SONGS OF SAPPHIQUE
‘Get me out, Attia.’
‘I can’t yet.’ She crouched by the wooden bars of the cage.
‘You’ll have to be patient.’
‘Having too nice a time with your pretty new friends?’ Keiro sat lounged against the far wall, arms folded, legs stretched out. He looked cool and scornful but she knew him well enough to see that, inside, he was blazing.
‘I need to keep in with them.You can see that.’
‘So who are they?’
‘All women. Most of them seem to hate men — they’ve probably suffered at their hands. They call themselves the Cygni. They each have a sort of number for a name. The number of a star.’
‘How poetic.’ Keiro tipped his head. ‘Now tell me when they’re going to kill me.’
‘They’re considering. I’ve begged them not to.’
‘And the Glove?’
‘Rho’s got it.’
‘Get it back.’
‘I’m working on it.’ She glanced at the door of the room warily. ‘This nest is a sort of hanging structure. Rooms and passages, all woven together. I think there’s some way down to the floor of the hail but I haven’t found it yet.’ Keiro was silent a moment. ‘The horse?’
‘No idea.’
‘Great. All our stuff.’
‘All your stuff.’ She pushed her tangled hair back. ‘There’s something else. They work for the Warden. They call him the Unsapient.’ His blue eyes stared at her. ‘They want to take him the Glove!’ He was always so quick, she thought. ‘Yes, but—’
‘Attia, you have to get it back!’ He was up on his feet now, gripping the bars. ‘The Glove is our only way to Incarceron.’
‘How, exactly? We’re outnumbered.’ He kicked the bars, furious. ‘Get me out, Attia. Lie to them.
Tell them to throw me over the viaduct. Just get me out.’ As she turned he reached out and grabbed her. ‘They’re all halfmen, aren’t they?’
‘Some of them. Rho. Zeta. A woman called Omega has pincers instead of hands.’ She looked at him. ’Does that help you hate them more?’ Keiro laughed coldly, and tapped his fingernail on the bars.
It rang, metal against metal. ‘What hypocrisy that would be.’ She stepped away. ‘Listen. I think we’re wrong.’ Before he could explode she hurried on. ‘If we give the Prison this Glove it will carry out its crazy plan of Escape. Everyone here will die. I don’t think I can do that, Keiro. I just don’t think I can.’ He was staring at her, with that cold, intent look that always scared her.
She backed off. ‘Maybe I should just take the Glove and go.
Leave you here.’ She got to the door before his whisper came, icy with threat. ‘That would make you just the same as Finn. A liar. A traitor. You wouldn’t do that to me, Attia.’ She didn’t look back.
‘Tell us once more about the day you remember. The day of the hunt.’ The Shadow Lord loomed over him, eyes hard.
Finn stood in the empty centre of the room. He wanted to pace about. Instead he said, ‘I was riding. . .‘
‘Alone?’
‘No . . . there must have been others. At first.’
‘Which others?’ He rubbed his face. ‘I don’t know. I’ve tried to think, over and over, but …’
‘You were fifteen.’
‘Sixteen. I was sixteen.’ They were trying to trick him.
‘The horse was chestnut?’
‘Grey: He stared, angry, towards the Queen. She sat, eyes half closed, a small dog on her lap. Her fingers stroked it rhythmically.
‘The horse jumped he said. ‘I told you, I felt a sort of sting in my leg. I fell off.’
‘With your courtiers around you.’
‘No I was alone.’
‘You just said . . .’
‘I know! Perhaps I got lost!’ He shook his head. The warning prickle moved behind his eyes. ‘Perhaps I took the wrong path. I don’t remember!’ He had to stay calm. To be alert. The Pretender lounged on the bench, listening with bored impatience.
The Shadow Lord came closer. His eyes were black and level. ‘The truth is that you invented this. There was no ambush. You are not Giles. You are the Scum of Incarceron.’
‘I am Prince Giles.’ But his voice sounded weak. He heard his own doubt.
‘You are a Prisoner. You have stolen. Haven’t you?’
‘Yes. But you don’t understand. In the Prison. . .’
‘You have killed.’
‘No. Never killed.’
‘Indeed?’ The Inquisitor drew back like a snake. ‘Not even the woman called the Maestra?’ Finn’s head shot up. ‘How do you know about the Maestra?’ There was a movement of unease round the room. Some of the Council murmured to each other. The Pretender sat up.
‘How we know is not important. She fell, didn’t she, inside the Prison, down a great abyss, because the bridge on which she stood had been sabotaged. You were responsible.’
‘No!’ He was shouting now, eye to eye with the man. The Inquisitor did not back off.
‘Yes. You stole a device for Escape from her. Your words are a mass of lies. You claim visions. You claim to have spoken with ghosts.’
‘I didn’t kill her!’ He grabbed for his sword but it wasn’t there. ‘I was a Prisoner, yes, because the Warden drugged me and put me in that hell. He took away my memory. I am Giles!’