‘We made no attack,’ he said quietly. ‘Believe me, madam, if we had, Prince Giles — if he is Giles — would be dead. The Steel Wolves deserve their reputation.’
‘You failed to kill the Queen on several occasions.’ She was scathing. ‘And you placed a dagger next to Finn …’
‘To ensure he remembers us. But the Forest, no. If I may say so you were unwise to ride out without an escort. The Realm is frill of discontents. The poor suffer their injustices, but they don’t forgive them. It was probably a simple attempt at robbery.’ She thought it was the Queen’s plot, though she had no intention of letting him know that. Instead she snapped a bud from the rosebush and said, ‘And the fire?’ He looked stricken. ‘That is a disaster. You know who was responsible for that, madam. The Queen has never wanted the Portal reopened.’ And now she thinks she’s won.’ Claudia jumped as a peacock rustled its magnificent tail into a fan. The hundred eyes watched her. ‘She thinks that my father is cut off:
‘Without the Portal, he is.’
‘You knew my father well, Master Medlicote?’ Medlicote frowned. ‘I was his secretary for ten years. But lit, was not an easy man to know’
‘He kept his secrets?’
‘Always.’
‘About Incarceron?’
‘I knew nothing about the Prison.’ She nodded, and took her hand out of her pocket. ‘Do you recognize this?’ He looked at it, wondering. ‘It’s the Warden’s pocketwatch.
He always wore it.’ She was watching him closely, alert for any glimmer of hidden recognition, of knowledge. In the glasses she saw the reflection of the open watchcase, the silver cube turning on the chain.
‘He left it for me. You have no idea then, where the Prison is?’
‘None. I wrote his correspondence. I ordered his affairs. But I never went there with him.’ She clicked the case shut. He seemed puzzled, had given no sign of knowing what he was looking at.
‘How did he travel there?’ she asked quietly.
‘I never discovered that. He would disappear, for a day, or a week. We . . . the Wolves . . . believe the Prison to be some sort of underground labyrinth, below the Court. Obviously the Portal gave access: He looked at her curiously. ‘You know more about this than I do. There may be information in his study, at your house in the Wardenry. I was never allowed in there.’ His study.
She tried not to reveal by even a blink the shock his words sparked. ‘Thank you. Thank you.’ Hardly knowing what she said she turned on her heel but his voice stopped her.
‘Lady Claudia. Something else. We have learned that when the false prince is executed you will share his fate:
‘What!’ He was standing with his glasses in his hands, his dusty shoulders stooped. In the sunlight he seemed suddenly a half—blind, agitated man.
‘But she can’t …’
‘She will. I warned you, lady. You are an escaped Prisoner.
She would not be breaking any laws.’ Claudia was cold. She could hardly believe this. ‘Are you sure?’
‘One of the Privy Council has a mistress. The woman is one of our operatives. He told her that the Queen was adamant.’
‘Did she hear anything else? Whether the Queen had brought in this Pretender?’ He stared at her. ‘That interests you more than your own death?’
‘Tell me!’
‘Unfortunately, no. The Queen professes ignorance as to which of the boys is her true stepson. She’s told the Council nothing.’ Claudia paced, shredding the rosebud. ‘Well, I don’t intend to be executed, by her or your Wolves or anyone else.
Thank you.’ She had ducked under the rose arch when he took a step after her and said softly, ‘Master Jared was bribed to stop work on the Portal. Did you know that?’ She stopped still as death, without turning. The roses were white, perfectly scented. Fat bees fumbled in their petals.
There was a thorn in the bud she held; it hurt her fingers and she dropped it.
He came no nearer. His voice was quiet. ‘The Queen offered him...’
‘There’s nothing’ — she turned, almost spitting the words
— ‘nothing, that she could offer that he would take. Nothing!’ A bell chimed, then another from the Ivory Tower. It was the signal for the Inquisition of the Candidates. Medlicote kept his eyes on her. Then he put his spectacles back on and bowed, clumsily. ‘My mistake, my lad,’ he said.
She watched him walk away. She was trembling. She didn’t know how much with anger, how much with fear.
Jared looked down with a rueful smile at the book in his hand. It had been a favourite of his when he had been a student here, a small red book of mysterious and cryptic poems that languished unread on the shelves. Now, opening the pages, he found the oak leaf he had once placed in it, on page forty-seven, at the sonnet about the dove that would cure the devastation of the Years of Rage, a flowering rose in its beak. Reading the lines now he let his memories slip back to that time. It had not been so long ago. He had been the youngest graduate of the Academy since Protocol began, considered brilliant, assured of a great career.
The oak leaf was as frail as cobweb, a skeleton of veins.
His fingers trembling slightly, he closed the book and slid it back. He was certainly above such self—pity.
The library of the Academy was a vast and hushed collection of rooms. Great oak cabinets of books, some of them chained, stood in ranks down the galleried halls.
Sapienti sat huddled over manuscripts and illuminated volumes, quill nibs scraping, each stall lit by a small lamp that looked like a candle but was in fact a high intensity personal diode powered by the hidden underground generators. Jared estimated that at least a third of the precious remaining power of the Realm was consumed here.
Not just in the library, of course. The apparent quills were linked to a central computer that also ran the lunar observatory and the extensive medical wing. The Queen, though he hated her, had been right. If there had once been a cure for him, this was the only place it might still be found.
‘Master?’ The librarian had returned, the Queen’s letter in his hand. ‘This is all in order. Please follow me.’ The Esoterica was the heart of the library. It was rumoured to be a secret chamber, entered only by the First High Sapient and the Warden. Jared certainly had never been there. His heart fluttered a little with excitement.
They walked through three rooms, through a hall of maps and up a winding stair into a small gallery that ran round above the reading room, under the dusty cornice. In the far corner was a shadowy alcove, containing a desk and a chair, the arms carved with winding snakes.
The librarian bowed. ‘If you need anything, please ask one of my assistants.’ Jared nodded and sat. He tried not to show his surprise, and disappointment; he had expected something more secret, more impressive, but perhaps that had been foolish.
He glanced round.
There were no obvious watching devices, but they were here, he sensed that. He put his hand into his coat and slid out the disc he had prepared. He slipped the disc under the desk and it clasped itself on tight.
The desk, despite appearances, was metal. He touched it, and a portion of the wainscoting became a screen that lit discreetly. It said YOU HAVE ENTERED THE ESOTERICA.
He worked quickly. Soon diagrams of the lymphatic and nervous systems rippled over the screen. He studied them intently, cross-referencing with the fragments of medical research that the system still held. The room below was silent, formal busts of ancient Sapienti staring in stiff rigour from their marble pedestals. Outside the distant casement a few doves cooed.
A librarian padded by, carrying a heap of parchment. Jared smiled gently.
They were keeping a good watch on him.
By three, the time for the brief afternoon rain shower, he was ready. As the light dimmed and the room grew gloomier, he slid his hand under the desk and touched the disc.
At once, under the diagrams of the nervous system, writing appeared. It had taken a long time to find the encrypted files on Incarceron, and his eyes were tired, his thirst a torment.
But as the first thunder rumbled, here they were.
Reading one script below another was a skill he had perfected long ago. It needed concentration, and always gave him a headache, but that would be bearable. After ten minutes he had worked out one symbol that unlocked others, then recognized an old variant o the Sapient tongue he had once studied.