“I’ll cut that man Orpheus’s tongue out with my own hands and serve it for supper!” she exclaimed. “With chopped foxglove! Is this supposed to be my son’s fortress? Never!”
Her head moved frantically back and forth like a bird’s as she looked around her. But Basta just stood there in silence, pointing his rifle at Resa and Mo.
“Well, say something!” shouted the Magpie. “Say something, you fool!”
Basta bent down and picked up a rusty helmet lying at his feet. “What do you expect me to say?”
he growled, throwing the helmet back into the grass with a gloomy expression and giving it a kick that sent it clattering against the wall. “Of course it’s our castle. Didn’t you see the figure of the goat on the wall there? Even the carved devils are still standing, though they wear ivy crowns now – and look, there’s one of the eyes that Slasher liked to paint on the stones.”
Mortola stared at the red eye to which Basta was pointing. Then she hobbled over to the remains of the wooden gate, now splintered, torn off its hinges, and barely visible under the brambles and tall stinging nettles. She stood there in silence, looking around her. As for Mo, he had finally come back to his senses.
“What are they talking about?” he whispered to Resa. “Where are we? Was this where Capricorn used to hide out?” Resa just nodded. However, the Magpie turned at the sound of Mo’s voice and stared at him. Then she came over to him, stumbling as if she felt dizzy.
“Yes, this is his castle, but Capricorn isn’t here!” she said in a dangerously low voice. “My son is not here. So Basta was right after all. He’s dead, here and in the other world, too, dead, and what killed him? Your voice, your accursed voice!” There was such hatred in her face that Resa instinctively tried to draw Mo away, somewhere, anywhere he would be safe from that glance.
But there was nothing behind them but the sooty wall with the figure of Capricorn’s goat still displayed on it, a red-eyed goat with burning horns.
“Silvertongue!” Mortola spat out the word as if it were poison. “Killertongue suits you better.
Your daughter couldn’t bring herself to utter the words that killed my son, but you – oh, you didn’t hesitate for a moment!” Her voice was little more than a whisper as she went on: “I can still see you before me, as if it had happened only last night – taking the piece of paper from her hand and putting her aside. And then the words came out of your mouth, fine-sounding as everything you say, and when you’d finished my son lay dead in the dust.” For a moment she put her fingers to her mouth as if to suppress a sob. When she let her hand drop again, her lips were still quivering.
“How – how can this be?” she went on, in a trembling voice. “Tell me, how is it possible? He didn’t belong in your false world at all. So how could he die there? Was that the only reason you lured him over with your wicked tongue?” And again she turned and stared at the burned walls, her bony hands clenched into fists.
Basta bent down again. This time he picked up an arrow point. “I’d really like to know what happened!” he muttered. “I always said Capricorn wasn’t here, but what about the others?
Firefox, Pitch-Eater, Humpback, the Piper, Slasher . . Are they all dead? Or are they in the Laughing Prince’s dungeon?” He looked uneasily at Mortola. “What are we going to do if they’re all gone?” Basta sounded like a boy afraid of the dark. “Do you want us to live in a cave like brownies until the wolves find us? Have you forgotten the wolves? And the Night-Mares, the fire-elves, all the other creatures crawling around the place .. I for one haven’t forgotten them, but you would come back to this accursed spot where there are three ghosts lurking behind every tree!” He reached for the amulet dangling around his neck, but Mortola did not deign to look at him.
“Oh, be quiet!” she said, so sharply that Basta flinched.
“How often must I tell you that ghosts are nothing to be afraid of? As for wolves, that’s why you carry a knife, isn’t it? We’ll manage. We managed in their world, and we know our way around in this one a good deal better. And, don’t forget, we have a powerful friend here. We’re going to pay him a visit, yes, that’s what. But first I have something else to do, something I should have done long ago.” And again her eyes were on Mo. On him and no one else. Then she turned, walked steadily up to Basta, and took the rifle from his hand.
Resa reached for Mo’s arm and tried to pull him aside, but Mortola was too quick on the draw.
The Magpie had some skill with a rifle. She had often shot at the birds who pecked the seed from her garden beds, back in Capricorn’s yard. Blood spread over Mo’s shirt like a flower blossoming, red, crimson. Resa heard herself scream as he fell and suddenly lay there motionless, while the grass around him turned as red as his shirt. She flung herself down on her knees, turned him over, and pressed her hands to the wound, as if she could hold back the blood, all the blood carrying his life away. .
“Come along, Basta!” she heard Mortola say. “We have a long way to go, and it’s time we found safe shelter before it gets dark. This forest is not a pleasant place by night.”
“You’re going to leave them here?” That was Basta’s voice. “Why not? I know you were always attracted to her, but the wolves will take care of them. The fresh blood will bring them this way.”
The blood. It was still flowing so fast, and Mo’s face was white as a sheet. “No. Oh, please, no!”
whispered Resa. Aloud, in her own voice. She pressed her fingers to her shaking lips.
“Well, what do you know? Our little pigeon can speak again!” Basta’s mocking voice hardly penetrated the rushing in her ears. “What a pity he can’t hear you anymore, eh? So long, Resa!”
She did not look around. Not even when their footsteps died away. “No!” she heard herself whispering again and again. “No!” like a prayer. She tore a strip of fabric from her dress – if only her fingers weren’t shaking so badly – and pressed it to the wound. Her hands were wet with his blood and her own tears.
Resa, she told herself sternly, crying won’t do him any good. Try to remember! What did Capricorn’s men do when they were wounded? They cauterized the wound, but she didn’t want to think of that. There had been a plant, too, a plant with hairy leaves and pale mauve flowers, tiny bells into which bumblebees flew, buzzing. She looked around, through the veil of tears over her eyes, as if hoping for a miracle. .
Two blue-skinned fairies were hovering among the twining honeysuckle. If Dustfinger had been here now, he’d surely have known how to entice them. He’d have called to them softly, persuaded them to give him some of their fairy spit, or the silvery dust that they shook out of their hair.
She heard her own sobbing again. She lifted the dark hair back from Mo’s brow with her bloodstained fingers, called him by name. He couldn’t be gone, not now, not after all those years. .
Over and over she called his name, put her fingers on his lips, felt his breath, shallow and irregular, coming with difficulty as if someone were sitting on his chest. Death, she thought, it’s Death….
A sound made her jump. Footsteps on soft leaves. Had Mortola changed her mind? Had she sent Basta back to fetch them? Or were the wolves coming? If only she at least had a knife. Mo always carried one. Feverishly, she put her hands in his trouser pockets, feeling for the smooth handle. .
