This. Perhaps. Perhaps this man, small and roguish though he may be, was the very thing John had felt approaching without being able to name. And the king, how thrilled he would be if John could finally make an accurate prediction of the Return. That was the entire reason for the favoritism King Michael showed John, for his continued monetary generosity, why John alone of all the nine Orbital Doctors had his own castle, and the blessing of exemption from the royal court.
The king wanted that date.
John peered at the small man in the peacock blue, who appeared now to be on the verge of tears. “I—” The man began to talk again.
John stood abruptly. “Enough, my god. Mizar, find out if what this man tells us is in any way true. And please discover these notes to which he keeps alluding, if they in fact exist. And you.” He paused, turning back to the prisoner. “What’s your name?”
The man stared. “We don’t just tell our names. Not out on the land.”
“Then make one up, I don’t give a damn. You’re not on the land, you’re here, about to be de-headed apparently. What does it matter if you tell your name?” He watched as the prisoner’s face fell. “Now, now, you won’t die yet, good man. At least not if what you tell me is true. We may be able to help each other.” He snapped around to order Mizar to unchain the man, and was surprised to remember that he’d already ordered him away. John sulkily stepped to the exit, motioning to the prisoner. “Yes, come on then, you will hobble along after me. We will see how you fare at my mirrors, yes? Maybe your angel voices will return. There’s no time like the present.”
At the door, the guard leaned over gingerly and whispered to him through his lion-shaped mask. John could hardly understand him through the thick resin, so he gestured for the man to pull it aside. “Go on, what?”
“We’ve just had word that a new carnival has set up outside the palace walls,” said the guard. He had a black mustache with particles of food clinging to the corners. “They are flying a black flag. They appear to be…” He frowned. “Outlaws. They’re here in the wrong season. And more than that, there are many more than a normal carnival. It may be dangerous to send a messenger on the road to the palace compound.”
John felt not alarmed, but strangely disappointed by this news, and fought the desire to return to bed. A moment before, he’d had a strategy—now he felt the old shapeless anxiety gnawing at him once again, for this new trouble surely portended something as bad or worse than the comet or the vision-having prisoner. “Yes,” he mumbled, as the guard replaced his faceplate. “I see. Well, at least take this man to a room and have Mizar dress him in something other than these filthy clothes. We will check on the ladies when the threat has passed.”
John watched as the prisoner was led away down the narrow steps, then returned to his window. And it was there, in the distance, under the curious blaze of the new comet: settled in the scrubby awfulness of the coastal expanse was a dense thicket of tents and booths and stages. This new encampment extended all the way to the sea—a great yawn of humanity, all bustling like ants under a huge, iridescent black flag. John gripped the ledge with fingers he could not quite feel. The earthworks and the line of flimsy watchtowers that served the Cape were dilapidated and had further deteriorated after a minor hurricane. But that had been years ago, now. King Michael was not a man who valued his military. John peered over the plain, his heart in his throat, before he turned his eyes back to the sky and had the absurd thought that it would be far better to be struck dead by a heavenly body than by a living one.
CHAPTER 7
THE THIRD QUEEN OF CAPE CANAVERAL
That evening, the girl was released from her cage. Three old women attendants came to Mr. Capulatio’s tent. They said he had sent them. The girl stood on a padded footstool as they fussed with her gown. She watched as though from afar, like her body in this new dress was an experiment that could go horribly wrong. The oldest woman remarked: “How can an aged person like me keep straight all the queens at Cape Canaveral now? Now we have three—three queens!” She bleated laughter, her eyes catching the girl’s mischievously. A woman who had seen so many things she no longer took anything seriously. Her laugh trailed off into a gasping chuckle that caught in the back of her throat. Without thinking, the girl drew back, afraid as ever of any kind of sickness. The crone shook her head slightly after wiping her mouth, as if to say It’s nothing, and went back to pinning the dress with sharpened sticks.
The crones were dressed in elaborate drapings of otter pelts sewn in random places to dresses of thick brown fabric, with their gray hair wrapped around forms to keep it high and stiff. The girl wished Mr. Capulatio had given her younger attendants—girls her own age, who would make her laugh and tell her gossip. Like the illegal dancers in his carnival. Where had they gone? Were they here? Why hadn’t he given her those girls?
She looked across the tent at Orchid, who sat reading at Mr. Capulatio’s writing desk, ignoring the preparations. The crones
