Inkdeath

37. ONLY A MAGPIE

The house where Fenoglio was lodging reminded Orpheus of places where he himself had lived not so long ago: a shabby building, crooked, leaning sideways, with moldy walls and windows offering a view only of other dilapidated houses. The rain fell inside it, too, because in this world windowpanes were only for the rich! Pitiful. How he hated hiding in the darkest corner of the backyard, where spiders crawled into his velvet sleeves and chicken droppings ruined his expensive boots. But what else could he do? Ever since Basta had killed a strolling player before her very eyes, Fenoglio's landlady went with a pitchfork for anyone loitering in her yard. And Orpheus had to know. He had to know if Fenoglio was writing again. He just hoped that useless glass man would come back before he was up to his knees in mud!

A thin chicken strutted by, and beside him Cerberus growled. Orpheus hastily held his muzzle shut. He'd been glad when Cerberus suddenly came scratching at his door, of course, but one question had immediately spoiled his pleasure – how did the dog come to be here? Was Fenoglio writing again after all? Had Dustfinger taken the book to the old man? None of it made any sense, but he had to know. Who but Fenoglio could have dreamed up the touching scene performed by the Bluejay outside the castle? How much everyone loved the bookbinder for it! Even though by now the Piper must have beaten him half to death, he had become godlike when he rode through the gates of that damn castle. The Bluejay as a noble sacrificial lamb. If that didn't sound like Fenoglio, he'd eat his hat!

Naturally, Orpheus had sent Oss with the glass man at first, but his bodyguard had let Fenoglio's landlady catch him. There was no dark corner where that great hulk could lurk unseen, and Ironstone hadn't even reached the stairs leading to Fenoglio's room. A chicken had chased him through the mud and a cat had almost bitten his head off – you certainly couldn't say that glass men made ideal spies, but their small size came in so handy! The same was true of fairies, of course, but they forgot the least little errand before they'd even flown out of the window – and after all, Fenoglio himself used his glass man as a spy, although he was lamentably unfit for the job.

No, Ironstone was much better at it. However, unlike Fenoglio's glass man, he suffered from vertigo, which made it impossible for him to cross rooftops, and even on the ground he was so bad at finding his way that Orpheus found it better to put him down at the foot of Fenoglio's stairs, if he wanted to be sure he wouldn't get hopelessly lost.

But where the devil was he now? Admittedly, climbing those stairs was like scaling a mountain for a glass man, but all the same… There was a goat bleating noisily in the shed behind which Orpheus was standing – it had probably caught the dog's scent – and some kind of liquid was seeping through the leather of his boots. Its smell was suspiciously appealing to Cerberus, who was snuffling around in the mud so greedily that Orpheus had to keep tugging him away from it.

Ah, here came Ironstone at last! He jumped from step to step, nimble as a mouse. Fabulous. For a glass man, he was a tough little fellow. It was to be hoped that what he'd found out was worth the ruin of those expensive boots.

Orpheus bent down to Cerberus's collar and took off the chain, which for want of a dog leash he had ordered in Smiths' Alley. Cerberus trotted over to the stairs and plucked the protesting glass man off the bottom step. Ironstone claimed that the dog's slobber brought his glass skin out in a rash, but how else was he going to get through the mud with those thin legs of his? An old woman looked out of her window as the dog trotted back to Orpheus, but luckily it wasn't Fenoglio's landlady.

"Well?" Cerberus dropped the glass man into his outstretched hands. Ugh! Dog slobber really was disgusting.

"He's not writing. Not a line!" Ironstone passed his sleeve over His moist face. "I told you so, master! He's drunk himself silly. His fingers shake if he so much as sees a pen!"

Orpheus looked up at Fenoglio's room. Light showed underneath the door. Ironstone, who was slippery as an eel, always crawled through the broad crack underneath it.

"Are you sure?" He fastened the chain to Cerberus's collar again.

"Absolutely sure! And he doesn't have the book, either. He has visitors, though."

The old woman tipped a bucket of water out of her window. Assuming it was water. Once again Cerberus was snuffling around with far too much interest.

"Visitors? I don't want to know about them. But whatever it looks like, I'm sure he's writing again!"

Orpheus looked up at the dilapidated houses. A candle burned in every window. They were burning all over Ombra. For the Bluejay. Curse him! Curse them all: Fenoglio and Mortimer, his stupid daughter – and Dustfinger. He cursed the Fire-Dancer most of all. Dustfinger had betrayed him – stolen from him, Orpheus, whose heart had been given to him for so many years, who had read him home to his own story and snatched him away from Death! What was it they called him now? The Bluejay's fiery shadow. A shadow! It served him right. He, Orpheus, would have made him more than a shadow in this story, but that was over and done with. He had declared war on them all. He was going to write them a story that was to his own liking – just as soon as he had the book back!

A child came out of the house and ran barefoot over the muddy yard to disappear into one of the outbuildings. Time to get out of here. Orpheus mopped the dog slobber off Ironstone with a cloth, put him on his shoulder, and stole away before the child came out again. Away from this filth – not that it was much better in the streets.

"Blank sheets, nothing but blank sheets, master!" Ironstone whispered to him as they hurried back through the night to Orpheus's house. "No more than a few sentences, and those were crossed out… That's all, I swear! His glass man almost spotted me today, but I managed to hide in one of his master's boots just in time. You can't imagine how it stank in there!"

Oh yes, he could. "I'll have one of the maids soap you all over."

"No, no, better not. Last time the soapsuds left me belching for more than an hour, and my feet turned white as milk!"

"So? You think I'm letting a glass man who stinks of sweaty feet march all over my parchment?"

A night watchman came toward them, swaying as he walked. Why were those fellows always drunk? Orpheus pressed a few copper coins into the man's wrinkled hand, in case he was thinking of calling a patrol. Now that the Bluejay was a prisoner in the castle, troops of soldiers were out and about in Ombra night and day.

"How about the book? Did you really search for it thoroughly?"

Two boards in Butchers' Alley sang the praises of fresh unicorn meat. Ridiculous. Where was anyone supposed to get that? Orpheus turned into Glaziers' Alley, although Ironstone hated going that way.

"Well, it wasn't easy." Ironstone looked nervously at the notices advertising artificial limbs for broken glass men. "Like I told you, lie has visitors, and with all those eyes to notice things, getting around his room was tricky! I even searched his clothes, all the same, and he nearly shut me up in his chest! But no luck. He doesn't have the book, master, I swear he doesn't!"

"Death and the devil!" Orpheus felt an almost irresistible urge to throw or break something. Ironstone knew these moods of his by now, and clung to his sleeve to be on the safe side.

Who but the old man could have the book? Even if Dustfinger had given it to Mortimer, he certainly hadn't taken it to his dungeon with him! No, Dustfinger himself must have kept it. Orpheus felt a burning sensation in his stomach, as bad as if one of Dustfinger's martens were sitting there gnawing his guts. He was familiar with this pain, which always attacked him when something wasn't going as he wanted. A stomach ulcer, that was it. For sure. So? he asked himself. Mind you don't make it even worse, or do you want to have to go to one of the local quacks and have your blood let?

Ironstone was crouching on his shoulder, silent and depressed, probably thinking about the soapy water ahead of him. However, Cerberus was sniffing every wall he padded past. No wonder dogs liked this world – it stank to high heaven. I'd change that, too, thought Orpheus. And I'd write myself a better spy, one as tiny as a spider and definitely not made of glass. But you won't be writing anything here anymore, Orpheus, a voice whispered inside him, because you've lost the book!

Cursing, he quickened his pace, hauling Cerberus impatiently along with him – only to tread in cat dirt. Mud, chicken droppings, cat dirt… His boots were ruined, and where was he going to get the silver for a new pair? His last attempt to write himself a chest of treasure on Gallows Hill had been a dismal failure, producing coins as thin as silver foil.

At last. There it was in all its glory. His house. The finest house in Ombra. His heartbeat always quickened when he saw the front steps shining in the darkness, white as alabaster, and the coat of arms over the entrance that made even Orpheus himself believe he was of royal descent. No, up to now things really hadn't gone badly for him here. He had to keep reminding himself of that when he felt like smashing glass men or wishing a plague of boils on the neck of a certain skinny Arab boy. Not to mention ungrateful fire-eaters!

Orpheus stopped suddenly. A bird was perching on the steps. It sat as if it intended to build a nest right there on the spot. It didn't fly away even when Orpheus came closer, but just stared at him with its black button eyes. Birds – he hated them. They left their droppings everywhere. And all that fluttering, those sharp beaks, those feathers full of mites and worm eggs…

Orpheus undid the chain from Cerberus's collar. "Go on, catch it!"

Cerberus loved to chase birds, and now and then he even caught one. But this time he put his tail between his back legs and retreated as if a snake were wriggling there on the steps of Orpheus's house. What the devil…?

The bird jerked its head and hopped one step lower.

Cerberus ducked, and the glass man clung uneasily to Orpheus's collar. "It's a magpie, master!" he whispered in his ear. "They…" His voice almost failed him. "They smash glass men and collect the colored splinters for their nests! Please, master, chase it away!"

The magpie jerked its head again and stared at him. This was a strange bird, decidedly strange.

Orpheus bent and threw a stone at it. The magpie spread its wings and uttered a hoarse cry.

"Oh, master, master, it's going to smash me to pieces!" wailed Ironstone, clinging to his ear. "Gray glass men are very rare!"

This time the magpie's cry sounded like laughter.

"You still look as stupid as ever, Orpheus."

He knew the voice at once.

The magpie stretched its neck. It coughed as if it were choking on grain pecked up too greedily. Then it spat out some seeds on the alabaster-white steps – one, two, three seeds – and began to grow.

Cerberus cowered behind his legs, and Ironstone was trembling so pitifully that his limbs clattered like china in a picnic basket.

But the magpie went on growing. Feathers became black clothes, gray hair pinned severely back, fingers hastily counting the seeds that the bird's beak had spat out onto the steps. Mortola looked older than Orpheus remembered her, much older. Her shoulders were hunched, even when she stood up. Her fingers curled over like the claws of a bird, her face was gaunt under the high cheekbones, and her skin was the color of yellowed parchment. But her eyes were still piercing and made Orpheus bow his head like a boy being scolded.

"How – how do you do that?" he stammered. "Fenoglio's book says nothing about shape-shifters! Only about Night-Mares and -"

"Fenoglio! What does he know?" Mortola plucked a feather off her black dress. "Everything changes shape in this world, only most have to die first. But there are ways and means" – and as she spoke she carefully dropped the seeds she had picked up into a leather bag – "for people to free themselves from their own shapes without any need for the White Women."

"Really?" Orpheus immediately began wondering what kind of possibilities that opened up for this story, but Mortola didn't give him any time to think it over.

"You've settled into this world in fine style, haven't you?" she murmured, looking up at his house. "Four-Eyes, the milky- bearded merchant from across the sea, who trades in unicorns and dwarves and can read every wish of the new lord of Ombra in his eyes – well, I thought to myself, bless me if that isn't my dear friend Orpheus! He's obviously managed to read himself here. And you've even brought that nasty dog along with you."

Cerberus bared his teeth, but Ironstone was still trembling. Glass men really were absurd creatures. And to think Fenoglio was proud of them!

"What do you want?" Orpheus did his best to sound cool and superior, not like the frightened little boy he became only too easily in Mortola's presence. She still terrified him, he had to admit it.

Footsteps echoed through the night, presumably from one of the patrols sent out by the Piper to comb Ombra in case the Black Prince found some way of freeing his noble fellow-fighter after all.

"Do you always welcome your guests outside the door?" hissed Mortola. "Come on, time we went in!"

Orpheus had to bring the bronze knocker down on the wood three times before Oss opened the door. He blinked sleepily down at Mortola.

"Is this that wardrobe-man from the other world or a new one?" asked Mortola, pushing her way past Oss with her skirts rustling.

"A new one," muttered Orpheus, whose mind was still trying to work out whether it was a good thing she was back or not. Wasn't she supposed to be dead? But it was becoming clearer all the time that you couldn't rely on Death in this world. Which was both reassuring and alarming.

He took Mortola, not to his study, but into the reception room. The old woman looked around as if everything in it were hers. No, very likely it wasn't a good thing she was back. And what did she want of him? He could imagine: Mortimer. For sure she still wanted to kill him. Mortola didn't abandon such plans easily – particularly not where her son's murderer was concerned. In this case, however, it looked like other people were ahead of her in line.

"So now the bookbinder really is the Bluejay!" she remarked, as if Orpheus had spoken his thoughts out loud. "How many more ridiculous songs are they going to sing about him? Hailing him as their savior… as if we hadn't brought him to this world in the first place! And the Adderhead, instead of hunting him down after he killed his best men on Mount Adder, blames Mortola for his escape and for the way the flesh is rotting on his own bones. I knew at once it must be the White Book. Silvertongue is wily, but his innocent look deceives them all, and the Adder handed me, not him, over to the torturers, to get the name of the poison. I still feel the pain of it today, but I outwitted them – I made them bring me seeds and herbs, saying I'd brew them an antidote for their master. Instead I made myself wings to fly away. I listened to the wind and to the gossip in marketplaces to find the bookbinder, and I discovered he really was playing the robber, and the Black Prince had found him a hiding place. It was a good hiding place, too, but I found it all the same." Mortola pursed her lips while she spoke, as if she felt she still had a beak. "How I had to control myself not to peck out his eyes when I saw him again! There's no hurry, Mortola, I thought. Being in a hurry has spoiled your fine revenge once already. Sprinkle a few poisonous berries in his food, leaving him to writhe like a worm and die slowly enough for you to enjoy your revenge. But some stupid crow pecked the berries out of his dish, and the next time I tried it the bear snapped at me with his stinking muzzle and pulled out two of my tail feathers. I tried again in the camp where the Black Prince took them – him and his daughter and that deceitful maid – but the wrong man ate from that dish. 'Poisonous fungi,' they said, 'he's eaten poisonous fungi!'"

Mortola laughed, and Orpheus shuddered when he saw her fingers curving as if they were still clinging to a branch. "It's like a jinx! Nothing can kill him, neither poison nor a bullet. It's as if everything in this world were bent on protecting him – every stone, every animal, even the shadows among the trees! The Bluejay! Death itself let him go, and did a deal with him for the Fire-Dancer. Oh, very impressive! But at what price? He hasn't told even his wife the price, only Mortola knows it! No one pays any attention to the Magpie in the tree, but she hears everything – what the trees whisper at night, what spiders write in damp branches with their silver threads: They say that Death will take the Bluejay and his daughter if he doesn't deliver the Adderhead's life before winter ends. And they say the Adder's own daughter plans to help the Jay to write the three words in the White Book."

"What?" Orpheus had been only half listening. He knew Mortola's hate-filled tirades, endless and self-glorifying, but he pricked up his ears at that last remark. Violante in league with the Bluejay? Yes, it made sense. Of course! That was why Mortimer had handed himself over expressly to her! He might have known it. That paragon of virtue hadn't let himself be made prisoner only out of nobility of mind. The noble robber was intent on murder.

Orpheus began pacing up and down, while Mortola went on uttering curses in so hoarse a voice that the words sounded hardly human.

Violante – Orpheus had offered her his services as soon as he had settled in Ombra, but she had rejected them, saying that she already had a poet… not very nice of her.

"Oh yes, he plans to kill the Adder! Stole into the castle like a marten into a poultry yard! Even the fairies sing about it as they do their silly dances, but only the Magpie listens!" Mortola bent double. Even her coughing sounded like a croak. She was crazy! How she looked at him, with her pupils so black and fixed that they looked more like the eyes of a bird than of a human being. Orpheus shuddered.

"Yes, yes, I know his plans!" she whispered. "And I tell myself: Mortola, let him live, hard as that is for you. Kill his wife, or even better the daughter he dotes on, and flutter up onto his shoulder when he hears the news, so that you can hear his heart breaking. But let him live until the Adderhead gives him the White Book, because the Adder, too, must die for all the pain he gave me. And should the Silver Prince really be stupid enough to let his worst enemy lay hands on the Book that can kill him, all the better! The Magpie will be there, and not the Bluejay but Mortola will write those three words. Yes, I know what they are. And Death will take both the Bluejay and the Adderhead, and in return for such rich pickings will finally give back what that accursed bookbinder took from me with his silver tongue – my son!"

What the devil? Orpheus nearly choked on the wine he had just raised to his lips. The old witch was still dreaming of Capricorn's return! Well, why not, since first Cosimo and then Dustfinger had come back from the dead? But he could think of more interesting turns for this story to take than the return of Mortola's fire-raising son.

"You really believe the Adderhead will bring the White Book here?" Ah, he felt there were great things in the offing, developments full of promise. Maybe all was not lost, even if Dustfinger had stolen Fenoglio's book from him. There were other ways to play a significant part in this story. The Adderhead in Ombra! What possibilities that opened up…

"Of course he'll come! The Adder is more of a fool than most people think." Mortola sat down on one of the chairs that stood ready for Orpheus's distinguished clients. The wind blew through the unglazed windows and made the candles flicker. Shadows danced like black birds on the whitewashed walls.

"So will the Silver Prince let the bookbinder outwit him for the second time?" Orpheus himself was surprised by the hatred in his voice. To his astonishment, he realized that he now wished for Mortimer's death almost as passionately as Mortola. "Even Dustfinger runs after him these days!" he uttered. "Obviously, Death has made him forget what that hero once did to him!" He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, as if he could wipe away the memory of Dustfinger's cold face. Yes, that was the only reason why Dustfinger had turned against him! Because Mortimer had bewitched him with his accursed voice. He bewitched them all. It was to be hoped that the Piper would cut out his tongue before they quartered him. He wanted to watch as the Milksop's hounds tore him to pieces, as the Piper sliced up his skin and his noble heart. Oh, if only he could have written that song about the Bluejay!

Mortola's coughing brought Orpheus back from his bloodthirsty dreams.

"It's only too easy to swallow these seeds!" she gasped, bent double in the chair, her hands clutching the arms like claws. "You have to put them under your tongue, but they're slippery little things, and if too many of them go astray and down to your stomach, the bird sometimes comes back when you haven't summoned it." She jerked her head like the Magpie, opened her mouth as if it were a beak, and pressed her fingers to her pale lips.

"Listen!" she managed to say as the fit shook her again. "I want you to go to the castle as soon as the Adderhead reaches Ombra and warn him against his daughter! Tell him to ask Balbulus, the illuminator, how many books about the Bluejay Violante has ordered from him. Convince him that his daughter is obsessed with his worst enemy and will do all in her power to save him. Tell him in the finest words you can think up. Use your voice, the way Silvertongue will try to use his. You're very keen on boasting that your voice is more impressive than Mortimer's! Prove it!"

Mortola retched – and spat another seed out into the palm of her hand.

She was clever, even if she was totally crazy, and it was surely best to let her believe she could go on acting as if she were his mistress, although all that retching made him feel so unwell he could almost have spat out his own wine. Orpheus brushed a little dust off his elaborately embroidered sleeves. His clothes, his house, all the maids… How could the old woman be blind enough to think he'd ever serve her again? As if he'd come into this world to carry out other people's plans! No, here he served only himself. So he had sworn.

"It doesn't sound like a bad idea." Orpheus was taking great pains to keep his tone of voice as deferential as usual, "But what about all the Bluejay's noble friends? He won't be hoping for support from Violante alone. What about the Black Prince?" And Dustfinger, he added silently, but he did not speak the name. He was going to take his own revenge on Dustfinger.

"The Black Prince, yes. Another high-minded idiot. My son had trouble with him from time to time himself." Mortola put the seed she had spat out away with the others. "I'll take care of him. Him and Silvertongue's daughter. That girl's almost as dangerous as her father."

"Nonsense!" Orpheus poured himself more wine. Wine made him braver.

Mortola inspected him scornfully. Yes, she obviously still thought him a subservient fool. All the better. She rubbed her

thin arms, shuddering as if the feathers were trying to pierce through her skin again.

"What about the old man? The one who, they say, wrote Silvertongue's daughter the words I took from her in the Castle of Night? Is he still writing foolhardy recklessness into the Bluejay's heart?"

"No, Fenoglio isn't writing anymore. All the same, I'd have no objection if you killed him. Far from it – he's a terrible know-it- all."

Mortola nodded, but she didn't really seem to be listening anymore. "I must go," she said, rising unsteadily from her chair. "Your house is as musty as a dungeon."

Oss was lying outside the door when Mortola opened it. "So this is your bodyguard?" she asked. "You don't seem to have many enemies."

Orpheus slept poorly that night. He dreamed of birds, hundreds of birds, but when dawn came and Ombra emerged from the shadows of night like a pale fruit, he went to the window of his bedroom full of new confidence.

"Good morning to you, Bluejay!" he said under his breath, eyes turned to the towers of the castle. "I hope you passed a sleepless night! I daresay you still think the roles in this story have been cast by now, but you've played its hero long enough. Curtain up, Act Two: Enter Orpheus. In what part? The part of the villain, of course. Isn't that always the best role in a play?"