‘It’s hell. I should know’
‘Liar.’
‘No...’
‘You are a liar. You have always been a liar! Haven’t you?
Haven’t you?’
‘No. I don’t know!’ He couldn’t bear it. His throat was ashes, the blurring of the impending seizure tormenting him. If it happened here he was finished.
He became aware of movement, dragged his head up. The Sun Lord was standing, beckoning for a chair to be brought, and the Shadow Lord had gone back to his seat.
‘Please, sire. Be seated. Be calm.’ The man’s hair was silver, his words sweet with concern. ‘Bring water, here.’ A footman brought a tray. A cool goblet was pressed into Finn’s hand and he drank, trying not to spill it. He was shaking, his sight blurred by spots and itches. Then he sat, gripping the padded arms of the chair. Sweat was soaking his back. The eyes of the Council were fixed on him; he dared not look at their disbelief. The Queen’s fingers fondled the silky fur of her dog. She was watching calmly.
‘So,’ the Sun Lord mused. ‘You say the Warden imprisoned you?’
‘It must have been him.’ The man smiled kindly. Finn tensed. The kind ones were always the most deadly.
‘But. . . if the Warden was responsible, he could not have acted alone. Not with the abduction of a royal prince. Do you claim that the Privy Council were involved?’
‘No.’
‘The Sapienti?’ He shrugged, wearily. ‘Someone with knowledge of drugs must have been.’
‘So you accuse the Sapienti?’
‘I don’t accuse. . .’
‘And the Queen?’ The room was silent. Sullen, Finn clenched his fists. He was staring right into disaster and he knew it. But he didn’t care.
‘She must have known.’ No one moved. The Queen’s hand was still. The Sun Lord shook his head sadly. ‘We need to be absolutely clear, sire.
Do you accuse the Queen of your abduction? Of your imprisonment?’ Finn didn’t look up. His voice was dark with miser because they had trapped him into this, and Claudia would despise him for his stupidity.
But he still said it.
‘Yes. I accuse the Queen.’
‘Look over there.’ Rho stood on the viaduct and pointed.
Narrowing her eyes, Attia strained to see across the dimness of the hail. Birds were flying towards her, dark flocks of them. Their wings creaked; in a second they were all around her and she ducked with a gasp under the cloud of plummage and beaks. Then they were streaming far into the east.
‘Birds, bats, people.’ Rho turned, her eye of gold shining. ‘We have to live, Attia, like everyone else, but we don’t steal, or kill. We work for a higher purpose. When the Unsapient asks for things he needs, we get them. In the last three months we’ve sent him—’
‘How?’
‘What?’ Attia caught the girl by the wrist. ‘How? How does this. . .
Unsapient tell you what he wants?’ Rho pulled away and stared. ‘He speaks to us.’ A shiver of the world interrupted her. Far below a scream arose; cries of terror. Instantly Attia fell flat, grabbing the rusted girders; another ripple of movement went right through her body, her very fingernails. Next to her a rivet snapped; ivy slithered over the edge.
They waited until the Prisonquake ended, Rho on hands and knees beside her, both of them breathless with fear. As soon as she could speak Attia said, ‘Let’s get back down.
Please.’ Through the hole the complex of the Nest hung apparently undisturbed.
‘The quakes are getting worse.’ Rho scrambled in the ivy tunnel.
‘How does he speak to you? Please, Rho, I really need to know.’
‘Down here. I’ll show you.’ They hurried through the room of feathers. Three of the other women were there, cooking stew in a great cauldron, one mopping spills that had slopped out in the shiver. The smell of meat made Attia swallow in appreciation. Then Rho ducked under a doorway into a small rounded place, a bubble of a room. It contained nothing but an Eye.
Attia stopped dead.
The small red glimmer swivelled to look at her. For a moment she stood there, remembering Finn’s tale of how he had woken in a cell containing nothing but this, the silent, curious gaze of Incarceron.
Then slowly, she came and stood below it. ‘I thought you said the Unsapient.’
‘That’s what he calls himself. He is the heart of the Prison’s plan.’
‘Is he now?’ Attia took a breath and folded her arms. Then, so loud that Rho started, she snapped, ‘Warden. Can you hear me?’ Claudia paced up and down the panelled corridor.
When the door opened and the footman slipped out, an empty goblet on his tray, she grabbed him. ‘What’s happening?’
‘The Prince Giles is . . .‘ He glanced past her, bowed and scurried away.
‘Don’t scare the servants, Claudia,’ Caspar muttered from the doorway to the garden.
Furious, she turned and saw his bodyguard, Fax, carrying archery targets under his brawny arms. Caspar wore a bright green coat and a tricorn hat with a white curling feather.
‘They’ll be talking for hours. Come and shoot some crows.’
‘I’ll wait!’ She sat on a chair against the wall, kicking the wooden leg with her foot.
An hour later, she was still there.
‘And you planned all this yourself?’
‘The Queen had no idea, if that’s what you mean.’ The Pretender sat back in the chair, arms loose. His voice was calm and conversational. ‘The plan was mine — to disappear absolutely. I would not have burdened Her Majesty with such a conspiracy.’
‘I see.’ The Sun Lord nodded sagely. ‘But there was a dead body, was there not? A boy who everyone believed was Giles, laid in state here in the Great Hall for three days. You arranged even that?’ Giles shrugged. ‘Yes. One of the peasants in the Forest died from a bear’s attack. It was convenient, I admit. It covered my tracks.’ Finn, listening, scowled. It might even be true. Suddenly he thought of the old man, Tom. Hadn’t he said something about his son? But the Sun Lord was asking mildly.’
‘So you are indeed Prince Giles?’
‘Of course I am, man.’
‘If I were to suggest you are an imposter, that you. . .’