Quillifer the Knight

by Walter Jon Williams

  “And what way is that?” I asked.

  “He sent Baron Lestrange with an offer of marriage.”

  Mere weeks, I thought, after the death of the woman to whom he had seemed so devoted. Yet I thought this marriage might save Floria, though at the cost of being closer to Priscus and his caw-caw-caw than she might wish.

  “In law,” said I, “it is considered incest to marry your late wife’s sister. And the penalty for incest is the scaffold.”

  “That is not the case in Loretto. And it will no longer be the case here, an Priscus wills it.”

  “Well then,” said I. “Do you fancy waiting upon our new queen?”

  “Queen she might be,” you said, “but I think she will not marry Priscus. She sent Lestrange away with the message that it was improper for a person in deep mourning to receive such an offer, and also that when her mourning is over, she would not say yea or nay to a mere emissary, but that Priscus should press his suit in person.”

  I took your glass from your hands and tasted the honeyed-walnut flavor of the sauternes. “She delays, then. Her mourning will last—what? A year?”

  “And Priscus is at the war until his father releases him. As the royal army is in some jeopardy, Priscus may not be released for some time.”

  I was surprised. “How in jeopardy? I thought the war with Thurnmark was nought but one triumph after another!”

  Your lip curled. “The latest news is far from triumphant. The government has not seen fit to tell us that we’re at war with five more countries.”

  “Five?”

  You then told me how the despised emperor of Sélange, whose small country Priscus had crossed in order to outflank Thurnmark’s defenses, had resented his cavalier treatment at the hands of Priscus and declared war on Loretto. Since his military force was negligible, this threat was viewed as risible; but the emperor, being the prudent ruler of a small country situated next to a large, aggressive neighbor, had provided himself with allies, and so in the late summer the combined armies of five nations marched on Priscus’s lines of communication. There had been a ferocious battle, which seemed to have been a draw.

  In the meantime, Thurnmark’s Assembly of Notables had dismissed their prince—which, however startling, was allowed by the custom of the country—and anointed a new Hogen-Mogen somewhat more talented in the military sphere. This gentleman had gone on the offensive and fought a series of bloody battles, which he had not won, but which he had not lost, either.

  The twenty thousand soldiers from Duisland had arrived in the field two or three regiments at a time, were thrown piecemeal into these encounters, and had suffered accordingly. They had not been assembled into that army of Duisland that Priscus had desired to command, but were brigaded haphazardly with the soldiers of Loretto. In the meantime Thurnmark had launched privateers against Loretto and Duisland, and our own commerce was now in danger.

  “And how were we of Duisland meant to discover this?” I asked.

  “The information is being withheld until the Estates vote more war taxes.”

  I laughed. “But everyone knows, I suppose.”

  “Floria heard from her friends returning to Howel after Berlauda’s death. I imagine those same friends are telling their entire acquaintance.”

  I considered Floria and the strategy she had adopted, and I thought she had done well. Caught amid an abundance of hazards, she had declined to commit herself to any course of action, and awaited events. For myself, I have never been inclined to inaction; but in Floria’s case it seemed the safest policy.

  You were looking at me from beneath an arched eyebrow. “You should attempt a more intimate acquaintance with Floria,” you said. “She asks me about you.”

  For a moment I was speechless, and seeing my expression, you laughed. “I did not mean the intimacy now suggesting itself to your mind. But she finds you interesting, and it is in your best interest to let her pursue her interest.”

  “I think she views me as an exotic form of trained monkey,” I said.

  You waved a hand. “And what is wrong with that?”

  “Nothing,” said I, “were I actually a trained monkey.”

  You affected great patience and sighed. “Quillifer, you are singular, like your name. No one has met anyone like you, and no one knows what to do with you.”

  “No one but you,” I said.

  “I am remarkable for my intelligence and discernment,” you said. “I think you and Floria are well matched. She alone would know how to employ you.”

  “Her Highness,” I said, “is in a precarious position. Would I not find it dangerous in her vicinity?”

  Your words were scornful. “It is dangerous to be at court. It is dangerous to hold office. If you wished a life without danger, you would have stayed in your father’s shop, and not chased dragons.”

  If I had stayed in my father’s shop, I could have saved him, and saved the rest of my family. Your words were words of reproach, though you had not meant them that way.

  I reached for a cup of wine. “When Her Highness asks about me,” I said, “what do you tell her?”

  “That you are intelligent, original, amusing, and experienced in the arts of love.”

  I spluttered into my cup, and then searched for words. “Did Floria ask for that last piece of intelligence?”

  “No. But she is nineteen, and though she is a virgin by state policy, yet she is curious. Why should she not know what it is like between a man and a woman?”

  “She knows about us?”

  “Of course. There was no reason to keep it from her. I think she approves.”

  I sipped sauternes while futile thoughts fluttered through my head like bats about a lantern. You leaned close to me, and your warm hair brushed my shoulder. “Yet if Floria decides to take you to her bed,” you confided, “you should comply.”

  I looked at you. “Your disinterest is alarming. Are you tired of me already, that you wish to give me away?”

  “No.” Your black eyes were bright. “Were you and Floria lovers, there would have to be an excuse for you to be in her company, and that excuse would be me. We might spend more time together than we would otherwise.”

  “Until I was hanged, drawn, and quartered. I don’t imagine there is any mercy for the seducers of princesses.”

  “All the more reason to be discreet.” You put an arm across my chest and laid your head on my shoulder. I inhaled the sweet myrrh-musk of your hair. “Consider,” you said, “there is only one frail infant life between Floria and the throne.”

  “There are Priscus and Aguila both.”

  “Priscus is nothing. It is Aguila who is the heir of the Emelins, and he be frail, he may not live long.” You kissed my throat. “Imagine being the lover of a queen.”

  “I already am,” I said. “You are the empress of my heart.”

  You laughed. “I accept your homage, but I cannot give you what Floria could. Titles, offices, money, land.”

  “She can give little unless she is the monarch.”

  “That hope is not without foundation.” You took the glass from my hand and drank, and I kissed your lips that tasted of honey-sweet wine.

  “Enough of might-bes and amorous fantasies about princesses,” said I. “You are woman, and monarch, enough for me, and you may not hand me to another.”

  Amusement touched the corner of your mouth. “We shall see how far the royal prerogative extends.”

  “I need to know what impends in Howel. What is the temper of the court?”

  “Bloody and contentious. Viceroy Fosco has appointed a commission to establish regularity in religion here in Duisland. On its recommendation several abbots have lost their places, and two Retrievers have lost their heads for denying the divinity of the Pilgrim.”

  Surprised, I considered this development in regard to the law of the country. Duisland had no official faith, and the creed of the Pilgrim was supposed only to be the private religion of the royal family. Yet no follower of the ol
d religion could expect to achieve high office, and so out of self-interest the nobility conformed to the beliefs of the monarch, and repeated the teachings of Eidrich the Pilgrim whether they believed them or not.

  Yet I could think of no precedent that would allow the monarch, or his representative, to dismiss clerics from their appointments, let alone hack off their heads.

  “Aren’t the monasteries independent institutions?” I asked. “How can Fosco use force to interfere in their business? What is his justification in law?”

  “It is what is done in Loretto,” you said. “If he has any other justification, he has said nothing about it.” You leaned close and laughed in my ear.

  “You should play the hypocrite again and go on a monastic retreat,” you said. “It will do you no harm, and may convince the viceroy of your orthodoxy.”

  I thought I’d had enough of politics, and I took you in my arms. “Purely in the interest of orthodoxy, perhaps we should then practice one or more of the postures said by initiates to bring about ecstatic spiritual fulfillment.”

  You laughed low, then drained your cup and let it drop from your listless fingers to fall to the soft carpet by the bed. “I shall humbly await your instruction,” you said, and wrapped your arms around my neck.

  * * *

  When, the next day, I was able to catch up on my affairs, and at last view ten months’ accounts along with Master Stiver, I read also the mail that had arrived in my absence, and found there a letter from no man other than Harvey Meens, a letter written four months before. I own that I expected its contents to consist of little but abuse, but instead I found a graceful apology.

  I know not what madness possessed me to make me challenge you. I thank you sincerely for the mercy you showed me, and I am heartily sorry that I so foolishly traduced you, and acted to the discredit of my sister and her husband.

  From hints given in the text I understood that in the fall he had lost the use of his legs, and with it lost his post as paymaster to the palace, and lived now in retirement on his estate in Fornland.

  I put aside the letter and considered that Meens might be happier than many an ambitious courtier, caught between his own ambitions and the perfidy and suspicion of the court. Fosco was cutting off the heads of the clergy, and I could hardly imagine he would spare the Burgesses.

  From Elvina I heard nothing. I began a letter to Meens, but put it aside as other business began to press.

  I visited with my galley’s crew. Boatswain Lepalik was keeping them in practice, but there was little reason, for the court was in mourning, and the season’s regattas had been canceled along with balls, large feasts, and other great celebrations. The courtiers would have to find other ways to amuse themselves, and I would have to postpone introducing la volta into Duisland.

  My next visitor was the poet Blackwell. He called on me that afternoon, while I was still absorbed by the household accounts. I was glad to see him and took him to the library, where he might be at home amid the sight of the gilt-edged bound volumes, with their rich scent of leather and fine paper—but he was agitated, his indigo eyes darting from one lodging to another. He asked for beer, and I asked for two to be brought. After the beer arrived in a pair of fine glass beakers, he collapsed into one of the tall, carved oaken chairs and gave me a bleak look.

  “I am blockaded,” he said, “and I must find a way to break free.”

  “Is the master of the revels refusing your plays again?”

  “Ay, but that is not what is driving me mad.” He looked over his shoulder at the door, which stood open, and then rose to close it before returning to his seat. He put his elbows on the table between us, leaned as close as he could, and said, “It is my satire, my The Court of Laelius, the petard with which I hope to blow up the administration.”

  “You told me of this work in Loretto. Have you been discovered as the author?”

  “Nay, I am still safe. But the work itself has been shut up in a warehouse under guard, and I know not how to break it out.”

  “Was it stolen, then? And what was it—a manuscript?” I asked. “Or a printed copy?”

  “A chest filled with the octavo edition,” said he. “I had the work set in type by a fellow in Bretlynton Head who supplements his income with a clandestine press for unlicensed works. I then carried the bound volumes up the Dordelle by barge. The bale was put in a warehouse till I could bring them to the sellers of books and distributors of pamphlets, but there has been so much pamphleteering ahead of the Estates that Fosco is enraged by it all, and Edevane has put a company of the Yeoman Archers on the docks, and now everything is searched.”

  I sipped my beer, its tang a heady antidote to the dusty ledgers of the household accounts. “Is not bribery usually recommended in these cases?” I asked. “These guards cannot be rich men.”

  “Parkins tried it, and was arrested and carried off to Murkdale Hags.”

  “Who is Parkins?”

  Blackwell gave a contemptuous wave of his hand. “A puisny little hireling, a mean, unscrupulous mercenary who writes pamphlets for any faction that pays him. The world will be a little cleaner for his imprisonment, and Murkdale Hags a little fouler, but if Parkins could not bribe his way free, it seems that I will not.”

  “What size is your chest?”

  “About four feet long, three feet long, less than three feet high. A rounded lid, to keep off the rain.”

  “The chest itself must weigh forty pounds.”

  Blackwell shook his head. “It took three men to carry it.”

  “That will not be easy.” I frowned into my beer a moment, and then looked up. “Have you a copy of this document? May I see it?”

  Blackwell produced a copy from within his doublet, and I read it over. It purported to be a history of Laelius, one of the empire’s most corrupt and invidious rulers, though it took no great discernment to read that Laelius was meant to represent Priscus, and Hortensius the lord chamberlain Scutterfield, Valerius the lord admiral, and so on. The lines were filled with rage when they were not filled with bitterness, and the whole as complete an indictment of the present government as could be made before a judge by the best attorney in the land.

  “It is a fine piece of subversion, to be sure,” I told Blackwell. “But how am I to aid you in setting free your octavo edition? What can I do that you can’t do yourself?”

  Blackwell raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “You have a boat, do you not? If you could bring it to the wharf tonight…”

  “I have a racing galley,” said I, “a lightly built vessel which has my manor’s name engraved on the stern counter, just under my crest. Even if we could drop your chest of papers into the boat without sinking it, my escape would not be anonymous.”

  “Well then, I know not what to do.”

  I looked into his indigo eyes. “You could give up treason and write a play.”

  Anger settled onto his features. “I am determined to have the poem before the public before the opening of the Estates. I owe it to my lord Scutterfield and his family.”

  “Can you have the work reprinted by someone in town?”

  He shook his head. “The printers here are watched.”

  “Well.” I contemplated Blackwell from over the rim of my beaker. “I will look at this warehouse and see what may be seen.”

  Blackwell leaped to his feet. “Shall we go now?”

  I held up a hand. “Nay, Master Blackwell. I will go tomorrow.”

  “But—”

  “I have business to conduct. But call on me after dinner tomorrow, and I will see what can be done.”

  Dissatisfied, Blackwell left without finishing his beer. I returned to my ledgers and my correspondence, and just before supper received a command from Lord Edevane to report to his office in the morning.

  The game of conspiracy and murder, I thought, was about to begin.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Before supper I decided to ride into Howel and view the waterfront to see how
well it was guarded. I took my palfrey, and for company’s sake Rufino Knott rode behind on a cob. It was a fine autumn day, the air crisp and fine. Now that the harvest was ruined, the foul weather that had flooded the fields and pounded the grain flat had gone, and those who starved now did so in fine weather. The fine wide streets of Howel were as crowded as ever with carts, litters, and carriages, but in the alleys and greens and narrow lanes the poor now thronged. Many seemed to be country people come into the city for want of food, and there was little sign that they were being fed. I gave some money to a poor woman burdened with a pair of babes, and at once a mob of the dispossessed came boiling out at me, hands all outstretched. I had to spur my horse away or be dismembered.

  I went past the Hall of Justice, where I found many more heads than when I had left, including those of Chancellor Hulme and his deputy Tryon. I gazed at the eyeless head of the chancellor and wondered if perhaps I was viewing my own future. Certainly, as a self-made man, I had more in common with Hulme than with the better-bred heads on display, and like Hulme I had less protection against my enemies. Perhaps I needed a patron to survive, and perhaps that patron was Edevane.

  I was thus in a thoughtful mind when I came down to the docks. The Yeoman Archers were conspicuous in their red bonnets and black leather jerkins, and took an active interest in anything coming off the boats and barges that were sometimes moored three-deep against the quay. The Archers had long since stopped carrying bows and were here armed with halberds and steel-hilted short swords, and they wore sprigs of rosemary in their caps as tokens of mourning for Queen Berlauda. The soldiers being largely unlettered, any shipment of books or papers was set aside for an officer to view. It would be difficult, I thought, to carry a vast chest before these men.

  The warehouses were narrow, deep structures of whitewashed stone or brick, two storeys tall, with simple peaked roofs and a sturdy ridgepole that thrust out over the street, with an iron hook for the tackle that would sway cargo up and down. There were one or two wide doors on the ground floor, and another door on the second storey, so that cargo could be swung from the upper floor to the quay below.