Quire looked to the clock overhead (Uttley’s pride) and saw that he had two hours before he was due to meet his men on the Rye road. “Some relative of the Saracen?”
“A lad you’ve done harm to, he says.”
“Name?”
“He gave none. If you wish, Captain, I’ll have the ostler lead your horse round to the back and you can join him there.”
Quire shook his head. “Let’s have a resolution, if it’s possible. I remember no lad, however.” With curiosity he approached the door and stepped outside, to lean against the jamb and study the slender boy who stood, with hot, uncertain eyes, near the horse and its wool-swathed ostler who held the bridle. The boy wore a hooded jerkin, rabbitskin leggings and patched shoes, and there was a quarterstaff in his mittened fists. Black, shining hair escaped the hood. He had dark, gypsy features, but it was his mouth which gave Quire a clue to his true character—it was wide, with a prominent, sulking lower lip. Quire grinned at him. “Me?” he said.
“You’re the Captain—Quire?” The boy flushed, confused between his imagination’s proposals concerning this encounter and the reality of it.
“I am, my beauty. What harm d’you claim I’ve done you?”
“I am Phil Starling.”
“Aha. The chandler’s child. Your father’s a retired sailorman. A good fellow. Is it money you claim? I assure you I’m not one to be in debt, particularly to an honest seadog. Yet, if it will help to see him, I’ll return with you, gladly.”
“You know more of me than I know of you, Captain Quire. I come on behalf of a young lady who has but lately passed her fourteenth birthday and upon whom you have laid lewd hands, threatening her virginity.”
Quire allowed himself a mild lift of an eyebrow. “Eh?”
“Alys Finch, servant to Mistress Crown the seamstress. An orphan. An angel. A sweet-natured paragon of goodness whom I shall marry and whom I now protect.” Starling gestured somewhat aimlessly with his stick.
Quire feigned controlled rage. “And how have I offended this virgin? Lewd hands? Upon the girl who collects my sewing, whom I’d not recognise a third or fourth time she came? Who told you this?”
“She told me herself. She was distressed.” The boy faltered. “She does not lie.”
“Young girls, however, fancy many things to be true—often most positively when their imaginings are the strangest.” Quire put fingers to jaw. “Visions, and such, you know. Visitations. They know so little of the world, they interpret the innocent remark as a vicious one, while the vicious suggestion is taken for virtue.” Quire became friendly. “What has she told you, lad?”
“Just that. She was distressed. Lewd hands.”
Quire held his gloved palms before him as if to inspect them. “I doubt they touched her. She took my clothes for mending. Was there another guest, in the same lodgings, whose clothes she collected?”
“It was you. You are known to be a very Prince of Vice.”
“Am I?” Quire laughed easily. “Am I, indeed? By whom?”
“It is the talk of all at the King’s Beard.”
“And you’re one to believe ‘em—these scandal-mongers? Because I do not mix with the crowd, I am envied, I am a mystery, I become an object of scandal. Have you heard of those who accuse honest men of vice they dare not or cannot perform themselves?”
“What?”
“Even you, lad, must indulge fancies of that sort. You hear that a man is wicked—and you guess what you would do in his shoes. Eh?”
A carriage, all creaking metal and leather, bounced past, drawn by two pairs of grey horses, its windows covered, a mingled scent of roasted duck and heavy musk drifting from it, as if a rich whore dined on the jog. The black stallion shifted his rump and the boy was gently pushed closer to Quire.
“That’s a good strong staff,” said Quire. “Is it for me?”
“You swear you did not touch Alys?” Starling was entirely confused.
“What does she say I did?”
“That you made her—that you forced her to show herself…”
Quire seemed stern. “I cannot remember ever laying a hand upon her.” Quire’s fingers encircled the boy’s stick. “But I’ll get to the bottom of this one, if I can. Let’s analyse the tale together, eh? Over a noggin? It could be, you see, that inadvertently, I made some gesture she misconstrued.”
Starling nodded, impressed by Quire’s gravity. “It is possible. I would not blame a gentleman unjustly.”
“I can read as much in those large eyes of yours. You’re a fine, upstanding lad. Sensitive, too, to the misfortunes of others. But a little quick to spring to the defence of those who do not always deserve it, eh? I can tell that, too, from your face. No wonder you are loved, for you have a beauty rarely granted a young man.” Quire removed the staff and placed it against the wall. He slipped a comradely arm about the boy’s waist. “I would be happy if I fathered a son as manly as yourself, sweet Phil.”
Warmed suddenly and euphorically by Quire’s flattery, Starling relaxed, and was lost.
THE SIXTH CHAPTER
In Which Queen Gloriana Continues to Pursue Her Familiar and Hopeless Nightly Quest
THE SCARLET LIGHT which filled the small chamber came from a score of hanging candles in parchment shades, after the fashion of the Cathay Court, and through shadows of darker scarlet moved the Queen, back and forth, on the pace, hands on waist, on thighs, on breasts, folding, unfolding, against the face, upon the shoulders, as if she feared her trembling body might at any moment fly apart. She took wine from a ruby beaker, poured from a ruby flask, she pushed back her robe of silk-lined wolfskin; save for a pair of linen under-hose, from waist to knee, she wore nothing else. She combed at her auburn hair with long fingers on which red gold glinted; she strode to the fire and stood before it, straddled, as if she prayed the heat would burn her tension from her. “Lucinda!” It was almost a scream.
From heaped scarlet cushions in a corner a sleepy, dark-skinned child peered.
“No!” Gloriana’s hand waved Lucinda back to sleep. Her conscience could not let her further tire the girl. Besides, her tender mood had passed, much earlier in the night, and now she craved sensation as her only substitute for satisfaction. Her fist ground at her groin. She removed a key from the mantel above the fire; she pulled aside heavy drapery, unlocking a door to apartments still more secret than those she presently occupied.
A short flight of stairs took her up into barbaric, blazing torchlight, into a hall of asymmetric splendour, whose ceilings rose and fell and whose walls were studded with huge gems, like the walls of some faerie cavern, whose carpets sank deep beneath her naked feet, whose tapestries and murals showed crowded, obscure scenes of antique revels. At the far end of the hall two giants drew themselves to attention. One was an albino, red-eyed, white-haired, muscular and naked—the other was a blackamoor with jet eyes, jet hair, and yet the absolute identical twin of the albino. The merchant adventurer who had found these two and matched them had discovered the albino in Muskovy and the blackamoor in Nubia and, seeking trading rights in Albion, had brought them as a clever gift to the Queen. Now they bowed, awaiting her pleasure, adoring her as they had always done; but with a word of affection she passed them by, pushing open the doors into another, darker cavern, filled with the odour of heated flesh, of blood, of salty juices, for this was where her flagellants convened, men and women, passive and dominant, who lived only to enjoy or wield the lash. And, as she passed, some raised gasping heads and recalled the ecstasy they had enjoyed, could only enjoy, at her kindly, knowing fingers, and some paused to stare and remember her wounded flanks and how their piss fell from her inviolable body, and these called out after her, but she was not, tonight, obedient. A short, connecting passage, another key, and she was amongst her boys and girls, smiling but impatient, as she continued on, through a series of chambers where her geishas, male and female, whispered greetings. And in her wake, half-dirge, half-celebration, her name: Gloriana, Gloriana, Gl
oriana—rising, louder and louder in her ears—Gloriana, Gloriana.
“Ah!”
Past the beasts and their lovers, past frigid beauty and sensual ugliness; past old men and youths, past the naked and the fancifully costumed, past baths of milk or wine or blood, past blocks and beds and gallows—these were the ones who chose to live here, who had begged to remain, for Gloriana would keep none against their will; past her young girls, her matrons, the crèches and the nurseries, schools and gymnasiums, libraries and theatres; past the blind, the mad and the overly sane, the crippled, the dumb and the deaf; past faces innocent and lustful, generous and greedy, past bodies gross and beautiful, thin, fat, exquisite and ordinary; past nobles and commoners—
Gloriana, Gloriana, Gloriana….
—Past orgies, banquets, games and dances, past consorts of music, of players, gladiators and athletes; through chambers pale and featureless, through peculiarly shaped rooms which were dark and populated, furnished with the treasures of the world; through halls, along galleries, cloisters, dormitories, past alien statuary and paintings—
Gloriana, Gloriana!
“Oh!” She sobbed, half-running now. “Ah!”
To a quiet hall. Hairy men, lazy and huge, looked up from where they lounged, in a pack, beside a heated pool of blue and gold tiles. She scented them, half-apes, and went to sit amongst them. They were scarcely aware of her at first, but slowly their curiosity was aroused. They began to inspect her, pulling at her wolfskin coat, stroking her hair, her body, sniffing at her breasts and hands.
“I am Albion,” she told them, smiling. “I am Gloriana.”
The hairy men grunted and puzzled at the sounds but, as she knew, they could not understand her—neither could they repeat the names.
“I am the Mother, the Protector, the Goddess, the Perfect Monarch.” She lay back and their fur was coarse against her flesh. She laughed as they stroked her. “I am History’s Noblest Queen! The most powerful Empress the world has ever seen!” She sighed as their hot tongues licked her, as their fingers touched her sensitive places. She embraced them. She wept. In turn she reached below their hairy stomachs and tickled them, so that they grunted, frowned and grinned. She stretched. She writhed. “Ah!” And she smiled. She groaned.
They began to shove each other gently, in order to be closest to her. She embraced one, taking him down onto her. While he snuffled and moaned she stroked his muzzle, his head and his hairy back. She scarcely felt him enter. She pushed; she seized his buttocks; she pulled him; she heaved. He shuddered and she opened her miserable eyes to see his grinning, sated jaws, his benign beastly countenance staring mildly down at her.
A few moments later he and his fellows lost interest in Gloriana and wandered over to the side of the hall to seek food, leaving the Queen of Albion sitting cross-legged beside the pool, looking into the foul tranquillity of the water.
THE SEVENTH CHAPTER
In Which Captain Quire Attempts the Wreck of the Mikolaj Kopernik and the Capture of Her Chief Passenger
WITH CONSIDERABLE satisfaction Captain Quire watched the bank of cloud gradually move across the moon. Ahead, the horizon vanished, the sea no longer gleamed. The lights of the Polish galleon, the Mikolaj Kopernik, had already been pointed out by O’Bryan, the Erin renegade, who sat comfortably upon the dying bulk of the light-keeper, puffing his pipe and sniffing the wind. “She should be aground within half an hour, Captain.”
The light-keeper moaned. There was a round-pommelled dirk in his back, O’Bryan’s.
“By Jupiter, O’Bryan,” said Tinkler, blowing on his gloved hands, “won’t you finish off that poor devil?”
“Why should I?” O’Bryan spoke reasonably. “The longer he lives, the warmer he stays. In this weather a man must make use of everything possible to keep him from freezing. That’s the trick of survival, Tink, look you.”
Quire put his spyglass to his eye. As he lifted his arms, the wind caught his cloak and blew it back from his shoulders. He tucked the glass in his belt and recovered the cloak, fixing it at the throat by the silver clasp he sometimes wore. He repositioned the spyglass and thought he sighted the galleon. The brim of his hat was bent back against the crown, his hair was blown like weed in a whirlpool, and the spray from the sea below, a curling steamer of foam, pricked that part of his face not protected by the cloak’s collar.
“A perfect night for a wreck.” O’Bryan re-lit his long clay pipe and shifted his rump a moment, to give the keeper a few extra breaths. O’Bryan wore a huge fur hat, after the Ukrainian fashion, and had on a bearskin coat made from the whole pelt, so that the claws hung about his hands and the beast’s head acted as a high collar. His square, ruddy features bore the drinker’s mark and his eyes revealed his character even if his smile and easy manner did not. He looked up at the tower, a scaffold set above the watchman’s two-roomed cottage, where a red light gleamed to warn ships to hold off approaching the channel until morning. At the sides of this were two unlit lanterns, one yellow and one blue, to indicate, in good weather, which side of the light the ship should go, for the warning beacon was positioned on this small island at the centre of the sandbar; the waters here ran very erratically, sometimes deep, sometimes shallow, depending on the position of the shifting, unstable sands.
Tinkler stared down to the beach where the rest of their men stood, close to the horses they had ridden here while the tide was out. “If it’s more than half an hour those ruffians’ll be too stiff to act and the plan’s wasted, and all this work.”
“The plan can’t be wasted,” Quire told him. “It’s the only one.”
“And a mad scheme.” O’Bryan was approving. “A Polish noble will fetch a good price. They’re rich, the Poles. Probably richer, head for head, than Albion. I was in Goddansjik for a few months and saw more gold than I’ll ever see in London. But they have strange laws, made by commoners, and it’s hard for a free spirit to earn a living there, save as a soldier in the East, where it’s poorer.”
Quire had decided not to give O’Bryan the full story and intended to betray him as soon as he had served his turn: he knew O’Bryan for a fool with more greed than intelligence who could not be controlled as the others were controlled. “We’ll all be rich within the month, O’Bryan. It’ll be your task to carry our message to Poland.”
O’Bryan had agreed to this and, since Quire had already been generous, had seen no snags to the scheme. The Irishman warmed his hands over the bowl of his pipe and kicked with his heel at the ribs of his victim, as another man might stir the embers of a fire.
Quire now had the ship in focus. He thought he heard a trumpet sound, as the ship signalled. It was rolling in rapidly, borne by the notorious quicksilver tide. Quire could make out figures—the pilot in conference with one who was doubtless the captain, pointing in their direction. And on the high deck, astern, the untidy figure he had had pictured for him, the Polish King.
Quire began to climb the ladder of the tower, while Tinkler took up the trumpet and blew a deep blast to answer the ship’s.
Thus, as the shaggy King of Poland looked shoreward from his sterncastle, did Captain Quire put lips to lamp and extinguish the red signal, lighting instead, with casual fingers, the green. Next, he leaned to light the blue lantern on the left, to guide the ship directly onto the sands where his men waited. He could see the Mikolaj Kopernik with his naked eye. She had most of her sails reefed and her oarsmen were backing water. A few moments, while the signal was interpreted, and then the galleon advanced more swiftly, heading, to Quire’s relief, in exactly the direction he had anticipated. Hastily he swung down from the tower, tapped O’Bryan on the shoulder, winked at Tinkler, and began to run, his spurs silvery and jingling, down to the beach to await his lumbering prey.
“She’s on her way, lads.” Quire stooped to pull up the folded-down flaps of his jack-boots, lacing them tight at the thigh. The wind made so many scarecrows of his men, all wild rags and hunched figures, and gave the horses halos of their
own manes. Some distance away the sea slithered over the sands or struck flat and wet against the smooth stones; Quire could smell it. He could taste its salt on his lips. He had no liking for the sea. It was too large.
“Guns, Captain?” One of the hirelings spoke, half-muffled, from his cloak.
“That’s what we brought ‘em for, Hogge. More for the noise than anything. The trouble with a task of this kind is that unless you advertise your presence like mummers at the fair you’ll not be noticed. And unless you’re noticed, nobody’s afraid. And if nobody’s afraid they can all get away from us without ever knowing we were here!” Quire enjoyed this speech, but he left his men bewildered. “Guns, yes. Fire ‘em willy-nilly—into the air until we’ve got our man at least. We don’t want to put a ball through his head and have no ransom. I’ve told you who to look for.”
O’Bryan came stiff-legged down the sands. He rubbed at his bottom and farted. He drew two great horse pistols from the pockets of his bearskin coat and held them close to his face in the gloom, inspecting the locks.
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