The Queen said, ’I will have silence.’ The Pretender smiled. ‘I was brought up among you until my fifteenth year. Many of you will remember me. You, Lord Burgogne. You will remember the times I borrowed your fine horses, the time I lost your goshawk in the Great Forest.’ The Councillor, an elderly man in a black furred robe, looked startled.
‘My lady Amelia will remember the day when her son and I fell out of a tree dressed as pirates and nearly landed on top of her.’ His smile was warm. One of the Queen’s ladies of the Chamber nodded. Her face was white. ‘It was so,’ she whispered. ‘How we laughed!’
‘Indeed we did. I have many such memories.’ He folded his arms. ‘My lords, I know all of you. I can tell you where you live, the names of your ladies. I have played with your children. I can answer any question you ask me about my tutors, my dear bodyservant, Bartlett, my father, the late King, and my mother, Queen Argente.’ For a moment then, a shadow crossed his face. But he smiled, and shook his head.
‘Which is more than this Prisoner, with his oh-so- convenient memory loss, can do.’ Beside her, Claudia felt Finn’s stillness like a threat.
‘So where have I been all this time, you will be asking. Why was my death faked? Or perhaps you will already have heard from my gracious stepmother the Queen, how my supposed fall from my horse at the age of fifteen was … arranged, as a protection for my own safety.’ Claudia bit her lip. He was using the truth and twisting it.
He was very clever. Or had been well taught.
‘It was a time of great danger. There is a secret and sinister organization, gentlemen, of which you may have heard. It is known as the Clan of the Steel Wolves. Their plans have only recently been foiled, with the failure of their attempt on Queen Sia’s life, and the exposure of their leader, the disgraced Warden of Incarceron.’ Now he was not looking at Claudia. He was playing the audience like an expert, his voice clear and steady. ‘Our spies have been aware of them for years, and it was known that they planned my death. My death, and the revoking of the Edict. The end of Protocol. They would return us to the terrors and chaos of the Years of Rage. And so I disappeared.
Not even the Queen knew of my plans. I realized that the only way to be safe was to make them think I was already dead. And to await my time He smiled. ‘Now, my lords, that time has come.’ He beckoned, his gesture regal, and natural, and a footman brought a package of paper to him.
Claudia chewed her lip anxiously.
‘I have here documentary evidence of what I say. My royal line, my birth deeds, many letters I have received, invitations — many of you wrote them. You will recognize them. I have the portrait of my fiancée as a child, given by her to me at our engagement.’ Claudia drew in a sharp breath. She glanced up at him, and he looked steadily back.
‘Above all, Lords and Masters, I have the evidence of my own flesh.’ He held up his hand, drew back the lacy ruffle of his sleeve, turned slowly so that the whole room could see.
On his wrist, tatooed deep into the skin, was the crowned Eagle of the Havaarnas.
Hand to hand, skin to skin, Twin in a mirror, Incarceron.
Fear to fear, desire to desire, Eye to eye. Prison to prison.
SONGS OF SAPPHIQUE
It had heard them.
‘Move!’ Keiro yelled.
Attia grabbed the reins and saddle, but the horse was terrified; it circled and whickered, and before she could scramble up Keiro had jumped back, swearing. She turned.
The Chain-gang waited. It was male, twelve-headed, helmeted, the bodies fused at hand and wrist and hip, linked with umbilical skin-chains from shoulder to shoulder or waist to waist. Beams of light shone from some of its hands; in others were weapons; blades, cleavers, a rusted firelock.
Keiro had his own firelock out. He levelled it at the centre of the huddled thing. ‘No nearer. Keep well away.’ Torch-beams focused on him. Attia clung to the horse, its sweaty flank hot and trembling under her hand.
The Chain-gang opened and its bodies moved apart; it became a line of shadows, the movement making her think stupidly of paper chains she had made as a child, cutting a man and then pulling wide a line of them.
‘I said keep back!’ Keiro swivelled the weapon along the line. His hand was steady, but he could only fire at one part of it, and then surely the rest would attack. Or would they?’ The Chain-gang spoke.
‘We want food.’ Its voice was a ripple of repetitions, one over another.
‘We’ve nothing to give you.’
‘Liar. We smell bread. We smell flesh.’ Was it one, or many? Did it have one brain, controlling its bodies like limbs, or was each of them a man, eternally and horribly joined? Attia stared at it, fascinated.
Keiro swore. Then he said, ‘Throw it the bag.’ Carefully, Attia took the food-bag back off the horse and threw it on to the ice. It skittered over the ground. A long arm reached down and gathered it up. It disappeared into the creature’s misshapen darkness.
‘Not enough.’
‘There’s no more,’ she said.
‘We smell the beast. Its hot blood. Its sweet meat.’ She glanced at Keiro in alarm. Without the horse they were trapped here. She stood beside him. ‘No. Not the horse.’ Faint crackles of static lit the sky. She prayed the lights would come on. But this was the Ice Wing, eternally dark.
‘Leave,’ Keiro said savagely. ‘Or I blow you away. I mean it!’
‘Which of us? The Prison has joined us. You cannot divide us.’ It was moving in. Out of the corner of her eye Attia saw movement; she gasped, ‘It’s all round.’ She backed off, terrified, suddenly sure that if one of its hands touched her, the fingers would grow into hers.
Clinking with steel the Chain-gang had almost surrounded them. Only the frozen falls behind offered some protection; Keiro backed up against the seamed ice and snapped, ‘Get on the horse, Attia.’
‘What about you?’
‘Get on the horse!’ She hauled herself up. The linked men lurched forward.
Instantly the horse reared.
Keiro fired.
A blue bolt of flame drilled the central torso; the man vaporized instantly, and the Chain—gang screamed in unison; eleven voices in a howl of rage.
Attia forced the horse round; leaning down to grab Keiro she saw the thing reunite, its hands joining, the skin- chains slithering, regrowing tight.
Keiro turned to leap up behind her but it was on him.
He yelled and kicked out, but the hands were greedy; they had him round the neck and the waist; they tugged him from the horse. He struggled, swearing viciously, but there were too many of them, they were all over him, and their knives flashed in the blue ice-light. Attia fought the panicking horse, leant down, snatched the flrelock from him and aimed it.
If she fired she’d kill him.
Skin-chains were wrapping him like tentacles. It was absorbing him; he would take the place of the dead man.
‘Attia!’ His yell was muffled. The horse reared; she struggled to keep it from bolting.
‘Attia!’ For a moment his face was clear; he saw her. ‘Fire!’ he screamed.
She couldn’t.
‘Fire! Shoot me!’ For a moment she was frozen in terror.
Then she brought the weapon up and fired.
‘How can this have happened?’ Finn stormed across the room and flung himself into the metal chair. He stared round at the humming grey mystery that was the Portal. ‘And why meet here?’
‘Because it’s the only place in the entire Court that I’m certain isn’t bugged.’ Jared closed the door carefully, feeling the strange effect the room had, the way it straightened out, as if adapting to their presence. As it must do, if, as he suspected, it was some halfway stage to the Prison.