Sapphique Read online

  “It barely matters.” Captain Soames, a gray, stocky man, sounded gloomy. “Eight pieces of ordnance could shell us all to pieces.”

  “What do we have?” Finn asked quietly.

  “Two cannon, my lord. One authentic Era, the other a mishmash of base metal—it will likely explode if we try to fire it. Crossbows, arquebuses, pikemen, archers. Ten men with muskets. About eighty cavalry.”

  “I’ve known worse odds,” Finn said, thinking of a few ambushes the Comitatus had tried.

  “I’m sure,” Claudia said acidly. “And what were the casualties like?”

  He shrugged. “In the Prison, no one counted.”

  Below them, a trumpet rang out, once, twice, three times. With a great grinding of gears, the drawbridge began to creak down.

  Captain Soames went to the circular stair. “Steady there. And be prepared to pull it up if I give the order.”

  Claudia lowered the visor. “They’re looking. No one’s making any moves.”

  “The Queen hasn’t arrived. A man who came in last night says she and the Council are making a royal progress to show off the Pretender; they’re in Mayfield, and will be here in hours.”

  With a thud, the drawbridge was down. The flock of black swans on the moat skidded noisily down to the weedy end and flapped.

  Claudia leaned over the battlements.

  The women walked out slowly, with bundles on their backs. Some carried children. Older girls walked hand in hand with their brothers and sisters. They turned, waving at the windows. Behind, on a great wain pulled by the biggest carthorse, the older servants that were leaving sat stoically, rocking with the bumps on the wooden bridge.

  Finn counted twenty-two. “Is Ralph going?”

  Claudia laughed. “I ordered him to. He said, ‘Yes, my lady. And what will you be requiring for dinner tonight?’ He thinks this place would fall down without him.”

  “He, like all of us, serves the Warden,” Captain Soames said. “No disrespect to you, my lady, but the Warden is our master. If he’s not here, we guard his house.”

  Claudia frowned. “My father doesn’t deserve any of you.”

  But she said it so quietly, only Finn heard her.

  When Soames had gone to supervise the drawbridge being raised Finn stood beside her, watching the girls trudge down into the Queen’s camp.

  “They’ll be questioned. Who’s here, our plans.”

  “I know. But I won’t be responsible for their deaths.”

  “You think it will come to that?”

  She glanced at him. “We have to set up talks. Play for time. Work on the Portal.”

  Finn nodded. She walked past him to the stairs and said over her shoulder, “Come on. You shouldn’t stand up here. One arrow from that camp and it would be all over.”

  He looked at her, and just as she got to the stairs, he said, “You do believe me, Claudia, don’t you? I need you to believe that I remember.”

  “Of course I believe you,” she said. “Now come on.”

  But she had her back to him, and she didn’t turn around.

  “IT’S DARK. Hold that torch higher.”

  Keiro’s voice came impatiently down the shaft; the echoes made it hollow and strange. Attia stretched up as high as she could, but the torchlight showed her nothing of him. Below her Rix shouted, “What can you see?”

  “I can’t see anything. I’m going on.”

  Scrapes and clangs. Muttered swearing that the shaft took and whispered to itself. Worried, Attia called, “Be careful.”

  He didn’t bother to answer. The ladder twisted and jerked as she struggled to hold it still; Rix came and hauled on it with all his weight, and it was easier. She said, “Listen, Rix. While we’re alone. You have to listen to me. Keiro will steal the Glove from you. Why not pull a stunt on him?”

  He smiled, sly. “You mean give it to you, and carry a fake one? Oh my poor Attia. Is this the limit of your cunning? A child could do better.”

  She glared at him. “At least I won’t give it to the Prison. At least I won’t kill us all.”

  He winked. “Incarceron is my father, Attia. I am born of its cells. It will not betray me.”

  Disgusted, she gripped the ladder.

  And realized it was still.

  “Keiro?”

  They waited, hearing the thud-thud, thud-thud of the Prison’s heart.

  “Keiro? Answer me.”

  The ladder swung easily now. No one was on it.

  “Keiro!”

  There was a sound, but it was muffled and far away.

  Hastily she shoved the torch into Rix’s hands. “He’s found something. I’m going up.”

  As she hauled herself up the first slippery rungs, he said, “If it’s trouble, say the word problem. I’ll understand.”

  She stared at his pock-marked face, his gap-toothed grin. Then she swung down and put her face close to his.

  “Just how crazy are you, Rix? A lot, or not at all? Because I’m beginning to be very unsure.”

  He arched one eyebrow. “I am the Dark Enchanter, Attia. I am unknowable.”

  The ladder wriggled and slid under her as if it were alive. She turned and climbed quickly, soon breathless, hauling her weight up. Her hands slid on the mud Keiro’s boots had left; the heat grew as she went up, a murky sulfurous stench that reminded her uneasily of Rix’s idea of the magma chamber.

  Her arms ached. Each step now was an effort and the torch, far below, was no more than a spark in the darkness. She hauled herself up one more rung and hung, giddily.

  And then she realized there was no shaft wall in front of her, but a faintly lit space.

  And a pair of boots.

  They were black, rather battered, with a silver buckle on one and broken stitching on the other. And whoever wore them was bending down, because his shadow was over her and he was saying, “How very pleasant to meet you again, Attia.”

  And he reached down and grabbed her chin and jerked her face up, and she saw his cold smile.

  26

  Watch, be silent, act only when the moment is right.

  —The Steel Wolves

  The study door looked exactly the same; black as ebony, the black swan spitting defiance down at them, its eye bright as a diamond.

  “This opened it once before.” Claudia waited impatiently as the disc hummed. Behind her, Finn stood in the long corridor, gazing down at the vases and suits of armor.

  “A bit better than the Court cellars,” he said. “But are you sure it will be the same Portal? How can it be?”

  The disc clicked. “Don’t ask me.” She reached up and snapped it off. “Jared had a theory it was some halfway point between here and the Prison.”

  “Meaning we lose size in there?”

  “I don’t know.” The door lock chuntered, she turned the handle, and it opened.

  When he followed her in through the dizzying threshold, Finn stared around. Then he nodded. “Amazing.”

  The Portal was the room he had grown to know in the Palace. All Jared’s contraptions and wires still trailed from the controls; the huge feather lay curled in a corner, drifting as the breeze took it. The room hummed in its tilted silence, its solitary desk and chair enigmatic as ever.

  Claudia crossed the floor and said, “Incarceron.”

  A small drawer rolled open. Inside he saw a black cushion with an empty key shape in it. “This is where I stole the Key. It seems so long ago. I was so scared that day! So. Where do we start?”

  He shrugged. “You’re the one who had Jared for a tutor.”

  “He worked too fast to explain everything to me.”

  “Well, there must be notes. Diagrams …”

  “There are.” Piled on the desk were pages of writing in Jared’s spidery script, a book of drawings, lists of equations. Claudia picked one up and sighed. “We’d better start. This could take all night.”

  He didn’t answer, so she looked up and saw his face. She stood quickly. “Finn.”


  He was pale; there was a tinge of blue around his lips. She grabbed him and made him sit on the floor, kicking circuits aside. “Be calm. Breathe slowly. Have you got any of those pills Jared made up?”

  He shook his head, feeling the prickling agony invade and darken his sight, feeling the shame and sheer anger flood him. “I’ll be fine,” he heard himself mumble. “I’ll be fine.”

  He preferred darkness. He put his hands over his eyes and sat there, against the gray wall, numb, breathing, counting. After a while Claudia went; there was shouting, running feet. A cup was pressed into his hand. “Water,” she said.

  Then, “Ralph will stay with you. I have to go. The Queen has come.”

  He wanted to stand but couldn’t. He wanted her to stay, but she was gone.

  Ralph’s hand was on his shoulder, the quavery voice in his ear. “I’m with you, sire.”

  This shouldn’t happen. If he remembered, he was cured.

  He should be cured.

  ATTIA CLIMBED over the top of the ladder and stood upright.

  The Warden dropped her hand. “Welcome to the heart of Incarceron.”

  They eyed each other. He wore a dark suit still, but his skin was grained now with the dirt of the Prison, his hair unkempt and graying. A firelock was thrust into his belt.

  Behind him, in the red room Keiro stood, looking as if his temper was under tight control. Three men held weapons on him.

  “Our thief friend here does not seem to have the Glove. So you must.”

  Attia shrugged. “Wrong again.” She took her coat off and flung it down. “See for yourself.”

  The Warden raised an eyebrow. He kicked the coat to one of the Prisoners, who searched it rapidly.

  “Nothing, sire.”

  “Then I must search you, Attia.”

  He was rough and thorough, and she scorched with anger, but when the muffled cry came up the shaft, he stopped abruptly. “Is that the mountebank Rix?”

  She was surprised he didn’t know. “Yes.”

  “Get him up here. Now.”

  She walked to the edge of the shaft and crouched down.

  “Rix! Come up. It’s safe. No problems.”

  The Warden pulled her back and made a sign to one of his men. As Rix made his way noisily up the swinging ladder the man knelt, aiming his firelock directly at the hole. When Rix’s head came up, he stared straight into the muzzle of the gun.

  “Slowly, magician.” The Warden crouched, his eyes gray and ashen. “Very slowly, if you want to keep your head.”

  Attia glanced at Keiro. He raised his eyebrows and she shook her head, the tiniest movement. They watched Rix.

  He climbed out of the shaft and held his hands wide of his body.

  “The Glove?” the Warden said.

  “Hidden. In a secret place that I will divulge only to Incarceron itself.”

  The Warden sighed, took out a handkerchief that was still almost white, and wiped his hands. Wearily he said, “Search him.”

  They were even harder on Rix. A few blows to keep him quiet, his pack ripped apart, his body scoured.

  They found hidden coins, colored handkerchiefs, two mice, a collapsible dove cage. They found hidden pockets, false sleeves, reversible linings. But no Glove.

  The Warden sat watching, and Keiro lazed defiantly on the tiled floor. Attia took the chance to stare around. They were in a vast hall of black and white tiles. It stretched into the distance, the walls hung with red satin, sagging in great swathes. At the far end, so distant it could barely be seen, was a long table flanked by standing candlesticks, branches lit with tiny flames.

  Finally the prisoners stood back. “There’s nothing else on him, sire. He’s clean.”

  Behind her, Attia felt Keiro sit up slowly.

  “I see.” The Warden’s smile was wintry. “Well, Rix, you disappoint me. But if you wish to speak to Incarceron, then speak. The Prison hears you.”

  Rix bowed. He buttoned his ragged coat and summoned his dignity. “Then the Prison’s majesty will hear my request. I ask to speak to Incarceron face-to-face. As Sapphique did.”

  There was a soft laughter.

  It came out of the walls and the floor and the roof, and the armed men looked around in terror.

  “What do you say to that?” the Warden asked.

  “I say the Prisoner is overbold, and that I could devour him now and scour the very circuits of his brain for this knowledge.”

  Rix knelt humbly. “All my life I have dreamed of you. I have guarded your Glove, and I have longed to bring it to you. Allow your servant this privilege.”

  Keiro snorted with scorn.

  Rix glanced at Attia.

  His eyes flickered to the shaft, then back. It was such a swift movement, she almost missed it, but she looked and saw the string.

  It was barely visible, very thin and transparent, the stuff he used in his act for levitating objects. It was looped around a rung of the ladder, and it trailed down into the shaft.

  Of course. There had been no Eyes in the shaft.

  She made a small step toward it.

  The Prison’s voice was cool and metallic. “I am so moved, Rix. The Warden will bring you to me, and yes, you will see me face-to-face. You will tell me where the Glove is and then for your reward I will very slowly and very carefully destroy you, atom by atom, for centuries. You will scream like the prisoners in your patchbooks, like Prometheus eaten daily by the eagle, like Loki as poison drips on his face. When I have Escaped and everyone else is dead, your struggles will still convulse the Prison.”

  Rix bowed, white-faced.

  “John Arlex.”

  The Warden said drily, “What now?”

  “Bring them all.”

  Attia moved. With a yell to Keiro, she jumped for the shaft, was racing down it. The string swung; she grabbed at it, hauled it up, snatched the dry scaly thing it held, thrust it down her shirt.

  Then arms grabbed her; she kicked and bit, but the Warden’s men hauled her up and she saw Keiro sprawled and the Warden standing over him, weapon in hand.

  Claudia’s father stared at her in mock dismay. “Escape, Attia? There is no Escape. For any of us.”

  Morose, he met her eyes and his gaze was bleak. Then he stalked away, down the long hall. “Bring them.”

  Keiro wiped blood from his nose. He gave her one look.

  Rix too.

  This time she nodded.

  JARED TURNED slowly.

  “My Lord of Steen,” he said.

  Caspar leaned against a tree trunk. He wore a breastplate of such dazzling steel, it hurt to look at it, and his breeches and boots were of finest leather.

  “I see my lord is dressed for war,” Jared murmured.

  “You didn’t used to be so sarcastic, Master.”

  “I’m sorry. I have had a trying time.”

  Caspar grinned. “My mother will be amazed you survived. She’s been waiting for a message from the Academy for days, but none has come.” He stepped forward. “Did you kill him, Master, with some Sapient potion? Or do you have secret fighting skills?”

  Jared looked down at his delicate hands. “Let’s say I surprised even myself, sire. But is the Queen here?”

  Caspar pointed. “Oh yes. She wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  A white horse. It was saddled with the finest white leather fittings, and on it Sia rode sidesaddle, in an austere gown of dark gray. She too wore a breastplate, and a hat with a feather, and around her and before her pikemen marched, their weapons slanted in perfect array.

  Jared came to stand by the Earl. “What’s happening?”

  “It’s a parlay. They’ll talk each other to death. Look, there’s Claudia.”

  Jared’s breath tightened as he saw her. She was standing on the gatehouse roof, and Soames and Alys were with her.

  “Where’s Finn?” He murmured it to himself, but Caspar heard and snorted.

  “Tired out maybe.” He grinned sidelong at Jared. “A h, Master Sapient
, she’s cast both of us off now. I admit I always had something of an eye for Claudia, but marrying her—that was my mother’s plan. She would have turned out far too fierce and bossy, so I don’t care. But it must be hard for you. You and she were always so close. Everyone says so. Until he came along.”

  Jared smiled. “You have a poisonous tongue, Caspar.”

  “Yes. And it stings you, doesn’t it?” He turned with negligent ease. “Perhaps we’ll go down and hear what they’re saying. My mother will be rather proud when I drag you through the ranks and throw you down before her. And I’d love to see Claudia’s face!”

  Jared stepped back. “You don’t seem to be armed, my lord.”

  “No. I’m not.” Caspar smiled sweetly. “But Fax is.”

  A rustle. It came from the left, and Jared turned very slowly to face it, knowing his freedom was over.

  Sitting on a tree trunk, an ax slung between his knees, the huge bulk of his body rippling with chainmail, the prince’s bodyguard nodded, unsmiling.

  “NOT UNTIL my father returns.”

  Claudia’s voice rang out clearly, so that everyone could hear it.

  The Queen sighed daintily. She had dismounted and was sitting in a wicker chair before the gatehouse, so close that even a child could have shot her. Claudia had to admire her complete arrogance.

  “And what do you hope to gain, Claudia? I have enough men and arms to batter the Wardenry to pieces. And we both know your father—a man who led a plot to try and kill me—will never return. He is where he belongs—in the Prison. Now, do be sensible. Hand over the Prisoner Finn, and then you and I can talk. Perhaps I was hasty in my decisions. Perhaps the Wardenry can remain in your possession. Perhaps.”

  Claudia folded her arms. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  “We could have been such friends, Claudia.” Sia waved a bee away. “When I told you once we were alike, I meant it. You would have been the next Queen. Perhaps you still could be.”

  Claudia drew herself up. “I will be the next Queen. Because Finn is the rightful Prince, the real Giles. Not that liar beside you.”

  The Pretender smiled, took off his hat, and bowed. His right arm was strapped into a black sling and he wore a pistol in his sash, but otherwise he seemed as poised and pleasantly arrogant as ever. He called out, “You don’t believe that, Claudia. Not really.”