The hopping stopped right beside him.
"You've hidden him!" Jacopo's voice reached Mo inside the sarcophagus as if he were speaking the words for Mo's ears alone. "Shall we look in the coffins, Sootbird?"
The boy seemed to find the notion very enticing, but Sootbird laughed nervously. "Oh, I'm sure that won't be necessary, if we tell your mother who she's dealing with. This bookbinder could be the very man your father is looking for so desperately, Highness."
"The Bluejay? The Bluejay, here in the castle?" Violante's voice sounded so incredulous that even Mo believed she was taken by surprise. "Of course! I've told my father time and again: One day that robber's own daring will be his downfall. You're not to say a word of this to the Milksop. I want to catch the Bluejay myself, and then at last my father will realize who ought to be on the throne of Ombra! Have you reinforced the guards at the gates? Have you sent soldiers to Balbulus's workshop?"
"Er… no." Sootbird was obviously confused. "I mean… he isn't with Balbulus anymore, he…"
"What? You fool!" Violante's voice was as sharp as her father's. "Lower the portcullis over the gateway. At once! If my father hears that the Bluejay was in this castle, in my library, and simply rode away again…" How menacing she made those words sound in the chilly air! She was indeed clever; her son was right.
"Sandro!" That must be one of her soldiers. "Tell the guards at the main gates to lower the portcullis. No one is to leave the castle. No one, do you hear? I only hope it's not too late already! Jacopo!"
"Yes?" There was fear and defiance in the high voice – and a trace of distrust.
"If he finds the gates closed, where could the Bluejay hide? You know every hiding place in this castle, don't you?"
"Of course!" Now Jacopo sounded flattered. "I can show you all of them."
"Good. Take three of the guards from outside the throne room upstairs and post them at the most likely hiding places you know. I'll go and talk to Balbulus. The Bluejay! In my castle!"
Sootbird stammered something. Violante brusquely interrupted him, ordering him to go with her. Their footsteps and voices moved away, but Mo thought he could still hear them for some time on the endless stairs leading up and away from the dead, back to the world of the living, to the daylight where you could breathe easily…
Even when all was perfectly still again, he lay there for a few more agonizing moments, listening until he felt as if he could hear the dead themselves breathing. Then he braced his hands against the stone lid – and hastily reached for his knife when he heard footsteps again.
"Bluejay!"
It was no more than a whisper. The cracked lid was pushed aside, and the soldier who had helped him into his hiding place reached out a hand to him.
"We must hurry!" he whispered. "The Milksop has raised the alarm. There are guards everywhere, but Violante knows ways out of this castle that even Jacopo hasn't found yet. I hope," he added.
As Mo clambered out of the sarcophagus, legs stiff from lying in its cramped space, he still had the knife in his hand.
The boy stared at it. "How many have you killed?" His voice sounded almost awestricken. As if killing were a high art, like the painting of Balbulus. How old would the lad be? Fourteen? Fifteen? He looked younger than Farid.
How many? What was he to say to that? Only a few months ago the answer would have been so simple. Perhaps he'd even have laughed out loud at such a ridiculous question. Now he just said, "Not as many as those who lie here," although he wasn't sure that he was telling the truth.
The boy looked along the rows of the dead as if counting them. "Is it easy?"
Judging by the curiosity in his eyes, he really didn't seem to know the answer, despite the sword at his side and his shirt of chain mail.
Yes, thought Mo. Yes, it's easy… if you have a second heart beating in your breast, cold and sharp-edged as the sword you carry. A certain amount of hatred and anger, a few weeks of fear and helpless rage, and you'll have a heart like that. It beats time for you when you come to kill, a wild, fast rhythm. And only later do you feel your other heart again, soft and warm. It shudders in time with the other one at the thought of what you did. It trembles and feels pain… but that's only afterward.
The boy was still looking at him.
"Killing is too easy," said Mo. "Dying is harder."
Although Cosimo's stony smile claimed otherwise.
"Didn't you say we must hurry?"
The boy turned red under his shiny polished helmet. "Yes… yes, of course."
A stone lion kept watch in front of a niche behind the coffins, the emblem of Ombra on its breast – presumably the only example of the old coat of arms that the Milksop hadn't had smashed. The soldier put his sword between the lion's bared teeth, and the wall of the vault opened just far enough for a grown man to squeeze through it. Hadn't Fenoglio described this entrance? Words that Mo had read long ago came back to his mind, about one of Cosimo's ancestors who had escaped his enemies several times along the passage beyond. And words will save the Bluejay again, he thought. Well, why not? He's made of them. All the same, his fingers passed over the stone as if they needed to reassure themselves that the walls of the vault weren't just made of paper.
"The passage comes out above the castle," the boy whispered to him. "Violante couldn't get your horse from the stables. It would have attracted too much attention, but there'll be another waiting there. The forest will be swarming with soldiers, so be careful! And I'm to give you these."
Mo put his hand into the saddlebags that the boy handed him.
Books.
"Violante says I'm to tell you they're a present for you, made in the hope that you will accept the alliance she offers you."
The passage was endless, almost as oppressively narrow as the sarcophagus, and Mo was glad when at last he saw the light of day again. The way out was little more than a crack between a couple of rocks. The horse was waiting under the trees, and he saw Ombra Castle, the guards on the walls, the soldiers pouring out of the gates like a swarm of locusts. Yes, lie would have to be very careful. All the same, he undid the saddlebags, hid among the rocks – and opened one of the books.
10. AS IF NOTHING HAD HAPPENED
How cruel the earth, the willows shimmering,
The birches bending and sighing.
How cruel, how profoundly tender.
Louise Gluck, "Lament"
Farid was holding Meggie's hand. He let her bury her face in his shirt while he kept whispering that everything would be all right. But the Black Prince still wasn't back, and the crow sent out by Gecko brought the same news as Doria, the Strong Man's younger brother, who had been spying for the robbers ever since Snapper had saved him and his friend from hanging. The alarm had been raised at the castle. The portcullis was lowered, and the guards at the gate were boasting that the Bluejay's head would soon be looking down on Ombra from the castle battlements.
The Strong Man had taken Meggie and Resa to the robbers' camp, although they would both have preferred to go back to Ombra. "That's what the Bluejay would want" was all he had said, and the Black Prince set off with Battista to the farm they'd called home for the last few weeks – such happy weeks, so deceptively peaceful in the turmoil of Fenoglio's world. "We'll bring you your things" was all the Prince had said when Resa asked him what he was going there for. "You can't go back." Neither Resa nor Meggie asked why. They both knew the answer – because the Milksop would have the Bluejay questioned, and no one could be sure that a time wouldn't come when Mo might reveal where he had been hiding during those recent weeks.
The robbers themselves moved camp only a few hours after hearing of Mo's arrest. "The Milksop has some very talented torturers," Snapper remarked, and Resa sank down under the trees away from the others and buried her face in her arms.