‘He can’t even follow what I’m saying,’ he heard Abi say, a sob catching the corner of her voice. ‘You can’t put someone on trial in the state he’s in. It’s a travesty.’
‘It’s a foregone conclusion,’ said Gavar Jardine. ‘There were five hundred people in the room when he did it. My mother was standing right next to him. You both need to go now. And Jenner – think carefully about what you’re doing. We won’t be able to keep her family here after this. She and her parents will be gone by the time he is.’
What was any of this to do with him, Luke thought? He was in a bed – a huge, sumptuous bed. Not a cell, or a kennel. So they’d worked out he hadn’t done it.
Someone had even tucked him in under a soft, crimson coverlet. And it was so warm.
Luke closed his eyes. And slept.
When he woke, everything was muted. The window was a light grey rectangle on a dark grey wall. A faint seam of light stitched the curtains together and fell across the floor. Luke’s head turned to follow it.
On the far side of the room the light traced the outline of an armchair. In which someone sat watching him.
‘Good morning, Luke,’ the watcher said, before pausing. ‘Though it’s not quite morning, and if I’m honest, I doubt it’s going to be good.’
Luke knew that voice. Was he going to get a visit from all of them – all the Jardines? Some to beat him up; some to sit by his bed. Maybe Lady Thalia would be up soon with his breakfast on a little silver tray with a tiny cup of tea.
‘I thought you might appreciate the rest while you can get it,’ said Silyen Jardine, lowering himself casually onto the edge of the mattress. ‘Who knows what kind of a house Crovan keeps up at Eilean Dòchais, but I doubt he torments the Condemned with eight hours of undisturbed sleep.’
‘Crovan?’
And it all came flooding back. The cruel Scottish Equal and Lord Jardine digging in his head. Abi’s voice in the night. Parliament. A trial.
As the confusion of his interrogation and the dark hours that followed it lifted, Luke saw with horrifying clarity what would happen next. He would be tried and Condemned for a crime he couldn’t remember.
‘I’m curious,’ said Silyen Jardine, ‘about who Silenced you. Because I’d wager that whoever it was could tell us a few things. For example, why you pureed the Chancellor in the middle of Mummy’s ballroom.’
‘I didn’t do it,’ Luke insisted, desperate to make at least one of the Equals understand.
‘Oh Luke, of course you did. But who hid your memory of doing it, and why? Who was the real target: Zelston, or my father? There are other questions, too, like did you agree to it, or did they compel you? But I’m afraid no one’s terribly interested in a detail like that.’
‘That’s not a detail,’ said Luke. ‘That’s the only thing that matters. I’ve no memory of . . . of what everyone’s saying I did. There’s just a gap there. A black hole where my memories should be. Someone used Skill on me. That proves I was made to do it.’
Silyen Jardine actually tutted. ‘It proves nothing of the sort. They could have asked you and you said “yes”. Then the Silence would be just a convenient way of concealing both your complicity and your co-conspirator’s role.’
‘Who in their right mind would agree to assassinate the Chancellor with the whole of parliament looking on?’
‘I can’t imagine. Maybe a hot-headed teenager, angry at the system that’s torn him from his family? A boy who’s been radicalized in a slavetown that’s been in upheaval for months? No, that doesn’t sound very plausible at all.’
That was when the full extent of how he’d been used sank in. He was like a gun wiped clean of fingerprints. He was merely the murder weapon – but would be punished as the murderer.
‘You said you wanted to know who Silenced me. Can you do that? Can you lift it?’
‘The only person who can lift a Silence is the person who laid it, Luke, as your sister Abigail could tell you – no, no, it was nothing, don’t fuss.’ Luke’s fists had clenched furiously at the thought of his sister being interfered with by this freak. ‘But I do have a little trick that’s all my own. I can discover who did it. And sometimes, knowing who wants a secret kept is as good as knowing the secret itself.’
‘Do it.’ Luke got to his feet, stood there, arms at his side, like he was daring Silyen Jardine to hit him. ‘I don’t care how much it hurts. After what your father and his friend did to me . . . I can take it.’
‘Aren’t you brave?’ Silyen Jardine said indulgently. ‘That’s just as well, considering.’
But it didn’t hurt at all. Just that queasy combination of intimacy and insubstantiality. Luke’s very self was soft sand running through Silyen Jardine’s fingers. For a moment, he felt as though he didn’t have a body at all. Then it dawned on him that he didn’t need one.
A wave of nausea brought him back to himself again, and he was standing in front of Silyen Jardine just as the sun was breaking through the curtains.
‘Well, that was unexpected.’ The Equal smiled. ‘I love it when people aren’t who they seem. It makes life so much more exciting, don’t you think?’