Violante laughed, but Mo looked out over the dark water uneasily. It was as if, through the drifting swathes of mist, he saw all the dead soldiers who had tried to cross the Impregnable Bridge. The lake was like a copy of the Inkworld itself, both beautiful and terrible. Its surface was smooth as glass, but the edge of the bank was marshy, and swarms of buzzing insects, obviously unaffected by the wintry weather, hovered among reeds now white with rime.
"Why did your grandfather live in such a remote place?"
"Because he was tired of human beings. Is that surprising?" Violante was still looking as captivated as if she couldn't believe that at last her nearsighted eyes were seeing what she had only known through words before. So often it is words or pictures that first tell us what we long for.
"My mother's chambers were in the tower on the left. My grandfather had the tower built when giants still came here." Violante's voice sounded as if she were talking in her sleep. "At that time this lake was the only place outside the cities where you could be safe from them, because they couldn't cross it. But they loved to look at their reflection in its waters, and that's why it was also called the Giants' Mirror. My mother was afraid of them. She used to hide under the bed when she heard their footsteps, but all the same she wondered how big they would be if they were standing right in front of her, not on the distant shore. Once, when she was about five years old and a giant and his child appeared on the bank, she wanted to run over to them. But one of her nursemaids caught up with her where the bridge begins, and my grandfather had her shut up in the tower there for three days and nights, as a punishment." Violante pointed to a tower that rose like a needle among the others. "That tower was the only place in the castle that my mother didn't like to talk about. It had pictures of Night-Mares and lake monsters on its walls, of wolves and snakes and robbers attacking travelers. My grandfather had the pictures painted to show his daughters how dangerous the world beyond the lake was. The giants often used to take human beings – especially children – away as toys. Have you heard that?"
"I've read about it," replied Mo.
The happiness in her voice moved him, and he wondered, not for the first time, how it was that the book that had told him so much about fire-elves and giants said so little about the Adderhead's daughter. To Fenoglio, Violante had been only a minor character, an ugly, unhappy little girl, nothing more. Perhaps you could learn from her how small parts can be made into major roles if you play them in your own way.
Violante seemed to have forgotten that he was standing beside her. Indeed, she seemed to have forgotten everything, even that she had come here to kill her father. She was looking at the castle as if she hoped to see her mother appear on the battlements at any moment. But at last she turned abruptly.
"Four of you stay by the watchtowers!" she ordered her soldiers. "The rest come with me. But ride slowly if you don't want the sound of your horses' hooves to entice the fishes. My mother used to tell me how they'd pulled dozens of men down from the bridge."
An uneasy murmur rose among her soldiers. They really were little more than children.
But Violante took no notice. She picked up her skirts, black like everything Mo had ever seen her wear, and let Brianna help her up onto her horse. "You'll see," she said. "I know this castle better than if I'd lived here. I've studied all the books there are about it. I know its ground plan and all its secrets."
"Has your father ever been here?" Dustfinger asked the question just as it had formed in Mo's mind, too.
Violante picked up her reins. "Only once," she said, without looking at Dustfinger. "When he was courting my mother. But that's a long time ago. All the same, he's sure to remember that no one can take this castle."
She turned her horse. "Come, Brianna," she said, and rode toward the bridge. But her horse shied back when it saw the stone path across the water. Without a word, Dustfinger brought his mount to Violante's side, took the reins from her hand, and led her horse onto the bridge behind his. The sound of their hooves echoed over the water as Violante's men followed him.
Mo was the last to ride onto the bridge. Suddenly, the whole world seemed to be made of water. Mist drifted into his face, and the castle swam on the lake before him like a dark dream: towers, battlements, bridges, oriels, windowless walls with the wind and the water eating at them. The bridge seemed to go on forever, and the gate to which it led looked out of reach, but at last it began to grow larger with every step his horse took. The towers and walls filled the sky like a menacing song, and Mo saw dark shadows glide through the water, like watchdogs picking up the scent of their coming.
"What did the castle look like. Mo?" he heard Meggie asking. "Describe it!"
What would he say? He looked up at the towers, as many of them as if a new one grew every year, at the maze of oriels and bridges and the stone griffin above the gateway. "It didn't look like a happy ending, Meggie," he heard himself reply. "It looked like a place from which no one ever comes back."
47. THE ROLE OF WOMEN
Why would I need a book?
The wind leafs through the trees
Speaking softly at its ease
Words that I sometimes repeat.
And Death, breaking eyes like a flower
Does not have mine in its power…
Rainer Maria Rilke, "The Blind Woman"
Men's clothes. Resa had stolen them from the sleeping Elfbane: a pair of trousers and a long, warm shirt. Very likely they were his pride and joy. Few of the robbers owned more than what they wore on their backs, but over the next few days she was going to need those clothes more than Elfbane.
It was long ago that the Inkworld had forced Resa to wear men's clothing, yet as soon as she put on the rough trousers the memory came back as if it were only yesterday. She remembered how often the knife had scratched her scalp as she cut her hair short, and how her throat had hurt from the constant attempt to make her voice sound deeper. This time she'd just pin up her hair, and presumably she wouldn't have to pretend to be a man, but
trousers were so much more practical than a dress on overgrown paths, and she would have to take such paths if she wanted to follow Mo.
"Promise me!" He had never asked her more fervently for anything. "Promise me you'll both stay in hiding, never mind what happens, never mind what you hear. And if it all goes wrong" – (what a clever way of getting around saying if I die) – "then Meggie must try to read the two of you back."
Back where? To Elinor's house, where every nook and cranny reminded her of him, and his workshop stood in the garden? Quite apart from the fact that Elinor herself was on this side of the letters now. But Mo didn't know that, any more than he knew she had burned the words that Orpheus had written.
No. There was no going back home without him. If Mo died in the Inkworld, then so would she… hoping that the White Women would take her to wherever he was.
Dark thoughts, Resa, she told herself, placing her hand on her belly. It was so long since Meggie had been growing in there, but her fingers still remembered – all the days when she had felt her body in vain, and then the moment when she suddenly sensed the baby moving under her skin. There was no moment like it, and she could hardly wait to feel the tiny feet kicking below her ribs, the child inside her turning and stretching. It couldn't be long now. If only she didn't have to feel so anxious about the child's father.