If they thought her hard, she would be hard. And yet, as the horses were mounted and the outriders gathered and the coaches began the slow turn to the gatehouse, all she wanted was to be staying here, in the house where she had lived since she was born, and she leaned out of the window and waved and called out all their names, her eyes stinging with sudden tears. "Ralph! Job! Mary-Ellen!"
And they waved back, a storm of handkerchiefs and the white doves rising from the gables and the bees in the honey-suckle buzzing as the carriage rumbled over the wooden drawbridge. In the dark green waters of the moat she saw the house reflected, saw moorhens and swans arrow over it, and behind her in a great procession the wagons and coaches and riders and hounds and falconers of her entourage, of the household of the "warden of Incarceron, on the day his plans began to come to fruition.
Windblown, she threw herself back in the leather seat and blew hair from her eyes. Well, maybe.
THEY WEREmen and yet how could they be?
They were at least eight feet tall. They walked with an odd angular gait, stalking like herons, ignoring the vast drifts of sharp leaves, crunching straight through them.
Finn felt Keiro's hand grip so tight on his arm it hurt. Then his brother breathed a single syllable in his ear.
"Stilts?
Of course. As one of them paced by he saw them up close, knee-high metallic calipers, and the men walked on them expertly, taking long strides, and he saw too that they used the height to touch certain points of the trees, small knots in the trunks, and that the trees instantly sprouted semi-organic fruits that the men harvested.
Turning his head he looked for Gildas, but wherever the Sapient and the girl were hidden, they were invisible to him.
He watched the line of men work down through the trees. As they moved down the hillside they seemed to shrink, and Finn distinctly saw the man on the end shimmer, as if he passed through some disturbance in the air.
After a while only their heads and shoulders showed. Then they were gone.
Keiro waited a long moment before getting up. He gave a soft whistle and a heap of leaves convulsed nearby. Gildas's silvery head came up. He said, "Gone?"
"Far enough."
Keiro watched Attia scramble hurriedly out, then he turned. Taking one look at his oathbrother he said quietly, "Finn?"
It was happening. Looking at the shimmer in the air had done it. Finn's skin crawled with itches, his mouth was dry, his tongue felt stiff. He rubbed his hand over his mouth. "No," he mumbled.
"Get hold of him," Gildas snapped.
From somewhere distant Keiro said, "Wait."
And then Finn was walking. Walking straight to the place, the emptiness between two great boughs of copper where the air had moved as if dust fell through a column of light there, as if a slot in Time opened there. And when he came to k he stopped, stretching both arms before himself as if he were blind. It was a keyhole out of the world.
Through it, a draft blew.
Small flashes of pain stung him. He struggled through them, feeling, touching the edges, bringing his face close, putting his eye to the sliver of light, gazing through.
He saw a shimmer of color. It was so bright it made his eyes water, made him gasp.
Shapes moved there, a green world, a sky as blue as in his dreams, a great buzzing creature of black and amber hurtling toward him.
He cried out and staggered back, felt Keiro grab both arms from behind. "Keep looking, brother. What do you see? What is it, Finn?"
He crumpled. All the strength went from his legs and he collapsed in the leaf-litter. Attia shoved Keiro away. Quickly she poured water into a cup and held it out to Finn; blindly he took it and gulped it down, then closed his eyes and put his head in his hands, dizzy and sick. He retched. Then vomited.
Above him, voices raged. When he could hear, he realized one of them was Attia's, .. treating him like that! Don't you see he's sick!"
Keiro's laugh was scornful. "He'll get over it. He's a seer. He sees things. Things we need to know."
"Don't you care about him at all?"
Finn dragged his head up. The girl was facing up to Keiro, her hands gripped into fists at her sides. Her eyes had lost their bruised look; now they blazed with anger.
Keiro kept his mocking grin. "He's my brother. Of course I care about him."
"You only care about yourself." She turned to Gildas. "And you too. Master. You ..
She stopped. Gildas obviously wasn't listening. He stood leaning one arm on a metal tree, staring ahead. "Come here," he said quietly.
Keiro put his hand out and Finn took it, pulling himself groggily to his feet. They crossed to the Sapient and stood behind him; looking out, they saw what he saw.
The forest ended here. Ahead a narrow road ran down to a City. It stood behind walls in a fiery landscape of bare plains. Houses clustered together, constructed of patches of metal, towers and battlements built of strange dark wood, thatched with tin and copper leaves.
All along the road to it, in long noisy streams of laughter and shouting and song, in crowds and wagons, carrying children and driving flocks of sheep, hundreds and hundreds of people were streaming.
HER KNEES up on the carriage seat, Claudia read the small pad while Alys slept. The carriage bounced; outside, the green woods and fields of the Wardenry rattled by in a cloud of dust and flies.
My name is Gregor Bartlett. This is my testament. I pray those who find it to keep it safe, and when the time comes, to use it, because a great injustice has been done and only I am alive to know about it.
I worked in the Palace from my early years. I was a stable boy and a postillion, then a house servant. I became trusted, rose to be important. I was Valet of the Chamber to the late King, and I remember his first wife, the frail pretty woman from Overseas that he married when they both were young. When his first son, Giles, was born I was given charge of him. I arranged the wet nurse, appointed maids of the nursery. He was the Heir; nothing was spared for his comfort. As the boy grew I came to love him like my own. He was a happy child. Even when his mother died and the King remarried, he lived in his own wing of the Palace, surrounded by his precious toys and pets, his own household. I have no children of my own. The boy became my life. You must believe that.
Gradually, I sensed a change. As he grew, his father came to him less and less. There was a second son now, the Earl Caspar, a squalling noisy baby petted over by the women of the Court. And there was the new Queen.
Sia is a strange, remote woman. They say the King looked out of his carriage once as he was being driven along a forest road, and there she stood, at the crossroads. They say that as he drove past her he saw her eyes--they are strange eyes, with pale irises--and after that moment he could not stop thinking about her. He sent messengers back, but no one was there. He had the nearby villages and estates searched, issued proclamations, offered rewards to his noblemen, but no one could find her. And then, weeks later, as he walked in the gardens of the Palace, he looked up and she was there, sitting by the fountain.
No one knows her parentage, or where she comes from. I believe her to be a sorceress.
What became clear soon after her son was born was her hatred for Giles. She never showed it to the King or his Court; to them she was careful to honor the Heir. But I saw it.
He was betrothed at seven years old to the daughter of the Warden of Incarceron. A haughty little girl, but he seemed to like her...
Claudia smiled. Glancing at Alys she leaned out of the window. Her father's carriage was behind; he must be sharing it with Evian. She scrolled the text down.
... the happiness of his birthday party, a night when we rowed on the lake under the stars and he told me how happy he was. I will never forget his words to me.
The death of his father affected him badly. He became solitary. Did not attend the dances and games. He studied hard. I wonder now if he had begun to fear the Queen. He never said so. Now I will pass to the end. The day before the riding accident I received a message that my sister, who lived at Casa, was sick. I asked Giles for leave to go to her; the dear boy was most concerned, and insisted the kitchens make me up a parcel of delicacies to take her. He also made sure I had a carriage. He waved me off on the steps of the Outer Court. That was the last time I ever saw him.
When I arrived, my sister was in excellent health. She had no knowledge of who had sent the message.
My heart misgave me. I thought of the Queen. I wanted to return at once, but the coachman, who may have been the Queens man, refused, saying the horses were exhausted. I am no longer a rider, but I saddled a horse from the inn and I rode back, galloping hard, all through the night. I will not try to write the agonies of worry I felt. I came over the hill and saw the thousand pinnacles of the Court, and I saw that from every one of them a black pennant flew.
I remember little after that.
They had laid his body on a bier in the Great Council Chamber, and after it was ready, I asked leave to approach him. A message came from the Queen, with a man to escort me. He was the secretary of the Warden, a tall silent man called Medlicote ...