'This is all wrong. What's going on?'
Lightning spat; from overhead the low, heavy grumble of thunder rolled down the sky. For a moment Finn knew it was the voice of Incarceron he heard, its terrible, cruel mockery, knew he had neve
r Escaped at all. He turned and
yelled, 'We shouldn't be under the trees. Hurry!'
They whipped the horses up and raced. Claudia felt the rain like blows in her chest; as Finn pulled ahead she shouted at him to wait, to slow down.
Only his horse replied. With a high whinny it reared, hooves kicking the air, and then to her horror it fell, crashing on one side, and he rolled from it, slamming into the ground.
'Finn!' she screamed. Something slashed past her, whipping into the wood, thudding into a tree.
And then she knew it wasn't rain, or lightning.
It was a hail of arrows.
Each man and woman will have their place and be content with it. Because
f
there is no change, what will disturb our peaceful lives?
KING ENDOR'S DECREE
'Claudia!'
Finn rolled over as a firelock blazed; the tree next to him was scorched with diagonal fire. 'Get down!'
Did she have no idea how to act in an ambush? Her horse was panicking; he took a deep breath and ran from cover, grabbing it by the bridle. 'Get down!'
She jumped, and they both fell. Then they were squirming into the bushes, lying fiat, breathless. Around them the forest roared with rain.
'Hurt?'
'No. You?'
'Bruised. Nothing serious.'
Claudia dragged soaked hair from her eyes. 'I can't believe this. Sia would never order it. Where are they?'
Finn was watching the trees intently. 'Over there, behind that thicket, maybe. Or high in the branches.'
That alarmed her. She twisted to see but rain blinded her She wriggled further back, her hands deep in leaf- flitter, the stink of decaying foliage rich in her face.
'Now what?'
'We regroup,' Finn's voice was steady. 'Weapons? I've got a sword and knife.'
'There's a pistol in my saddlebag.' But the horse had already bolted. She glanced sidelong at Finn. 'Are you enjoying this?'
He laughed, a rare event. 'It livens things up. But back in Incarceron we used to be the ones doing the ambushing.' Lightning blinked. Its brilliance lit the wood and the rain came down harder, hissing through the bracken.
'I could try and crawl to that oak: Finn muttered in her ear. 'And get round ...' 'There might be an army out there:
'One man. Maybe two, no more: He squirmed back, the bushes rustling. Instantly two arrows thwacked into the bole of the tree above them. Claudia gasped. Finn froze. 'Well, maybe not.'
'This is the Steel Wolves,' she hissed.
Finn was silent a moment. Then he said, 'Can't be. They could have killed me last night:
She stared at him through the downpour. 'What?'
'They left this next to m
y head.' He held up the dagger;
the snarling wolfshead dripping in his fingers.
Then as one, they turned. Voices were approaching through the hissing forest.
'See them?'
'Not yet.' She eased forward.
'I think our enemy has.' Finn watched the small movements of branches. 'I think they're puffing out.'
'Look.' A waggon was rumbling along the track, precariously laden with mown hay, the loose cover flapping in the wind. A brawny man walked beside it and another drove, sackcloth hoods covering their faces, their boots thick with mud.
'Peasants.' Claudia said. 'Our only chance.' 'The archers might still be —'
'Come on.' Before he could stop her she scrambled out. 'Wait! Please, stop!'
The men stared. The big one swung a heavy cudgel up as he saw Finn behind her, sword in hand. 'What's this?' he said sourly.
'Our horses were frightened and ran off. By the lightning.' Claudia shivered in the rain, puffing her coat around her. The big serf grinned. 'Bet y
ou had to hold each other tight
then?'
She drew herself upright, aware that she was soaked and her hair dripped in a tangled mess, made her voice cold and imperious. 'Look, we need someone to go and find our horses, and we need... '
'The rich always need.' The cudgel tapped against the raw red hands. 'And we all have to jump but it won't always be like that. One day soon...'
'Enough, Rafe.' The voice came from the waggon, and Claudia saw that the driver had pushed back his hood. His face was wrinkled, his body bent. He seemed old, but his voice was strong enough. 'Follow us, missy. We'll get you to the cottages, and then we'll find your horses.'
With a low
hup!
he whipped up the ox, and the heavy beast lumbered past. Claudia and Finn kept close under the shelter of the towering load of hay, wisps slipping off and drifting down on them. Above the trees the sky had begun to clear; the rain ended quite suddenly, and a shaft of sunlight broke through, lighting the distant aisles of the forest. The storm was passing as quickly as it had come.
Finn glanced back. The muddy track was empty. A blackbird began to sing in its stillness.
'They've gone,' Claudia muttered.
'Or they're following.' Finn turned. 'How far are these cottages?'
'Just here, lad, just here. Don't you fret. I won't let Rafe rob you, even if you are Cour
t folk. The Queen's people, are
you?'
Claudia opened her mouth indignantly but Finn said, 'My girl works for the Countess of Harken. She's a lady' maid.' She fixed him with a stare of astonishment, but the wizened driver nodded. 'And you?'
He shrugged. 'A groom in the stables. We borrowed the horses, it was such a fine day. . . We'll get into terrible trouble now. Beaten, probably.'
Claudia watched him. His face was as doleful as if he believed the story himself; something about him had changed in a moment to an apprehensive servant, his best livery ruined by the mud and rain.
'Ah well. We were all young once.' The old man winked at Claudia. 'Wish I was young again.'
Rafe guffawed with mirth.
Claudia set her lips tight, but tried to look miserable. She was cold and wet enough for it.
When the waggon clattered through a broken gateway she muttered quietly to Finn, 'What are you up to?'
'Keeping them on our side. If they knew who we were
...'
'They'd jump to help! We could pay
...'
He was watching her strangely. 'Sometimes, Claudia, I think you don't understand anything at all.'
'Such as what?' she snapped.
He nodded ahead. 'Their lives. Look at this.'
Cottages was hardly a word for them. Two lopsided, squalid buildings squatted at the edge of the track. Their thatch was in holes, wattle and daub walls patched with hurdles. A few ragged children ran out and stared, silent, and as Claudia came clo
ser she saw how thin they were,
how the youngest coughed and the oldest was bow-legged with rickets.
The waggon rumbled into the lee of the buildings. Rafe yelled at the children to find the horses and they scattered, and then he ducked under one of the low doorways. Claudia and Finn waited for the older man to climb down. His hunched back was even more evident when he stood, no taller than Finn's shoulder.
'This way, lord's groom and lady's maid. We don't have much, but we do have a fire.'
Claudia frowned. She followed him down the steps under the wooden lintel.
At first she saw nothing but the fire. The interior was black. Then the stink rose up and hit her with its full force, and it was so bad she gasped and stopped dead, and only Finn's shove in her back made her stumble on. The Court had its share of bad smells but there was nothing like this; a stench of animal dung and urine and sour milk and the fly-buzzed remnants of bones that cracked in the straw under her feet. And above all, the sweet smell of damp, as if the whole hovel was settling deep into the earth, tilting and softening, its wooden posts rotten and beetle-bored.
As her eyes became used to the gloom she saw sparse furnishings — a table, joint-stools, a box-bed built into the wall. There were two windows, small and wood-slatted, a branch of ivy growing in through one.
The old man dragged up a stool for her. 'Sit, missy, and dry yourself. You too, lad. They call me Tom. Old Tom.'
She didn't want to sit. There were certainly fleas in the straw The miserable poverty of the place sickened her. But she sat, holding out her hands to the paltry fire.
'Put some kindling on.' Tom shuffled to the table.
'You live here alone?' Finn asked, tossing on dry sticks.
'My wife died these five years. But some of Rafe's young ones sleep here. He has six, and his sick mother to care for
.’
Claudia noticed something in a dim doorway; she realized after a moment that it was a pig, snuffling the straw of the adjoining room. That would be the byre. She shivered. 'You should glass the windows. The draught is terrible.'
The old man laughed, pouring out thin ale. 'But that wouldn't be Protocol, would it? And we must abide by the Protocol, even as it kills us.'
'There are ways round it,' Finn said softly.
'Not for us.' He pushed the pottery cups towards them. 'For the Queen maybe, because them that make the rules can break them, but not for the poor. Era is no pretence for us, no playing at the past with all its edges softened. It's real. We have no skinwands, lad, none of the precious electricity or plastiglas. The picturesque squalor the Queen likes to ride past is where we live. You play at history. We endure it.'
Claudia sipped the sour beer. She realized she had always known this. Jared had taught her, and she had visited the poor of the Wardenry, ruled over by her father's strict regime. Once, in a snowy January; seeing beggars from the coach, she had asked him if more couldn't be done for them. He had smiled his remote smile, smoothed his dark gloves. 'They are the price we pay, Claudia, for peace. For the tranquillity of our time.'
A small cold flame of anger burned in her now, remembering. But she said nothing. It was Finn who asked, 'Is there resentment?'
'There is.' The old man drank, and rapped his pipe on the table. 'Now, I have little food but... '
'We're not hungry.' Finn hadn't missed the evasion, but Claudia's voice interrupted him.
'May I ask you, sir.
What is that?'
She was staring at a small image in the darkest corner of the room. A slant of sunlight caught it; showed a crude carving of a man, his face shadowy; his hair dark.
Tom was still. He seemed dismayed; for a moment Finn was sure he would yell for the brawny neighbour. Then he went on knocking dust from his pipe. 'That is the Nine-Fingered One, missy.'
Claudia put down her cup. 'He has another name.'
'A name to be spoken in whispers.'
She met his eye. 'Sapphique.'
The old man look
ed at her, then Finn. 'His name
is known in the Court then. You surprise me, Miss lady's maid.'
'Only among the servants: Finn said quickly. 'And we know very little of him. Except that he Escaped from Encarceron.' His hand shook on the cup. He wondered what the old man would say if he knew that he, Finn, had spoken to Sapphique in visions.
'Escaped?'The old man shook his head. 'I know nothing about that. Sapphique appeared from nowhere in a flash of blinding light. He possessed great powers of magic — they say he turned stones into cakes, that he danced with the children. He promised to renew the moon and free the Prisoners.'
Claudia glanced at Finn. She was desperate to know more, but if they asked too much the old man would stop. 'Where exactly did he appear?'
'Some say the Forest. Others a cave, far to the north, where a charred circle is still burnt on the mountainside. But how can you pin down such a happening?'
'Where is he now?' Finn asked.
The old man stared. 'You don't know? They tried to silence him, of course. But he turned himself into a swan. He sang his final song and flew away to the stars. One day he will return and end the Era for ever.'