‘So,’ the Sun Lord mused. ‘You say the Warden imprisoned you?’
‘It must have been him.’ The man smiled kindly. Finn tensed. The kind ones were always the most deadly.
‘But. . . if the Warden was responsible, he could not have acted alone. Not with the abduction of a royal prince. Do you claim that the Privy Council were involved?’
‘No.’
‘The Sapienti?’ He shrugged, wearily. ‘Someone with knowledge of drugs must have been.’
‘So you accuse the Sapienti?’
‘I don’t accuse. . .’
‘And the Queen?’ The room was silent. Sullen, Finn clenched his fists. He was staring right into disaster and he knew it. But he didn’t care.
‘She must have known.’ No one moved. The Queen’s hand was still. The Sun Lord shook his head sadly. ‘We need to be absolutely clear, sire.
Do you accuse the Queen of your abduction? Of your imprisonment?’ Finn didn’t look up. His voice was dark with miser because they had trapped him into this, and Claudia would despise him for his stupidity.
But he still said it.
‘Yes. I accuse the Queen.’
‘Look over there.’ Rho stood on the viaduct and pointed.
Narrowing her eyes, Attia strained to see across the dimness of the hail. Birds were flying towards her, dark flocks of them. Their wings creaked; in a second they were all around her and she ducked with a gasp under the cloud of plummage and beaks. Then they were streaming far into the east.
‘Birds, bats, people.’ Rho turned, her eye of gold shining. ‘We have to live, Attia, like everyone else, but we don’t steal, or kill. We work for a higher purpose. When the Unsapient asks for things he needs, we get them. In the last three months we’ve sent him—’
‘How?’
‘What?’ Attia caught the girl by the wrist. ‘How? How does this. . .
Unsapient tell you what he wants?’ Rho pulled away and stared. ‘He speaks to us.’ A shiver of the world interrupted her. Far below a scream arose; cries of terror. Instantly Attia fell flat, grabbing the rusted girders; another ripple of movement went right through her body, her very fingernails. Next to her a rivet snapped; ivy slithered over the edge.
They waited until the Prisonquake ended, Rho on hands and knees beside her, both of them breathless with fear. As soon as she could speak Attia said, ‘Let’s get back down.
Please.’ Through the hole the complex of the Nest hung apparently undisturbed.
‘The quakes are getting worse.’ Rho scrambled in the ivy tunnel.
‘How does he speak to you? Please, Rho, I really need to know.’
‘Down here. I’ll show you.’ They hurried through the room of feathers. Three of the other women were there, cooking stew in a great cauldron, one mopping spills that had slopped out in the shiver. The smell of meat made Attia swallow in appreciation. Then Rho ducked under a doorway into a small rounded place, a bubble of a room. It contained nothing but an Eye.
Attia stopped dead.
The small red glimmer swivelled to look at her. For a moment she stood there, remembering Finn’s tale of how he had woken in a cell containing nothing but this, the silent, curious gaze of Incarceron.
Then slowly, she came and stood below it. ‘I thought you said the Unsapient.’
‘That’s what he calls himself. He is the heart of the Prison’s plan.’
‘Is he now?’ Attia took a breath and folded her arms. Then, so loud that Rho started, she snapped, ‘Warden. Can you hear me?’ Claudia paced up and down the panelled corridor.
When the door opened and the footman slipped out, an empty goblet on his tray, she grabbed him. ‘What’s happening?’
‘The Prince Giles is . . .‘ He glanced past her, bowed and scurried away.
‘Don’t scare the servants, Claudia,’ Caspar muttered from the doorway to the garden.
Furious, she turned and saw his bodyguard, Fax, carrying archery targets under his brawny arms. Caspar wore a bright green coat and a tricorn hat with a white curling feather.
‘They’ll be talking for hours. Come and shoot some crows.’
‘I’ll wait!’ She sat on a chair against the wall, kicking the wooden leg with her foot.
An hour later, she was still there.
‘And you planned all this yourself?’
‘The Queen had no idea, if that’s what you mean.’ The Pretender sat back in the chair, arms loose. His voice was calm and conversational. ‘The plan was mine — to disappear absolutely. I would not have burdened Her Majesty with such a conspiracy.’
‘I see.’ The Sun Lord nodded sagely. ‘But there was a dead body, was there not? A boy who everyone believed was Giles, laid in state here in the Great Hall for three days. You arranged even that?’ Giles shrugged. ‘Yes. One of the peasants in the Forest died from a bear’s attack. It was convenient, I admit. It covered my tracks.’ Finn, listening, scowled. It might even be true. Suddenly he thought of the old man, Tom. Hadn’t he said something about his son? But the Sun Lord was asking mildly.’
‘So you are indeed Prince Giles?’
‘Of course I am, man.’
‘If I were to suggest you are an imposter, that you. . .’
‘I hope’ — the Pretender sat up slowly — ‘I hope, sir, that you are not implying that Her Majesty somehow had me trained or indoctrinated in any way to play this — role?’ His clear brown eyes met the inquisitor’s in a direct stare. ‘You would not dare suggest such a crime.’ Finn cursed silently. He watched the Queen’s mouth twitch into a small secret smile.
‘Indeed, not,’ the Sun Lord said, bowing. ‘Indeed not, sire.’ He had them. If they accused him of that, they accused the Queen, and Finn knew that would never happen. He cursed the boy’s cleverness, his plausibility, his easy elegance. He cursed his own rough awkwardness.
The Pretender watched the Sun Lord sit and the Shadow Lord stand. If he was apprehensive there was no sign of it.
He leant back, almost negligent, and beckoned for water.
The dark man watched him drink it. As soon as the cup was back on the tray, he said, ‘At the age of eleven you left the Academy.’
‘I was nine, as you well know. My father felt it more fitting that the Crown Prince should study privately:
‘You had several tutors, all eminent Sapienti.’
‘Yes. All, unfortunately, now dead.’
‘Your chamberlain, Bartley. . .’
‘Bartlett.’
‘Ah yes, Bartlett. He is also dead.’
‘I have heard. He was murdered by the Steel Wolves, as I would have been, if I had stayed here.’ His face softened.
‘Dear Bartlett. I loved him greatly.’ Finn ground his teeth. A few of the Council glanced at each other.
‘You are fluent in seven languages?’
‘I am.’ The next question was in some foreign tongue that Finn couldn’t even identify and the Pretender’s answer was quiet and sneering.
Could he have forgotten whole languages? Was it possible?
He rubbed his face, wishing the prickle behind his eyes would die away.
‘You are also an accomplished musician?’
‘Bring me a viol, a harpsichord.’ The Pretender sounded bored. ‘Or I could sing. Shall I sing, lords?’ He smiled and burst suddenly into an aria, his tenor voice soaring.
The Privy Council stirred. The Queen giggled.
‘Stop it!’ Finn leapt to his feet.
The Pretender stopped. He met Finn’s eyes and said softly, ‘Then let you sing, sire. Play for us. Speak in foreign tongues.
Recite us the poems of Alicene and Castra. I’m sure they will sound most alluring in your gutter accent.’ Finn didn’t move. ‘Those things don’t make a prince.’ he whispered.
‘We might debate that.’ The Pretender stood. ‘But you have no cultured arguments, have you? All you have is anger, and violence, Prisoner.’
‘Sire,’ the Shadow Lord said. ‘Please sit.’ Finn glanced round. The Councillors watched him. They were the jury. Their verdict would condemn him to torture and death or give him the throne. Their faces were hard to read, but he recognized hostility, bewilderment. If only Claudia was here! Or Jared. He longed most of all for Keiro’s harsh, arrogant humour.