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sleep, put his hand nervously to the bandage around his head, then turned over.

Mo straightened the boy's blanket and leaned back against the tree trunk. "That's our plan, all

the same, Elinor," he said. "Believe me, I've been racking my brains till I thought I'd go crazy. But

there's no other way. And if none of that is any use I'll set fire to his damn church as well. I'll

melt down his gold and reduce his whole damned village to dust and ashes, but I'll have my

daughter back."

Elinor had no answer to that. She lay down and pretended to be asleep even though she couldn't

sleep a wink. When day dawned, she persuaded Mortimer to get a little rest himself while she

kept watch. Before long he was fast asleep. As soon as his breath sounded peaceful and regular,

Elinor took off the stupid dress, got into her own clothes, combed her tousled hair, and wrote

him a note. Gone to get help. Back around midday. Please don't do anything until then. Elinor.

She put the note into his half-opened hand, so that he would see it as soon as he woke up. As she

tiptoed past the boy she saw that the marten was back. He was curled up beside Farid, licking

his paws. His black eyes stared at Elinor as she bent over the boy to adjust his bandage. Uncanny

little beast, she could never take to him, but Farid loved him like a dog. Sighing, she straightened

up. "Look after them both, will you?" she whispered, then set off. The car was still where she had

hidden it under the trees. It was a good hiding place; the branches hung so low she missed the

car herself at first. The engine caught immediately. Elinor listened anxiously to the sounds of the

morning for a moment, but there was nothing to be heard apart from the birds, greeting the day

as exuberantly as if it were their last.

The nearest village, the last village through which she and Mortimer had driven, was scarcely a

half hour's drive away. There was sure to be a police station there.

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Chapter 48 – The Magpie

But they woke him with words, their cruel, bright weapons.

– T. H. White, The Book of Merlin

It was still quite early when Meggie heard Basta's voice out in the corridor. She hadn't touched

the breakfast one of the maids had brought them. When she had asked what had happened last

night, what the shots meant, the girl had just stared at her, terrified, shook her head, and

scurried out of the door. She probably thought Meggie was a witch.

Fenoglio hadn't eaten any breakfast either. He was writing. He wrote and wrote without

stopping, filling sheet after sheet of paper, tearing up what he'd written, beginning again, putting

one sheet aside and starting another, frowning, crumpling up the paper — and starting once

more. Hours and hours passed like this, until there were only three sheets of paper he hadn't

torn up. Just three. At the sound of Basta's voice he hastily hid them under his mattress, kicking

the crumpled pieces of paper under the bed with his foot. "Quick, Meggie! Help me get them

under the bed!" he whispered. "He mustn't find any — not a single one." Meggie obeyed, but all

she could think about was why Basta was here. Was he going to tell her something? Did he want

to see her face when he told her not to expect Mo anymore?

Fenoglio had sat down at the table again in front of a blank sheet of paper and was rapidly

scribbling a few words on it when the door opened.

Meggie held her breath as if that would hold back the words that were about to come out of

Basta's mouth and stab her in the heart. Fenoglio put down his pen and went to stand beside

her. "What is it?" he asked.

"I'm to fetch her," said Basta. "Mortola wants to see her." He sounded angry, as if it were beneath

his dignity to carry out such a trivial task.

Mortola? The Magpie? Meggie looked at Fenoglio. What did this mean? But the old man only

shrugged his shoulders, at a loss.

"This little pigeon's supposed to take a look at what she's to read this evening," Basta explained.

"So she won't stumble over the words like Darius and spoil everything." He beckoned

impatiently to Meggie. "Come on."

Meggie took a step toward him but then stopped. "First, I want to know what happened last

night," she asked. "I heard shots."

"Oh, that!" Basta smiled. His teeth were almost as white as his shirt. "I've an idea your father was

planning to visit you, but Cockerell wouldn't let him in."

Meggie stood there as if rooted to the spot. Basta took her arm and pulled her roughly away with

him. Fenoglio tried to follow them, but Basta slammed the door in his face. Fenoglio called

something after her, but Meggie couldn't hear what it was. There was a rushing sound in her

ears as if she were listening to her own blood running far too fast through her veins.

"He managed to get away, if that makes you feel any better," said Basta, shoving her toward the

staircase. "Not that that means much, come to think of it. When Cockerell shoots at the cats, they

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seem to dodge the bullets, too. He's such a useless shot. But they're usually found dead in a

corner somewhere later."

Meggie kicked his shin with all her might and raced away down the stairs, but Basta soon caught

up with her. His face distorted with pain, he grabbed her by the hair and hauled her in front of

him. "Don't you try that again, sweetheart!" he hissed. "You can think yourself lucky you're the

main attraction at our festivities this evening, or I'd wring your skinny little neck here and now."

Meggie did not try it again. Even if she had wanted to she wouldn't have had the chance. Basta

kept hold of her hair, pulling her along behind him as if she were a disobedient dog. The pain

brought tears to Meggie's eyes, but she kept her face turned away so Basta couldn't see them. He

took her down to the cellars. She hadn't been in this part of Capricorn's house before. The ceiling

was even lower than the one in the shed where she, Mo, and Elinor had first been imprisoned.

The walls were whitewashed, like the walls in the upper stories of the house, and there were

just as many doors. Most of them looked as if it had been a long time since they'd been opened,

and heavy padlocks hung in front of some of them. Meggie thought of the safes Dustfinger had

talked about, and the gold Mo had brought tumbling into Capricorn's church.

They didn't get him, she thought. Of course not. The man with the limp doesn't shoot well. Basta

said so himself.

At last, they stopped outside a door. It was made of different wood than the other doors down

here, wood with a beautiful grain like a tiger's coat that shimmered with a tinge of red under the

naked electric bulbs that lit the cellars.

"And let me tell you," Basta whispered to Meggie before he knocked on the door, "if you're as

impertinent to Mortola as you are to me she'll leave you in one of those nets in the church until

you're so hungry you'll be gnawing at the ropes. Compared to her heart, mine's as soft as a little

girl's cuddly toy." His peppermint-scented breath wafted into Meggie's face. She would never

again be able to eat anything smelling of peppermint.

The Magpie's room was large enough to hold a dance in. The walls were red, like the walls in the

church, but you couldn't see much of them. They were covered with photographs in gold frames,

photographs of houses and people crammed close together on the walls like a crowd in a space

too small for it. In the middle, framed in gold like the photos but much larger, hung a portrait of

Capricorn. Even Meggie could see that whoever had painted it was no more skilled at his trade

than the sculptor who had carved the statue in the church. Capricorn's features in the picture

were rounder and softer than in real life, and his curiously feminine mouth lay like a strange

fruit below the nose, which was a little too short and broad. It was only his eyes that the painter

had caught perfectly. As cold as they were in the flesh, they looked down on Meggie like the eyes

of a man examining a frog he is about to slit open to see what it looks like inside. No face, she had

learned in Capricorn's village, is as terrifying as a face without pity.

The Magpie sat, curiously rigid, in a green velvet armchair directly below her son's portrait. She

looked unaccustomed to sitting down — like a constantly busy woman who resented having to

stop, but whose body forced her to rest. Meggie saw that the old woman's legs were swollen

above her ankles. They bulged formlessly below her bony knees. Noticing her glance, the Magpie

pulled her skirt well down over those knees.

"Have you told her what she's here for?" She found standing up difficult. Meggie watched her

support herself with one hand on a little table, her lips pressed together. Basta seemed to enjoy

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her frailty; a smile played around his mouth until the Magpie looked at him, wiping it away with

a single icy glance. Impatiently, she beckoned Meggie over. Basta prodded her in the back when

she didn't move.

"Come here. I want to show you something." With slow but firm steps, the Magpie walked over

to a chest of drawers that looked much too heavy for its gracefully curved legs. Two lamps stood

on it, their shades patterned with flowery tendrils. Between them was a wooden casket,

decorated all the way around with a pattern of tiny holes. When the Magpie opened its lid

Meggie flinched back. Two snakes, thin as lizards and not much longer than Meggie's lower arm,

lay in the casket.

"I always keep my room nice and warm so this pair don't get too sleepy," explained the Magpie,

opening the top drawer of the chest and taking out a glove. It was made of stout black leather

and was so stiff she had difficulty forcing her gnarled hand into it. "Your friend Dustfinger

played a nasty trick on poor Resa when he asked her to look for that book," she continued,

reaching into the box and grasping one of the snakes firmly behind its flat head.

"Come here!" she ordered Basta and held the wriggling snake out to him. Meggie saw from his

face that everything in him felt revulsion, but he came closer and took the creature. He held the

scaly body well away from him as it wound and twisted in the air.

"As you see, Basta doesn't care for my snakes!" said the Magpie with a smile. "He never did, not

that that means much. As far as I know Basta doesn't like anything but his knife. He also believes

that snakes bring bad luck, which of course is pure nonsense." Mortola handed Basta the second

snake. Meggie saw the viper's tiny poison fangs when it opened its mouth. For a moment, she

almost felt sorry for Basta.

"Well, don't you think this is a good hiding place?" asked the Magpie, reaching into the casket yet

again. This time she brought out a book. Meggie would have known what book it was even if she

hadn't recognized the colored jacket. "I've often kept valuables in this casket," continued the

Magpie. "No one knows about it and its contents apart from Basta and Capricorn. Poor Resa

searched high and low for this book — she's a brave creature — but she didn't get as far as my

casket. As it happens, she likes snakes. I've never met anyone who feels less fear of them than

Resa, although she's been bitten now and then, isn't that so, Basta?" The Magpie took off her

glove and looked scornfully at him. "Basta likes to use snakes to scare women who reject his

advances. It didn't work with Resa. How did it go exactly — didn't she finally put the snake

outsideyour door, Basta?"

Basta did not reply. The snakes were still twisting and turning in his hands. One of them had

wound its tail around his arm.

"Put them back in the casket," the Magpie ordered. "But be careful not to hurt them." Then she

returned to her armchair with the book. "Sit down!" she said, pointing to the footstool beside

her.

Meggie obeyed. Surreptitiously, she looked around her. Mortola's room reminded her of a fairy-

tale treasure chest filled to the brim. But there was too much of everything — too many golden

candlesticks, too many lamps, rugs, pictures, vases, china ornaments, silk flowers, gilded bells.

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The Magpie looked at her smugly. In her plain black dress she sat there like a cuckoo that has

forced its way into another bird's nest. "A fine room for a domestic servant, don't you think?"

she said with satisfaction. "Capricorn knows how to value me."

"But he still makes you live in the cellar!" replied Meggie. "Even though you're his mother." If

only words could be swallowed — caught and slipped quickly back between your lips.

The Magpie looked at her with such hatred that Meggie already felt the woman's bony fingers on

her throat. But Mortola just sat there, her birdlike eyes looking fixedly at Meggie. "Who told you

that? The old sorcerer?"

Meggie clamped her lips together and looked at Basta. He probably hadn't heard a word; he was

just putting the second snake back in the casket. Did he know Capricorn's little secret? Before