Unfortunately, amid all the chaos, the officer kept his head. He grasped the silver whistle he bore on a chain around his neck, raised it to his lips, and blew. “Halt!” he cried again, and then in an admirably smooth motion leaped into the saddle, gathered the reins in his hands, and spun his horse around.
I kicked Phrenzy forward and blocked the obstinate soldier. “Where is the thief, sir?” I demanded. “I’ll thump him for you!”
The officer blew on his whistle again and pointed. In the crowd I saw red bonnets turn, then begin to move toward the cart. The officer guided his horse around Phrenzy, and I kicked Phrenzy into motion again to keep between the officer and Blackwell’s burlap bags. The soldier expertly evaded me, and we sped on. The quay was so crowded that it was impossible to gallop, or even to canter, but even at an uneven trot we were faster than the nag drawing the cart. I could hear Rufino Knott’s horse clattering right behind me. Dockworkers and costermongers dodged out of our way, but workers with carts, or those hauling cargo, were not so nimble, and we had to evade them. The officer’s bay made a beautiful leap clean over an oyster-seller’s cart and took the lead.
The fellow was a natural horseman, damn him.
I saw the cart take a right turn toward the center of town, and then, as we approached the turn, the child actor Bonny Joe Webb kicked a football out into the road and led a pack of scrambling children directly into our path. We pulled up, Phrenzy rearing under me while I desperately tried to keep my seat, the officer’s bay rearing and screaming alongside. To relieve his feelings, Phrenzy then took another bite out of the bay, which reared again. The officer shouted at the children to get out of the way, but in the end it was a pair of Yeoman Archers on foot who cleared a path, clouting the jeering tykes out of the way with the flats of their swords. I thumped Phrenzy’s sides with my heels and managed to steer directly into the officer’s path. “Yo-ho!” I cried. “Yoicks!” And thus did I exhaust my entire store of rural expressions.
The cart was visible only distantly, and we were off again. I tried repeatedly to run the officer into one of the trees that lined the avenue, or into one of the hawkers’ carts that were set up in the shade, but he expertly avoided me. He drew his sword. “Block me again, sir,” he said, “and I shall strike at you!”
I thought it was civil of him to put it that way. Though as a supposed country squire I carried a sword, I had no intention of fighting him, which would give me the choice of dying immediately by the sword, or dying later on the scaffold. Instead I beat Phrenzy’s flanks with my heels and gave my charger his head. Phrenzy roared down the street like a comet, streaming his tail behind him and scattering lesser stars and planets out of his way. I spat out bits of false beard that were trying to crawl down my throat, and as I came up on the cart, I saw Blackwell in the back, sitting on burlap bags and clinging wide-eyed to one of the stakes. His white wig was askew, and its curls blew in his face. I heard the officer’s horse clattering up behind me. I brandished my whip at Blackwell, as if I were about to thrash him, and said, “Hand me a turnip, for Eidrich’s sake!”
He stared at me, but then rummaged into a bag and produced a large turnip, which he tossed to me. I caught it with some difficulty, then looked over my shoulder to see the officer just behind. The wind tore my beard from one cheek. I flung the turnip at the officer and struck him full in the face, knocking him back over the charger’s croup, his booted legs flung high in the air. Rufino Knott, just behind, had to exert himself not to run the man over.
Not bad, I thought, for an over-the-shoulder throw.
I could see a mob of red caps running behind, and thought they might just be persistent enough to catch the cart. “More turnips!” I called. “Find a bag with nothing but turnips!”
Blackwell complied. “Free food!” I bellowed, and waved my whip. “Free food for all!”
The playwright emptied the bag onto the road, the turnips bounding in our wake. A double wave of starving people swarmed onto the pavement from both sides of the avenue. “More!” I told Blackwell.
More turnips were flung from the cart, along with one parcel of The Court of Laelius. The pursuing Yeoman Archers ran into the crowd of scavengers and then came to a slow halt, as if they’d sunk up to their ankles in a marsh. When the cart was out of turnips, we turned into a side street and made our way, by devious ways, to the old stable where the troupe conducted its rehearsals.
I tore my bushy disguise from my face. The octavo edition was fetched out of the remaining bags, and the sweating horses were walked until they cooled, and then given water. I tried to wash the gum off my face, with mixed success. Those left behind on the docks arrived in ones and twos, and included at the last the careless man who had flung the bag down on the stake and put us all in mortal danger. He was met with hisses and catcalls worthy of an audience of groundlings, but at least all had escaped in the confusion. Now the troupe lifted their cups of cider and rejoiced.
“We shall repaint the cart,” Blackwell pronounced, “before we let it be seen again in public.” He was free of his bulky costume and had resumed both his bladelike form and his youth. He turned to me and clasped my hand. “I owe you a great debt,” he said. “And yet I do not know why you chose to help me. We are friends, but not companions of the heart, and you expressed little sympathy for my efforts. You are in the House of Burgesses now, and surely such an exploit put you in danger.”
“I do not know that I had any reason at all,” I confessed, “but that I went to the docks and saw a way to do it—and once I made that plan, I could not prevent myself from attempting it.”
“Well, I owe you a great debt. I hope you will call on me if you need any help.”
“You may regret that offer,” said I, “for I may call on you sooner than you think.”
Knott and I left after an hour and made our way by the more obscure streets to Rackheath House, where I found you waiting for me in my parlor. And so we had a merry time together, and did not part till dawn.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It is a sensation, to be sure,” said His Grace of Roundsilver. “But the hunt is up for the author, and if he has sense, he will be in hiding.”
“Perhaps we will see him in the gallery of the Burgesses,” said I, “making notes for a sequel.”
“I hope he will not be so bold,” said Roundsilver. “There have been enough men delivered to the scaffold this season.”
I wondered how His Grace would react if he found out that the author of The Court of Laelius was a member of his own company of players.
Blackwell’s satire had, as predicted, become widely read by people who could never admit to owning or seeing a copy. Laelius was the talk of the capital, though most of the talk took place behind closed doors.
“I have seen works purporting to be sequels,” Roundsilver said. “And the original was first seen this last week.”
We were in the game room of Rackheath House, my guests assembling before going to the hall for one of my Savory Dinners. Meat and fowl of high quality were now easy to find, and at low prices, but for a melancholy reason. Due to the disastrous harvest, there was not enough fodder to maintain the herds over the winter, and they were being sold off, probably at a loss.
I wondered if the poor scarecrow scavengers who thronged the city could now buy a cutlet for less money than a loaf of bread. I hoped so, for these displaced country folk were desperate. I contributed to several charities that distributed food to them, and donated as well the broken meats from my own table.
The duke sipped from his silver goblet. He had come for the Estates, and a meeting of the Great Council, and I thought he would not enjoy either. He had left behind in Selford his duchess and the infant Marquess of Ethlebight, and I imagine he hoped to return as quickly as he could. He was here for business and business only.
“The verse,” said I, “was more than serviceable. Approaching genius in places, if you like invective.”
“I hear enough invective at court,” said
the duke. “I need not read it in a pamphlet.”
Sir Cecil Greene, burgess for Ethlebight, approached and bowed. “Your Grace,” he said. “You are discussing Laelius?”
“The topic seems unavoidable,” said Roundsilver.
“It is a work of the most exquisite poison,” said Greene. “I hope it may set blood afire throughout the realm.”
“I wish for peace and good hap,” said the duke. “I hope we may avoid blood, fiery or not.”
“Then we must unite,” said Greene. “We must be firm about the misuse of the treason court. We must demand that the viceroy inform the Estates concerning the state of the war, including all the other nations that are leagued against us, and how our soldiers have fared in battle. And as for Edevane’s extortion—I heard that Thistlegorm bought his own head for twenty-five thousand royals.”
“It was thirty thousand,” said the duke. “I had it from that lord’s own lips.”
Greene puffed out his cheeks in amazement. For thirty thousand, the attorney general had been allowed to resign rather than be condemned by the Siege Royal. He was too prominent a Retriever, walking the palace in his white doublet and trunks at a time when other Retrievers were losing their heads.
“Edevane has allowed others to purchase immunity,” Greene said. “Gregory, Coleman, and Judge Hawthorne, who presided at the Siege Royal until it became dangerous for Retrievers to walk beneath the sun. But Thistlegorm…” He nodded at Roundsilver. “His fall is a pistol pointed at the head of all the peers.”
“That pistol was Scutterfield,” said I.
Though in truth the misuse of the treason court was not clear in law. Torture was illegal in Duisland, and always had been, and so was the sort of arbitrary justice produced at the Siege Royal. But it had also been accepted that, in times when the state was under threat, such practices were necessary for the salvation of the nation and its monarch. The Pilgrim knew that history provided enough examples of deep-laid conspiracy at court, and so the Siege Royal was allowed to exist, as long as it operated quietly and only in times of great danger. But once tradition accepted an institution like the Siege Royal, then who was to say how often the treason court could sit and dispense its judgment?
“And now the Commission of Inquiry,” said Greene. “What right has the viceroy to regulate the Pilgrim’s worship, let alone execute poor monks who preach in public squares? Who has authorized this commission, and who paid its members? It was not the Estates.”
“I think—” began the duke.
But we were never to know what the duke thought, because at that moment Floria entered the room with her train of ladies. She was ablaze in that dark company, her satin gown white as that of a Retriever, for while the rest of us dressed in the black of mourning, the royal family wore white when mourning their own. White diamonds and white pearls were sewn over the gown, and over the headdress that framed her face. Her disorderly hair was caught in a white snood, and her jewelry was of silver ornamented with white gems.
We bowed, and I approached Floria’s presence. “Welcome to my house, Your Highness,” said I. “You honor me with your presence, and truly you thrive in shade.”
I caught your haughty smirk over Floria’s head, your amusement at the conventions of my obeisance.
“Thank you, Sir Quillifer,” said Floria. Amusement glittered in her hazel eyes. “If you were discussing The Court of Laelius, pray continue, for I seek enlightenment as to some of its allegories. Am I represented in the work as Horatia, do you think, or as Primula?”
“Neither, Highness,” said I. “I think you are that lady confined in the tower, struck dumb by the gods.”
“Struck dumb?” Floria’s eyes widened. “That hardly seems like me.”
“Though if you are not in the poem at all,” offered the duke, “it is the greatest compliment, for everyone else is blackguarded.”
“In truth, Your Grace,” said Floria, “by now I have been blackguarded often enough that I can now hope only to be blackguarded in an interesting or amusing way.”
I looked up and saw the angular astronomer Edith Ransome numbered among Floria’s ladies. “Mistress Ransome,” I said. “Welcome to my house. I had thought by now you would be viewing the stars with your quadrant.”
“The summer storms were fatal to the project,” said she. “A flood swept down from the hills and destroyed the quadrant before it could be completed.”
“I hope you will be able to rebuild it in a more waterless place.”
Her thin lips crooked in a smile. “Her Highness very kindly assured me that this would be the case.”
“I am glad you are here, for I wish to introduce you to a friend of mine, who has brought a sample of a new astronomical machine.”
Mistress Ransome’s brows knit. “It is not in aid of horoscopes, is it?” asked she. “Because I am merciless about horoscopes.”
“It is about navigation.”
Floria interrupted. “If we are going to discuss navigation,” she said, “then I should like a glass of wine before we begin.”
“Of course. I fear I am a lax host, Highness.” I gestured to the yeoman of the buttery, who arrived at once to ask Her Highness’s pleasure. Wine being fetched for Floria and her ladies, I introduced Mistress Ransome to Alaron Mountmirail, who bowed over her hand.
“Master Mountmirail has invented a new engine for use in navigation,” I explained. “I thought it might be useful in astronomy as well, though I am not competent to judge.”
Mountmirail’s moon face split into a huge grin. “I recently had occasion to sail to and from Ethlebight,” he said. “And I observed the navigator working with his cross-staff in order to determine the latitude. And the navigator was young, but going blind.”
“Which is often the case,” said I, “for when doing the noon sight, the cross-staff requires the navigator to stare directly into the sun.”
“That is why I use a pinhole,” said Edith Ransome.
“This navigator did also,” said Mountmirail. “But still his vision was fading. So I had an idea—if you will forgive me, ladies—”
He went into my study to bring out his instrument. It seemed somewhat crude, for he’d made it himself, in his own workshop.
“Rather than stare into the sun,” he said, “this employs the sun’s shadow.”
It was a long staff with an upright piece and a long curved scale on the end. “You hold it thus,” Mountmirail said, “with the sun behind you. You sight along the horizon through the hole at the end. Then the sun casts the shadow of the upright piece—I call it a ‘gnomon’ onto the curved scale, and its altitude is revealed.”
“May we try this out of doors?” asked Mistress Ransome.
Mountmirail, Floria, and her ladies trooped onto the lawn, which, despite the arrival of autumn, still made a carpet of unbroken green descending to the lake. A cool breeze ruffled the surface of the water. Mountmirail demonstrated his machine, and then Edith Ransome took the device and attempted to work it. “The sun is too high,” she said. “We are near noon. I can’t view the horizon and keep the gnomon’s shadow on the scale.”
“Ah. Then you must deploy the swing-arm.”
I watched delight break out on Mistress Ransome’s beaky face as Mountmirail demonstrated his device. Floria walked up to my elbow and spoke in a low tone. “Well, you have enchanted Mistress Ransome,” she said. “And of course you have debauched another of my ladies. Have you plans for any of the others?”
I nodded. “I was going to advise Countess Marcella to bring those bills of hers to the treasury, before the government finds some way to prevent her.”
“Bills?”
I explained to Floria that her sister had lost over five thousand royals to Marcella, who had her notes of hand complete with Berlauda’s seal. Floria received this news without surprise.
“Or perhaps her ladyship should sell them to a broker at a small discount,” said I, “and let the broker then worry about collecting—of course sh
e must find a broker who has that sort of money on hand. In any case, it should be done soon.”
“It would be a great embarrassment to the government,” said Floria, her tone offhand.
“I’m afraid it would be.”
Floria’s countenance was inscrutable. “I shall pass your message on to the countess,” said she.
“Your servant,” said I.
“That leaves Mistress Tavistock.” She nodded at her fourth lady, she of the charming overbite. “Have you plans for her?”
“Should I?”
“I hope you do not. She is engaged to marry Lord Mellender, which is a very good match for her. I cannot tell from your history whether marriage will make her more attractive to you or not, but in either case I urge you to refrain.”
I bowed. “Chenée Tavistock I shall worship only from afar,” I said.
“I am heartily glad to hear it,” said she. “It is tiresome enough hearing Mistress d’Altrey forever singing your virtues, and urging me to make use of you for I know not what project.”
I was very flattered that I had been hymned in this way, but I responded lightly.
“A project? I hope to build a canal from Ethlebight to another harbor on the coast.”
“Ay? You have once more adopted a new occupation? Well, that will keep you out of mischief here in the capital.”
I nodded at the engineer. “Master Mountmirail was supposed to be working on the canal when he decided to invent his astronomical engine. His mind flies from one thing to another like one of his mechanical birds.”
“And I imagine you have found a way to profit by that astronomical engine,” Floria said.
“I intend to manufacture them,” I said, “and pay Mountmirail a fee for the right to do so.” I shook my head. “He is brilliant, but has only a primitive idea of commerce. He would give away all his ideas if he could.”
“How lucky that you are here to see to his interests.”
I gave her a sharp look, and she returned a serene smile. “Tell me about this canal. But I’m not dressed for the outdoors, so let’s leave our astronomers and go inside.”
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