“From him?” The Moor flapped an airy hand. “Not Montfallcon. He respects no one. He has long since rejected humanity in favour of idealism.”
“I learned as much today.”
“So you require a fresh patron, eh?”
“I did not say so, sir. But I tell you this: if you agree to spare my life and let me go away from here unharmed, then I will perform any service you require, save regicide.”
“Any service, Quire?”
“One, sir. No more. A favour for my life. It’s fair.”
“You owe me at least that already. In return for my nephew’s life.”
“I did not say I slew him.”
“But you did slay him. I spent a good deal of money investigating the crime, once given the initial clue.”
“King’s in Newgate for it—or already transported.”
“And you and your valet are free.”
Quire shrugged. “Let’s say I agree to that bargain. A favour for his life, a favour for my own. You already make a profit of one hundred percent. Which two favours can I accomplish, Lord Shahryar?”
“None. I have agreed to nothing you propose. Yet I might be prepared to write off all debits and credits up to this moment. And offer you, instead, my patronage.” Lord Shahryar was laughing delightedly as he turned with arms outstretched, almost as if he displayed his breast to Quire’s knife. “A patron to honour you, Captain Quire! To offer you the greatest possible opportunities for the practice and enlargements of your Art. Montfallcon would not honour you. I shall.”
“But what’s the commission, Lord Shahryar?”
The Moor became ecstatic. Tears of joy were in his eyes as he looked upon his potential protégé. “Albion,” he said.
Captain Quire set his hat back on his head and scratched his scalp. His luck and his mood had changed drastically in the last few hours. It was as if he had prayed for this opportunity and it had been delivered to him. He understood, in broad terms, what the Moor asked, but the commission very nearly daunted him.
“Gloriana?”
“She would be happier if wed to our Grand Caliph. The burden of State is too much for a woman.”
“Montfallcon?”
“Disgraced.” A shrug. “Whatever you wish.”
“Specifically, what shall I do?”
“It would be your business to corrupt the Court. The details, of course, would be in your hands—blackmail, charm, deception, murder, what you will—so long as you encouraged cynicism and despair, suspicion and vice, in Gloriana’s followers.” Lord Shahryar’s voice rose, a hymn, as he delivered a prospectus into which he, untrammelled by a Montfallcon’s conscience and doubts, could pour fire—and transmit that fire to Quire—offering him the one thing he desired: respectful sympathy for his greatness in his chosen trade. “We grant you this opportunity, Captain Quire, as well as your life. Also, our gold.”
Quire was excited and amused, wavering. “You win me by flattery, do you, my lord?”
Lord Shahryar said: “I have already praised your talents. The gold would be useful, even to you.” He had missed Quire’s meaning.
Quire stripped a black gauntlet from his hand and waved the conversation into a different course. “I asked for a specific commission.”
“If I tell you, you could tell Montfallcon.”
“Montfallcon’s no longer my master.”
“And I?”
“I still await the exact plot.”
“You swear silence?”
“I’ll say nothing to Montfallcon, if that’s what you mean.”
“The Grand Caliph desires to marry Gloriana so that Arabia and Albion are equal in all things. With this power, he would make war on Tatary and crush our traditional foe forever. But before he can do this, Gloriana’s own courtiers must see her as a weakling; her nobles must lose their faith in her omnipotence, as must the commons. The Court must be shown to be weak and corrupt. Montfallcon must be disgraced or made a fool in the eyes of the Queen—she listens only to him and the council. The Countess of Scaith must be removed from Court. All the Council, if possible, must be seduced in some way. Murders must occur which will be blamed upon the blameless. Contention, suspicion, countermeasures. You follow me?”
“Naturally, but I am not sure it could be done.”
“You could do it. No one else, Quire.”
Quire nodded. “It is true that if I refused you would be hard put to find one with my skills and my opportunities. There is Master Van Haag in the Low Countries, and one or two Florentines—a Venetian I can think of—but they do not know our Court as I know it. Well, the work would be hard and it would take a great deal of preparation.”
“We are fairly patient. Our Grand Caliph wishes it to seem that he comes to Albion as a saviour, accepted both by the Queen and by the people.” The Moor had Quire half-mesmerised. “Could you do it?”
“I think so.”
Lord Shahryar said: “What we Arabians offer Albion is security, purity, morality. We are traditionally praised for these virtues. You must create the climate in which the folk of Albion would cry out for our virtues. We should come to save you—Queen and Realm.”
“And I should have revenge,” said Quire to himself. “I should be vindicated.”
Lord Shahryar continued: “You would be rewarded, of course. Made great. Would Montfallcon elevate you?”
“No, my lord. I trusted him for that.”
“Do not, Captain Quire, suggest you dislike power.” Lord Shahryar linked an arm with that of his nephew’s murderer.
“I have plenty.”
“But no position.”
“And therefore no responsibility. If I were Baron Quire I should have to set an example. Why, I’d be scarcely more free than the Queen herself.”
“A principality? A nation? To indulge your tastes with even greater imagination?”
Quire shook his head. “Like Lord Montfallcon you misunderstand me, sir. And besides, I know you would try to kill me when my work was done. This offer of a nation is nonsense. You would not tolerate a small world of my creation. No, I’ll choose my reward when my task is done. I’ll do it, as you’ve guessed, for the art of it. If I decide to help you, you will have won me from Montfallcon for a single reason—you appreciate that I am an aesthete. You have flattered me and tried to stimulate me in other ways. Well, I am flattered. I am stimulated. But it is only the commission itself that attracts. If I brought Albion down, Queen and all, and if you succeeded in killing me for my pains, I’d die in the knowledge that I had produced my greatest, most lasting work.”
Lord Shahryar withdrew his arm from Quire’s and looked into the Captain’s glittering eyes. “Does Montfallcon fear you, Quire?”
Quire stretched himself and drew deeply of the coffee-flavoured air. “I think he will.”
He contemplated a rich and bloody future, yawning like a waking leopard who opens sleepy eyes to see that, in the night, he has suddenly become surrounded by a herd of plump gazelles. He smiled.
THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER
In Which Gloriana, Queen of Albion, and Una, Countess of Scaith, Venture Upon an Exploration into the Hidden World
THE COUNTESS OF SCAITH drew both her shutters back and felt the warmth of the sun on her face. She sniffed at her violets. From this bedroom window she looked across lawns and sprouting gardens to the ornamental lake which, this morning, had begun to lose the untidy sheen of winter. There were gardeners and the like about, trimming and twitching. The spring, when it came, thought Una with sudden melancholy, would be unwelcome. Behind her, in the curtained bed, Gloriana still slept. She had come here, weeping, at night, for comfort. In black damasked silk Una headed for the bell rope, understanding that the Queen must soon awake. But she hesitated, arms folded, to stare down at her friend, who seemed at peace. Gloriana’s huge beauty filled the bed; her marvellous auburn hair lay all around her head and shoulders in great skeins and her fair, high-boned, innocent face, half-turned from the light admitted throug
h the curtain’s gap, showed a degree of childish wistfulness which brought tears to Una’s eyes and made her pull the curtains tight, considering a means of distracting the Queen, for a few hours at least, and making her a girl again.
For some while Una had wanted (selfishly, she thought) to show Gloriana what she had discovered about the nature of the palace. She had hesitated for several reasons: Gloriana’s time was rarely her own; Gloriana preferred to spend as long as possible in private company with Una; Gloriana carried so many concerns with her, regarding the palace, the city and the Realm, that further knowledge might increase her anxieties. And yet, thought Una, she could offer Gloriana compensation for all this, for what she would offer would be a shared secret, clear of State and politics—some private knowledge—potential, if temporary, escape. Though she could think of no appointments for today, Una continued to hesitate, impatient of Responsibility which hovered all around; yet trapped, unable to dismiss it, and in this she was almost as burdened as the Queen. She knew, too, that the bright, sharp thoughts of morning, when one was still allowed to dream unchallenged, might soon be muddied by the myriad considerations of commitment to lazily made promises and thoughtless assurances, not to mention established ritual and routine, of previous, more hectic moments. To wake Gloriana now, with breathless predictions of adventure and freedom, might serve to create a greater melancholy when the realisation of the day’s prepared events occurred. Una decided that she would wait—test her friend’s heart and discover both her public and her temperamental desires.
And so she moved from the room and its velvet-shielded bed, into the next. She moved in glinting black silk, like a supernatural being—half shadow, half silver fire—to the little bed-chamber of her maidservant, and entered without warning, as was her habit, to find Elizabeth Moffett already dressed, in good plain linen, and brushing out her hair.
“Morning, your ladyship.” Elizabeth Moffett was uninhibited by the presence of her mistress. Her face grew a little red, from the effort of the brushing. Her square, wholesome features were typical of her Northern home. All Una’s servants were from the North, for she was inclined to mistrust Southerners as muddle-headed and careless in their duties; an inherited prejudice which she knew to be unfair but which she preferred to follow in the hiring of personal staff. Una loved Elizabeth for her unimaginative relish of commonplace life.
“Good morning, Elizabeth. I have a visitor. Would you please have breakfast for two prepared and ensure we are not disturbed.”
“Ho, ho, ho.” Elizabeth Moffett winked at the Countess. Her interpretations of Una’s life were always direct and never subtle.
Una smiled and returned, rustling, to her own room, where Gloriana could be heard awakening.
The bed curtains parted and through them appeared the tangled head of the World’s Ideal, shame-faced. “Oh, Una!”
The Countess of Scaith was at the window again, watching a carthorse, which drew a cargo of seedlings, cropping, unknown to the gardener, at some recently planted privet.
“Your Majesty?” Una’s expression was gently sardonic and it made Gloriana laugh, as Una had known it must.
“Una! What’s the hour?”
“Early enough. There’s time to break your fast. What must you do today?”
“Today? But you know better than I. Tell me.”
“There are no commitments until noon, when we dine with the ambassador from Lyonne and that wife.”
“Ah, me!” Gloriana’s head disappeared. Her muffled voice continued. “But we’re free till then, eh?”
“Free,” said Una, and dared herself to add: “For exploration. Just we two. If Your Majesty is of a mind…”
“What?” The head reappeared, eyes wide. “What?”
“I have a discovery I would share. The palace is ancient, as you know.”
“As ancient as Albion, some think. Founded when New Troy was founded.”
“Aye. Old roofs are said to lie below the ground now.”
“So scholars speculate. What’s this, Una? You have discovered an antique vault?”
“More. The secret passages—”
“No secrets, those. I dared them all, as a girl. They lead nowhere, most of them, save to blank walls.”
“What’s beyond those blank walls?”
“Eh? Montfallcon would know, if that were true. It’s his business.”
“If Montfallcon knows, he refuses to speak of them. I’ve sounded him. He’s vague. Perhaps by decision. He allows the surface, accepts the possibility of certain depths, but no more.”
“That is his temperament, I think.”
“Aye. Well, then, we have a secret which Montfallcon will not share—whatever his reasoning.”
“Oh, I should love such a secret!” Gloriana flung away the curtains and was on bare feet, in crumpled, musty white, to lift her friend almost bodily from the ground in her strong, enthusiastic arms. “Una! Escape!”
“Of sorts. Without anyone knowing where we go. I found the entrance shortly upon my return from Scaith. It leads to subterranean parts, full of old relics, rich with hints of a past our histories scarcely mention.”
“We can visit those tunnels? You’ll lead me?”
“If you’re for it. We should dress in some rough disguise, I think. It would add to the excitement.”
“Indeed. We’ll go as young men. In those costumes of ours.”
“I thought the same. With swords and poignards and feathered bonnets.”
“Boots and leathern doublets. Aye. Now?”
“We have the moment.”
“We’ll seize it, then!” Gloriana kissed her friend upon the lips. “And then, when we’ve explored, we can tell a few companions. John Dee? What do you say? Wheldrake?”
“It might be best to make all this our own. No sharing. I’ll show you why.”
“You have our clothes, Una?”
“Where they always are. In the trunk.”
“And lanterns? Shall we need lanterns?”
“We shall.”
Gloriana frowned. “What if there’s danger? Broken steps, hidden pits, quaking roofs?”
“We’ll avoid them. I’ve already travelled the paths. I’ll lead you.” Una knew the Queen did not refer to her own danger but to her responsibilities as the Realm’s cornerstone.
“Shall we find demons, Una?”
Glad of Gloriana’s elation, anxious to maintain it by any means, Una cried: “Only those we can vanquish with glaive and valour, because our hearts are virtuous!”
“Where’s the entrance?” Gloriana was opening the trunk and dragging out the disguises they had used some while before, when they had conceived the notion of courting maids together.
“Here.” Una pointed at the far wall. “In the next room. A deep closet I’d scarcely used. It leads into a passage I knew was there. A few steps, then down to a blocked door which once led outside. There are many like it.”
“Aye. Hern’s Court created the fashion. But that’s not all, of course. Go on.”
“I found the wall behind the steps hollow. The bricks moved. I made a hole. And there it was!” Una tugged on loose britches and buckled them up. She pulled a linen shirt over her naked chest and pointed it, fluffing at the lace on collar and cuffs before drawing the peasecod doublet round her body and buttoning it from navel to throat. Stockings and shoes, a scarlet slouch hat with a blue ostrich plume, and she was ready to sling the belt, with sword and dirk, about her waist. Gloriana rolled up her hair, which was much longer than Una’s, and fitted it under a tighter cap, also feathered. She wore a short cape on one shoulder and her doublet was of brown padded velvet, but she resembled Una in essence. They stood, right hands on hips, left on hilts, and laughed at one another—two gallants of the Town, poor younger sons, ready for any escapade.
“Breakfast first,” said Una, always the leader when they were dressed thus. “And we must take one of those portable clocks of Master Tolcharde’s, so that we know when to return. The pock
et watch?” She found it, wound it and placed it in her purse. Its loud tick sounded against her thigh. She swaggered to the door, opened it a fraction. Elizabeth Moffett had done as asked and porridge, herrings and bread were ready on a crystal table which had been brought back as booty from some forgotten West Indian campaign.
The eating done, Una took them to the closet, sliding back a squeaking panel, lifting her lantern to show the steps and, in the wall immediately to her left, a newly made hole. “Here,” she said. “I thought of it when I noticed that cold air came from a vent in one of my rooms downstairs—in what I had always considered solid stone. I discovered that there is an entire passage—too small for upright movement—which passes that room, which can be seen into in turn. If I wished, I could spy upon myself! But that’s not of much interest. Here.” She helped tall Gloriana through the gap. There were more steps, twin to the others, leading down.
The lantern light was almost too bright in the narrow chilly corridor. They whispered, yet their voices were amplified, as the light seemed to be amplified, at paradox with their confines, and oddly comforting. Dust in their nostrils brought unspecific nostalgia. They were both children now, holding hands and pressing on. A rat went by. They tipped their hats to him as he fled. Spiders were studied, patches of moss found to resemble the faces of certain courtiers. Their spirits rose so as to border on ecstasy while the tunnel turned, dropped, climbed, leading them away from Dignity and Charity and Grace and the other sober demands of office, until they entered a high gallery, all intricate, barbaric carving, with ancient beams supporting a ceiling of panelled wood, and the lanterns cast shadows, displayed inhuman faces and peculiar representations of animal forms, yet still they giggled, but more quietly, as if they feared to offend these ancestral monuments. Even when something moved, a larger shadow, not their own, they felt no anxiety, though they could not identify the source. They found grimy paintings and rubbed them clean to exclaim upon the unsuspected skills of ancient craftsmen. They seated themselves in dusty chairs and wondered how many hundreds of years they had waited here to be used again. They pretended to find human remains—sticks; fallen, rotted woodwork; rusting weapons; the bones of cats or rats—which hinted at epic murder from Albion’s legends. They investigated little rooms which still contained narrow beds and benches, lengths of chain and manacles, as if prisoners had slept and worked here—perhaps those who had carved the gallery which lay behind them. They descended pitted stone and heard water but never saw it. They found wax, so fresh-seeming it might have fallen from a candle an hour or so since. They found scraps of food, doubtless borne here by the ubiquitous rats. They heard movements everywhere and guessed these came from the inhabited palace, unseen on the other side of several walls. It was strange to be so close to activity without being able to see or even to identify the source of movements. They heard voices, laughter, cries, the rattle of implements, footfalls—fragments of sound, sometimes quite loud, sometimes very faint, as if space itself possessed different qualities within the walls. They were haunted by the living.
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