The Adderhead was freezing. He was freezing even in his sleep, although he clutched the cushion to his sore chest, the cushion containing the Book that protected him from eternal cold. Even his dreams, heavy with poppy juice, couldn’t warm him anymore. Dreams of the tortures he would inflict on the Bluejay. Once he had dreamed only of love in this castle. But wasn’t that only right and proper? Hadn’t the love he found here tormented him as much as his rotting flesh?
Oh, how cold he was. Even his dreams seemed to be covered with hoarfrost. Dreams of torture, dreams of love. He opened his eyes, and the painted walls stared at him with the eyes of Violante’s mother. That damn poppy juice. This damn castle. And why was the fire back? The Adderhead groaned and pressed his hands to his eyes, but the sparks seemed to burn even beneath his lids.
Red. Red and gold. Light as sharp as a knife blade, and out of the fire came the whispering, the whispering he had feared ever since he first heard it at a dying man’s side. Trembling, he peered through his swollen fingers. No. No, it couldn’t be true. It was the poppy juice making him imagine them. Nothing else. He saw four of them all standing around his bed, white as snow no, whiter—and they were whispering the name he had been born with. Over and over again, as if to remind him that he hadn’t always had the skin of a serpent.
It was the poppy juice, only the poppy juice.
The Adderhead thrust a trembling hand into the cushion to take out the Book, to hold it up and so ward them off, but their white fingers were already reaching into his breast.
How they were looking at him! With the eyes of all the dead he had sent to them.
And then they whispered his name again.
And his heart stood still.
CHAPTER 77
OVER
The White Woman appeared as soon as Mo closed the blood-soaked Book again. At the sight of her the Piper forgot the swift, and Violante’s son hid under the table to which Mo was chained. But this daughter of Death hadn’t come to take the Bluejay away. She was here to give him his freedom, and Resa saw the relief on Mo’s face.
At that moment he forgot everything. Resa saw that, too. Perhaps he hoped, for a split second, that the story had been told to the end at last. But the Piper hadn’t died with his master. For a few precious moments fear held him transfixed, but when the White Woman disappeared she took his fear with her, and Resa spread her wings once more. She spat out the seeds as she flew at the Piper, so that she would get back hands she could use to help, feet that could run. But the bird was reluctant to leave her, and she still had claws as she landed on the flagstones right beside the two men.
Mo looked down at her in alarm, and before Resa could realize what danger she was putting him in, the Piper had taken the chains binding him to the table, to wind them around his own hand. Mo fell to his knees as the Piper tugged the chains. He was holding the knife he had been using to cut paper, but what good was a bookbinder’s knife against a sword or a crossbow?
Desperately, Resa fluttered up on the table, retching in the frantic hope that there might be a seed still under her tongue, but her feathery prison would not let her go, and the Piper pulled at Mo’s chains again.
"Your pale angel was in a hurry to leave this time!" he said scornfully. "Why didn’t she undo your chains for you? But don’t worry, we’ll leave you plenty of time to die, time enough for your white friends to come back again. Now, go on working."
With difficulty, Mo straightened up. "Why should I?" he asked, pushing the White Book over to the Piper. "Your master won’t be needing any second book now. That’s why the White Woman came here. I’ve written the three words in this one. See for yourself. The Adderhead is dead."
The Piper stared at the bloodstained binding. Then he looked under the table, where Jacopo was cowering like a small, frightened animal.
"Is he indeed?" he said, drawing his sword. "Well, if that’s so. . . I’ve no objection to immortality myself. So, as I said, go on working."
His soldiers began to whisper.
"Quiet!" the Piper snapped, pointing to one of them with his gloved hand. "You. Go to the Adderhead and tell him the Bluejay claims he’s dead."
The soldier hurried away. The others watched him go with fear in their eyes. But the Piper put the point of his sword to Mo’s chest. ‘You’re not working yet!"
Mo stepped as far back as the chains would allow, the knife in his hand. "There won’t be any other book. No book with white pages. Off you go, Jacopo! Run to your mother and tell her everything will be all right."
Jacopo crawled out from under the table and ran for it. The Piper didn’t even look at him as he disappeared. "When the Adderhead‘s son was born I advised him to dispose of Cosimo’s little bastard," he said, looking at the White Book. "But he wouldn’t hear of it. Stupid of him."
The soldier he had sent to the Adderhead came stumbling back into the dark hail, out of breath.
"The Jay’s telling the truth!" he gasped. "The Adderhead is dead, and the White Women are everywhere."
The other soldiers lowered their crossbows.
"L-l-let’s go back to Ombra, sir!" stammered one of them. "This castle is bewitched.
We can take the Bluejay with us!"
"A good idea," said the Piper. And he smiled.
No.
Resa fluttered into his face once more, pecking the smile from his lips. It was the bird who did it — or was it the woman, the wife? She heard Mo cry out as the Piper struck at her with his sword. The blade cut deep into her wing. She fell, and suddenly she had human limbs again, as if the Piper had cut the bird out of her. The Piper stared at her in disbelief, but as he raised his sword Mo thrust the knife deep into his chest, right through his expensive clothes. And the Piper looked at him in astonishment as he died.
His soldiers, however, were still there. Mo snatched the Piper’s sword and drove them back, away from his wife. But there were too many of them, and he was still chained to the table. Soon there was blood everywhere, on his chest, on his hands and arms. Was it his own?
They were going to kill him, and once again Resa could only watch, stand by and watch, as she had done so often in the course of this story. But suddenly fire was consuming the chains, and Dustfinger stood over her to protect her, with the marten on his shoulder. Beside him stood Jacopo.
"Is she dead, too?" Resa heard the boy ask as the soldiers ran from the fire, screaming.
"No," Dustfinger answered. "It’s only her arm that’s wounded."
"But she was a bird!" said Jacopo.
"Yes." That was Mo’s voice. "Don’t you think that sounds like a good story?"
It was suddenly so quiet in the great hall. No more fighting, no screams, only the crackling of the fire as it talked to Dustfinger.
Mo kneeled down beside Resa. There was blood everywhere, but he was alive, and once again she had a human hand to take his. And all was well.
CHAPTER 78
STAKED ON THE WRONG CARD
Orpheus was reading frantically, he realized that himself. He was reading in too loud a voice and much too fast. As if his tongue were trying to thrust the words through the bookbinder’s body like knives. He had written him the torments of hell in revenge for the Piper’s mocking smile. That smile still haunted him. How small it had made him, just when he was feeling so full of grandeur! But at least there’d soon be no more smiling for the Bluejay.
