"What's he doing here?" asked Elinor. "Have you taken to locking each other up now?"
Cockerell shrugged. "Should I tell her?" he asked Basta, who responded with nothing but the same glazed stare. "First he let Silvertongue escape, and now Dustfinger. That's a sure way to ruin your chances with the boss, even if you do think you're his personal pet. And, of course, it's been years since you managed to light a decent fire." He smiled maliciously at Basta.
Signora Loredan, it's time to think about making a will, Elinor told herself as Cockerell pushed her into the crypt. If Capricorn intends to kill his most faithful dog, he's certainly not going to stop short at you.
"Hey, you might look a bit more cheerful!" Cockerell told Basta as he fished a bunch of keys out of his jacket pocket. "You've got two women for company now!"
Basta pressed his forehead against the grating. "Haven't you caught the fire-eater yet?" he croaked. His voice sounded as if he had shouted himself hoarse.
"No, but the fat woman here says we did hit Silvertongue. Says he's dead as a doornail. Sounds like I winged him after all. Well, I have had plenty of practice on the cats."
Behind the door with the grating that Cockerell unlocked for her something moved. A woman was sitting there in the dark, leaning back against something that looked suspiciously like a stone coffin. Elinor could not see the woman's face, but then the figure straightened up.
"Company for you, Resa!" called Cockerell as he pushed Elinor through the open door. "You two can have a nice chat!" He was laughing uproariously as he trudged away. As for Elinor, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She would rather have seen her favorite niece again anywhere but here.
51. A NARROW ESCAPE
"I don't know what it is, " answered Fiver wretchedly. "There isn't any danger here, at this moment. But it's coming – it's coming. "
Richard Adams, Watership Down
Farid heard footsteps just as they were making the torches.
The torches had to be larger and more solid than those Dustfinger used in his shows, for they would have to burn a long time. Farid had already cut Silvertongue's hair with the knife Dustfinger had given him. It was short and bristly now, and at least that made Silvertongue look slightly different. Farid had also shown him the kind of earth he needed to rub on his face to darken his skin. No one must recognize them, not this time – but then he heard the footsteps.
And voices: One was speaking angrily, the other laughed and called out. But they were still too far away for him to make out the words.
Silvertongue picked up the torches, and Gwin snapped at Farid's fingers as the boy pushed him roughly into the back pack. "Where can we hide, Farid? Where?" whispered Silver tongue.
"I know a place." Farid threw the backpack over his shoulder and led Silvertongue over to the charred wall. He climbed over the blackened stones where there had once been a window, jumped down in the dry grass behind the wall, and crouched low. The metal cover he now pushed aside had buckled in the fire and was overgrown by alyssum. Its tiny white flowers rambled like snow over the opening. Farid had found the metal plate while he was exploring during the long hours he spent here with the silent and ever-reserved Dustfinger. He had jumped off the wall and noticed the hollow sound. Perhaps the space under it had originally been a store for perishable foodstuffs, but at least once before it had also been used as a hiding place.
Silvertongue recoiled when he touched the skeleton in the darkness. It looked small, scarcely big enough for an adult, and it lay there in the cramped, underground space quite peacefully, curled up as if it had lain down to sleep. Perhaps it was because it looked so peaceful that Farid was not afraid of it. If there was a ghost down here, he felt sure, it could be only a sad, pale creature, nothing to be frightened of.
There wasn't much space when Farid drew the metal cover across again. Silvertongue was tall, almost too tall to hide here, but it was reassuring to have him close, even if his heart was beating just as fast as Farid's own. The boy could feel every single beat, as they crouched there side by side, listening for sounds from above.
The voices were coming closer, but it was difficult to make them out, for the ground muffled them as if they came from another world. Once a foot stepped on the metal cover, and Farid dug his fingers into Silvertongue's arm and wouldn't let him go until all was quiet again overhead. It was a long time before they dared trust the silence, such a very long time that once or twice Farid turned his head because he imagined that the skeleton had moved.
When Silvertongue cautiously raised the metal cover and looked out it did seem as if they really had gone. Only the grasshoppers were chirping tirelessly, and a bird, startled, flew up from the charred wall.
Whoever it was had taken everything with them: the blankets, the sweater that Farid had curled up in at night like a snail going into its shell, even the bloodstained bandages that Silvertongue had tied around the boy's forehead the night they'd been shot at.
"Never mind, " said Silvertongue as they stood beside their cold fireplace. "We won't be needing our blankets tonight. " Then he ran his fingers through Farid's dark hair. "What would I do without you, master scout, rabbit-catcher, finder of hiding places?" he asked.
Farid stared at his bare toes and smiled.
52. A FRAGILE LITTLE THING
When she expressed a doubtful hope that Tinker Bell would be glad to see her, he said, "Who is Tinker Bell?"
"O Peter, " she said, shocked; but even when she explained he could not remember.
"There are such a lot of them, " he said. "I expect she is no more. "
I expect he was right, for fairies don't live long, but they are so little that a short time seems a good while to them.
J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan
Capricorn's men were looking for Dustfinger in the wrong place. He hadn't left the village. He hadn't even tried. Dustfinger was in Basta's house.
It was in an alley just behind Capricorn's yard, surrounded by empty houses inhabited only by cats and rats. Basta did not want neighbors. Indeed, he wanted no other company but Capricorn's. Dustfinger knew Basta would have slept on the threshold of Capricorn's room if he had been allowed to, but none of the men lived in the main house. They stood guard there, that was all. They ate in the church and slept in one or other of the many abandoned houses in the village; that was the rule and it could not be broken. Most of the men kept moving around, living in one house and going on to another when the roof began to leak. Only Basta had lived in the same place ever since they came to the village. Dustfinger suspected he had chosen that house because St. John's wort grew beside the door, and there is no other plant with such a reputation for keeping away evil – leaving aside the evil in Basta's own heart.
Like most of the buildings in the village the house was built of gray stone, with black-painted shutters that Basta usually kept closed and on which he had painted the signs he believed would keep bad luck away, just like the yellow flowers of St. John's wort. Sometimes Dustfinger thought Basta's constant fear of curses and sudden disaster probably arose from his terror of the darkness within himself, which made him assume that the rest of the world must be exactly the same.