chapter TWENTY-NINE
A NEW FACE
The inn where Fox was supposed to meet Jacob was one where they’d already stayed before. Back then, they’d come to Gargantua to search for a jacket made of donkey skin that hid its wearer from his enemies. Le Chat Botté was situated right next to the library, and it also stood in the shade of the monument erected by the town to commemorate the Giant for whom it was named. His effigy was as tall as a church tower, and it attracted travellers from far away, but Fox had no eyes for his silver hair, nor for the eyes made of blue glass, which supposedly moved at night. She longed for Jacob’s face. Her excursion into the past had only made it clear to her once more that he was the only home she had.
The barroom of Le Chat Botté was much more elegant than Chanute’s Ogre. Tablecloths, candles, mirrors on the walls, and waitresses with lace aprons. The landlord boasted to have personally known the legendary Puss. A pair of well-worn boots hung by the door as evidence. Those boots, however, would have barely fit a child’s feet, and every treasure hunter knew that Puss in Boots had been as tall as a grown man.
The landlord gave Fox and her men’s clothes a disapproving look before he started searching the guest register for Jacob’s name.
‘Mademoiselle?’ The man rising from one of the tables was so beautiful that more than one of the women present followed him with their eyes. Fox, however, only saw the black fur on his collar.
He stopped in front of her and touched it with his fingers. ‘A gift from my grandfather,’ he said. ‘Personally, I find no pleasure in that kind of hunt. I’m always on the side of the fox.’
His hair was as black as the shadows in a forest, but his eyes were light blue, like a summer sky. Day and night.
‘Jacob asked me to keep an eye out for you. He’s at the doctor’s – he’s fine,’ he added when Fox gave him a worried look. ‘He stumbled into some choke vines, and some wolves. Luckily, we were on the same road.’ He bowed and kissed her hand. ‘Guy de Troisclerq. Jacob described you very well.’
The doctor’s practice wasn’t far. Troisclerq explained the way to Fox. Wolves and choke vines . . . Jacob generally knew how to keep wolves away, and choke vines were supposed to have been eradicated from Lotharaine; after Crookback’s niece was killed by choke vines, they’d been ordered to be burnt. Jacob met Fox halfway, his hands bandaged and his shirt splattered with blood. She’d rarely seen him as angry.
‘The Bastard has the head.’ He flinched in pain as she embraced him, and she had a hard time coaxing out of him exactly what had happened. At least for now his injured pride had pushed away all thoughts of death, but Fox couldn’t think of anything else. The haste, the dangers, the time it had taken them to find the head – for nothing! They were again empty-handed. Fox was sick with fear, and her hand clamped around the box in her pocket.
‘And he’s got the hand as well!’ Jacob looked up at the monument. Flocks of birds were nesting in the giant’s ears. Fox knew that Jacob wasn’t seeing the chiselled stone but the onyx-black face of the Bastard.
‘Bastard!’ he panted. ‘I will find the heart before him, and then I’ll get the head and the hand. We’re riding to Vena today.’
‘You can’t possibly ride that far. Troisclerq says one of the wolves bit you in the side.’ Even a good horse would take ten days to reach Vena.
‘Really? And what else did he tell you?’
‘He didn’t tell me anything else!’ Oh, his pride. He’d probably rather have been eaten by wolves than have been saved by a stranger. ‘Why do we have to go to Vena? Did you hear from Chanute or Dunbar?’
‘Yes, but what they know, I already knew myself. Guismond’s daughter is buried in Vena, in the crypt of the imperial family. That’s the only lead I have.’
That wasn’t much. And Jacob knew it.
‘There’s a coach tonight.’
‘That’ll take us at least two weeks! You know those coachmen stop at every tavern. And the Goyl must be on his way already.’
They both knew he was right. Even if they bribed the coachman, it would still take them more than ten days. The Bastard was going to be in Vena before them. All they could hope was that he didn’t find the heart, though he’d already been quite fast with the hand.
Jacob held his wounded side. For a moment, Fox saw something on his face she’d never seen there before. He was giving up. It was one fleeting moment, but that moment scared her more than anything.
‘You rest,’ she said, stroking his scratched face. ‘I’ll get us tickets for the coach.’
Jacob nodded. ‘How’s your mother?’ he asked as she turned.
‘Fine,’ Fox answered, fingering the box in her pocket. She was so worried about him.