Sapphique i-2 Read online

  Astonished, she said, ‘Let me through.’ A flustered footman murmured, ‘I’m sorry, my lady.

  Sapienti and Privy Council only.’ He glanced at Jared. ‘You can enter, Master.’ Claudia drew herself up. For a moment Jared almost felt sorry for the man.

  ‘I am the Warden of Incarceron’s daughter: she said, in a voice that dripped ice. ‘You will stand aside now, before I ensure your transfer to the most rat-ridden keep in this Realm.’ The footman was young. He swallowed. ‘Madam …’

  ‘Not a word.’ She stared at him, impassive. ‘Just move.’ For a moment Jared wondered if it would work. And then an amused murmur came from behind them. ‘Oh let her in.

  What harm can it do? I wouldn’t want you to miss all the fun, Claudia.’ Faced with a grinning Caspar the footman shrank. The guards stood back.

  Instantly Claudia swept past them and through the door.

  Jared waited, and bowed, and the Prince hurried after her, his bodyguard close as a shadow. Walking behind, the Sapient felt the door click shut at his back.

  The Privy Chamber was small, and smelt musty. The seats were of ancient red leather, arranged in a horseshoe, the Queen’s in the centre with her coat of arms suspended over it. The Councillors sat, the Sapienti gathered behind them.

  Not knowing where to go, Finn stood near the Queen, trying to ignore Caspar’s grin, the way he leant over and said something in his mother’s ear, the way she tinkled a laugh.

  Claudia came and stood next to him, her arms folded. They said nothing to each other.

  ‘Well?’ The Queen leant forward graciously. ‘You may approach.’ The boy in the yellow coat came and stood within the horseshoe. Every eye was on him, but he seemed completely at his ease. Finn looked him over with instinctive dislike. The same height as himself. Brown, wavy hair. Brown eyes.

  Smiling. Confident.

  He scowled.

  The stranger said, ‘Your Majesty. My lords. I have made a serious claim, and I understand the gravity of it. But I intend to prove to you that what I say is true. I am indeed Giles Alexander Ferdinand of the Havaarna, Lord of the Southern Isles, Count of Marly, Crown Prince of this Realm.’ He was talking to all of them, but his eyes were on the Queen. And just for a bright second, on Claudia.

  ‘Liar,’ Finn hissed.

  The Queen said, ’I will have silence.’ The Pretender smiled. ‘I was brought up among you until my fifteenth year. Many of you will remember me. You, Lord Burgogne. You will remember the times I borrowed your fine horses, the time I lost your goshawk in the Great Forest.’ The Councillor, an elderly man in a black furred robe, looked startled.

  ‘My lady Amelia will remember the day when her son and I fell out of a tree dressed as pirates and nearly landed on top of her.’ His smile was warm. One of the Queen’s ladies of the Chamber nodded. Her face was white. ‘It was so,’ she whispered. ‘How we laughed!’

  ‘Indeed we did. I have many such memories.’ He folded his arms. ‘My lords, I know all of you. I can tell you where you live, the names of your ladies. I have played with your children. I can answer any question you ask me about my tutors, my dear bodyservant, Bartlett, my father, the late King, and my mother, Queen Argente.’ For a moment then, a shadow crossed his face. But he smiled, and shook his head.

  ‘Which is more than this Prisoner, with his oh-so- convenient memory loss, can do.’ Beside her, Claudia felt Finn’s stillness like a threat.

  ‘So where have I been all this time, you will be asking. Why was my death faked? Or perhaps you will already have heard from my gracious stepmother the Queen, how my supposed fall from my horse at the age of fifteen was … arranged, as a protection for my own safety.’ Claudia bit her lip. He was using the truth and twisting it.

  He was very clever. Or had been well taught.

  ‘It was a time of great danger. There is a secret and sinister organization, gentlemen, of which you may have heard. It is known as the Clan of the Steel Wolves. Their plans have only recently been foiled, with the failure of their attempt on Queen Sia’s life, and the exposure of their leader, the disgraced Warden of Incarceron.’ Now he was not looking at Claudia. He was playing the audience like an expert, his voice clear and steady. ‘Our spies have been aware of them for years, and it was known that they planned my death. My death, and the revoking of the Edict. The end of Protocol. They would return us to the terrors and chaos of the Years of Rage. And so I disappeared.

  Not even the Queen knew of my plans. I realized that the only way to be safe was to make them think I was already dead. And to await my time He smiled. ‘Now, my lords, that time has come.’ He beckoned, his gesture regal, and natural, and a footman brought a package of paper to him.

  Claudia chewed her lip anxiously.

  ‘I have here documentary evidence of what I say. My royal line, my birth deeds, many letters I have received, invitations — many of you wrote them. You will recognize them. I have the portrait of my fiancée as a child, given by her to me at our engagement.’ Claudia drew in a sharp breath. She glanced up at him, and he looked steadily back.

  ‘Above all, Lords and Masters, I have the evidence of my own flesh.’ He held up his hand, drew back the lacy ruffle of his sleeve, turned slowly so that the whole room could see.

  On his wrist, tatooed deep into the skin, was the crowned Eagle of the Havaarnas.

  10

  Hand to hand, skin to skin, Twin in a mirror, Incarceron.

  Fear to fear, desire to desire, Eye to eye. Prison to prison.

  SONGS OF SAPPHIQUE

  It had heard them.

  ‘Move!’ Keiro yelled.

  Attia grabbed the reins and saddle, but the horse was terrified; it circled and whickered, and before she could scramble up Keiro had jumped back, swearing. She turned.

  The Chain-gang waited. It was male, twelve-headed, helmeted, the bodies fused at hand and wrist and hip, linked with umbilical skin-chains from shoulder to shoulder or waist to waist. Beams of light shone from some of its hands; in others were weapons; blades, cleavers, a rusted firelock.

  Keiro had his own firelock out. He levelled it at the centre of the huddled thing. ‘No nearer. Keep well away.’ Torch-beams focused on him. Attia clung to the horse, its sweaty flank hot and trembling under her hand.

  The Chain-gang opened and its bodies moved apart; it became a line of shadows, the movement making her think stupidly of paper chains she had made as a child, cutting a man and then pulling wide a line of them.

  ‘I said keep back!’ Keiro swivelled the weapon along the line. His hand was steady, but he could only fire at one part of it, and then surely the rest would attack. Or would they?’ The Chain-gang spoke.

  ‘We want food.’ Its voice was a ripple of repetitions, one over another.

  ‘We’ve nothing to give you.’

  ‘Liar. We smell bread. We smell flesh.’ Was it one, or many? Did it have one brain, controlling its bodies like limbs, or was each of them a man, eternally and horribly joined? Attia stared at it, fascinated.

  Keiro swore. Then he said, ‘Throw it the bag.’ Carefully, Attia took the food-bag back off the horse and threw it on to the ice. It skittered over the ground. A long arm reached down and gathered it up. It disappeared into the creature’s misshapen darkness.

  ‘Not enough.’

  ‘There’s no more,’ she said.

  ‘We smell the beast. Its hot blood. Its sweet meat.’ She glanced at Keiro in alarm. Without the horse they were trapped here. She stood beside him. ‘No. Not the horse.’ Faint crackles of static lit the sky. She prayed the lights would come on. But this was the Ice Wing, eternally dark.

  ‘Leave,’ Keiro said savagely. ‘Or I blow you away. I mean it!’

  ‘Which of us? The Prison has joined us. You cannot divide us.’ It was moving in. Out of the corner of her eye Attia saw movement; she gasped, ‘It’s all round.’ She backed off, terrified, suddenly sure that if one of its hands touched her, the fingers would grow into hers.

  Clinking
with steel the Chain-gang had almost surrounded them. Only the frozen falls behind offered some protection; Keiro backed up against the seamed ice and snapped, ‘Get on the horse, Attia.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Get on the horse!’ She hauled herself up. The linked men lurched forward.

  Instantly the horse reared.

  Keiro fired.

  A blue bolt of flame drilled the central torso; the man vaporized instantly, and the Chain—gang screamed in unison; eleven voices in a howl of rage.

  Attia forced the horse round; leaning down to grab Keiro she saw the thing reunite, its hands joining, the skin- chains slithering, regrowing tight.

  Keiro turned to leap up behind her but it was on him.

  He yelled and kicked out, but the hands were greedy; they had him round the neck and the waist; they tugged him from the horse. He struggled, swearing viciously, but there were too many of them, they were all over him, and their knives flashed in the blue ice-light. Attia fought the panicking horse, leant down, snatched the flrelock from him and aimed it.

  If she fired she’d kill him.

  Skin-chains were wrapping him like tentacles. It was absorbing him; he would take the place of the dead man.

  ‘Attia!’ His yell was muffled. The horse reared; she struggled to keep it from bolting.

  ‘Attia!’ For a moment his face was clear; he saw her. ‘Fire!’ he screamed.

  She couldn’t.

  ‘Fire! Shoot me!’ For a moment she was frozen in terror.

  Then she brought the weapon up and fired.

  ‘How can this have happened?’ Finn stormed across the room and flung himself into the metal chair. He stared round at the humming grey mystery that was the Portal. ‘And why meet here?’

  ‘Because it’s the only place in the entire Court that I’m certain isn’t bugged.’ Jared closed the door carefully, feeling the strange effect the room had, the way it straightened out, as if adapting to their presence. As it must do, if, as he suspected, it was some halfway stage to the Prison.

  Feathers still littered the floor. Finn kicked at them.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She’ll be here.’ Jared watched the boy; Finn stared back. Quieter, he said, ‘Master, do you doubt me too?’

  ‘Too?’

  ‘You saw him. And Claudia...’

  ‘Claudia believes you are Giles. She always has, from the moment she first heard your voice.’

  ‘She hadn’t seen him then. She said his name.’ Finn got up, walked restlessly to the screen. ‘Did you see how polished he was? How he smiled and bowed and held himself like a prince? I can’t do that, Master. If I ever knew how I’ve forgotten. The Prison has scoured it out of me.’

  ‘A skilled actor …’ Finn spun round. ‘Do you believe him? Tell me the truth.’ Jared linked his delicate fingers together. He shrugged slightly. ‘I am a scholar, Finn. I am not so easily convinced.

  These so-called proofs will be examined. There will certainly be a process of questioning, for both him and you, before the Council. Now that there are two claimants to the throne, everything has changed.’ He glanced sidelong at Finn. ‘I thought you weren’t eager to take up your inheritance.’

  ‘I am now.’ Finn’s voice was a growl. ‘Keiro always says what you fought for, you should keep. I only ever talked him out of anything once’

  ‘When you left the gang?’ Jared watched him. ‘These things you’ve told us about the Prison, Finn. I need to know they are true. About the Maestra. About the Key:

  ‘I told you. She gave me the Key, and then she was killed.

  She fell into the Abyss. Someone betrayed us. It wasn’t my fault.’ He was resentful. But Jared’s voice was pitiless.

  ‘She died because of you. And this memory of the Forest, of falling from the horse. I need to be sure that it’s real, Finn.

  Not just what you think Claudia needs to hear.’ Finn’s head jerked up. ‘A lie, you mean.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Jared knew he was taking a risk. He kept his gaze level.

  ‘The Council will want to hear it too, in every detail. They will question you over and over. It will be them you have to convince, not Claudia.’

  ‘If anyone else said this, Master, I’d …’

  ‘Is that why your hand is on your sword?’ Finn clenched his fingers. Slowly, he wrapped both arms around himself and went and slumped in the metal chair.

  They were silent a while, and Jared could hear the faint hum of the tilted room, a sound he had never succeeded in isolating. Finally Finn said, ‘Violence was our way of life in the Prison.’

  ‘I know. I know how hard it must be …’

  ‘Because I’m not sure.’ He turned. ‘I’m not sure, Master, who I am! How can I convince the Court when I’m not even convinced myself!’

  ‘You have to. Everything depends on you.’ Jared’s green eyes were fixed on him. ‘Because if you are supplanted, if Claudia loses her inheritance, and I am …’ He stopped. Finn saw his pale fingers fold together. ‘Well, there will be no one to care about the injustices of Incarceron. And you will never see Keiro again.’ The door opened, and Claudia swept in. She looked hot and flustered; there was dust on her silk dress. She said,’ He’s staying in Court. Would you believe it! She’s given him a suite of rooms in the Ivory Tower.’ Neither of them answered. Feeling the tension in the room, she glanced at Jared, then took the blue velvet pouch out of her pocket and crossed the room with it. ‘Remember this, Master?’ Undoing the drawstring, she tipped it up and a miniature painting slid out, a masterly work in its frame of gold and pearls, the back engraved with the crowned eagle. She gave it to Finn, and he held it in both hands.

  It showed a boy smiling, his eyes dark in the sunlight. His gaze was shy, but direct and open.

  ‘Is it me?’

  ‘Don’t you recognize yourself?’ When he answered the pain in his voice shocked her. ‘No.

  Not any more. That boy had never seen men killed for scraps of food, had never tormented an old woman to show where her few coins were hidden. He’d never wept in a cell with his mind torn away, never lain awake at night hearing the screams of children. He’s not me. He’s never been taunted by the Prison.’ He thrust the image back at her and rolled up his sleeve.

  ‘Look at me, Claudia.’ His arms were pocked with old scars and burns. She had no idea how he had got them. The mark of the Havaarna Eagle was faded and indistinct.

  She made her voice strong. ‘Well he’s never seen the stars, then, not like you’ve seen them. This was you.’ She held it alongside him, and Jared came to see.

  The resemblance was unquestionable. And yet she knew that the boy down there in the hail looked like this too, and without the haunted pallor Finn still had, without the thinness of face and that lost something in the eyes.

  Not wanting him to sense her doubt she said, ‘Jared and I found this in the cottage of a man called Bartlett. He looked after you when you were small. He left a document, about how much he loved you, how he thought of you as his son.’ Hopelessly, Finn shook his head.

  She went on, fiercely. ‘I have paintings too, but this is better than all of them. I think you must have given it to him. He was the one who knew after the accident that the body wasn’t yours, that you were still alive.’

  ‘Where is he? Can we get him here?’ She caught Jared’s eye, and he said quietly, ‘Bartlett is dead, Finn.’

  ‘Because of me?’

  ‘He knew They got to him.’ Finn shrugged. ‘Then I’m sorry. But the only old man I loved was called Gildas. And he’s dead too.’ Something crackled.

  The screen on the desk spat light. It flickered.

  Jared ran straight to it, Claudia close behind. ‘What was that? What happened?’

  ‘Some connection. Maybe...’ He turned. Something had changed in the hum of the room. It seemed to draw back, to ratchet up the scale. With a screech Claudia ran and hauled Fim out of the chair with such a jerk that they both almost fell over. ‘It’s
working! The Portal! But how!’

  ‘From Inside.’ White with tension Jared watched the chair.

  They all stared at it, not knowing what to expect, who might come. Finn snatched out his sword.

  Light flashed, the blinding brilliance Jared remembered.

  And on the chair was a feather.

  It was as big as a man.

  The firelock spat flame. It sliced through the ice under the feet of the Chain-gang and the creature howled, toppling and sliding down the collapsed floe. Its bodies tangled, grabbing at each other. Attia fired again, targeting the smashed plates of ice, yelling, ‘Come on!’ Keiro struggled to get clear. He fought and bit and kicked with furious energy, but his feet too were slipping into the slush, and there was still a hand gripping his long coat. Then the fabric tore and for a moment he was free. He reached up and she leant and grabbed him; he was heavy, but the terror of being pulled back and smothered made him scramble over the horse’s back behind her.

  Attia shoved the weapon under her arm, struggling with the reins. The horse was panicking; as it reared a great crack split the night. Glancing down Attia saw that all the ice was breaking up; from the crater she had made black crevasses were zigzagging out. Icicles snapped off the waterfall, smashing in jagged heaps.

  The firelock was snatched from her. Keiro yelled, ‘Keep it still!’ but the horse tossed its head in fear, its hooves clattering and sliding down the frozen slabs.

  The Chain-gang was struggling, half in meltwater. Some of its bodies lay under the others, its chains of sinew and skin iced with frost.

  Keiro raised the weapon.

  ‘NO!’Attia breathed. ‘We can get away.’ And then, when he didn’t lower it, ‘They were men once!’

  ‘If they remember they’ll thank me.’ Keiro’s voice was grim.

  The blast scorched them. He fired three, four, five times, coldly and efficiently, until the weapon sputtered and coughed and was useless. Then he threw it down into the charred crater.

  Attia’s hands were sore on the leather reins.