Wormwood Gate (7 page)

‘Let go!' Aisling cried, a little less loudly, now that some of the gulls' beaks were occupied. ‘They won't be able to grab you –'

‘I'm not letting them take you!' Julie shouted. ‘They won't be able to carry us both!'

‘Don't be stupid! Let go!' Aisling tried to prise Julie's hands from her coat, but the gulls grabbed onto her sleeves. They grabbed Julie's belt as well, and the hems of her leggings, and the straps of her bra. Aisling saw tears rising in Julie's eyes as the gulls' beaks pecked at her skin.

‘It's too late anyway,' said Julie, grabbing Aisling around the waist and ducking her head.

The gulls flapped their wings, and then the girls were lifted from the roof with a sickening lurch, and there was nothing beneath their feet any more. For a moment Aisling panicked, kicking out as if that would do any good. Julie squirmed too, but the gulls only flapped all the harder. Then Aisling felt Julie's left foot touching the toe of her right boot, and her right foot touching the toe of her left boot.
Like a little girl dancing with her father
, she thought, and then,
but there's no dance floor. There's no floor. There's just
–

‘Hey,' said Julie, ‘it's going to be all right.'

Aisling could feel a sob building up in her throat. She bit her lip to keep from crying.

‘Listen,' said Julie, her voice perfectly even, ‘now's not a good time to break down, OK? They're going to have to set us down some time, and when they do that you can cry as much as you like. But right now you need to take a deep breath and stay calm. Can you do that?'

Aisling stared at her, her mind blank.

‘Come on,' Julie said. ‘Inhale. Deep breath. Let your belly expand. Can you do that?'

Aisling closed her eyes and breathed in.

‘OK, now exhale for a count of four, but preferably not in my face because I don't know what you've been eating.'

Aisling scowled and exhaled pointedly in Julie's face.

‘There, see?' said Julie, laughing a little. ‘Now you're yourself again.'

‘You know, it's
remarkable
how you manage to be a bitch even when you're trying to be nice.'

‘I've been with you all night,' said Julie. ‘I've been taking notes.'

‘If I had a free hand, I'd slap you.'

‘I stopped you crying, didn't I?'

Aisling opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything there was a flurry and a bump and they were dropped unceremoniously to the ground. The seagulls circled around them once, crying out all the while, and then flew away in a burst of white feathers.

Julie rolled off Aisling and Aisling scrambled to her feet. They were surrounded by men in strange, old-fashioned uniforms and helmets with face-guards, carrying halberds. The halberds were lowered, with the spiky bits aimed at the two of them.

‘You are under arrest, by orders of the queen,' said one of the men, whose uniform bore a red sash across his chest, ‘for trespassing, violation of curfew, climbing on a roof without a licence and intent to commit regicide.'

Julie raised her hands in protest. ‘Hey, what? Regicide? We don't want to kill the queen!'

The man with the red sash sniffed. ‘Pfft, that's what they all say. Haul 'em in, lads!'

The guards seemed only too eager to do as he said – so eager, in fact, that both Aisling and Julie were grabbed by four guards each, two for each arm. It made their progress rather slow as they were marched from their landing spot to a narrow iron gate where yet another guard was waiting. This one wasn't wearing a helmet; Aisling was somehow not surprised to see that he had the head of a dog, though it did make her wonder what the other guards were hiding.

‘Another pair?' he said listlessly. ‘All right, then. Make sure you do the paperwork; I'm not doing it for you.'

He swung the gate open, and there was a bit of a scuffle as the guards holding on to Aisling and Julie silently competed over which was going to have the privilege of holding on to them while they were passing through the gate. The scuffle sorted itself out (after the chief guard gave the others some meaningful looks), and the two girls were frogmarched through the gate, down a narrow stone corridor, down a short flight of stairs and into a small cell with a wooden door.

‘You'll be staying here at Her Majesty's pleasure,' said the chief guard with a sneer in his voice. ‘Don't expect a quick trial. Or any trial, if she doesn't feel like giving you one.'

He slammed the door, and Aisling could hear a deadbolt being shot home and the clatter of hobnailed boots on stone receding into the distance.

‘Well,' she said, once the sounds had died away, ‘I have to admit that I am not remotely comforted by the fact that I foresaw this as a possibility.'

Julie stared at her. ‘You're
weird
,' she said, turning to examine the cell.

It was small – not really big enough for both of them if they were going to be sleeping there; it had one bed, or rather a bench wide enough to serve as a bed if you didn't mind sleeping on bare wood. There was straw on the floor and an empty chamberpot in one corner. It smelled clean, thankfully, and there was a window high up in the wall that looked out at ground level, but it wasn't big enough to climb through.

Aisling climbed up on the bench to peer through the window. There was light coming through it, and not just the light of the fires. ‘It's almost morning,' she said.

‘I don't feel tired,' said Julie, sitting down on the bench beside her. ‘Isn't that strange?'

‘Adrenaline, maybe? In which case we'll probably get the shakes in about an hour, unless something else happens.'

‘No, I don't think that's it.' Julie took out her phone and stared at it. ‘You know the way our cameras aren't working? Well, the clock isn't working either. Not on mine, anyway.'

‘Huh.' Aisling took out her phone and looked at the clock display. She hadn't registered the time when she'd been fiddling with it before, but now that she was actually looking at it, she could see that something was wrong; there was no way it was only 9.13 p.m.

She stared and stared at it, waiting for the minute figure to tick over to 14, but though she counted to a hundred in her head, it never did.

‘This just confirms my theory,' she said. ‘Or at least, it's evidence in its favour.'

‘You never said what your theory was.'

‘Oh. Right. Well. This place is pretty obviously based on Dublin, right? Or, it's like Dublin.'

‘City of the Three Castles,' said Julie, taking her notebook out of her bag. ‘Here, look –' She opened the notebook to a page with a sketch on it: three stylised castles, all aflame, and writing in Latin underneath it. ‘This is the official crest of the City of Dublin.'

‘Yes. Yes, exactly! So this is like … like a dream of Dublin. Or, a collective hallucination. You know? Like, I just remembered where I saw merhorses before – they're on the lampposts in the centre of town.'

‘Cool.' Julie ran her fingers over the sketch and frowned. ‘But what does that have to do with our phones not working?'

‘Well, if this place isn't really
real
, it stands to reason we won't be able to take pictures of it. And time probably doesn't work normally here. So our phones are tracking time perfectly, just … they're tracking time in the real world, not here.'

‘So when we get back, no time will have passed? Like the Pevensies coming back from Narnia?'

‘Yes, exactly.' Aisling blinked, surprised. ‘Wait, you've read the Narnia books?'

Julie rolled her eyes. ‘Everyone's read the Narnia books. Stop assuming I can't read just because I listen to Top 40 hits.'

‘Right. Sorry. Stereotyping, bad habit, won't do it again.'

‘Yeah, don't.'

There was a pause, and Aisling thought that perhaps it ought to have been awkward, between one thing and another, but it wasn't. It was pleasant, comfortable; almost as if they were friends.

‘You do Latin, don't you?' said Julie, breaking the silence.

‘Yep. Why?'

‘What does this mean?'

She held out the notebook, her finger pointing to the slogan underneath the crest.

‘
Obedientia civium urbis felicitas
,' Aisling read. ‘That's the motto of the city, I suppose?'

‘Obviously. But what does it mean?'

‘Um … “The obedience of the citizens is the happiness of the city”? Something like that.'

Julie looked around at the cell they were in and shivered visibly. ‘Creepy,' she said.

‘I know,' said Aisling. ‘I know.'

4

Julie was trying to figure out what their next move should be when there was a high-pitched whining sound, as of metal scraping against metal, and the door of their cell slammed open. Julie leapt to her feet and Aisling followed suit. A guard walked in, not wearing his helmet, this one having the head of a horse. He looked at the two of them, turning his head to look now at Julie, now at Aisling, then nodded and grabbed Julie by the arm.

‘Queen wants to see you,' he said. ‘Come with me.'

‘Wait, what?' said Julie, trying to pull her arm free.

‘Why just her?' said Aisling. ‘Why not both of us?'

‘Could be you, but I'm not sure I could carry you up all them steps,' said the guard in a sniffy sort of way.

Aisling narrowed her eyes. ‘Was that a crack about my weight?'

‘Yes,' said the guard, not looking at her. ‘Stop struggling,' he said to Julie. ‘You're lucky to get to see the queen at all. You haven't even been in for a day yet. Some people have been waiting here for months for a hearing.'

Julie looked at Aisling, trying to communicate with her eyes that she thought it would be better to go along with this than to fight. Aisling seemed to get the point; she stepped back and sat back down on the bench. ‘Nothing wrong with my weight,' she muttered to herself. ‘I'm the perfect weight for who I am.'

Julie stopped resisting the guard's pull on her arm and let him drag her out to the corridor, where he slammed the door shut again and pushed the bolt home. He let go of her arm and made as if to grab her around the waist, but she skipped back a step and raised her hands.

‘Look, do you have to carry me? I have legs, you know. I can walk.'

‘Procedure,' said the guard. ‘If I didn't carry you, I couldn't trust you not to run away, and that'd be a pain in the arse. Not that you could get away, because you'd get caught, but we'd have to chase you, and on the graveyard shift we try to avoid running around.'

‘Well, couldn't you just give me a piggyback? I don't want to be hauled around like a sack of potatoes. It's not dignified.'

The guard shrugged and turned around, crouching down. For a second, Julie contemplated running away while his back was turned, but she had no idea where the nearest exit was, and there were enough guards hanging around to make escape a very iffy proposition. She straddled his back instead and put her arms around his thick horse's neck. He stood up, lifting her, and started to jog along the corridor.

‘Are there a lot of prisoners?' she asked as he reached a spiral staircase and started trotting up the steps. ‘I heard that a lot of people are breaking curfew.'

The guard snorted a very loud, horsey snort. ‘Stupid bleedin' law,' he muttered. ‘Only makes work for us. And for what? The queen's already got everyone so terrified they can't sneeze unless she says so.'

‘I see.' Julie thought back to the conversation the three men had had in the kitchen of the house. ‘But aren't there, you know, rebels?'

The guard stopped on the stair. ‘Rebels?'

‘People who fight the queen. There must be!'

The guard hesitated, then turned his head and leaned his neck back so that she got a whiff of his breath (which smelled of porridge oats). ‘That's dangerous talk, little miss,' he said quietly. ‘You and I could both get into a lot of trouble just for mentioning it.'

Julie felt her heart speeding up. ‘I'm already in as much trouble as I can be!' she said. ‘I'm not afraid.'

‘Well, I am,' said the guard, and he turned back around and went on trotting up the stairs.

Julie sagged down against his back. The most important thing was to get home, but she and Aisling had sworn an oath. Even if they found a way out of the City, they were duty-bound not to leave with the queen still on the throne. And that was an enormous ‘if'.

They reached the top of the staircase, and the guard contemplated the door in front of them for a few seconds before raising his foot (which, Julie could see now, was actually a hoof with a metal shoe) and kicking it three times. ‘Doesn't open from this side,' he said. ‘Got to knock.'

‘What if nobody's in?'

‘Then you don't get to go in there. But there's always somebody there.'

There was a series of clattering and clicking noises, as of keys being turned or bolts being drawn, and the door was opened a few inches, enough to reveal the face of a guard – human this time – who glared at them suspiciously. ‘What's the story?' said the guard.

‘Mortal prisoner,' said the horse-head guard, tilting his head sideways to make it easier for the other guard to see Julie. ‘There was two of them. Queen wanted to see one.'

‘All right.' The door opened fully, and the horse-head guard trotted through it and down a short corridor that ended with a pair of vast double doors guarded by two helmeted men. The guards opened the doors without a word, and the horse-head guard trotted towards them, hesitated for a moment at the threshold, then passed into the room beyond.

It was a big room, a grand room, decorated in a style that Julie hadn't expected to see: blond pine, white carpet, geometrical furniture in solid colours, and floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows looking out over the City. The rest of the City was so old-fashioned that Julie had taken for granted that the queen's chambers would be as well, but it looked like it had been furnished from an Ikea catalogue. It was a little unnerving.

‘Set her down,' said a voice. It was a woman's voice, presumably the queen's, but Julie couldn't tell where it was coming from. The horse-head guard crouched down and let go of Julie's legs, and she stepped back, hopping from foot to foot to banish the pins and needles.

A very fancy-looking black leather office chair swivelled on its stand, and there she was: undoubtedly the queen. Here in this chamber, she could hardly be anyone else, but Julie thought she would have known her for an important person anywhere. She was dressed like an executive from an American movie, the kind who would make her company successful by firing employees for the slightest infraction but would turn out to have a hollow and lonely personal life (and probably end up falling in love with a waiter and retiring to have babies). Her hair was short and slicked back with something that made it glisten in the light, and her one visible eye was a hard and penetrating blue. The other eye was covered by a leather patch, which should have looked ridiculous with the dark suit and manicured nails, but somehow just added to her aura of power.

The guard fell to one knee and bowed his head. ‘Your Majesty, the prisoner,' he said.

‘Yes, yes, I see that. Watch the door from this side, but don't go just yet,' said the queen with a gesture of dismissal.

Julie stared as the guard bowed deeply and walked backwards towards the door. Weren't there countries where you weren't supposed to turn your back on the king or queen? A stupid rule, but the guard seemed used enough to it that he didn't bump into anything.

‘So,' said the queen. Julie started and turned to face her, a blush spreading over her cheeks.

The queen smirked and stood up, striding over to a window and staring out of it, her hands clasped behind her back.

‘I know who sent you,' she said, ‘and I know what you're here to do. It won't happen, do you understand? I won't allow it to happen. The City is mine and will always be mine. I won it by fair combat and I will not lose it, by fair means or foul.'

‘I don't know what you're talking about,' said Julie.

The queen laughed, a dry, mirthless sound. ‘A protestation of innocence. How charming! How utterly charming! You've come this far and been found out, and you still think you can bluff your way past me.' She turned her head so that her face was in profile, her one good eye fixed on Julie. ‘Although from another point of view, that might be considered insulting.'

‘I'm not bluffing,' said Julie. ‘I didn't mean to do anything when I came here. I came here by accident, and all I want to do is go home.'

The queen pivoted round to face her in a move so smooth and sharp that Julie suspected she had practised it for hours. ‘Do you take me for a fool?' she growled. ‘The Lord of Shadows has ignored my message and sent no aid against the Queen of Crows. Thus I know: he plans to break the treaty with my death and the deaths of my sister-queens! I know too that he is a lying mortal! I know he is the consort of the Queen of Crows! I know Molly Red is his servant! All this I know, mortal, so you betray nothing if you admit this much.'

‘I honestly have no idea what you're talking about,' said Julie. ‘I mean, who are these people? The Queen of Crows? The Lord of Shadows? The names are sort of familiar, but that's all. And I've heard a bit more about Molly Red, but I've never met her.' As soon as she finished the sentence, it occurred to her that that last part wasn't entirely true, though it was true enough. She was pretty sure being run over by a horse didn't really count as
meeting
the horse.

‘Pfah! Do you expect me to believe that when Molly Red opened the Wormwood Gate, it was a mere coincidence that you and your …
friend
came through it?'

‘I don't know if it was a coincidence,' said Julie, ‘but we didn't do it on purpose. There's a street, you see, in Dublin, called Wormwood Gate, probably because that was where one of the old city gates used to be –'

‘Enough! I don't want to hear any more of your lies. You are in league with Molly Red and, through her, with the Lord of Shadows. I know this to be true, so it's useless denying it.'

‘Then you're not going to believe me, no matter what I say?'

The queen smiled cruelly. ‘Tell me the truth and I will believe it. Tell me more lies and I will find a way to make you tell the truth.'

Julie's heart sank. ‘What do you want from me?' she said, trying to be brave.

The queen smiled again, this time looking less like a cat with a mouse caught in its claws and more like a shark. ‘Why, whatever do you think I want, young lady? I want us to have a nice little chat. I want you to tell me everything you know about the Lord of Shadows and Molly Red and the Queen of Crows. And when we've finished our chat, I want you to go back to your master and tell him that the next time he sends a mortal to threaten me, I'll send that mortal back to him in carved-up pieces. Do you understand?'

‘I … think so … but …' Julie hesitated. A horrible thought had occurred to her. ‘What are you going to do with Aisling?'

‘Who?'

‘My …'
Not ‘friend', we're not friends, not really
‘… companion.'

‘Oh, the other little assassin? Though not so little in her case. Well, she'll be left in her cell until I have a need for her. I may not have a need for her, if you do as I say. Do you understand that?'

Julie nodded, shivering and hugging herself. Yes, she understood: unless she could give the queen satisfactory answers to her questions, bluff convincingly enough at being a spy of the Lord of Shadows (whoever that was), Aisling was in danger. Aisling was a hostage, and if Julie didn't manage to persuade the queen to let both of them go ‘back to their master', the queen would do … well, she wasn't sure what the queen would do, but she was pretty sure it would be horrible.

‘What do you want to know?' she said.

‘Weren't you listening, you tiresome little girl? Everything! I want to know everything!'

‘But where should I start? There's so much to tell. I couldn't possibly tell you everything unless you ask me about something more specific.'

The queen strode towards her and slapped her in the face, hard enough to make her eyes water.

‘Mind your place, spy,' she hissed. ‘Don't be impertinent or you'll get more than a slap next time.'

Julie dropped to her knees, having decided that the queen probably wanted her to grovel. She could do grovelling. Grovelling was easy.

‘I beg your forgiveness, Your Majesty,' she said, letting a slight whine enter her voice. ‘Whatever you ask, I will answer.'

‘That's better,' said the queen. ‘But since you were stupid enough to think you could bluff your way past me, perhaps you are also stupid enough to need me to ask for every little thing I want to know. Really, I cannot imagine what possessed the Lord of Shadows to use so incompetent a servant.'

‘I don't question the Lord of Shadows,' said Julie, which was true; she could hardly question somebody she'd never met.

‘Silence! Don't speak unless you're spoken to. Now, let me see …' The queen tapped her lips with her forefinger a few times, then turned back around to face out of the windows again. ‘First tell me: how did he mean for you to kill me? When, and with what weapons?'

Julie thought for a second, then replied, ‘At midnight on the night of the full moon, with a knife made from cold iron.'

She held her breath. Was that the kind of answer the queen was looking for? Was cold iron something you could make a knife out of? Did the City of the Three Castles even
have
a moon?

The queen neither turned nor spoke, merely holding out one hand at her side and gesturing for Julie to continue. Julie exhaled and racked her brain for other colourful notions to present as facts.

‘Um … the plan was for me to be the assassin. My companion didn't know what we were supposed to be doing. She was just there to help me … find my way around and … to protect me.'

‘Strange for the Lord of Shadows to send two spies and only tell one of them about the nature of their mission.'

‘Oh, no, not really, you see, because –'
think, think, what does she want to hear?
‘– the Lord of Shadows knows you to be wise and a … a masterful interrogator. He knew that the less we knew about our mission, the better, so … so only I was told. Aisling didn't need to know for the job to work.'