The Red Queen (101 page)

A powerful-looking young Redland man with a shock of copper hair came to the door behind the older man. He was leaning heavily on a walking stick, his leg bandaged and splinted from ankle to hip. He asked the old man, whom he called grandfather, what was going on. The old man and the girl tried simultaneously to answer, and he made an authoritative cutting gesture.

‘How can you be a friend of Mad Matthias if you just arrived here?’ he demanded of me, having got that much from their muddle of talk.

‘I knew him in the Land when we were children,’ I said evenly. ‘I have something to tell him about someone he knew in the Land. A girl.’

Hope let out a little sneering giggle. ‘My mother says Mad Matthias has no interest in living women, for though they throw themselves at him, he catches none and they all fall on their faces.’

‘Enough, for the poor man will have no interest in women if the Ekoni have been at him, even if he does survive,’ chided the old man. He looked down at Hope and bade her go inside. She scowled but obeyed, giving me a sullen look before she vanished indoors.

Suddenly I was weary of the labyrinth of intrigues that was Redport. ‘If I cannot speak to Matthew then I must speak to the leaders of the Redland folk.’

‘There are no leaders among us,’ the younger man said, regarding me through narrowed eyes.

‘I have heard otherwise and I need to speak of the Red Queen.’

‘What about her?’ asked the younger man.

‘She is here,’ I said.

‘Where?’ asked the older man, and there was the same yearning in his expression as I had seen in the face of Demet when I had said the same words.

‘Don’t be a fool, grandfather!’ said the younger man. He looked at me coldly. ‘He is old and senile. Pay no heed to him.’

‘I tell you that your queen is here,’ I said. ‘Have you waited for her, only to deny her?’

‘I have waited for her to return my whole life long,’ the old man said.

His words distracted me. ‘How . . . how long since the Red Queen was betrayed and taken from this land?’

‘Two hundred years almost to the day,’ said the younger man. ‘But this is not the business of a Landwoman.’

I was utterly confounded by this, for there was no doubt in my mind that Dragon was the long-lost daughter of the Red Queen, and she was barely a woman grown! But this was not the moment to unravel the mystery. I asked, ‘Has not Matthew – Mad Matthias – spoken of her coming?’

‘He is known for speaking of it, though I do not know how you could possibly know that,’ said the younger man impatiently.

I said quietly, ‘Will you at least tell me where he lived when he was here? Perhaps I can speak to his friends.’

Neither man spoke.

‘Surely there can be no danger in you telling me where he dwelt,’ I said, exasperated.

‘There is danger in almost everything, lass,’ said a gruff familiar highland voice.

I turned to see the black-bearded brother of Daffyd, whom I had met long ago when I stumbled on the hidden camp of the renegade herder Henry Druid.

‘Jow!’ I said in astonishment.

The big Landman stared at me in puzzlement, then his own expression changed. ‘Ye Gods! It is Elspeth Gordie, all grown up into a woman!’

‘Jow,’ I said. ‘They tell me Matthew has vanished and that he might have been taken by the Ekoni. I have to find him . . .’

‘Is
she
with you like he always said she would be, when you came?’ he asked eagerly. ‘The Red Queen?’

‘She travelled here with me, but she slipped away and entered the settlement on her own while I was here trying to find out how things stood. I am trying to find her.’

‘What is this?’ the old man demanded.

‘Madness,’ barked the copper-haired man. ‘More of Matthew’s madness.’

‘Enter, both of you,’ said Colum suddenly.

‘They are not Redlanders and this is not a good time,’ said the copper-haired man urgently.

‘Jow is a friend to Mad Matthias, and they are both marked by the power of the Red Queens, and Maginder and Rymer trust him, even if you do not, Glomer!’ said the older man pointedly. He ushered us into the house then, and it was only now that I noticed with a shock that the big beastspeaker had lost a hand. The old man brought us along a narrow passage to a cramped and windowless internal chamber where there was a motley collection of different sorts of benches and chairs about a table, and bade us wait a moment while he fetched food and water. He left Glomer to sit and glower at us.

‘Tell me about Matthew,’ I said to the beastspeaker. ‘Was he truly taken by these Ekoni?’

Jow looked troubled. ‘The truth is that we have no idea. He came back from some business in Quarry with his master yesterday and was having a bite to eat when suddenly he rose up white-faced and rushed off. I thought he had forgotten to see someone his master had bidden him see about some vital matter, and when the curfew bells tolled and he had not returned, I supposed he had been caught out and ended up being penned in some Gadfian household. It has happened from time to time, though it was odd he would run off like that when he had just sent word to Rymer and Murrim, and was waiting for them to summon him. Then word came around that the Ekoni had been taking people in for questioning about the time he left and someone said he had been taken.’

‘Rymer and Murrim are the Redland leaders,’ I guessed. ‘And Maginder is another?’

Glomer got to his feet and glared at me. I ignored him to ask Jow, ‘Did Matthew say anything before he rushed off?’

‘Only something about seeing someone,’ Jow said. Then his eyes widened. ‘I assumed he meant he had to see someone, but now I think on it, he might have been saying he had visioned something. Maybe he foresaw
your
coming.’

‘Or Dragon’s,’ I said, and felt as much as saw Glomer stiffen.

‘That is the name he calls her,’ Jow said wonderingly. ‘The Red Queen.’

I thought about the possibility that Matthew had experienced a vision that had shown him Dragon was somewhere in Redport. If he had, he would likely have recognised where she was and he would have known the danger she was in as well. He would have hidden her if he had been unable to get her into Slavetown before the curfew. But wait, Matthew had vanished
the previous day.
That was before Dragon had even entered the settlement.

‘Where would he have been taken if the Ekoni took him?’ I asked.

The old man returned carrying a jug and some mugs. He set them down, exchanging a look with Glomer, then saying to me, ‘You said the Red Queen came into Redport. Why did she do that without telling you, if you were her companion?’

‘That is what I would like to know,’ I said fervently. ‘I went to the Palace Island first, because I thought she might have gone there, and then I came here because it was possible she had come to reveal herself to you. Perhaps she has revealed herself to someone outside Slavetown and they are hiding her away.’

‘If she had, they would have got word to us by now,’ said the copper-haired Glomer, his eyes slitted with suspicion.

‘Rymer would know,’ Colum said, ‘or Murrim. Matthew has been thick with them and old Maginder for some time, despite Rymer and Murrim trying to brain him at different time over the years.’ He hesitated then shot a look at Glomer before saying, ‘The thing is, twice today I heard that the Red Queen had come. I mean, before you said it. A woman looking out a window as she made bread in her master’s house in the early hours of the morning claimed to have seen her from the window, and then a man returning to Slavetown at midday swore he had seen her looking out of a lane. Both claim she looked exactly as she does on the fresco outside the Great Hall in the Infinity of Dragonstraat, only younger.’

‘Where was she seen?’ I asked eagerly, but the old man did not know. He had heard the tale from a man who had heard it from another man.

‘We must find her,’ I said.

‘Can it truly be that she is come, even as Matthias swore? That Landfolk saw her before her own people?’ muttered Glomer.

‘If she is in Slavetown she will be found before the night is out,’ Colum said.

‘And if she is not in Slavetown?’ Jow asked.

‘I have a friend who is looking for her outside of Slavetown,’ I said. ‘He is going to concentrate on the Ekoni. If they have Matthew, I am sure he will discover it. We are to meet at midnight on the north side of the settlement beyond the wall. I will have to get over it to make our rendezvous, since I cannot now get through the gate.’

‘You cannot climb the wall,’ Jow said, looking horrified. ‘There are poisons smeared all around the top of it.’

‘There is another way out,’ Colum said.

‘Do not speak of that!’ Glomer said sharply. ‘It is for Rymer or Maginder to decide, or Murrim, if a Landborn stranger is to be told such things.’

At that moment an old woman with a long, intelligent face entered from another door. She looked surprised to see us all sitting there, but merely lifted her brows in enquiry, directing her gaze at the old man, who rose and said with great deference, ‘Maginder, this is . . . Well, this young woman claims to have come into Redport with the Red Queen, even as Matthew always said, only she seems to have lost her. She is now seeking Matthew to help her search, and our help in finding Matthew.’

The woman’s pale eyes searched my face. ‘Is it truly her? The Red Queen?’

‘If you saw her face, you would know at once it was she, because she looks like the Red Queen in the frieze on the side of the building in the Infinity of Dragonstraat,’ I said. I saw by her expression that she had heard this before, and realised Matthew must have spoken of it. ‘I went to the Palace Island thinking she might have gone there, and then I came here hoping she had ended up with her people, but now I am afraid that the Ekoni have her, or worse, Ariel.’

‘He is not in Redport,’ said the old woman.

‘But he is!’ Jow said. ‘At least the
Black Ship
anchored this morning. Matthew was right . . .’ He stopped. ‘Ye gods, Matthew spoke of seeing the
Black Ship
entering the bay in a vision. He had been brooding on it. Maybe he foresaw
its
coming and went to alert his friends.’

‘He might have had a premonition about Dragon,’ I said. Then a sickening thought occurred to me. ‘Maybe he had a vision of Ariel taking Dragon – the Red Queen – and ran off to try to thwart him. Is it possible he would have tried to get aboard the
Black Ship
?’

‘He would never be such a fool,’ Jow said. ‘On the other hand, if you are right, he would likely have gone to take a look around the piers and the shore and Rainbow Island as well. He would have alerted his network of Gadfian halfbreeds to keep an eye out and probably the few Landmen who dwell outside of Slavetown as well.’

I thought at once of Rushton. ‘Jow . . . do you know of a man called Rushton?’

He nodded. ‘I knew him in the Land when he was a stripling, before he claimed Obernewtyn from his halfbrother. He stayed with the Druid for a time – his daughter was half crazy about the lad, not sweet Gilaine but ravenous Erin.’ He frowned, knitting his brow. ‘He was aboard one of the four ships sent to thwart the futuretellers’ visions of the Gadfians invading the Land somehow, but the ship he was on sank in a storm.’ His expression changed. ‘You and he were together, weren’t you? Gilaine saw it in a dream ages back.’

‘I saw him in Redport today,’ I said.

Jow shook his head slowly. ‘That is not possible, for he never came here.’

‘Are you saying he drowned?’

Jow shook his head. ‘Never! As I understand it, he and the others from the ship were cast ashore for a good while before they were picked up and sold at the Spit. We heard it from some of those aboard who wound up here.’

‘But not Rushton?’

Jow shook his head, saying he must have been sold to a slaver from another land. My heart sank at the thought that I had imagined seeing him in Redport, but then I remembered that Swallow had seen him, too. ‘Maybe he has been sold anew and brought here,’ I suggested.

‘Maybe,’ Jow said, in a way that told me he did not believe it.

‘Daffyd?’ I said.

He looked sad. ‘My brother came here with the others from the captured ships, but I never saw him, for being strong and able-bodied, he was taken straight to Quarry. Matthew found out his friends had arrived and he got himself sold from the mine master to the smith in order to get close enough to farseek them. When he realised Daffyd was among them, he promised little Gilaine they would be together. He swore he had dreamed it but then she was chosen as a gift offering to the emissary. Matthew said Daffyd dreamed it and near went mad, but I thought maybe Matthew’s vision of them together might have been when they were aboard the emissary’s ships, she as a pleasure slave to be gifted to the emperor and he as a slave warrior.’

‘She was with the healer’s daughter, Perissa, when the Ekoni came a-seeking slaves fair enough to be worthy of an emperor,’ said Maginder, who had sat silent and watchful through all of this. ‘Matthew vowed to find out where the women had been taken and he did learn that, far from being beaten or eaten, the women are all sitting about bejewelled and perfumed in some High Chafiri compound being fitted for clothes for the masked ball, where they will be offered to the emissary.’ The old woman gave me a look. ‘Do you know what he is?’

Jow gave a rumbling laugh. ‘She knows all right because she is the same.’

‘All
three
of you?’ She sounded astonished. Then she laughed. ‘Of course! It is because of the Red Queen! You have served her well and so she has given you power, too. It is proof that you have been telling the truth. But cannot you use your powers to find her?’

‘They are blocked here . . .’ I began.

Maginder shook her head. ‘Of course they are! Matthew said as much. Your powers will be limited until the Red Queen reveals herself and her power in the Dragonstraat as of old. Only then will water and fire and the powers of the mind flow free.’

I was pleased to see that she believed me, but somewhat startled by how she had gathered facts into an embroidery shaped by her convictions. Yet it did save me having to say more than I wanted about myself. The copper-haired Glomer had gone out at some point in our conversation and now he returned with two older men, one burly and battered with a sunburned face and truly enormous red ears, who he introduced as Murrim, and the other – a thin wispy man with a voice that could scarce be heard – was Rymer. The men went a little aside and spoke for some time in quiet, intense tones, then both of them questioned me at length about Dragon. I told them that she had dwelt in the Land and had spent a long time in a coma, even as Matthew had claimed, and that I, and my friends, had brought her to Redport overland. They assumed that we had come for her sake and by ship and had landed on some remote but accessible piece of shore before trekking across the land, and I allowed their assumptions. The truth was too strange to imagine telling. But there were gaps and when they began questioning aspects of my story, I suddenly lost my temper.