The Queen smiled. “There’s a light, merry atmosphere in the chamber this morning. Am I to take it that the holiday continues?”
Montfallcon climbed to portentous feet. “In most matters, Your Majesty. The world is quiet. As the grave, today. But Sir Thomasin Ffynne brings news…”
“I know. I intend to see him when this conference is done.”
“Then Your Majesty’s aware of what he has to say?” A significant grunt.
“Not yet, Lord Montfallcon.”
“Come, come, my Lord Chancellor!” Doctor Dee was his old rival. “You hint so ominously one might suspect the world ends, at last! Are you dissatisfied because there is no threat current upon Albion? Would you like an omen? Shall I consult the Talmud? Shall I conjure you a disaster? Release a few devils from bottles, find a dark future in the stars, frighten us all with talk of the possible plagues one might catch if this warning isn’t heeded or that one ignored?” Being virtually without timbre, his voice always made some think he spoke, as now, sardonically; by others he was almost always taken literally. Thus he surrounded himself with more ambiguity than he could ever understand and was often, in turn, greatly baffled by his fellows, simply because, unknowingly, unreasonably (he could not help his voice), he had baffled them.
Perion Montfallcon was by no means baffled, for he was used to Dee’s raillery. Neither loved the other even a little. Lord Montfallcon made a display of patience, giving his attention wholly to the Queen. “Your Majesty, it is a small matter, but it could be the nut from which would grow an exceedingly tangled root.”
Anxious to avoid a full-fledged drama between these two seasoned players, Queen Gloriana raised both hands. “Then shall we have Tom Ffynne before us now, to explain?”
“Well…” Lord Montfallcon shrugged. “It can do no harm. He is without, in the First Presence Chamber.”
“Then have him fetched, my lord.”
Lord Montfallcon turned from his chair and moved slowly for the little door behind him which led to the anteroom between the Privy Chamber and his own offices. He opened the door, gave a word to a footman; a pause, then in stumped Ffynne. Sir Tom had trimmed his beard a little for the occasion and there were five purple ostrich feathers in his hat, a short, pleated bottle-green cape on his left shoulder, a white, starched ruff, emerald-green doublet, belted at his corseted middle, wide gallyslop hose tied below the knee with ribbons, white stockings and gold-buckled black shoes. He had donned his best. His little twinkling eyes widened a trifle as he saw the Queen and he doffed his hat, bowing low, clip-clumping forward on his carved foot which had been so designed that the stump of his ankle could be pinned perfectly into it. “Your Majesty.”
“Good day to you, Sir Thomasin. We expected you earlier. Were there storms?”
“Many, Your Majesty. Every league of the way. We were badly damaged. All rigging gone but a couple of stays, most yards down by the time we sighted the coast of Iberia. We limped through the Narrow Sea and put into The Havre to make minor repairs before coming on. That was four days ago.”
“Your news is of France, then?”
“No, Your Majesty. It was got from France. While we were in the harbour, further delayed by the incompetents sent us as joiners and sailmakers, there came to port a large, old-fashioned galleon, of some forty oars. She flew the Polish flag and I became curious, for she was evidently a ceremonial craft, with a great deal of gilt and gold braid on ropes and rails. She wallowed in and dropped anchor quite close to us. Being interested, I sent my compliments to the master, who consequently invited me aboard. He was a civil old gentleman. A noble, too. And glad to meet me, for he was full of Queen Gloriana and Albion and eager for any happy intelligence concerning both. He praised our land and its Queen and flattered me, when he learned my name, with remembrances of my own adventurings.”
“So that’s your news, eh, Sir Thomasin,” said Doctor Dee, entirely to spite Lord Montfallcon. “We are loved by Poland.”
“Doctor Dee!” The Queen flashed an eye and the Doctor subsided.
“Certainly,” continued Ffynne, “for this ship is even now awaiting Poland’s King, who comes overland, by coach, to board her—and from The Havre he intends to sail for London.”
“For what purpose?” Sir Amadis Cornfield drew reluctant eyes from the windows. “The King himself? Without a fleet? With no retinue?”
“He comes as a suitor,” said Tom Ffynne quietly. “Nay, almost a bridegroom. He seems, according to my noble Pole, convinced that Your Majesty will accept him in marriage.”
“Ah.” Gloriana’s sideways look to Lord Montfallcon was embarrassed.
“Madam?” The Lord Chancellor lifted his head.
“An oversight, my lord. I had meant to inform you. I sent letters to the King of Poland.”
“Consenting to marriage?”
“Of course not. It was while you were suffering the fever, in November last. There came a message from Poland. Formal enough. Suggesting a visit—a private visit from the King—perhaps a secret visit, now I think on it—but a visit incognito, at any rate. I agreed. Two swiftly penned letters, one assuring him of our affection for his nation, the other suggesting an early date in the New Year. No reply received. Perhaps it went astray. He is reckoned a kindly man and I was curious to meet him.”
“And from this he deduces—doubtless because he interprets Your Majesty’s gesture in terms of some custom in his own country—that you are ready to hear his proposals of marriage.” Lord Montfallcon cleared his throat and pressed a palm flat against his chest. “And if you refuse him, madam?”
“He must be informed that he has misinterpreted our letters.”
“And will suspect a plot. Poland is a good friend. Her Empire’s a powerful one, stretching from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, with forty vassal states. Between us we hold off Tatary—”
“We are familiar with the political geography of Europe, Lord Montfallcon.” Doctor Dee drew a long nail down the side of his jaw. “You suggest that if Poland believes himself a rejected suitor—a jilted lover, even—he will revenge himself with war upon us?”
“Not war,” Lord Montfallcon spoke as if he answered his own voice, “probably not war, but strained relations we cannot afford. Tatary’s ever ready. And Arabia’s ambitious, too.”
“Then perhaps I should marry Poland.” Queen Gloriana was for a moment a wild young girl. “Eh? Would that save us, my lord?”
“The Grand Caliph of Arabia comes soon upon a State Visit,” Lord Montfallcon mused. “There is every hint he, too, intends a proposal. Then, next month, there’s the Theocrat of Iberia—but he knows his cause to be hopeless, since there could not possibly be issue. Yet Arabia, Arabia…” He became decisive: “There’s nothing else for it! They must appear together!”
“But Poland’s imminent,” pointed out Tom Ffynne. “Any day he arrives in The Havre. One more day or so, and he’s docking in London!”
“When was he due to arrive?” Montfallcon paced back and forth alongside the table while his fellow Councillors tried to follow both his reasoning and his movement.
“Forty-eight hours, I think, behind me. And I left on the morning tide, yesterday.”
“So we have perhaps three days.”
“At most.”
“I am deeply sorry, Lord Montfallcon, for forgetting to inform you…” Gloriana’s voice was small.
Suddenly Lord Montfallcon straightened, ceased his musing, shrugged. “No matter, madam. It will be an embarrassment, nothing more. We must pray Poland’s delayed a little longer and coincides with Arabia.”
“But why should that improve the situation, my lord?”
“It is a question of pride, madam. If you should wound the pride of one or both, then our relations deteriorate, naturally. But if Poland wounds the pride of Arabia, or vice versa, we are strengthened. Neither thinks ill of the Queen, each thinks worse of the other. I consider not the immediate problems, madam, as you know, but those potential problems. Arabia an
d Poland would make an unlikely alliance, but not an impossible one. They share a seaboard—the Middle Sea—and yet the entrance to that sea is pretty well controlled by Iberia, who, in turn, would ally herself with Arabia against us.”
“Ah, the convolutions of your thinking, sir!” A black hand raised as if to ward off assault, Sir Orlando Hawes spoke for the first time. “Do they baffle only me?” He spoke with courtesy. He admired Montfallcon.
“They baffle all of us, save the Lord Chancellor, I think.” Queen Gloriana rustled a cuff. “Yet I respect his concerns, for he has more than once anticipated an important threat to this Realm. We must leave it to your diplomacy, my lord. And I shall honour any decision you take.”
A low bow. “Thank you, madam. I am almost certain the matter will resolve itself.”
“I am entirely to blame, sir, for this trouble. The exchange of letters occurred when…I was obsessed with so many other problems.…It seems…”
Lord Montfallcon was firm. “The Queen need not explain herself.”
“He’s considered something of a clown, I gather, this Poland.” Lisuarte Ingleborough made an inquiring eye. “Or, at least, an eccentric. Strange that he sent no emissaries. If that had been done, we should not now be so surprised.”
“Lord Ingleborough speaks the truth, as I understand it.” Tom Ffynne fingered the plumes of his hat. “Count Korniovsky—if I remember his outlandish name accurately—said much the same, though not directly. His master has little grasp of statecraft, is primarily obsessed with music and such things. Platonically speaking, the nation’s entirely decadent. There is a parliament in Poland, representing the interests of commons and nobles alike, and this makes all the King’s decisions for him, Your Majesty, so it’s said.” The little admiral gave vent to a high-pitched giggle. “A strange land that has a King and doesn’t use him, eh?”
Queen Gloriana smiled slowly, almost wistfully. “Well, we thank thee greatly for this service, Tom Ffynne. Have you more news? Of your own venturings in the West Indies?”
“Golden ballast saw us through the storms, Your Majesty, and it’s still aboard, at Charing Cross, awaiting your pleasure, in the holds of the Tristram and Isolde.”
“You have an inventory, Sir Thomasin?” Sir Orlando Hawes’s manner was almost warm towards the mariner.
“Aye, sir.” Tom Ffynne hobbled forward, drawing a roll of paper from his belt and, bowing with great ceremony, handed it up to Queen Gloriana. She unrolled the document, but it was obvious to most of those who watched her that she did not read it.
“Enough to build and fit a whole squadron of ships!” Gloriana rolled the document and passed it to Lord Montfallcon, who gave it to Sir Orlando. “Would you divide a tenth part between yourself and your crew, Sir Tom?”
“You are generous, madam.”
“A tenth of this!” Like a startled stallion, the Lord High Treasurer’s nostrils flared. “It’s too much! A twelfth, Your Majesty—”
“For so many lives risked?”
Sir Orlando sniffed. “Very well, madam.”
Queen Gloriana peered the length of the table. “Master Gallimari. Are entertainments prepared for all today’s functions?”
“They are, Your Majesty. While you dine, the music of Master Pavealli—”
“Excellent. I am sure all other choices will be appropriate. And the gown for this evening is ready, eh, Master Orne?”
“To the last button, madam.”
“And you, Master Wallis, have prepared the speech for this afternoon?”
“Two, Your Majesty—one for foreign ambassadors, one for London’s mayor.”
“And there are no decisions I need make concerning dinner or supper, I gather. And, Sir Vivien, I regret we shall not be able to go to the hunt until next week, but I beg you hunt without us.”
Thus the Queen improved the atmosphere in the Council Chamber, causing all to laugh, for Sir Vivien’s passion was a standing joke.
Slowly Gloriana got to her feet, smiling back at her suddenly jovial Councillors. They rose, in formal respect. “There are no urgent matters, then? That was the only pressing problem, Lord Montfallcon?”
“It was, madam.” The old Chancellor bowed and handed her a scroll. “Here’s my suggested solution for Cathay and Bengahl.” She accepted it.
“I bid you all adieu, gentleman.”
Thirteen legs bent. Gloriana departed this worshipping concourse and was at once surrounded, again, by pages and maids, on her voyage back to her own lodgings where she might gain, with luck, half an hour in which to indulge an inquest on the matter of Poland with her co-conspirator in innocence, the Countess of Scaith.
Perion Montfallcon, frowning, signed first to Lisuarte Ingleborough and then to Sir Tom; the three were cronies, survivors of a tyranny they had sworn must never return. Montfallcon bid a hasty farewell to his fellow Councillors, and led the two through the small door, across the antechamber, into his own offices. These were huge rooms. They were filled with books of Law and History. Some of the volumes were as large as Montfallcon himself. The rooms were lit by high windows arranged so that none might ever spy upon the occupants. Diffused light entered, seeming to settle near the ceilings, and scarcely any of it reached the floor where the three men now stood, beside Lord Montfall-con’s ordered desk.
The Lord Chancellor sighed and rubbed his heavy nose, shaking his head. “It is the first time she has acted so whimsically. Was it because I lay on my sick-bed and she felt abandoned by me? ‘Tis the action of a foolish child. From birth she was never that.”
The Lord Admiral leaned his bones on the desk. “Perhaps she yearns to be unburdened?”
Tom Ffynne refused the notion. “She is too conscious of her responsibility. Perhaps she was ill.”
“More likely.” Montfallcon rubbed at an arm which seemed suddenly to ache as if he’d been in battle. “Yet—did you detect pain? Perhaps, for a few moments while she penned and sent those letters, she hoped to be free.”
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