Inkdeath

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 Bluejay, and then I'll take your children all the same.

Why had she come? Why was she doing this to herself? Because she wanted to convince herself that it was all really happening, that she wasn't just reading about it?

The woman next to her reached for her arm. "He's coming!" she whispered to Resa. There were whispers everywhere. "He's coming! He's really coming!" Resa saw the sentries on the watchtowers by the gate giving the Piper a signal. Of course he was coming. What had they expected? Did they think he wouldn't keep his word?

The Milksop adjusted his wig and smiled at the Piper as triumphantly as if he personally, single-handed, had driven into his path the quarry he'd been hunting so long, but the Piper ignored him. He was staring at the street leading up from the city gate, his eyes as gray as the sky above him and just as cold. Resa remembered those eyes only too well. She also remembered the smile that now stole over his thin lips. He had smiled in just the same way in Capricorn's fortress whenever there was going to be an execution.

And then she saw Mo.

There he was all of a sudden, where the street ended, mounted on the black horse that the Prince had given him after he had to leave his own behind at Ombra Castle. The mask that Battista had made him was dangling around his neck. He didn't need the mask anymore to be the Bluejay. The bookbinder and the robber had the same face now.

Dustfinger was behind him. He was riding the horse that had carried Roxane to the Castle of Night, bringing Fenoglio's words to save them. But there were no words for what was going to happen now. Or were there? Was the terrible silence weighing down on them all made of words?

No, Resa, she thought. This story has no author anymore. What happens now is written by the Bluejay in his own flesh and blood – and for a moment, as he rode out of the alley, even she could call Mo by no other name. The Bluejay. How hesitantly the women made way for him, as if they themselves suddenly thought the price he was going to pay for their children too high. But at last they formed a lane just wide enough for the two riders, and every hoofbeat made Resa clutch the folds of her dress more tightly.

What's the matter? Didn't you always love to read such stories? she thought bitterly, her heart in her mouth. Wouldn't you have liked this story, too? The robber setting the children free by giving himself up to his enemies… Admit it, you'd have loved every word! Except that the heroes of such stories don't usually have wives. Or daughters.

Meggie was still standing there as if none of this had anything to do with her, but her eyes were fixed on her father as if her gaze could protect him. Mo rode past, so close that Resa could have touched his horse. Her knees felt weak. She reached for the arm of the nearest woman, feeling so faint and ill that she could hardly keep on her feet. Look at him, Resa, she told herself. That's what you're here for, to see him once again, aren't you?

Did he feel fear? The fear that had made him wake abruptly from sleep on so many nights, his fear of bars and fetters? Resa, leave the door open.

Dustfinger is with him, she thought, trying to comfort herself. Dustfinger is right behind him, and he left all his own fears behind with Death. But Dustfinger will stay with him only as far as the castle gates, whispered her heart, and the Piper is waiting beyond them. She felt her knees giving way again until suddenly Meggie's arm was under hers, holding it as firmly as if her daughter were the older of the two of them. Resa turned her face into Meggie's shoulder, while the women around her looked longingly at the castle gates, which were still firmly closed.

Mo reined in his horse. Dustfinger was still just behind him, his face as expressionless as only he could make it. She wasn't yet used to the sight of him without his scars. He looked so much younger. Many eyes rested on him, the Fire-Dancer whom the Bluejay had brought back from the dead.

"The Piper won't be able to touch him!" whispered the woman beside her, murmuring it like a magic spell. "No, how can he hold the Bluejay captive if even Death couldn't do it?"

Perhaps the Piper is more murderous than Death, Resa felt like replying, but she said nothing. She held her peace and looked up at the man with the silver nose.

"So here you really are! The Bluejay, in person!" His hoarse voice carried a long way in the silence that had settled over Ombra again. "Or do you still claim to be someone else, as you did back at the Castle of Night? How shabby you look. A dirty vagabond. I really thought you'd send someone in your place, hoping we wouldn't find him out behind the mask too soon."

"Oh, I don't think you as stupid as that, Piper!" Mo's face was full of contempt as he looked up at the silver-nosed man. "Although shouldn't we change your name and call you after your new trade in future? Butcher of Children, how do you like that?"

Resa had never heard such hatred in Mo's voice before. The voice that could call the dead back to life. How intently everyone was listening. And in spite of all the hate and anger in it, it still sounded so soft and warm by comparison with the Piper's.

"Call me what you like, bookbinder!" The Piper put his gloved hands on the battlements. "I hear you know something about butchery yourself. But why did you bring the fire-eater with you? I don't remember inviting him! Where are his scars? Did he leave them with the dead?"

The battlements caught fire just where the Piper was leaning, and the flames whispered words that only Dustfinger understood. The silver-nosed tyrant flinched back, cursing, and struck at the sparks that were settling on his fine clothes, while Jacopo ducked into safety behind his back and stared, fascinated, at the whispering fire.

"I left certain things with the dead, Piper. And I brought certain others back." Dustfinger didn't raise his voice, but the flames went out as if they were creeping away into the stone, to wait there for more words of fire. "I'm here to warn you not to treat your guest badly. Fire is as much his friend as mine now, and I don't have to tell you what a powerful friend it can be."

His face pale with anger, the Piper rubbed the soot from his gloves, but before he could reply the Milksop leaned over the battlements.

"Guest?" he cried. "Do you call that the right word for a robber who already has an appointment to meet the hangman in the Castle of Night?" His voice reminded Resa of the cackling of Roxane's goose.

Violante pushed him aside as if he were one of her servants. How small she was.

"The Bluejay is giving himself up as my prisoner, Governor! That was the agreement. And he is under my protection until my father comes." Her voice was sharp and clear, astonishingly strong for such a slight body, and for a moment Resa took heart. Perhaps she really can protect him after all, she thought, and saw the same hope on Meggie's face.

Mo and the Piper were still staring at each other. Their hatred seemed to spin threads between the two of them, and Resa couldn't help thinking of the knife that Battista had sewn so carefully into Mo's clothes. She didn't know whether it frightened or reassured her to know that he had it with him.

"Very well! Let's call him our guest!" the Piper called down. "Which means that we ought to show him our own special brand of hospitality! After all, we've been waiting for him long enough."

He raised his hand, still sooty from Dustfinger's fire, and the guards at the gate leveled their spears at Mo. Some of the women screamed. Resa thought she heard Meggie's voice, too, but she herself was mute with fear. The sentries on the towers bent their crossbows.

Violante put her son aside and took a step toward the Piper. But Dustfinger simply made the fire lick around his fingers as if he were playing with an animal, and Mo drew his sword. The Piper knew very well whose weapon it had once been.

"What's the idea? Send the children out, Piper!" Mo cried, and this time his voice was so cold that Resa hardly recognized it as his. "Send them out, or you can tell your master that the flesh will go on rotting on his bones because you couldn't bring him the Bluejay alive, only dead."

One of the women began sobbing. Another pressed her hand to her mouth. Just behind the two of them Resa saw Minerva, Fenoglio's landlady. Of course, her children were among the captives. But Resa didn't want to think of Minerva's children or the children of the other women. She saw nothing but the spears pointing at Mo's unarmed breast and the crossbows aimed at him from the walls.

"I'm warning you, Piper!" Once more Violante's voice allowed Resa to breathe again. "Let the children go."

The Milksop cast a longing glance at the crossbows. For a moment Resa was afraid he would give the order to shoot, so that he himself could lay the Bluejay at the Adderhead's feet, his own personal hunting trophy. But instead the Piper leaned forward and gave the guards a signal.

"Open the gates!" he said, in a deliberately weary tone. "Let the children out and the Bluejay in!"

Resa buried her head in her daughter's shoulder again. Meggie was still as self-controlled as her father, but she went on looking as if she feared to lose him the moment she took her eyes off him.

The gates slowly opened. They groaned and stuck until the guards pushed at them.

And then they came out. Children. So many children. They surged out as if they had been waiting behind the heavy gates for days. The little ones were in such a hurry to get outside the walls that they stumbled, but the bigger children helped them to their feet again. Fear was written on all their faces, a fear much greater than themselves. The youngest began running as soon as they saw their mothers, threw themselves into their waiting arms, and burrowed their way in among the women as if into a safe hiding place. But the older children walked back to freedom slowly, almost hesitantly. They looked distrustfully at the guards they had to pass, and stopped when they saw the two men waiting on their horses outside the gate.

"Bluejay!" It was only a whisper, but it came from many mouths, louder and louder until the name seemed to be written on the air. "Bluejay, Bluejay." The children nudged one another, pointed to Mo – and stared in awe at the sparks surrounding Dustfinger like a swarm of tiny fairies. "Fire-Dancer."

More and more children stopped in front of the two horses, surrounded their riders, touched them as if to see if the men they knew only from the songs sung secretly by their mothers at their bedsides were really flesh and blood. Mo leaned down from his horse. He waved the children aside, quietly saying something to them. Then he gave Dustfinger one last glance and turned his horse toward the open gateway.

They would not let him go.

Three children barred his way, two boys and a girl. They reached for his reins and wouldn't let him pass into the place they had just left, to be lost behind its walls like them. More and more of them crowded around him, held him, shielding him from the spears of the guards while their mothers called for them.

"Bluejay!"

The Piper's voice made the children turn. "Through those gates with you now, or we'll take them all back, and hang a dozen in cages over the gateway where the ravens can eat them!"

The children didn't move. They just stared at the silver-nosed man and the boy beside him who was younger than they were. But Mo picked up his reins again and made his way through them as carefully as if each child were his own, and the children stood there while their mothers called them, watching him ride through the huge gateway. All alone.

Mo looked over his shoulder once more before he rode past the guards, as if he knew that Resa and Meggie had followed him after all, and Resa saw the fear on his face. She was sure that Meggie had seen it, too. As he rode on again the gates were already beginning to close.

"Disarm him!" Resa heard the Milksop shout, and the last thing she saw was soldiers, dozens of soldiers, dragging Mo off his horse.