"Well, imagine that. Just as it says in the songs," he heard Violante say. "'A heart more full of pity than any other beats in the Bluejay's breast.' You're really sorry that other people had to die for what you did. Don't be foolish. My father loves killing. If it hadn't been the bookbinders he'd have hung someone else! And in the end it wasn't a bookbinder but an alchemist who found a way to preserve the book. It's rumored to be a very unappetizing way, and it couldn't reverse the harm you'd already done, but at least the book isn't rotting anymore – and my father is looking for you harder than ever, because he still thinks only you can lift the curse you hid so skillfully between the empty pages. Don't wait for him to find you! Steal a march on him! Ally yourself with me. You and I, Bluejay – his daughter and the robber who has already tricked him once. We can be his downfall! Help me to kill him. Together we can do it easily!"
How she was looking at him – expectant as a child who has just told her dearest wish. Come with me, Bluejay, let's kill my father! What does a man have to do to his daughter, wondered Mo, to make her want something like that?
"Not all daughters love their fathers, Bluejay," said Violante, as if she had read his thoughts, just as Meggie so often did. "They say your daughter loves you dearly – and you love her. But my father will kill them, your daughter, your wife, everyone you love, and last of all he'll kill you, too. He won't let you go on making him a laughingstock to his subjects. He'll find you even if you go on hiding as cleverly as a fox in its den, because with every breath he draws, his own body reminds him of what you've done to him. Sunlight hurts his skin; his limbs are so bloated that he can't ride anymore. He even finds walking difficult. Day and night he pictures what he wants to do to you and yours. He's made the Piper write songs about your death, such terrible songs that anyone who hears them can't sleep, or so they say, and soon he'll send the silver-nosed man to sing them here as well – and to hunt you down. The Piper has been waiting a long time for that order, and he'll find you. His bait will be your pity for the poor. He'll kill so many of them that their blood will lure you out of the forest at last. But if I help you -"
A voice interrupted Violante, a childish voice that was clearly used to getting a hearing from adults. It echoed down the endless stairway leading to the vault.
"He's bound to be with her, you just wait and see!" How excited Jacopo sounded! "Balbulus is a very good liar, especially when he's lying for my mother. But when he does it he plucks at his sleeves and looks even more pleased with himself than usual. My grandfather's taught me to notice that kind of thing."
The soldiers at the door looked inquiringly at their mistress, but Violante took no notice of them. She was listening to Jacopo outside the door, when another voice was heard and Mo saw, for the first time, a trace of fear in her fearless eyes. He knew the voice himself, and his hand went to the knife at his belt. Sootbird sounded as if the fire that he played with so clumsily had singed his vocal cords. "His voice is like a warning," Resa had once said of him, "a warning to be on guard against his pretty face and the eternal smile on it."
"What a clever lad you are, Jacopo!" Did the boy hear the sarcasm in his voice? "But why don't we go to your mother's rooms?"
"Because she wouldn't be stupid enough to have him taken there. My mother is clever, too, much cleverer than any of you!"
Violante went up to Mo and took his arm. "Put the knife away!" she whispered. "The Bluejay won't die in this castle. I refuse to hear that song. Come with me."
She beckoned to the soldier standing behind Mo – a tall, broad-shouldered young man who held his sword as if he hadn't used it very often – and made her purposeful way past the stone coffins, as if this wasn't the first time she had had to hide someone from her son. More than a dozen tombs stood in the vault. Sleeping stone figures lay on top of most of them, with swords on their breasts, dogs at their feet, pillows of marble or granite under their heads. Violante hurried past them without a glance until she stopped by a coffin with a plain stone lid cracked right down the middle, as if the dead man inside had once pushed it open.
"If the Bluejay isn't here we'll go and scare Balbulus a bit, shall we?" There was jealousy in Jacopo's voice when he uttered Balbulus's name, as if he were talking about an older brother whom his mother preferred to him. "We'll go back and you can make fire lick around those books of his!"
The soldier's young face flushed red with effort as he heaved the lower part of the coffin lid aside. Mo kept his knife in his hand as he climbed into the sarcophagus. There was no dead body in it, but all the same Mo felt he could hardly breathe as he stretched out in the cold, cramped space. The coffin had clearly been made for a smaller man. Had Violante thrown his bones away so that she could hide her spies inside it? The darkness was almost total when the soldier pushed the cracked lid back into place. A little light and air came in through a few holes forming a flower pattern. Breathe steadily, Mo, breathe calmly, he told himself. He still had the knife in his hand; it was a pity none of the stone swords the dead were holding would be any use. "Do you really think it's worth risking your own skin for a few painted goatskins?" Battista had inquired when he asked him to make the clothes and the belt. What a fool you are, Mortimer. Hasn't this world done enough to show you how dangerous it is? But Balbulus's painted goatskins had been very beautiful.
A knock. A bolt was pushed back. The voices came to his ears more distinctly now. Footsteps. Mo tried to peer through the holes, but he could see only another coffin, and the black hem of Violante's dress disappearing as she walked quickly away. His eyes weren't going to help him. He let his head sink back onto the cold stone and listened. How loud his breathing was. Could there be any sound more suspicious here among the dead?
Suppose it isn't just by chance that Sootbird has turned up now, something inside him whispered. Suppose Violante was only setting a trap for you? "Not all daughters love their fathers." Suppose Her Ugliness was planning to give her father a very special present all the same? "Look who I've caught for you. The Bluejay. He was disguised as a crow. I wonder who he thought he'd fool that way?"
"Your Highness!" Sootbird's voice echoed through the vault as if he were standing right beside the coffin where Mo lay. "Forgive us for disturbing you in your grief, but your son wants me to meet a visitor you received today. He insists on it. He thinks the man is an old and very dangerous acquaintance of mine."
"A visitor?" Violante's voice sounded as cool as the stone beneath Mo's head. "The only visitor down here is Death, and it's not much use warning anyone against Death, is it?"
Sootbird laughed uneasily. "No, certainly not, but Jacopo was talking about a flesh-and-blood visitor, a bookbinder, tall, dark hair…"
"Balbulus was interviewing a bookbinder today," Violante replied. "He's been looking for one for a long time now. Someone who knows his trade better than the bookbinders of Ombra."
What was that noise? Of course. Jacopo hopping about on the flagstones. Obviously, he sometimes acted like any other child after all. The hopping came closer. The temptation simply to stand up instead of lying there was very strong. It was difficult to keep your body as still as a corpse while you were still breathing. Mo closed his eyes so as not to see the stone around him. Keep your breath as shallow as you can, he told himself, breathe as quietly as the fairies.