Eleanor Crosses
"Now remember," said the Marquis de Carabas, leaping nonchalantly across a large moat-like gap in the ground that Richard hadn't previously noticed was there.
"The Mad Queen can be more than a little, unpredictable, shall we say, so it would be best to leave the talking to me."
Richard carefully measured the distance across the shallow (at least he hoped it was shallow) moat, filled with murky water almost exactly the same colour and consistency as the ground surrounding it, rendering it virtually invisible.
Reminding himself he had once crossed the bottomless pit of Down Street on nothing more than a narrow wobbly wooden board, he stepped awkwardly across, squeezing himself between Door and the Marquis into what little space was left on the threshold of the building within the enclosure.
"Why is she called the Mad Queen?" Richard asked, as the enormous booming noise of the Marquis hammering on the doorknocker died away.
The Marquis gave Richard a look.
"I really have no idea," he replied in a tone that implied exactly the opposite and that Richard was extremely stupid to even voice the question.
"Perhaps it's because she's mad."
"Really mad?"
"As a March Hare. No, I take that back. In comparison to Queen Eleanor, March Hares are the most sane and sensible creatures on Earth."
"But what kind of mad? I mean, are we talking the kind of mad that speaks only in riddles, or the type where you have to hide all the sharp objects when they're around?" Richard persisted.
"Both. Now stop asking questions and shut up."
Richard opened his mouth to say that he didn't have to take this anymore; he was no longer Richard Mayhew the Upworlder, but Richard Mayhew, the Champion of London Below, who had slain the Great Beast of London and proved his worth over and over, but then decided that there was little point in arguing with the Marquis, who always acted as if everyone knew nothing in comparison to him.
And despite the whole Warrior-of-the-Underworld thing, in comparison to the Marquis, and indeed virtually everyone in London Below, Richard really did know nothing.
The only thing that had changed was that this didn't scare him as much as it had done before. That and the fact that several of the things that had scared him so much about London Below (namely Croup and Vandemar) were now no more.
A small gap appeared in the heavy door as a cover was slid back from the peephole.
A single eye glared out at them.
"Yes?" the gatekeeper hissed.
"We seek an audience with Queen Eleanor," the Marquis replied imperiously.
"Queen Eleanor don't grant audiences," the owner of the eye snapped back. "'Specially not to the likes of you."
"I am the Marquis de Carabas, and this is Richard Mayhew, accompanying the Lady Door from the House of Arch."
The gatekeeper was not impressed.
"And?"
"And," Door spoke up, pushing forward. "I wish to speak to Queen Eleanor. I believe she may be able to help me find my sister."
"Ah," said the gatekeeper. "You seeks that kind of audience. Well. I'll see what she says."
The grate slammed shut once more, leaving the trio to wait outside.
"What did he mean, that kind of audience?" Richard asked, trying to keep his balance on the edge of the moat. "What exactly are you hoping she can do?"
"Queen Eleanor has some kind of, I don't know, Second Sight," Door explained. "I've never had any dealings with her before, but she supposed to be very gifted."
"Hmm," put in the Marquis. "She's also not terribly accommodating. And she doesn't like people treating her as some kind of Oracle, so be careful how you approach her."
"What business have you had with her before?" Door asked, looking a little nervous.
The Marquis grinned sharkishly.
"It was... complicated."
Any further answer was cut off by the grate crashing open again.
"You're in luck," the eye peering out told them. "She's says she'll see you."
The gap disappeared once more, followed by a series of hideous creaking and scraping noises as the door was dragged back to admit them. Richard's eyes widened at what was revealed to him. He'd thought that by now there was little the Underside could spring on him that would startle him, but then again, he supposed, he should really know better by now. Although the outside of the building was unprepossessing and much like its surroundings, the inside was a full-scale, riotous medieval hall, filled with noise and colour. Long wooden trestle tables were laid on down the middle of the hall, occupied by a number of knights, tended to by liveried pages and squires. Enormous tapestries hung from the walls, illuminated by scores of candles and the thin, sickly light from the narrow window-slits. At the head of the hall, elevated on a raised dais and seated on a throne draped in velvet, was Queen Eleanor. The Marquis strode through the hall and knelt before the throne with an extravagant gesture.
"My Queen," he announced, just as elaborately. "You grow more beautiful with every day that passes."
"You're a liar, de Carabas," the Queen replied, her voice cracked and raspy like an old woman, but she did not appear old. Nor was she beautiful; in truth her face was hideously scarred and ravaged. Her elegant gown was high-necked and long-sleeved, covering all but her hands, and the bejewelled coronet perched on her dark head contrasted horribly with her ruined face.
"But you are a good liar. You may approach."
The Marquis got up and moved closer to the throne, bowing before her and taking her hand in his, raising it to his lips.
"My Queen."
"What do you want, de Carabas?" the woman rasped. "I have better things to do than listen to your flattery."
"My companion, the Lady Door, seeks an audience with you, my Queen," the Marquis replied, turning and indicating Door and Richard standing at the foot of the dais. Door dropped the queen a deep curtsey at the mention of her name, leaving Richard to bow awkwardly.
"Door?" the Queen repeated sharply. "You're one of Portico's family?"
"Yes my Lady," Door replied. "I'm here to ask for your help."
"Not the first time one of your people has come here to ask me for help," the Queen snorted. "Your fool of a father for one. Always had time for your mother though. Good woman, Lady Portia. I was sorry to hear of her death."
"Thank you, my Lady. It's because of my family that I am here."
"Oh? I heard that you had achieved vengeance on your family's murderers?"
"Indeed my Lady. But my sister."
Door raised her eyes, looking the Mad Queen full in the face unflinchingly.
"My younger sister Ingress. I believe she may have survived. It is her I am seeking."
"I see. And you believe that I may know where she is?"
"Yes my Lady."
"Well. Approach me."
Door obediently went up to the Queen, copying the Marquis's action, but as she stood up, Queen Eleanor grasped Door's left hand firmly with her right, pressing her thumb into Door's palm. Placing her other hand under Door's chin, she gazed intensely into the girl's eyes.
"Yes," she said distantly but firmly. "I believe I may be able to help you. Leave us!" she announced to the room at large.
With much grumbling and clanking, the occupants of the tables got up and left the hall through the side entrances, the servants rapidly clearing the tables and vanishing discreetly. Only the armoured bodyguard standing behind the Queen's left shoulder remained, leaving Richard wondering if the order had meant to include him. As if reading this thought, the evacuation of her hall drew Queen Eleanor's attention to him. Releasing Door's hand, she leaned back in her throne.
"And who is this man?" she enquired, staring directly at Richard, who suddenly found himself wishing he had a better understanding of court etiquette.
"I, I'm Richard Mayhew," he replied.
This seemed to amuse the Queen greatly.
"Richard Mayhew, The Warrior?" she asked. "This is the Champion of the Underside?"
"Um. Yes."
"And what is your reason for intruding upon my court?"
"I, I'm here with Door. I want to help her find her sister."
"Indeed. Approach me, Richard Mayhew. Or is it Sir Richard?" she asked, her eyebrows rising.
"Um. Well. The Earl did knight me, so I suppose-"
"Sir Richard," the Queen said firmly. "Approach me."
Richard did, and Queen Eleanor repeated what she had done with Door. And in that moment, as she held his chin in her hand, her eyes boring into him, reading him in a manner he couldn't hope to understand, Richard caught a glimpse of the reason as to why Queen Eleanor was known as the Mad Queen. Behind her scarred face and burning eyes, Queen Eleanor was screaming, a whirl of insanity inhabiting her that threatened to engulf her and all she touched.
Then something snapped down between him and the madness of the queen and he found himself standing back on the ground of the hall, although he had no memory of stepping down from the dais. The queen was addressing Door once again.
"I may be able to help you in your quest," she told the girl graciously. "But understand, I can offer no guarantee of success. Nor that you will like what I say."
"Of course, Lady," Door replied, lowering her eyes. She too, seemed a bit frightened of the madwoman on the throne. Attempting not to draw attention to himself again, Richard's eyes strayed to the back of the dais, where a huge stone cross was standing against the back wall of the hall. He recognised the style as what was called a 'Celtic' cross, a simple cross over a circle with much elaborate carving (perhaps all that time in art galleries with Jessica hadn't been entirely wasted after all). And as he looked at it, he began to realise exactly who this Queen was. As a boy, one of his teachers had taught them about King Edward the First of England, the man who had tried (not entirely without success, the woman had relented reluctantly) to conquer Scotland and enslave her people. Despite all his teacher's rampant patriotism and spitting hatred towards this king, Richard also remembered something else; that when King Edward's queen had died, he had constructed twelve stone monuments to mark the steps her body had taken on the way to be buried in London. Although most no longer stood (and hadn't really been cross-shaped to begin with), they had become famous as a romantic symbol for a man's love for his wife, and were named the Eleanor Crosses, after the woman in question, Queen Eleanor of Castile. One of the last of these leant its name to the train station in London Above, Charing Cross, as a corruption of Chére Reine, or 'beloved Queen' Cross. And although Richard was aware that the geography of Londons Above and Below weren't always related, he was prepared to bet that Charing Cross station was above their very heads right now, or at least connected in some way to the woman before him.
Queen Eleanor's head whipped round to stare at Richard wildly.
"Explain!" she snapped at him, her face losing any semblance of sanity and calm that it might have previously held.
Richard took a step back, startled. Had he somehow spoken aloud?
"S-Sorry?" he managed to stutter out.
The Mad Queen stood up magnificently, her bodyguard moving forward, his sword half-drawn in preparation.
"You dare to compare me with one of your Upworld Queens? You dare?!"
"Richard!" Door hissed, glaring at him, gesturing that Richard should kneel before the livid Queen. He hastily complied, dropping his head as she swept over to him, grasping his head between her hands. Again he felt the sensation of invasion as she touched him, her madness reaching out along channels he could not comprehend.
"My Lady!" Door was shouting. "I'm sure that my companion meant nothing. He would never-"
"Silence!" Queen Eleanor screeched, but she released Richard nonetheless and returned to her throne, her bodyguard also returning to his post, as immobile as a clockwork doll.
The Queen's ruined face was calm again, but the glimpse inside her mind that they had all received lingered, leaving an uneasy silence hanging over the room. Only the Marquis seemed unconcerned, casually cleaning his fingernails, but Richard was used to that.
It took a lot to make the Marquis appear shaken. Even the time he'd been killed hadn't seemed to have upset him all that much.
"So," Queen Eleanor continued, as if her outburst had not occurred. "You think that I am like one of your Queens?"
"Not one of my Queens," Richard replied, aware that this was nit-picking really, but trying not to upset the Queen further. "But a Queen from the Upworld, yes. She had a cross too."
"Another Eleanor. But I do not believe you know the story of my cross." The Mad Queen's voice was soft, a hint of the beauty she had once been. "Your Queen's husband built the cross in honour of his wife, you say?"
Richard swallowed hard. He hadn't actually said anything as far as he'd been aware, but remembering what Door had said about the Queen possessing some form of Second Sight, decided a safe bet was just to nod dumbly.
"Do you know what my husband did with my cross?" Queen Eleanor demanded, her voice like silk gliding over a polished steel blade.
Richard shook his head. Queen Eleanor leaned forward in her throne, and despite the distance between them, Richard felt as if she were standing directly next to him, whispering in his ear.
"He crucified me on it."
Queen Eleanor's eyes were blazing with her suppressed madness and as Richard looked up into them, his mind was flooded with images from the Mad Queen's memory.
A young woman, clad in white, her dark hair spilling out from under her headdress, was being dragged along a darkened stone corridor by an older man, his hand around her wrist in a vice like grip. The vision was silent, but Richard could tell she was screaming.
A flash of light took over his sight, and the vision changed. He could see the stone cross that in reality stood only a few feet away, flanked by two knights in armour and lighted braziers, the smoke clouding his vision. Richard fought an urge to cough, knowing that none of this was real but having trouble convincing his watering eyes.
He watched as the man threw the screaming young woman against the cross, and the two knights grabbed her arms, pinning her to against it. The man then proceeded to bind the terrified young woman to the cross with lengths of chain. Once she was held fast, the man drew the dagger from his belt and held it up to her face. Richard was glad he couldn't hear what the man was saying; the young woman's face said it all too clearly.
Frozen within the vision, Richard could only watch, horrified, as the man began, quite calmly, to carve up the woman's face with the knife, pausing only to wipe the blood from his blade so it didn't hinder his work. The man stepped back, examining his handiwork critically, then sheathed his knife and took up one of the wall-mounted braziers. His mouth moved silently once more as he reached out with the flame, bringing it closer and closer to his screaming, mutilated wife. The woman's white dress, already stained with her blood, began to smoke and smoulder as he held the flame at her hip, scorching through the material to her skin below.
Trying to escape the horrific scene, Richard felt himself drawn into the woman's eyes, sensing the onset of Queen Eleanor's madness as her husband tortured her on her cross. He watched as her expression changed, her fear and pain taking her over, forcing out the person she had been. There was a blinding flash of light and Richard found himself back in Queen Eleanor's hall, standing in front of the dais. The Queen herself was seated quite calmly on her throne, gazing at him dispassionately. Richard, shaken by what he had been shown, tried to step back and away, found that his legs wouldn't obey him. He'd glimpsed madness such as Queen Eleanor's before, in the eyes of the Angel Islington as it tried to force Door to open the gateway that it believed would let it back into Heaven, but not so close up, not so personally.
"Not quite as you thought, perhaps?" the Queen remarked, seemingly amused at Richard's reaction. The scars appeared more livid, standing out as if fresh on her face, but even they could not match the insane gleam in her eye.
"But as to your sister," Queen Eleanor continued to Door, as if nothing had happened. "You are right, she is alive. In a manner of speaking."
"What do you mean?" Door asked shakily.
"I mean that while she lives still, you will not find her anywhere that you would ever think of looking," Queen Eleanor replied cryptically. "She is not part of London Below, nor London Above. The Angel put her somewhere very safe."
The Mad Queen was smiling still, seemingly pleased that the answer was not straightforward.
"But can I find her?" Door persisted. "Is she alright?"
"An interesting question," the woman replied. "That would, I suppose, depend on what you meant by 'alright.' She lives, that much is certain."
"What Lady Door means - ," broke in the Marquis, surprising Richard, who had forgotten that he was there.
"Is that she hopes her sister is unharmed and in good health. In both mind and body. Is that the case?"
"What do you take me for, de Carabas?" the Queen snapped at him irritably. "I am no magic mirror. Do not presume to consult me as you would a book."
"I would not dream of such a thing, my Queen," the Marquis replied disarmingly, sweeping her another low bow and a devastating smile.
"All I am prepared to say is that she lives. As to her health, I am no physician, but she appears unharmed. That is all I can tell you on the matter."
"But I can find her?" Door reminded the Queen.
"It is within the realms of possibility, yes. Perhaps my best reply to you would be to say that she, sleeps, after a fashion."
Richard could tell that Door was struggling to hold herself back, that all this circular speech was taking its toll on her.
"But where?"
The Mad Queen smiled.
"Alas, I cannot tell you that. But I can send you to one who may be able to."
She raised her hand abruptly, signalling to the bodyguard standing behind her throne, who came forward and knelt at her side.
"Fetch me my chest," she commanded, and the man left without a word, bringing back a small wooden box with a heavy clasp. He placed it onto Queen Eleanor's lap, and the woman opened it, her face bathed in the sudden light that sprang out from it. For a moment, she simply stared into the box, then she withdrew a small item from it and closed the chest again, the light vanishing as she did so. Queen Eleanor handed the chest back to her bodyguard and rose from her throne.
"Take this," she commanded, holding out the object to Door. "If you give it to the Sisters of the Temple, they will assist you."
Door stepped forward and took what the Queen offered, which Richard could just see was a heavy gold ring with some kind of seal upon it, presumably that of the queen
herself.
"Now leave me," the Queen ordered, seating herself once more. "My man will escort you out through my garden, and that will take you to the Barbican."
Her gaze moved away from the group of people before her dismissively, fixing upon a spot directly ahead of her but apparently seeing nothing.
Door dropped a small curtsey to the Queen's unmoving figure on the throne, and the three of them followed the armoured knight out through a small wooden door to the right of the dais. To Richard's astonishment, when they came out into the garden, it was lit up by what appeared to be daylight, despite the garden still being part of London Below.
Neither Door nor the Marquis seemed in the slightest bit surprised, so Richard put it down to yet another quirk of London Below and pretended to ignore it. The garden itself was stunning; an open courtyard plan with a central flower bed spilling out a riot of colours and sweet smells. The high stone garden walls were overgrown with ivy and trailing plants and there was an overall atmosphere of tranquillity to the place.
"It's beautiful!" Door cried out, her eyes widening as she took it all in. The air of frustration and nerves that had hung over her in Queen Eleanor's hall evaporated as her face lit up with a smile. Richard too, felt his spirits lift, the horrific memories that Queen Eleanor had forced into his mind beginning to fade away.
The silent bodyguard ushered them through the garden and out through a little wooden door, partly hidden by trailing ivy.
"Well that went better than I expected," the Marquis remarked as the door closed firmly behind them. "We were lucky to get her on a good day."
"That was a good day?" Richard asked in disbelief. "What's she like when it isn't?"
"Given how she reacted to you today," the Marquis replied, fixing Richard with one of his particular glares. "I hope that you never find out."
"We did warn you that she was gifted with Second Sight," Door added. "You could have been a bit more careful, Richard."
"How was I supposed to know she'd see what I was thinking?" Richard protested. "It's not as if I did it on purpose."
"So," the Marquis said, ignoring Richard. "What do you want to do now?"
"She said to go to the Temple," Door replied, examining the gold ring in her hand. "I haven't visited the Sisters there since I was a little girl. I'm not sure what approach would be best."
"I would suggest that you go alone," the Marquis told her. "I haven't ever had occasion to go there myself, but I've heard that men are not always welcome. And given how Richard manages to offend virtually everyone he meets, I think it best if he doesn't try to accompany you."
Richard attempted to give the Marquis a hard stare, but suspected he just looked like he was squinting and gave up.
"Let us know how you get on, won't you?" the Marquis continued, turning and starting to walk away.
Richard hesitated.
"Will you be okay?" he asked.
Door smiled, but she looked a little nervous underneath.
"I'll be fine, Richard. The Sisters at the Temple are a lot easier to deal with than Queen Eleanor. You go on, and I'll meet you when I'm finished."
"If you're sure," Richard said, putting his hand on her arm. She nodded, and strode off towards the gate at the side of the Barbican up ahead. Richard hurried after the rapidly departing Marquis, glancing back to see Door go through the gate, and vanish.