Gilded Cage

by Vic James

  Even Renie, who was still looking subdued, snorted at that.

  ‘Good guess,’ said Jackson wryly. ‘But no. And Asif, no to your theories. All of them. Especially the one about aliens. Hilda, maybe you’d like to show everyone what the two of you have been up to?’

  Hilda nodded, and rose from her chair. Flipping the top off one of the boxes, she pulled out a printed sheet and held it up.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she announced, ‘I give you the Chancellor’s Proposal: the abolition of the slavedays.’

  Jessica actually gasped. Even Asif stopped fidgeting.

  Surely this was some kind of wind-up?

  ‘No one has a vote on the Proposal except the Equal parliamentarians, of course,’ said Jackson. ‘And apart from maybe a handful, they’ll all vote “no”. But I don’t think they realize what they’ve done by even having this debate. All it would take for the slavedays to end – the loss of liberty, the abuses, the drudgery, all of it – is for a few hundred Equals to open their mouths and say “yes”. One little syllable after the Third Debate, in the East Wing of Kyneston next spring, and everything’s gone.’

  Jessica retied her ponytail with a brisk snap of the elastic, a gesture that reminded Luke painfully of Abi. When she spoke her tone was brisk, too.

  ‘Not to be a party pooper, Jack, but are you sure? How do you know this?’

  The Doc paused for a moment, looking round the room. He’s wondering if he can trust us, Luke realized.

  And that was when it hit him: loyalty goes both ways.

  When this all began, Luke had lost sleep over whether he could trust Jackson. Whether the club wasn’t some elaborate trap. But once he’d played a few games and there’d been no visit from Kessler, no hands pulling him roughly from his bed in the middle of the night, he had forced himself to let go of a little of that fear. The Doc was for real.

  But for Jackson, any one of them could betray him – at any time.

  Well, not Luke. Never Luke.

  ‘I’m in touch with someone on the outside,’ Jackson said eventually. ‘An Equal. More than that – someone close to power.’

  Renie rocked forward so fast it was a wonder she didn’t fall off the boxes. Hilda and Tilda exchanged startled glances. Jessica put the end of her hair in her mouth and chewed like a nervous girl, not a grown woman. It was Oz who spoke.

  ‘Crikey, Doc,’ he said. ‘Bit of a surprise you been keeping there. Care to explain?’

  Jackson placed his hands palms down on the table and stared at them for a moment.

  ‘He sees every shadow in the House of Light,’ the Doc said, as if telling them about someone he was pointing out across a room at a party. ‘He believes in this cause – our cause.’

  ‘And you trust him?’ said Hilda, bluntly.

  ‘I do,’ said Jackson. He opened his mouth as if to say more, then decided against it.

  ‘Why has no one heard about this Proposal?’ Asif asked. ‘Because it’s too hot to handle? Media blackout?’

  Jackson looked like a man trying to smile who had forgotten how you did it.

  ‘Sort of,’ he said eventually. ‘There are acts of Skill called the Silence and the Quiet. The Silence makes you forget things. At the end of the Proposal session the Chancellor laid it on all the commoners, the Observers of Parliament. The Equal parliamentarians have submitted to the Quiet. They remember everything, but the Quiet prevents them communicating what they know to anyone who’s not also an MP – even to their own families. Let’s just say that we found a way around that.’

  The room fell silent.

  Luke was appalled. The Equals could take your memories? ‘Silence’ you with Skill? It was unthinkable. They did it in Abi’s novels, of course – caddish heirs seducing girls then making them forget all about it with a snap of their fingers. But never in a million years had Luke imagined it was true.

  How could you hope to win against people who could do that?

  Except Jackson must think you could, because he leaned in towards them like a general imparting battle plans to his trusted officers.

  Which, Luke realized, was exactly what the Doc was. He felt dizzy, as if he’d just downed a cocktail of one part thrill and two parts terror. Over ice.

  ‘I’m glad you’re shocked,’ Jackson said, looking at each of them in turn with those clear blue eyes. ‘It means you’re all thinking about the task ahead of us. Really thinking about it. Everyone in this slavetown needs to know about this Proposal. Everyone needs to understand that abolition is so close we could just reach out and take it – if we dare. This could be the best chance we get in our lifetimes of ending the slavedays.’

  His eyes met Luke’s, and Luke couldn’t look away.

  ‘This is the long game,’ the Doc said. ‘We need to be the winners when it ends.’

  9

  Abi

  If she wanted to discover why Luke wasn’t welcome at Kyneston, Abi’s only option was Jenner. But he’d warned her not to ask.

  So how could she get him to tell her?

  Perhaps if she could win his trust. His admiration. Maybe even his affection?

  She snorted at that, and turned back to the heap of unopened mail on her desk. There might be none so daft as a clever girl in love, as Mum would say, but Abi wasn’t that deluded. She wanted Jenner’s affection all right, but she would do even if Luke was at Kyneston with the rest of them.

  She picked up the letter opener, a heavy silver knife bearing the Jardine family crest of the salamander embowered – a fire-breathing lizard fenced into a circular garden – and attacked the pile of envelopes.

  The fourth one down had handwriting on it that she recognized. Her own.

  It was the birthday card they’d sent Luke, returned unopened from Millmoor. ‘Inadmissible’ had been stamped across it. Abi growled with frustration. It didn’t even bear a censor’s mark. They hadn’t bothered to open it and see that it was nothing more seditious than a card, handmade by Daisy. The three-month no-communication period for all slavetown newcomers hadn’t expired yet for Luke, so they’d simply sent it back.

  Soon, though. She glanced at the calendar on her desk, the red ring around a date at the start of December, just days away. The three months were up then and they’d all get news on how Luke was doing, assuming he was as desperate to write to them as they were to hear from him.

  Abi hoped he was being sensible and toeing the line. Surely life in Millmoor couldn’t be much worse than having a rubbish job and a crummy flatshare out in the real world. Luke probably spent his days packing boxes in a factory, and had a crowd of friends already.

  At least that was what Abi told herself. She tried not to think about that guard, Kessler, or the day Luke had been ripped away from them. She didn’t dwell on the fact that Luke – that all of them – were just chattels of the state with no rights at all. She pushed away the image of Dad on his knees, blood streaming down his face, and Luke being prodded into the van with a baton.

  Whatever it took to make Jenner Jardine bring Luke here, Abi intended to do it. She’d started with what she did best: work.

  In nearly three months at Kyneston, she had already made improvements to how the Family Office ran. She’d created a spreadsheet of the estate year, colour coded and filled with calendar alerts and reminders. She’d asked certain of the key staff – if you could call slaves that – to begin monthly audits.

  She’d tried not to come across as a bossy upstart, and they’d mostly listened when she explained that better organization was in everyone’s interests. Her message was that the smoother the house and estate ran, the less chance there was of Lord Jardine or Heir Gavar blowing their fuses. They’d all seen that often enough that they readily agreed. The housekeeper was particularly friendly, and Abi was always welcome belowstairs for a cup of tea and a scone. However, she knew the grizzled Master of Hounds hadn’t taken kindly to this northern city girl bringing her notions to his ancient southern estate.

  As for Jenner hims
elf? Well, he was a dream.

  He was sweet and funny, hardworking and thoughtful. An itemization of all the ways in which he was generally wonderful would be even longer than Abi’s to-do list.

  Gavar was probably the type most girls would go for, but his temper meant his buff physique was more intimidating than appealing. And the Young Master was simply too spooky even to think of in those terms. So, yes, Jenner was the only one of the three she didn’t find scary. By itself this wasn’t a ringing endorsement. But add in all the plus points as well, and Miss Abigail Amanda Hadley had quite a crush going on.

  Could he ever feel the same? The sensible bit of Abi’s brain insisted that was impossible. But the illogical bit (which was evidently bigger than she’d ever suspected) continued to hoard small moments, the way the back of her desk drawer accumulated pen lids and paperclips. A glance; an enquiry about her family; a spurious pretext for keeping her late; a hand on her arm while pointing something out.

  No single action meant a thing, by itself. But taken together, could they add up to something more?

  So she was disappointed to answer his summons to the Great Solar early one morning, only to find the chamber filled with what looked like every house-slave at Kyneston. One of her friends from the kitchens explained that it was the annual pre-Christmas deep clean. Everyone mucked in. Abi was reluctantly collecting a duster when Jenner appeared at her elbow.

  ‘Not you, Miss Hadley, if I may? I was hoping you might help me in the library.’

  He led her there then dithered over whether or not to shut the door. Abi wasn’t much of an expert at ‘reading the signs’, as a flirty schoolfriend had once termed it. But the situation seemed somehow promising.

  To hide her confusion, Abi turned to look at what was laid out on the table. Resting on a cover of thick grey felt were three paintings and an unframed canvas, several document cases and some custom-made book boxes.

  ‘I thought you’d enjoy this more than dusting,’ said Jenner, having eventually closed the door and joined her. ‘With my brother’s wedding to Bouda Matravers at the end of March, as well as the Third Debate, Mother suggested we show off some family treasures to our guests. It’s only once a generation that the heir marries, after all. I’ve been digging out a few possibilities.’

  Abi studied the paintings, all portraits. She recognized the subjects of the largest two canvases, but had no idea about the other two sitters. One was a long-necked young woman wearing a dress the same bronze colour as her hair. She petted a large lizard that nestled in her arms. The other, unframed, was a wistful, black-eyed boy aged seven or eight.

  ‘This is Cadmus Parva-Jardine, the Pure-in-Heart,’ she said confidently, touching the largest picture in its gilded frame shaped like a laurel wreath. Jenner nodded.

  Her fingers trailed onto the next. She knew what this man had done. Was it only that knowledge which made his likeness seem both proud and vicious, or did his deeds truly show in his face?

  ‘Cadmus’s father, Lycus Parva. Lycus the Regicide. He killed Charles the First and Last.’

  She shuddered. Lycus had used nothing but Skill to kill the Last King, and the histories said that Charles had taken four days to die on the scaffold at Westminster. It was written that the spectacle was so terrible that pregnant women watching miscarried, and men went mad.

  ‘This is Cadmus’s mother, Clio Jardine,’ Jenner said, pointing to the woman in the bronze dress. ‘It was painted to mark her marriage to Lycus. You see the walled garden behind her? That’s the Jardine family emblem. And she’s holding a salamander, the Parva heraldic device. Our coat of arms today combines both, although the Parva motto has dropped out of use. Silyen’s fond of it, but it’s a bit too self-effacing for Jardine tastes.’

  Abi looked at the painted banner. Uro, non luceo. I burn, not shine. An appropriate match for the salamander, that legendary creature said to breathe fire and renew itself in flames.

  Clio gazed sideways out of the canvas. Her face was framed by artful ringlets, her eyebrows painted in bold arches. Her features and colouring, though, Abi had seen before. They were like those of the young man standing beside her.

  Abi looked from Clio to Jenner, and it was as if a wall as impenetrable as Kyneston’s own had reared up between them. He might not have the Skill, but he had the blood. These impossible names from history books were his ancestors. His family. His great-great-greats.

  Jenner hadn’t noticed her reaction, and continued his tale.

  ‘Clio was the only offspring in the Jardine direct line. This was before female succession was permitted, so she couldn’t inherit Kyneston. The house was due to pass to a male cousin. But when her son Cadmus’s incredible Skill became apparent as a teenager, he was co-opted as the Jardine heir and given the double surname Parva-Jardine.

  ‘Cadmus was a scholarly man and lived a quiet life. He married young, and when that first wife died he was grief-stricken and buried himself in his research. You know what happened next: the Revolution. Lycus, the father, killed the king. Cadmus, the son, restored peace. He tore down the palace and built the House of Light, in the Great Demonstration. And after becoming our first Chancellor, he married again. It was the eldest son from that marriage, Ptolemy Jardine, who next inherited Kyneston. But it shouldn’t have been.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Abi, mesmerized by the unfolding story. ‘Who should it have been?’

  ‘Someone we never talk about,’ said Jenner. He pointed to the final picture. ‘Him.’

  The boy had the large black eyes of Lady Thalia and the Young Master, but none of her sparkle or his arrogance. His expression was soft and sad. The picture wasn’t particularly well executed – the clothing was flat and the boy’s hands were all wrong. But the artist had captured some deep sorrow in the child.

  ‘Father won’t let this one be displayed,’ Jenner continued, a strange note to his voice. ‘It would have been destroyed years ago were it not the only picture we have which was painted by Cadmus himself.’

  ‘So who is he?’

  Abi was hooked by this secret that she’d never encountered in all her reading about Kyneston and the Jardines. And another, shameful part of her was thrilled that Jenner wanted to share with her this story that plainly meant so much to him.

  ‘He’s me. He’s the only other rotten fruit on the family tree. The only one in our great and glorious history with no Skill – until I came along.’

  And what did you say to that? Abi’s mind raced for an answer, but found none. She didn’t do people, dammit. She did books. A world of difference.

  She cast her mind back to the day they had arrived at Kyneston, Daisy opening her big gob and asking why the Young Master had let them through the gate and not Jenner. His easy, gallant response about his lack of Skill. How many years had he been practising those lines until he could say them like that? As if they meant nothing at all, when clearly his life was poisoned at its roots by this awful, inexplicable lack.

  ‘Take a close look,’ Jenner urged.

  There were numerous objects displayed around the boy. An empty birdcage with the door shut. A tulip in its prime, upright in a vase but drab and grey, as if a week dead. A sheet ruled with musical staves but without notes. A violin with no strings. Abi peered at the word written at the top of the blank musical score. The non-existent work was titled in Latin: Cassus.

  ‘It means “hollow”,’ Jenner said. ‘“Empty”. Alternatively: “useless”, or “deficient”. Which is to say, without Skill. All that’ – he gestured at the flower, the birdcage – ‘that’s what my world looks like, to them.’

  Abi still couldn’t think of anything to say. Something careful.

  ‘If he should have inherited Kyneston after Cadmus, then he must be . . . Cadmus’s eldest son?’

  She was rewarded with the ghost of a smile from Jenner.

  ‘I knew you’d get it, Abigail. He’s Cadmus’s son by his first wife. His name was Sosigenes Parva, but you won’t find it in any history book.�
��

  So-si-je-knees? Even by Equal standards, the name was a mouthful.

  ‘Doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue, does it?’ she said, then flushed at her own presumption. But Jenner laughed, brightening a little.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’d be the first to agree. It’s a name that if my father had his way, would never be heard again. As it is, after Cadmus’s journals were lost in the Orpen fire, this little picture is the only evidence we have that Sosigenes ever lived.’

  Abi knew about the great fire of Orpen. It had happened before she was born, but she’d seen shaky footage captured from a helicopter flying beyond the estate wall.

  Orpen Mote had been the Parva seat, where Lady Thalia Jardine and her sister Euterpe were born and raised. It had burned to the ground in a single night. The two sisters had been absent, but Lord and Lady Parva and their entire household had died as they slept. The shock of discovering her parents’ death had plunged Euterpe into the coma in which she still lay.

  But more than a house and its inhabitants had been lost. The Parvas’ reputation as scholars had continued down the centuries, and Orpen Mote had held the most important collection of books about Skill known to exist anywhere in the world. That had included Cadmus’s personal library. All destroyed in the blaze.

  But Abi had never heard of any journals kept by the Pure-in-Heart. What documents those would be! How cruel to learn of their existence and their destruction in the self-same instant.

  Jenner was busying himself with the boxes on the table. He pulled one across and flipped back the lid. Inside was thick foam, cut to accommodate the small painting perfectly. He kept his eyes down as he talked.

  ‘No one ever imagined there would be another Skilless child. Cadmus was so powerful, you see, that the family decided that Sosigenes’ mother was to blame for her son’s condition. She died in childbirth, so it was easy to conclude that she was weak. In fact, “Sosigenes” means “born safely”, so maybe the birth had been traumatic for him, too. It’s a tidy explanation.’