The Red Queen (14 page)

For the next sevenday, I was subjected to Tash’s treatments in the early mornings, and Ana or Dragon brought my meals. Neither exchanged more than a few words before hastening away, and it was obvious that they had been ordered not to linger. I did not set eyes on Swallow or Dameon at all. Tash answered any questions I asked willingly enough, but of course I could not ask the questions I most wanted to ask. She was no less sweet than she had been initially, but she did not initiate any conversation. At first I wondered if she, too, had been bidden not to talk too much to me, but as the days passed, I realised that she was preoccupied by some trouble of her own.

Every day one of the Committee visited my room to school me in the Covenant. My success at establishing myself as a fool had rebounded because it was clear the Committee believed I would need all the help I could get if I was to pledge at the next darkmoon ceremony. I could have recited the Covenant after two days but I had to stumble and forget and become confused. My only consolation was that more than one of my teachers left in a rage of irritation or frustration, and Polya said outright that if it were not impossible for God to be wrong, she would think a mistake had been made. This came perilously close to heresy, but she had a choleric nature.

The hardest thing was not being permitted to go anywhere save outside the hut after dark, and then only to undertake the strengthening exercises Tash had shown me. This, Tash’s morning treatments and the few moments with Ana or Dragon when they brought meals, were my only consolation during the dull monotony of those long days of waiting. The meals were relentlessly awful, always strangely flavoured or unutterably bland. Once, when a meal was particularly vile, I asked Ana who did the cooking, having decided the cook had no sense of taste, but she said everyone took turns, and that all food was prepared according to God’s recipe book. She had mentioned this before but now I asked bluntly what she meant. She gave me a sharp warning look that told me I had taken the wrong tone for my persona. ‘All food is prepared according to God’s requirements, which ensure it is nourishing and filling,’ she said devoutly, then left before I could question her further.

By the beginning of the next sevenday I was starting to fear the Committee would force me to stay in my hut until the darkmoon pledging ceremony. In desperation I asked Ana when she brought my evening meal if she would stay and eat with me. She shook her head and said she had duties, but her expression was sympathetic enough that I guessed I had sounded as desperate as I felt.

‘I was wondering – could I have pen and paper to scribe out the words of the Covenant so that I can practise them,’ I said.

Again she shook her head and there was both resignation and regret in her expression, though her voice was relentlessly cheerful. ‘You will be amazed! The Speci do not scribe with pen and paper as in the time before. They scribe onto a small device called a tabyl that somehow sends all the words set down to a master tabyl the Committee have, so that they can see what is written. Each person has their own tabyl, and you will need to request one of God, for no one may scribe in the tabyl of another. But you cannot request anything of God until you are properly pledged.’

‘Thank you,’ I said glumly, abandoning the idea of being able to scribe questions to the others. I had no idea what a tabyl could be, though it was obviously a Beforetime device. In truth I had no interest in it since, even if I had been able to get one, I would not have been able to ask the questions I wanted to ask, and without more information I was no closer to formulating an escape plan. The thought of having to wait until after darkmoon to have a sensible conversation, let alone one that was unconstrained, filled me with dismay and irritation. It was the latter that motivated me to ask querulously, ‘Why must I wait until I am pledged to ask for something? The Covenant says God hears everything all the time.’

‘God will not respond to the prayers of anyone who is not pledged,’ Ana said.

She finished setting out the food and bade me eat, saying that it was helping me put on some much-needed flesh. That at least was true and she added that I had done well, for the appetite of the resurrected was usually poor. I wanted to say that it was my will to become healthy and not my appetite that made me eat, but of course I said nothing. Fortunately this time she had brought some of the delicious bana fruit. Whenever she brought it, I always saved it till last to wipe the taste of the Speci food from my mouth. After she had gone, I heaved a sigh and forced myself to eat, cheered by the encouraging realisation that I had put on weight. I also felt stronger, but that was probably due to my ability to self-heal.

When I had finished eating, instead of using the chamber pot beneath the bed, I made my way to one of the relieving rooms between the huts, grasping at any excuse to step outside for a time. It was similar in design to the strange little relieving room in Oldhaven, and I wondered if God was still listening as I made use of it. When I returned to my hut, instead of doing Tash’s exercises on the ground outside the door, as I had begun to do, on impulse I went through the series of exercises the Coercer guild had devised to prepare them to fight physically, based on an arcane Beforetime mode of fighting. It was possible to do the exercises very quickly, but I had always preferred a slow, almost dancelike progression from stance to stance. It calmed my mind and made me feel less restless and agitated, and I resolved to do them morning and night from now on, as well as Tash’s exercises.

I saw no one, but perhaps I was observed, for when Tash came the next morning and when I asked as I always did if I would be allowed to walk somewhere, she said that the Committee had decided it was time for me to begin familiarising myself with Habitat. I was to take a walk at dusk to begin with, and then a little earlier each evening, so that my eyes would also gradually become accustomed to daylight.

I was elated but said simply, ‘Where? Can I go tonight? Will you go with me?’ I was careful to maintain the open, friendly, dim-witted manner I had employed since the meeting with the Committee. I could see in the Speci who came to teach me Covenant that my manner had made them see me as they might see a child, in need of care and guidance, but of no importance. Of course the part I was playing had further inhibited my conversation with my companions, but as it transpired I had so little access to them it hardly mattered.

Though it might matter henceforth, I thought glumly. Well it was too late to suddenly develop a sharper wit. I must go on as I had begun.

Tash, smiling, said that I might walk that evening and she would go with me. Ana and Dragon would join us in case she needed help in supporting me. I felt perfectly able to walk without aid but my heart leapt at the opportunity to have some time with the others, even if we would have to be constrained.

‘And where will we go?’ I asked, crossing my fingers.

‘You can decide,’ Tash said surprisingly. ‘I am to show you the whole of Habitat, so it matters not where we start.’ She looked at me expectantly and after all my thinking and plotting and yearning, I dithered. I wanted desperately to see the Hub, but if we went to the common, I could ask if we could sit for a little by the flowering shrub again to rest, and that would enable me to put Tash to sleep and talk to the others. And I had made up my mind to try farseeking Ahmedri or Maruman and Gahltha beyond the walls of Habitat, in the hope that forming a probe and sending it out would not alert any device or machine, unless I tried to contact someone human within Compound. It would be a risk, but I was frustrated enough to try. If something caught hold of my mind, I would have Swallow ready to knock me out. It was this latter thought that decided me on where to go.

‘But you have been to the common already,’ Tash protested when I named my choice.

‘It was fully darkmoon and I was so weak and dizzy the whole time,’ I answered plaintively. ‘There is enough moonlight now that I could see that bush with the flowers. The smell was so nice.’

That made the Speci girl smile. ‘Very well. But tomorrow night we must go somewhere else.’

‘The Hub!’ I said eagerly, beside myself with relief and excitement.

I spent the remainder of the day in a lather of impatience, broken only by a brief visit from Dragon, who had already been approached by Tash about accompanying us on the walk. Her eyes sparkled when I referred to it and she squeezed my hands, but aloud she merely made the calm observation that I would soon be able to join them for meals.

That gave me pause because it seemed to me she might be suggesting that we would be able to speak more freely at mealtimes. It made sense, given that any listening device would have trouble identifying one voice out of a babble of voices. I could also take the opportunity to delve into Tash’s mind, for she was still preoccupied and the sadness in her eyes had deepened. I had no desire to invade her privacy, for aside from liking her, she was a Misfit whether or not she knew it, and it might be that I could find some way to help her.

Dragon and Tash arrived together that evening with Dameon, the latter explaining that Ana had volunteered to take the place of someone who was ill in preparing the ritual ferment for the darkmoon. Apparently it took two sevendays to reach its proper potency. Dameon had come in her stead because he had finished his work in the drying room unexpectedly early and there was no more work to be done until the morrow.

‘Ana will try to join us on the common for a time,’ Dameon added. ‘Swallow, too, though he is assigned to the farms this week and may not make it back in time.’

I beamed at him, though he could not see it, but he smiled, for of course he felt the giddy welling of my joy. I tried to express my happiness in a muted childlike way, as befitted the persona I had adopted, and Dameon looked slightly startled for a moment. Dragon and Ana would have told him and Swallow of the part I was playing, but he had not yet witnessed it. I hoped I was not too obviously different from the way I had spoken when I had first wakened, but I had said so little it would be hard for anyone to notice the difference. The fact that I had addressed my Tumen attendant as myself troubled me, but perhaps he had nothing to do with the collection of words said in Habitat.

At last, after all the waiting and fretting, and when Tash and Ana and Dragon appeared, I had only to tie on my sandals and I was ready to go.

I had been out earlier and earlier in the evening to do my exercises to accustom myself to the daylight, but this was the first time I had been outside in full daylight, though in fact the sun had fallen below the wall. This, Ana had told me, was what dusk meant in Habitat, though true dusk would occur a little later. As I stepped out my eyes watered and stung, and I was relieved when it grew steadily darker as we made our way to the wall and along the path at its foot. Ana and Dragon walked either side of me, supporting me at first and then making a play of doing so as they realised I could walk perfectly well. I suspected Tash was aware of it, but she only exchanged a smile of friendly complicity with Dragon when the latter made some solicitous comment, and observed how swiftly I was regaining health and strength.

‘Swiftly?’ I echoed, startled, for I had felt myself to be recovering very slowly.

‘Usually it takes the resurrected weeks to be able to move about, even supported,’ Tash said. ‘That is why the Committee were so eager to see you after you walked that first night.’

‘I was all but carried by Swallow and Dameon,’ I protested.

‘Yes, but that you wanted to walk, even though in the end you fainted,’ Tash said. ‘Some on the Committee say that God must have chosen you for your determination and resilience. They say you will pass those traits onto your children so that all Habitat will benefit. Aside from the fact that you must have been a good person in the time before,’ she added. ‘Feyat says each of us is chosen for a reason . . .’

She stopped, flushing, and I realised she was afraid she had hurt my feelings, for clearly the Speci had been wondering why God would choose a simpleton. I merely smiled vaguely at her, though I did wonder why they did not question the wit of a Lud foolish enough to want to restore the world to a people who had destroyed it, or in Speci terms, who had sinned so much that God had been forced to wipe them out. Of course I said none of this. I felt uneasy about what she had said about my having children, since it suggested that, rather than making myself unappealing to would-be suitors, I had made myself an object of desire. But did Speci choose their partners based on God’s plans, or on their own inclinations? The latter, maybe, since it was up to the Committee and then God to permit the match. In that case I was confident that I could render myself undesirable enough not to be troubled by any suitors.

But I hoped I would not need to worry about avoiding Habitat’s version of being courted, because no man would be able to ask to bond with me until after darkmoon, which I had identified as the best time for us to make our escape. The next darkmoon was closer than I liked, but I was determined to try. The thought of another month and more in Habitat made me feel suffocated, quite apart from the possibility of having to deal with suitors, but we could not escape until I had found the means. The freedom to talk to the others, and the possibility of making contact with Ahmedri, filled me with determination. But I had also made up my mind to talk to Dameon about offering for me when we got to the common, just in case.

We saw no one until we reached the common, and then there were only a few people sitting on blankets, eating and drinking. I wondered if the paths were any busier during the day and outside mealtimes, for despite the purported numbers in Habitat, I had so far seen very few Speci.

I felt Dameon’s empathy strengthen and guessed he was ensuring that Tash took us to the flowering bush. Of course he did not know that I had already mentioned it to her. I guessed he was probably making her feel sleepy, too, because twice she yawned widely and both times she looked surprised.

‘Oh the flowers are so pretty!’ I cried, as we approached a bush covered in tiny clusters of yellow and white blooms. There was little perfume, but it must be the same bush we had come to before, because there was nothing else growing on the common save this single shaggy clump. ‘They don’t smell as good as the other night,’ I said, infusing my voice with disappointment as Dragon took a blanket from Tash’s basket and spread it on the ground.