out.
The guns were a row of dark muzzles.
‘If they fire …’ Medlicote said nervously.
Keiro said, ‘Someone’s coming.’ A courtier was galloping towards them on a grey horse. He spoke to the artillerymen as he passed, then galloped cautiously over the lawns to the edge of the moat.
‘You wish to surrender the Prisoner?’ he called up.
‘Shut up and listen to me.’ Finn leant over. ‘Tell the Queen if she fires on us she kills her son. Understand?’ He grabbed Caspar and hauled him to the battlements. The courtier stared up in horror, his horse prancing under him.
‘The Earl? But …’ Keiro stepped up to Caspar, one arm around his shoulders.
‘Here he is! With both ears, both eyes and both hands. Unless you’d like some proof to take the Queen?’
‘No!’ the man gasped.
‘Shame Keiro had a knife carelessly against Caspar’s cheek.
‘But I suggest you tell the Queen that he’s in my hands now and I’m not like the rest of you. I’m not playing any games.’ He tightened his grip and Caspar stifled a gasp.
Finn said, ‘No.’ Keiro smiled his most charming smile. ‘Run along now.’ The courtier turned his horse and raced for the tents. Clods of earth were flung up by the hooves. As he passed he yelled urgently at the men by the cannons; they backed away, obviously puzzled.
Keiro turned. He pushed the point of the knife very slightly into Caspar’s white skin. A small red spot swelled with blood.
‘A little souvenir he whispered.
‘Leave him.’ Finn came and tugged Caspar away and pushed the half-fainting Earl at Captain Soames. ‘Put him somewhere safe and have a man stay with him. Food and water. Anything he needs.’ As they took the boy away he turned on Keiro angrily.
‘This is not the Prison!’
‘So you keep telling me.’
‘You don’t need to be so savage.’ Keiro shrugged. ‘Too late. This is me, Finn. This is what the Prison has made me. Not like all this, no: He waved at the manor house. ‘This pretty world, those toy soldiers. I’m real.
And I’m free. Free to do whatever I want.’ He headed for the stairs.
‘Where are you going?’
‘That bath, brother. Those clothes.’ Finn nodded to Ralph. ‘Find him some.’ Seeing the consternation in the old man’s face, he turned away.
He had forgotten. In three months he had forgotten the wildness in Keiro, his arrogance, his utter wilfulness. How he had always been scared of what Keiro would do.
A woman’s scream of fury jerked his head up. It cut the morning like a knife, and it came from the Queen’s pavilion.
Well, at least that was one message that had gone home.
30
As the Beast I took your finger. As the Dragon I give you my hand.
Now you have crawled and clambered into my heart.
I can’t see you any more.
Are you still here?
The very air was freezing.
Huddled at the feet of the winged Sapphique, Attia could not stop shivering. Knees up, arms wrapped round herself, she suffered the numbing agony of cold. Her shoulders were white, her arms, her back. Snow made the miserable heap that was Rix into an albino wizard, his straggly hair glistening with half-melted slush. ‘We’ll die,’ he croaked.
‘No.’ The Warden had not stopped pacing. His footsteps made a complete circle about the base of the statue. ‘No. This is a bluff. The Prison is computing a solution. I know how its mind works. It’s trying out every plot and plan can devise, and in the meantime it hopes to force us to give it the Glove.’
‘But you can’t!’ Rix groaned.
‘Do you think I can’t speak to the Outside?’ Claudia was standing right behind him. She said, ‘Can you? Or are you bluffing too? Is this part of the game you’ve spent your life playing?’ Her father stopped and turned to her. Pinched with cold, his face was deathly pale against the high dark collar. ‘You still hate me then?’
‘I don’t hate you. But I can’t forgive you.’ He smiled. ‘For rescuing you from a life in hell? For giving you everything you could ever want — money, education, great estates? Betrothal to a prince?’ He always did this to her. Made her feel foolish and ungrateful. But still she said, ‘All that yes. But you never really loved me.’
‘How do you know?’ His face was close to hers.
‘I would have known. I would have felt...’
‘Ah, but I play games, remember?’ His eyes were clear and grey. ‘With the Queen. With the Prison. It has taught me to be careful what I show to the world He took a slow breath, the snow catching on his narrow beard. ‘Perhaps I loved you more than you knew. But if we come to accusations, Claudia, I might say this. You love only Jared.’
‘Don’t bring Jared into this! You wanted your daughter to be Queen. Any daughter would do. I could have been anyone.’ The Warden stepped back, as if her anger was a wave that pushed him away.
Rix chuckled. ‘A puppet,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘A puppet. Carved perfectly by a lonely man from wood.
And yet the puppet comes alive and torments him.’ John Arlex frowned. ‘Keep your stories for your act, magician.’
‘This is my act, sire.’ For a moment the voice was changed; it became the soft voice of Sapphique, so that they all stared at him through the falling snow. But Rix just grinned his gap-toothed grin.
The Prison howled. It gusted the snow against them in an angry scream. Attia glanced up and saw that the statue was crusted with icicles. Snow whitened the crevices of its hand, clogged the plumage of its coat. Sapphique’s eyes were glinting with ice; over his face a frost spread almost as she looked, stars of crystal joining up like some inhuman virus.
She was too cold to bear it. She jumped up. ‘We’ll freeze here. And god knows what’s happening elsewhere’ Claudia nodded gloomily. ‘Putting Keiro in the middle of a seige is a recipe for disaster. If only I knew where Jared is.’ I have come to my decision. The Prison’s venomous whisper was all around them.
‘Excellent The Warden glared up into the snowfall. ‘I was sure you’d come to your senses. Show me the Door. I’ll ensure the Glove is returned to you.’ Silence.
Then, with a snigger that sent shivers down Attia’s spine, Incarceron said, I am not such a fool,John. The Glove first.
‘We leave first.’ I don’t trust you.
‘Very wise,’ Rix muttered.
I was made by the Wise.
The Warden smiled coldly. ‘Nor do I trust you.’ Then you will not be surprised at what I do next. You think I cannot reach the Glove. But I have spent centuries investigating my own power and its sources. I have discovered things that astonished me. I assure you, John, I can suck the life out of your pretty Realm.
Claudia said, ‘What do you mean? You can’t …’ Ask your father. How pale he looks now. I will show all of you
