . ."

"Hope?" Battista smiled. "Of course. I could fancy such a song, too. Even if," he added, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial tone, "even if your father doesn’t like having them sung when he’s around. But I’ll sing itso quietly that my voice won’t wake him. Let’s see, which is the right song for this dark night?" He thoughtfully stroked the mask on his lap. It was nearly finished. "Yes" he whispered at last. "I know!" And he began singing in a soft voice:

Piper, beware, your end is near, The Adder’s power dwindles. He writhes, he goes in mortal fear, Nothing his strength rekindles. Though you seek the Jay in country and town, No sword can wound him, no hound run him down, And when you think you’ll succeed in your quest, You find that the bird has flown the nest.

Yes, those were the right words. Meggie got Battista to sing them to her until she could remember every line. Then she sat down a little way from everyone else, under the trees, where the firelight still kept the darkness of night away, and wrote the song down in the notebook that Mo had bound for her long ago, in that other life, after a quarrel that now seemed so strange. Meggie, you’ll lose yourself in the Inkworld.

Didn’t he say something like that to her at the time? And now he himself didn’t want to leave this world, he wanted to stay here alone, without her.

Words written down in black and white. It was a long, long time since she’d read anything aloud. When did she last do it? When she brought Orpheus here? Don’t think about that, Meggie. Think of the other times, the Castle of Night, the words that helped when Mo was wounded.

Piper, beware, your end is near.

Yes, she could still do it. Meggie felt the words gathering weight on her tongue as she wove them into her surroundings. . . .

The Adder’s power dwindles. He writhes, he goes in mortal fear, Nothing his strength rekindles. . . .

She sent the words to find Mo in his sleep, made him armor out of them, armor that even the Piper and his dark master couldn’t pierce. . . .

Though you seek the Jay in country and town, No sword can wound him, no hound run him down, And when you think you’ll succeed in your quest, You find that the bird has flown the nest.

Meggie read Fenoglio’s song over and over again. Until the Sun rose.

CHAPTER 35

THE NEXT VERSE

It was a cold day, misty and colorless, and Ombra looked as if it were wearing a gray dress. The women had gone to the castle at daybreak, silent as the day itself, and now they were standing there and waiting without a word.

There was not a cheerful sound to be heard, no laughter, no weeping. It was simply quiet. Resa stood with the mothers as if she, too, were waiting for a child to come back, instead of expecting to lose her husband. Did the baby she was carrying under her aching heart sense its mother’s despair this morning?

Suppose it never saw its father? Had that thought ever made Mo hesitate? She hadn’t asked him.

Meggie stood beside her, her face under such rigid control that it frightened Resa more than if she had been crying. Doria was with her, dressed as a maidservant with a head scarf over his brown hair, because boys of his age were conspicuous in Ombra now. His brother hadn’t come with them. All Battista’s skill with disguises couldn’t have made the Strong Man look like a woman, but more than a dozen robbers had been able to steal past the guards at the gate with their faces shaved, wearing stolen dresses and with scarves over their heads. Even Resa didn’t notice them among all the women. The Black Prince had told his men to go to the mothers as soon as their children were free and persuade them to bring their sons and daughters to the forest the next day, so that the robbers could hide them in case the Piper broke his word and came to take them away to the mines after all. For who was going to ransom them a second time, once the Bluejay was caught?

The Black Prince himself hadn’t come to Ombra with them. His dark face would have attracted far too much attention. Snapper, who had opposed Mo’s plan to the last, had also stayed in the camp, like Roxane and Farid. Of course Farid had wanted to go with the others, but Dustfinger had forbidden it, and after what had happened on Mount Adder, Farid did not go against such orders.

Resa glanced at Meggie again. She knew that if she could find any comfort today it would be only in her daughter. Meggie was grown-up now; Resa realized that this morning. I don’t need anyone, said her face. It said so to Doria, who was still standing beside her, to her mother, and perhaps above all to her father.

A whisper ran through the waiting crowd. Reinforcements joined the guards on the castle walls, and Violante appeared behind the battlements above the gates, so pale that it looked as if the rumors about her were true: The Adderhead’s daughter, they said, almost never left her dead husband’s castle. Resa had never seen Her Ugliness before. But of course she had heard of the mark that had disfigured her face like a brand since birth, and then faded on Cosimo’s return. It was hardly visible now, but Resa noticed that Violante’s hand instinctively went to her cheek when she saw all the women staring up at her. Her Ugliness. Had they shouted that name up to her in the past, whenever she had appeared on the battlements? Some of the women were whispering it even now, but Violante was neither ugly nor beautiful. She held herself very erect, as if to make up for her lack of height, but between the two men who stationed themselves beside her she looked so young and vulnerable that Resa felt fear close like a claw around her heart. The Piper and the Milksop. Violante looked like a child between the two of them. How was this girl to protect Mo?

A boy pushed his way in beside the silver-nosed minstrel. He wore a metal nose, too, but there was a real flesh-and-blood nose under it. This must be Jacopo, Violante’s son. Mo had mentioned him. He obviously thought more of the Piper’s company than his mother’s, judging by the admiring looks he gave his grandfather’s herald.

Resa felt dizzy when she saw the man with the silver nose standing up there so proudly. No, Violante couldn’t protect Mo from him. He commanded Ombra now, not she, and not the Milksop who stood looking down at his subjects as haughtily as if the mere sight of them turned his stomach. The Piper, in contrast, seemed as pleased with himself as if the day belonged to him alone. Didn’t I tell you so? his glance mocked them. I’ll catch the Blueiay, and then I’ll take your children all the same.