"Really? Then is it true that the Adderhead had captured the wrong man? In that case, I suppose when they say your father killed Capricorn, that isn't true, either?"
"Oh yes, that's true." Dustfinger looked out of the window as if he saw the scene of Capricorn's festivities outside. "And all he needed to do it was his voice. You ought to get him or his daughter to read to you sometime. Afterward, I assure you, you'll see your books in a very different light. You might well close and padlock them."
"Really?" The Barn Owl looked at Meggie with great interest, as if he would like to hear more about Capricorn's death, but there was another knock. This time a man's voice came through the bolted door. "Will you come, master? We've prepared everything, but it will be better if you make the incision."
Meggie saw Farid turn pale. "Just coming!" said the Barn Owl. "You go ahead. I hope I can welcome your father to this room someday," he said to Meggie as he went to the door. "For you're right: My books could certainly do with a doctor. Does the Black Prince have any plans for the prisoners?" He looked inquiringly at Dustfinger.
"No. No, I don't think so. Have you heard anything about the other captives? Meggie's mother is among them." It gave Meggie a pang that Dustfinger, and not she, had been the one to ask about Resa.
"No, I don't know anything about the others," replied the Barn Owl. "But now you must excuse me. I am sure Bella's already told you that you had better keep to this part of the building. The Adderhead is spending more and more of his silver on informers. No place in Argenta is safe from them, not even this one."
"I know." Dustfinger picked up one of the books lying on the Barn Owl's table. It was an herbal. Meggie could imagine how Elinor would have looked at it – full of longing to own it – and Mo would have run a finger over the painted pages as if he could feel the brush that had conjured up the fine lines of the pictures on paper. But what was Dustfinger thinking of? The herbs in Roxane's fields? "Believe me, I wouldn't have come here but for what happened at the mill," he said. "No one would want to bring danger to this place, but we'll be gone again this very day."
However, the Barn Owl wouldn't hear of it. "Nonsense, you must stay until your leg and the boy's fingers are better," he said. "You know how glad I am you came. And I'm glad you have the boy with you, too. Did you know," he asked, turning to Farid, "he's never had a pupil before? I was always telling him that a master must pass on his art, but he wouldn't listen to me. I pass mine on to many, and that's why I must leave you now. I have to show a pupil how to cut off a foot without killing the man it's attached to."
Farid stared at him, horrified. "Cut it off?" he whispered. "How do you mean, cut it off?" But the Barn Owl had already closed the door behind him.
"Didn't I tell you?" said Dustfinger, feeling his injured thigh. "The Barn Owl is a first-class sawbones. But I think we'll be allowed to keep our own fingers and feet."
After Bella had treated Farid's blisters and Dustfinger's leg, she took them to a remote room, close to the door through which they had entered the building. Meggie liked the prospect of sleeping under a roof again, but Farid was not at all comfortable with the idea. Looking unhappy, he squatted on the lavender-strewn floor, chewing one of the bitter leaves with determination. "Can't we sleep on the beach tonight? I should think the sand would be nice and soft," he asked Dustfinger, who was stretching out on one of the straw mattresses. "Or in the forest?"
"If you like," replied Dustfinger. "But let me sleep now. And stop looking as if I'd brought you among cannibals, or I won't show you what I promised tomorrow night."
"Tomorrow?" Farid spat out the leaf into his hand. "Why not tonight?"
"Because it's too windy now," said Dustfinger, turning his back on him, "and because my damn leg hurts… Do you need any more reasons?"
Remorsefully, Farid shook his head, put the leaf back in his mouth, and stared at the door as if Death in person might walk in any moment. But Meggie just sat there in the bare room, repeating to herself over and over, what the Barn Owl had said about Mo: He's doing well – much better, anyway, than we let the Adderhead know… At the moment there really is nothing for you to worry about.
When twilight fell, Dustfinger limped outside. He leaned against a column and looked up at the hill where the Castle of Night stood. Never moving, he gazed at the silver towers – and Meggie asked herself, for what was surely the hundredth time, if he was helping her only for her mother's sake. Perhaps Dustfinger himself didn't know.
54. IN THE DUNGEON OF THE CASTLE OF NIGHT
They say:
Speak for us (to whom?)
Some say: Avenge us (on whom?)
Some say: Take our place.
Some say: Witness
Others say (and these are women)
Be happy for us.
Margaret Atwood, "Down," Eating Fire
Mina was crying again. Resa took the other woman in her arms as if she were still a child, hummed a tune, and rocked her as she sometimes rocked Meggie, although by now her daughter was almost as tall as Resa herself.
A girl came twice a day, a thin, nervous little thing, younger than Meggie, to bring them bread and water. Sometimes there was porridge, too, cold and sticky, but it filled the stomach – and reminded Resa of the days when Mortola had locked her up for something she had or hadn't done. The porridge had tasted just like this. When she asked the girl about the Bluejay, the child just ducked her head in fright and left Resa in fear – the fear that Mo was dead by now, that they had hanged him, up there in the huge courtyard, and the last thing he had seen in this world was not her face but the silver vipers' heads with their tongues licking down from the walls. Sometimes she saw it all so clearly in her mind's eye that she put her hands over her eyes, but the pictures were still there. And the darkness around her made her think it could all have been a dream: that moment at Capricorn's festivities when she had suddenly seen Mo standing beside Meggie, the year in Elinor's house, all that happiness – just a dream.
At least she was not alone. Even if the glances of the others were often hostile, their voices brought her out of her dark thoughts for a brief while. Now and then someone told a story, to keep them from hearing the weeping from the other cells, the scurrying of rats, the screams, the stammering voices that had long since ceased to make sense. Usually, it was the women who told stories. Stories of love and death, betrayal and friendship, but they all ended happily, lights in the darkness, like the candles in Resa's pocket with wicks that had now become damp. Resa told fairy tales that Mo had read aloud to her long, long ago, when Meggie’s fingers were still soft and tiny, and the written word held no terrors for any of them yet. As for the strolling players, they told tales of the world around them: of Cosimo the Fair and his battle with the fire-raisers, of the Black Prince and how he found his bear, and his friend the fire-dancer, the man who made sparks rain down and fiery flowers blossom in the darkest night. Benedicta sang a song about him in a soft voice, a beautiful song, and in the end even Twofingers joined in, until the warder banged his stick against the bars and told them to keep quiet.
"I saw him once," whispered Benedicta when the warder had gone away again. "Many years ago, when I was a little girl. It was wonderful. The fire was so bright that even my eyes could see it. They say he's dead."
"No, he isn't," said Resa quietly. "Who do you think made the tree across the road burn?" They looked at her so incredulously! But she was too tired to tell them anymore. She was too tired to explain anything. Let me go to my husband, that was all she wanted to say. Let me go to my child. Don't tell me any more stories; tell me how they are. Please.