Quillifer the Knight

by Walter Jon Williams

  I realized I would have to hire a dancing master, and find a partner with whom to practice.

  There were three galleries above the hall, one for the orchestra, and others for servants and observers. I procured a cup of wine and went up a marble stair to one of the side-galleries, for I thought that I might view the dancers below and find someone I knew. Perhaps Lady Westley was on my mind, or perhaps Elisa d’Altrey. Instead I found Countess Marcella in the gallery, speaking with two people I did not know. She saw me arrive and motioned at me with her fan to invite me to join her.

  “I have found some people from your country,” she said. “Sir Quillifer, this is his lordship the Count of Erquem, Berlauda’s ambassador to Longres Regius, and his lady countess.”

  The count was a tall, spare man of sixty or so, with a pointed beard and white hair dressed in ringlets. His wife was about eighteen, with strawberry-blond hair and a warm, rosy complexion.

  “I am very pleased to meet you,” I said.

  “As you can see,” said Marcella, gesturing at my ring-bedecked hands, “Sir Quillifer is a connoisseur of gems. Perhaps you would care to view his collection.”

  The Countess of Erquem smiled at me, and a light kindled in her blue-gray eyes. “That would be lovely, Sir Quillifer, if you are willing.”

  Her husband frowned in thought. “What kind of name is Quillifer?” he asked.

  * * *

  Blaise Baldry, the Count of Erquem, was from one of the old noble families with lands on both sides of the Duisland-Loretto frontier, a status which complicated relations with the warlike monarchs on either side of the divide, but which probably explained his diplomatic avocation. His wife, Elvina, was from the gentry of southeast Fornland, and would never have been suitable as a first wife. Fortunately for the count, he had been widowed twice.

  Her brother, anxious for a powerful friend at court, had seized an opportunity to throw his sister and the count together, then practically posted the banns himself. So Elvina found herself married to a worldly, elderly nobleman, and through his influence, her brother received an appointment as cofferer of the royal household.

  “I don’t blame my brother,” she told me a few days later. “He is doing well, and my husband is kind, and I’ve met many more interesting people than I would have, staying at home.”

  “It is true that travel broadens the acquaintance,” I said, and kissed her below the ear.

  * * *

  You have commented, I think, that in this period my private life became over-complex, and I own you are right. For I still had thoughts of Lady Westley, and I hoped that in the future you and I might develop a greater intimacy. But Elvina was present, lively, and willing, and I badly wanted distraction after the business with Wilmot.

  Furthermore, she was one of a set of lively friends, and I soon found myself one of their company. I learned to dance la volta, with Elvina as a partner. We drank and feasted. We hunted, and I rode badly; I played tennis well; we made music, and while I enjoyed singing and playing my guitar, it must be admitted that my performance was somewhat short of a professional standard.

  The Count of Erquem viewed his bride’s friends with an indulgent eye. I suspect he had once been young, and understood that Elvina would find his friends dull and would resent being restricted to their company. Rather than preventing her from finding companions of her own, he allowed her to do what she wished, and openly, so that he could keep a benign eye on her. I found myself admiring him.

  Prince Alicio stayed in his palace only ten days or so, for he traveled to his lands to raise forces for the war with Thurnmark. He allowed me to remain in his house, and committed me to the care of Braud the steward and his two hundred staff. They took splendid care of me, and when Elvina and her companions came to visit, I scattered silver among the household to pay for their extra labor.

  You, I know, were less fortunate in your accommodation and your pastimes, as you told me when we met the day King Henrico and his court went hawking. I know nothing of hawks, their maintenance, or their uses, but Alicio had two hawkers in his household, and I took them and their birds along. The hawking was poor, as January offered little prey except His Majesty’s own pigeons, some of which were sacrificed in the name of royal entertainment.

  Yet it was good to be on a hunt that did not involve galloping full-pelt over ditches and fences, and the day was bright, the hawks were fierce and beautiful, and the still air had that fine crisp taste that you find only in winter. I saw you and Countess Marcella riding on the fringes of the hunt, and rode over to salute you.

  “Well, Sir Quillifer,” you said. “You seem to have made yourself at home in Longres.”

  “Thanks only to Prince Alicio,” said I. “His Highness has been a very generous host.”

  “Would we could say the same about King Henrico,” said Marcella. “The rooms allocated to Her Highness Floria are deficient—one miserable room, with one miserable bed! For the present, Mistress d’Altrey and I must share that bed, but when Floria comes, she will have the bed, and we will have to sleep on the floor. There will be no room for Floria’s other ladies at all.”

  “Have you spoken to Their Majesties? Surely they cannot expect a royal princess to be so poorly lodged.”

  “They defer to the grand seneschal of the household, who says that no other arrangement can be made, for two royal courts must now share the same building, and there is no room.”

  “It seems only just that they pitch a few counts or barons out of their beds to make proper apartment for a royal princess,” I said, and considered the situation. “I don’t know if it would be quite proper to offer you rooms in Prince Alicio’s palace, but I can certainly write him to ask if he would be willing to come to the relief of two gentlewomen.”

  “That would be pleasant indeed for the two of us,” you said. “But when Floria comes, she must have a proper apartment at Longres Regius, and not a room given in charity by a royal cousin.”

  “I have written to Her Highness,” Marcella said, “and advised her not to come until the matter is settled.”

  “But who can settle it?” asked I. “Beyond the grand seneschal, of course.”

  “Queen Berlauda,” you said. “She can insist on a suitable apartment for her sister. We will petition her as soon as she arrives.”

  “I hope you succeed, mistress.”

  Hawks gyred overhead in search of prey. We walked our horses over sere grass, with Alicio’s two hawkers following at a respectful distance.

  “The story of your fight with Wilmot has reached the palace,” you said. “And with it, the tale of the other fight with Westley.”

  “Need I worry about arrest, do you think?”

  “You fought no one in Loretto, and you were supported by a prince, so there is no danger to you,” you said. “But they are mad for dueling here, you know, and the court is full of bravos anxious to prove their mettle. And now you have gained a reputation as a fighter, so you should be aware that some may try to provoke a quarrel with you.”

  I snarled. “Cannot these bellicose gallants go to the war and relief their martial passions by killing a few of the enemy? Perhaps they will do us the favor of dying in a ditch.” You laughed, but I sighed. “Yet I thank you for the warning, mistress.”

  “You seem a peaceable enough fellow. Yet there is always strife about you.”

  The strife is named Orlanda, I thought, but spoke not that name aloud. “I desire no harm to any man.”

  “Yet you will not stand aside for a fool or a madman,” she said. “I find that laudable. And if you do not wish to soil your hands with blood, nevertheless you heap shame on your enemies, and put a fool’s cap on their heads.”

  “That cap was always there,” said I, “but invisible.”

  You laughed. In the bright winter sky, a hawk folded its wings and stooped to its prey.

  “You will go far, Quillifer,” you said, “so long as you fight only fools.”

  I waved a hand. “Why would a
wise man fight me?” I said.

  To this question neither of us had an answer.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Berlauda and Priscus arrived the first week of February, having made a stately progress from the west coast of Loretto. They paraded into Longres Regius preceded by Lord Barkin and two companies of the Queen’s Own Horse in their brass-plated armor and red plumes, and followed by all the nobles in their finery and the court in procession. I was obliged to ride in the column of courtiers, though, fortunately, I was not required on this occasion to don armor, for I would have found all that steel cold indeed in the chill wind that rattled the trees and tore apart the low cloud over our heads.

  The first part of the parade was witnessed only by cold, miserable stick-figures clothed in smocks and cloaks and blankets of thick, worn wool. Some were barefoot, the rest wore wooden shoes, and most leaned on their tools. These were the cotters subject to the corvée, torn from their homes to repair the highway and smooth the ride of Berlauda to the capital. I did not find that part of the parade very pleasant, for I felt there was judgment in the glances of these worn, cold men, and that they viewed me as they might view their lords’ pigeons, untouchable until the hoped-for moment of vengeance. As we grew nearer the palace, however, the road became lined with the servants who worked in the fine estates of the nobility, and these cheered Priscus and Berlauda as the royal carriage rolled past. By the time the procession entered the gates of Longres Regius, the plaza before the palace was full of men and women cheering their hearts out, and the platform built before the front doors was filled with royalty and great officers, their forms wrapped in furs of mink and sable, while their plumes and cloaks flew in the wind. Elvina I could see there, her face rosy in the cold, with her arm in that of her husband.

  A salute of great guns boomed out as Priscus and Berlauda left their carriage and came onto the platform, where king and queen gave the kiss of peace to king and queen. While gunpowder scented the air, the grand chancelier of Loretto met his counterpart, the lord high chancellor of Duisland; the grand master of Loretto met the lord high steward of Duisland; the keeper of the seals met the lord keeper of the great seal; the grand almoner met the philosopher transterrene; the grand chamberlain the great chamberlain; and so on down the line.

  Alone among the worthies of Duisland was the new chancellor of the exchequer, a miserable being named Flinders who had replaced Hulme as the head of finance. It was he who would be expected to wrangle the Burgesses over taxes, and recent precedent suggested he would probably lose his head if he failed.

  He stood alone not because he was doomed, but because there was no Lorettan equivalent to our exchequer, which possibly explained the chaotic state of Henrico’s finances.

  Likewise, on the Loretto side, their constable, their marshal, and their grand admiral did not meet their equivalents, for those offices had fallen vacant in Duisland.

  Loretto had no equivalent to the lord warden in ordinary against monsters, which I considered sheer neglect on Henrico’s part. I would have enjoyed exchanging pleasantries with such a man, along with suggestions for disposing of chimerae.

  Riding amid the worthies of Duisland was the cofferer of the royal household, Elvina’s brother. I had never met him, and so I looked for someone resembling Elvina, and saw no one.

  Because of the freezing cold, the remaining ceremonies were moved indoors. There was drinking and feasting and speechmaking, but I was not ranked high enough even to view the table at which royalty sat; and so I was given a trestle table in a drawing room, and had a few bites of a wretched stew, made with greasy mutton and whatever half-spoiled bits of tuber were found in the royal larder, and so I called for my horse with the intention of returning to Prince Alicio’s palace. There it was warm, the cook had learned my tastes in food, and I did not imagine the palace would miss me. But riding past the great train of vehicles waiting their turn to get into Longres Regius, all filled with royal servants frozen to the bone, I saw the face of Blackwell the playwright peering out of one of the carriages, and I hailed him.

  “Your entire troupe is here?” I said.

  “Ay,” said he. “We are to show these folk of Loretto the greatness of Duisland’s theater—or so we shall, if we don’t freeze to death first.”

  “If you can find a horse, I will pluck you from the arms of death, and show you where it is warm.”

  Blackwell found not a horse, but a jackass, but nevertheless it carried him the few leagues to Prince Alicio’s house, with his long legs nearly dragging the ground. As he arrived, he looked up at the house with fine appreciation.

  “You have moved up in the world, Quillifer,” he said.

  “Indeed I have found excellent lodging, and a couple hundred servants to ease my days.”

  “The ink business must be good.”

  We drank and supped and warmed ourselves before a roaring fire, and he told me that his play of Lord Baldwine had been met with indifference, until Mountmirail’s wondrous dragon was brought onstage, and that it had caused a sensation. Berlauda had decided to take Roundsilver’s Players to Loretto, and of course His Grace of Roundsilver was happy to grant permission. The dragon had crossed the water to Loretto, along with the mechanical birds and marvels of The Kingdom of the Birds.

  “Will you play using the Duisland tongue?” asked I.

  “Indeed, we have no choice,” said Blackwell. “But each scene will be preceded by a dumb show to explain the action, and, if necessary, a prologue will be delivered in the local language.”

  “That should serve,” said I, “if you play before the court, for they are a sophisticated audience, and may respect poetry delivered even in a language they consider barbarous.”

  Blackwell turned to me, his deep-indigo eyes solemn. “Did you hear that they caught Hulme?”

  A claw of sadness pierced my heart. “I am sorry to hear it. I thought he had got away.”

  “He had, and he ran to Bretlynton Head, but he could find no ships to carry him off, and the warrant caught up with him. His head has now joined that of the admiral and the lord great chamberlain.”

  Lord Hulme had treated me well, helped make me rich, and protected me from a powerful enemy. He had conserved Duisland’s wealth, which of course made him the enemy of anyone who wished to spend it. Now he had been destroyed by an ungrateful monarch.

  “Sir Edmund Tryon, his deputy, still lives,” Blackwell said. “Hulme was an old man, and when he was shown the rack, he confessed at once to whatever charges were invented for him. But Tryon is younger, and defied them to do their worst. He held out, even against the rack.” He shrugged. “They will kill him anyway, of course, but the trial will be less pat, and whoever prosecutes it will have to look to his wits, especially if Tryon is allowed to speak.”

  “If Tryon has been racked, he may be beyond speech,” said I. “He may no better represent himself than a jerkin stuffed with straw.”

  Blackwell snarled. “The court was always a vile stew of ambition, but not since King Osmer have we had such tyranny. I am writing verses that will expose them all, that will reveal every crime, every unjust murder.”

  “You cannot expect the lord chamberlain to license such verse,” said I.

  “There are ways of getting unlicensed works into print,” said Blackwell. “Most political pamphlets are unlicensed. A printer can be found.” He gave a low laugh. “I fully intend it to be a sensation. Everyone will want to read it, but no one will admit to having a copy.”

  “If they find you are responsible, your head will sit next to that of Scutterfield,” said I.

  “That may be,” said Blackwell, “but I will be able to congratulate myself that I told the truth at least once in my life. Now where is the brandy?”

  “I fear you commit suicide.”

  “There are many ways of committing suicide,” said Blackwell. “One of them is sitting still, and waiting for a tyrant to kill you.”

  * * *

  Duisland’s monarchs we
re in Longres for no more than two nights before a solemn three-day retreat was proclaimed by Their Majesties, and so we were all obliged to retire to the Monastery of the Footsteps of the Pilgrim to celebrate the Day of the Seven Words. I shared a monk’s plain cell with two of the lord chancellor’s secretaries. We diced for the one pallet, and I lost, but stretching my blanket on the rushes, I found myself more comfortable than the unfortunate victor, who tossed sleeplessly on a hard mattress intended to mortify the flesh.

  Much of the day we chanted for our own enlightenment and that of the world, for Their Majesties’ health, for the health of their unborn child, or for success in war—unlike the monks of Duisland, who during the war chanted for Berlauda but would not curse the rebels, the monks of Loretto had no difficulty invoking supernatural aid to drown the enemy in his own blood. I had been raised outside the community that followed the Compassionate Pilgrim, but from what little I knew, I did not believe the Pilgrim would have approved of such a sanguinary petition.

  I found the chanting tedious, and the postures meant to invoke spiritual power were uncomfortable. By the end of the first day I was twitching like a man overcome by fleas. While the droning went on, I occupied my mind with plans for expanding my black empire of ink, or with the dimensions of new ships I hoped to build, or with pleasant thoughts of Elvina.

  I suppose I might have damned the whole enterprise with my irreverence, for it is held that those who perform such petitionary chanting must do so with utter sincerity, and my impurity may have canceled any intervention by the divine. Yet its seems to me that nothing else could be expected from someone compelled to attend, forced into uncomfortable postures, and made to mouth the same syllables over and over for hours. These things, I feel, are best left to the professionals.

  We were also blessed with homilies by the abbot, an obese bald man who dressed in brilliant satins, with gems winking on every plump finger. He discoursed on fate and chance, and the wisdom of accepting either with the proper resignation. The opinion in Loretto was that Eidrich the Pilgrim was not a man, as the Pilgrim himself claimed, but an emanation of the creator spirit of the universe, sent to the earth to bring an awakening to its miserable inhabitants. This was a view endorsed by King Henrico, and endorsed with the noose and the wheel, which were reserved for those of contrary opinions.