Inkdeath

If only he could read her face better. But the mask Violante wore was even more inscrutable than those Battista made for performing his farces.



"You don’t even want to think my offer over?"



"As I said, two parts are enough," repeated Mo, and for a moment Violante’s face was so like her father’s that his heart missed a beat.



"Very well. As you say," she said. "But I will ask you again when all this is over."



She looked out of the window once more. "I’ve told my soldiers to shut you up in the tower called the Needle. I won’t consign you to one of the holes my grandfather used as dungeons. They’re built so that the lake can fill them with just enough water to keep prisoners from actually drowning." She looked at him, as if to see whether the idea frightened him. Yes, it does, thought Mo. So?



"I will receive my father in the Hall of a Thousand Windows," Violante went on.



"That’s where he came to court my mother. I’ll have you brought once I’m sure he has the White Book with him."



The way she put her hands together — it was like a schoolgirl reciting in class. He still felt affection for her; she moved him. He wanted to protect her from all the pain of the past and the darkness in her own heart, although he knew no one could do that.



Violante’s heart was a locked room, with dark pictures on the walls.



"You will pretend that you can heal the White Book, just as we planned. I’ll have everything made ready — Balbulus has told me what you’d need — and when you seem to be starting work I’ll distract my father’s attention so that you can write the three words. I’ll make him angry. That’s usually the best way to distract him. He has a savage temper. If we’re lucky he won’t even notice you’re putting pen to paper.



They say he has a new bodyguard, so that could be a problem. But I’m sure my men can deal with him." My men. They’re children, thought Mo, but fortunately Dustfinger was here, too. No sooner had the name come into his mind than Dustfinger himself stepped through the doorway.



"What do you want?" Violante snapped.



Dustfinger ignored her. "It’s very quiet out there," he told Mo in a low voice. "The Adderhead is taking the news that he’s to be kept waiting surprisingly well. I don’t like it." He went back to the door and looked down the passage. "Where are the guards?" he asked Violante.



"Where would they be? I sent them down to the bridge. But two of my men are stationed in the courtyard. Now it’s time for you to play the part of my prisoner, Bluejay. Yet another part. You see? Sometimes there are more than two." She went to the window and called to the guards, but only silence answered her.



Mo felt it at the same moment. He felt the story taking a new turn. Time suddenly seemed to weigh more heavily, and a strange uneasiness took hold of him. As if he were onstage and had missed his cue.



"Where are they?" Violante turned, and for a moment she looked almost as young and frightened as her soldiers. She went to the door and called for them again, but no one replied. Only the silence.



"Keep close to me!" Dustfinger whispered to Mo. "Whatever happens. Fire is sometimes a better defense than the sword."



Violante was still listening intently. The sound of footsteps was coming closer —



stumbling, unsteady footsteps. Violante stepped back from the door as if afraid of what was coming. The soldier who collapsed at her feet was covered with blood —



his own blood. It was the boy who had let Mo out of the sarcophagus. Did he know more about killing now?



He stammered something that Mo didn’t understand until he bent over him. "The Piper . . . they’re everywhere." The boy whispered more, but Mo couldn’t make it out. He died with the faltering words still on his lips, mingling with his blood.



"Is there another entrance? One you haven’t told us about?" Dustfinger seized Violante’s arm roughly.



"No!" she stammered. "No!" And she tore herself away from him as if it were he who had killed the boy at her feet.



Mo reached for her hand and led her out into the corridor, away from the voices suddenly echoing through the silent castle on all sides. But their flight ended at the next set of steps. Dustfinger sent his marten scurrying off as soldiers barred their way, bloodstained men who hadn’t been boys for a long time. Aiming crossbows at them, they drove them to the hall where Violante’s mother and her sisters had learned to dance in front of a dozen silver mirrors. Now the Piper was reflected in them.



"Well, well, isn’t the prisoner in chains? How careless, Your Ugliness." As always, the silver-nosed man held himself erect proud as a peacock. But Mo was less surprised by the sight of him than by seeing the man at his side. Orpheus. He had never expected Orpheus to come here. He had forgotten him as soon as Dustfinger told him how he had taken the book, and all the words in it, away from him. You’re a fool, Mortimer. As so often, his face showed what he was thinking, and Orpheus gloated over his surprise.



"How did you get into the castle?" Violante pushed away the men holding her and went up to the Piper, who might have been no more than an uninvited guest. His soldiers retreated before her as if they had forgotten who their master was. The Adderhead’s daughter — it was a mighty title, even if she was the ugly daughter.



However, it did not impress the Piper. "Your father knew a more comfortable way in than that draughty bridge," he replied in a world-weary tone. "He thought you didn’t know it, so it wouldn’t be guarded. Obviously, it was your grandfather’s best-kept secret, but in fact it was your mother who showed it to your father when she stole away from this castle with him. A romantic story, don’t you think?"



"You’re lying!" Violante looked around like a hunted animal, but all she saw was her own reflection next to the Piper’s.



"Really? Your men know better. I haven’t had them all killed. Boys like them make excellent soldiers, because they still think themselves immortal." He took a step toward Mo.



"I could hardly wait to see you again, Bluejay. ‘Send me on ahead,’ I asked the Adderhead. ‘So that I can catch you the bird who flew away from me. I’ll stalk him like a cat, along secret ways, and seize him while he’s still looking out just for you.’"



Mo wasn’t listening. He read Dustfinger’s thoughts as if they were his own. Now, Bluejay! they whispered, and as a fiery snake crawled up the legs of the soldier on his right he drove his elbow into the chest of the man behind him. Fire licked up from the floor, baring teeth of flame and setting light to the clothes of the men guarding them. Screaming, they staggered back, while the fire formed a protective ring around their two prisoners. Two solders raised their crossbows, but the Piper struck down their arms. He knew his master would not forgive him once more if he brought him the Bluejay dead. His face was pale with rage. But Orpheus smiled.



"Very impressive! It really is!" He went up to the fire and inspected the flames intently as if to find out how Dustfinger summoned them up. But then his gaze went to Dustfinger himself.



"No doubt you really could rescue the bookbinder all by yourself," he said gently.



"But unluckily for him, you’ve made an enemy of me. What a mistake. I didn’t come with the Piper. I serve his master now. He’s waiting for night to fall before paying a call on the Bluejay, and he sent me ahead to prepare everything for his arrival.