The Red Queen (127 page)

I assured him that I was very happy with what he had managed at such short notice, and after all he had already made me look magnificent once. Of course, he had no knowledge that I had worn the red gauze cloak to the masked ball, and I thought it better not to mention it, given the state in which it had ended. Yet I realised that I had summoned him with some vague idea of rewarding him and of ensuring he would be well regarded, for Gretha’s sake, and he was right that no one seeing me would be much impressed.

He was actually wringing his hands in distress, proclaiming he would be ruined and would have to go back to Great Gadfia instead of being able to stay with his sons and his beloved. His last words caused a look of pure happiness to suffuse Gretha’s face, and she blinked back tears. Then her eyes widened and she went to the bag Nareem had brought and dug in it until she found a swatch of golden silk. It was an enormous scarf beaded in silver and purple at the ends, but the colour was truly lovely, and when she had thrown it around one of my shoulders and fastened it at the opposite hip, Nareem looked less distraught. He rearranged it and commanded that some more of the beads be got while he supervised the preparation of my hair, which ended up involving beading as well. He looked so happy that I submitted to his ministrations without demur.

Brydda smiled appreciatively when he was permitted into the chamber by a shyly smiling Cora. Both Keely and Demet had come to visit me, and had been led off, overwhelmed by my insistence that they be brought to meet their queen.

‘You look very nice,’ Brydda said, beaming at me.

‘Nice!’ Nareem cried in outrage. ‘How dare you!’

The big man gave him a slightly startled look and then said I had better hurry because the emissary was on his way to Palace Island and I was supposed to be there already.

Rushton was waiting for me in the courtyard. ‘You look ravishing,’ he said. He had changed and bathed too, and was wearing close-fitting black trews and a white shirt that, while clean, were as rumpled as if they had been dug out of the bottom of a bag of Land clothes. His hair was wet, too.

I looked down at my clothes. ‘Well, these are so plain as to distress the poor man who dressed me, but they seem very fine to me. And at least I am not crumpled and there are no holes. I feel as if I have been running around in rags for weeks.’

‘In truth there was not much left of your clothes by the end of it all,’ Rushton said thoughtfully, in an odd voice. I turned to him, puzzled, and was greeted by a look of breathtaking salaciousness.

But then Merret was there and urging us all to make haste lest we shame all Landborn with our tardiness. Blyss was with her and I hugged the young empath as we walked, admiring the great sunlit cloud of her blonde hair.

Dragon had spoken in the morning of a picnic, but in truth Palace Island, which now seemed to have been given that name formally, had been transformed into an open court. There were decorations and trestles of food and great urns of shining cordials. There were at least thirty people gathered in various degrees of finery, and the only absences I noticed were the slavemasters and the Ekoni. However, there were a good many burly Redlanders, both men and women, standing about the margin of the gathering, eyes watchful, and Matthew was with them, resplendent in red trews and a yellow silk shirt that rippled in the slight breeze, his long hair tamed into a tight queue, a shining sword hanging at his hip.

Dragon wore the jewel-encrusted dress she had worn that morning, and looked striking, even with her hair beginning to escape from its jewelled pins.

‘I like the idea of a meeting place that is open to the sky,’ Rushton murmured. ‘I think lies and deceit might be harder to manage in the bright sunlight with the clean smell of the sea in the air. Perhaps as chieftain my first order will be the creation of such a court at Obernewtyn.’

‘I am not sure the weather there will allow such a court,’ I said, wondering if, after all, I was to go back to Obernewtyn. This thought was followed by a stab of sorrow at the thought of being in the mountain valley without Gahltha. But at the same time, I struggled to believe that he could be dead.

I have not seen his body. No one had seen it, and Maruman would not speak of him. I had to know the truth. I would summon Sendari or Faraf and ride out to the dome in which he had died the first moment I could, and I would search until I knew. And I would try to find poor little Fey.

It struck me suddenly that I had not beastspoken the horses since before I had gone down to Sentinel. Of course they would never judge me for it, and indeed, beasts saw death differently, but I judged myself and I would have gone then and there, save that I had promised Dragon to attend the emissary’s audience, and in any case, he had asked for me.

I found him near the water, standing with four of his women, one of which was Chiya Dawa, who was clearly listening to him with reverence. The diminutive little man was dressed in an ornate purple robe slashed at the sides to reveal wide brilliant blue trews embroidered thickly at the hem to match his embroidered slippers. The women were clad rather simply by comparison, in grey tunics with white underdresses, their long, shining black hair bound into thick unadorned braids. All of them had empty scabbards and I guessed that they had been divested of their swords by Dragon’s Redlanders. But their bare arms looked strong and they stood with a light alertness that made me suspect that, like many coercers, all of them could fight as well with their hands and feet as with swords.

As if he felt my regard, the emissary turned to look at me.

Then Maginder called to him to come forth and led him to where Dragon sat on a broken wall over which an ornate carpet had been laid. The emissary obeyed the summons and he and his entourage bowed deeply to Dragon. She rose, standing very straight, and waved a hand at some low stools that had been set up before her, but although the women sat, the emissary shook his head, saying he would prefer to stand.

Matthew had moved closer to Dragon, and I saw from his face that he did not like this and meant to protest. But as if she had sensed his intention, she shot him a quelling look, which he obeyed. I was fascinated at how smoothly they worked together, for all the difficulties between them. It was as if it was easier for them to act in official roles towards one another, and I hoped they would not become trapped in them.

‘Let’s move closer so we can hear,’ Rushton suggested.

We began to make our way nearer, and Dragon, catching sight of me, gestured imperiously for me to come and join her on her wall throne. I obeyed, leaving a little distance between us, for Dragon must not look as though she feared the emissary.

Once the women were settled, the little man removed his mask and immediately one of the women rose and came to take it from him. Their every movement was measured and graceful and I had the feeling that I was seeing a kind of slow, precise dance. For the first time, I saw the unpainted face I had only otherwise beheld in my dream. Although the narrow black eyes glimmered and the golden skin was smooth, the thin drooping tendrils of his moustache and his brows were white.

‘You wished to speak to me,’ Dragon said in a cool, formal voice. ‘Speak then.’

The emissary inclined his head and made a gesture towards the woman with the mask. ‘In the Hidden Kingdom, the laying aside of a mask signifies that the unmasked will speak truthfully and bluntly, foregoing proper polite circumlocutions,’ he said in the same soft, oddly accented voice I remembered from my dream.

Dragon considered this, then she said, ‘You do not seem to speak very bluntly to me. And if you say that laying aside that mask means you will tell the truth, then are you saying all of the words you said while wearing it were lies?’

‘There are many layers to any truth, and sometimes truth may be spoken so subtly that it can seem a lie,’ said the emissary. ‘In the Hidden Kingdom the art of speaking the truth subtly is an ancient one and highly valued, for among other things, the way truth is spoken allows one to gain the measure of the speaker. Only those with a keen wit and deep intellect can discern the most subtly spoken truths. But to offer a naked face means the truth will not be veiled. Yet there is another significance to the mask and indeed it was the reason masks were originally adopted in the Hidden Kingdom. This is not known to any but the white-faced lords and the emperor and his family, and the telling of it to you, Queen, is a measure of your importance. Some masks and some of the white paint used is impregnated with a substance created from the ore named in this land
ilthum
, which inhibits what you call empathy. The wearing of such a mask prevents a wearer being empathised.’

‘You wear a mask so no one can know how you
feel?
’ Dragon asked, sounding no less puzzled than I felt.

‘What is felt and what can be made to be felt,’ the emissary corrected her with a little bow.

‘But are there so many empaths in your land?’

‘There are, Queen. Some of the white-faced lords possess the art, and many of the nobles and common folk besides.’

‘But I still don’t understand. Why would anyone need to protect themselves from feelings?’ Dragon said.

‘Empathy, when it is strong, often comes closer in practice to that which you call coercion.’ He paused, but Dragon merely nodded to him to continue. ‘I believe it is known to some here that the Lord Ariel, so he styled himself to us, was a powerful and aggressive empath. This was known to us, but I did not know until yesterday how much of his strength was drawn from the child Lidge.’

He paused and then he fitted silver tubes over the curved nails on one thumb and forefinger, set his hands one atop the other and seemed to compose himself before beginning to speak in a loud, oddly stiff, formal manner. ‘So, Queen, I will tell of things that must be told.’ He lifted his upper hand slightly and struck the silver tubes smartly together, producing a single sharp ringing note, before returning his hands to their previous position. ‘A bargain had been struck by the Gadfians to provide a slave army numbering three
han
trained soldiers, by the season
gof
and year
vikan.
The Lord Ariel came in a ship to the harbour of Chinon and sent word to the landlocked mountain kingdom of Shambala, which is also called the Hidden Kingdom because it is high in the mountains and often shrouded in mist. The message was that the bargain could not be met because the land from which the Gadfians sourced their slaves was no longer available. He offered an alternative, a weapon more powerful than any other in existence, left over from the Beforetime, the mere ownership of which would win any war. The soldiers who had been prepared could also be provided. He spoke in his message of securing the ilthum mine, which is the only known source of that ore. He promised to explain in more detail if only he were permitted to meet the emperor.’

He paused and lifted his hand to strike another clear chime, and I noticed everyone had drawn closer, their faces entranced and curious as he continued his oration. ‘It must be understood that the emperor himself did not make this bargain nor did he require an army. It is his wish and desire to see Chinon and the Hidden Kingdom united under one leader, for his sisterwife, the seer Lyet-sin, has foreseen great evil will come if it remains divided. Though he is ill and has been since he was a child, the emperor has worked tirelessly to this end, meeting with the faction warlords individually, hosting events to which certain people would be invited to meet other people, sending gifts and even wedding his siblings and cousins to the faction leaders. This has caused some of the white-faced lords to feel he is weak and that he should abdicate in favour of his younger brother.’

There was another pause and another chime before he went on, ‘It was his younger brother who made the bargain, claiming to desire a magnificent gift for his brother – a slave army with which to subjugate the factions. It is his desire and the desire of some of the white-faced lords to make war on the Chinon factions. More than half of the emperor’s council praised the gift. Even so, the emperor would have refused it, save that his sisterwife warned that if the emperor refused his brother’s gift, the world would come to a final doom a thousand times worse than the Great Catastrophe – that which your people call The Great White.’ This last was delivered in a normal tone that was startling, and I saw Dragon blink as if a spell had been disrupted. But his face returned to its stern formal stiffness as he moved his fingers and produced another chime, and when he spoke again, it was as before.

‘The emperor asked how the acceptance of an army of slaves could turn aside such a thing. Would they not rather provoke it? Lyet-sin answered that it would not do so, in fact it would cause great harm for many people, but it would open a path that would lead to the possibility of averting a terrible doom that had haunted her for many years.’

He paused and struck another note.

‘The emperor trusted his sisterwife and he accepted the gift as she advised, for it was not due to be delivered for some time, and she had already foreseen that its delivery would be delayed. At that time, she herself saw little of the future and understood not how accepting this gift would serve the future. It was later that she visioned of a man with white hair who would come to Chinon to tell of the delay and to offer in recompense the very weapon that would bring about the doom she had foreseen. She told the emperor that he must accept this offer, too, but never allow the man to set foot in the Hidden Kingdom, and never meet with him, as he passionately desired. Instead, an emissary was sent to the Red Land to seek a silent, moon-haired woman who would be instrumental in thwarting the Lord Ariel. She was the balancing point for the future, and so long as she lived to the needful moment, the doom Lyet-sin had seen would not come to pass. But her life was a thin and delicate thread, and if she died too soon, as might be, the doom foreseen would come. The emperor’s sisterwife sought hard and long in her dreams to learn the means by which the woman could be identified, and what must and must not be done to her and for her and with her. That information was given to me and I obeyed it absolutely.’