Sapphique

by Catherine Fisher

  “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 center 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 fourteen.”

  “Fifteen. I was fifteen.” They were trying to trick him.

  “The horse was chestnut?”

  “Gray.” He stared, angry, toward 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 around 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!”

  “Incarceron is not a hell. It is a great experiment.”

  “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 misery, 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 hall. Birds were flying toward 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 plumage 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 swiveled 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 paneled 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—”

  “I hope”—the Pretender sat up slowly—“I hope, sir, that you are not implying that Her Majesty somehow had me trained or indoctrinated in any way to play this … role?” His clear brown eyes met the Inquisitor’s in a direct stare. “You would not dare suggest such a crime.”

  Finn cursed silently. He watched the Queen’s mouth twitch into a small secret smile.

  “Indeed not,” the Sun Lord said, bowing. “Indeed not, sire.”

  He had them. If they accused him of that, they accused the Queen, and Finn knew that would never happen. He cursed the boy’s cleverness, his plausibility, his easy elegance. He cursed his own rough awkwardness.

  The Pretender watched the Sun Lord sit and the Shadow Lord stand. If he was apprehensive, there was no sign of it. He leaned back, almost negligent, and beckoned for water.

  The dark man watched him drink it. As soon as the cup was back on the tray, he said, “At the age of eleven you left the Academy.”

  “I was nine, as you well know. My father felt it more fitting that the Crown Prince should study privately.”

  “You had several tutors, all eminent Sapienti.”

  “Yes. All, unfortunately, now dead.”

  “Your chamberlain, Bartley—”

  “Bartlett.”

  “Ah yes, Bartlett. He is also dead.”

  “I have heard. He was murdered by the Steel Wolves, as I would have been, if I had stayed here.” His face softened. “Dear Bartlett. I loved him greatly.”

  Finn ground his teeth. A few of the Council glanced at each other.

  “You are fluent in seven languages?”

  “I am.”

  The next question was in some foreign tongue that Finn couldn’t even identify, and the Pretender’s answer was quiet and sneering.

  Could he have forgotten whole languages? Was it possible? He rubbed his face, wishing the prickle behind his eyes would die away.

  “You are also an accomplished musician?”

  “Bring me a viol, a harpsichord.” The Pretender sounded bored. “Or I could sing. Shall I sing, lords?” He smiled and burst suddenly into an aria, his tenor voice soaring.

  The Privy Council stirred. The Queen giggled.

  “Stop it!” Finn leaped to his feet.

  The Pretender stopped. He met Finn’s eyes and said softly, “Then let you sing, sire. Play for us. Speak in foreign tongues. Recite us the poems of Alicene and Castra. I’m sure they will sound most alluring in your gutter accent.”

  Finn didn’t move. “Those things don’t make a prince,” he whispered.

  “We might debate that.” The Pretender stood. “But you have no cultured arguments, have you? All you have is anger, and violence, Prisoner.”

  “Sire,” the Shadow Lord said. “Please sit.”

  Finn glanced around. The Councilors watched him. They were the jury. Their verdict would condemn him to torture and death or give him the throne. Their faces were hard to read, but he recognized hostility, bewilderment. If only Claudia were here! Or Jared. He longed most of all for Keiro’s harsh, arrogant humor.

  He said, “My challenge still stands.”

  The Pretender glanced at the Queen. In a low voice he said, “And my acceptance.”

  Finn went and sat by the wall, simmering.

  The Shadow Lord turned to Giles. “We have witnesses. Boys who were at the Academy with you. Grooms, maids, the ladies of the Court.”

  “Excellent. I want to see them all.” The Pretender settled back comfortably. “Let them be brought in. Let them look at him and look at me. Let them tell you which is the Prince and which the Prisoner.”

  The Shadow Lord looked hard at him. Then he raised a hand. “Bring in the witnesses,” he snapped.

  19

  The Esoterica are the broken fragments of our knowledge. The Sapienti will spend generations restoring the gaps. Much of it will never be recovered.

  —Project report; Martor Sapiens

  “I should punish you. You were the one who told Claudia she was not my daughter.”

  It was not the Prison’s metallic sneer. Attia stared up at the red accusing Eye.

  “I did tell her. She needed to know.”

  “It was cruel.” The Warden’s voice sounded grave and weary. Quite suddenly the wall of the room rippled, and he was there.

  Rho almost screamed. Attia stared, astonished.

  A man stood before her in three-dimensional image, his edges frail and rippling. In places she could see right through him. His gray eyes were cold, and she had to make an effort not to flinch, or kneel, like Rho had hastily done.

  She had only ever seen him as Blaize. Now he was the Warden. He wore a black silk coat and black knee breeches; his boots were finest leather, his silvered hair caught back in a velvet ribbon. At first she thought that despite his austerity she had never seen anyone so fine, and yet as he stepped closer she caught the wear on his sleeve, the stained coat, the slightly untrimmed beard.

  He nodded sourly. “Yes. The conditions of the Prison begin to affect even me.”

  “Do you expect me to feel sorry for you?”

  “The dog-slave grows a little bold, it seems. So where is Sapphique’s Glove?”

  Attia almost smiled. “Ask my captors.”

  “We’re not your captors,” Rhos whispered. “You can go anytime.” The girl was gazing furtively up at the Warden with her gray and gold eyes. She seemed both fascinated and appalled.

  “The Glove!” the Warden snapped.

  Rho bowed, scrambled up, and ran out.

  At once Attia said, “They’ve got Keiro. I want him released.”

  “Why?” The Warden’s smile was acid. He looked around the Nest with interest. “I doubt very much whether he w
ould do the same for you.”

  “You don’t know him.”

  “On the contrary. I have studied his record, and yours. Keiro is ambitious and ruthless. He will act for himself, without a qualm.” He smiled. “I will use that against him.”

  He adjusted an invisible control; the image wavered and then became clearer. He was so close, she could have touched him. He turned and gazed at her sideways. “Of course, you could always bring the Glove yourself and leave him behind.”

  For a moment she thought he had read her thoughts. Then she said, “If you want it, tell them to release him.”

  Before he answered, Rho was back, breathless, the doorway behind her crowded with inquisitive girls. She laid the Glove down carefully before the Warden’s image.

  He crouched. He reached out for the Glove and his hand passed right through it. The dragonskin scales glittered. “So! It still exists! What a marvel that is.”

  For a moment he was fascinated. Behind him Attia glimpsed a vast, shadowy place, dimly red. And there was a sound, a pulsing beat that she recognized from her dream.

  She said, “If you went Outside, you could tell them about Finn. You could be a witness for him. Don’t you see, you could tell them that you took his memory, that you put him here.”

  He stood slowly and dusted what looked like rust from his gloves.

  “Prisoner, you assume too much.” He looked at her, a steelcold gaze. “I care nothing for Finn, or the Queen, or any of the Havaarna.”

  “You care about Claudia. She could be in danger too.”

  His gray eyes flickered. For a moment she thought she had stung him, but he was hard to read. He said, “Claudia is my concern. And I fully intend to be the next ruler of the Realm myself. Now bring me the Glove.”

  “Not without Keiro.”

  John Arlex did not move. “Don’t bargain with me, Attia.”

  “I won’t let him be killed.” Her breath came short and it almost hurt to speak. She prepared herself for some great anger.

  But to her surprise he glanced aside as if consulting something and then shrugged. “Very well. Release the thief. But hurry. The Prison grows impatient for its freedom. And—”