Farid was looking at him so hopefully that it went to Meggie's heart again. But Fenoglio smiled, even though it was a sad smile.
"Look at him, Meggie!" he said. "He has the same pleading look as my grandchildren could turn on to wheedle anything out of me. Does he look at you the same way when he wants something from you?"
Meggie felt herself blushing. However, Fenoglio turned back to Farid. "You know we'll need Meggie's help, don't you?"
Farid nodded, and looked at her.
"I'll read it," she said quietly. "If Fenoglio writes it, I'll read it." And get the man who helped Mortola to bring my father here and almost kill him into this story, Meggie added in her thoughts. She tried not to think of what Mo would say about the deal.
However, Fenoglio already seemed to be searching for words in his mind. The right words – words that would not betray and deceive him. "Very well," he muttered abstractedly, "let's get down to work one last time. But where am I going to find paper and ink? Not to mention a pen and a helpful glass man? Poor Rosenquartz is still in Ombra."
"I have paper," said Meggie, "and a pencil."
"That's very beautiful," said Fenoglio when she put her notebook in his lap. "Did your father bind it?"
Meggie nodded.
"There are some pages torn out."
"Yes, for a message I gave my mother and the letter I sent you. The one that Cloud-Dancer brought you."
"Oh. Oh yes. Him." For a moment Fenoglio looked dreadfully tired. "Books with blank pages," he murmured. "They seem to be playing more and more of a part in this story, don't you think?" Then he asked Meggie to leave him alone with Farid so that the boy could tell him about Orpheus. "To be honest," he whispered to Meggie, "I think he vastly overestimates the man's abilities! What has this fellow Orpheus done? Put my own words together in a different order, that's all. But I'll admit I'm curious to meet him. It takes a fair amount of megalomania to give yourself a name like that, and megalomania is an interesting character trait."
Meggie did not share his opinion, but it was too late to go back on her promise. She would read again. For Farid this time. She went quietly back to her parents, laid her head on Mo's chest, and fell asleep hearing his heartbeat in her ear. Words had saved him, why shouldn't they do the same for Dustfinger? Even if he had gone far, far away… didn't the words of this world rule even the land of silence?
73. THE BLUEJAY
The world existed to be read. And I read it.
L. S. Schwartz, Ruined by Reading
Resa and Meggie were asleep when Mo woke, but he felt as if he couldn't breathe among all the stones and the dead a moment longer. The men guarding the entrance of the mine greeted him with a nod as he came climbing up to them. Pale morning light was seeping through the crevice that led to the outside world; the air smelled of rosemary, thyme, and the berries on Mortola's poisonous trees. Mo's senses were constantly confused by the way the familiar mingled with the strange in Fenoglio's world – and by the fact that the strange features often struck him as more real than the others.
The guards were not the only men Mo met at the entrance to the mine. Five more were leaning against the walls of the gallery, among them Snapper and the Black Prince himself.
"Ah, here comes the most wanted robber between Ombra and the sea!" said Snapper, low-voiced, as Mo came toward them. They examined him like some new kind of animal, of which they had heard the strangest stories. And Mo felt more than ever like an actor who had stepped onstage with the unpleasant feeling that he knew neither the play nor his part in it.
"I don't know how the rest of you feel," said Snapper, glancing around at the others, "but I always thought some writer had made up the Bluejay. And that the only man who might lay claim to that feathered mask was our own Black Prince, even if he doesn't entirely match the description in the songs. So when folk said the Bluejay was a prisoner in the Castle of Night, I thought they just wanted to hang some other poor fellow because he happened to have a scar on his arm. But then," he said, looking Mo up and down as extensively as if assessing him by every line of every song he had ever heard about the Bluejay, "then I saw you fight in the forest… 'and his sword-blade flashes through them like a needle through the pages,' isn't that what one of the songs says? A good description, indeed!"
Oh yes. Snapper? thought Mo. Suppose I were to tell you that the Bluejay was really made up by a writer just like you?
How furtively they were all looking at him.
"We must get away from here," said the Prince into the silence. "They're combing the forest all the way down to the sea. They've already found two of our hiding places and smoked them out – they haven't yet come upon the mine, but only because they don't expect us to be so close to their own back door." The bear grunted, as if amused by the stupidity of the men-at-arms. The gray muzzle in the furry black face, the clever little amber eyes – Mo had liked the bear even in the book, although he had imagined him slightly larger. "Tonight half of us will take the injured to the Badger's Earth," the Black Prince continued, "and the others will go to Ombra with me and Roxane."
"And where does he go?" Snapper was looking at Mo. Then they all looked at him. Mo felt as if their eyes were fingering his skin. Eyes full of hope, but what for? What had they heard about him? Were people already telling stories about what had happened at the Castle of Night, about the book full of blank pages and Firefox's death?
"He has to get away from here, what else do you think? A long way away!" The Prince picked a dead leaf out of the bear's coat. "The Adderhead will be looking for him, even though he's spreading word everywhere that Mortola was responsible for the attack in the forest." He nodded to a thin boy, at least a head shorter than Meggie, who was standing among the men. "Tell us again what the crier announced in your village."
"This," began the boy in a hesitant voice, "this is the Adderhead's promise: If the Bluejay ever ventures to show his face in Argenta again, he will die the slowest death that the executioners of the Castle of Night have ever given anyone. And the man who brings him in will be rewarded with the Bluejay's weight in silver."
"Better start starving yourself, then, Bluejay," mocked Snapper, but none of the others laughed.
"Did you really make him immortal?" It was the boy who asked this question.
Snapper laughed out loud. "Listen to the lad! I expect you think the Prince can fly, too, eh?"
But the boy took no notice of him. He was still looking at Mo. "They say you yourself can't die," he said in a low voice. "They say you made yourself a book like that, too, a book of white pages with your death held captive in it."
Mo had to smile. Meggie had so often looked at him wide-eyed, just like that. Is it a true story, Mo? Come on, tell me! They were all waiting for his answer, even the Black Prince. He saw it in their faces.
"Oh, I can die all right," he said. "Believe me, I have come very close. As for the Adderhead, however – yes, I have made him immortal. But not for long."
"What do you mean by that?" The smile had long since frozen on Snapper's coarse-featured face.
Mo was looking not at him but at the Black Prince when he answered. "I mean that at present nothing can kill the Adderhead. No sword, no knife, no disease. The book I have bound for him protects him. But the same book will be his undoing, for he will have only a few weeks to enjoy it."
"Why's that?" It was the boy again.
Mo lowered his voice when he replied, just as he did when he was sharing a secret with Meggie. "Oh, it's not particularly difficult to ensure that a book doesn't live long, you know. Particularly not for a bookbinder. And that's my trade, although so many people seem to think differently. Normally, it's not my job to kill a book – on the contrary, I'm usually called in to save the lives of books – but in this case I'm afraid I had to do it. After all, I didn't want to be guilty of letting the Adderhead sit on his throne for all eternity, passing the time by hanging strolling players."