But it could easily be him. Right age, right build. Hair." She smiled. "Right eyes."
She paced the room, consumed with restlessness. She didn't want to say how the boy's condition had appalled her. She knew that the failure of the Incarceron Experiment was a terrible blow, that all the Sapienti would be rocked by it.
Crouching suddenly by the dying fire, she said, "Master, you need to sleep and so do I.
Tomorrow I'll insist you travel with me. We can read Alegon's Histories till Alys falls asleep and then we can talk. Tonight, I'll just say this. If he isn't Giles, he could be. We could make a case out that he is. With the old man's testament and the mark on the boy's wrist, there would be doubt. Enough doubt to stop the marriage."
"His DNA..."
"Not Protocol. You know that."
He shook his head. "Claudia, I can't believe ... This is impossible ..."
"Think about it." She got up and crossed to the door. "Because even if this boy is not
Giles, Giles is in there somewhere. Caspar's not the Heir, Jared. And I intend to prove that. If it means taking on the Queen and my father, I'll do it."
At the door she paused, not wanting to leave him in this pain, wanting to say something that would ease his distress. "We have to help him. We have to help all of them in that hell."
He had his back to her, but he nodded. Bleakly he said, "Go to bed, Claudia."
She slipped out into the dim corridor. One candle burned far down in an alcove. As she walked her dress swished the dry rushes on the floor, and at her door she paused and looked back.
The inn seemed silent. But outside the door that must be
Caspar's, a sudden small movement made her stare, and she bit her lip in dismay.
The big man, Fax, was lying there across two chairs.
He was looking straight at her. Ironically, with a leer that chilled her, he waved the tankard in his hand.
17
In ancient statutes Justice was always blind. But what if it sees, sees everything, and its
Eye is cold and without Mercy? Who would be safe from such a gaze?
Year by year Incarceron tightened its grip. It made a hell of what should have been
Heaven.
The Gate is locked; those Outside cannot hear our cries. So, in secret, I began to fashion a key.
-Lord Calliston's Diary
As he passed under the gate of the City, Finn saw it had teeth.
It was designed like a mouth, gaping wide, fanged with metal incisors that looked razorsharp. He guessed there was some mechanism that closed it in emergencies, creating an impassible interlocking bite.
He glanced at Gildas, leaning wearily on the wagon. The old man was bruised and his lip swollen from the blow they had given him. Finn said, "There must be some of your people here."
The Sapient scratched his face with his tied hands and said dryly, "If so, they don't command much respect."
Finn frowned. This was all Keiro's fault. The first thing the
Crane-men had done after dragging them out of the trap had been to search Gildas's pack. They had tipped out the powders and ointments, the carefully wrapped quills, the book of the Songs of Sapphique he always carried. None of those mattered. But when they had found the packets of meat, they had looked at one another. One of them, a thin scrawny man, had turned on his stilts and snapped, "So you're the thieves."
"Listen, friend," Gildas had said darkly, "we had no idea the sheep was yours. Everyone has to eat. I'll pay you, with my learning. I am a Sapient of some skill."
"Oh, you'll pay, old man." The man's stare had been level. He had looked at his comrades; they had seemed amused. "With your hands, I would think, when the Justices see this."
Finn had been tied up, so tightly, the cords burned his skin. Dragged outside, he had seen a small cart harnessed to a donkey; the Crane-men leaped up onto it, sliding expertly out of the strange metal calipers.
Roped behind, Finn had stumbled beside the old man along the road that led to the City.
Twice he had glanced back, hoping to see Keiro or perhaps Attia, just a glimpse, a brief wave, but the forest was far away now, a distant glimmering of impossible colors, and the road ran straight as an arrow down the long metallic slope, the ground on each side studded with spikes and jagged with chasms.
Amazed at such defenses, he muttered, "What are they so scared of?"
Gildas scowled. "Attack, clearly. They're anxious to be in before Lightsout."
More than anxious. Almost all of the great crowds they had seen earlier were already inside the wall; as they hurried to the gate, a horn rang out in the citadel, and the Cranemen had urged the donkey on fiercely, so that Gildas was breathless with the pace, and almost fell.
Now, safe inside, Finn heard the clang of a portcullis and the rattle of chains. Had Keiro and Attia gotten here too? Or were they out there in the wood? He knew the Crane-men would have found the Key if he'd kept it, but the thought of Keiro having it, perhaps speaking to Claudia with it, made him nervous. And there was another thought that nagged at him, but he would not think of that. Not yet.
"Come on." The leader of the foraging party pulled him upright. "We have to do this tonight. Before the Festival."
As he trudged through the streets, Finn thought he had never seen such a hive of people.
The lanes and alleyways were festooned with small lanterns; when the Prison lights went off the world was transformed instantly into a network of tiny twinkling silver sparks, beautiful and brilliant. There were thousands of inmates, setting up tents, bargaining in vast bazaars, searching for shelter, herding sheep and cyber-horses into corrals and market squares. He saw beggars without hands, blinded, missing lips and ears. He saw disfiguring diseases that made him gasp and turn away. And yet no half-men. Here too it seemed, that abomination was restricted to animals.
The noise of clattering hooves was deafening; the stink of dung and sweat, of crushed straw and the sudden, vivid sweetness of sandalwood, of lemons. Dogs ran everywhere, tugging over food sacks, rummaging in drains, and slyly behind them the small copperscaled rats that bred so fast slunk into cracks and doorways, their tiny eyes red.
And he saw that images of Sapphique were on every corner, mounted above doorways and windows, a Sapphique who held out his right hand to show the missing finger, who held in the left what Finn recognized, with a silent leap of his heart, as a crystal Key.
"Do you see that?"
"I see it." Gildas sat breathlessly on a step while one of their captors moved into the crowd. "This is obviously some sort of festival. Perhaps in Sapphique's honor."
"These Justices ..."
"Leave the talking to me." Gildas straightened, tried to adjust his robe. "Don't say a word.
Once they know what I am, we'll be released and this whole mess will be sorted. A
Sapient will be listened to."