Sapphique i-2 Page 15

  Her coat flapped against her.

  The ivy thickened. It became a treacherous tangle of glossy leaves. In places it was impassable; Keiro had to coax the terrified horse along the very edge of the viaduct, its hooves clanging on metal. His voice was a low mutter.

  ‘Come on, you scrawny nag. Come on, you useless beggar.’ Then he stopped.

  His voice was snatched by the wind. ‘There’s a big hole here. Be careful.’ When she came to it she saw its charred edge first, crumbling with rust. Wind howled up through it. Below, iron girders corroded, old bird’s-nests in their joists. A heavy chain looped into emptiness.

  Soon there were other holes. The track became a yielding nightmare, creaking ominously wherever the horse trod.

  After a few minutes, she realized Keiro had stopped.

  ‘Is it blocked?’

  ‘As good as.’ His voice was tight, oddly breathless. His breath frosted as he looked back at her, ‘We should go back.

  We’ll never cross this.’

  ‘We’ve come too far!’

  ‘The horse is on the edge of panic.’ Was he scared? His voice was low, his face set. For a moment she sensed weakness, but then his hissed anger reassured her. ‘Back up, Attia!’ She turned.

  And saw the impossible.

  Masked figures were swarming up over the sides of the viaduct, through holes, up chains and bines of ivy. The horse gave a whinny of fear and reared. Keiro dropped the reins and leapt back.

  She knew it was over. The horse plunged in terror; it would fall, and far below the starving people would butcher its body.

  Then one of the masked people grabbed it, flung a cloak over its eyes and expertly led it away into the dark.

  There were about ten of them. They were small and shin, and wore feathered helms, all black, except for a tagged lightning flash across the right eye. They held Keiro in a ring of aimed firelocks. But none of them came near Attia.

  She stood, poised, the knife ready.

  Keiro drew himself up, his blue eyes fierce. His hand dropped to his sword.

  ‘Don’t touch that.’ The tallest raider took the weapon, then turned to Attia. ‘Is he your slave?’ The voice was a girl’s. The eyes in the mask were mismatched — one alive and grey, the other with a pupil of gold, an unseeing stone.

  At once Attia said, ‘Yes. Don’t kill him. He belongs to me.’ Keiro snorted but didn’t move. She hoped he’d have the sense to stay silent.

  The masked girls — for Attia was sure they were all girls — glanced at each other. Then the leader made a sign. The firelocks were lowered.

  Keiro looked at Attia. She knew what that look meant. The Glove was in the inner pocket of his coat and they’d find it if they searched him.

  He folded his arms and grinned. ‘Surrounded by women.

  Things are looking up.’ Attia glared. ‘Shut up. Slave.’ The golden-eyed girl circled him. ‘He doesn’t have the bearing of a slave. He is arrogant, and a man, and he thinks himself stronger than us.’ She gave a curt nod. ‘Throw him over.’

  ‘No!’ Attia stepped forward. ‘No. He belongs to me. Believe me, I’ll fight anyone who tries to kill him.’ The masked girl stared at Keiro. Her golden eye glittered and Attia realized that it was not blind, that she saw through it in some way. A halfwoman.

  ‘Search him then for weapons.’ Two of the girls searched him; he pretended to enjoy it, but when they took the Glove from his pocket Attia knew it took all his self-control not to lash out.

  ‘What is this?’The leader held up the Glove. It lay in her hands, the dragonskin iridescent in the gloom, the claws split and heavy.

  ‘That’s mine,’ Keiro and Attia said together.

  ‘I carry it for her,’ Keiro said. He smiled his most charming smile. ‘I am the Slave of the Glove.’ The girl gazed at the dragonclaws with her mismatched eyes. Then she looked up. ‘Both of you will come with us. In all my years taking toll on the Skywalk I’ve never seen an object of such power. It ripples in purple and gold. It sings in amber.’ Attia moved forward cautiously. ‘You can see that?’

  ‘I hear it with my eyes.’ She turned away Attia flicked a fierce glance at Keiro. He had to shut up, and play along.

  Two of the masked girls pushed him. ‘Walk; one said. The leader fell in beside Attia. ‘Your name?’

  ‘Attia. You?’

  ‘Rho Cygni. We give up our birth names.’ At the large hole in the floor the girls were sliding expertly through.

  ‘Down there?’ Attia tried not to let the fear into her voice, but she sensed Rho’s smile behind the mask.

  ‘It doesn’t lead to the ground. Go on. You’ll see.’ Attia sat, her legs dangling over the edge. Someone caught her feet and steadied her; she slithered through and grabbed the rusty chain. There was a rickety walkway built close under the viaduct, half hidden by ivy It was as dark as a tunnel and it creaked underfoot, but at its end it divided into a maze of smaller passageways and rope stairs, hanging rooms and cages.

  Rho walked behind her, noiseless as a shadow. At the end she guided Attia to the right into a chamber that moved slightly as if beneath it was nothing but sky. Attia swallowed. The walls were of interwoven wattle and the floor was hidden in a deep coating of feathers. But it was the ceiling that made her stare. It was painted a deep, amazing blue and gleaming in it were patterns of golden stones, like the one in Rho’s eye.

  ‘The stars!’

  ‘As Sapphique wrote of them.’ The girl stood beside her and looked up. ‘Outside they sing as they cross the sky. The Bull, and the Hunter and the Chained Princess. And the Swan, of whose Constellation we are.’ She pulled off her feathered helm and her hair was dark and short, her face pale. ‘Welcome to the Swan’s Nest, Attia.’ It was stiflingly warm, and lit by tiny lamps. She saw the shadowy figures remove armour and masks and become girls and women of all ages, some stout, some young and lithe. The smell of food rose from cooking pots. Deep divans filled with downy feathers littered the room.

  Rho pushed her towards one. ‘Sit down. You look exhausted: Anxious, she said, ‘Where’s . . . my servant?’

  ‘Caged. He won’t starve. But this place is not for men.’ Attia sat. She was suddenly unbearably weary, but she had to stay alert. The thought of Keiro’s certain fury cheered her.

  ‘Please eat. We have plenty.’ A bowl of hot soup was put in front of her. She sipped at it hurriedly, while Rho sat, elbows on knees, watching.

  ‘You were hungry,’ she said after a while.

  ‘We’ve been travelling for days:

  ‘Well, your journey’s over now. You’re safe here.’ Attia savoured the thin soup, wondering what she meant.

  These people seemed friendly, but she must be on her guard.

  They had Keiro, and they had the Glove.

  ‘We’ve been expecting you,’ Rho said quietly.

  She almost choked. ‘Me?’

  ‘Someone like you. Something like this.’ Rho drew the Clove from her coat, laid it reverently in her lap. ‘Strange things are happening, Attia. Wonderful things. You saw the tribes migrating. For weeks we’ve watched them down there, always searching, for food, for warmth, always fleeing from the commotion at the Prison’s heart:

  ‘What commotion is that, Rho?’

  ‘I’ve heard it.’ The girl’s strange gaze turned to Attia. ‘We all have. Late at night, deep in dreams. Suspended between ceiling and floor, we’ve felt its vibrations, in the chains and walls, in our bodies. The beating of Incarceron’s heart. It grows stronger, daily. We’re its providers, and we know.’ Attia put down the spoon and tore off some black bread.

  ‘The Prison is shutting down. Is that it?’

  ‘Concentrating. Focusing. Whole Wings are dark and silent. The Fimbulwinter has begun, and that was prophesied. And still the Unsapient sends out his demands.’

  ‘Unsapient?’

  ‘So we call him. They say the Prison summoned him from Outside. . . From his chamber in the Prison’s heart he is creating something terrible.
They say he is making a man, out of rags and dreams and flowers and metal. A man who’ll lead us all to the stars. It will happen soon, Attia Gazing at the girl’s lit face Attia felt only weariness. She pushed the plate aside and said sadly, ‘What about you? Tell me about you.’ Rho smiled. ‘I think that can wait till tomorrow. You need to sleep.’ She dragged a thick cover over to Attia. It was soft and warm and irresistible. Attia snuggled into it.

  ‘You won’t lose the Glove,’ she said sleepily.

  ‘No. Sleep well. You’re with us now, Attia Cygni.’ She closed her eyes. From somewhere far off she heard Rho say, ‘Was the slave given food?’

  ‘Yes. But he spent most of the time trying to seduce me,’ a girl’s voice laughed.

  Attia rolled over and grinned.

  Hours later, deep in sleep, between breaths, in her teeth and eyelashes and nerves, she felt the heartbeat. Her heartbeat. Keiro’s. Finn’s. The Prison’s.

  17

  The world is a chessboard, Madam, on which we play out our ploys and follies. You are the Queen, of course. Your moves are the strongest. For myself I claim only to be a knight, advancing in a crooked progress. Do we move ourselves, do you think, or does a great gloved hand place us on our squares?

  PRIVATE LETTER; THE WARDEN OF INCARCERON TO QUEEN SIA

  ‘Were you responsible?’ Claudia stepped out of the shadow of the hedge and enjoyed the way Medlicote spun round, alarmed.

  He bowed, the half-moons of his glasses flashing in the morning sunlight. ‘For the storm, my lady? Or the fire?’

  ‘Don’t be flippant.’ She let herself sound imperious. ‘We were attacked in the Forest — Prince Giles and myself. Was it your doing?’

  ‘Please: His inkstained fingers lifted. ‘Please, Lady Claudia.

  Be discreet.’ Fuming, she kept silent.

  He gazed across the wide lawns. Only peacocks strutted and squawked. There was a group of courtiers in the orangery; faint giggles drifted from the scented gardens.

  ‘We made no attack,’ he said quietly. ‘Believe me, madam, if we had, Prince Giles — if he is Giles — would be dead. The Steel Wolves deserve their reputation.’

  ‘You failed to kill the Queen on several occasions.’ She was scathing. ‘And you placed a dagger next to Finn …’

  ‘To ensure he remembers us. But the Forest, no. If I may say so you were unwise to ride out without an escort. The Realm is frill of discontents. The poor suffer their injustices, but they don’t forgive them. It was probably a simple attempt at robbery.’ She thought it was the Queen’s plot, though she had no intention of letting him know that. Instead she snapped a bud from the rosebush and said, ‘And the fire?’ He looked stricken. ‘That is a disaster. You know who was responsible for that, madam. The Queen has never wanted the Portal reopened.’ And now she thinks she’s won.’ Claudia jumped as a peacock rustled its magnificent tail into a fan. The hundred eyes watched her. ‘She thinks that my father is cut off:

  ‘Without the Portal, he is.’

  ‘You knew my father well, Master Medlicote?’ Medlicote frowned. ‘I was his secretary for ten years. But lit, was not an easy man to know’

  ‘He kept his secrets?’

  ‘Always.’

  ‘About Incarceron?’

  ‘I knew nothing about the Prison.’ She nodded, and took her hand out of her pocket. ‘Do you recognize this?’ He looked at it, wondering. ‘It’s the Warden’s pocketwatch.

  He always wore it.’ She was watching him closely, alert for any glimmer of hidden recognition, of knowledge. In the glasses she saw the reflection of the open watchcase, the silver cube turning on the chain.

  ‘He left it for me. You have no idea then, where the Prison is?’

  ‘None. I wrote his correspondence. I ordered his affairs. But I never went there with him.’ She clicked the case shut. He seemed puzzled, had given no sign of knowing what he was looking at.

  ‘How did he travel there?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘I never discovered that. He would disappear, for a day, or a week. We . . . the Wolves . . . believe the Prison to be some sort of underground labyrinth, below the Court. Obviously the Portal gave access: He looked at her curiously. ‘You know more about this than I do. There may be information in his study, at your house in the Wardenry. I was never allowed in there.’ His study.

  She tried not to reveal by even a blink the shock his words sparked. ‘Thank you. Thank you.’ Hardly knowing what she said she turned on her heel but his voice stopped her.

  ‘Lady Claudia. Something else. We have learned that when the false prince is executed you will share his fate:

  ‘What!’ He was standing with his glasses in his hands, his dusty shoulders stooped. In the sunlight he seemed suddenly a half—blind, agitated man.

  ‘But she can’t …’

  ‘She will. I warned you, lady. You are an escaped Prisoner.

  She would not be breaking any laws.’ Claudia was cold. She could hardly believe this. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘One of the Privy Council has a mistress. The woman is one of our operatives. He told her that the Queen was adamant.’

  ‘Did she hear anything else? Whether the Queen had brought in this Pretender?’ He stared at her. ‘That interests you more than your own death?’

  ‘Tell me!’

  ‘Unfortunately, no. The Queen professes ignorance as to which of the boys is her true stepson. She’s told the Council nothing.’ Claudia paced, shredding the rosebud. ‘Well, I don’t intend to be executed, by her or your Wolves or anyone else.

  Thank you.’ She had ducked under the rose arch when he took a step after her and said softly, ‘Master Jared was bribed to stop work on the Portal. Did you know that?’ She stopped still as death, without turning. The roses were white, perfectly scented. Fat bees fumbled in their petals.

  There was a thorn in the bud she held; it hurt her fingers and she dropped it.

  He came no nearer. His voice was quiet. ‘The Queen offered him...’

  ‘There’s nothing’ — she turned, almost spitting the words

  — ‘nothing, that she could offer that he would take. Nothing!’ A bell chimed, then another from the Ivory Tower. It was the signal for the Inquisition of the Candidates. Medlicote kept his eyes on her. Then he put his spectacles back on and bowed, clumsily. ‘My mistake, my lad,’ he said.

  She watched him walk away. She was trembling. She didn’t know how much with anger, how much with fear.

  Jared looked down with a rueful smile at the book in his hand. It had been a favourite of his when he had been a student here, a small red book of mysterious and cryptic poems that languished unread on the shelves. Now, opening the pages, he found the oak leaf he had once placed in it, on page forty-seven, at the sonnet about the dove that would cure the devastation of the Years of Rage, a flowering rose in its beak. Reading the lines now he let his memories slip back to that time. It had not been so long ago. He had been the youngest graduate of the Academy since Protocol began, considered brilliant, assured of a great career.

  The oak leaf was as frail as cobweb, a skeleton of veins.

  His fingers trembling slightly, he closed the book and slid it back. He was certainly above such self—pity.

  The library of the Academy was a vast and hushed collection of rooms. Great oak cabinets of books, some of them chained, stood in ranks down the galleried halls.

  Sapienti sat huddled over manuscripts and illuminated volumes, quill nibs scraping, each stall lit by a small lamp that looked like a candle but was in fact a high intensity personal diode powered by the hidden underground generators. Jared estimated that at least a third of the precious remaining power of the Realm was consumed here.

  Not just in the library, of course. The apparent quills were linked to a central computer that also ran the lunar observatory and the extensive medical wing. The Queen, though he hated her, had been right. If there had once been a cure for him, this was the only place it might still be found.

&nbs
p; ‘Master?’ The librarian had returned, the Queen’s letter in his hand. ‘This is all in order. Please follow me.’ The Esoterica was the heart of the library. It was rumoured to be a secret chamber, entered only by the First High Sapient and the Warden. Jared certainly had never been there. His heart fluttered a little with excitement.

  They walked through three rooms, through a hall of maps and up a winding stair into a small gallery that ran round above the reading room, under the dusty cornice. In the far corner was a shadowy alcove, containing a desk and a chair, the arms carved with winding snakes.

  The librarian bowed. ‘If you need anything, please ask one of my assistants.’ Jared nodded and sat. He tried not to show his surprise, and disappointment; he had expected something more secret, more impressive, but perhaps that had been foolish.

  He glanced round.

  There were no obvious watching devices, but they were here, he sensed that. He put his hand into his coat and slid out the disc he had prepared. He slipped the disc under the desk and it clasped itself on tight.

  The desk, despite appearances, was metal. He touched it, and a portion of the wainscoting became a screen that lit discreetly. It said YOU HAVE ENTERED THE ESOTERICA.

  He worked quickly. Soon diagrams of the lymphatic and nervous systems rippled over the screen. He studied them intently, cross-referencing with the fragments of medical research that the system still held. The room below was silent, formal busts of ancient Sapienti staring in stiff rigour from their marble pedestals. Outside the distant casement a few doves cooed.

  A librarian padded by, carrying a heap of parchment. Jared smiled gently.

  They were keeping a good watch on him.

  By three, the time for the brief afternoon rain shower, he was ready. As the light dimmed and the room grew gloomier, he slid his hand under the desk and touched the disc.

  At once, under the diagrams of the nervous system, writing appeared. It had taken a long time to find the encrypted files on Incarceron, and his eyes were tired, his thirst a torment.

  But as the first thunder rumbled, here they were.