The flames had gone out, and Farid was heaping up the warm ashes with his hands when a shadow fell on him. Doria stood behind them, holding hands with two children. "Meggie, the woman with the loud voice is looking for you.
The robbers had many names for Elinor. Meggie couldn’t help smiling, but Farid cast a none-too-friendly glance at Doria. He carefully put the ashes back in his bag and rose to his feet. "I’ll be with Roxane," he said, kissing Meggie on the mouth. He hadn’t done that for weeks. Then he pushed past Doria and strode away without looking back once.
"He kissed her!" one of the children whispered to Doria, just loud enough for Meggie to hear. The child was a girl, and she blushed when Meggie returned her gaze and hastily hid her face in Doria’s side.
"So he did," Doria whispered back. "But did she kiss him back?"
"No!" said the boy on his right, sizing up Meggie as if wondering whether kissing her would be fun.
"That’s a good thing, then," said Doria. "A very good thing."
CHAPTER 42
AN AUDIENCE WITH THE ADDERHEAD
Just after midnight, the Adderhead’s retinue reached Ombra. Orpheus had made Oss wait under the gallows by the city gate for three nights on end, so that he would be sure to hear of the Silver Prince’s arrival as soon as the Milksop did.
All was ready. The Piper had had every door and window in the castle draped with black cloth so that it would be night there for his master even during the day, and the felled trees that the Milksop intended to burn on the castle hearths lay ready in the courtyard although everyone knew that no fire could drive away the cold that had made its way into the Adderhead’s flesh and bones. The one man who could perhaps have done it had escaped from the castle dungeons, and all Ombra wondered how the Silver Prince would take that news.
Orpheus sent Oss to the castle that very night. After all, it was common knowledge that the Adderhead hardly slept at all.
"Say I have information of the utmost importance for him. Say it’s about the bookbinder and his daughter." Having little confidence in his bodyguard’s intellectual capacities, he repeated the words half a dozen times, but Oss did his errand well. After just over three hours, hours spent by Orpheus pacing restlessly up and down his study, Oss came back with the message that the audience was granted, but only on condition Orpheus went to the castle at once, since the Adderhead must rest before he set out again.
Set out again? Aha. So he’s playing his daughter’s game! Orpheus thought as he hurried up the path to the castle. Very well. Then it’s up to you to show him he can’t win the game without your help! Involuntarily, he licked his lips to keep them smooth for this great task. Never before had he spun his web around such magnificent prey. "Curtain up," he whispered to himself again and again. "Curtain up!"
The servant who led him through the black-draped corridors to the throne room said not a single word. It was hot and dark in the castle. Like hell, thought Orpheus. And wasn’t that appropriate? Didn’t people often compare the Adderhead to the Devil himself? You had to hand it to Fenoglio; this was a villain of real stature. Beside the Adderhead, Capricorn had been just a cheap play-actor, an amateur although no doubt Mortola saw it differently. But who cared what Mortola thought now?
A shudder of delight ran down Orpheus’s plump shoulders. The Adderhead! Sprung from a clan that had cultivated the art of evil for generations. There was no cruel act that at least one of his ancestors hadn’t committed. Cunning, the lust for power, a total lack of conscience: Those were the family’s outstanding characteristics. What a combination! Orpheus was excited. His hands were damp and sweating like a boy’s on his first date. Again and again he ran his tongue over his teeth as if to sharpen them, prepare them for the right words. "Believe me," he heard himself saying, "I can lay this world at your feet, I can make it into anything you like, but for that you must find me a certain book. It is even more powerful than the Book that made you immortal, far more powerful!"
Inkheart. . . No, he wasn’t going to think of the night he had lost it, not now, and he certainly wasn’t going to think of Dustfinger!
It was no lighter in the throne room than in the corridors. A few lost-looking candles burned among the columns and around the throne. On Orpheus’s last visit (as far as he could remember, that was when he had delivered the dwarf to the Milksop), the way to the throne had been lined by stuffed animals, bears, wolves, spotted great cats, and of course the unicorn he had written here, but they were all gone now. Even the Milksop was bright enough to realize that in view of the sparse taxes he had sent to his brother-in-law, these hunting trophies were unlikely to impress the Adderhead.
Nothing but darkness filled the great hall now, making the black-clad guards between the columns almost invisible. Only their weapons glinted in the flickering light of the fire that burned behind the throne. Orpheus went to great Pains to stride past them looking unimpressed, but unfortunately he stumbled over the hem of his coat twice, and when he finally stood in front of the throne itself, the Milksop was sitting there, and not his brother-in-law.
Orpheus felt a stab of disappointment, sharp as a knife. He quickly bowed his head to hide it, and tried to find the right things to say, flattering but not too servile. Talking to the powerful called for special skills, but he’d had practice. There had always been people more powerful than he was in his life. His father had been the first, never satisfied with his awkward son who liked books better than working in his parents’
shop: those endless hours among the dusty shelves, an ever-friendly smile when he had to serve the tourists who flocked in instead of leafing through a book with hasty fingers, avidly looking for the place where he had last had to leave the world of print.
Orpheus couldn’t count the slaps he’d earned over his forbidden passion for reading.
One every tenth page was probably about it, but the price had never seemed too high.
What was a slap for ten pages of escapism, ten pages far from everything that made him unhappy, ten pages of real life instead of the monotony that other people called the real world?
"Your Grace!" Orpheus bent his head even lower. What a ridiculous sight the Milksop was under his silver-powdered wig, his scrawny neck emerging so pathetically from his heavy velvet collar. His pale face was as expressionless as ever—as if his creator had forgotten to give it eyebrows, just sketching in the eyes and lips lightly.
"You want to speak to the Adderhead?" Even the Milksop’s voice was not impressive. Malicious tongues mocked it, saying he wouldn’t have to change it very much to use it as a decoy call to the ducks he liked shooting out of the sky. How that feeble fool is sweating, thought Orpheus as he smiled deferentially. Well, I suppose I’d be sweating, too, in his place. The Adderhead had come to Ombra to kill his worst enemy, only to discover instead that his herald and his brother-in-law had let their valuable prisoner get away. Really, it was amazing that they were both still alive.
"Yes, Your Honor. Whenever it is convenient for the Silver Prince!" Orpheus was delighted to realize that in this empty hall his voice sounded even more effective than usual. "I have information for him that could be of the greatest significance."
"About his daughter and the Bluejay?" The Milksop plucked at his sleeves with a deliberately bored expression. Perfumed bonehead.