‘I assumed we would be leaving, Madam,’ Kitterick told her.
‘Your assumption was correct,’ said Madame Cardui.
He waited, patient as ever, for his briefing. Kitterick had been in her service for more years than she cared to remember and still looked much as he had done the day she hired him. How did Trinians manage it? They never seemed to age at all – although they did have something of a reputation for dying suddenly. Would she have bartered sudden death for youthful looks and energy? Such a bargain was hardly open for her now. Not only had she lost her looks – although not her figure, one was forced to admit – but what she was about to do held its own risk of sudden death.
Madame Cardui blinked. Losing Alan had made her morbid. All she could think about was death in one form or another. Such a waste of energy and the ruination of one’s concentration. She must pull herself together.
‘We have no time to lose,’ she told Kitterick.
‘No, Madam,’ Kitterick agreed.
‘It is important that we leave the Palace – and indeed the city – at the earliest opportunity.’
‘Yes, Madam.’
She took a deep breath. ‘But it is equally important that the discovery of our escape be delayed as much as possible.’
‘To give us a greater head start, Madam?’
‘Precisely, Kitterick. To that end, I have instructed our captors that I shall not be requiring breakfast this morning.’
‘Very self-sacrificing, Madam.’
‘They will, of course, attempt to feed us lunch, but by then, if all goes well, I shall be long gone.’
Kitterick missed nothing. ‘You, Madam – not we?’
‘I, Kitterick. I expect you to remain here, confuse our captors and, if necessary, create a diversion.’
‘Of course, Madam.’ He looked at her fondly. ‘Will you be requiring me to murder the guards, Madam?’
‘Nothing so crude, Kitterick,’ said Madame Cardui. Bad enough she had to break her word to the Queen without adding slaughter to her sins. She sighed. ‘You’ll find a doppleganger in my mattress.’
This time Kitterick’s look was one of open admiration. He went to the mattress, extruded a talon to slit it open, then fumbled inside until he drew out a desiccated package about the size of a building brick, ‘I presume this is she, Madam?’
Madam Cardui nodded, ‘It’s freeze-dried, so we only need add water.’
‘After you have gone, Madam?’
‘No, I think we should activate it now – just to be sure. You can use the decanter on the bedside table.’
‘Of course, Madam.’ Kitterick set the brick on top of the counterpane and poured the contents of the decanter over it. There was a slight sizzling sound as the package began to enlarge.
Kitterick moved back sharply when the arms and legs appeared, floppy at first, then uncurling and expanding into three dimensions. After a moment, it was possible to discern a body threshing and writhing. A moment more and a living, breathing replica of Madame Cardui was lying on the bed. Madame Cardui stared down at it. The thing had cost a fortune, but she had to admit the investment had been worth every penny. The resemblance was uncanny, right down to that unfortunate mole on the buttock.
‘How would you prefer her dressed?’ asked Kitterick, not at all phased by the creature’s nudity.
‘A simple nightgown will suffice,’ said Madame Cardui. ‘Then tuck her into bed. When the servants arrive with lunch, tell them I am indisposed – unwell. You might even hint at the possibility of plague.’
‘Queen Blue is likely to order a medical examination,’ Kitterick said.
‘The doppleganger can withstand that, so long as they don’t expect it to speak. All internal organs and systems are faithfully duplicated. With luck, they will assume its silence is due to the illness. They will discover the truth in time, of course, but by then I will be long gone. I shall leave now. Divert them as long as you can, then go to my city quarters. You are not a prisoner, of course, so there will be no difficulty. But I shall expect you to be discreet, make sure you are not followed and so forth.’
‘Of course,’ Kitterick murmured. ‘Will you be hiding in your city quarters?’
‘Oh, no – I have several urgent things to do: best you know nothing of them. But I shall return eventually, I hope. In the meantime, I rely on you to keep them clean and look after Lanceline.’ Madame Cardui returned to the window and threw it open. ‘Au revoir, Kitterick.’
‘Au revoir, Madam,’ Kitterick replied.
She drew a reel of wire from the pocket of her armour and expertly attached one end of it to the windowsill. She clipped the other to her belt and jumped from the window to abseil down the outside wall like a spider on a silken thread.
Kitterick watched until she was safely on the ground, then detached the wire and closed the window.
Thirty-Four
There was a savage sun beating down and no shade except leeward of the crumbling tomb. It was so very, very… hot. But Henry needed to get away from the tomb. He didn’t think the thing would follow him into the sunlight, but he couldn’t be sure. Besides, the sun would not stay up for ever. When night fell the creature might emerge.
Which way to go?
Henry looked around in something close to panic. The desert was featureless – a rock here, a flat slab there, a sea of spreading, shimmering sand but no landmark other than the ruin. In a landscape like this, one direction was as good as any other.
All the same, he hesitated. He was beginning to pour sweat. It stung his eyes and soaked his underarms. He would need water soon and he had no water at all. How long could you survive in a desert without water? Days? Hours? He thought maybe days, if you were lucky, but he was fairly sure it wasn’t more than a week. So if he walked the wrong way, went deeper into the desert instead of out of it, he could be walking to his death.
Which way to go?
Henry shivered. His arm and leg were burning up now and the shivering made him wonder if he was starting a fever.
There was a sound from the tomb, a rodent rustling. The creature was moving about inside. He didn’t think it would venture out into the sunlight, but the noise unnerved him so much that he moved despite his pain, stumbling away from the ruin. With no landmarks, no pointers, nothing to guide him, one direction really was as good as any other.
He made a decision. He would walk until he was out of sight of the tomb. That way, if the creature did come out, it wouldn’t find him. When he was out of sight, he would sit down and examine his wounds and try to think. Take stock of his position. That sounded like the proper thing to do.
There was a great deal of rock close to the ruin and a section, half-exposed, of what looked like man-made pavement. But all of it gave way to featureless sand, flat at first, then drifting into dunes. It was hell to walk on. It sucked at his feet and drained the little energy he had left in his legs. He had to rest even before he lost sight of the tomb. He squatted on the sand, looking back nervously. The ruin shimmered through a heat haze, as if it were under water. After a while, he climbed painfully back to his feet and started off. He felt better when he lost sight of the tomb completely.
But now there were no landmarks at all.
Henry sat down again. The wound on his arm had stopped bleeding and closed over, but it was rimmed with a greenish thread and pulsed pain in time with his heartbeat. But the pain wasn’t too bad and so far, luckily, there didn’t seem to be much swelling.
The wound on his leg was another matter. His trousers were torn and soaked with matted blood so that the material stuck to the flesh. He gritted his teeth and tried to peel it away, but the skin seemed to be coming too and the pain was almost unbelievable. Eventually, in desperation, he unbuckled his belt and eased the trousers down to get sight of the wound.