Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [82]
“Well, what comes here?” said the Green with the bristly beard.
The other nudged him, elbow hard in the ribs, and said uncertainly, “My lady—”
But Bristle Beard’s eyes were sharper. “Not a lady, Dick—look at them boots!” He grabbed for me and I danced away. I let the hood of my cloak fall back, then snatched it back up.
“It’s one of them fancy savage singers! In a shift!” Bristle whooped and grabbed for me again.
I said, trying to speak in a high-pitched version of the savages’ guttural accent, “I be—”
“We know what you be,” Bristle Beard said. Dick had abandoned his initial caution; he made kissing sounds in the air and grabbed me. To these rough idiots, all the savage singers looked alike, and I had used the red dye liberally. Dick pretended to kiss me, went “Faughhh!” and pushed me to the ground.
“Sing for us, boy!”
“Sing a pretty girl’s song or we’ll treat you like a girl!”
“You, but not me, I don’t fancy male meat.” He kicked me.
I cried, “I be go for Solek!”
That sobered them. Bristle Beard said, “Let me see your pass.”
I shook my head as if I didn’t understand and repeated, “I be go for Solek.”
Bristle Beard said, “He’s supposed to have a pass.”
Dick was quicker. “Yeah, but if he’s dressed like that for Solek . . . who knows what those savages do when they be by themselves? Those singers are all flower-boys anyway. I don’t want no part of this.”
“So we—”
“Go,” Dick said to me, scowling. “You can understand that, can’t you, you sick dog? Go.” He unbarred and opened the gate. I scuttled through into the city.
It was dark and cool, although summer wound through the night air like embroidery through cloth. I was nowhere near the kitchens, where the food barges drew up to deliver and Maggie had let me out of the palace once before. But if I stuck close to the palace wall and circled to the right, I thought I would arrive there. This proved to be harder than I expected. The alleys lined with tents twisted and turned, sometimes away from the wall, sometimes toward it. Also, many of the tents had been torn down, replaced with wooden structures in various stages of construction. It was the old queen who had decreed that, on the island of Glory, only the palace should be a permanent dwelling. Queen Caroline must have done away with that law, perhaps in an attempt to win her subjects’ favor. My way was frequently blocked by piles of lumber and brick, by raw-wood houses lighted from within, once by a sty full of nasty-looking boars that snorted at me in the darkness and bared their teeth.
I felt weak from illness and ridiculous in my green velvet cloak and lady’s nightdress. But I kept the hood drawn well down over my face, and few people were out on the streets to see me. Perhaps in the night my dark green cloak looked brown or black. No one stopped me, not even when I encountered two of Lord Solek’s savages. They passed me without a glance and went into an ale tent. As they drew aside the flap, warmth and light and laughter spilled out. The queen might be a virtual prisoner in her own palace, her throne all but usurped, but for the common people, there was peace and liberality.
Eventually I found the dim alley, and the tent with the picture of two black swans at its hem. I knocked on the doorjamb, did not wait for an answer, and pushed my way inside.
Mother Chilton sat in the same chair. It was as if she had not moved in all these long weeks since I came here last. The same fire burned in the brazier in the center of the tent, sending its smoke through the hole in the roof and its light flickering on the canvas walls. The same poles hung with the same bottles, plants, feathers, hides, bits of wood, cloth bags.
This time, Mother Chilton rose as I entered. My disguise did not deceive her for a moment; she did not even comment on it.
“You’ve grown, lad. You’re nearly a man.”
“I’ve come for—”
“I know why you’ve come.” She moved closer to me, and it seemed that as she moved, all the objects hanging from the poles moved too, yearning toward her. In her eyes swam strange colors, lights. “You seek the Lady Cecilia,