The Red Queen (104 page)

‘Are you sure all of this is real?’ Serrik persisted. ‘Maybe Vadim lies to try to force us to rise so that the emissary will not take his people from Quarry? Or maybe that was Matthew’s plan all along. After all, not a single Redlander has seen this Red Queen.’

Murrim gave her a hard look. ‘Use your brain girl. Matthew strives to find and protect our queen, and while he is not one of us, he has always vowed allegiance
to her
.’ He turned to Maya and the rest of us. ‘I have accepted Vadim’s offer of refuge until dawn. Since Matthew has taken the Red Queen to Slavetown, Rymer and Maginder will reveal her. I would like to see if we can learn more about what the Quarry folk plan to do, and try to set up a meeting so that we can coordinate our forces.’

‘What of him?’ Maya said, gesturing to the glaring Gadfian man.

‘I will deal with him,’ I said, and they all looked at me.

Maya caught at my arm. ‘You cannot kill him.’

I looked at her, startled. ‘I have no intention of killing him. But let me touch him and I can wipe all memory of this encounter from his mind.’

They all stared at me incredulously, but rather than wasting time with explanations, I pushed through them to a Gadfian man held tightly between two men who looked to be half Redland and half Norse. The eyes of the Gadfian man were full of fury. I set a hand on his bare wrist and he slumped down, his eyes drooping. I bade the Redlanders lay him down and, touching him again, I entered his mind. I saw at once that he was coming from an assignation with a woman, and far from breaking the curfew, he carried a permission token stolen from his Chafiri master, which enabled him to move about. I hunted through his pockets and found it.

‘What are you doing?’ Serrik demanded.

‘Elspeth, we cannot stay here in the open any longer,’ Maya whispered urgently.

‘Wait,’ I said, and swiftly erased the moment when the man had seen Murrim and the others in the lane and replaced it with an old memory I found of him being startled by a dog. Then I tweaked his mind to give him something of a headache and added a memory of drinking something I had seen him ply his lover with, despite her attempt to refuse it. He was a repellent man and I was glad to slip free of his mind.

‘If we leave him here, the Ekoni will discover him,’ one of the boys said.

‘It does not matter for he will have nothing to tell them, save that he will recall a dog leaping out to startle him, and that he tripped and cracked his head.’

Maya regarded me with something like awe.

‘You go to this Vadim,’ I said, ‘Your oath requires that you do not move against the Gadfian slavemasters until the Red Queen is with you, but I made no such oath and I need to find my friends to let them know that Dragon is safe.’ Maya and Serrik began to protest, but I looked to Murrim and said, ‘I have shown you that I can protect myself, and you have not seen all I can do yet.’

Murrim looked searchingly into my face, then he said, ‘Matthew always said that the queen has a great love for you.’

‘You will simply let her walk away?’ asked Serrik. ‘You do not even know what she does!’

‘She is not our prisoner,’ Murrim reminded her somewhat wearily. ‘Moreover she is the companion of our queen and has served her well.’

‘But if she is caught she will speak of us!’

‘I will not speak of you,’ I said directly to Serrik. ‘What I did to that man, I can do to myself, at need, though it would be a dire thing to do, truly.’ I looked back to Murrim. ‘I will make my way to Slavetown when curfew ends,’ I told him. ‘I am as eager to see the Red Queen as you. Give her my love and tell her and Matthew that I am glad they are safe.’

I waited until they had gone before I emerged from the lane and ghosted around the edge of the open area to slip between the compound wall and the buildings that would once have bordered the infinity. Coming to the one nearest the corner of the compound wall, I realised the gap was wider than I had thought, but still not too wide.

‘I would not consider it if I were you,’ said a voice.

I pivoted on my heel, hand reaching for my concealed dagger, my heart leaping painfully against my chest, but it was an instinctive reaction because
I knew the voice
.

Emerging from the shadows, light-footed and lithe as ever despite her height and bulk, and pushing what looked like an Ekoni hood back from her face, was the dark-haired, dark-eyed coercer, Merret!

‘Elspeth!’ she said. ‘Ye gods! To see you here! I thought I was dreaming. But we cannot stay in the open. Come.’ Without another word she caught my arm and set off, towing me along with her. It was swiftly evident that she knew exactly where she was going, and in a tangle of small streets, she stopped outside a battered door and ushered me inside. Closing the door firmly behind us, she lit a lantern, revealing two long benches against the walls and an otherwise empty room with dark doors leading off it. She turned to embrace me, beaming.

‘It is so good to see you, Elspeth! Yet I ought not to be so surprised. Matthew has oft true-dreamed of you in Redport, and only recently Blyss dreamed of your coming as well.’

‘Blyss is here, safe?’

A memory seemed to wash over the big woman’s scarred face and fleetingly she looked gaunt. ‘For a while there I thought I had lost her. But she is safe and lovely as ever.’

‘I still did not know who aboard the greatships got here safely,’ I said. ‘I dreamed of a storm and a shipwreck.’

‘Our greatship was cast ashore in a truly terrible storm, but amazingly no one was killed and the other three greatships took us aboard. But even with us spread between them they were overloaded and under-supplied and we just managed to reach the Spit.’ She shook her head grimly. ‘Well to cut a long story short, a good many of us wound up here, and though none of us knows how, and despite the fact that every possible thing seemed to go wrong, it seems that we achieved what we set out to achieve, for there is now no talk of Gadfians invading the Land.’

‘You have been here in Redport all along?’ I asked.

She laughed softly. ‘The Gadfians took one look at me and sent me to Quarry to be trained for their slave army. Indeed it was the same for most of us. Not all. Blyss is in Slavetown. I do not see her as often as we desire but she is safe.’

‘How are you here if you were sent to Quarry?’

She chuckled. ‘I assume you have encountered the block that prevents the use of Talents in Redport?’

I nodded. ‘That is why I was contemplating breaking into the Prime Chafiri’s compound. I learned that Ariel stayed there when he is in Redport and it seemed to me that he must be responsible for the machine causing the block, since the Gadfians have no knowledge of Talents, for who else could be behind it?’ I realised suddenly what she was telling me. ‘The block does not affect Quarry!’

She beamed at me in approval. ‘You have not lost your wits, Guildmistress. Once we disembarked we were immediately enmeshed by the block and could do nothing to resist being sent to train for a slave army, save by touching the person we wanted to influence, and that was all but impossible, given we were chained one to the other. Besides, we were dazed and ill from being drugged for the entire trip. Imagine the relief and delight when the Ekoni marched us to Quarry, and we discovered the block did not affect us outside the settlement.

‘By the time we reached Quarry, we had thoroughly coerced our escort and learned a great deal about them, their order and their superiors, and about Redport and how things work here. It was evident that there were not enough of us to wage a war against the slavers, and that Quarry was the perfect place for us. We had no desire to coerce the other slaves there and we were too few to run it, even if it were possible. By its very nature, a warrior training camp is an aggressive place full of passions and strong personalities, not all of them reasonable or clever or kind, so we did what we could to ease the tyranny of the Ekoni and managed our own lives as best we could. Of course there were endless plots hatched, but the problem has always been where to go, for the Quarry folk did not desire to live here in the Red Land and they knew their numbers were not sufficient for them to take over Redport. Again and again there have been plots to steal a ship, and it has been tried many times without success. And what if it were successful? The thieves would then have to sail home over the notorious Clouded Sea, evading Gadfian pursuit.’

She stopped abruptly and moved to listen at the door for a moment, before continuing. ‘As you can imagine, there is a complex relationship between the passive Redlanders and the Quarry folk, because if the Redlanders would rise against their oppressors, there is a very good chance we would prevail, but the Redlanders refuse to act because of their oath to their ancient queen. That has led to a lot of anger and resentment, but once we made contact with Matthew he was able to ease things between the two groups – he arranged for Redlander slaves to work with slaves from beyond the Red Land in both Slavetown and Quarry. Few of them were aware of us then, though they worked with him. But the arrival of the emissary and the ships to carry off the population of Quarry has roused all the old angers, because even now, the Redlanders refuse to rise, and there is trouble in Slavetown because the loved ones of many of the people in Quarry dwell there. The decision has been made to resist, though our numbers are small and victory of any kind far from certain, but it is better than being tamely marched into Redport and aboard ships bound for an unknown land. Many in Slavetown will rise up as well; a good many of them are halfblood Redlanders. There is no stopping it, despite Matthew’s pleas. My visit to the Prime’s compound was yet another attempt to locate the blocking machine, for we stand a far better chance without it, though I do not think it likely that a machine is deliberately causing this block, for whoever owned it must know it does not work in Quarry.’

I stared at her. ‘Are you saying that you were inside the compound tonight?’

She nodded. ‘I just came out. I simply brought two of the Ekoni from Quarry with me, knowing I could make contact and shore up the coercive web of commands I had put in place in their minds. One of them serves the Prime and I made him come to make a report to the main Ekoni and the Prime, saying that the Quarry folk are angry but cowed. While he did that, I and the other Ekoni were left in the yard, and I took advantage of being left alone to transform myself from a hooded Ekoni to a servant woman. I made a thorough search, which included coercing and questioning the other servants, and I am certain there is no machine anywhere, not even in the chamber inhabited by Ariel, which, by the way, is merely a guest chamber and not his in particular.’

‘Whose is this place?’

‘It is one of a number of empty houses all about Redport supposedly in danger of falling down, which are safe houses for slaves. It was Matthew’s idea and there is at least one in each segment of the settlement so that a slave caught outside during curfew or over from Quarry can take refuge. The Gadfians know nothing about them. Which reminds me, Jakoby and Daffyd and Reuvan are here, too, I mean here in Redport with me tonight. But tell me how
you
came here? The last thing anyone knew was that you had disappeared into the high mountains. Did you do the vital thing Miryum said you had to do?’

‘That is too long and strange a tale for now,’ I said.

Merret shook her head wonderingly. ‘I imagine it is and I long to hear it in full. I cannot wait to see Matthew’s face when he sees you. How long
have
you been here?’

I stared at her, something beginning to dawn on me. ‘Merret, when did you last see Matthew?’

‘When he visited Quarry a twoday past,’ she said. ‘He serves the Gadfian smith who serves the Ekoni and comes with his master regularly to tend our training weapons. His visits are one of the ways we get news and people in and out of Redport. Most of the Quarry folk have no idea we use Misfit abilities to smooth the way. But this last visit was somewhat fraught because the Quarry folk demanded the Redlanders rise against the slavemasters. Matthew answered as before, that they would not act until the Red Queen returned. It is an irony that a good deal of anger at the Redlanders’ passivity has been aimed at Matthew because he has so decisively allied himself with them, and argues for their right to remain true to their oath. Yet by all accounts he had a very harsh time of it when he first arrived and realised Dragon must be descended from the Red Queen; he wanted her people to rise against their oppressors. But eventually he accepted that they would not act until she came, because they had sworn an oath to that effect, and he has convinced most Redlanders that Dragon is the queen they have been waiting for, and that she will come ere long.’ She looked weary. ‘It is a pity she did not come with us as was planned in the beginning. If she was here it would be a very different matter.’

‘But Merret . . . Dragon
is
here.’

The coercer gaped at me. ‘
Dragon is here
?’

I nodded. ‘She travelled here with me. She came into Redport on her own yesterday and I have been searching for her since. I learned that Matthew had visioned of her coming into Redport and mustered his halfblood friends to search for her, convinced the Redlanders would not rise until they see her for themselves. Then, from what I understand, it seems he had another vision that she was in danger and it led him to her. He has taken her to Slavetown.’

‘But that is wonderful news! Ye gods, I must return at once to let the Quarry folk know the Redlanders have their queen at long last. With them, we will have the numbers, and the only danger we need be concerned about are the weaponmachines aboard the greatships anchored in the bay. Even the most volatile man in Quarry knows there is no point in winning Redport from the Gadfians only to see the emissary destroy it. In fact there are some Quarry folk who have argued it might be best to flee across the fallen plain and into the desert, living rough and raiding Redport and the domes, rather than risk the weapons. But with luck, Jakoby and the others will have a plan to deal with them.’

‘They are trying to get aboard?’

‘More like they are seeing how that might be managed,’ Merret said. ‘There is not much time for planning, regrettably, for it is little more than a day until the slave army is supposed to be marched aboard the emissary’s ships. But tell me why Dragon came into Redport alone. Surely it would have been better for all of you to stay together.’

‘It was not planned. I was in Redport trying to find out if any of you were alive and to make contact with Matthew – the block meant I could not farseek him, nor did I discover that Dragon had vanished from her watch atop a dome until I returned to the others hours later. I tried at once to locate her outside the settlement but I could not scry within Redport, so there was no choice but to return. Swallow came with me and as far as I know he is still somewhere at large in the city, looking for her. I went into Slavetown because I had learned by coercing those I could touch that it was where I would find the Redland leadership. My hope was that they had found Dragon or she had somehow found her way to them. Some of the Redlanders agreed to help me search for her and it was through them that we learned Matthew had Dragon.’

‘And you say he has taken her to Slavetown?’ Merret asked.

‘So his friend Vadim says.’ I told her a little of Murrim and Maya and the other things Vadim had said before we had parted.

Merret nodded. ‘I know Vadim, and he is a stout fellow, but it surprises me mightily to hear that Murrim acted without waiting to see Dragon, though I suppose he did not actually move against the Gadfians – it was he and his daughter and this Serrik and a pack of halfblood children by the sounds of it. Well, Dragon will have no more devout champion that Matthew. Rymer and the other Redlanders must have been thunderstruck to be faced with the Red Queen, though! How I wish I had seen it.’ She frowned, knitting her dark brow for a moment. ‘According to Matthew, the Redlanders have all sorts of grand and complex plans for when the Red Queen comes, but my guess is the reality of revealing Dragon to her people and then initiating an uprising against the slavemasters will be more difficult than they imagine. Of course they have Matthew and he knows how to fight, and there are a few younger Redlanders with hot blood, but the majority of them are so passive that I can’t think they will find it easy to act after a lifetime of constraint and caution. I think the halfbloods will truly come into their own now. I wish the others would make haste. We need to get back to Quarry, for there ought to be some sort of meeting between the Redlanders and our people before anything happens.’

‘From what Murrim said, you will have a little grace, for this masked ball will get in the way of the Redlanders being able to immediately reveal Dragon to her people, because as well as the curfew being suspended for it, apparently the gate to Slavetown will be left open,’ I said. ‘Also, from what Vadim said, the slave army is not now to be marched onto the ships at dawn after the masked ball, but will be held outside the settlement until after the curfew bells toll that day.’

‘A delay in boarding is important news, especially in the face of Dragon’s arrival – another reason to return to Quarry in haste. As to the masked ball, that may be a boon because, it will undoubtedly be too dangerous to have any sort of open revelation of Dragon in the Infinity of Hope as they have always planned, while the Slavetown gates are open. But we may be able to use the fuss and muddle of the event to stage a meeting in Slavetown between Quarry folk and Redlanders, and make some joint plans,’ Merret said. ‘But what will you do now?’