‘I’m very glad to be back home.’ She smiled, but he knew she was tense. ‘But things have changed. You’ll have had all the news from Court — you know about the two candidates for the throne. Well, things have come to such a point that we . . . I . . . have had to make a decision about which one I support.’ She stretched out her hand, and Finn stepped up beside her.
‘This is Prince Giles. Our future king. My betrothed.’ The last phrase astonished him but he tried not to show it.
He nodded at them gravely and they all stared up at him, their eyes taking in every travel-worn detail of his clothing, his face. He found himself standing tall, steeling himself not to flinch from that examination.
He should say something. He managed, ‘I thank you all for your support,’ but it produced not even a ripple. Alys was by the door, her hands gripped tight together. Ralph, near the table, said boldly, ‘God bless you, sire!’ Claudia didn’t wait for any response. ‘The Queen has declared the Pretender as her candidate. Essentially, this means civil war. I’m sorry to put it so bluntly, but it’s important you all understand what is happening here. Many of you have lived at the Wardenry for generations. You were my father’s servants. The Warden is no longer here, but I have spoken to him...’ That did produce a murmur.
‘Is he in favour of this prince?’ someone asked.
‘He is. But he would wish me to treat you with respect.
Therefore I say this.’ She folded her arms and gazed out at them. ‘The young women and all the children will leave immediately. I’ll give you an armed escort to the village, though it won’t be needed. As for the men and the senior staff, the choice is yours. No one who wants to go will be prevented. There’s no Protocol here any more.’ — I’m saying this to you as equals. You must make up your own minds.’ She paused, but there was silence, so into it she said, ‘Assemble in the courtyard at the midday bell, and Captain Soames’s men will take care of you. I wish you well.’
‘But my lady,’ someone said. ‘What will you do?’ It was a boy, near the back.
Claudia grinned at him. ‘Hello, Job. We’ll stay. Finn and I will use the . . . machinery in my father’s study to try and contact him in Incarceron. It will take time but . . .’
‘And Master Jared, ma’am.’ One of the maids’ voices, anxious. ‘Where is he? He would know what to do.’ There was a ripple of agreement. Claudia’s eyes slid to Finn. She said sharply, ‘Jared’s on his way. But we already know what to do. The true king has been found, and those who once tried to destroy him must not succeed again She was in control, but she had not won them over. Finn could sense that. There was a silent discontent, an unspoken doubt. They knew her too well, from a child. And though she was an imperious mistress they had probably never loved her. She wasn’t speaking to their hearts.
So he held his hand out, and took hers. ‘Friends, Claudia is right to give you a choice. I owe everything to her. Without her I would be dead now, or worse, thrown back into the hell of Incarceron. I wish I could tell you what her support means. But to do that I would have to explain the Prison to you, and I won’t do that, because I dare not speak about it, it hurts me even to think of it.’ They were intent; the word Incarceron was like a charm.
Finn allowed his voice to tremble.
‘I was a child. I was snatched from a world of beauty and peace to a torment of pain and hunger, a hell where men murder each other without a care, where women and children sell themselves to stay alive. I know about death.
I’ve suffered the miseries of the poor. I know about loneliness, how wretched it is to be alone and terrified in a maze of echoing halls and dark dread. This is the knowledge Incarceron gave me. And when I am King, this is the knowledge I will use. There will be no more Protocol, no more fear. No more being locked in. I will do my best — I swear this to you my best to make this Realm a true paradise, and a free world for all its people. And Incarceron too. That’s all I can say to you. All I can promise you. Except that if we lose I will kill myself rather than go back there The silence was different. It was caught in their throats.
And when a soldier growled, ‘I’m with you, my lord: another answered at once, and then another, and suddenly the room was a hubbub of voices until Ralph’s reedy ‘God save Prince Giles’ had them roaring their approval.
Finn smiled, wan.
Claudia watched him, and when their eyes met she saw there was a triumph in him, quiet but proud.
Keiro had been right, she thought. Finn could talk his way to a crown.
She turned. A footman was pushing his way through to her, white and wide-eyed. She crouched, and his voice, thin and terrified, silenced the hubbub.
‘They’re here, my lady. The Queen’s army is here.’
25
Some say a vast pendulum swings in the heart of the Prison, or that there is a chamber there white-hot with energy, like the core of a star. For mys4f I think that if lncarceron has a heart it is icy, and nothing could survive there.
The tunnel narrowed rapidly. Soon Keiro was on hands and knees in the shallow water, struggling to keep the new torch alight. Behind her Attia heard Rix gasp as he crawled, the pack slung under his belly, the roof bruising his back. And was it her imagination, or was the air warmer?
She said, ‘What if it gets too small?’
‘Stupid question,’ Keiro muttered. ‘We die. There’s no way back.’ It was hotter. And choked with dust. She left it on her lips and skin. Crawling was painful; her knees and palms sore and cut. The tunnel had shrunk to a tube now, a red pulsing heat that they had to force their way through.
Suddenly Rix stopped dead. ‘Volcano.’ Keiro twisted round. ‘What!’
‘Imagine. If the heart of the Prison is in fact a great magma chamber, sealed by terrible compression in the very centre of its being.’
‘Oh for god’s sake...’
‘And if we reach it, if it is pierced by even so much as a needle-point . . .’
‘Rix!’ Attia said fiercely. ‘This isn’t helping.’ She heard him breathing hard. ‘But it may be true. What do we know? And yet we could know. We could understand all things at once.’ She squirmed to look back. He was lying full length in the water. He had the Glove in his hand.
‘No!’ she hissed.
He looked up and his face was lit with that sly delight she had come to dread. And then he was shouting, his voice deafening in the confined space.
‘I WILL PUT ON THE GLOVE. I WILL BECOME ALL-KNOWING.’ Keiro was beside her, knife in hand. ‘I’ll finish him this time. I swear I will.’
‘LIKE THE MAN IN THE GARDEN...’
‘What garden, Rix?’ she asked quietly. “What garden?’
‘The one in the Prison, somewhere. You know.’
‘I don’t.’ She had her hand round Keiro’s wrist, forcing him still. ‘Tell me.’ Rix stroked the Glove. ‘There was a garden and a tree grew there with golden apples and if you ate one of them you knew everything. And then Sapphique climbed over the fence and killed the many-headed monster and picked the apple, because he wanted to know, you see, Attia. He wanted to know how to Escape.’
‘Right.’ She had wriggled back. She was close to his pocked face.
‘And a snake came out of the grass and it said, “Oh go on, eat the apple. I dare you.” And he stopped then with it to his mouth because he knew the snake was Incarceron.’ Keiro groaned. ‘Let me...’
‘Put the Glove away, Rix. Or give it to me.’ His fingers caressed its dark scales. ‘And because if he ate it he would know how small he was. How much of a nothing he was. He would see himself as a speck in the vastness of the Prison.’
‘So he didn’t eat it, right?’ Rix stared at her. ‘What?’
‘In the patchbook. He didn’t eat it.’ There was silence. Something seemed to pass over Rix’s face; then he frowned crossly at her and tucked the Glove away inside his coat. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Attia. What patchbook? Why aren’t we getting on?’ She watched him a moment, then shoved Keiro on with her foot. Muttering, he shuffled back. The moment was over, but it had been too close. Somehow, quickly, she had to get the Glove from Rix before he went too far.