Meggie stared at the paper. There it was again, the story she had last heard when she had brought Orpheus here.
Yes. The words obeyed Fenoglio once again. And she would teach them how to live.
CHAPTER 45
WRITTEN AND UNWRITTEN
Roxane found the plants exactly where Fenoglio had described: in the entrance of a brownie burrow where Elfbane set his snares. And Meggie, holding Despina’s hand, watched again as the words that she had only just read became reality.
The leaves and flowers defied the cold wind, as if the fairies had planted them so that they could dream of summer when they saw them. But the smell rising from the flowers was the odor of decomposition and decay, and it had given the plant its name: deathbud The flowers were put on graves to placate the White Women.
Roxane brushed the moths off the leaves, dug up two plants, and left two others, for fear of angering the wood-elves. Then she hurried back to the cave, where the White Women were already standing at the Black Prince’s side, grated the roots, brewed them using the method Resa had described to her, and spooned the hot liquid into the Prince’s mouth. He was already very weak, yet what they had hardly dared to hope for happened: The brew lessened the effect of the poison, lulled it to sleep, and brought back the strength of life.
And the White Women disappeared, as if Death had called them to another place.
Those last sentences had been easy to read, but many anxious hours passed before they, too, became reality. The poison was not giving in without a struggle, and the White Women came and went. Roxane strewed herbs to keep them away, as she had learned to do from Nettle, but the pale faces kept appearing again, barely visible against the gray walls of the cave, and a time came when Meggie felt they were looking not just at the Prince but at her, too.
Don’t we know you? their eyes seemed to ask. Didn’t your voice protect the man who has twice been ours? Meggie returned their glance for little longer than it takes to draw a breath, yet she immediately felt the longing that Mo had spoken of: longing for a place that lay far beyond all words. She took a step toward the White Women to feel their cool hands on her beating heart, to let them wipe away all her fear and pain, but other hands held her back, warm, firm hands.
"Meggie, for heaven’s sake don’t look at them!" Elinor murmured. "Come on, let’s get you out into the fresh air. Why, you’re as pale as those creatures themselves!"
And she wouldn’t take no for an answer, but led Meggie outside to where the robbers were consulting together and the children played under the trees, as if they had forgotten what was going on in the cave. The grass was white with hoarfrost, white as the figures waiting for the Black Prince, but the spell of the White Women was broken as soon as Meggie heard the children’s laughter. They were throwing fir cones for the marten and shouting as he chased them. Life seemed so much stronger than death, death so much stronger than life. Like the ebb and flow of the tide.
Resa was standing outside the cave, too, wrapping her arms around herself for warmth, although the Strong Man had put a rabbit-skin cloak over her shoulders.
"Have you seen Snapper?" she asked Elinor. "Or Gecko and his magpie?"
Battista joined them. He looked exhausted. This was the first time he had left the Prince’s side. "They’ve gone," he said. "Snapper, Gecko, and ten others. They went after the Bluejay as soon as it was clear that the Prince wasn’t likely to be able to follow him."
"But Snapper hates Mo!" Resa’s voice was so loud that several robbers turned to look at her, and even the children paused their game. "Why would he want to help him?"
"I’m afraid he has no intention of helping him," Battista replied quietly. "He’s been telling the others he’s going because the Bluejay plans to betray us and make his own bargain with Violante. And he said your husband hasn’t told us the whole truth about the White Book."
"What kind of truth?" Resa’s voice was failing her.
"Snapper says," Battista replied quietly, "that the Book doesn’t just make its owner immortal, it makes him immensely rich. That sounds a lot more tempting to most of our men than immortality. They’d betray their own mothers for a book like that. So why, they ask themselves, wouldn’t the Bluejay plan on doing the same to Us?"
"But that’s all lies! The Book makes its owner immortal, nothing more." Meggie didn’t care that her voice was rising. Let them all hear her, all of them putting their heads together, whispering about her father!
Elfbane turned to her, an unpleasant smile on his thin face. "Oh yes? And how would you know that, little witch? Didn’t your father keep it a secret from you that the Book was making the Adderhead’s flesh rot on his bones?"
"What if he did?" Elinor asked Elfbane angrily, putting a protective arm around Meggie. "She still knows one thing: She can certainly trust her father more than a poisoner. Because who else poisoned the Prince if not your beloved Snapper?"
There was a rather unfriendly murmuring among the robbers, and Battista drew Elinor over to his side.
"Mind what you say!" he whispered to her. "Not all Snapper’s friends went with him.
And if you ask me, poison doesn’t sound much like Snapper. A knife, yes, but poison..
"Oh no? Then who else would it be?" Elinor retorted.
Resa looked up at the sky as if the answer might be found there. "Did Gecko take his magpie with him?" she asked.
Battista nodded. "Yes, luckily. The children are scared of it."
"With good reason." Resa looked up at the sky again, and then at Battista. "What exactly does Snapper mean to do?" she asked. "Tell me."
Battista just shrugged wearily. "I don’t know. Maybe he’s going to try to steal the Book from the Adderhead before he reaches the Castle in the Lake. Or maybe he’s going straight there to get it for himself after the Bluejay has written the three words in it. Whatever his plan is, there’s nothing we can do. The children need us, and until the Prince gets better he needs us, too. Remember, Dustfinger is with the Bluejay.
Snapper won’t have an easy time of it with the pair of them! Now forgive me, but I must go back to the Prince."
Snapper won’t have an easy time of it with the pair of them! Yes, but what if he really did steal the White Book from the Adderhead on the way, and the Adderhead arrived at the Castle in the Lake knowing that even the Bluejay couldn’t help him now? Wouldn’t he kill Mo then and there? And even if Mo did get a chance to write those three words on the blank pages. . . what if Snapper poisoned him afterward, as ruthlessly as he’d presumably poisoned the Prince, just to get his hands on the Book?
What if, what if. . . Those questions kept Meggie awake even when all had long been sleeping around her, and finally she got up to go and see how the Black Prince was.
He was sleeping. The White Women had gone, but his dark face was still as gray as if their hands had bleached his skin. Minerva and Roxane were taking turns sitting at his side, and Fenoglio was with them, as if he must watch over his own words if they were to remain effective.
Fenoglio.. . Fenoglio could write again.
What did the sheets of paper he had hidden under his clothes say?
"Why did you make up the Bluejay for your robber songs, why didn’t you just write about the Black Prince?" Meggie had asked him long ago.