"He serves me." Gildas heaved himself up and stood hastily. "Only me. But I give him to you, sisters, I offer him to you in reparation for our crime. A fair exchange."
Finn glared at him, astonished. "No! You can't do that!"
Gildas turned. He was a small shrunken shape in the darkness, but his eyes were hard and crafty with sudden inspiration, his breathing ragged. He looked meaningfully at the ring on Finn's finger. "I have no choice."
The three crones turned to one another. They did not speak, bur some knowledge seemed to pass between them. One cackled a sudden laugh that made Finn sweat and the man behind him mutter with terror.
"Shall we?"
"Should we?"
"Could we?"
"We accept." They spoke it in unison. Then the crone on the left bent and picked up the spindle. Her cracked fingers spun it; she took the thread and pulled it out between finger and thumb. "He will be the One. He will be the Tribute."
Finn swallowed. He felt weak, his back sheened with cold sweat. "What tribute?"
The second sister measured the thread, a short span. The third crone took the shears.
Carefully she cut the thread and it fell silently in the dust.
"The Tribute we owe," she whispered, "to the Beast."
KEIRO AND Attia reached the City just before Lightsout, the last league on the back of a wagon whose driver never even noticed them. Outside the gate they jumped off.
"Now what?" she whispered.
"We go straight in. Everyone else is."
He strode off and she glared at his back, then ran after him.
There was a smaller gate, and to the left a narrow slit in the wall. She wondered what it was for, then she saw that the guards were making everyone walk through it.
She looked back. The road was empty. Far out in the silent plain the defenses waited; high above, what might have been a bird circled like a silver spark in the dim mists.
Keiro pushed her forward. "You first."
As they walked up, the guard ran a practiced eye over them, then jerked his head toward the slit. Attia walked through. It was a dim, smelly passageway, and she emerged in the cobbled street of the City.
Keiro took one step after her.
Instantly, an alarm rang. Keiro turned. A soft, urgent bleep in the wall. Just above, Incarceron opened an Eye and stared.
The guard, who had been closing the gate, stopped. He spun around, drawing his sword.
"Well, you don't look like ..."
With one blow to the stomach Keiro doubled him up; another sent him crashing against the wall. He lay crumpled. Keiro took a breath, then crossed to the panel and flicked the alarm off. When he turned Attia was staring at him. "Why you? Why not me?"
"Who cares?" He strode quickly past her. "It probably sensed the Key."
She stared at his back, at the rich jerkin and the mane of hair he pushed so carelessly back. Quietly, so he couldn't hear her, she said, "So why are you so scared?"
WHEN THE carriage dipped as he climbed in, Claudia sighed with relief. "I thought you'd never come."
She turned from the window and the words died in her mouth.
"I'm touched," her father said dryly.
He pulled off one glove and flicked dust from the seat. Then he laid his stick and a book beside him, and called, "Drive on.
The carriage creaked as the horses were whipped up. In a moment of jangling harness and the swaying turn in the inn-yard Claudia tried to stop herself falling into his trap. But the anxiety was too much. "Where's Jared? I thought..."
"I asked him to travel with Alys in the third coach this morning. I felt we should talk."
It was an insult, of course, though Jared wouldn't care and Alys would be thrilled to have him to herself. But to treat a Sapient like a servant... She was rigid with fury.
Her father watched her a moment, then gazed out of the window, and she saw that he had allowed a little more gray into his beard, so that his look of grave distinction was stronger than ever.
He said, "Claudia, a few days ago you asked me about your mother."
If he had struck her, she couldn't have been more astonished. Then, instantly, she was on the alert. It was just like him to take the initiative, to turn the game around, to attack. He was a master chess player at the Court. She was a pawn on his board, a pawn he would make a queen, despite everything.
Outside, a soft summer rain was drenching the fields. It smelled sweet and fresh. She said, "Yes I did."
He gazed out at the countryside, his fingers playing with the black gloves. "It is very hard for me to speak about her, but today, on this journey toward everything I have always worked for, perhaps the time has come." Claudia bit her lip.
All she felt was fear. And for a moment, just a fragment of time, something she had never felt before. She felt sorry for him.
18
We have paid the tribute of the dearest and best and now we await the outcome. If it takes centuries, we will not forget. Like wolves we will stand guard. If revenge must be taken we will take it.
-The Steel Wolves
"I married in middle age." John Arlex watched the heavy foliage of summer shadow the interior of the coach with glints of sunlight. "I was a wealthy man our family has always been part of the Court and the post of Warden had been mine from youth. A great responsibility, Claudia. You have no idea how great."
He sighed briefly.
The coach jolted over stones. In the pocket of her traveling coat, she felt the crystal Key tap against her knee, remembered Finns fear, his starved face. Were they all like that, the
Prisoners her father watched over?
"Helena was a beautiful and elegant woman. Ours was not an arranged marriage, but a chance meeting at a winter ball at the Court. She was a Lady of the Chamber to the last
Queen, Giles's mother, an orphan, the last of her line."