“That was foul villain’s work!” he said. “You shall fight again, and this time on dry land!”
“Nay,” said I. I showed him the wound on my arm, which by now was coursing blood. “Sir Edelmir gave me a wound. Honor is satisfied.”
“Satisfied!” he snarled. “Honor!”
I felt Lipton reaching under his cloak for the hilt of his whinyard, and knew he remembered my warning to be on guard once I had come ashore.
I was aware of my galley coming aground just behind me, and I knew that—if Rufino Knott had followed his instructions—my crew was now armed.
“Ay,” I said. “Honor is satisfied, even if the Count of Wenlock is not.”
At that Whyte stared, his eyes wide, his mouth chewing unspoken words, and I took Lipton’s arm and drew him back to the galley. We pushed off from the shore and went aboard to stand on the foredeck. I was half expecting a dagger or a bullet in the back, but Whyte and his friends made no move, and Dunnock backed out of the shallows. We righted the rowboat, which swam keel upward on the surface, put the boat on the end of a line, then set out onto the lake.
“Well, Coronel,” I said, “I am for a hot bath, and then breakfast. Will you join me?”
Coronel Lipton looked at the swords and the pistols that lay beneath the thwarts of the galley, and he looked up at me with a little smile. “All has gone as you expected?” he said.
“Better,” I said. “I feared we would have a fight on shore.” I held out my arm, where blood now stained my white shirt. “Will you help me bind my wound? We can use the sleeve, it is ruined already.” As Coronel Lipton made of my sleeve a neat bandage, I turned to Rufino Knott.
“If you make a song of this, goodman,” I said, “I trust you will be discreet in the matter of names.”
“As you wish, sir,” he said, and, with the tiller tucked under his arm, turned us for home.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I remained at home for the rest of the day in hope I might hear from Lady Westley, but instead I received an unexpected visitor just before suppertime. I was sitting at one of the great bay windows in the library, reading the bittersweet poetry of Tarantua.
Oh, be not careless then and play
Until the star of peace
Hide all his beams in dark recess.
Poor pilgrims needs must lose their way
When all the shadows do increase.
And indeed the shadows increased as the sun neared the horizon, and I felt the darkness lay fingers upon my heart. Master Stiver entered to announce my guest, but she arrived on his heels, and he had barely begun to speak when she ducked under his arm and came into the room.
“Quillifer!” she said. “They said you were wounded!”
I rose in some surprise. “A scratch, Your Grace,” I said. “I have already forgot it.”
Stiver withdrew as the Duchess of Roundsilver approached, tall heels rapping on the parquet. She was dressed for court, in a wrap of amethyst-colored satin with frogs and swags of gold. A hooded traveling cloak was draped about her shoulders, and rubies clustered about her throat and wrists.
“I thought to find you dying alone in your bed,” she said.
“And instead you find me at ease in my library,” said I. “I prove a poor object for your noble and admirable compassion. Yet, in some small recompense, I can offer you wine, or a tisane, if Your Grace will tarry.”
She looked at me carefully before she answered, perhaps to make certain I wasn’t hiding a serious injury, and then consented to a tisane. “May I take your cloak?” I asked, and when she gave permission, I rang for Stiver. When the steward arrived, I gave him the cloak, ordered the tisane and some cakes, and then helped Her Grace to sit at one of the library tables.
I sat by her. “What have you heard that had me mortally wounded?” I asked.
A charming blush touched her cheeks. “I’ll admit that was my imagination,” said she. “I’d heard that you’d received a wound from Sir Edelmir Westley, after you’d thrown him into the water during a fight and then had to rescue him from drowning. It was I who feared the wound was mortal.”
“Sir Edelmir did not attack me in that blackguardly way,” I said. “He was half-drowned and could barely move.”
She viewed me with grave blue eyes. “Perhaps you’d better tell me what happened.”
This I did, having no reason to alter the story in any way. I even admitted that I had cut myself, with my own knife.
“And thus it has fallen out to my satisfaction,” said I in conclusion. “For I wished not to be killed, and still I live. And I wished to kill no other man, and this I have avoided.”
“And you have suffered no dishonor,” she said, “which, considering your pacific intent, was the most difficult object of all.”
“I am gratified that Your Grace thinks so.”
Stiver arrived with the tisane in a copper pot, and two footmen who carried a tray with cups, plates, cakes, napkins, forks, and a sauceboat of jam. All these were distributed—“By your leave, Your Grace”—and then the servants withdrew. The soft scent of anise rose in the room from the steaming cups. Her Grace turned to me.
“The court buzzes with speculation about the cause of the fight. Can you tell me—” She hesitated. “Tell me, that is, without compromising the honor of any third party?”
I admired her for wishing to save Lady Westley’s reputation, so I hastened to tell her the true story. “Westley said I had insulted him,” I said. “I don’t believe I did any such thing. I believe he was urged to the fight by another party, a man who wishes me ill.”
Her gaze turned acute. “Who is that?”
“Wenlock.”
She seemed puzzled. “How have you offended his lordship?”
This required a lengthy explanation, and perhaps one that seemed not entirely convincing. Alas, the only way I could make the tale plausible was to bring Orlanda into it, and that would make me seem like a madman.
“I believe Westley was deeply in debt,” I said in conclusion, “and that Wenlock bought up so many of his notes that Westley was unable to resist him.”
Her Grace’s face was troubled. “If true, this speaks to a deep dishonor in both,” she said.
“It would be easy enough to discover the truth,” said I, “for I need only ask those who held Westley’s debt who bought it from them.”
Which was easier than it might sound, for there were brokers in Howel who would buy at a discount the signed notes given by gamesters and other debtors, and then try to collect the full amount for themselves. There were only a few such men, for they needed to be so highly placed as to be able to pursue courtiers into the palace itself, and most were courtiers themselves, or office-holders.
“I do not know if I wish to pursue such an investigation,” I said. “For having thwarted Wenlock, and defeated his instrument, he would be foolish indeed to pursue his enmity. Perhaps it is best to let the matter lie.”
“Quillifer, I think you must investigate, not least for your own protection,” said she. “If this was an attempt at murder, then it must be brought to the light.” She gave me a serious look. “There was another time,” she said, “when a great nobleman tried to murder you.”
I winced in remembered pain. “I recall it all too well.”
“Her Majesty exiled him to his estate, and there he has remained.”
“That lord flirted also with the rebel cause, though it could not be proved, and Her Majesty wished to punish him for his friendship with Clayborne.” I considered my situation. “Would Her Majesty take action against yet another great noble, on behalf of a mere rampallion knight?”
“You are not a rampallion but a royal official, and one well known in the court,” said Her Grace. “An attack on you is an attack on the royal dignity. The throne would have to respond in some way, though perhaps you would not wish to make a formal, legal complaint, but allow the chancellor to handle it beneath, as they say, the rose.”
I found this good advi
ce, for I did not want to instigate any form of legal proceeding. I did not think Wenlock would wish to be brought into court, and I rather thought he would set a great many murderers to lurking behind the arras before he would allow that to happen.
“I will follow your counsel,” I said, “and I thank you for it.” I looked at her, the slim, small form with its fruitful curve about the middle. “And you, Your Grace?” I asked. “Are you faring well?”
“I am much better now than those first few months,” said she, and raised her fork. “For see, I am able to enjoy your cakes. For some while even the very sight of food made me ill.”
“My mother would have made you a pottage that would have restored your appetite,” I said. “But perhaps your cook knows the recipe, for I see you now at the summit of health. And my kitchen will rejoice that you have had a second cake.”
“It seems I am not the only fertile mare in the stable,” said the duchess. “At court they say that Her Majesty is again with child.”
“It distresses me that you refer to yourself as a mare,” said I. “For surely you are a sprightly young jennet made to dance lightly over the fields, and toss your bright palomino hair in the wind.”
“I will not be dancing lightly for some months yet,” she said. “But I thank you for the compliment.”
“Has Her Majesty confirmed that she is praegnas?”
“Nay, but some preparations have been made. For after her miscarriages she no longer trusts the physicians here in Duisland, and has said more than once that if the fates are ever again kind to her womb, she will travel to Loretto and give birth there, under the supervision of the royal physicians of her husband’s house. And now she is making plans to travel to Loretto.”
I sipped my tisane as I considered this news. “In this season? If one of our winter gales rises, that will not be such a sweet voyage for a woman but newly with child.”
“Priscus must go in any case, as his father will give him an army against Thurnmark. So Berlauda has put it about that she wishes to accompany her husband as far as Longres Regius, where she will accept the hospitality of King Henrico. But we suspect she may have other reasons for going.”
“Are these Lorettan physicians so superior to our own? And would Berlauda not better profit to banish all physicians from the court? For my father told me I should never see a physician, nor go to a hospital, unless I was already dying; and then the doctors’ cures might save my life, but at least they would not shorten it if they proved deadly.”
Her Grace smiled. “Perhaps your father’s wisdom has reached Her Majesty, for she is avoiding her doctors’ draughts and purges.”
“My father would be pleased to hear it.” I ventured a bite of cake. “But when she goes to Loretto, she must travel with the whole court, must she not?”
“With the Privy Council, at least. And she can’t leave Howel until the Estates have finished their wrangling, and my husband says the wrangling will be prolonged.”
“In the last war, with Clayborne’s rebellion sweeping all of Bonille, the Estates fought each other over war taxes. And now they are to vote for war taxes when there is no threat to our country?”
The duchess contemplated her second cake. “The queen wishes to oblige her husband, who wishes to bring to the war an army suitable for the maintenance of his kingly greatness and majesty.”
“And His Grace? How is your husband disposed?”
“He is the queen’s kinsman, and a member of the Great Council. He must support the queen.” Her expression failed to conceal that her husband’s support was reluctant.
The duchess took another bite of cake and a sip of her tisane, and rose. “I must return home. But I am so happy to see that you’ve taken no hurt.”
“I am likewise happy on that score,” said I, “and I will be at pains to remain thus happy in the future.”
Her blue eyes looked up into mine, and she touched my arm. “Should you fall afoul of any more of these plots,” she said, “I want you to remember that I and my husband are your friends, and that we will help you.”
“Your Grace, I did not wish to involve you in anything so sordid as an encounter with rapiers.”
She gave a smile. “Oh ay, you were clever, and you survived. But it were best that the encounter never happened at all, and my husband could have arranged that.”
I was intrigued. “How, Your Grace?”
“A few of the sheriff’s men, sent to the place of rendezvous. You and Westley might have spent a few hours in jail, and you might have been fined, but there would have been no danger to either of you.”
I bowed. “It is the superior plan by far. I will be sure to consult you on all such matters in the future.”
I showed the duchess to her carriage and watched as it rolled away into the growing evening. It was all too easy, in a place like the court, surrounded by ambitious, arrogant, and unfeeling men, to feel that I had no friends, and that the entire burden of my life rested on my shoulders alone. Her Grace had just provided a lesson that this was not the case, and as I went to my supper, I felt a growing sense of gratitude.
* * *
The next day I put on my armor and rode to the palace. Not to fight, but to accompany King Priscus to the opening of the Estates. He was to be accompanied by no less than a thousand men in glittering armor, a glorious pageant of steel and power, perhaps aimed at cowing the Estates before the session began.
Priscus himself was dressed in magnificent cloth of gold, with an ostrich feather in his hat and gems on every finger, and his ermine-trimmed scarlet robe of state over all. He was surrounded by lords and kinsmen in full armor, and by heralds carrying the royal standard and his own personal banner. Each lord or official had his own standard-bearer, so the front of the great procession resembled a great advancing wall of brilliant standards, ensigns, banderoles, and pennants, all bravely flying in the wind.
As a new-made royal official, I had been assigned my own part farther back in the column. I did not own a complete set of full armor, but rode as a demilance, with breast- and backplate, gorget, helmet, and thigh pieces, and my lower legs encased in great shining boots ornamented with the silver spurs of my knighthood. Behind me, carrying my blue banner, rode Rufino Knott, dressed less grandly in some of the surplus armor I’d won, three years before, from the bandit knight Sir Basil of the Heugh. My charger Phrenzy trotted along with neck arched and his head high, his ears pricked forward, and a kind of snarl fixed to his upper lip, as if he were bidding defiance to the other horses, and ready to challenge them if they did not keep clear.
We rode along the lake’s edge, past all the grand palaces of the lords, and into Howel itself. Thousands of the townsfolk had come out to cheer the king, and he waved with gracious ease at those who waved their handkerchiefs, threw posies or garlands, or called on the Pilgrim to bless His Majesty. The road shivered beneath the hoofbeats of a thousand horses, and the city echoed to the call of trumpets. I felt my heart lift at the sheer magnificence of it all.
And then we rode past the Hall of Justice, and I saw there the head of the Lord High Admiral Mardall, newly severed, next to that of the unlucky Marquess of Scutterfield. Dogs lapped at the blood until they fled the thunder of the horses. My heart fell again, and it was with purposeful resignation rather than high spirits that I continued my ride.
I looked for Sir Edelmir Westley, but I saw neither him nor his banner.
Our journey came to an end before the House of Peers, an old shambles of a building with its foundations dating from the old empire, and its gables, towers, and belfries raised rather miscellaneously over the last several centuries. Here we waited for the queen, for Berlauda had spent the night in the Monastery of the Hallowed Pledge, where the leaders of the Burgesses had joined her that morning for prayers and chants to assure the success of the day’s undertaking.
Berlauda arrived in an open-topped carriage, magnificent in her scarlet robes decked with ermine and gold thread, with a jeweled crown atop her b
lond head. Her sister and the abbot Fosco also rode in the carriage, both magnificent in silks and satins, purfles and swags. They were escorted by a company of the Queen’s Own Horse, who rattled up in their armor, and whose coronel, my old companion Lord Barkin, helped the queen alight from her carriage.
Those of us in the king’s party doffed our helmets in salute and cheered Her Majesty while our banners waved overhead; but I thought of the lord admiral’s pale head atop its pike, with blood-drops falling from its long hair, and my cheers were not so lusty as they might have been.
Berlauda took her husband’s arm, and the two of them entered the House of Peers, followed by heralds and the members of the Great Council. Those lords who had ridden in the procession followed in haste, for they had to doff their armor and put on their scarlet robes before the business of the house commenced.
There was then a pause, and then bells tolled to announce that the formal business of the day had commenced, and that Their Majesties sat beneath the canopy of state, with the peers arranged about them. In accordance with tradition, the herald of brass was sent to the House of Burgesses to summon the members to wait upon Their Majesties and to hear the address from the throne, but was refused. The herald of silver was sent likewise, and likewise sent back. But lastly, after the Burgesses had asserted their independence, the herald of gold was admitted, and returned with the Burgesses following in formal procession. After the doors were shut behind them, the bells rang again, and the business of the Estates commenced.
At this point the king’s escort was dismissed; the Queen’s Own would be sufficient to escort Their Majesties back to Ings Magna. I considered greeting Lord Barkin and offering to stand him a jack of wine or beer, but he disappeared into the house, I suppose to await further orders. The taverns I knew would be crowded, and so I turned Phrenzy about and rode back to Rackheath House, where Master Stiver brought me a small package from which wafted the faint odor of Lady Westley’s bergamot scent. It was with great foreboding that I opened it and read words written in haste, and blotched with careless splashes of ink.
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