Quillifer the Knight

by Walter Jon Williams

  “I should not like to set the scenery on fire, or the players.”

  “You can spare some of the clowns,” said I.

  “I can make smoke,” said Mountmirail, “and blow it out with a kind of bellows.”

  “Yet you must build a fire to make this smoke,” said Blackwell, “and I think Their Majesties would object if I set fire to the palace during the course of the performance.”

  “They would just call the Estates to pay for a new palace,” I said. “But Master Mountmirail, may I speak with you for a moment in my cabinet?”

  I took Mountmirail away to my private study. “I wonder, goodman,” I asked him. “What do you know of rocks?”

  “Rocks?” he said.

  * * *

  The next day came the news that the chancellor, Baron Hulme, had been dismissed from the Council, and that his deputy, Sir Edmund Tryon, had also lost his place. They had not managed the Burgesses as Their Majesties wished, and now were cast aside.

  I thought there might be two heads on pikes ere long. I went to Hulme’s house to offer condolences, but the steward said he was not receiving company. I asked that I be remembered to his lordship, and the steward said he would deliver the message.

  There was to be a regatta on the holiday of the solstice, but a great winter storm came, with freezing rain sheeting down out of the sky as if in mourning for Baron Hulme’s fall, and the race was canceled. The celebration at Ings Magna was as dull and cold as the weather, and I went home, sat before the fire, and read more of Tarantua’s melancholy verse. I thought of Lady Westley and hoped she was safe and warm in her exile.

  The day after the solstice, warrants were issued for Tryon and Hulme, but Tryon alone was arrested. The chancellor had known what was to come and fled. I wished him every success.

  In those days Q Sable Ink sold mainly as a curiosity, but this did not perturb me, for I knew that when Howel ran out of oak galls, the ink would no longer be a curiosity, but a necessity.

  I made arrangements for my trip to Loretto, and wrote to Floria that Prince Alicio and I would be traveling together, and that we would provide escort for her ladies if she wished it. Floria was more receptive to her ladies being escorted by a pious prince than a rat-catcher knight, and so plans were made for the journey. Dom Nemorino, also going to war, volunteered to join us.

  I heard from Peel the cannoneer that he had arrived in Inchmaden. The mortars had been employed against iron birds lured to a field by grain poured out on the ground, and there had been some success in destroying the birds with halberds and war hammers. Peel expected that his tactics would only improve, and he hoped to eradicate the birds within weeks.

  I dutifully relayed the news to Lord Edevane, and he replied that he wished to see me. I packed up a box of a dozen bottles of ink and called for my carriage.

  It was another day of rain, and I huddled beneath an otter-fur cloak as my carriage rattled toward Ings Magna. The Estates having been dismissed, Edevane had left his little closet in the House of Peers and returned to the palace, and so I climbed the stairs to his office and walked through the room of clerks, all wrapped in wool or fur. Their breath steamed in the cold, and their blue-white fingers seemed frozen to their pens. The room smelled of mildew. Condensation marred the stone walls and trickled to the floor.

  I was shown into Edevane’s cabinet, where I was privileged to sit upon a chair and not a little stool. The room was warmed by a fire, and a page helped me out of my fur cloak.

  “I hope that the matter of the iron birds shall soon be tied with red ribbon,” I said, and presented the box of ink with my compliments.

  “Her Majesty will be pleased to hear it,” said Edevane in his soft voice. He reached into the box and took up a bottle of ink. “I don’t believe I have ever received such a practical gift,” he said. “Though of course one of my secretaries makes my ink for me.”

  “That secretary may now be better employed,” said I.

  “Perhaps.” He replaced the bottle and fixed me in his spectacles. “You intend to travel with the court to Loretto?” he asked.

  “Ay, my lord.”

  “But you will not serve in the army?”

  “I guard the realm from monsters, my lord,” I said. “And I also commission privateers, though not against monsters.”

  “You have a martial reputation,” said Edevane. “I thought you might seek battle.”

  I spread my hands. “I have an office now, and owe a different duty to Their Majesties.”

  “Just so.” He touched the pads of his fingers together, left meeting right. “I understand you will be in the company of Ribamar-la-Rose and two of Her Highness’s ladies.”

  I wasted no energy on surprise, for years ago Floria had confided to me that her correspondence was read by servants of the crown. Now I had the honor of knowing which royal servant had scanned my letters.

  “Prince Alicio returns to serve his king,” said I, “and we offered to escort the ladies on their journey.”

  “Her Highness revealed to you her plans for her voyage?”

  A log on the fire cracked like a pistol. I felt smoke clutching at my windpipe and cleared my throat. “She said only that she wished her ladies to go in advance, and make sure accommodation in Longres was suitable.”

  “You are in her confidence to that extent?”

  “So it would seem. But we are hardly intimates.”

  “Yet Her Highness came to your feast.” His index fingers, still pressed together, dropped to point at me.

  “You asked me to amuse her. I set myself to do it.”

  “Sir Cecil Greene was also present,” said Edevane, and from this I knew that Edevane probably had a spy in my household who kept track of my guests.

  “Greene is the honorable member for Ethlebight, my representative in the capital. I wished to consult him regarding merchant ventures, but I never had the chance.”

  “Did Greene speak to Her Highness?”

  “I don’t believe they exchanged a single word.” I cleared my throat again. “If you are still concerned that some man may prove a bad influence upon Her Highness, I can’t imagine Greene would be that man. Indeed, Her Highness has such a strong, pronounced character that it would be a great man indeed who could influence her, particularly for ill.”

  “I fear not greatness,” said Edevane, “but cunning.”

  I waved a hand. “I flatter myself that I was the most cunning man at that feast, and no one there was my equal.”

  His dead eyes flickered. “You will accompany Countess Marcella and Mistress d’Altrey to Loretto. I hope you may find out more about them.”

  “What does your lordship want to know?” I affected to consider the matter. “Again, I am hardly on terms of intimacy with either. The countess has been polite enough, but Elisa d’Altrey has shown me only disdain.”

  “I should like to know if Countess Marcella is what she claims to be.”

  I shifted in my chair. “I doubt that her ladyship will confess any imposture to me, but I will find out what I can.”

  Edevane dropped his hands to his desk and toyed with a blue ribbon that had fallen from some document. “Their Majesties have prorogued the Estates.”

  It took me a brief moment to follow Edevane’s swerve from one topic to another. “I should think Their Majesties would be happy to see the last of them,” said I.

  Edevane did not comment on this observation. “Their Majesties may recall the last Estates, or hold new elections,” he said. “You are well known in Ethlebight, I believe. Have you ever considered standing for election yourself?”

  It took me a moment to master my surprise. “My lord,” I said, “I am too young. Not yet two-and-twenty.”

  “Ethlebight deserves a representative of proven loyalty,” Edevane said. “As for elections, they may be managed, if the candidate is plausible. You are young, ay, but you possess wealth and reputation.”

  “I cannot imagine the Burgesses await my wisdom with any degree of
anticipation.”

  He regarded me. “I hope you will consider this. It would be a great advancement for you.”

  “Perhaps too great,” said I. “But ay, my lord, I will think further on it.”

  “I would consider it a favor. But now I must be about other business.” He stood, and I rose with him. I bowed, and as I began to leave, he said, “But stay.”

  I turned. “Yes, my lord?”

  The dead, lifeless eyes gazed at me with mild curiosity, as if I were a small, undistinguished, mummified animal in someone’s cabinet of curiosities. “You do not know whence Lord Hulme has fled?” he asked.

  Surprise surged through me, followed instantly by a blaze of fear. I would not be surprised if my hairs stood on end.

  “I know not, my lord,” I said. “I have not spoken to him since before the Estates met.”

  “You know him.”

  “I do,” said I. “He dealt generously with me, and with ravaged Ethlebight, when I first came to Selford.”

  He raised his chin a little, perhaps so he could look down at me. “I hope he tries not to fly on one of your ships.”

  “I hope so too,” said I.

  Somehow, as my nerves jangled and jumped, I remembered to take my cloak when I left. I wondered if Edevane had raised the matter of Hulme as a threat, to point out that he could bring down any office-holder, even so mighty a figure as the chancellor, or if he actually suspected me of hiding Hulme in my closet, or in a passenger’s cabin.

  And then I began to worry if he knew something I did not. Perhaps Hulme would take passage on one of my ships. So I began a mental inventory of where my ships might be, both my own and those I owned with Kevin and his family; and I thought none of them were in Bonille now, except perhaps the pinnace Ostra, which might have arrived early in Ferrick or Stanport to take on the large fighting crew necessary in a privateer. But Hulme could hardly expect to take passage in a privateer, and so I was safe.

  And then I was able to consider Edevane’s notion that I would try for election to the House of Burgesses, running, I suppose, against Sir Cecil Greene. Greene had vexed Their Majesties, of course, and spent a few nights in prison on that account, but I thought he had represented my city well, and I had no desire to challenge him for his seat. Nor did I want to appear in the Burgesses in the character of one of Edevane’s creatures, parroting the arguments written by the crown, and with no more freedom than a slave.

  I would flee the city, I thought, and go to Longres in Loretto. Though of course the court would follow, and Edevane with it. His spymaster’s trade would best be conducted in Duisland, where his informers lurked in every shadow, but his power came from his nearness to the queen, and he would not dare leave her to her own thoughts.

  I wondered if Orlanda had been in the room with us, whispering suggestions into Edevane’s inward ear, and tying me ever more firmly into my role as informer and pawn.

  * * *

  There were fireworks at Ings Magna on the night of the new year, and a great banquet. I drank too much brandy punch, and rather than go home, I slept for the first time in my little apartment in the palace, the room I had furnished for Lady Westley. I slept not alone, though I don’t remember the woman’s name—I believe she was the granddaughter of one of the Burgesses. She was hardly sober either, and laughed when I mistakenly called her Girasol.

  All I remember of her is that her hair was chestnut, and she had blue eyes with flecks of gold.

  New Year’s Day was celebrated at the palace with a feast, which started late because I was not the only person who had drunk too much the night before. My leman was profoundly unconscious, her hair and one bare arm hanging over the edge of the bed, and so, against the cold, I built up the fire and left her. When I returned a few hours later, she was gone, and never again have I seen her.

  It seemed the court had spent all their vitality the previous evening, for most walked about dull-eyed and dull of speech. Their Majesties appeared amid a blare of trumpets that prompted wincing among the courtiers, and then Her Majesty announced that, when they left for Loretto in a few weeks, they would appoint a viceroy with demi-royal powers to rule the kingdom, and that this viceroy would be the monk Fosco, the king’s kinsman, who was also given the Monastery of the Holy Prophecy that Berlauda was building across the lake from the palace.

  These honors opened more than a few dull eyes. It appeared to all that Their Majesties could not find a single trustworthy Duislander, and so committed the realm to the mercies of a princely foreign ecclesiastic. Yet, as Fosco knelt before the thrones, swore his oath, and was given a signet, all in the court applauded the choice, as was expected.

  Now the courtiers would have someone new to pursue with their flattery.

  I looked for Princess Floria, to see if she might show a more honest face, but she seemed at least as pleased as the rest of us.

  On the second day of the year I visited Master Mountmirail, and we discussed the matter of rocks. I was sending him to Ethlebight in the company of a young surveyor named Radford, to chart the course of a canal from the Ostra just above Ethlebight to Gannet Cove, which I intended to make the finest port city on the south coast. Silt-starved Ethlebight, cut off from the sea, would be reborn in all its glories, and provided with a harbor that could hold a fleet of deep-draught ships. I had not the money for this project, and so I would have to form a company and sell shares, and that would mean that the idea would be made public and perhaps others might attempt the work—but I had protected myself by buying the sole right to purchase the village of Gannet Cove, and without the village there would be no new city.

  But I could not raise money unless the project were proven possible, and to that end I employed Mountmirail and Radford. To build a canal would mean carving a path through hills, building dams and locks, and perhaps constructing aqueducts to carry the canal over low-lying areas and allowing the barges to sail like swans over valleys and swamps. The terminus of the canal would be in Gannet Cove, and in order to reach the harbor, the canal would have to somehow go through the cliffs behind the village, either by cutting a trench or making a tunnel. For this I needed an expert in rocks to tell me how to go about it, and though Mountmirail disclaimed any particular lithic knowledge, I knew he could assemble all the information that was available, and with less time than it took him to build Master Blackwell’s dragon.

  Which, he informed me, would have a blunderbuss in its snout, to discharge smoke and flame at an appropriate point in the play. I cautioned him that a flaming wad might hit someone in the audience, or set the stage on fire, but he told me that the actors would be careful where they aimed it.

  “I think you lack sufficient experience of actors,” said I.

  The dragon would be built by Mountmirail’s assistant Dowd, while his engineer Erskine would construct more grinding machines to be shipped to Fornland. In the spring, when Viceroy Fosco and what was left of the court moved to the summer capital at Selford, I would open another branch of my ink-making business there.

  I seemed to have instigated a surprising number of ventures. I was owner or part owner of merchant ships; I dealt in gems; I had privateers on the sea against the enemy and a galley racing on Lake Howel. I had killed a dragon, I planned a canal venture to save my native city, and I had invented the new industry of ink-making.

  Yet what made me respectable was none of this, but rather the least of these, my manor at Dunnock. I was a landed gentleman with a grant of arms, and that had opened the great doors at the palace that had been so decisively closed three years before. And for that grant of arms, I had to thank the meddlesome Princess Floria, who had got me my knighthood because, I supposed, it amused her to do so.

  And now Lord Edevane wished me to repay Her Highness by informing on her and her household, and to assist in dragging her to the scaffold. I could not think how I could avoid this, except by flight; yet while my flight might preserve my life, it would not protect Floria from the shadows that surrounded her.r />
  Yet my many ventures kept me from thinking too much of these things, and so when I left Howel six days after the new year, in company with Prince Alicio, Dom Nemorino, Countess Marcella, and Elisa d’Altrey, I had almost put it from my mind.

  Floria had sent riders ahead to alert staging posts and inns, and when we arrived at each destination, there were roasts and fowl turning on the spit, hippocras warming by the hearth, and snug rooms in which to take our rest. We traveled in five carriages, which included one for the baggage and two for the servants (I had brought only Rufino Knott, but the others traveled each with a suite of retainers). The ladies traveled in their own carriage with their maidservants, and I saw them only at mealtimes. We gentlemen traveled in near-martial splendor, in a carriage filled with pistols and swords, and with well-armed footmen riding on the top. We were accompanied always by the sulfur smell of the slow-matches burning on their blunderbusses. There were no bandits known to be on the road, but if there were, we would be robbed by nothing less than a small army.

  The weather held fine for the days we were on the road, and then I scented the sea on the brisk air, though we were not yet within sight of the ocean. This came as we crossed the bridge at Ferrick, with the view of the estuary on our left, the silty river sending brown tendrils out into the ice-blue northern water.

  I knew the harbor master and had sent a request for him to find us passage to Balfoy on Loretto’s northern coast. He had obliged us by securing passage on the three-masted, two-hundred-ton galleon Kiminge, Captain Bodil, out of Steggerda. Bodil was a swaggering character out of the tales of Erpingham, with gold earrings, boots like buckets, a shaven head, and grizzled mustaches that fell like waterfalls to his chest. His ship, hailing from the Three Kingdoms, was safe from any warship out of Thurnmark.

  We did not go on board right away, for Kiminge hadn’t finished loading, and then another winter storm descended and kept us in port for another four days. While the ship pitched at anchor, we spent the days pleasantly in an inn, playing cards and drinking mulled wine while we watched the raindrops beating at the diamond panes of the windows.