"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 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 photo graphs 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 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 outside your 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 arm chair with the book. "Sit down!" she said, pointing to the foot stool beside her.