Inkdeath - Page 98/137

Good God, that incredulous look. As if he’d been talking about Santa Claus. But finally she thrust out her chin (it was quite an imposing chin), and that never boded well.

"Excuses! Nothing but excuses! You can’t think of anything, and Resa’s on the way to that castle. Suppose the Adderhead gets there long before she does? Suppose he doesn’t trust his daughter, and Mortimer is dead before—"

"And suppose Mortola is back, as Resa says?" Fenoglio brusquely interrupted her.

"Suppose Snapper kills Mortimer because he’s jealous of the Bluejay? Suppose Violante hands Mortimer over to her father after all, because she can’t bear to be rejected by yet another man? What about the Piper, what about Violante’s spoiled son, what about all that?" His voice grew so loud that Rosenquartz hid under his blanket.

"Stop shouting." Suddenly, Signora Loredan sounded unusually subdued. "Poor Rosenquartz’s head will be splitting." "No, it won’t, because his head is as empty as a sucked-out snail’s shell. Mine, on the other hand, has to think about difficult problems, matters of life and death — but it’s my glass man that gets your sympathy, and you drag me out of bed after I’ve been lying awake half the night straining my ears trying to get this story to tell me where it wants to go!"

She fell silent. She actually fell silent. She bit her surprisingly feminine lower lip and plucked a few burrs off the dress that Minerva had given her, lost in thought. That dress was always picking up dead leaves, burrs, and rabbit droppings — and no wonder, the way she kept wandering around the forest. Elinor Loredan certainly loved his world, though of course she would never admit it — and she understood it almost as well as he did.

"How.., how would it be if you could at least gain us a little time?" She still sounded far less sure of herself than usual. "Time to think, time to write! Time that might really give Resa a chance to warn Mortimer of Snapper and that magpie. Perhaps a wheel could come off the Adderhead’s coach. He travels by coach, doesn’t he?"

Well, yes. Not such a stupid idea. Why hadn’t he thought of it himself?

"I can try," he growled.

‘‘Oh , wonderful.’’ She smiled with relief—and was immediately more self-confident again. "I’ll ask Minerva to make you some nicer tea," she added, looking back over her shoulder. "Tea is better for thinking than wine, I’m sure. And don’t be cross with Rosenquartz."

The glass man smiled at her in a nauseating way, and Fenoglio gave him a slight nudge with his foot that sent him over on his back.

"Stir the ink, you slimy-tongued traitor!" he said as Rosenquartz scrambled to his feet, looking offended.

Minerva really did bring him some tea. It even had a little lemon in it, and outside the cave the children were laughing as if everything in the world was all right. Well, make it all right, Fenoglio, he told himself. Loredan has a point. You’re still the author of this story. The Adderhead is on his way to the Castle in the Lake, where Mortimer is waiting. The Bluejay is preparing for his finest song. Write it for him!

Write Mortimer’s part to its end. He’s playing it with as much conviction as if he’d been born with the name you gave him. The words are obeying you again. You have the book. Orpheus is forgotten. This is still your story, so give it a good ending!

Yes. He’d do it. And Signora Loredan would finally be left speechless and show him the respect she owed him. But first he had to delay the Adderhead (and forget that had been Elinor’s idea in the first place).

Outside the children were shouting noisily. Rosenquartz was whispering to Jasper, who was sitting among the freshly sharpened pens and watching him, wide-eyed.

Minerva brought some soup, and Elinor peeped over the wall as if he couldn’t see her there. But soon Fenoglio was beyond noticing any of that. The words were carrying him away as they had in the past, letting him ride on their inky backs, leaving him blind and deaf to his surroundings, until he heard only the crunch of coach wheels on frozen ground and the sound of black-painted wood splitting. Soon both glass men were dipping pens in the ink for him, the words came so fast. Splendid words. Words worthy of Fenoglio. He’d quite forgotten how the letters on the page could intoxicate you. No wine could compete with them. . . .

"Inkweaver!"

Fenoglio raised his head, irritated. He was already deep in the mountains, on his way to the Castle in the Lake, aware of the Adderhead’s bloated flesh as if it were his own.

Battista stood there, concern in his face, and the mountains vanished. Fenoglio was back in the cave, surrounded by robbers and hungry children. What was the matter?

The Black Prince hadn’t taken a turn for the worse again, had he?

"Doria is back from one of his scouting expeditions. The boy’s dead on his feet; he must have been running half the night. He says the Milksop is on his way here, and he knows about the cave. No one has any idea who told him." Battista rubbed his pockmarked cheeks. "They have hounds with them. Doria says they’ll be here this evening. That means we must leave."

"Leave? And go where?"

Where could they take all the children, many of them half crazed with homesickness by now? Fenoglio saw from Battista’s face that the robber had no answer to that question, either.

Well, so now what would clever Signora Loredan say? How was anyone supposed to write in these circumstances? "Tell the Prince I’ll be with him right away."

Battista nodded. As he turned, Despina pushed past him. Her little face was anxious.

Children know at once when something’s wrong. They are used to having to guess what grown-ups don’t tell them.

"Come here!" Fenoglio beckoned her over, while Rosenquartz fanned the words he had just written, with a maple leaf. Fenoglio sat Despina on his lap and stroked her fair hair. Children . . he forgave his villains so much, but since the Piper had started hunting children down, there was only one ending he wanted to write to the man’s story, and it was a bloody one. If only he’d already written it! But it would have to wait now, like the song of the Bluejay. Where could they take the children? Think, Fenoglio, think!

He desperately rubbed his lined brow. Heavens, no wonder thinking dug such deep furrows in your face.

"Rosenquartz!" he told the glass man sharply. "Find Meggie. Tell her she must read what I’ve written, even though it isn’t quite finished. It’ll have to do."

The glass man scurried off so fast that he knocked over the wine Battista had brought, and the covers of Fenoglio’s bed were stained as if soaked in blood. The book! He snatched it out from under the damp fabric in concern. Inkheart. He still liked that title. What would happen if these pages were moistened? Would his whole world begin to rot? But the paper was dry, only one corner of the binding was slightly damp. Fenoglio rubbed it with his sleeve.

"What’s that?" Despina took the book from him. Of course — where would she ever have seen a book before? She hadn’t grown up in a castle or a rich merchant’s house.

"This is a thing that has stories in it," said Fenoglio.

He heard Elfbane calling the children together, the alarmed voices of the women, the first sounds of weeping. Despina listened anxiously, too, but then she stared at the book again.