Incarceron Part 4

The old mans grip, fast as a claw, caught Finn's arm.

"Was there a vision?"

"Nothing important."

"I'll be the judge of that."

Gildas looked after Keiro, then back. His small black eyes were alert; they moved with a restless intelligence.

"I want every detail, boy."

He glanced down at the bird-mark on Finn's wrist. Then he let go.

Instantly Finn pushed through the crowd and out. The woman was waiting out in the Den, ignoring Keiro. She turned and stalked in front of Finn back to the tiny cell in the corner and he motioned the guard away with one jerk of his head.

The Maestra turned. "What sort of Sc.u.m hole is this?" she hissed.

"Listen. You're alive ..."

"No thanks to you."

She drew herself up; she was taller than he was, and her anger was venomous. "Whatever you want from me, you can forget it. You murderers can rot in h.e.l.l."

Behind him, Keiro leaned on the doorframe, grinning. "Some people have absolutely no grat.i.tude," he said.

4.

Finally, when all was ready, Manor convened the council of the Sapienti and asked for volunteers.

They must be prepared to leave family and friends forever.

To turn their backs on the green gra.s.s, the trees, the light of the sun.

Never again to see the stars.

"We are the Wise," he said.

"The responsibility for success is ours.

We must send our finest minds to guide the inmates."

At the appointed hour, as he approached the chamber of the Gate, they say he murmured his fear that it would be empty.

He opened the door. Seventy men and women were waiting for him.

In great ceremony, they entered the Prison.

They were never seen again.

-Tales of the Steel Wolf ***

That evening the Warden held a dinner for his honored guest.

The long table was dressed with a magnificent service of silver, the goblets and plates engraved with linked swans. Claudia wore a dress of red silk with a lace bodice and sat opposite Lord Evian, while her father at the head of the table ate sparingly and spoke quietly, his calm gaze moving over the nervous guests.

All their neighbors and tenants had obeyed the summons.

And that's what it was, Claudia thought grimly, because when the Warden of Incarceron invited, there was no refusal. Even Mistress Sylvia, who must be nearly two hundred, flirted and made mincing conversation with the bored young lord next to her.

As Claudia watched, the young lord carefully stifled a yawn. He caught her eye. She smiled at him sweetly. Then she winked and he stared. She knew she shouldn't tease him; he was one of her father's attendants, and the Wardens daughter would be far above him. Still, she was bored too.

After the endless courses of fish and peac.o.c.k and roast boar and sweetmeats, there was dancing, the musicians up in a candlelit gallery above the smoky hall. Ducking under the raised arms of the long line of dancers she wondered suddenly if the instruments were accurate-surely violas were from a later period? That came of leaving details to Ralph. The old retainer was an excellent servant, but his research was sometimes hurried. When her father wasn't here, she didn't care. But the Warden was precise about detail.

It was well after midnight when she finally saw the last guests to their carriage and stood alone on the steps of the manor. Behind her, two link-boys waited sleepily, their torches guttering in the breeze.

"Go to bed," she said without turning.

The glimmer and crackle of the flames faded. The night was quiet. As soon as they were gone, she ran down the steps and under the arch of the gatehouse to the bridge over the moat, breathing the deep stillness of the warm night. Bats flitted over the sky; watching them, she tugged off the stiff ruff and the necklaces, and from under the dress she stepped out of the stiffened petticoats and dumped them with relief into the old disused privy below the bank. Much better! They could stay there till tomorrow.

Her father had retired earlier. He had taken Lord Evian up to the library; perhaps they were still there, talking money and settlements and discussing her future. And afterward, when his guest was gone and all the house was silent, her father would pull back the black velvet curtain at the end of the corridor and open the door of his study with its secret combination, the one she had tried for months to work out. He would disappear in there for hours, perhaps for days.

As far as she knew, no one else ever entered the room. No servant, no technician, not even Medlicote, the secretary. She herself had never been in. Well, not yet.

Glancing up at the north turret she saw, as she'd expected, a tiny flame in the window of the topmost room. She walked quickly to the door in the wall, opened it, and climbed the stairs in the dark.

He thought of her as a tool. A thing he had made ... bred, was his word.

She tightened her lips, her fingers groping over the cold greasy wall. Long ago she had come to know his ruthlessness was so complete that to survive she would have to match it.

Did her father love her? As she slowed for breath on a stone landing she laughed, a quiet amus.e.m.e.nt. She had no idea. Did she love him? She certainly feared him. He smiled at her, had sometimes picked her up when she was small, held her hand on grand occasions, admired her dresses. He had never denied her anything, had never struck her or been angry, even when she'd had tantrums and broken the string of pearls he'd given her, or ridden off for days to the mountains. And yet as far back as she could remember the calmness of his cold gray eyes had terrified her, the dread of his displeasure hung over her.

Beyond the third landing the stairs were cluttered with bird droppings. They were certainly real. She picked her way through, groped along the corridor to the bend, climbed another three steps, and came to the iron-barred door. Grasping the ring, she turned it softly and peered in.

"Jared? It's me."

The room was dark. A solitary candle burned on the sill, its flame guttering in the draft. All around the turret, the windows had been rolled back, in a disregard of protocol that would have given Ralph kittens. The observatory roof rose on steel beams so narrow, it appeared to float. A great telescope had been wheeled to face the south; it bristled with finderscopes and infrared readers and a small flickering monitor screen.

Claudia shook her head.

"Look at this! If the Queen's spy sees this, the fines will cripple us."

"He won't. Not after the amount of cider he sank tonight."

At first she couldn't even find him. Then a shadow at the window moved and the darkness resolved into a slender shape that straightened from the viewfinder.

"Take a look at this, Claudia."

She felt her way across the room, between the cluttered tables, the astrolabe, the hanging globes. Disturbed, a fox cub streaked to the sill. He caught her arm and guided her to the telescope.

"Nebula f345. They call it the Rose."

When she looked in, she could see why. The creamy explosion of stars that filled the dim circle of sky opened like the petals of a vast flower, millennia of light-years across. A flower of stars and quasars, worlds and black holes, its molten heart pulsing with gaseous clouds.

"How far away is it?" she murmured.

"A thousand light-years."

"So what I'm looking at is a thousand years old?"

"Maybe more."

Dazzled, she withdrew her eye from the lens. When she turned to face him, tiny flickers of light blurred her sight, played, over his tangle of dark hair, his narrow face and spare figure, the unlaced tunic under his robe.

"He's brought the wedding forward," she said.

Her tutor frowned."Yes. Of course."

"You knew?"

"I knew the Earl had been expelled from the Academy."

He moved into the candlelight and she saw his green eyes catch the glimmer.

"They sent me a message this morning. I guessed this might be the result."

Annoyed, she brushed a pile of papers off the couch onto the floor and sat wearily, swinging her feet up.

"Well, you were right. We've got two days. Its not going to be enough, is it?"

He came and sat opposite her.

"To finalize tests on the device, no."

"You look tired, Jared Sapiens," she said."So do you, Claudia Arlexa."

There were shadows under his eyes and his skin was pale. Gently she said,"You should get more sleep."

He shook his head."While the universe is out there wheeling over me? Impossible, lady."

She knew it was the pain that kept him awake. Now he called the fox cub and it came and jumped on his lap, rubbing and b.u.t.ting his chest and face. Absently he stroked its tawny back.