morning and set off to see the world? To find adventure, and someone you can love?'
It was too much. She knew it as soon as she had said it. Too much for him. She felt him stiffen and frown, and he glared at her. 'I know what all this is about.' His voice was harsh.
'It's because you'd have rather had my brother. The saintly Giles. Well, he's dead, Claudia, so forget about him.' Then his smile came back, sly and narrow. 'Or is this about
Jared?'
'Jared?'
'Well, it's obvious, isn't it? He's older, but some girls like that.'
She wanted to slap him, to get up and slap his sniggering little face. He grinned at her.
'I've seen how you look at him, Claudia. Like I said, I don't mind.'
She stood, stiff with anger. 'You evil little toad.'
'You're angry. That proves it's true. Does your father know about you and Jared, Claudia?
Should I tell him, do you think?'
He was poison. He was a lizard with a flicking tongue. His smirk was acid. She bent and put her face into his and he moved back.
'If you mention this again, to me, to anyone, I will kill you. Do you understand, my lord
Steen? Myself personally, with a dagger through your weak little body. I will kill you like they killed Giles.'
Trembling with wrath she marched outside and slammed the door with a clap that rang down the corridor. Fax, the bodyguard, was lounging outside. As she passed him he stood, with an insolent slowness, and as she ran beneath the portraits to the stairs, she felt his eyes on her back, the cold smile.
She hated them.
All of them.
How could he say that!
How could he even think it! Thundering down the stairs, she crashed through the double doors, maids scattering before her, her mood like thunder. Such a filthy lie! Against Jared! Jared, who would never dream, never even think of such a thing!
She screamed for Alys, who came running. 'What's wrong, lady?'
'My riding coat. Now!'
While she waited she fumed, pacing, staring through the open front door at the eternal perfection of the lawns, the blue sky, the peacocks practicing their eerie cries.
Her anger was warm and a comfort. When the coat came she flung it around her, snapped, 'I'm riding out.'
'Claudia ... There's so much to do! We leave tomorrow.'
'You do it.'
'The wedding dress ... the final fitting.'
'You can tear it to shreds as far as I'm concerned.' Then she was gone, running down the steps and across the courtyard, and as she ran, she looked up and saw her father, standing in the impossible window of his study that didn't exist, wasn't even there.
He had his back to her, was talking to someone. Someone in the study with him? But no one ever went in there.
Slowing, she watched for a moment, puzzled. Then, afraid he'd turn around, she hurried to the stables and found Marcus already saddled, pawing the ground with impatience.
Jared's horse was ready too, a lean rangy creature called Tam Lin, which was probably some secret Sapient jest she'd never understood.
She looked around. 'Where's the Wise One?' she asked Job.
The boy, always tongue-tied, muttered, 'Gone back to the tower, lady. He forgot something.'
She stared at him. 'Job, listen to me. You know everyone on the estate?'
'Pretty much.' He swept the floor hastily, raising clouds of dust. She wanted to tell him to stop, but that would have made him even more nervous, so she said, 'An old man called
Bartlett. Pensioned off, a retainer of the Court. Is he still alive?'
He raised his head. 'Yes, my lady. He has a cottage out on Hewelsfield. Just down the lane from the mill.'
Her heart thudded. 'Is he ... Is his mind still clear?'
Job nodded, and managed a smile. 'He's razor-sharp, that one. But he doesn't say much, not about his days at Court. He just stares if you ask him.'
Jared's shadow darkened the doorway and he came in slightly breathlessly. 'Sorry, Claudia.'
He swung himself up into the saddle, and as she put her foot in Job's linked hands, she said quietly, 'What did you forget?'
His dark eyes met hers. 'A certain object that I didn't want to leave unguarded.' His hand moved discreetly to his coat, the high-necked Sapient robe of dark green.
She nodded, knowing it was the Key.
As they rode off she wondered why she felt so oddly ashamed.
THEY MADE a fire from the dried fungi and some snapping powder from Gildas's pack and cooked the meat while the whirlwind raged outside. No one spoke much. Finn was shivering with cold, and the cuts on his face stung; he sensed that Keiro was still weary too. It was hard to tell about the girl. She sat slightly apart, eating quickly, her eyes watching and missing nothing.
Finally Gildas wiped greasy hands on his robe. 'Were there any signs of the inmates?'
'The sheep were roaming,' Keiro said carelessly. 'Not even a fence.'
'And the Prison?'
'How should I know? Eyes in the trees probably.'
Finn shivered. His head felt echoey and strange. He wanted them to sleep, to fall asleep so he could get the Key out again and talk to it. To her. The girl Outside. He said, 'We can't move on, so we may as well rest. Don't you think?'
'Sounds good,' Keiro said lazily. He arranged his pack against the back of the hollow.
But Gildas was staring at the image carved in the tree trunk. He crawled closer, reached out, and began to rub at it with his veined hands. Curls of lichen fell. The narrow face seemed to emerge from dinginess and the green fur of moss, its hands holding the Key so carefully drawn, they seemed real. Finn realized that the Key must be linking into some circuitry in the tree itself and for a moment a blur of vision caught him off guard, a sense that the whole of Incarceron was a great creature in whose entrails of wire and bone they crept.
He blinked.
No one seemed to have noticed, though the girl was staring at him. Gildas was saying, 'He's leading us along the way he took. Like a thread through the labyrinth.'
'So he left his own picture?' Keiro drawled.
Gildas frowned. 'Obviously not. This is a shrine, created by the Sapienti who have followed him. We should find other signs on the way.'
'I can't wait.' Keiro rolled himself over and curled up.
Gildas glared at his back. Then he said to Finn, 'Take the Key out. We need to take care of it. The way may be longer than we think.'
Thinking of the vast forest outside, Finn wondered if they would wander in it forever.
Carefully he reached up and removed the Key from the hexagon; it came away with a slight click, and instantly the hollow was dim and the whistling splinters of foil blurred the distant Prison lights.
Finn was stiff and uncomfortable, but he kept still, listening. After a long while he knew by the old mans harsh breathing that Gildas was sleeping. He wasn't sure about the others.
Keiro had his face turned away. Attia always seemed silent, as if she had learned that keeping still and being overlooked kept her alive. Outside, the forest roared with the storm. He heard the cracking of its branches, the turmoil of its contempt surge from far distances, felt the strength of the wind batter the trees, shudder the iron trunk above him.
They had angered Incarceron. They had opened one of its forbidden doors and crossed some boundary.
