The Steward captain ignored them, dismounting in a smooth motion.
‘Cut him down,’ she said, and Cyprian pulled a knife from his belt and slashed the rope that bound Will’s ankles, so that he could be yanked off his horse. This time when Will hit the ground he kept to his feet, though his bound hands unsettled his balance and he stumbled a little.
‘Take the horses,’ the captain told the others, and they dismounted and took up the horses’ reins with the deference of squires, leading them away.
Will’s horse screamed, showing the whites of his eyes and rearing up out of reach as a Steward tried to take his bridle. He was refusing to leave Will. ‘Easy. Easy, boy,’ Will said, his heart feeling tight as the horse that had carried him so bravely now fought to stay with him. ‘You have to go with her.’ He felt his horse’s warm breath and the velvet brush of its muzzle as it hesitated uncertainly. He wanted to put his arms around its neck and hold it close, but couldn’t, his wrists tied. ‘Go,’ he said with a pang of loss. He watched the Steward finally lead his horse away, and felt utterly alone.
Pale in the moonlight, the citadel rose before him in giant arches and immense white stone. Looking at it, Will felt as if every great human building was just an echo of this splendid form, trying to re-create something half-remembered, with tools and methods too crude to ever capture its beauty. Once those walls were fully manned, he thought. And the citadel blazed with light. And then he shivered, not knowing where the thought had come from.
A pair of Stewards were coming towards him; in their white tunics they had the look of monks on their way to speak with the abbot, though Captain Leda in her silver armour looked more like an ancient painting of a celestial knight.
‘Captain, we were not informed that a new Steward had been Called—’ The Steward who spoke was a man of perhaps twenty-five years, his red hair worn in the Steward style.
‘The boy is not a new Steward.’ The captain spoke brusquely. ‘He does not have Steward blood. We found him on the marsh, being chased by Simon’s men.’
‘An outsider?’ The red-haired Steward’s face whitened in shock. ‘You have brought an outsider through the gate? Captain—’
‘Call everyone into the great hall,’ said the captain, as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Now, Brescia. Do not tarry.’
Brescia, the red-haired Steward, had no choice but to obey. But Will could see the fear and disbelief in his eyes, as around them the shock rippled outward. ‘An outsider?’ he heard. ‘An outsider in the Hall?’
It made his skin prickle. He’d wanted answers, but hadn’t had the first idea of the enormity of all he might encounter, and he hadn’t realised how radical Justice had been in sending him here.
‘You will be brought before the Elder Steward,’ the captain said to Will. ‘It is she who will decide your fate. I go now to prepare a way for you. Cyprian, hold our prisoner in the north antechamber until I give the signal to bring him into the great hall.’
Cyprian’s look was challenging. ‘My father will not like this. You know our rules. Only those of Steward blood are allowed inside our walls.’
‘I will deal with the High Janissary,’ said the captain.
Cyprian did not seem pleased by that, but his obedience was immediate. ‘Yes, Captain.’
A grip closed on Will’s arm, hard as a tourniquet, as Cyprian took hold of him and propelled him towards the wide steps of the main entry.
To his surprise, Cyprian did not seem to possess the supernatural strength of the other Stewards. He was strong, but it was the normal strength of a young man. Will remembered the captain calling Cyprian novitiate. Did that mean the Stewards were not born with their strength, but gained it later?
Three pairs of Stewards accompanied them inside. They walked in perfect unison, precise and graceful. Roped between them, Will felt like a mud lark flanked by pairs of white swans. With his hands tied behind his back and still weak from the ship and two days without food, he wasn’t a threat, but the Stewards had spears drawn as if he were dangerous. He suddenly felt that he had stepped into a world that was much bigger than he was, full of practices that he didn’t understand.
They brought him into an antechamber with a high arched ceiling. The Stewards took up positions, two at each of the chamber’s two doors, while the other two stayed close to him with Cyprian.
‘The great hall is ahead,’ Cyprian said. ‘We wait here until Leda gives the signal.’