“Sin upon sin,” he said. “I should have stopped it then. It went on for too long and Albion was almost brought to ruin by it. Come.”
“No.”
He reached out his grey, gauntleted hand and he took her almost gently by the wrist. “Come.”
Her great strength was all gone. She became reconciled. She rose slowly and was obedient. At her feet the candle began to gutter.
She reached the circle of moonlight. With his hand still on her, Montfallcon pushed her mother’s headless body away from the block. Gloriana, swooning, fell to her knees. Fell into blood.
From the gallery a cool, amused voice called out to her. “Aha, Glory. I see you’ve found your old friend.”
Montfallcon growled and forced her head towards the granite.
“Here I am,” said Quire. He spoke conversationally, as if to Gloriana. “He’s been searching for me for weeks. “Tis a game we’ve been playing, Mont and me, in the walls.”
“Ah!” She broke free and began to crawl back towards the dais.
Montfallcon stumbled over the corpse of his daughter, regained his footing and slowly began to raise his broadsword as he pursued her.
Then Quire was flitting down the steps, his own rapier in his little hand, his black cloak flying, his sombrero thrown clear, his thick hair bouncing around his long face, darting towards Montfallcon as a terrier at a bear, until he stood grinning between them. “Here I am, Mont.”
The broadsword swept down, whistling, to crash with all its weight on Quire’s guard. Montfallcon voiced frightful glee as Quire went down. Quire steadied himself with his free hand and tried to reach for the dagger in the scabbard on his hip, but it had slipped too far around his waist. He ducked, instead, and came up behind the turning Montfallcon, who sideswept with a blow that would have cut Quire in two at the thigh. But Quire had danced back, aiming his riposte at Montfallcon’s only unguarded flesh—his grey face. The sword touched Montfallcon’s cheek, just below the eye, but was knocked back with an iron arm. The broadsword rose again.
Gloriana cried to them: “No!” She could tolerate no more killing. She would rather die herself.
Quire was smiling as his thin blade struck into Montfall-con’s right eye and pierced the head.
The crash of the grey lord’s falling echoed and echoed in Gloriana’s brain. She covered her ears. She closed her eyes. She was weeping.
Through the darkness Quire approached her and again she began to climb backwards towards the throne, as afraid of him as she had been afraid of her grandfather.
Quire paused. “I have saved you, Glory.”
“It does not matter,” she said.
“What? No gratitude left? No love?”
“Nothing,” she said. “You taught me well. You taught me to love only myself.”
He was pleased with his victory over Montfallcon. He advanced with his old swagger. “But I am a hero today, not a villain. Surely I have reprieved myself a little? A kiss, at least, Glory. For your Quire, who loves you dearly and always shall.”
“You are a liar! You cannot love. You are a creature made up entirely of hate. You can imitate any emotion. You can feel very few.”
He considered this. “True enough,” he agreed. “Once.” He came on again. “But I love you now.” He sheathed his sword. “I’ll go. Only thank me first.”
“How long were you there? How long were you watching? Did you let the drama run its course to maximum effect until you acted? Could you not have saved that poor creature’s life—my mother, whom you used so badly?”
“Dee found her pleasant and, while her mind was soothed by what I gave her, she was pleased by Dee. They were happy for several months. Happier than they had ever been before. And she killed Doctor Dee, do not forget.”
“You could have saved her.”
He shrugged. “Why?”
“You are still the old cruel Quire, then.”
“I am still a practical fellow, I know that. It is others who put these definitions on me. My name is Captain Arturus Quire. I am a scholar and a soldier of a good family.”
“And the mightiest, most evil rogue in Albion.” She mocked him. “You’ll have no kiss from me, Quire. You are a deserter! You fled. You removed your support.”
“What? With all those witnesses accusing me? I was tactful, certainly.” Quire took another pace forward.
She smiled. “None accuse you now. There’s the real irony. Your victims forgive you or refuse to believe you the cause of their distress!” She retreated.
He stopped. He put his hands on his hips. “I see no point in playing hero. I was always told that when one saved a fair lady from death one received a favour.” His tone became serious. “I want you, Glory.”
“You cannot have me, Captain Quire. I am Albion’s Queen. I am not mortal. Besides, you taught me how to hate. I was innocent of that emotion before.”
He began to lose his temper. “I have waited for you. I have been patient. I taught you strength. And I learned love from you. Name your terms. I’ll accept ’em. I love you, Glory.”
“Patience has no reward save itself,” she said, still full of fear. “I used to give myself to anyone whose loins ached a little, because I knew what it was to ache. I ached so, Quire. Then you soothed it away and I lost myself. Now I ache again, but I have no sympathy for you or anyone at all. I would rather ache than satisfy another’s lust, because always, when that lust is satisfied, I remain—aching still.”
“Romance is ever attended by Guilt,” he said casually. He drew his sword again. He motioned. “Come to me, Glory.” He glared.
“You threaten me now. With the very death from which you saved me, and so proudly, too. Very well, Captain Quire. I’ll return to the block for you.” She began to descend.
He snarled and he took her with both his hands, abandoning his blade. “Gloriana!”
“Captain Quire.” She was stone in his grip.
He dropped his hands.
She walked past him, through the old, haunted corridors, and into the gardens. They smelled of warm autumn, still.
She crossed the gardens and went through her private gate. She passed her maze, her silent fountains, her dying flowers. She entered her own bedroom.
He had not followed.
Recalling her anxiety, she thought, for her daughter, she entered her old secret lodgings and faced the door to the seraglio.
She passed, on yielding carpet, through into the soothing dark. None lived here now. She recalled that her daughter had been sent to Sussex. She made to return, but paused. Suddenly a thousand bloody images came to her. “Oh!”
In the absolute darkness of the seraglio she fell upon her cushions and began to weep. “Quire!”
Quire spoke from somewhere. “Glory.”
A delusion. She looked up. Beyond the archway into the next vault there was a candle burning. It moved towards her, revealing Quire’s tortured face, floating.
She stood up, stone again.
He sighed and put the candle into the bracket on one of the buttresses. “I love you. I shall have you. It’s my right, Glory.”
“You have none. You are a murderer, a spy, a deceiver.”
’You hate me?”
“I know you. You are selfish. You have no heart.”
“Enough,” he said. “It was no wish of mine. I betray all my own faith. But you taught me to believe in love, to accept it. Won’t you accept mine?”
“I love Albion. Nothing but Albion. And Gloriana is Albion.”
“Then shall I rape Albion?” He drew his sword and placed the point at her throat. She pressed towards it, challenging him to kill her.
“You have already failed in that,” she told him.
He glowered. He took a fold of her gown and he tore it away from her. He found the shift below and tore that. He tore and tore until all her clothes were gone, and still she did not move, but stared with hatred into his face. He seized her breasts and her buttocks, her womb, her mouth. She w
ould not move, save to sway a little when he threatened to make her fall.
He pulled her down to the cushions. He spread her legs. He ripped away his britches to reveal what she had seen so many times before. She refused to weep, though tears threatened. He entered her. Over his shoulder she saw the knife, sheathed at his belt. She reached for it and found it. She drew it forth as he grunted and cursed and kissed and heaved. She raised it, looking beyond him into the candlelight and a sudden image of blood-stained stone, sharp and black and hard as it appeared so frequently in her dreams. The image melted. She cared for nothing but herself. And then she began to tremble, thinking that the whole palace quaked, that the roof must fall. And she gasped. Little, surprised, childish sounds came from her throat. Her body was filled with stinging heat. “Oh!” Wondering, she kissed him. “Quire!”
She shook so mightily and knew so much joy as if she received recompense for every failure she had ever known, that she screamed a high wavering scream which filled the roof and rang throughout the entire palace, perhaps through Albion, as she came.
And the dagger she still held in her hand was brought down with tremendous force, to pass through soft silk and to snap upon the stones of her seraglio.
Quire jumped back, careless of his own unfinished pleasure, and his face was suddenly quite innocent; it seemed every sin had been removed from his soul at once. And he laughed loudly, into the dying echo of her cry. “Ha! Gloriana!”
Then she began, with such utter happiness, to weep.
“Oh, Quire. We are both redeemed.”
THE THIRTY-FIFTH CHAPTER
In Which Albion Shall Begin a New Age That Shall Be Truly One of Golden Moderation with Romance and Reason in Balance at Last
AS THE WARMTH OF AUTUMN shall give way at last to the cool of winter, so shall the Moon of Romance be married to the Sun of Reason and Gloriana, Queen of Albion, be wed to her Prince Arthur of Valentia, causing much celebration throughout the Empire, for it shall be revealed, by way of Sir Thomasin Ffynne, the Queen’s High Admiral, that Captain Arturus Quire was, in fact, his ward—the last surviving nephew of Lord Montfallcon, whose family was slain by King Hern. The tale of Captain Quire’s commoner’s upbringing and how he came to Court, taking part in a pageant and winning the attention, and later the love, of the Queen, shall be on all lips, as shall its sequel, of how Quire’s enemies grew jealous of him, how poor Lord Montfallcon, not realising Quire’s true birth, schemed against him and others, including Sir Thomas Perrott, then killed himself when he realised the truth, that he had sought to destroy his own nephew. It shall be told how Quire almost singlehandedly saved the Realm and brought reconciliation to the Queen, to the rival factions, to Albion and to the world itself.
Chivalry shall flourish again, but it shall be of a more practical order under Prince Arthur’s influence, for he will reduce a little of the romance (feeling his own tale, perhaps, to contain enough of that) and increase the realism, so that honour shall be seen to be at once a stranger and more ordinary thing than many previously knew.
They shall be married in November, in time to begin a Progress throughout the Realm, to span the Yuletide season. And, while they are gone, the walls of the great palace shall be revealed, with all their antique rooms, and light brought to every corner, and the vagabonds still dwelling there shall be made comfortable in hostelries especially prepared for them, and large parts of the once hidden palace shall be opened to the citizens of London, for their recreation.
Prince Arthur and Queen Gloriana shall begin their Progress by taking the State Barge, the old Golden Barge of the Queen’s ancestors, down the river towards the sea, there to guest with Sir Amadis Cornfield and his Perrott kinsmen, whose lands abound the great estuary. They shall sail from the dock at Charing Cross, on their high, golden galley, between embankments lined with bare elm trees. Through the rich, dead leaves hiding the hooves of their brown and black horses, knights shall ride on both sides, escorting the barge. The knights shall wear armour of dark gold and silver, their surcoats shall be russet, and their upright lances shall bear all the great Chivalric arms of Albion. And the Queen shall look down the river, beyond London’s walls, to where the hills are, dark green and yellow, and she will turn to her Consort, who shall wear black velvet and an awkward crown of near-black rubies and gold, and she will hug him and say to him: “Oh, my love! What a sober little King you have become!”
And behind them will be the palace, with its glinting domes and roofs rising and falling like a glamorous tide; its towers and minarets lifting like the masts and hulks of sinking ships.
AFTERWORD
FOR THIS EDITION
HAUNTED PALACES AND
POISONED CHALICES
The World of Gloriana
FOR ALL ITS gratifying press and receipt of several awards, this novel got off to a bit of a rocky start in 1978 when it was published in England. The Times Literary Supplement hated it at some length, and this seemed to prime a few famous faces who went on TV to say how much they loathed it, too. Germaine Greer, curling her lip as only she can curl it, and Yehudi Menuhin, shuddering with distaste as only he could shudder, thought it was positively disgusting, while admitting they hadn’t actually read it. I began to think I had a stinker on my hands until things picked up a bit and some of the more positive reviews came in. Angela Carter, Carolyn Slaughter, and D. M. Thomas were very kind about it, and Peter Ackroyd not only praised it in print but praised it again on both TV and radio. It went on to become a bestseller in the UK and Poland, went into a lot of foreign editions, and I’m pleased to say has never been out of print in English since. In fact it is currently in two different editions in England, since it was included, much to my gratification, in the excellent Fantasy Masterworks series. I mention all this with due humility, I hope, since the book was conceived in relation to two books I greatly admired, both of which are inarguably masterpieces that set a benchmark when they were published, roughly four centuries apart. The first is Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and the second is Peake’s Titus Groan.
Needless to say I never had the pleasure of meeting Spenser, but I knew Peake well and he was very kind to me when I first met him as a boy in the 1950s. Subsequently we became friends, and when he developed his terrible illness, I made it my business to do everything I could to keep his name and his work alive, for he had temporarily slipped out of fashion. I am particularly proud of the fact that, with Oliver Caldecott, who died some years ago, I was instrumental in publishing the Titus sequence as a Penguin Modern Classic and assuring it, finally, of a large audience. Peake was an authentic genius, who could draw and paint as well as he could write books and poetry. I was very lucky to have known him and his family. His wife Maeve Gilmore was an outstanding artist in her own right, as is his son Fabian and, at the time of writing, I am preparing a personal memoir with contributions from his children Sebastian, Fabian and Clare about the love Mervyn and Maeve shared for each other and how it was put to the test during his final years. He established a standard both as a man and as an artist, which served me as a model throughout my adult life. It was Peake who made me realize it was possible to confront real human issues through the medium of fantasy, and while much of my early fantasy was characteristically heroic adventure fiction, I wanted to write at least one book that would say thank you to him.
In an early series of articles I had written for the British magazine Science Fantasy, called “Aspects of Fantasy,” I had dealt with the idea of what Harry Levin calls “the haunted palace of the mind” and was of a generation that recognized not only Kafka’s surreal fables as having psychological and philosophical meaning, but which analyzed most fantastic art in terms of its relation to the unconscious and how it reflected its society. Like Peake, I had grown up on The Pilgrim’s Progress, Bunyan’s great moral allegory, and innocently thought that all books were supposed to have at least two levels of meaning. I read the Gormenghast stories in this light, though Peake himself denied any secondary intention
, just as I read Lovecraft and other fantasts, who also denied any deliberate allegorical intent. In “Aspects of Fantasy,” parts of which much later formed the basis of my long essay “Wizardry and Wild Romance,” I pointed out how Gormenghast could represent a human skull and the warrens and catacombs within stand for the inner workings of the psyche.
Similarly, I read Spenser as the allegory he had intended, understanding it to be about chivalric Christian virtue embodied, as he saw it, in the person of Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, Elizabeth the First of England. Denizens of her fairy court were, in many cases, figures recognizable to his contemporary audience and Spenser was praising Elizabeth for what he had decided were her ideal virtues and therefore the virtues of his England. That this was a political document, intended like the various “Arthurian” Round Tables and other chivalric reproductions created by the Elizabethans at this, the birth of the British Empire as we came to know it, has rarely been disputed. If Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso is the more complete and possibly better model, I had no particular argument with him. But, being the staunch anti-imperialist that I am, I did have an argument with Spenser, much as I loved his work.
I had read both Spenser and Ariosto originally in editions aimed at young readers. Then I had of course accepted unquestioningly the notions of chivalry they offered (I’m still a bit of a sucker for accounts of noble self-sacrifice). No doubt I absorbed, as every English schoolchild does, Marlowe’s and Shakespeare’s arguments concerning the divinity of kings. As I got older I never lost my enthusiasm for them, but the world became more complex and I did learn to question some of their assumptions. I began to realize that the idealism they offered was a little at odds with my experience, for I was growing up at a time when the whole basis of British imperialism was in question. Victorian pomp and circumstance was giving way to the rationality of people like Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, who understood how easily our idealism could be harnessed in the service of powerful special interests.
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