Quillifer the Knight

by Walter Jon Williams

  She might be eighteen or nineteen now, I realized, but those hazel eyes still viewed me as she might view a clown in Blackwell’s theater company. I suspected that at any moment she might command me to perform a somersault.

  “Sir Quillifer has brought a great treasury of gems from a voyage to Tabarzam,” said Her Grace. “Perhaps Your Highness would care to view them?”

  Floria gave me one of her sharp glances. “Are you a jeweler now? I thought you were a lawyer, or a soldier, or a sailor.”

  “Alas, Your Highness,” said I, “I am myself.”

  “Next week,” Floria decided, “you might be a haberdasher.”

  “Have you met Her Highness’s ladies?” said the duchess. “Sir Quillifer, this is Countess Marcella, Mistress Chenée Tavistock, and Mistress Elisa d’Altrey.”

  Mistress Tavistock had light brown hair and an engaging overbite, and Elisa d’Altrey was tall, black-haired, and black-eyed. With pride she wore her classical features, the pale tall brow, the straight nose, and the full lips, and she viewed me with obvious disdain. Countess Marcella was the most striking, for she was an Aekoi, with golden skin and a lithe frame that did not sort entirely with the stiff corsets and gowns worn by ladies of Duisland. I knew of no Aekoi peers in our country, but supposed she might have come from Loretto. She was somewhat older than the others, who were twenty or younger, but I have no great skill at judging the age of Aekoi and guessed she might be around thirty.

  I supposed there was a story behind Countess Marcella, but I would not learn it that night.

  I bowed to the ladies, and then we made pleasant conversation as more guests arrived. I noticed that Floria’s ladies all wore a badge of the same white flower with which the princess had embroidered her gown.

  “It is appropriate that a great lady bearing a floral name should adopt a flower as a badge,” said I. “But why a busy lizzie?”

  Floria looked sat me in surprise. “It is a double impatiens.”

  “In Ethlebight we call them busy lizzies.”

  “Well,” said Floria, “so you would.”

  Her ladies laughed, though I did not quite understand the joke, which made little sense unless the inhabitants of my native city were known for giving quaint names to vegetation, which they are not.

  “Well then,” I said. “Why an impatiens?”

  “That is explained by the motto.”

  I saw now that a motto was stitched in silver thread on the badge, but in letters too tiny for me to read.

  “To read the letters,” I said, “would require me to peer in a rude fashion at your gown, which—”

  Before I could finish, Her Highness snapped open the marabou-feather fan. The feathers were each affixed to a scarlet ribbon to keep them in order, and on the ribbon were embroidered, in New Aekoi, the words SUB UMBRA CONVALO.

  “ ‘I thrive in shade,’ ” I translated. “Very appropriate, Your Highness.”

  “The more so,” said she, “as I am always surrounded by big fellows like you, to stand between me and the sun.”

  But I thought there was more to the motto than that, for Floria would always stand in the shade of her elder half-sister, the queen. And though there was no overt hostility between the sisters, neither was there any visible affection. Berlauda won’t mourn if I break my neck, I had once heard Floria say after a riding accident.

  It occurred to me also that, as convalo had more than one meaning, there was another possible interpretation, which was “In shadow I gather power,” which seemed more the motto of a villainous duke in a play—though if Floria had not intended the double meaning, she could have chosen a different verb, for example vigeo. I wondered what message this innocent white flower was intended to send.

  My musings on Floria’s choice of verbs were cut short as another group of guests strolled into the room. I recognized Master Ransome, the engineer whose alchemical skill had won him the post of queen’s gunfounder, and who now cast giant artillery for the defense of the realm and for his own glory. He was a plump man with glossy mustaches and a self-satisfied air, as if the secrets of the universe had been opened to him alone, and he found them just as he had expected them. On his arm was a somewhat older woman, as gaunt as he was stout, with a narrow, rather beaked nose. The playwright Blackwell arrived shortly afterward and was clearly drunk. Prince Alicio de Ribamar-la-Rose shimmered in his white silk doublet.

  Then I saw Roundsilver come out of his cabinet with Lord Hulme, the chancellor of the exchequer, and I assumed they had been discussing the forthcoming meeting of the Estates. Their Majesties wanted money, and it was Lord Hulme’s task to rake it out of the peers and the Burgesses.

  I excused myself and went to salute Hulme and His Grace. Roundsilver was dressed in a scarlet velvet doublet slashed to reveal his gold satin shirt, for as cousin to Her Majesty he was permitted to wear the royal colors. Hulme wore a black gown and skullcap, with rubies and smaragds shining on his gloved fingers. He was tall and carried himself with dignity, and his hair and beard had more gray than I remembered. The two made a strange pair, the small man shining in his finery, the tall man in darkling dignity.

  The chancellor looked at my glittering rings with dry amusement and spoke in his deep voice. “Your privateering enterprises seem to have done well for you, Sir Quillifer.”

  “I have been lucky, your lordship.” I gestured at his own ring-bedecked hands. “And in matters of fashion, I follow the wisest man in the realm.”

  The chancellor laughed. “There is no point in so flattering me, sir. I can bring you no advancement.”

  “Fie, my lord!” said I. “Have I asked you for work? I would bring no credit to the exchequer, I assure you.”

  The chancellor chose to change the subject. “And Ethlebight? Your city does well? The revenues from the port have risen this last year.”

  I was not surprised that Hulme had the figures firmly lodged in his mind, for he was a very good businessman in addition to being a superior royal servant.

  “Very good progress has been made, my lord,” I said, “especially since many of the captives have now been redeemed. But I’m sure the revenues are far below what they were before the reivers came.”

  “True, they have not recovered entirely. But the port is still silting up, is it not? Any recovery will be temporary.”

  “The port may be threatened, my lord, but the Ostra country is still rich, and produces a plenitude of wool and grain in most years, though this year the storm has ruined the crops, and there may be famine, even if aid is sent promptly.”

  “Her Majesty hopes that the Estates will vote money for the relief of the people,” Hulme said.

  “It is my home country,” said the duke, “and the storm was a great blow, but the silt is killing it.”

  I had some idea for Ethlebight’s revival, but to disclose it was premature. I thought therefore to encourage premature disclosure of a different matter, and so I looked at the two of them and put on my attentive-courtier face. “What are the prospects for the Estates, my lords?”

  They were both practiced politicians, and I sensed nothing from them but amusement. “I hear there will be a fete tomorrow,” said the duke, “at the Guild of Goldsmiths.”

  “Ay,” said the chancellor. “I hope the weather stays fair.”

  “Perhaps we should go fishing on the lake beforehand.”

  “That will give you the privacy you desire,” I said. I bowed in compliment. “You are too practiced, my lords. I give over.”

  The duke craned his neck and looked at his guests. “We have a goodly crowd, gentlemen,” he said. “Perhaps it is time we call on Doctor Heskith to enlighten us.”

  * * *

  In each of his palaces the duke had a room called the Odeon, intended for concerts, lectures, exhibitions, and readings. Straight wooden chairs were set out before a small stage, that night with a lectern and a candle. The straight chairs creaked, and when a speaker heard the creaking growing in frequency and volume, he would k
now he had lost his audience.

  Theodore Heskith had the ill luck to provoke a deal of creaking. He was a young physician who displayed a thin, pale face above the fur-trimmed robe of his profession, and who had taken up philosophy and the problem of the Comet Periodical. This apparition had been shown to reappear in the heavens every seventy-seven years, and caused a great vexation for those who concerned themselves with matters transterrene.

  For it had been held for millennia that our world was at the center of a universe, and that the moon, planets, and stars were fixed to a concentric series of crystal spheres perpetually revolving about our world in celestial harmony, and turned in some accounts by gods or spirits. This description of the universe had recently received two blows. The first was the invention of the telescope, which revealed that the moon was not a flat object fixed to a crystal sphere but was itself a sphere, and furthermore a sphere with mountains and plains and other features similar to those of the earth. Furthermore, the planets, heretofore visible as mere bright dots wandering about the firmament, were now visible as disks, sometimes full and bright, and at other times a crescent, and this transformation implied that they were spheres as well. And moreover, some planets seemed to have companions of their own, bright spots that drifted about them, as if they were satellites.

  All this, the transterrene geometers maintained, could be explained by multiplying the number of crystal spheres, and so tradition was maintained until Magnus Prest of Steggerda, searching through old records, discovered the regularity of the Comet Periodical. For the Comet, in order to traverse its path every seventy-seven years, necessarily had to pierce all those spheres, which by now were numbering in the dozens, like a roundshot flying through a row of wattle cottages. It seemed that the spheres, being perfect and eternal, should have repelled the Comet, or failing that, should have been shattered, and the entire Cosmos broken into pieces.

  Heskith attempted to retrieve the situation with a new theory, which stated that the Comet Periodical, and comets in general, were made of a new element called “non-corpuscular matter,” which had the special property of being able to pass without hindrance through the material of the spheres. He maintained that the existence of non-corpuscular matter was proven by the existence of the comets’ tails, for since no other object in the heavens was observed to have a tail, the tail was clearly a phenomenon peculiar to this special non-corpuscular element.

  The questioning that followed the lecture was opened by Mistress Tavistock asking how the comets would affect the casting of horoscopes, and whether non-corpuscular matter, floating through the atmosphere, could harm people on earth. Heskith responded that there could be no interaction between his new element and any other, and that therefore no harm or benefit was possible. His answer to the question of the horoscopes was complex and recondite—which was not unexpected, for a physician would of course cast a patient’s horoscope before prescribing any treatment, and would be familiar with astrology’s intricacies—but insofar as I could understand it, Heskith did not seem to come to any conclusion.

  “For the art of astrology is based on thousands of years of observation,” he concluded, “of the stars and planets, of the tides, and of human character. No study seems to have been made of cometary influence.”

  I was more than a little surprised at this answer, for I had never known a physician to admit to any lack of knowledge, but instead to promptly contrive a diagnosis, whether or not it flew in the face of reality, then prescribe a remedy and pocket his fee. This seemed even more remarkable in a physician who could invent such a concept as non-corpuscular matter.

  Ransome the engineer was quick to respond. “What evidence have you that this new element exists?” he said. “It cannot be found on earth. So it seems you observe a phenomenon, and then you claim it is something entirely new in the universe.” He preened his mustaches with a plump finger, like a smug cat cleaning his face on the hearth. “Why” he said, “anyone could make such a claim, and about any phenomenon at all. You could observe a waterfall, and claim that the water that falls is a special form of water unlike water that flows through flat country.”

  Heskith did his best to ignore Ransome’s insinuant tone. “Philosophy strives for logic and completeness of theory,” he said. “My theory of non-corpuscular matter is in accord with all observations, and preserves the scientific traditions that have been passed to us by the great minds of the past.”

  Ransome’s gaunt companion was eager to lodge her own objections. She spoke very quickly and in a voice that rang in the room like a clarion. “What evidence have you that even the crystal spheres exist?” she demanded.

  “Why, Mistress Ransome,” said the physician, “surely the planets and the stars must be suspended from something. And that something must be transparent, else it would be visible.”

  “What then suspends your comets?” she demanded. “It cannot be crystal spheres, if your non-corpuscular matter cannot be influenced by ordinary matter.”

  Heskith seemed not to have considered this, and his desperation became plain. “Perhaps there are spheres of non-corpuscular matter,” he said, “which would account for their ability to pass through the spheres of crystal.”

  “If there are non-corpuscular spheres,” demanded Ransome, “then why do they not have tails?”

  That completed Dr. Heskith’s rout, and the duke, in his mercy, rose to announce an end to the lecture. He added that there was a banquet awaiting us on the sideboard in the next room, and reminded us that telescopes were set out on the broad lawn that ran from his palace to the river.

  The banquet was a new idea in Duisland and consisted of a meal without meat, at which the guests served themselves. The duke’s banquet featured nuts, fruits, bread, cheeses, pastries, and sweets, all served cold, alongside hot wassail with cloves, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, cherries, oranges, sherry, and brandy to keep us warm as we viewed the skies. I thawed myself with the punch while nibbling a bit of cheese, and then I felt a degree of alarm as the princess Floria came marching up to me along with her three ladies.

  “Sir Quillifer,” said she, “why were you so silent during the lecture? I fully expected you to put forward your own thesis of the universe, and vaunt your superiority over everybody.”

  “To submit my theory at this time might be premature, Highness,” I responded. “I should acquaint myself further with the subject, perhaps read a book or two.”

  Her darting eyes settled upon me. “That is uncharacteristically modest of you.”

  “I am very humble, Your Highness.” I bowed and “cast my eyes down,” as the saying is. “I am a mere naufrageous knight. My humility,” I expanded, “is without doubt the greatest in the land.”

  She nodded. “I observe that it is.”

  I straightened and glanced over the crowd. “Is Mistress Ransome married to Ransome the gunfounder?” I asked. “I had not heard that he had wed.” And indeed they seemed an unlikely couple, for I thought Ransome was too self-regarding to marry anyone who did not more closely resemble a bauble or an ornament.

  “That is Edith Ransome,” Floria said, “Master Ransome’s sister.”

  “Ah. There is little family resemblance.”

  “Other than that they both enjoy an argument. I will introduce you.” The princess suddenly cocked her head, like a bird, and fixed me with one eye. “Naufrageous?” she said.

  “It’s a new word. I made it up. It comes from—”

  “Naufrage, in maritime law. I know. But you have been shipwrecked? Or is your new word but a metaphor for a life gone tragically on the rocks?”

  “I lost Royal Stilwell in the great storm in July,” I said. “Though we saved all the crew, and most of the cargo.” I showed her my hand, with its rings and crooked finger. “Including my box of shiny boulders.”

  “I am heartily sorry that the great ship named for my father has been lost,” said the princess. “But was not Royal Stilwell a ship owned by the crown before it somehow came into yo
ur hands?”

  “It was acquired legally,” I pointed out.

  “All great thefts are legal,” the princess observed. “I should enjoy your tale of the shipwreck, as well as hear you boast of how you came by the ship in the first place, but at another time. For here is Mistress Ransome.”

  The gaunt woman joined us, wrapping herself expertly in shawls and pinning them in place. “Horagalles is well above the horizon,” she said. “We should have a good view.” Her voice was more pleasant when she was not shouting at hapless prey. I observed that she wore the badge of the double impatiens, and therefore was one of Floria’s ladies.

  Mistress Ransome came in company with her brother, who looked very sleek with his finely groomed head above the immaculate lace of his collar. “Quillifer!” he said. “I haven’t seen you in ages!”

  “You look well fed,” said I. “I believe you’ve just devoured a theory of the empyrean.”

  Ransome was amused, but I was answered by his sister. “People say the most absurd things about the heavens,” she said, “and as in truth we know so little, they feel they cannot be contradicted.” She gave a thin-lipped smile. “But I will contradict them. If I cannot yet prove my own theory, I can at least reveal their ignorance.”

  “That is fine practice,” I said. “In theory.”

  Floria gave me another of her looks. “Sir Quillifer says he may read a book or two, and thus arrive at a thesis of his own.”

  Mistress Ransome snorted. “The world hardly needs another thesis!” she said. “What we need is knowledge!”

  “May the Pilgrim illumine you,” said I politely.

  Mistress Ransome snorted again, which I understood to be a comment on the likelihood of the Pilgrim to illuminate anyone at all. “And your thesis?” she asked.

  “I have none,” said I, “as Her Highness surely knows. But I spoke to Coronel Lipton this morning, of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, and he offered the observation that the planets travel through the skies like roundshot fired from great bombards, and that comets trail fire in an arc like bursting shot.”