The Red Queen (110 page)

What if she needs
me,
I thought, remembering his message about the sceptre, blinking away a hot wash of tears at the memory of the filthy and feral girl child I had lured from the ruins in the Westland, and the knowledge that I might never see her again.

‘It seems all of Slavetown is planning to make use of this suspension of curfew, and not just the Redland contingent,’ Swallow muttered, as we approached the gate. ‘No wonder the Ekoni are nervous, for the Landborn can take no pleasure in seeing the emissary honoured.’

He was right, for although the majority of people streaming along the Knife in our direction
were
Redlanders, there were many Redland halfbloods and some foreign slaves as well. Ahead the gate was clogged with people, and as we slowed to a stop behind them, I heard one of the Ekoni command someone to make sure their wrist was bared at all times during suspension of curfew, for any slave stopped and found to have concealed their slavemark would be fed to the Entina, and it already had a feast awaiting delivery to the ilthum mine.

‘I wonder that the Ekoni did not insist the curfew stand, at least for Slavetown folk,’ Swallow said softly to me.

‘There are too many Redlanders living inside Slavetown and too many Gadfian masters and mistresses wanting their minions this night,’ grunted a man standing beside him, putting on a monstrous green mask with slitted eyes and a small central horn.

Swallow gave me a look, reached into his pocket and wordlessly passed me two masks. The first was round and white and featureless. ‘It is an emissary mask, so Matthew said,’ Swallow told me. He took it and I was startled to see the remaining mask was shaped like a cat’s face, for the mask lent to me long ago by Rolf’s sister had been a cat mask, too, though that had been an exquisite work of art.

I looked up to see that Swallow had put his on and I shivered at the strange blandness of a mask that showed nothing, then I put on my own mask.

Moments later, we were outside the gate. For a time we simply let ourselves be carried along with the crowd of people moving towards the towers, allowing them to guide us. Swallow pointed out that to move away from the main stream of people was to risk being stopped and questioned by Ekoni, and neither of us bore slave tattoos. That everyone was masked gave the procession a truly dreamlike strangeness.

Swallow’s idea had been that we would come to the scythe that ran close by the nearest tower, and then peel off and make our way down it towards the bay, criss-crossing from lane entrance to lane entrance as we went, if it was empty. He did not have to say that getting to the island might be impossible, given the area was taboo even on normal occasions and we could not hope for the luck we had had before. I expected we would have to leave the scythe before we reached the end of it and wend our way through smaller streets and lanes until we came to one that brought us to the cobbled first scythe that ran around the bay, close to the island. We would enter one of the residences that faced the island, coerce anyone within and wait until the masked ball was underway to leave and cross to the island to search it, for presumably most of the Ekoni would be drawn away at that time, aside from the ones keeping watch of the makeshift camps of shackled slaves to the north of Redport.

The tower rising up above us shone blood red in the fading dusk light, and I wondered if there truly were other such towers in the land of the white-faced lords, and what they signified there. Then I thought of Gilaine and wondered where she was, and then, where Daffyd was. The thought of Rushton came to me then, and I recalled that one brief glimpse I had of him with such a weight of yearning anguish that my steps faltered.

‘There is a strange atmosphere here,’ Swallow said softly.

I swallowed hard and collected myself, glad his attention was turned outward in that moment. I looked around and found that despite the laughter and vaguely festive air of people in their finery talking and chattering in anticipation of this extraordinary event, under it was a darker thrumming tension. Was it resentment that the Gadfians were usurping a Redland tradition or the fact of the massing of Landborn slaves for transport, I wondered?

We were beginning to move down the scythe when the sun set, and as night fell over Redport, all about us torches and lanterns were lit. It was an easy moment to leave the main crowd and make our way down the scythe towards the water. Just as I had feared, there was almost no one at the end of the street. Seeing a large Ekoni patrol enter the scythe and begin marching towards us, we entered the labyrinth of smaller streets. They were empty and it was very quiet away from the press of people bound for the area between the two towers. The few people we saw were intent on their own business and no doubt uneasy at being out in the night, even though there was no curfew. It was a good hour before we came along the same street we had entered from the cobbled shore scythe the previous day, but I saw at once that there was no point in trying to get onto the island, for there were four ship boats pulled up on the other side, and people wandered about them as well as making their way across the island and over the stone bridge to where a number of closed chariots waited, harnessed up to muliki wearing lavish trappings. There were a good number of Ekoni standing about.

‘It is the emissary’s party,’ Swallow murmured. ‘I can see ship boats coming towards the island from the
Black Ship
, too. Both ships are anchored in deep water and I do not see how anyone could get aboard without a ship boat, and how could that happen with so many Ekoni guarding the bridge?’

I could see nothing of the greatships but the odd glimmer of light and its oily reflection on the water. I watched some black-swathed figures passing over the bridge, and it seemed to me that I could hear strains of music. I wondered if some sort of entertainment had been provided for the visitors as they crossed the small island from shore to shore. All of the people wore flowing black clothes and white masks similar to Swallow’s, though he had removed it when we left the scythe, not wanting its whiteness to catch someone’s eye, but when they passed a lantern hung at the end of the bridge, I realised they were not wearing black clothing after all, but hooded red cloaks that covered their clothing and flowed along the ground behind them.

‘We can wait,’ Swallow said. ‘Once they have all gone to the ball, most of the Ekoni will follow them up to the infinity. ‘

I shook my head. ‘It is no use. There is too much risk here, and as you said, I might find nothing.’ I did not know whether to be glad or apprehensive at the realisation that I would have to find Dragon.

‘Are you sure you do not want to wait?’ Swallow said. ‘It is likely to be worse rather than better tomorrow when all attention will be concentrated on the shore and the ships. Unless you mean to try in daylight.’

‘I must try to find Dragon,’ I said. ‘Let’s get back to the scythe. I can’t think in this narrow tangle of streets.’

‘Look,’ Swallow said, nodding up at the second-floor window of the building we were passing, where a red flag fluttered. ‘Merret told me they are a signal that means Raise the Dragon.’

I frowned, thinking of Murrim telling the child in the cellar at the end of the secret tunnel from Slavetown that it was not yet time to raise the red flags. ‘I think it might mean something more than that,’ I murmured.

‘Maybe it is an alert like,
Watch!
or
Listen!
’

Listen
, I thought, and in that moment, I seemed to hear Maginder, saying in her cracked voice, ‘She is not a bird. She is a dragon and they should listen better to what she has said, and use their imaginations.’

I drew in a swift breath and stopped. ‘Tell me what Dragon said again,’ I commanded urgently.

Swallow shrugged. ‘Only that she had found Luthen’s crypt and would show it you once she was queen, and something about being unable to find the sceptre. Or maybe she meant she could not get it.’

‘Not that part,’ I said. ‘The part about proving herself the Red Queen?’

He frowned, ‘Dragon told Matthew that she would reveal herself to her people as her mother had done.’

‘And her dream about me?’

‘That you were in a . . . Elspeth, what are you thinking?’ Swallow asked looking truly startled so that I wondered what he saw in my aura.

‘You told me that she dreamed I was wearing a red dress, and those people we saw coming from the emissary’s ship wore red, and, my dream of Gilaine and the women to be gifted to him tonight all wore red dresses as well,’ I said. ‘Dragon is going to reveal herself in the Infinity of Dragonstraat
tonight
. That is the meaning of the flags. It is the signal that the Red Queen will reveal herself, and if I am not mistaken, they are Maginder’s doing. She figured out what Dragon meant to do from what we told her. I bet the flags were originally meant to summon people to the Infinity of Hope in Slavetown, but the Redlander leaders would never have been so stupid as to let anyone know the location in advance. They would have sent out messages today if Dragon had come. But she didn’t.’

‘Then the Redlanders will take the flags . . .’

‘As meaning the most obvious thing, that the Red Queen will reveal herself where all Red Queens have done so, and at the end of a masked ball. That is why the crowd feels odd. Ye gods, I dreamed of Dragon in a red dress!’ I said.

‘You really think she means to get into the Infinity of Dragonstraat
tonight
of all nights?’ Swallow said incredulously.

‘
Especially
tonight of all nights, and Swallow, it occurs to me only now that if she were killed in front of her people’s eyes, she would still have fulfilled her purpose for having revealed herself: the Red Queen would have risen and thereby freed them from their vow of passivity.’

Swallow nodded bleakly. ‘You are right. And if she is killed, the Redland might rise but your quest will fail.’

I nodded. ‘I must find her.’

‘We have until dawn to do so, but where to begin? We don’t have any idea where she is.’

‘No, but we know where she will be at dawn, and I know how
I
can get there.’

‘If you are wrong, you will be trapped . . .’ Swallow said worriedly, looking doubtfully at the unguarded compound gate.

‘I’m not,’ I told him. ‘Dragon will come to the infinity tonight and I need to get there, too, and this is the only way. But we won’t go in here,’ I added. ‘In fact,
you
won’t come in at all. I want you to go out of Redport, contact Ana and Dameon and make sure they are safe. Tell them what has been happening and stay with them. If Merret contacts you, tell her about Dragon and also that I think the blocking machine might be in the slave pens reserved for Salamander.’

‘This feels too sudden,’ Swallow said.

‘Isn’t it always the way that the most important things come suddenly and take us unawares?’ I said. ‘Tomorrow, if Dragon can reveal herself, this will all be over and she will be queen. Then she will bring me to Luthen’s crypt and I will go on with my quest.’

‘Can a settlement be overthrown in a night?’ Swallow asked.

It was not truly a question and I did not answer it, for of course it would be more complex than that, but the aftermath of Dragon’s rising to her throne was not my concern. No matter what was happening, I would have her bring me Luthen’s crypt and I would go on with my quest. Unlike Swallow, I did not feel dismayed at the turn of events. I felt relieved to have a clear course of action.

Swallow embraced me. ‘I will return as soon as I have contacted the others,’ he promised. ‘At least I can escort you to the infinity.’

I made my way round to the lane where a row of buildings backed up against the compound wall and to the door Nareem had brought me to the first night I had entered Redport. I knocked and waited. Seeing a black cat dart from shadow to shadow through a pool of lantern light, I thought of the little kitten that had been put into Hannah’s hands in my Beforetime dream, with its bandaged head. I had seen it before, in a dream where Cassy had been an adult dreamplaying with a little girl and the kitten. It had stuck me as a queer coincidence at the time that it was like to Maruman in its colour and markings and even its name – Merimyn. I had wondered if it could possibly be an ancestor of Maruman’s, but the truth had been far stranger. The damaged kitten Hannah had taken at the last moment into the cryopod had been Maruman himself.

The door opened a crack and the Landborn slave Cora looked out. For a moment she blinked at me in bafflement, then I lifted the mask and saw recognition creep into her eyes. ‘You,’ she said. ‘Saba Nareem is not here.’

‘Gretha?’ I said.

‘He has taken her with him to the house of the Chafiri he serves, to prepare his wife and daughters for the ball. They left more than an hour past and I do not know when they will return, for they will accompany her to the Great Hall as part of her entourage.’

My heart sank. I had not imagined they would be gone! How was I to inveigle myself into the Great Hall without their help? A passing man cast me a frowning glance and I bade Cora let me in so we could talk without drawing attention. She hesitated a moment then opened the door just enough for me to squeeze through into the large chamber I remembered from my previous visit. The tables were covered in clippings and scraps of cloth, most of it red. Keely, the younger Redland woman, was folding up swatches of cloth while Demet was seated at one of the tables sewing some small and intricate thing. As on the first occasion they all stared at me.

Before any of them could gather their wits to speak, the door at the back of the room burst open and two boys came in, jostling one another in rough horseplay. I knew from Nareem’s thoughts the door led eventually into the yard surrounding his residence. The boys were so intent on their battle that it took them a moment to register my presence, then they both stopped, alarmed. The plump younger boy recovered first, drawing himself up and demanding to know who I was.

‘The master sent her, now go back into the house,’ said Demet calmly.