“Yes, I think so, too,” said Mo. “I’m sure of it.”
“And?” The old man looked at him hopefully. “Do you know how it can be preserved from further harm?”
Mo carefully closed the book. “Yes, but it won’t be easy. Woodworm, the corrosive effect of the ink, who knows what else. . Does the second book look the same?”
“Oh, that one” – the librarian cast another nervous look at the door – “Well, it’s not in such a bad way yet. But I thought you might like to see it. Balbulus completed it not long ago, for Violante. It contains,” he said, looking uncertainly at Mo, “it contains all the songs that the strolling players sing about the Bluejay. As far as I know there are only two copies. Violante owns one, and the other is before you and is a copy that she had specially made for me. They say the man who wrote the songs didn’t want them written down, but any minstrel will sing them to you for a few coins. That was how Violante collected them and had them written out by Balbulus. The strolling players, you see – well, they’re like walking books here, where real books are so few and far between! You know,” he whispered to Mo as he opened the volume, “I sometimes think this world would have lost its memory long ago but for the Motley Folk. Unfortunately, the Adderhead is only too fond of hanging them! I’ve often suggested sending a scribe to see them before they’re executed, to get all those beautiful songs written down before the words die with them, but no one in this castle listens to an old librarian.”
“No, very likely not,” murmured Mo, but Meggie could tell from his voice that he hadn’t been listening to anything Taddeo had said. Mo was immersed in the letters, the beautiful written characters flowing over the parchment in front of him like a delicate river of ink.
“Forgive my curiosity.” Taddeo cleared his throat, embarrassed. “I’ve heard that you deny being the Bluejay . but if you will allow me . . ” He took the book from Mo’s hand and opened it at a page that Balbulus had illuminated lavishly. A man stood between two trees, so wonderfully painted that Meggie thought she could hear the rustle of the leaves. He wore a bird mask over his face. “That’s how Balbulus painted the Bluejay,” whispered Taddeo, “just as the songs describe him, dark-haired, tall .. doesn’t he look like you?”
“I don’t know,” said Mo. “He’s wearing a mask, isn’t he?”
“Yes, yes, indeed.” Taddeo was still looking intently at him. “But did you know that they say something else about the Bluejay? They say he has a very beautiful voice, not at all like the bird that shares his name. It’s said that he can tame bears and wolves with a few words. Forgive me for being so forward, but” – he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone – ” you have a very beautiful voice. Mortola tells strange tales of it. And then, when you have the scar, too . . ” He stared at Mo’s arm.
“Oh, you mean this, don’t you?” Mo placed his finger under a line beside which Balbulus had painted a pack of white dogs, and read: ” ‘High on his left arm he will bear the scar to his dying day.’ Yes, I do have a scar like that, but I didn’t get it from the dogs in this song.” He put his hand to his arm, as if remembering the day when Basta had found them in the tumbledown hut full of broken pots and tiles.
However, the old librarian took a step back. “So you are him!” he breathed. “The hope of the poor, the terror of butchers, avenger and robber, as much at home in the forest as the bears and wolves?”
Mo shut the book and pressed the metal clasps into the leather-covered binding. “No,” he said.
“No, I’m not, but thank you very much for the book, all the same. It’s a long time since I had one in my hands, and it will be good to have something to read again, won’t it, Meggie?”
“Yes,” was all she said, taking the book from his hand. Songs about the Bluejay. What would Fenoglio have said if he’d known that Violante had had them written down in secret? And they might offer so much help! Her heart leaped as she thought of the possibilities, but Taddeo immediately dashed her hopes.
“I’m very sorry,” he said, taking the book gently but firmly from her hands again. “But I can’t leave either of the books here with you. Mortola has been talking to me – to everyone who has anything to do with the library. She’s threatened to have anyone who so much as brings a book into this room blinded. Blinded, imagine it! What a threat, when only our eyes reveal the world of words to us! I’ve already risked far too much coming here with them at all, but I love those books so much that I had to ask your advice. Please, tell me what I must do to save them!”
Meggie was so disappointed that she would have turned down his request point blank, but of course Mo saw things differently.
Mo thought only of the sick books. “Of course,” he said to Taddeo. “I’d better write it down for you. It will take time weeks, months – and I don’t know if you’ll be able to get all the materials you need, but it’s worth a try. I’m not happy about suggesting this, but I’m afraid you’ll have to take apart at least the first book, because if you’re to save it, the pages must bleach in the sun. If you don’t know how to go about it – and it must be done with the utmost care – I’ll be happy to do it for you. Mortola can watch if she wants, to make sure I’m not doing anything dangerous.”
“Oh, thank you!” The old man bowed deeply as he put the two books firmly under his thin arm.
“Many, many thanks. I really do most fervently hope the Adderhead will let you live, and if he doesn’t that he grants you a quick death.”
Meggie would very much have liked to give him the answer this remark deserved, but Taddeo scurried away too fast on his grasshopper legs.
“Mo, don’t you help him!” she said when the guard outside had bolted the door again. “Why should you? He’s a miserable coward!”
“Oh, I can understand him,” said Mo. “I wouldn’t like to do without my eyes, either, even though we have useful inventions like Braille in our own world.”
“All the same, I wouldn’t help him.” Meggie loved her father for his strangely soft heart, but her own could not summon up any sympathy for Taddeo. She imitated his voice. ‘“I hope he grants you a quick death!’ How can anyone say such a thing?”
But Mo wasn’t listening. “Have you ever seen such beautiful books, Meggie?” he asked, lying down on the bed.
“You bet I have!” she said indignantly. “Any book I’m allowed to read is more beautiful, right?”
But Mo did not reply. He had turned his back to her and was breathing deeply and peacefully.
Obviously, sleep had found its way to him at last.
Chapter 67 – Kindness and Mercy
Here are we five or six strung up, you see,
And here the flesh that all too well we fed,
Bit by bit eaten and rotten, rent and shred,
And we the bones grow dust and ash withal.
– Francjois Villon, “Ballade of the Hanged Men”
“When are we going back?” Farid asked Dustfinger this VV question several times a day, and every time he got the same answer: “Not yet.”
