Quillifer

by Walter Jon Williams

  “It’s very fine, I’m sure,” Utterback said. “You will excuse me?”

  He turned, took a pace, and encountered me, who stood as ever with my stylus and wax tablet ready, and my attentive-courtier face fixed firmly to his visage.

  “I beg your pardon,” I said, and took a step away to allow Utterback to pass. As the count’s son walked on, frowning at the floor, I followed.

  “My lord,” I said, “it’s clear that the mission of the Embassy Royal will require a large correspondence, both with the court and with those here in Ethlebight. I wonder if you are considering a secretary to manage these affairs.”

  Utterback’s frown deepened, and he halted. He looked at me briefly, then returned his gaze to the floor.

  “I write my own letters,” he said.

  “Of course, my lord, but—”

  Lord Utterback looked up again. “Write my own letters,” he said, with more emphasis, and turned to walk on.

  I saw little point in pursuit. Instead, I turned back to Gribbins and asked the same question.

  “So irksome will be your correspondence,” I said, “I wonder if the Embassy should employ a secretary.”

  Gribbins smoothed his beard with ringed fingers. “The town has not seen fit to vote the Embassy a secretary,” he said, “greatly though it would add to the dignity of our emprise. Alas, we will have to write our own petition to the throne.”

  “Ay, you must,” said I, “if you know the form.”

  Gribbins looked up sharply. “The form?” he asked.

  I put on my pompous-magistrate face and affected a sniff. “Boors and rustics may scrawl their petitions on scraps of paper and push them through the crack beneath the palace door,” I said, “but the Embassy of a great city would be expected to know the proper form for a royal petition, the modus sanctified by protocol, usage, and the custom of centuries. Everything from the choice of the calfskin to the arrangement of the seals must respect the proprieties.” I looked at Gribbins in alarm. “Surely, you do not want the petition rejected because some chamberlain turns up his nose at deficiencies in the punctilio, or a lawyer points out infelicities in the phrasing!”

  Gribbins clutched at the purfled border of his robe. “Indeed I do not!” he said. “Where can I find this form?”

  “Many lawyers would know,” I said. “But of course, we have few advocates left in the city, and these are consumed entirely in preparation for the delayed assizes. I myself may claim a clear proficiency in the art of the petition, as Master Dacket drilled me ceaselessly in the praxis.” I drew closer to the apothecary. “Do you know, sir, that the wording in the induction is drawn from Mallio’s Rhetorica Forensica, and in the Rawlings translation, not in the Delward as you might expect?”

  “Not the Delward,” Gribbins muttered, “but the Rawlings.” His voice sounded like a blind mouse scrabbling in its nest of paper.

  Within another two minutes, I had secured my post as the secretary for the Embassy Royal.

  * * *

  The Embassy left not the next day, for an astrologer hired by Gribbins had declared the day inauspicious, but on the afternoon of the day following, which the occultist declared ideal.

  “A pity that this magus, so perfect in his auguries, did not forewarn the city’s sack,” I said to Kevin.

  “He could not scry the stars,” Kevin said. “Remember the night was cloudy.”

  We stood in the square and watched the loading of the expedition’s grand carriage. The carriage was a great, heavy object, tall and stately as a galleon, and like a galleon festooned with ornaments and carvings painted gold, knights and monsters twined in battle. A smaller, much plainer carriage, like a light, agile pinnace, carried the baggage.

  The Court of the Teazel Bird, whose King the great carriage bore in procession, was a fraternity of wealthy burgesses who dressed as knights and lord of ancient times, and named themselves after the legendary heroes of the Teazel romances. They feasted regularly in their towered palace on Scarcroft Square, and sponsored jousts and other entertainments on days of festival. But now most of them, including this year’s King, had been carried away by the corsairs, and the survivors were content to loan their carriage to the Embassy.

  “That great heavy thing will take forever to reach Selford,” Kevin said. “Wouldn’t a fast messenger serve better?”

  “A messenger will not serve Gribbins’s vanity,” I said. “He wishes to make a grand entrance into Selford, and become a great figure at the court.”

  “And Lord Utterback does not check this?” Kevin said. “He puts up with this preening fathead?”

  “Utterback can’t be bothered to oppose or propose. He can barely be bothered to speak.”

  “Ah, well.” Kevin made a sour face. “Ethlebight will then be on its own for the winter.”

  “The winter will at least drive the corsairs from our door. Those little galleys of theirs will never bear our winter gales.”

  A small group came from the broken doors of the city hall, Gribbins and Utterback, Judge Travers, the Cobbs, and Sir Stanley Mattingly clanking in armor. When the reivers had occupied Cow Island, Sir Stanley had brought the entire household away from Mutton Island, marching them along the mucky causeway at low tide, and with as many sheep and goats as his shepherds could bring. The dependents now lived in the Forest of Ailey, feasting on mutton where the corsairs were unlikely to find them; and Sir Stanley had donned armor and come riding on his big-framed yellow horse to Ethlebight, where he anointed himself the savior of the city.

  In my capacity as secretary to the council, I had transcribed the great debate between Sir Stanley and Sir Towsley Cobb over which would be appointed Deputy Lord Lieutenant and placed in charge of the county’s defense. The two had shouted and roared and proclaimed, and in the end, Sir Stanley had outbawled both his rival and his sons and secured the appointment. Sir Towsley had to be content with becoming Deputy Lord Warden, an appointment meaningless as the Lord Warden commanded only royal troops, and the royal soldiers in the New Castle had all been taken or slaughtered.

  In any case, the appointments would have to be confirmed by the King.

  I appreciated the scene as a kind of low, earthy comedy; but otherwise couldn’t help but note that one candidate for commander of the military despised me as a Butcher’s son, while the other had shot at me only a few days earlier. I kept my eyes on my wax tablet when Sir Stanley glanced my way, and decided that, under the circumstances, I was not destined for martial renown.

  At least I was pleased the milkmaid Ella was safe. I pictured her lying on a bed of moss in the Forest of Ailey, her heart-shaped face turned up to the night sky, the moonlight a shimmer in her dark eyes. Did she think of me, I wondered, as she lay there, and wonder how I fared, caught in the fall of the city and perhaps killed? Did she mourn me, without knowing I was alive? Did she long for me, alone on her verdant couch?

  Gribbins began to speak from the steps of the city hall. The alderman had prepared a farewell address, and he was determined to read it even though my audience consisted of perhaps a dozen bystanders, plus the footmen and servants atop the carriage. I stood in an attitude of respect while my mind returned to midnight thoughts of Ella, languorous on her bed of moss. A voice murmured in my ear, one with the accent of Bonille.

  “Ambition is laudable in its way. But advancement comes in its season, and a man who grasps at a passing opportunity with such desperate fervor runs the risk of becoming ridiculous.”

  I turned to Judge Travers and bowed. “You refer to our vaunting embassy?”

  “Not at all.” Amusement played about Travers’s lips. “If anyone, I refer to you, and to your great petition.” He reached out a hand, not unkindly, and touched my shoulder. “I trust you have acquired a copy of Rhetorica Forensica in the Delward translation, and not the Rawlings?”

  I felt heat rise to my face. “My lord, I have so provided myself.” The Delward was part of the booty from Crook’s bookshop.

  “That is
well. I have assured Alderman Gribbins of your ability, but he will want to check your work.”

  “I hope that he shall.” I realized that I spoke a bit more defiantly than I intended, and I lowered my voice. “I thank you, my lord, for your kind interest.”

  “I think you may do well in the capital,” Travers said, “particularly if you learn to mask your ambition behind a pretense of humility.”

  I felt my lip curl in anger. “Sir, I have lately encountered much in my life to keep me humble.”

  Again the judge touched my shoulder. “I believe, young Goodman Quillifer, that I did say pretense.” And with a smile, he turned away. Kevin’s voice came into my other ear.

  “That seemed unnecessarily cryptic.”

  I let out a breath, then turned to Kevin. “Nay,” I said. “Not cryptic enough.”

  Judge Travers had warned me against grasping for advantage; but that grasping was what I saw all about me, a greedy rush for vacant offices and honors, the candidates all a-froth with vaunting and vanity. Why should I refrain when everyone else was clutching with both hands?

  At last the Embassy Royal left the stairs and went into the carriage, and I gave a farewell embrace to Kevin and followed Gribbins into the carriage. The scent of leather and polish rose to my senses. I took the little sword from my belt, tucked up my lawyer’s robe around me, and prepared to sit next to the alderman. I became aware that Gribbins was staring at me with his rheumy blue eyes.

  “What mean you here?” said the alderman.

  “I, sir?” I was surprised. “I mean to sit. Would you rather have this place?”

  “Young man,” said Gribbins, “you are a servant. Admittedly, a secretary is a superior sort of servant, but still your place is atop the carriage, or with the luggage in the servants’ conveyance.”

  I was too startled to be offended. “As you wish, sir.”

  I opened the carriage door and prepared to step out, but Gribbins put me another question.

  “Quillifer,” he said, “have you recovered your father’s chain? His alderman’s chain, I mean?”

  I had given up my seat, and was not inclined to give up anything else. “It was lost in the fire,” I said, the truth as far as it went.

  “The chain belongs to the office,” Gribbins said, “not to the bearer. If you were to find it, you should return it to the council.”

  Judge Travers had begun a fund to pay the ransoms of the corsairs’ captives, and in a spasm of anger, guilt, and frustration, I had donated half the money I’d recovered from my father’s strongbox. The chain I fully intended to keep as a memory of my father—or, if necessary, to sell it link by link to support myself in the capital.

  “The house was burned,” I said. “And my family with it.”

  The apothecary made a fussy little tilt of his head. “Can’t be helped, I suppose.” And then he frowned. “I see you carry a sword.”

  “I took it from one of the corsairs, sir.”

  “Did your father have a grant of arms?”

  I blinked. The pertinence of armorial bearings escaped me.

  “No,” I said. “He didn’t.”

  “If your father did not have a grant of arms,” Gribbins said, “he was not a gentleman, and neither therefore are you. I do not mean to say anything against your condition, but nevertheless you are not entitled to bear a sword in public.”

  “Ah.” I considered this, and put on a dutiful-apprentice face. “May I keep the sword until we are out of range of the enemy? I should prefer not to be without a weapon.”

  While Gribbins gnawed on this matter, I glanced at Lord Utterback, and saw a glint of sardonic amusement in the young man’s eyes.

  “Keep the sword,” Utterback said.

  Gribbins chewed his lip. “Are you certain, my lord?” he asked. “I wish to be most observant of all the regularities, so as not to bring disrepute upon the dignity of the Embassy.”

  Utterback closed his eyes and leaned his head against the plush velvet cushion. “He may keep the sword,” he said.

  “Keep it now? By which I mean, for the present? Or also in the capital? Would that not be irregular?”

  I did not stay for the answer, if there was one, but instead climbed onto the carriage roof, where my fellow drudges welcomed me with the smirks plain on their faces. There were four of them: the coachman, reeking of brandy, and three footmen, each armed with a hardwood truncheon and a blunderbuss. I sat and looked out over the square to see if Travers had witnessed this valuable lesson in humility, but apparently, the judge had left the scene.

  The driver snapped his whip, the postilion kicked his lead horse with his special reinforced boot, and the great carriage groaned into motion. It swayed across the square and onto Eastgate Street, nearly deserted, and with burnt-out buildings gaping amid the others like the black stumps of broken teeth in a prizefighter’s smile. I couldn’t help but compare this dispiriting sight to the bustle that had carried me down Royall Street only days before, the great pulse of sailors and hucksters, carters and shopkeepers that had flowed through the veins of the city.

  Soon enough, the carriage passed beneath the gatehouse and out into the country. It was a fine autumn day, the sun bright and the air cool, and it was no hardship to be in the open.

  I looked past the two footmen on the rear seat and watched Ethlebight lurch out of sight. Before the raid, the city held eight thousand people, with another six or eight thousand in neighboring villages, farms, and estates. The reivers had taken four thousand at least, according to Judge Travers’s inexact poll, and could have taken more if they wished—and probably they hadn’t so wished, because their raid had been successful beyond their most ambitious dreams. They had as many captives as their ships could carry, and no need to seek more.

  And for the most part, they had taken the best. After scaling the harbor wall on ropes and rope ladders—for sailors climb well—and then taking the River Gatehouse, the invaders had split into several groups, each with its own mission. The New Castle was taken as easily as the gatehouse, and the other gates were secured. And then groups set to work rounding up loot and captives, attacking first the wealthiest districts of the town, then expanding outward.

  The Lord Mayor had been taken, most of the aldermen, the Lord Lieutenant and the Warden of the Castle, and the chief merchants like Gregory Spellman. Countinghouses had been plundered, taking even the contracts and deeds. A few hundred were killed when they resisted, and a few hundred more when they proved unworthy of ransom.

  With the best folk gone, survivors now squabbled over what remained. The Cobbs and Sir Stanley, Gribbins and the supine Lord Utterback. Picking through the ashes, preening over the prospect of new titles and new dignities.

  And none of them speaking aloud what to me was perfectly obvious: that the city had been betrayed. Someone who knew the way had taken the enemy fleet through the twisting channels that separated Ethlebight from the sea, and directed the corsairs to where they could find the most plunder and the richest hostages. The raid had been planned by a mind that knew the city intimately.

  Perhaps it was wise for the city not to consider this at present. A hunt for a traitor would be a distraction, especially as the turncoat had almost certainly sailed from the city with his new friends and his share of the loot. At best, they would find a scapegoat, hang him, and the real villain would go free.

  But still, that traitor had killed my family, and I groped in my own mind for a name that seemed just out of reach. Someone who hated the city, or who had suffered a reversal of some sort and taken this obscene way to fill his empty coffers . . .

  No name presented itself. And the carriage lurched and shuddered its way east, and left the plundered city and its mysteries behind.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  * * *

  even days later, I sat at a table at the Men and Mayds Tavern by the waterfront in Amberstone, and scratched with a quill on a piece of paper.

  To the Worthy and Esteemed Mercer Kevin Spellm
an, from his schoolfriend, the unproven ambassador Quillifer, Greetings:

  The Embassy Royal stayeth a third night in Amberstone, as Master Gribbins hath not yet received the worship and acclaim of every single inhabitant thereof. There will be another banquet tonight, in the guild hall, & a breakfast tomorrow at the expense of the Worshipfull Guild of Apothecaries, & because the splendor & gravity of the Embassy knoweth no limit, Master Gribbins will wax full of rhetoric & windy addresses, all of which will be placed in his mouth by his suffering secretary, who feeds the Ambassador’s vanity with bonbons verbal, as ladies feed their spaniels. Surely no more ridiculous progress has been seen in the nation, at least since the Fool Pretender marched to his execution, while thinking he marched to his throne.

  The logomania of the apothecary is met by the silence of Lord Utterback, who endures the prattle all the hours of the day & utters barely a syllable in response. His lassitude is remarkable to behold, and sometimes I wonder if he is simply an imbecile. (Do you like “logomania?” I made it up.)

  I suppose you will have heard of the death of good King Stilwell in Bretlynton Head, of a sudden illness on his progress to Howel. We encountered the messenger three days ago, riding post to Ethlebight. The gods rest our King, sith the Pilgrim will not care.

  The King had crossed the sea before the corsairs attacked Ethlebight, and our embassy would not have caught him even if we had ridden the fastest horses in the kingdom. But the rider told us the princesses are still in Selford, and will remain there until our new Queen Berlauda is enthroned on Coronation Hill. As monarchs often mark their accession by acts of generosity, I hope we may move her majesty to render aid to our city, at least if we arrive before our backsides are shaken to bits by the coast road.

  It is the worst road in the kingdom, I am told. Anyone moving east or west along the coast would take the faster journey by sea, so the road exists only for the convenience of those who live along it, & their labor, or their sense of duty, is insufficient to keep it in repair. The great carriage of the Embassy Royal heaved itself along the road like a bull seal wallowing on a beach, lurching from rock to rut to pothole, & every toss & roll & pitch rattled my teeth & shivered my brains. After the first day I shifted my aching backside to the lighter baggage coach, which travels with more ease.