Incarceron Part 30

"Does the Queen doubt you? She has no reason."

Claudia shrugged.

She only met the Queen at festivals. The first rime had been at her betrothal, and that had been years ago. She remembered a slim blond woman in a white dress, sitting on a throne that had seemed to have hundreds of steps up to it, and she had had to climb every one, concentrating, carrying the basket of flowers that was almost as big as she had been. The Queen's hands, the nails a glossy red. The cool palm on her forehead. The words. "How charming, Warden. How sweet."

"You could be recording this," she said. "You could be testing me ... my loyalty."

Evian sighed, a tiny sound.

"I a.s.sure you ..."

"a.s.sure all you like, it could be true."

She dumped the cup and picked up the towel Alys had left, wiping her face with its softness. Then she turned.

"What do you know about Giles's death?"

It startled him. His pale eyes widened slightly. But he was practiced at deception; he answered without giving anything away.

"Prince Giles? He fell from his horse."

"Was it an accident? Or was he murdered?" If he was recording this, she knew she was finished now. His stubby fingers folded together.

"Really, my dear ..."

"Tell me. I need to know. Of all people it concerns me most. Giles was ... we were betrothed. I liked him."

"Yes."

Evian looked at her shrewdly.

"I see."

He seemed uncertain, then, as if he'd made up his mind, he said,

"There was something strange about the death."

"I knew it! I told Jared-"

"The Sapient knows about this?" He looked up in alarm.

"About me?"

"I would trust Jared with my life."

"Those are the most dangerous people."

Evian turned, watching the house. One of the ducks meandered toward him; he gave a flurried wave and it padded away, quacking.

"We never know where the listeners are," he said quietly, staring after it.

"That is what the Havaarna have done to us, Claudia. They have riddled us with fear."

For a moment he seemed almost shaken; then he brushed an invisible crease from his silk suit and said in his changed voice, "Prince Giles rode out that morning without any of his usual attendants. It was a fine spring morning; he was well, in good health, a laughing boy of fifteen years. Two hours later a messenger thundered in on a horse white with sweat; he leaped from it and raced into the hall of the Court, ran up the steps, and threw himself at the Queens feet. I was there, Claudia. I saw her face when they told her of the accident. She is a pale woman, as they all are, but then she was white. If it was an act, it was expert. They brought the boy back on a hastily made bier of boughs, their coats laid over his face. Grown men were weeping."

Impatient, Claudia said, "Go on."

"They laid him in state. Wearing a great gold robe and a tunic of white silk embroidered with the crowned eagle. Thousands filed past him. Women sobbed. Children brought flowers. How beautiful he was, they said. How young."

He watched the house.

"But there was something odd. A man. His name was Bartlett. A man who had looked after the boy from his earliest years. He was old now, retired and feeble. They allowed him in to see the body late one afternoon, when the people had left. They brought him through the pillars and shadows of the Chamber of State and he climbed the steps with difficulty and looked down at Giles. They thought he would weep and wail and howl with grief. They thought he would tear his clothes with agony. But he didn't."

Evian looked up and she saw his small eyes were shrewd.

"He laughed, Claudia. The old man laughed."

AFTER TWO hours walking through the metallic forest the snow began.

Stumbling over a root of copper and out of a daydream, Finn realized it had been falling for some time; it was already coating the leaf-litter with a fine frost.

He looked back, his breath smoking. Gildas was a little way behind, talking to the girl. But where was Keiro?

Finn turned quickly. All morning he had been unable to stop thinking of that voice, the voice from Outside, where the stars were. Claudia.

How had she been able to speak to him? He felt the cold lump of the Key inside his s.h.i.+rt; its awkwardness comforted him.