‘It won’t harm the statue: the Warden murmured.
Attia glared. ‘You can’t be sure …’ High in the roof, a great rumble silenced her. The clouds were storm-black. Tiny hard pellets of snow were falling from them. In seconds the temperature was below zero and dropping fast, and Rix’s breath steamed as he breathed out.
‘It won’t have to damage it. It’ll just freeze us here to its feet: And each of the tiny flakes whispered as it fell, in millionfold anger.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
The first shot had just been a warning. The ball had sailed right over the roof and crashed somewhere in the woods beyond. But Finn knew the next one would smash through; as he ran up the last stair and out on to the battlements he saw through the acrid smoke the Queen’s artillerymen adjusting the angles of the five great cannon they had ranged across the lawns.
Behind him, Keiro gasped.
Finn turned. His oathbrother stood transfixed, gazing out at the pale dawn sky slashed with gold and scarlet. The sun was rising. It hung like a great red globe above the beechwoods, and rooks rose in clouds to meet it from the branches.
The long shadow of the house stretched over lawns and gardens, and on the moat light glimmered on the ripples the swans made as they woke.
Keiro walked to the battlements and gripped the stonework, as if to make sure it was all real. He gazed for a long moment on the perfection of the morning, at the scarlet and gold pennants flapping over the Queen’s pavilions, the lavender hedges, the roses, the bees that hummed in the honeysuckle flowers under his hands.
‘Amazing,’ he breathed. ‘Totally amazing.’
‘You haven’t seen anything yet,’ Finn muttered. ‘When the sun gets high, it’ll dazzle you. And at night …’ He stopped.
‘Go inside. Ralph, get him some hot water, the best clothes
…’ Keiro shook his head. ‘Tempting, brother, but not yet. First we deal with this enemy Queen.’ Medlicote came up behind them, a little breathless, and behind him the soldiers pushed Caspar, red in the face and furious.
‘Finn, get these ropes off me. I insist!’ Finn nodded and the nearest guard sliced the knot swiftly.
Caspar made a great show of rubbing his chafed wrists, staring haughtily around at everyone except Keiro, whose eyes he seemed too terrified to meet.
Captain Soames stared at him in disbelief. ‘Isn’t that . . . ?‘
‘That’s a miracle.’ Finn said. ‘Now. Can we get their attention before they blast us to pieces?’ The flag was raised; it flapped loudly. In the Queen’s camp a few men pointed; someone ran into the large tent. No one came 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.’