“That is a nuisance dealt with then.”
You put your candle on a table, then came to me and kissed me lightly on the lips.
“At least,” I said, “I no longer have to pretend to love her. The flattery grew increasingly burdensome, for in order to please her, my praise had to grow ever more extravagant. I called her an eidolon, my second self, the true pattern from which other, inferior women were but shadows.”
You gave me an artful smile. “Consider it practice for a life at court.”
“I hope that sort of gross flattery will not be necessary. There is only one person now that I hope to please, and she already knows that I worship every particle of her being.”
You stretched, your arms thrown wide. “My particles are on the verge of exhaustion.”
“Will Your Majesty take wine?” I asked.
“No, I have had enough tonight, for that supper with the officers of guards ran late and long.”
“I will have a little, with your permission.” I opened the doors of the cupboard and poured myself a goblet of hock, fine and golden in the silver-gilt cup.
“Sit,” you said. “And please, for tonight, forget that ‘majesty.’ ”
I kissed your knuckles, then placed myself in the settee. In a rustle of silk, and with the grace of a panther coiling, you sat in my lap, and I put my arms around you and let you kiss the wine from my lips. The scent of galbanum whirled in my senses. I buried my head in the corner of your neck and shoulder, and felt the flush of warmth from your skin.
“Is it hard,” you asked, “to be false to a woman?”
“It is harder to be true to oneself.”
You gave a dry laugh. “You evade my question. I remember at that astronomy party, a year and a half ago, you said that you reserved the right to lie to others.”
“I rarely lie outright,” I said. “I do not feel myself to be a convincing liar. I prefer to mislead, by speaking truth in such a way as to lead another down the wrong path.”
“You were false to Mistress d’Altrey.”
“And she to me.” I considered the matter. “Yet, however pleasing she tried to be, she could not entirely restrain her contempt for me. Out of the slant of my eye I would see her lip curling, or her eyes hardening with scorn. It was a sentiment I tried always to conquer in her, but never succeeded.” I kissed your neck. “She resented having to couple with me, I think. I suppose Edevane ordered her.”
“I imagine he did. But so did I.”
I drew back and looked at you in surprise. You waved a dismissive hand.
“Oh, I never made it plain. But I said I wished her to become your intimate friend, to sound you out and find out how reliable I would find you in a crisis.”
“What did she tell you?”
Amusement glittered in your hazel eyes. “She said you would dare anything, so long as it fed your vanity. She also gave me some particulars of your abilities in the bedchamber.”
I laughed and took a sip of wine. “She told me she had. Have I fulfilled your expectations?”
“Oh yes.” Your eyes were bright. “D’Altrey’s reports did not do you justice.”
I kissed your moist lips. “She was always trying to bring us together, I suppose to compromise you. She said I should sleep with you, if you were willing. I wonder how she feels now that she has succeeded in this, but in a way that brings us every joy and her no benefit?”
You put your arms around my neck and kissed my forehead. “She was a poisonous toadwife, and we are well rid of her.”
“Our best revenge on her,” said I, “is to live in perfect pleasure all our nights.”
“Yes,” you said, and then a pensive look crossed your face. “But some things must be said first, for I know some of what d’Altrey said to you, and I can guess the rest, for she has said some of the same things to me.” Your eyes gazed into mine. “I wish to draw her poison out of you, and so I must be frank.”
I looked at you in deep surprise. “Say what you will, but I have long banished that woman from my heart. After all, she had freckles on her nose, and I have always hated freckles.”
You looked at me levelly. “You will not turn me from my purpose with a jest, Quillifer.”
I sighed. “Then say what you must.”
“Because d’Altrey praised my hypocrisy in seeming a dutiful sister to Berlauda, I know she praised your hypocrisy as well, but for what I know not.”
“My piety,” said I, “on Berlauda’s retreat.”
“Yet you made the postures, and chanted the chants, and offended no one. It is less hypocrisy than politeness.”
“Though it must be admitted I only went because I thought it might earn me higher office.”
“Men have done worse things for higher office, and you have not.” You took a fistful of my long hair, and gave it a sharp tug. I winced.
“Now will you let me praise you?” you said.
“I will accept praise,” I said. “If not from my mistress, then who else?”
You gave a little tight-lipped smile. “D’Altrey would have commended your contempt for those knights who attached themselves to your dragon hunt, and died because their vanity would not permit them to withdraw from a hopeless fight. Yet you offered to save them, and at least some became your friends—Dom Nemorino d’Ormyl, for example.”
“And Westley, till he was blackmailed into challenging me.”
“And Westley, too. You gain allies, and you inspire loyalty in your friends. Look at Rufino Knott, at Captain Gaunt, at Prince Alicio, at Roundsilver and his lady. You reserve contempt for the truly contemptible, but among the rest you win hearts.” You looked at me close, and I could feel the power of that gaze prickle along my skin. “You won mine, Quillifer, and I have never given my heart to any man.”
I sought for fine words, and settled for the truth. “I am astonished perpetually by the honor you do me, Your Majesty.”
You frowned at me. “D’Altrey would also have praised your ruthlessness in humiliating your enemies rather than killing them. In dragging Westley out of the drink, or demonstrating your superiority by hurling Meens off a building in front of a crowd of witnesses. Yet—” You put your hand on my cheek. “I see a reluctance to take life. Whatever you are, you are not a killer, and you treat even your enemies with compassion.”
I felt a fist close on my heart. “My lady,” said I, “there is a matter of two couriers—”
“We may speak of that later. Whatever you may have done, and under what necessity, it does not alter what I see in you.” You kissed me on the lips. “You are generous, you are kind, you are clever, and you rescue lost princesses. If I did not suspect you would laugh at the word, I would say you are chivalrous.”
I blinked at you. “I am surprised well beyond any laughter. And even if I am not quite this person you describe, to please you I will endeavor to become that person, if it is within my power.”
You put your arms around my neck and touched your cheek to mine.
“So have I drawn d’Altrey’s poison, Quillifer? Have I freed you from the misapprehensions with which she tried to shackle you? The burdens she placed on your soul?”
“My soul flies free, Majesty. It circles about the room like a hawk in its gyre. And you need but to hold out your wrist, and my soul will light to feed from your hand, and you may keep it in your possession forever.”
“I will keep it then, so.” You kissed me fiercely, and when I began to respond, you drew back. “If I may raise one other matter… ?”
I tried to restrain my longing. “As you wish.”
You looked at me with sober concern. “It seems to me that since you lost your family, you have been in flight. You fly from one avocation to the next—lawyer, sea-captain, soldier, jeweler, merchant adventurer, knight-errant—and perhaps that is because the memory of the night of burning Ethlebight is too painful.”
I felt an ache in my throat. “That may be so, Majesty,” I said.
“I cannot tell
you how to grieve,” said she, “for that varies from one man to another. But I know something about flight, and I will but repeat your words to me—that it is better to fly toward something, and not away.”
“Like my soul, I fly now to you,” said I. “And I will rest here with you, and shelter in your shadow, and never leave unless you send me away.”
At this you began to kiss me again, and when I drew off your dressing gown, your flesh was hot and seemed to burn my palms. The rest of the night was fire and passion, and together we burned till dawn.
* * *
“I like not that lean man,” said I, viewing the Marquess of Stayne from your window at Ings Magna. “Do you truly mean to make him a general?”
You were at your desk, quill in hand, applying Q Sable Ink to a document. “He raised his own regiment,” you said, “which is more than most of my generals have done. Besides, he will serve under the knight marshal, and can do little harm.” You signed your name with a flourish. “You only have a prejudice against him because he tried to murder you.”
“That brawling touched your own safety somewhat,” I reminded. “And he was exiled for it.”
You looked up from your desk. “You did cuckold him,” you said. “He had some reason for his poor temper.”
“In which case, he should have challenged me, not sent his miching assassins.”
You touched the quill to your chin. “Well, he is useful. I hope he teaches ambitious men to raise their own soldiers, and save me the trouble of paying for them out of the treasury.”
I wondered how long Stayne could afford his soldiers. When he had been exiled, four years ago, his finances had been in ruins. Would four years on his estate, relieved of the necessity of playing a magnificent lord at court, have been sufficient to recover his fortune and buy a regiment?
I fear you will have to pay for those soldiers after all.
The march to water-girdled Howel had gone much as I had expected. We landed at Bretlynton Head, and the city and its castles were formally surrendered by the sea-consuls and the lord lieutenant. My colleague from Hurst Downs, Baron Becket, had met us with a company of foot raised from my own estate and others. You took up residence in the castle while we worked out the business of getting the army up the river.
All that was required to win the love of the people was your proclamation that all the new taxes were illegal, and would be canceled. And the love of the monasteries was assured when you announced that the Commission of Inquiry would be disbanded, and its members prosecuted for murder. Abbots rallied to you, and began preaching your cause to the people.
What followed was, as I had predicted, a parade. We sailed up the Dordelle, receiving lords and squires and officials from all over Bonille, who rode in to tender their submission. A force of militia was sent against us, but it surrendered before it came within sight, and received new standards from the new monarch.
The viceroy readied the household troops to defend Howel, but instead they rioted and demanded their back pay. When Fosco paid, the guards took the money and returned to their barracks, but then would not come out. Finally Fosco, Edevane, the monks of the Commission of Inquiry, and some of their supporters fled on wagons loaded with booty, along with a group of Lorettan ladies who had come to Duisland to find husbands and instead found only fear and rebellion. To keep them from being massacred by a mob on the road home—which would have brought our nation into dishonor—my friend Lord Barkin and some of the Queen’s Own rode with them to keep them safe. Barkin took the viceroy and his party to the border, then to their vast surprise took the wagon-loads of booty, turned back to Duisland, and rode home in time to welcome you to the capital.
So now Barkin is lieutenant-general of cavalry, as my friend Lipton is lieutenant-general of artillery. You are generous to those who love you.
“For every appointment I make,” you said, “I create one ingrate, and fifty envious foes.”
I must admit I was a little envious of those ingrates, for my services to the crown were unrewarded except for my enlarged knighthood. Yet I could console myself with my ships, the gems and money I had recovered from the undercroft of the Howel branch of the butchers guild, my ink business, the workshop I intended to create to make Mountmirail’s backstaff for mariners, and my canal—for while I was in Fornland adoring Your Majesty, Mountmirail had found a recipe for antihydraulic mortar, by cooking his powders at a much higher temperature than anyone had before attempted.
“In war there are jobs for all,” said I. “Let those who want to serve you—or say they do—join the army, or the fleet.”
It would be safe enough for them, for there would be little or no fighting this year. Duisland did not yet have a proper army, just those half-trained remains of Fosco’s twenty-five thousand who had not deserted or been sent to Loretto, and Loretto’s armies were facing the wrong way, prepared to hold off the threat from Thurnmark and its allies.
Your mother has been freed from Murkdale Hags, along with the sorcerer Doctor Smolt and Mistress Ransome. Dowager Queen Natalie is free to roam the palace, chattering out her scandalous anecdotes, and Doctor Smolt has been banished from the capital, though he has been told he may win his way into your favor by casting spells to blast your enemies.
Mistress Ransome will marry Mountmirail, providing a happy ending for any observer who wishes one.
All butcheries were postponed to next year, to grandly be called Floria Year II.
Warrants have gone out for new elections, and the subsequent meeting of the Estates. For we are at war, and wars must be paid for. New taxes will be imposed, though it is hoped they will not be so tyrannical as Fosco’s, and the Burgesses will vote on them without compulsion.
We were speaking in your private office on the second floor of the palace, all gilding and mirrors. One of your ladies-in-waiting watched us from the next room, through a hagioscope. I longed to kiss you, or at least touch you, but the formal guard on your chastity was still in place, even though your virginity had long since melted away. I looked out over the bowling greens in back of the palace, toward the water gardens. The first rays of summer were warming the land; daffodils, tulips, poppies, and bluebells blazed in the gardens; and the apple trees were in blossom. The weather this year had been kind, and the wheat and rye were green in the fields. If the weather remains fair, we will have a good harvest, and the famine will be over.
Berlauda’s great banqueting hall, to my right as I looked out, remained unfinished, with the gilding incomplete and the great frescos abandoned. Such an extravagance could not be borne, not in a nation straitened by famine and war.
I saw the Marquess of Stayne approach the palace as he walked down the gravel path on his way to the day’s audience. He was a lean fellow, with a graying pointed beard and a small, pursed, disdainful mouth, and he was followed by a crowd of clowns and lackeys. I entertained myself with the idea of dropping a vase on his head.
“This will amuse you,” you said, and reached into a drawer for a letter. I took the letter, opened it, and with a start recognized Edevane’s hand.
“He offers to make his submission,” you said, “if he is given a pardon for his crimes.”
I considered this. “Let him confess those crimes first, to a panel of judges empowered to ferret out the truth. And let him bring his files with him, all the documents tied in red and blue ribbon. After which—” I waved a hand. “Deprived of his fortune and all the property he thieved from their rightful owners, he will be allowed to retire to his wife and the little barony he inherited.”
“He will cause mischief wherever he lives.”
“I will keep a better watch on him,” said I, “than he kept on you. And if he conspires, he will lose his head.”
“Well,” you said, “that being the case, I will send him the reply he hopes for.”
There was a knock on the door, and one of your ladies entered to say that the ambassador of Thurnmark awaited your pleasure in the waiting room. You looked up at me.
“The Privy Council meets at two,” you said. “Don’t forget.”
I bowed. “Your servant,” I said.
I went to my apartments, and there for my dinner I had a manchet loaf, a cup of wine, and a cold lamb pie. I remained under the eye of royalty, for my apartment has a large portrait of King Stilwell, behind which is the private passage that connects my rooms with those of Your Majesty.
After dinner Goodman Knott dressed me for the audience that would precede the Council meeting. My doublet and trunks were blue watered silk, and I wore matching sapphires on my fingers. My hose and linen were spotless white, I wore the ribbon of the Red Horse over my shoulder, and I wore a jaunty velvet bonnet with a feather and a badge.
As always, though I did my best to look well, I did not dress like a courtier, with their flounces and purfles and pearl-sewn doublets. I remained, alas, myself.
Leaving my apartment, I made my way toward the Chamber of Audience to await your appearance, but as I hastened along the second-floor corridor, I suddenly tripped, and landed on hands and knees on the marble floor. A kick lodged in my ribs and knocked the breath from my body, and then rough hands plucked me from the floor and drove me into the wall. I found myself gasping for breath and surrounded by a wall of lackeys, each with a smirk of satisfaction on his face, and then the wall parted to reveal the Count of Wenlock, his lips drawn in a smirk. Brandy fumes filled the air as he approached.
“Think you I had forgotten you, barber-monger?” He thrust his face at mine, and his hand clutched at my collar. “Do you not know that a gentleman always pays his debts?”
“A gentleman fights his own fights,” said I, “and does not hire rudesbys and assassins.”
“I would not soil my hands with such common blood as yours,” said Wenlock. “But know that I will have my twenty-five royals back, and the cost of my sunken galley, and that the price will be carved from your flesh.”
He shook me like a rat, and my head knocked into a wall-sconce. Stars exploded behind my eyes. Wenlock turned to his crew of ruffians.
“Maul him,” he said, pronouncing the words with pleasure, and then I heard another voice.
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