Текст книги "Sapphique"

Автор книги: Kathryn Fisher

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‘Keep lower,’ Attia muttered. ‘Lie flat.’ Keiro swore long and viciously as his scarlet coat ripped at the shoulder. ‘For god’s sake, there’s nothing—’

‘Listen.’ She stopped, her foot in his face. ‘Hear it?’ A voice.

A voice of static and crackle, as if the spiny branches themselves had picked up its repeated syllables.

Keiro rubbed his face with a dirty hand. ‘Go on,’ he said quietly.

They crawled under the razor-sharp tangle. Attia dug her fingers in the litter and pulled herself along. Pollen made her sneeze; the air was thick with micro—dust. A Beetle scurried, clicking, through her hair.

She wriggled past a thick trunk and saw, as if it was wreathed in the forest of thorn and razorwire, the wall of a dark building.

‘It’s like Rix’s book,’ she gasped.

‘Another one?’

‘A beautiful princess sleeps for a hundred years in a ruined castle.’ Keiro grunted, dragging his hair from thorns. ‘So.’

‘A thief breaks in and steals a cup from her treasure. She turns into a dragon and they fight.’ Keiro wriggled up next to her. He was breathless, his hair lank with dirt and sweat. ‘I must be thick even to listen to you. Who wins?’

‘The dragon. She eats him, and then . . .‘ Static crackled.

Keiro hauled himself into a dusty space. Bines sprawled up a wall of dark glossy brick. In its base a very tiny wooden door was smothered with ivy.

Behind it, the voice sparked and crackled.

‘Who’s there?’ it whispered.

13

I fooled the Prison I fooled my father.

I asked a question It could not answer.

SONGS OF SAPPHIQUE

‘It’s me! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!’ Jared closed his eyes in relief. Then he opened the door and let Claudia dart in. Her evening dress was covered with a dark cloak. She said, ‘Is Finn here?’

‘Finn? No …’

‘He’s challenged the Pretender to a duel. Can you believe that?’ Jared went back to the screen. ‘I’m afraid I can, Claudia.’ She stared beyond him at the mess. ‘Why are you here in the middle of the night?’ Coming closer, she looked at him closely. ‘Master, you look so drained. You should sleep.’

‘I can sleep at the Academy.’ There was a bitter note in his voice that she didn’t recognize.

Worried, she crouched on the workbench, pushing the fine tools aside. ‘But I thought …’

‘I leave tomorrow, Claudia.’

‘So soon?’ It shook her. She said, ‘But . . . you’re getting so close to success. Why not take a few more days. .

‘I can’t.’ He was never so short with her. She wondered if it was the pain, driving him on. And then he sat, folding his long thin fingers together on the desk, and said sadly, ‘Oh Claudia, how I wish we were safely at home at the Wardenry. I wonder how my foxcub is doing, and the birds. And I miss my observatory, Claudia. I miss looking out at the stars.’ Gently she said, ‘You’re homesick, Master.’

‘A little.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m sick of the Court. Of its stifling Protocol. Of its exquisite meals and endlessly sumptuous rooms where each door hides a watcher. I should like a little peace.’ It silenced her. Jared was rarely gloomy; his grave calm was always there, a safe presence at her back. She fought down her alarm. ‘We’ll go home then, Master, as soon as Finn is safely on the throne. We’ll go home. Just you and me.’ He smiled, nodding, and she thought he looked wistful.

‘That may be a long time. And a challenge won’t help.’

‘The Queen’s forbidden them to fight.’

‘Good.’ His fingers tapped together on the desk. She realized that the systems were all live, the Portal humming with distorted energy.

He said, ‘I have something to tell you, Claudia. Something important.’ Leaning forward, he didn’t look at her.

‘Something I should have told you before, that I shouldn’t have kept from you. This journey to the Academy. There is a reason that . . . the Queen has allowed me to go …’

‘To search the Esoterica, I know,’ she said impatiently, pacing up and down. ‘I know! I just wish I could come. Why let you and not me? What’s she up to?’ Jared raised his head and watched her. His heart was hammering; he felt almost too ashamed to speak. ‘Claudia

…’

‘But then perhaps it’s just as well I’m staying. A duel! He’s got no idea how to behave! It’s as if he’s forgotten all he ever was …’ Catching her tutor’s eye she stopped and laughed an awkward laugh. ‘Sorry What were you going to say?’ There was an ache in him that was not caused by his illness. Dimly he recognized it as anger, anger and a deep, bitter pride. He had not known he was proud. You are her tutor, her brother, and more her father than I have ever been. The Warden’s scorching words of jealousy came back to him; for a moment he savoured them, gazing at Claudia as she waited, so unsuspecting. How could he destroy the trust between them?

‘This,’ he said. He tapped the watch that lay on the desk.

‘I think you ought to have it.’ Claudia looked relieved, then surprised. ‘My father’s watch?’

‘Not the watch. This.’ She came closer. He was touching the silver cube that hung on the chain. It had been so familiar in her father’s hands that she barely noticed it, but now a sudden wonder swept her that her father – so austere a man – should have worn a charm.

‘Is it for good luck?’ Jared did not smile. ‘It’s Incarceron,’ he said.

Finn lay in the long grass looking up at the stars.

Through the dark blades the distant brilliance of their light brought him a sort of comfort. He had come here with the hot jealousy of the banquet still burning in him, but the silence of the night and the beauty of the stars were easing it away.

He shuffled his arm behind his head, feeling the prickle of grass down his neck.

They were so far away. In Incarceron he had dreamt of them, his symbol of Escape; now he realized they were still that, that he was still imprisoned. Perhaps he always would be. Perhaps it would be best just to disappear, to ride away into the Forest and not come back. It would mean abandoning Keiro, and Attia.

Claudia wouldn’t care. He moved uncomfortably as he thought it, but the thought stayed. She wouldn’t. She’d end up marrying this Pretender and being Queen, as she’d always meant to be.

Why not?

Why not just go?

Where, though? And how would he feel riding through the endless Protocol of this stifled world and dreaming every night of Keiro in the metallic, livid hell of Incarceron, not knowing if he was alive or dead, maimed or insane, killing or already dead?

He rolled over, curling up. Princes were supposed to sleep in golden beds with damask canopies, but the Palace was a nest of enemies, he couldn’t breathe there. The familiar prickle behind his eyes had gone, but the dryness in his throat warned him that the fit had been near. He had to be careful. He had to have more control.

And yet the angry moment of the challenge was dear to him. He relished it, over and again, seeing the Pretender jerking aside, the slap of redness on his face. He’d lost his cool then, and Finn smiled in the dark, his cheek resting on the damp grass.

He rolled swiftly and sat up. The wide lawns were grey in the starlight. Beyond the lake the woods of the estate raised black heads against the sky. The gardens smelt of roses and honeysuckle, sweet in the warm summer air.

He lay back again, staring up.

The moon, a ruined hollow, hung like a ghost in the east.

Jared had told him that it had been attacked in the Years of Rage, that now the ocean tides were altered, that the fixed orbit had changed the world.

And after that they had stopped all change altogether.

When he was King, he would change things. People would be free to do or say what they wanted. The poor wouldn’t have to slave on great estates for the rich. And he would find Incarceron, he would release them all.. . But then, he was going to run away.

He stared up at the white stars.

Finn Starseer doesn’t run. He could almost hear Keiro’s sarcasm.

He turned his head, sighed, stretched out.

And touched something cold.

With a shiver of steel his sword was in his hand; he had leapt up, was alert, his heart thudding, a prickle of sweat on his neck.

Far off in the lighted palace a drift of music echoed.

The lawns were still empty. But there was something small and bright stuck in the grass just above where his head had been.

After a moment, listening intently, he bent down and picked it up. And as he stared at it, a shiver of fear made his hand shake.

It was a small steel knife, wickedly sharp, and its handle was a wolf, stretched thin, jaws open and savage.

Finn drew himself up and looked all around, his hand tight on the swordhilt.

But the night was silent.

The door gave at the third kick. Keiro dragged a cable of bramble away and ducked his head inside. His voice came back, muffled. ‘Corridor. Have you got the torch?’ She handed it to him.

He scraped in, and she waited, hearing only muffled movement. Then he said, ‘Come on.’ Attia crawled through, and stood up beside him. The interior was dark, and filthy. It had obviously been abandoned years ago, maybe centuries. A lumber of junk lay in heaps under cobwebs and grime.

Keiro shoved something aside and manoeuvred himself between a heaped desk and a broken cupboard. He wiped the dust off with his gloved hand and stared down at the litter of broken crockery ‘Just what we need: Attia listened. The corridor led into darkness, and nothing moved down there, but the voices. There were two of them now, and they faded oddly in and out of hearing.

Keiro had his sword ready. ‘Any trouble, we’re out of here.

One Chain-gang is enough for any lifetime.’ She nodded, and made to move past him, but he grabbed her and shoved her behind him. ‘Watch my back. That’s your job.’ Attia smiled sweetly. ‘And I love you too,’ she whispered.

They walked warily down the dim space. At the end a great door stood ajar, fixed immovably half open, and when she slipped through behind Keiro Attia saw why; furniture had been piled and heaped against it, as if in some last desperate attempt to keep it closed.

‘Something went on here. Look there.’ Keiro flashed the handlight at the floor. Dark stains marred the paving. Attia guessed it might once have been blood. She looked closer at the junk, then around, at the galleried hall. ‘It’s all toys,’ she whispered.

They stood in the wreckage of a sumptuous nursery. But the scale was all wrong. The doll’s house that she stared at was enormous, so that she could almost have crawled in, her head squashed against the ceiling of the kitchen, where plaster hams hung and a joint had fallen from its spit. The upstairs windows were too high to see into. Hoops and tops and balls and skittles were littered across the room’s centre; walking over to them she felt an amazing softness under her feet, and when she knelt and felt it it was carpet, black with grime.

Light grew. Keiro had found candles; he lit a few and stuck them around.

‘Look at this. A giant, or dwarves?’ The toys were bewildering. Most were too big, like the huge sword and ogre-sized helmet that hung from a hook.

Others were tiny; a scatter of building blocks no bigger than salt grains, books on a shelf that started as vast folios at one end and went down to minuscule locked volumes at the other. Keiro heaved open a wooden chest and swore to find it overflowing with dressing-up clothes of all sizes. Still, he rummaged in there and found a leather belt with gilt trappings. There was a pirate’ coat too, of scarlet leather.

Immediately he tugged off his own and put the new one on, strapping the belt tight around it. ‘Suit me?’

‘We’re wasting time.’ The voices had faded. Attia turned, trying to identify where the sound came from, edging between the vast rocking-horse and a row of dangling puppets that hung, broken-necked and tangle-limbed, on the wall, their small eyes watching her, red as Incarceron’s.

Beyond them were dolls. They lay tumbled, princesses with golden hair, whole armies of soldiers, dragons of felt and cambric with long, forked tails.Teddies and pandas and stuffed animals Attia had never seen lay in a heap as high as the ceiling.

She waded in and heaved them aside.

‘What are you doing?’ Keiro snapped.

‘Can’t you hear them?’ Two voices. Small and crackling. As if the bears spoke, the dolls conversed. Arms and legs and heads and blue glass eyes tumbled apart.

Under them was a small box, the lid inlaid with an ivory eagle.

The voices were coming from inside it.

For a long moment Claudia said nothing. Then she came close, picked up the watch and let the cube hang on its chain and turn so that it glittered in the light.

Finally she whispered, ‘How do you know?’

‘Your father told me.’ She nodded, and he saw the fascination in her eyes. ‘You hold a world in your hands. That’s what he said to me.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘I wanted to try some tests on it. None of them worked. I suppose I wanted to make sure he was telling the truth.’ The screen crackled. Jared looked at it absently. Claudia watched the cube turn. Was this really the hellish world she had entered, the Prison of a million prisoners? Was this where her father was?

‘Why would he lie? Jared?’ He wasn’t listening. He was at the controls, adjusting something, so that the hum in the room modulated. She felt a sudden nausea, as if the world had shifted, and she put the watch down hurriedly.

‘The frequency’s changed!’ Jared said. ‘Maybe . . . Attia’ Attia! Can you hear me?’ Only silence crackled. Then, to their astonishment, faint and far away, they heard music.

‘What is that?’ Claudia breathed.

But she knew what it was. It was the high, silly tinkle of a musical box.

Keiro held the box open. The tune seemed too loud; it filled the cluttered hail with an eerie, menacing jollity. But there was no mechanism, nothing to produce it. The box was wooden and completely empty but for a mirror inside its lid.

He turned it upside down and examined the underside.

‘Doesn’t seem possible.’

‘Give it to me.’ He glanced at her, then handed it over.

She held it tight, because she knew the voices lay here, behind the music. ‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘It’s Attia.’

‘There was something Jared ran his delicate fingers over the controls, jabbing quickly. ‘There. There! Hear it?’ A crackle of words. So loud that Claudia winced, and he reduced the volume instantly.

‘It’s me. Its Attia.’

‘We’ve got her!’ Jared sounded hoarse with joy. ‘Attia, this is Jared! Jared Sapiens. Tell me if you can hear me.’ A minute of static. Then her voice, distorted, but intelligible. ‘Is it really you?’ Jared glanced at Claudia, but her face made his triumph die. She looked oddly stricken, as if the girl’s voice had brought back dark memories of the Prison.

Quietly he said, ‘Claudia and I are both here. Are you well, Attia? Are you safe?’ Crackle. Then another voice, sharp as acid. ‘Where’s Finn?’ Claudia breathed out, slowly. ‘Keiro?’

‘Who bloody else. Where is he, Claudia? Where’s the Prince? Are you there, oathbrother? Are you listening to me, because I’m going to break your filthy neck.’

‘He’s not here.’ Claudia moved closer to the screen. It was rippling frantically. Jared made a few adjustments. ‘There,’ he said quietly.

She saw Keiro.

He looked just the same. His hair was long and he’d tied it back; he wore some flashy coat with knives in his belt. There was a fierce anger in his eyes. He must be able to see her too, because instant scorn broke over his face. ‘Still in the silks and satins then.’ Behind him, she saw Attia, in the shadows of some cluttered room. Their eyes met. Claudia said, ‘Listen, have you seen my father?’ Keiro let his breath out in a silent whistle. Glancing at Attia he said, ‘So it’s true? He’s Inside?’ Her voice sounded small. ‘Yes. He took both Keys but the Prison has them now. It’s got this fanatical plan. . . It wants to build . .

‘A body. We know’ Keiro enjoyed the brief silence of their astonishment, but Attia snatched the box back and said, ‘Is Finn all right? What’s happening there?’

‘The Warden sabotaged the Portal.’ Jared looked strained, as if time was short. ‘I’ve made some repairs but . . . We can’t get you Out yet.’

‘Then …’

‘Listen to me. The Warden is the only one who can help you. Try and find him. How are you seeing us?’

‘Through a musical box.’

‘Keep it with you. I might ...’

‘Yes, but Finn!’ Attia was pale with anxiety. ‘Where’s Finn?’ Around her the nursery suddenly rippled. Keiro yelled in alarm. ‘What was that?’ Attia stared. The whole fabric of the world had thinned.

She had a sudden terror that she might somehow fall through it, down, like Sapphique, into the eternal blackness. And then the grimy carpet was firm under her feet and Keiro was saying, ‘The Prison must be furious. We have to go.’

‘Claudia!’ Attia shook the box, seeing only herself in the mirror. ‘Are you still there?’ Voices, arguing. Noise, movement, a door opening. And then a voice said, ‘Attia. This is Finn.’ The screen lit, and she saw him.

She couldn’t speak.

Words eluded her; there were so many of them to say.

She managed his name. ‘Finn...?’

‘Are you both all right? Keiro, are you there?’ She felt Keiro standing close behind her. His voice, when it came, was dark and mocking.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Look at you.’

14

None of us know who we are any more.

THE STEEL WOLVES

Finn and Keiro stared at each other.

Years of reading his oathbrother’s moods told Finn this one was savage. Knowing Claudia and Jared were watching he rubbed his flushed face. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Oh I’m just as you’d expect. My oathbrother’s Escaped. I have no gang, no Comitatus, no food, no home, no followers.

I’m an outcast in every Wing, a thief who steals from thieves.

I’m the lowest of the low, Finn. But then, what else do you expect from a halfman?’ Finn closed his eyes. The dagger of the Steel Wolves was in his belt; he felt its edge against his ribs.

‘It’s not all Paradise out here.’

‘Oh really?’ Arms folded, Keiro surveyed hini. ‘You look well set up to me, brother. Hungry, are you?’

‘No, but …’

‘Sore? Dead-beat? Bleeding from fighting off a chain of monsters?’

‘No’

‘Well I am, Prince Finn!’ Keiro exploded into rage. ‘Don’t stand there in your golden palace asking for my sympathy.

What happened to your plans to get us Out!’ Finn’s heart was beating too loud; his skin prickled. He felt Claudia close up behind him; as if she knew he couldn’t answer she said firmly, ‘Jared is doing everything he can. It’s not easy, Keiro. My father saw to that. You’ll have to be patient.’ There was a snort of scorn from the screen.

Finn sat on the metal chair. He leant forward, both hands on the desk, towards them. ‘I haven’t forgotten you. I haven’t abandoned you. I think about you all the time. You must believe me.’ But it was Attia who answered. ‘We do. We’re all right, Finn. Please don’t worry about us. Do you still get the visions?’ The concern in her eyes warmed him a little. ‘Some.

They’re trying medicines, but nothing helps.’

‘Attia.’ It was Jared who interrupted, his voice intrigued.

‘Tell me, are you near any object that might be emitting power? Any part of the Prison’s systems?’

‘I don’t know.. . We’re in some sort of. . . nursery’

‘Did she say nursery?’ Claudia whispered.

Finn shrugged. All he was, watching was Keiro’s silence.

‘It’s just …’ Jared was puzzled. ‘There are some peculiar readings coming in.As if some potent source of energy was very close to you.’ Attia said, ‘It must be the Glove. The Prison wants—’ Her voice stopped, abruptly. There was a scuffle and a mutter, and the screen tilted and flickered and went black.

Jared said, ‘Attia! Are you all right?’ Muffled and angry; Keiro’s voice hissed, ‘Shut up!’Then, louder, ‘The Prison’s unstable. We’re getting out of here.’ A muffled yelp. A whiplash of steel.

‘Keiro?’ Finn leapt up. ‘He’s drawn his sword. Keiro!

What’s going on there?’ A clatter. Distinctly they heard Attia’s hiss of fear. ‘The puppets,’ she breathed.

Then nothing but static.

She’d bitten Keiro’s hand; now he jerked it away from her mouth and she gasped. ‘Look. Look!’ He turned, and saw. The puppet on the end of the row was moving. The strings that worked it were taut from the roof’s darkness, and its head was lifting, turning smoothly to look at them.

One lank hand rose and pointed. The jaw clacked.

I told you not to betray me, it said.

Attia backed, holding the musical box tight, but it gave a broken clank in her hands and the mirror cracked into pieces.

She threw it down.

The puppet jerked upright, knock.-kneed, rickety as a skeleton. Its face was some ancient harlequin, the nose hooked and hideous. It wore a striped jester’s cap and bells.

Its eyes were red.

‘We haven’t,’ Keiro said rapidly. ‘We heard a voice and came to find out what it was. We’ve got the Glove safe and we’re still bringing it to you. I didn’t let her tell them about it. You saw that.’ Attia scowled at him. Her mouth was sore where he had clamped his hand over it.

I saw. The wooden jaw opened and closed, but its voice, with its faint echo, came from nowhere. You interest me, Prisoner. I could destroy you and yet you defy me.

‘What’s new?’ Keiro’s drawl was sarcastic. ‘You could destroy us all, any time.’ He stepped up to the puppet, his handsome face to its ugliness. ‘Or is there some twisted remnant of your programming left? He says, the Sapient out there, that you were made to be a Paradise. We should have had everything. So what went wrong? What did you do, Prison? What turned you into a monster?’ Attia stared at him, appalled.

The puppet raised its hands and feet and danced, a slow, macabre caper.

Men went wrong. Men like you, who seem so bold and are in fact riddled with fears. Crawl back to your horse and ride on my road, Prisoner.

‘I’m not afraid of you.’ No? Shall I tell you then, Keiro, the answer to u’hat torments you? It would end the pain for ever, because you’d know. The puppet’s face bobbed mockingly before him. You’d know how far the circuitry and plastic reaches into your body, how much of you is flesh and blood, how much of you belongs to me.

‘I already know.’ Attia was shocked at the whisper his voice had become.

No you don’t. None of you know. To find out you must open up your heart, and die. Unless I tell you. Shall I tell you, Keiro?

‘No.’ Let me tell you now. Let me end the uncertainty.

Keiro looked up. His eyes were blue and blazing with anger. ‘We’ll go back to your stinking road. But I swear one day it’ll be me doing the tormenting.’ I can see you want to know. Very well. In fact, you are—

The sword slashed. With a yell of fury Keiro sliced through the strings and the puppet collapsed, a heap of splinters and a mask.

Keiro stamped on them; the face cracked under his boot.

He raised his face, eyes blazing. ‘Do you see that! Having a body will make you vulnerable, Prison-puppet. If you have a body you can die!’ The dark nursery was silent.

Breathing hard, he whirled round and saw Attia’s face.

He scowled. ‘I suppose that stupid grin is because Finn is alive.’

‘Not entirely,’ she said.

Claudia ran down the stairs next morning, slipping past the retainers carrying the Queen’s breakfast. Probably the Pretender’s too, she thought. She glanced up at the Ivory Tower, wondering how he was enjoying his splendour. If he was some farm-boy, it would all be new to him. And yet his manner had been so assured. His hands so smooth!

Quickly, before the doubts came back, she turned into the stables, past the rows of cybersteeds to the real horses at the end.

Jared was adjusting his saddle.

‘You haven’t got much baggage,’ she muttered.

‘The Sapient carries all he needs in his heart. Which is from where, Claudia?’

‘Martor Sapiens. The Illuminatus. Book One.’ She watched Finn lead out his horse, surprised. ‘Are you coming too?’

‘You suggested it.’ She had forgotten that. It rather annoyed her now; she wanted to see Jared on his way by herself, to say goodbye to him privately. He might be away for days, and the Court would be even more hateful in his absence.

If Finn noticed he said nothing, turning and swinging himself up into the saddle expertly. Riding had come naturally to him, though he had no memory of doing it before the Prison. He waited, while Claudia’s horse was saddled and the groom held her foot while she mounted

‘Is that outfit in Era?’ he asked quietly.

‘You know very well it isn’t.’ She wore a boy’s riding coat and trousers under her skirt.

Watching Jared turn his horse she said suddenly, ‘Change your plans, Master, don’t go. After what happened last night…‘

‘I have to go, Claudia.’ His voice was strained and low; he rubbed the horse’s neck gently. ‘Please don’t make me feel worse than I do about it.’ She didn’t see why. It would mean work on the Portal would pause, just when they were having success. But he was her tutor, and though he rarely exercised it, his authority was real. Besides, she sensed he had his own reasons for going. The Sapienti returned yearly to the Academy; perhaps his superiors had summoned him.

‘I’ll miss you.’ He looked up, and for a moment she thought there was a desolation in his green eyes. Then he smiled and it was gone.

‘And I you, Claudia.’ They rode slowly through the courtyards and quadrangles of the vast palace. Servants drawing water and hauling in waggonloads of kindling stared, their eyes on Finn. It made him ride proudly, trying to look like a prince. Housemaids shaking sheets outside the laundry stopped to watch. At the corner of the scrivener’s offices Claudia saw Medlicote come out of the door. As she rode past he bowed, elaborately.

Jared raised an eyebrow. ‘That looks meaningful.’

‘Leave him to me.’

‘I don’t like leaving you with that problem, Claudia.’

‘They won’t try anything, Master. Not if the Pretender is their candidate.’ Jared nodded, the breeze lifting his dark hair. Then he said, ‘Finn, what did Attia mean by the Glove?’ Finn shrugged. ‘Sapphique made a wager with the Prison once. Some say they played dice, but Gildas had a version where they told riddles. Anyway, the Prison lost.’

‘So what happened?’ Claudia asked.

‘If you were a Prisoner you’d have guessed. Incarceron never loses. It shed the skin from its claw and vanished. But Sapphique took the skin and made a glove and used it to cover his maimed hand. The story says when he put it on he knew all the Prison’s secrets.’

‘Including the way Out?’

‘Presumably.’

‘So why did Attia mention it?’

‘Why did Keiro try to stop her mentioning it, rather?’ Jared’s voice was thoughtful. He glanced at Finn. ‘Keiro’s anger troubles you.’

‘I hate him like that.’

‘It will pass.’

‘I’m more worried about what happened to cut them off.’ Claudia glanced at Jared, who nodded.

As they reached the cobbled entrance the noise of the clattering hooves drowned talk. They rode under three gateways and through the vast Barbican with its murder—

holes and portcullis. The vaguely medieval arrowslits were not Era, of course, but the Queen thought them picturesque.

They had always made the Warden tut with displeasure.

Beyond, the green fields of the Realm stretched out in their morning beauty. Claudia breathed a sigh of relief. She grinned at Finn. ‘Let’s gallop.’ He nodded. ‘Race you up the hill.’ It was a joy to be riding, and free of the Court. She urged the horse on, and the breeze lifted her hair, and the sky was blue and sunlit. On all sides in the golden fields birds sang among the corn; as the lanes divided and narrowed vast hedges rose on each side, the deep tracks hollowed with apparent age. She had no idea how much of this landscape was real – certainly some of the birds, and the hosts of butterflies . . . surely they were real. In truth, if they weren’t, she didn’t want to know. Why not accept the illusion, just for one day?

The three of them slowed on the top of a small hill and gazed back at the Court. Its towers and pinnacles earned in the sun. Bells were ringing, and the glass roof shone like diamond.

Jared sighed. ‘It’s strange how beguiling illusion can be.’

‘You always told me to beware of it,’ Claudia said.

‘So you should. As a society we have lost the ability to tell the real from the fake. Most of the Court, at least, don’t even care which is which. It concerns the Sapienti greatly.’

‘Maybe they should enter the Prison,’ Finn muttered. ‘We never had any trouble.’ Jared glanced at Claudia, and they both thought of the watch, which she wore now, safe in her deepest pocket.

It was two leagues to the fringes of the Forest, and almost midday when they approached it.

The road to this point had been broad and well-used – traffic between the Court and the western villages was steady, and the ruts of wheels had cut deep in the baked mud.

But once under the green canopy the trees gradually closed in, and vast deer-nibbled boughs of mighty oaks gave way to the tangled undergrowth of the wildwood. Branches hung heavily overhead, the sky barely seen through their meshed leaves.

Finally they came to the crossroads and the track that branched off to the Academy. It ran downhill through a green clearing, crossed a stream on a clapperbridge and wound its way up the other side into the wood again.

Jared stopped. ‘I’ll go on from here alone, Claudia.’

‘Master . . .‘

‘You need to get back. Finn must be there for the investigation.’

‘I don’t see the point,’ Finn growled.

‘It’s vital. You have no memories, so you must impress them by your personality. By the strength you have, Finn.’ Finn gazed at him. ‘I don’t know I have any, Master.’

‘I believe you do.’ Jared smiled, calmly. ‘Now, I ask you to look after Claudia, while I’m gone.’ Finn raised an eyebrow and Claudia snapped, ‘I can look after myself.’

‘And you must look after him. I depend on both of you.’

‘Don’t worry about us, Master.’ Claudia leant over and kissed him. He smiled, and turned the horse, but she saw how under his calm there was a tension as if this separation meant more than she knew.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘Sorry?’

‘For going.’ She shook her head. ‘You’ll only be a few days.’

‘I did what I could.’ His eyes were dark in the forest shadows. ‘Remember me kindly, Claudia.’ She suddenly had nothing to say. A chill struck her; she wanted to stop him, to call after him, but he had urged the horse and it was already striding away down the lane.