Jared climbed down, and stood for a moment letting the ache ease in his back and legs. Then he tied up the horse and walked cautiously through the bronze leaf-litter, ankle-deep in its rustling crispness.
Under the beeches nothing grew; he moved from tree to tree, awkwardly, but only a fox confronted him.
‘Master Fox,’ Jared muttered.
The fox paused a second. Then it turned and trotted away.
Reassured, he moved to the edge of the trees and crouched behind a broad trunk. Carefully, he peered round it.
An army was encamped on the broad hillside. All around the ancient house of the Wardenry there were tents and waggons and the glint of armour. Squadrons of cavalry rode in arrogant display; a mass of soldiers were digging a great trench in the wide lawns.
Jared drew in a breath of dismay.
He could see more men arriving down the lanes; pikemen led by drummers and a fife-player, the reedy whistle audible even up here. Flags fluttered everywhere, and to the left, tinder a brilliant standard of the white rose, a great pavilion was being raised by sweating men.
The Queen’s tent.
He looked at the house. The windows were shuttered, the drawbridge tightly raised. On the roof of the gatehouse metal glinted; he thought there were men up there, and perhaps the light cannon that were kept there had been prepared and moved up to the battlements. His own tower had someone on its parapet.
He breathed out and turned, sitting knees up in the dead leaves.
This was a disaster. There was no way the Wardenry could withstand any sort of sustained attack. Its walls were thick but it was a fortified manor and not a castle.
Claudia must simply be playing for time. She must be planning to use the Portal.
The thought made him agitated; he stood and paced. She had no idea of the dangers of that device! He had to get inside before she tried anything so foolish.
The horse whickered.
He froze, hearing the tread behind him, the footsteps through the rustling leaves.
And then the voice, lightly mocking. ‘Well, Master Jared.
Aren’t you supposed to be dead?’
‘How many?’ Finn asked.
Claudia had a visor that magnified things. She was staring through it now, counting. ‘Seven. Eight. I’m not sure what’s on that contraption to the left of the Queen’s tent
‘It barely matters.’ Captain Soames, a grey, stocky man, sounded gloomy. ‘Eight pieces of ordnance could shell us all to pieces.’
‘What do we have?’ Finn asked quietly.
‘Two cannon, my lord. One authentic Era, the other a mishmash of base metal — it will likely explode if we try to fire it. Crossbows, arquebuses, pikemen, archers. Ten men with muskets. About eighty cavalry’
‘I’ve known worse odds,’ Finn said, thinking of a few ambushes the Comitatus had tried.
‘I’m sure,’ Claudia said acidly. ‘And what were the casualties like?’ He shrugged. ‘In the Prison, no one counted.’ Below them, a trumpet rang out, once, twice, three times.
With a great grinding of gears, the drawbridge began to creak down.
Captain Soames went to the circular stair. ‘Steady there.
And be prepared to pull it up if I give the order.’ Claudia lowered the visor. ‘They’re looking. No one’s making any moves.’
‘The Queen hasn’t arrived. A man who came in last night says she and the Council are making a royal progress to show off the Pretender; they’re in Mayfleld, and will be here in hours.’ With a thud, the drawbridge was down. The flock of black swans on the moat skidded noisily down to the weedy end and flapped.
Claudia leant over the battlements.
The women walked out slowly, with bundles on their backs. Some carried children. Older girls walked hand in hand with their brothers and sisters. They turned, waving at the windows. Behind, on a great wain pulled by the biggest carthorse, the older servants that were leaving sat stoically, rocking with the bumps on the wooden bridge.
Finn counted twenty-two. ‘Is Ralph going?’ Claudia laughed. ‘I ordered him to. He said, ‘Yes, my lady. And what will you be requiring for dinner tonight?”
He thinks this place would fall down without him.’
‘He, like all of us, serves the Warden,’ Captain Soames said.
‘No disrespect to you, my lady, but the Warden is our master. If he’s not here, we guard his house.’ Claudia frowned. ‘My father doesn’t deserve any of you.’ But she said it so quietly only Finn heard her.
When Soames had gone to supervise the drawbridge being raised Finn stood beside her, watching the girls trudge down into the Queen’s camp.
‘They’ll be questioned. Who’s here, our plans.’
‘I know. But I won’t be responsible for their deaths.’
‘You think it will come to that?’ She glanced at him. ‘We have to set up talks. Play for time.
Work on the Portal’ Finn nodded. She walked past him to the stairs and said over her shoulder, ‘Come on. You shouldn’t stand up here.
One arrow from that camp and it would be all over.’ He looked at her, and just as she got to the stairs he said, ‘You do believe me, Claudia, don’t you? I need you to believe that I remember.’
‘Of course I believe you,’ she said. ‘Now come on.’ But she had her back to him, and she didn’t turn around.
‘It’s dark. Hold that torch higher.’ Keiro’s voice came impatiently down the shaft; the echoes made it hollow and strange. Attia stretched up as high as she could, but the torchlight showed her nothing of him. Below her Rix shouted, ‘What can you see?’
‘I can’t see anything. I’m going on.’ Scrapes and clangs. Muttered swearing that the shaft took and whispered to itself. Worried, Attia called, ‘Be careful.’ He didn’t bother to answer. The ladder twisted and jerked as she struggled to hold it still; Rix came and hauled on it with all his weight, and it was easier. She said, ‘Listen, Rix.
While we’re alone. You have to listen to me. Keiro will steal the Glove from you. Why not pull a stunt on him?’ He smiled, sly. ‘You mean give it to you, and carry a fake one? Oh my poor Attia. Is this the limit of your cunning? A child could do better.’ She glared at him. ‘At least I won’t give it to the Prison. At least I won’t kill us all.’ He winked. ‘Incarceron is my father, Attia. I am born of its cells. It will not betray me.’ Disgusted, she gripped the ladder.
And realized it was still.
‘Keiro?’ They waited, hearing the thud-thud, thud-thud, of the Prison’s heart.
‘Keiro? Answer me.’ The ladder swung easily now. No one was on it.
‘Keiro!’ There was a sound but it was muffled and far away.
Hastily she shoved the torch into Rix’s hands. ‘He’s found something. I’m going up.’ As she hauled herself up the first slippery rungs he said, ‘If it’s trouble, say the word “problem”. I’ll understand.’ She stared at his pock- marked face, his gap-toothed grin.
Then she swung down and put her face close to his. ‘Just how crazy are you, Rix? A lot, or not at all? Because I’m beginning to be very unsure.’ He arched one eyebrow. ’I am the Dark Enchanter, Attia.
I am unknowable.’ The ladder wriggled and slid under her as if it was alive.
She turned and climbed quickly, soon breathless, hauling her weight up. Her hands slid on the mud Keiro’s boots had left; the heat grew as she went up, a murky sulphurous stench that reminded her uneasily of Rix’s idea of the magma chamber.
Her arms ached. Each step now was an effort and the torch, far below, was no more than a spark in the darkness. She hauled herself up one more rung and hung, giddily.
And then she realized there was no shaft wall in front of her, but a faintly lit space.
And a pair of boots.
They were black, rather battered, with a silver buckle on one and broken stitching on the other. And whoever
