The Red Queen (125 page)

So much death and loss, I thought, looking at the funeral pyre.

Swallow and Dameon had been taken by the same shipfolk who took Ana. She had told me as we prepared his body, that Swallow, realising what was happening, had signalled Gahltha to find me and warn me. He could not know that Ariel knew exactly where I was and what I was doing. I did not know how Gahltha had found me in the subterranean cavern, about to broach the protections ringing the Omega Base, but I would never have managed to get to Sentinel without him.

In truth, I could not believe the gallant black horse was dead. I did not want to believe it. I did not know how I would tell Maruman, who had fallen into a deep sleep, the result, I knew, of the efforts his body was making to heal him. But perhaps he knew . . .

As for Rushton, his story was almost the strangest of all. He had been left behind after he was knocked out, following an attack by mutant creatures from the darklands surrounding the untainted Spit, even as Merret had described. But rather than being eaten, he had been overlooked, or so he thought. Creeping away from the Spit in the darkness, he had been pursued and caught, but instead of eating him, the creatures had healed his wounds by their rough, strange means and had cared for him.

He learned that the sunlight hurt them but they had some way of lessening its effect – a foul-smelling muddy salve, which they used to coat themselves as if it was a kind of armour. They preferred the night but they prowled the day, killing any human that set foot on the Spit, until none came any more. But they did not kill him. At first he was their patient, then their prisoner, and finally a sort of pet. They had no language that he could speak, but he had learned somehow to communicate in a basic way using gesture and touch. They had never told him why they had not killed him. Nor did they explain why, one day, they had built a raft and sent him out on it.

A storm had blown up and had carried him to the Clouded Sea, where he had been picked up by the
Black Ship
. He had been fished up by Salamander’s body servant and thereafter kept in the hold in chains, tended only by the big mute. He had expected to be brought to Ariel, and dreaded it, but a sevenday passed and he was merely fed and watered and left alone. No one spoke to him or told him anything. One night they held him and drugged him, and even as the potion was fogging his mind and wits, they put him in a sack and the big mute carried him from one ship to another. This much he had been able to discern from the words spoken by his captors, who were obeying the commands of Ariel. Something Salamander said had given him to understand that Ariel had foreseen him floating at sea on a raft, and had sent the
Black Ship
to fetch him. He heard my name mentioned and that had been the last thing he remembered clearly, until one day he woke in a small chamber and was brought by a troop of Gadfian soldierguards through strange curving streets shimmering red in sunlight so blazingly bright that it near blinded him. They took him to an open area crowded with strange people in strange attire and then to a walled complex and a chamber where a young girl had soon been brought to him. He remembered nothing more until he had come to himself in the crypt, perfectly aware but unable to control his movements.

I had been fascinated by Rushton’s tale of the mutants that had overtaken the Spit. I told him that Swallow and I had seen him, but there was little time for questions during the long day that ended, for me, on a cliff watching a funeral fire.

It had been hard on Dragon, too, for she had to regain her people and their trust. There were many who were ready to believe that she had been manipulated, but others who now looked at her with doubt and fear, having heard her or heard of her proclaiming that she was not their queen, that she had used black arts to coerce dragons and that she had no idea where the queen’s sceptre was.

‘It will take time,’ Maginder told me, at one point, coming to bring us fitting clothing to wear that we might pay proper respect to Swallow. She had reached down absently to stroke Maruman, curled deeply asleep on a chair. Then she left, casting a look of regret at Swallow, saying it was a pity, for he had been a bold and handsome fellow and might have fathered many children. That had made Ana weep, and I could not help but remember that Swallow had been told he would bear no children. He had taken it to mean he would bear no children while he was D’rekta of the Twentyfamilies, yet he must have known the truth of it ere the end; another loss to grieve.

Dragon had not seemed much downcast by the scepticism and doubt, but had thrown herself into plans to rebuild Palace Island. She had made up her mind that the Gadfians would labour to rebuild what they had destroyed and would pull down the compound walls, proclaiming Redport had no need of them. But she had conceded to the requests of Maginder and others from Slavetown that the wall about it remain as an artefact and a reminder of the past, though it was to be opened up by many gates, none of which would be guarded. She told me that she would keep all of the Chafiri for a while and learn what she could of their land and their customs, and finally she would choose some of their sons and daughters to remain for a time as hostages when she allowed the Chafiri to leave, though they would be called guests. I had suggested that some of the Gadfians, like Nareem, who had formed ties in the Red Land, might be glad to remain, and she had agreed that such folk would be welcome. Landfolk might also remain if they chose, and if not, she would make it her business to return them to the Land. But first, ships would have to be built, but how, in a land where there were no trees?

She had also told me that she thought advisers could be useful but that she would not make the mistake her mother had made and appoint one, she would have a council of advisors beginning with Maginder, Murrim and Rymer. ‘I will have all sorts of people serve on it: a smith and a farrier, a cook and a soldier, a washerwoman and a grandmother, a miner, and beasts as well. I will listen to all of them, before I decide what to do.’

I thought of this speech with pride, for while she was very young still, she had wisdom, and that would temper the fire in her.

‘Your mind is busy,’ Rushton said quietly when Dameon came to embrace Ana and murmur soft words to her as he brought her to sit by a little fluttering pit fire that had been lit to heat a pot of ferment. The funeral fire was still burning but the wind billowing off the sea had turned chill. I let him draw me to sit by the fire, and I was grateful for the warmth of his body as he sat behind me, shielding me from the wind, and closed his arms around me. I leaned back against his chest staring into the flames, suddenly aware of how tired my body was.

‘Maruman would call it gnawing,’ I murmured, seeing Dameon wrap a blanket about Ana’s shoulders. He did so awkwardly with his left hand, because his right arm was heavily bandaged. ‘But there is so much to think about. I will be years thinking about it all and trying to work it out. How it happened and what happened first and what fits where.’

He spoke softly too, words meant only for my ears. ‘It is past, and so maybe we do not have to think of it at all.’

I smiled and found myself glad that not everything had changed, but I turned to look up at him, into his eyes – how I loved their dark green glimmer, the depth that only echoed the great velvety darkness inside his spirit. ‘The past matters, and there are things I do not want to forget. People and beasts. Swallow . . .’ I wanted to say Gahltha’s name, but the word would not be said.

Rushton’s smile faded. ‘You are right. Swallow and strange little Gavyn and Smoke who became Rasial. They deserve remembrance.’

‘And Cameo and Selmar and Jes . . .’ I stopped, frowning. ‘You know, I think . . . I think he did something to me all those years ago, my brother Jes, when our parents were being burned by the Faction. He would not let me look. He said it would stop me remembering what had happened. He was a Misfit, though he did not know it until later. I think . . . I think he was a coercer as well as a farseeker, and that he did something to me that day, without knowing it. He made it hard for me to feel.’

‘But . . .’

‘Yes, I feel things of course. Love . . .’ I smiled at him. ‘But sometimes when things are fraught I . . . It is as if he inclined me to shy away from feeling. To try
not
to feel.’ I shook my head. ‘Maybe I am imagining it.’

‘Perhaps not everything needs to be remembered or even understood,’ he said gently. ‘Otherwise there would only be remembering. Right now I want to live this moment. In fact I would like to go on living
this
moment for the rest of my life.’ He kissed me and held me closer.

The fire spat and crackled and a whirl of glowing cinders rose up and winked out. I looked at the night sky, pricked with stars, wondering what had happened to poor lost little Fey, and what would become of Lidge. Despite all their tenderness and concern, neither Daffyd nor Gilaine had been able to get any response from the girl. Perhaps in destroying Ariel, she had destroyed herself, and was now truly an empty vessel. And what had become of the wolves? Had all of them perished in the quake that had caused the mine to collapse? I could not think so, for Rheagor had told me that he had allowed the pack to go with me because I would lead them to the land where beasts walked free of funaga.

I resolved to go and look in the mine for myself. I would go alone or perhaps with Maruman, and we would mourn the Daywatcher and Sentinel.

I heard a footfall and saw Jakoby surmounting the steep slope with Brydda Llewellyn. I had been reunited with Brydda earlier in the day with bone-crushing thoroughness, when the funeral words had been said over Swallow before he had been brought up to the cliff and laid on his pyre. The big man had been in Quarry with many others from the Land and the Norselands and from Sador, and I was glad for his sake and the sake of his parents that he lived yet. I had seen the boy Lark, too, discovering to my great relief that he had not perished at sea. Sadly it had been the urchin Erit, who had stowed away on one of the four ships, who had perished. The thought of his bright boldness extinguished like a spark in the sea was yet another sorrow, though it had happened long past and it had been an accident besides. Lark had been with the big dark-haired Norse shipmaster Oma, and the reluctant king of the Norselands, and the High Chieftain of Westland, Gwynedd. Blyss had come up with Merret, to hear the words said, the latter full of apology for not bringing help to Gavyn, for she had been captured by Ekoni the minute she stepped into Redport. I assured her sadly that it was unlikely she would have been able to save him. I had not seen Jakoby then, but now she went with Brydda and stood a while by the dying funeral pyre, before they came to join us.

Brydda sat down with a grunt and Jakoby squatted, holding her hands out to the fire. I searched her face for some sign of grief for her sister, but there was only a sombre calm, and it came to me that no matter how much grief there had been in their parting, she had been reunited with her sister, and she had found and vanquished the vicious slaver, Salamander. Perhaps there was some comfort in that. I had said nothing of what I had seen in the hold of the
Black Ship
, nor would I. That was her story or her secret.

She lifted her eyes to me, and said, ‘I have come to ask you to tell me what became of Straaka, ElspethInnle, for Dragon has spoken of many strange things concerning him and of Ahmedri and Straaka’s woman. I would return to Sador on the first tide tomorrow, on the
Black Ship
, and I would tell his story.’

‘The
Black Ship
?’ Rushton said in surprise.

‘Dragon has ceded it to me, for she says the emissary will serve as a hostage against any attack from his people and in any case its weapons have been destroyed so it could do nothing save bar the way through the Talons, and Dragon says there is another way to do that,’ Jakoby said. ‘I will take with me the Sadorians who have been enslaved and we have dead who must be laid to rest in the spice groves.’ Her eyes met mine for a moment.

‘Must you go so soon?’ Rushton asked. ‘I am eager to return to Obernewtyn, but there is much to be done here and Dragon could benefit from our help.’

‘Never fear, for I will return, Master of Obernewtyn,’ Jakoby said. ‘I will take the
Black Ship
to Sador and then return in it once it has been stripped of its weapons and ugliness. It is a ship of great beauty, and I will find a better name for it. When I return, it will be for all of you who wish to come with me. I will take Gwynedd and he has promised to send back a ship as well, to serve Dragon for howsoever long she needs it.’

‘You and your people will not at least stay until the Red Queen rises again?’ Dameon asked quietly. ‘Dragon has promised to provide a spectacle surpassing her last display, for she has sworn to raise the sceptre of the first Red Queen.’

‘She has it?’ I asked, startled into sitting up straight. A gust of cold air flowed between Rushton and me, and I shivered.

‘She
will
have it, she says,’ Brydda replied.

‘I will not stay for this Raising of the Dragon,’ Jakoby said. ‘It will be like waiting to see the moon rise a second night to be sure it
is
the moon, for nothing could be more beautiful than the sight of the Red Queen leaping into the Infinity on Gahltha’s back.’

I felt the others look at me, and willed myself to go on looking at Jakoby.

She went on. ‘It is not only my people who will go with me. Many of the freed Landborn slaves are pining for their homes and families, and Gwynedd asked it for himself and them. He says someone must return to the Land to tell what became of the four ships that sailed away. The boy Lark would stay and help serve Matthew, but Oma says he must first go and say goodbye to Helvar and his mother, if he would serve the Red Queen. I will take them to Herder Isle before I go to Sutrium. Oma has promised the boy he will bring him back if he truly wants to come, and he is chattering about bringing his friend and Elkar and Cinda. To hear him you would think he would bring all of Norseland to dwell in the Red Land! But Brydda here will remain and Daffyd and Gilaine will not go, for they and Jow are bent on restoring the child Lidge. Merret and Blyss will stay as well as some of the Landborn.’