Playing Hearts (10 page)

“I am
not
your
fiancée,” I said. “I told you. I’m not old enough to be engaged.”

“Sorry,” said Jack,
shrugging. “It’s done. You can’t help it,
I
can’t help it: it’s all very
boring arguing about it. It might be less boring when you’re older.”

“And I also refuse to be
engaged to a selfish little rich boy,” I added, looking around me in disgust.
“Do you know what it’s like Downstairs?”

Jack sighed. “Don’t be so
earnest and severe, Mab. Downstairs is where the servants live. Of course it’s
going to be drab.”

“It’s not just drab, the people
there are scared, too. She’s doing horrible things to them, and they all know
they could be next.”

“This is Underland.
Everybody is scared. It’s simply a matter of making sure more people are scared
of you than
vice versa
.”

“Oh, is that what you’ve been
doing?” I didn’t even try to disguise the disgust in my voice. “Making sure
people are scared of you?”

“In a manner of
speaking,” said Jack, his eyes avoiding mine. “Mother Dearest is, anyway. I’m
just along for the ride.”

“Sometimes,” I said meditatively,
“Sometimes I start to think you’re not so bad. And then you say something that
reminds me what snivelling little dirtbag you are.”

There was a moment of
silence before Jack cleared his throat and said: “You’ve a sharp little tongue
on you, Mab.”

“Well, maybe you
shouldn’t be a snivelling little dirtbag. Maybe I’d be nicer.”

“Why should I care if
you’re nicer?” said Jack swiftly. His face was a little whiter than usual.

“Heck if I know. You know
what I do know? I don’t like you. Actually, the more I get to know you, the
less I like you. You–”

“All right!” Jack said, lunging
to his feet with a slash of bright red in each cheek. “All right, Mab! I’ve
grasped your meaning! You needn’t belabour it!”

My drink seemed to have
lost its flavour. I put it down with a grimace and said: “Enjoy your pretty
little rooms. I have to go back Downstairs.”

“A pleasure, as always,”
said Jack, with something of a bite to his voice. That was new and strange,
because as objectionable as Jack was, he usually had his temper well under
control. He opened the door for me anyway, with something of a hasty hand, and
closed it behind me with more than a snap. I was left to creep back Downstairs
again as best I might, feeling cold and oddly abandoned. It had been stupid to expect
Jack to do anything: he always had been selfish.

I was at something of a
loss when I got back Downstairs, but the girl—Reena—was still waiting for me
and I couldn’t disappoint her. I said: “Jack couldn’t come,” because I found
myself ashamed to confess that Jack had outright refused to help. It shouldn’t
have, but it somehow felt as if his selfishness reflected on me. “I’ve got
another way of getting into the dungeons, though. Are the girls safe?”

“Penrod has them,” said
Reena. My news of Jack didn’t seem to surprise her. She looked frightened– or
was she excited? It was hard to tell with the glitter in her eyes and the
determined set to her chin. “All the rest of the staff are ready to leave, too:
we’re going to clear this place out. Penrod says we’ll meet in the Chessboard
Woods.”

“All right,” I said.
“Because we’re going to clear out the dungeons, and if there’s anyone left
here–”

“There won’t be,” said
Reena; and her chin was even more determined than before. “What do you need me
to do? Can I come with you?”

“If you like. It’ll be
dangerous, though.”

“
Breathing’s
dangerous now,” Reena said grimly. “What do you need me to do?”

“How do they feed the
prisoners?”

“Um, well, there’s a
galley down there. The food goes straight from the galley to the cells.”

“Are there guards near
the galley?”

“Yes. Well, no. There are
about four locked gates between here and there, guards at each. The galley has
a guard at its outer door, but its inner door opens straight into the cells’
common area.”

“Is there any other way
in?”

Reena nodded. “The main
entrance. But you have to go through the other four gates to get to that one
anyway.”

“Is it bars, or solid?”

She had to think about
that one a bit longer. At last, slowly, she said: “I
think
it’s solid.”

“If we can get in, will
there be anyone already there?”

“No. They only let in
cook, and only once a day: for breakfast. How are you– oh! The pots?”

“Yes,” I said, more
confidently than I felt. “Do you still want to come along?”

“Yes,” she said; and I
wondered if
she
was pretending to be braver than she felt. “When do we
start?”

“Now,” I said. I reached
out to our distended reflection in the huge curve of a nearby wok, seeing the
flash of another reflection behind that, and pulled us both through the curve
and into the prison galley.

Reena’s fingers were
digging painfully into my arm when we stumbled out into an avalanche of dirty
potatoes. Something
clanged
behind us as a potato ricocheted off it, and
I threw a brief look over my shoulder. This time we’d come through a small
ironwork stove. There was no real chimney, which explained the soot on the
ceiling and the lingering scent of scorched
everything
. The Queen
obviously didn’t like the idea of anyone creeping up or down the chimney. I
doubted we’d find any ice vents, either.

“I didn’t feel anything,”
said Reena. She sounded slightly disgruntled, and I grinned.

“I didn’t the first time,
either,” I told her. “I only started noticing when I started going through by
myself. Here, help me fill the potato bin with water.”

Reena looked surprised, but
helped me with the wooden barrel. We tipped the rest of the potatoes all over
the floor and put it below the pump, where Reena’s practised pumping saw an
outpouring of cold water quickly fill it. It was much harder to move it once it
was full, but between the two of us we managed to rock it from the galley to
the cells.

A buzz of conversation
started up straight away: Reena and I were too busy moving the barrel to pay
attention, but from the corner of my eyes I saw prisoners shifting between the open,
inner doors of the barred cells. When we finally wrestled it into place by the
left-hand run of cells, all of the prisoners had gathered around the bars near
us. The painter was there, his missing finger bandaged with a frilly bit of
material that had to have come from the sleeve of the woman standing next to
him. I didn’t recognise any of the others, but when I ran my eyes over the
cells on the right side, I caught sight of a white grin in the darkness.

“Cat Cheshire!” I said,
frowning. He had been friendly with Jack: how had he ended up here? “What
happened to you?”

The grin moved into the
foreground, bringing with it Cat Cheshire’s now rather battered hat and his
dark glasses. The rest of him looked as battered as his hat, but he still had
his swagger.

“I was playing games with
the Queen.”

“Cheated, did you?”

“Baby, don’t be like
that,” drawled Cat Cheshire. “Naw, she was the better player. Outdid me at the
game and outmanoeuvred me at the run.”

“Why didn’t Jack get you
out of here?”

“You don’t know Jack too
well, baby. Are
you
here to break me out?”

“You and them both,” I said,
and upturned the barrelful of water.

It surged across the
floor in a dirty, tsunami of possibility, and each of the captive Underlanders
moved back to avoid wetting their feet. That made me smile a bit: they’d be
happy enough to get their feet wet once they knew this puddle was their way out.
I slid smoothly into the puddle and back out again, this time on the other
side. The Underlanders alternately hissed in surprise and gasped in delight
when I appeared among them.

“Right,” I said: “Two at
a time. Everyone line up.”

They did line up. Quickly
and quietly, and entirely trustfully. I put my arms around the first two of
them and drew them into the puddle with me. This time I didn’t bring us out
back in the main prison: I went deeper into the puddle and surfaced in the
Chessboard Woods. It was quite some time since I had first seen Sir Blanc, but
the woods didn’t seem to have changed at all. I hoped fervently that the red
knight was still stuck in his tree and unable to joust at passing strangers.

“Don’t change squares
until you’re all here,” I said, just in case; and slipped back into my pool for
the next two Underlanders. They were waiting for me, their eyes bright and
frighteningly hopeful, and when I appeared again their eyes brightened still
further. I tried to ignore it, but it was hard to ignore so much determined
adulation. It made me feel uncomfortable and slightly dishonest: really, I
hadn’t done
that
much more than Jack.

It took longer than I
liked to get them all out. Even before I turned to the cell on the right side
of the prison I’d been at it for the better part of an hour, ferrying two
people at a time through to the Chessboard Woods. I didn’t like to take more
than two at a time because I wasn’t sure where they would end up if I lost one of
them between surfaces. Still, it made me smile to think that tonight Jack would
have to fetch his own supper. The idea, as funny as it was, reminded me that
the Queen would also have to fetch her own supper, and that thought wasn’t
quite so funny. I hoped the Chessboard Woods was far enough away from her ire.
I was reasonably certain that she couldn’t travel the way I did, so any chase
she gave would have to be via shark-drawn carriage. That would give everyone a
chance to move on and find somewhere safe to hide: prisoners and castle staff
alike.

The painter and his lady
friend were among the last to be taken: I think they might have planned it,
because when we were the last three in the cell he grasped my arm to stop me
stepping into the puddle. “Thank you,” he said. “We’ll try to make it count.”

Count for what, exactly?
I wondered, as I took them through the puddle to safely. The rebellion was far
away and spoken of in whispers. It wasn’t here and now. But these people, these
ordinary people, were talking like it was here and now.

When we were in the
Chessboard Woods, I said: “I’ll bring your girls once the others are out,”
because I didn’t know what else to say. “Wait for the castle staff: they’ll be
here within two days.”

The painter hugged me, a
fierce, rough hug that left blood on my shirt and tears in his eyes, and I
slipped back to the cells before anyone else could do the same. Things in
Underland were becoming all too real, and I found that it was hard to endure
the looks that were bearing down on me. They were too heavy—heavy with meaning,
heavy with hope, heavy with expectation—and I was eager to get away from them.

They wanted me to stay,
after. I don’t know why I didn’t expect that– or why I didn’t stay, for that
matter. Maybe I didn’t feel old enough for the responsibility. Maybe it was
just nice being able to drop in and help, and then leave again. Maybe I was
scared. Whatever the reason, I left as soon as the last Underlander was safely
in the Chessboard Woods; without saying goodbye, without fanfare, and most of
all without tears.

I didn’t leave entirely unnoticed: Cat
Cheshire came with me when I went home. Nowhere in Underland was safe for him
to play, he said, and if he couldn’t play he didn’t want to do anything. I told
him bluntly that if he didn’t play for money and wouldn’t work for it, he would
be doing something whether or not he wanted to– starving.

“That’s why I’m coming
with you,” he said. “Jack did try to warn me before it happened. He told me
there are places I can earn a good living in your world.”

“You could earn a good
living in any world,” I said, as blunt in my praise as I had been in my
dissent. Cat Cheshire’s skill on the piano was something Australia hadn’t seen
since the 1940s.

I had no one to introduce
him to and only a small amount of useful advice, but Cat Cheshire was the sort
who tended to land on his feet. He got himself a job playing nights at an old ’40s
style club, and the next I heard of him, he was touring the world. He had taken
to my world with as much verve and considerably more success than I had taken
to his. Forsaking what was behind, he had seized on what was ahead, and it
seemed to me that perhaps I would be facing the same decision before too many more
years.