"Take it," he whispered.
A rag-bound hand, crusted with sores, snatched it from him. While the creature ate he watched, remembering the voice that had answered him, a low, urgent voice. Now he whispered, "Who are you?"
"Is that thing still here?" Sore and irritable, Keiro pulled his jacket back on and laced it, scowling at the slashes and tears. Finn shrugged.
"We dump it." Keiro sat, wolfed down the meat, and looked around for more. "It's poxed."
"You owe that thing your life," Gildas remarked.
Hot, Keiro glared up. "I don't think so! I had Jormanric where I wanted him." His eyes turned to the creature; then they widened in sudden fury and he leaped up, strode to where it crouched, and snatched away something dark. "This is mine!"
It was his bag. A green tunic and a jeweled dagger spilled out. "Stinking thief." Keiro aimed a kick at the creature; it jerked away. Then, to their astonishment, it said in a girl's voice, "You should be grateful to me for bringing it."
Gildas turned on his heel and stared at the shadow of rags. Then he stabbed a bony finger at it. "Show yourself," he said.
The ragged hood was pushed back, the wrapped paws unwound bandages and gray strips of binding. Slowly, out of the crippled huddle a small figure emerged, crouched up on its knees, a dark cropped head of dirty hair, a narrow face with watchful, suspicious eyes. She was layered with clothes strapped and tied to make humps and bulges; as she tugged the clotted wrappings from her hands, Finn stepped back in disgust at the open sores, the running ulcers. Until Gildas snorted. "Fake."
He strode forward. "No wonder you didn't want me near you."
In the dimness of the metal forest the dog-slave had become a small thin girl, the sores clever messes of color. She stood upright slowly, as if she had almost forgotten how. Then she stretched and groaned. The ends of the chain around her neck clattered and swung.
Keiro laughed harshly. "Well, well. Jormanric was slyer than I thought."
"He didn't know." The girl looked at him boldly. "None of them knew. When they caught me
I was with a group—one old woman died that night. I stole these rags from her body and made the sores out of rust, rubbed muck all over myself, hacked off my hair. I knew I had to be clever, very clever, to stay alive."
She looked scared, and defiant. It was hard to tell her age; the brutal haircut made her seem like a scrawny child, but Finn guessed she was not so much younger than himself.
He said, "It didn't turn out to be such a good idea."
She shrugged. "I didn't know I'd end up as his slave."
"And tasting his food?"
She laughed then, a bitter amusement. "He ate well. It kept me alive."
Finn glanced at Keiro. His oathbrother watched the girl, then turned away and curled up in the blankets. "We dump her in the morning."
"It's not up to you." Her voice was quiet but firm. "I'm the servant of the Starseer now."
Keiro rolled and stared. Finn said, "Me?"
"You brought me out of that place. No one else would have done that. Leave me, and I'll follow you. Like a dog ." She stepped forward, "I want to
Escape. I want to find the Outside, if there is one. And they said in the slavehall that you see the stars in your dreams, that Sapphique talks to you. That the Prison will show you the way out because you're its son."
He stared at her in dismay. Gildas shook his head. He looked at Finn and Finn looked back.
"Up to you," the old man muttered.
He had no idea what to do, so he cleared his throat and said to the girl, "What's your name?" "Attia."
"Well, look, Attia. I don't want a servant. But ... you can come with us."
"She has no food. That means we have to feed her," Keiro said.
"Neither do you." Finn nudged the pack of clothes. "Or me, now."
"Then she shares your catch, brother. Not mine."
Gildas leaned back against one of the metal trees. "Sleep," he said. "We'll discuss it when the lights come on. But someone has to keep watch, so first it can be you, girl."
She nodded, and as Finn curled up uneasily in the blankets, he saw her slip into the shadows and vanish.
Keiro yawned like a cat. "She'll probably slit our throats," he muttered.
CLAUDIA SAID, "I said good night, Alys," and watched in her dressing table mirror as her nurse fussed over silk garments strewn on the floor.
"Look at this, Claudia, it's ruined with mud ..."
"Put it through the washing machine. I know you've got one somewhere."
Alys gave her a glare. They both knew the endless archaic scrubbing and beating and starching of clothes was so wearing that the staff had secretly abandoned Protocol long ago. It was probably the same even at Court, Claudia thought.
As soon as the door was closed she jumped up and went over and locked it, turning the wrought-iron key and clicking on all the secrecy systems. Then she leaned her back against it and considered.
Jared had not been at supper. That didn't mean anything; he would have wanted to keep up the pretense, and he hated the Ear's stupidity. For a moment she wondered if he really had been ill in the maze, and whether she should call him, but he had warned her to keep the minicom for emergencies, especially with the Warden in the house.
She tied the belt of her dressing gown and jumped on the bed, reaching up to grope in the canopy of the four-poster.
Not there.
The house was quiet now. Caspar had talked and drunk his way through supper; fourteen courses of fish and finches, capons and swan, eels and sweetmeats. He had talked loudly and peevishly about tournaments, his new horse, a castle he was having built on the coast, the sums he had lost at gambling. His new passion seemed to be boar-hunting, or at least staying well back while his servants trussed a wounded boar for him to kill. He had described his spear, the kills he had made, the tusked heads that adorned the corridors of the Court.
And all the time he had drunk and refilled and his voice had grown more and more hectoring and slurred.
She had listened with a fixed smile and had teased him with odd, barbed questions that he had barely understood. And all the time her father had sat opposite and toyed with the stem of his wineglass, turning it on the white cloth between his thin fingers, looking at her.
Now, as she jumped down and went over to the dressing table, searching through all the drawers, she remembered that cool look, how it appraised her sitting there, beside the fool she would have to marry.
It wasn't in any of the drawers.
Suddenly chilled, she went to the window and unlatched it, letting the casement swing open, curling herself up in a miserable huddle on the cushions of the window seat. If he loved her, how could he do this to her? Couldn't he see the misery it would be?
The summer evening was warm and smelled sweetly of stocks and honeysuckle and the hedge of musk-roses that curved around the moat. From far over the fields the bell of Hornsely church softly tolled twelve chimes. She watched as a moth fluttered in and swooped recklessly around the flame of the candles; its shadow briefly huge on the ceiling.
Had there been a new edge in his smile? Had that stupid blurted question about her mother sharpened the danger?
Her mother had died. That's what Alys had said, but Alys hadn't been working here then, nor had any of the servants except Medlicote, her father's secretary, a man she rarely spoke to. But maybe she should. Because that question had gone in like a knife, through the Warden's studied armor of grave smiles and cold Period decorum. She had stabbed him and he had felt it.