Inkdeath (42 page)

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.

"Indeed." Orpheus cleared his throat. "As you know, I have important clients, influential friends. News comes to my ears that doesn’t even reach castles. This time it is alarming news, and I want to make sure that your brother-in-law hears of it."

"And what might this news be?"

Careful, Orpheus!

"As to that, Your Grace.. ." He really was taking great pains to sound regretful. "I would rather tell it only to the Adderhead himself. After all, it concerns his daughter."

"Whom he will hardly feel like discussing at present!" The Milksop adjusted his wig.

"Sly, ugly creature!" he uttered. "Abducts my prisoner to steal the throne of Ombra from me! Threatens to kill him if her own father doesn’t follow her into the mountains like a dog! As if it hadn’t been difficult enough to catch that puffed-up Bluejay! But why do I bother to tell you all this? I suppose because you brought me the unicorn. The best hunt of my life." In a melancholy mood, he stared at Orpheus with eyes almost as pale as his face. "The more beautiful the game the greater the pleasure of killing it, don’t you agree?"

"Words of wisdom, Your Highness, words of wisdom!" Orpheus bowed again. The Milksop loved people to bow to him.

Glancing nervously at the guards, he now leaned down to Orpheus. "I would so much like another unicorn!" he whispered "It was a huge success with all my friends. Do you think you can get me another? Maybe a little larger than the last one?"

Orpheus gave the Milksop a confident smile. What a talkative, empty-headed fool he was, but then—every story needed such characters. They usually died quite early on.

It was to be hoped that this general rule held good for the Adderhead’s brother-in-law.

"Naturally, Your Highness! That ought not to be any problem," murmured Orpheus, choosing every word with care, even though this princely fool wasn’t worth the trouble. "But first I must speak to the Silver Prince. Rest assured that my information really is of the utmost importance. And you," he added, giving the Milksop a crafty smile, "will receive the throne of Ombra. Get me an audience with your immortal brother-in-law, and the Bluejay will meet his well-deserved end at last. Violante will be punished for her deceitfulness, and for your triumphal celebrations I’ll get you a Pegasus, which will surely impress your friends even more than the unicorn. You could hunt it with both crossbows and hawks!"

The Milksop’s pale eyes widened with delight. "A Pegasus!" he breathed as he impatiently waved over one of the guards. "Fabulous indeed! I’ll get you your audience, but let me advise you," and here he lowered his voice to a whisper, "not to go too close to my brother-in-law. The stink coming off him has already killed two of my dogs!"

The Adderhead kept Orpheus waiting another hour. It passed as painfully slowly as few hours had before in his whole life. The Milksop asked him about other creatures that might be hunted, and Orpheus promised basilisks and six-legged lions while his mind put the right words together for the Silver Prince. Every one of them must ring true. After all, the lord of the Castle of Night was as famous for his clever mind as for his cruelty. Orpheus had done a great deal of thinking since Mortola visited him, and he always came to the same conclusion: He could make his dreams of wealth and influence come true only at the Adderhead’s side. Even in a state of physical decay, the Silver Prince still played the leading part here. With his help, Orpheus might perhaps get back the book that had made this world such a wonderful toy before Dustfinger stole it. Not to mention the other Book, the one enabling its owner to play with that toy for all eternity.

"How modest you are, Orpheus," he had whispered to himself when the idea first took shape in his mind. "Two books, that’s all you ask! Just two books and one of them full of blank pages and in rather poor condition!"

Ah, what a life he could lead. Orpheus the all-powerful, Orpheus the immortal, hero of the world he had loved even as a child!

"He’s coming! Bow low!" The Milksop jumped up so hastily that his wig slipped down over his receding forehead, and Orpheus came out of his delightful daydreams with a start.

A reader doesn’t really see the characters in a story; he feels them. Orpheus had discovered that for the first time when, aged nearly eleven, he had tried describing or drawing characters from his favorite books. As the Adderhead came toward him out of the darkness, it was exactly like the day when he first encountered him in Fenoglio’s book: He felt fear and admiration, he sensed the evil that surrounded the Silver Prince like black light, and an abundance of power that made it difficult to breathe. But Orpheus had imagined the Silver Prince very much taller. And of course Fenoglio’s description had said nothing about that devastated face, the pale and puffy flesh, the swollen hands. Every step the Adderhead took seemed to hurt him. His eyes were bloodshot under their heavy lids. They watered even in the sparse candlelight, and the stench given off by his bloated body made Orpheus want desperately to cover his own mouth and nose.

The Adderhead didn’t deign to look at him as he walked past, breathing heavily.

Only when he was sitting on the throne did those reddened eyes turn to his visitor. A lizard’s eyes, so Fenoglio had described them. Now they were inflamed slits under swollen lids, and the red jewels that the Adderhead wore in both nostrils were sunk deep, like nails driven into the white flesh.

"You want to tell me something about my daughter and the Bluejay?" He struggled for breath after every other word, but that made his voice no less menacing. "What is it? That Violante loves power as much as I do, so she’s stolen it from me? Is that what you want to tell me? If so, then say good-bye to your tongue, because I’ll have it torn out. I greatly dislike having my time wasted however much of it I now have at my disposal."

His tongue torn out. . . Orpheus gulped. Not a nice idea at all but he still had it at the moment. Even if the stench wafting down from the throne made speaking almost impossible.

"My tongue could come in very useful to you, Your Grace," he replied, with difficulty suppressing an urge to retch. "But of course you’re free to tear it out at any time."

The Adderhead’s mouth twisted into an unpleasant smile. Pain carved fine lines around his lips. "What a delightful offer. I see you take me seriously. Very well, what do you have to say?"

Curtain up, Orpheus, he thought. On you go, this is your big scene!

"Your daughter Violante"— Orpheus let the name die away for effect before he went on —"wants more than just the throne of Ombra. She wants yours, too. Which is why she is planning to kill you."

The Milksop clutched his chest, as if giving the lie to those who claimed that he had a dead partridge there instead of a heart. However, the Adderhead merely stared at Orpheus with his inflamed eyes.

"Your tongue is in great danger," he said. "Violante can’t kill me, have you forgotten that? No one can.

Orpheus felt the sweat running down his nose. The fire behind the Adderhead crackled as if it were calling Dustfinger. Oh, devil take it, he was so frightened. But then wasn’t he always frightened? Look him straight in the eye, Orpheus, and trust your voice!

Those eyes were terrible. They stripped the skin from his face. And the swollen fingers lay on the arms of the throne like dead flesh.

"Oh yes, she can. If the Bluejay has told her the three words." His voice really did sound astonishingly composed. Good, Orpheus, very good.

"Ah, those three words.., so you’ve heard about them, too. Well, you are right. She could get them out of him under torture. Although I would expect him to say nothing for a very long time.., and he could always give her the wrong words."

"Your daughter doesn’t have to torture the Bluejay. She’s in league with him."

Yes!

Orpheus saw, from the disfigured face, that such an idea really hadn’t occurred to the Silver Prince yet. Ah, this game was fun. This was just the part he wanted to play.

They’d soon all be sticking to his cunning tongue like flies on flypaper.

The Adderhead remained silent for an agonizingly long time.

"Interesting," he said at last. "Violante’s mother had a weakness for strolling players.

I’m sure a robber would have taken her fancy just as much. But Violante is not like her mother. She’s like me, although she doesn’t care to hear people say so.

"Oh, I have no doubt of that, Your Highness!" Orpheus injected just enough deference into his voice. "But why has the illuminator who works in this castle had to do nothing but illustrate songs about the Bluejay for over a year? Your daughter has sold her jewels to pay for paints. She’s obsessed by that robber he dominates her mind. Ask Balbulus! Ask him how often she sits in the library staring at the pictures he’s painted of the man! And ask yourself, how is it possible for the Bluejav to have escaped from this castle twice in the last few weeks?"

"I can’t ask Balbulus anything." The Adderhead’s voice seemed made for this black-draped hall. "The Piper is having him hunted out of town at this very moment. He cut off his right hand first."

That really did silence Orpheus for a moment. His right hand. Instinctively, he touched his own writing hand. "Why. . . er. . . if I may ask, Your Highness, why did he do that?" he managed in a thread of a voice.

"Why? Because my daughter thought highly of his art, and I hope the stump of his wrist will make it clear to her how very angry I am. For Balbulus will of course take refuge with her. Where else would he go?"

"Indeed. How clever of you." Orpheus involuntarily moved his fingers as if to reassure himself that they were still there. He had run out of words; his brain was a blank sheet of paper and his tongue a dried-up pen.

"Shall I let you in on a secret?" The Adderhead licked his cracked lips. "I like what my daughter has done! I can’t allow it, but it pleases me. She doesn’t care for being ordered around. Neither the Piper nor my pheasant-murdering brother-in-law"— here he cast a look of disgust at the Milksop — "has realized that. As for the Bluejay, it may well be that Violante is only pretending to him that she will protect him. She’s wily. She knows as well as I do that it’s easy to trick heroes. You just have to make a hero believe you’re on the side of what’s right and just, and he’ll go trotting after you like a lamb to the slaughter. But in the end Violante will sell me her noble robber.

For the crown of Ombra. And who knows . . . perhaps I really will let her have it."

The Milksop was looking straight ahead as fixedly as if he hadn’t heard those last words spoken by his overlord and brother-in-law. However, the Adderhead leaned back and patted his bloated thighs. "I think your tongue is mine, Four-Eyes," he said.