第 40 页

"That's probably what you're supposed to think. So keep our little secret to yourself for now, all

right?"

Meggie agreed, although she didn't really understand. What did it matter who the old woman

was? It all came to the same thing. This time there was no Dustfinger to open the door in the

night. It had all been for nothing — as if they had never run away at all. She went over to the

locked door and pressed her hands against it. "He'll come," she whispered. "Mo will come, and

then they'll lock us up here forever and ever."

Fenoglio got up and went over to her. "There, there!" he said, putting his arms around her and

letting her bury her face in his jacket. It was made of rough fabric and smelled of pipe tobacco.

"I'll think of something!" he whispered to Meggie. "After all, I invented these villains. It'll be an

odd thing if I can't get rid of them. Your father had an idea, but..."

Meggie raised her face, wet with tears, and looked at him hopefully, but the old man shook his

head. "Later. Now, tell me what makes Capricorn so interested in your father. Is it something to

do with the way he reads aloud?"

Meggie nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes. "He wants Mo to read aloud to him here, to

bring someone out of a book, an old friend."

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Fenoglio gave her a handkerchief. A few crumbs of tobacco fell from it when she blew her nose.

"A friend? Capricorn has no friends." The old man frowned. Then Meggie felt him suddenly take

a deep breath.

"Who is it?" she asked, but Fenoglio just mopped a tear off her cheek.

"Someone I hope you'll never meet except between the covers of a book," he said evasively. Then

he turned and began pacing up and down. "Capricorn will be back soon," he added. "I must think

how best to confront him."

But Capricorn did not come. Darkness fell outside, and still no one had fetched them from their

prison. They weren't even brought anything to eat. It grew cold when the night air came in

through the hole in the wall, and they huddled side by side on the hard floor to keep warm.

"Is Basta still very superstitious?" Fenoglio asked at some point in the night.

"Yes, very," replied Meggie. "Dustfinger likes taunting him about it."

"Good," murmured Fenoglio. But he would say no more.

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Chapter 33 – Capricorn’s Maid

As I never saw my father or my mother ... my first fancies regarding what they were like,

were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my

father's gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man with curly black hair.

From the character and turn of the inscription "Also Georgiana Wife of the Above" I drew

a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly.

–Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Dustfinger set out when the night could grow no darker. The sky was overcast with not a single

star shining. Only the moon showed occasionally between the clouds, as thin as a slice of lemon.

Dustfinger was glad of such darkness, but the boy jumped whenever a twig brushed his face.

"For heaven's sake, I should have left you with the marten after all!" Dustfinger snapped as Farid

clutched his arm in fright yet again. "You'll give us away yet with your teeth chattering like that.

Look ahead of you. That's what ought to scare you — guns, not ghosts."

Before them, only a little way off now, lay Capricorn's village. The new floodlights poured light

as bright as day over the gray houses.

"And they say this electricity of theirs is a blessing!" whispered Dustfinger as they skirted the

parking area. A bored-looking guard was strolling around among the parked vehicles. Yawning,

he leaned against the truck, which Cockerell had used to bring the goats back that afternoon, and

put on a pair of headphones.

"Excellent! An army could march up now and he wouldn't hear it!" muttered Dustfinger. "If

Basta were here he'd discipline the man for that — shut him up in Capricorn's cowsheds for

three days with nothing to eat."

"Why don't we go over the rooftops?" All the fear had gone from Farid's face. The guard with his

shotgun didn't alarm the boy half as much as his imaginary ghosts. Dustfinger could only shake

his head over such foolishness. But the rooftop idea wasn't stupid. A vine that hadn't been

pruned for years grew up one of the houses beside the parking area. As soon as the guard

wandered over to the other side of the area, swaying in time to the music that was filling his

ears, Dustfinger clambered up its woody branches. The boy climbed even better than he did and

proudly offered him a hand once he was up on the roof. They moved on stealthily like stray cats,

past chimneys, aerials, and Capricorn's floodlights, which were angled downward and left

everything behind them in the cover of darkness. Once, a shingle came loose under Dustfinger's

boots, but he managed to catch it just in time, before the terra-cotta tile could fall and break in

the street below.

When they reached the square where the church and Capricorn's house stood they let

themselves down from a gutter. For a few breathless moments Dustfinger ducked behind a stack

of empty fruit crates, looking out for guards. Both the square itself and the narrow alley to one

side of Capricorn's house were bathed in light. A black cat was sitting on the edge of the well

outside the church. Basta's heart would probably have missed a beat at the sight of it, but

Dustfinger was much more concerned about the guards outside Capricorn's house. Two of them

were lounging by the entrance. It was one of these, a small, sturdy man, who had found

Dustfinger four years ago in a town up in the north, just as he was about to give his last show. He

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and two companions had dragged the fire-eater back here, where Capricorn had, in his own

characteristic way, questioned him about Silvertongue and the book.

The two guards were arguing, and as they were so absorbed, Dustfinger plucked up his courage,

took a few rapid steps, and disappeared down the alley beside Capricorn's house. Farid followed

him, as soundless as his own shadow come to life. Capricorn's house was a large, bulky building,

which might once have been the village hall, a disused monastery, or a school. All the windows

were dark, and there were no other guards to be seen in the alley. But Dustfinger remained

watchful. He knew the guards liked to lurk in dark doorways, invisible as ravens at night in their

black suits. Indeed, Dustfinger knew almost everything about Capricorn's village. He had walked

these streets often enough since Capricorn brought him here to look for Silvertongue and the

book. Whenever he felt the sharp pangs of homesickness he had come back here to his old

enemies, where he didn't feel quite so out of place. Even his fear of Basta's knife couldn't keep

him away.

Dustfinger picked up a flat stone, beckoned Farid to his side, and threw the stone down the alley.

Nothing moved. As he had hoped, the guard was doing his rounds. Dustfinger hurried to the high

wall behind which Capricorn's garden lay: vegetable beds, fruit trees, and herbs, protected by

the wall from the cold wind that sometimes blew from the nearby mountains. Dustfinger had

often entertained the maids as they hoed the beds. There were no floodlights in the garden, no

guards either — who'd steal vegetables? — and only a door with a grating over it, a door that

was locked at night, led from the yard into the house. The dog kennels lay beyond the wall, too,

but when Dustfinger swung himself up and over they were empty. The dogs had not come back

from the hills. They'd shown more sense than Dust-finger expected, and Basta obviously hadn't

gotten new dogs yet. Stupid of him. Stupid Basta.

Dustfinger signaled to the boy to follow him and stole past the carefully tended beds until he had

reached the back door with the grating. The boy looked at him questioningly when he saw the

solid bars, but Dustfinger just laid a finger to his lips and looked up at one of the windows on the

second floor. The shutters, black as night, were open. Dustfinger mewed in so lifelike a fashion

that several cats answered, but nothing moved behind the window. Dustfinger cursed under his

breath, listened to the sounds of the night for a moment, then imitated the shrill cry of a bird of

prey. Farid jumped and pressed close to the wall of the house. This time, something did move

behind the upstairs window. A woman leaned out of it. When Dustfinger waved to her she

waved back — then quickly disappeared.

"Don't look like that!" whispered Dustfinger, seeing Farid's anxious glance. "We can trust her.

Quite a few of the women aren't too fond of Capricorn and his men — many of them didn't even

come here of their own free will. But they're all afraid of him: afraid they'll lose their jobs, afraid

he'll burn the roofs over the heads of their families if they talk about what goes on here, or

perhaps send Basta to call on them with his knife. Resa doesn't have to worry about that kind of

thing. She has no family." Not anymore, he added to himself silently.

The door behind the grating opened, and Resa's anxious face appeared behind the bars. It looked

pale beneath her dark blond hair.

"How are you?" Dustfinger went over to the grating and put his hand through the bars. Smiling,

Resa pressed it and nodded at the boy.

"This is Farid." Dustfinger lowered his voice. "You could say he's adopted me. But you can trust

him. He doesn't care for Capricorn any more than we do."

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Resa nodded, looked at him reproachfully, and shook her head.

"Yes, I know it wasn't sensible to come back. You heard what happened?" Dustfinger couldn't

prevent something like pride from creeping into his voice. "They thought I'd put up with

anything, but they were wrong. There's still one copy of the book left, and I'm going to get my

hands on it. Don't look at me like that. Do you know where Capricorn keeps it?"

Resa shook her head. There was a rustling behind them and Dustfinger spun around, but it was

only a mouse scurrying over the quiet yard. Resa took a pencil and a piece of paper out of her

dressing-gown pocket. She wrote slowly and neatly, knowing that Dustfinger found it easier to

read capital letters. She had taught him to read and write so they could communicate with one

another.

As usual, it took some time for the letters to make sense to Dustfinger. He felt a fresh sense of

pride every time those spindly symbols finally fitted together into words and he could get their

secret out of them. "I'll look around," he read softly. "Good. But be careful. I don't want you

risking your pretty neck." He bent over the paper again. "What do you mean, The Magpie has

Basta's keys note?"

He gave her the note back. Farid watched Resa writing, as spellbound as if he were watching

someone work magic. "I think you'll have to teach him, too!" Dustfinger whispered through the

bars. "See how he's staring at you?"

Resa looked up and smiled at Farid. Awkwardly, he looked away. Resa passed her finger around

her face.

"You think he's a nice boy?" Dustfinger twisted his mouth in a teasing smile, while Farid felt so

embarrassed he didn't know where to look. "And what about me? Beautiful as the moon, am I?

Hmm, what am I to make of that as a compliment? You mean I have almost as many craters?"

Resa pressed her hand over her lips. It was easy to amuse her; she laughed like a young girl. That

was the only time you could hear her voice.

Shots rang out in the night. Resa clung to the bars, and Farid, terrified, crouched down at the foot

of the wall. Dustfinger pulled him to his feet again. "It's nothing!" he whispered. "Just the guards

taking potshots at cats. They always do that when they're bored."

The boy looked at him with disbelief, but Resa went on writing. "She took the keys away to punish

him," Dustfinger read. "Basta won't like that at all. The way he acted with those keys you'd have

thought he was looking after Capricorn's most treasured possession."

Resa mimed taking a knife from her belt, looking so grim that Dustfinger almost laughed out

loud. He quickly glanced around, but the yard was silent as the grave between its high walls. "Oh

yes, I can well imagine that Basta's furious," he whispered. "In that mood he'll do anything to

please Capricorn— slit throats, gash open faces, anything."

Resa reached for the paper again, and once more it took him a painfully long time to decipher

her clear, neat writing. "Oh, so you've heard about Silvertongue. You want to know who he is?

Well, but for me he'd still be locked up in Capricorn's sheds. What else? Ask Farid. Silvertongue

plucked the boy out of his own story, too, like a ripe apple. Luckily, he didn't bring out any of the

ghouls the boy keeps carrying on about. Yes, he reads aloud very well indeed, much better than

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