Gloriana clapped her hands and nudged Una’s ribs before she recalled her own majesty, and became the grave, beautiful symbol demanded by the occasion. Una assumed a similar gravity.
The door of the sleigh was opened by Lord Rhoone. The Queen descended. Una followed.
Between the columns they paced, whilst a brassy fanfare announced the Queen; down the steps to where two great torches burned, held in the hands of pages clothed from head to toe by the skins of the polar bear. Behind the pages lords and ladies bent their heads. Also in whites and blues and silver, with powdered faces, the courtiers in the shadows made by the torches reminded Una of a ghostly assemblage, as if the dead rose to pay homage to Albion’s Empress on this misty Twelfth.
From quay to wooden steps the awning stretched, and down they went with measured dignity, to a side carpet laid across the ice where, covered still, a path led to their pavilion, three-sided, tall, of billowing silver silk, with a throne for Gloriana of delicate silver filigree, and a white-cushioned chair for Una, as the Snow Queen’s chief attendant.
Above, on the embankment, Una saw, as she waited for Gloriana to seat herself, a lowing processing of reluctant oxen; she heard the honking of geese, who would share the oxen’s fate, saw the stacked tinder and logs of the fires on which these creatures would be cooked, their juices soon to splutter, their skins to crackle, their savoury meat to swell, proud and tasty in the heat. Una licked her lip and, seeing that the Queen was down, went down herself with a shiver as her farthingale tilted and let a sharp breeze to her knees.
Over the center of the ice was a platform, like a scaffold, on which the musicians sat, tuning their instruments as best they could. The awnings and carpets beyond the Queen’s pavilion were, for contrast, green and gold, and the musicians wore dark green wool; in several layers, judging by their bulk. More trumpets blew a fanfaronade from the embankment, to hamper their tuning further, and the Queen looked questioningly at Una, who paused. Then, she rose, as slowly the courtiers, having filed down from above, assembled.
A figure in rippling ivory appeared upon the carpet leading to the throne. He doffed an ermine cap, falling to one knee. It was Marcilius Gallimari, Master of the Queen’s Revels.
“Your Majesty.”
“Is all prepared, Master Gallimari?”
“It is, Your Majesty! They are ready!” He spoke with intense, earnest enthusiasm.
“Then we’ll begin. Countess.”
Una coughed quietly into her hand. Master Gallimari stepped into the shadows of the awning, to pass through the guards and vanish. Then Una cried:
“The Queen bestows her bounty on the Yuletide widows and the season’s orphans. Let them come forward now and receive their right.”
The courtiers stepped to either side and a footboy handed Una a cushion on which rested a score of kidskin purses. Una took one of the purses and placed it in the Queen’s palm as the first nervous commoner, a plump matron, came humbly up the carpet, her eyes lowered, a shy smile on her lips, in linen shawl and apron, to curtsey. “Your Majesty. The folk of the Southcheap send their loyal respects to Your Majesty and pray the plague will never come upon them.”
“We thank you and the people of Southcheap. Your name?”
“Mistress Starling, Your Majesty, widow of Starling the chandler.”
“Be wise, Mistress Starling, with this, and we pray you to do your duty. We are sorry for your grief.”
“I thank Her Majesty.” A shaking hand accepted the purse.
Then came two swarthy children, fingers linked, a boy and a girl, bobbing all the way.
“Your father and your mother are dead? How so?” Gloriana took a second purse from Una.
“Lost upon the river, Your Majesty,” said the boy, “where they worked at their ferry, up above the Wapping Stairs.”
“We are sorry for your grief.” The words were ritual but the sentiment was not. Gloriana took a further purse, so that the children might have one each.
As the ceremony continued, Una stared beyond the crowds, at the far embankment, the twin of the northern one, with its columns and torches and fanciful stonework, its painted ceramics. Where the embankment turned, to her right, she could see a line of gargoyles on the piles, with mooring rings in their grinning mouths; above the gargoyles were the trees which grew over the high walls, their dark branches turned to stiff grey strands of velvet by the lantern’s light, and then, a little further on, was the Water Gate of West Minster and its grille decorated with iron devils.
The Bounty given, Lord Montfallcon came to stand beside the throne and whisper to the Queen while trumpets announced the two Guests of Honour, and the Queen’s Tribune called out their names. Then, side by side they came, in ceremonial stockings and gowns, magnificent with jade, with diamonds, aquamarines, turquoises, sapphires and all manner of other pale gems.
“His Royal Highness King Casimir the Fourteenth Emperor Elect of Great Poland. His Royal Highness the Grand Caliph Hassan al-Giafar, Lord of All Arabia.”
Two crowned heads bowed before the third. The crown of Poland’s Casimir was white gold, with gothic spikes and very light emeralds, while Hassan al-Giafar wore a turban about which was set a Moorish coronet, all floral abstracts, in silver and mother-of-pearl, and though their gowns were simple, according to tradition, they were trimmed with the richest threads permitted.
They used the High Speech for this ceremony. Forkbearded Arabia spoke first.
“Gloriana, who is Ishtar upon Earth, Goddess of Us All, Whose Name is Honoured in the World’s Four Corners and Whose Fame is Feared, Who is the Sun to Light our Days and the Moon to Illuminate our Nights, whose Splendour Dulls the Stars, We, Caliph Hassan al-Giafar, Descendent of the First Calligraphers of Sheena, Protector of the Raschid, Father of the Nomad, Chief of the Deserts, the Rivers and the Seas, Shield against the Tatar, Overlord of Baghdad and the Fifty Cities, bring thee the greetings and the felicitations of all our folk.”
The Queen rose, taking the sceptre handed her by Una and lifting it as if, obscurely, she blessed the Caliph.
“Albion welcomes thee, great King. We are honoured by thine attendance at our ceremonies.” She seated herself as Poland, fumbling with his cloak, his crown askew over one shaggy eyebrow, his hair falling across his face, his beard coming loose from its careful knots, blinked vaguely, his lips moving soundlessly.
“Um…” began Poland. “Your Majesty.”
Hassan al-Giafar’s handsome hooded eyes showed a hint of amused contempt as they looked upon his confused rival.
“Firstly—thank you—or thank your men—for my rescue. I am much obliged to you. It was foolish of me to trust those villains. I regret the trouble I have caused.”
“No trouble,” murmured the Queen. “But is there not some formal greeting, Your Majesty?”
He was grateful for the reminder. “Your Majesty, Queen Gloriana. Greetings from Poland.” He frowned. “I am—we are Casimir—Emperor Elect of Greater Poland—you know that, eh? Just announced. There’s a formal phrase, but I fear I’ve forgotten it—King of Scandinavia, what? And all the lands from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Great Jove! So I am. Well, it’s a Republic, of course. And a Union of Republics, essentially. Autonomous. But I serve my turn, I suppose, as a symbol. Oh, dear—I had a ring to give you. There are other presents…” He looked behind him. “The presents? It was a lovely ring…. Didn’t expect to have to appear in public like this. Rather shy of ceremonies. The presents…?”
The Caliph was snapping his fingers for his own gifts, carried by turbaned boys. Gloriana inspected the usual treasures (including a necklace of carnelians and gold) and accepted them with ritual thanks, while Poland spoke anxiously to his aide, old Count Korzeniowski, and sent him on an errand.
“There were also several elephants, Your Majesty,” the Caliph told her gravely, “but it was thought inadvisable to bring them onto the ice.”
Una smiled behind her hand, imagining the effect of so many elephants losing their foot
ing and crashing into the waters of the Thames.
There was a pause, after the Caliph’s procession had come and gone. Casimir of Poland looked up. “Aha!” He waved. Another procession, of fur-clad footmen, with precious ikons and beautifully worked jewellery, lacking the magnificence of the Caliph’s gifts but carrying the stamp of artists’ perfection.
“There are some things missing, you see. Not much. We were lucky. But…” Casimir searched beneath his robes. “There was a ring. With a ruby. You might think it vulgar, of course. I had hoped…. However, there is a time and a place, I know—don’t have much in the way of formal ceremonies in Poland, these days—you must forgive me if I give offence….”
“The gifts are exquisitely beautiful, King Casimir.”
“They are, aren’t they! But the ring…. There was some fine Vienna stuff. Did that come? The ring. Gods! It’s lost!”
“The brigands…?” murmured Gloriana.
“The villains! The most beautiful of all my gifts.”
“We shall catch the leader, never fear,” she promised.
Lord Montfallcon cleared his throat to speak. “Her Majesty is grateful to both Your Majesties….”
Gloriana, recovering, nodded. “Albion welcomes thee, great Kings. We are honoured by thine attendance at our ceremonies.”
And chairs were fetched, almost thrones, for the two guests, both placed on the right of the Queen, and at angles so that one should not seem to take precedence, and the Countess of Scaith must smile and whisper and play host to the monarchs while the Queen received the rest of her guests:
Rudolf of Bohemia, the Scientist King, Casimir’s vassal; Prince Alenèon de Medici of Florenza, a youth whose chivalrous love for the Queen was famous; the Aztec ambassador, Prince Comius Sha-T’Lee of Chlaksahloo (who believed himself a demi-god and Gloriana a goddess) in golden feathers and feathered cloak; the Chevalier Presival-le-Gallois of Britannia; Oubacha Khan, in painted armour, iron and fur, envoy from the Tatar Empire; Prince Lobkowitz, in black and silver, from independent Prague; Prince Hira of Hindoostan, a protectorate of Albion’s; Lord Li Pao, ambassador from the Court of Cathay, another vassal state; Lord Tatanka Iyotakay ambassador from the great Sioux Nation, in eagle feathers and white beaded buckskins; the Lady Yashi Akuya, ambassadress from the Isles of Nipponia; Prince Karloman, the old King’s son, to represent the Low Country Alliance; Count Rotomondo, Overlord of Paris; Master Ernst Schelyeanek, astronomer and physician, of Vienna; envoys from Virginia, amongst them hawk-nosed Lord Kansas and the tiny, contentious Baron of Ohio; Master Ishan the Mathematician from the Tatar protectorate of Anatolia; Caspar, the great engineer of Jawa; the Palestinian scholar Micah of Jerusalem; the explorer Murdoch, Thane of Hermiston, a white cape thrown carelessly over his plaids and bronze, a bonnet with white hawk’s feathers jaunty on his red curls; and many more dignitaries, scholars, scientists, magicians, alchemists, engineers, adventurers and soldiers, taking more than an hour and a half to pass before the throne.
Then came the first entertainment, in torchlight, as the Ice Knight (Lord Gorius Ransley) and the Fire Knight (Sir Tancred Belforest) tilted in full armour, on horseback, on the frozen surface at the river’s centre. Chips of ice flew, the breath of the horses was like dragon’s vapour, metal rang as lance met shield and both were unhorsed at once.
Above them, on the embankment, leaning with elbows against stone to look down at this scene, stood a figure made shapeless by the huge bearskin coat clothing him from head to foot, the bear’s skinned head forming a cap which hid the greater part of his face. Sometimes, when the light from the bouncing flames (on which geese and oxen now roasted) leapt high, his black, sardonic eyes would gleam.
Fire defeated Ice, according to arrangement.
Now he watched as the skating tumblers in the costumes of the Comedy—Harlekin and Pantalon, Cornetto and Isabella and the rest—began to leap and spin in time to the brisk and somewhat discordant music of the shivering consort on the platform, while beneath the awning the Queen bent her head to converse with her fellow sovereigns. Pages, their feet steadied by spiked irons, moved slowly through the gathering, bearing trays of boiling wine; cooks and their boys basted spitted meat; and on the far bank a huge scaffolding was being erected.
The figure in the bear coat left the wall and moved gradually down first one flight of steps and then another, until it stood with the crowd upon the ice, sipping a silver cup of claret, admiring the children of the nobles, Frost Fairies all, who carried the monstrous Twelfth Cake on a litter to the Queen, taking the meat and bread that he was offered and cramming it with some relish into his mouth as he continued to move here and there, keeping more by instinct than by judgement to the shadows, to the fringes of the crowd. There came a cracking from the far bank, a rush like mysterious wind as the observers gasped, and the first fireworks began to fizz and spin, forming a great G in an ornamental panel; then rockets shrieked and scattered diamond sparks and the whole of the ice was stark with sudden brilliance, causing the bearskinned figure to retreat a little to a corner where wharf steps met wall. Flaring cartridges fell upon the ice, which hissed, causing alarm or feigned consternation amongst those who took heed of it.
Red and green fire bellowed and the scaffolding shifted a little once again, so that the ice appeared to creak.
Lord Montfallcon heard the sound and was instantly active, calling for Lord Rhoone, who stood with Lady Rhoone and their two children, talking to tiny Master Wheldrake and insouciant, swaying Lady Lyst. “Rhoone! D’ye hear?”
“What?” Lord Rhoone handed his cup to his elder boy, who, glad of opportunity up to now denied him, began to sip.
“The ice, Rhoone. The ice is breaking. Out there.”
“It’s solid enough here, Montfallcon. It was tested. We still test it.”
“Nevertheless…”
Rhoone rubbed at his beard, looking about him with some dismay. “Well…”
“We must transfer to the embankment.” Lord Montfallcon looked to see the figure in the bear’s coat moving casually up the steps, strolling into the darkness. More fireworks howled and burst. Lord Montfallcon glared at the figure, half-lifted his hand, then lowered it. “Your Majesties, my lords and ladies,” he cried. “We must return to shore. The ice threatens to crack.” But his voice could neither be heard above the roar and snap of the fireworks which still blazed, nor above the laughter and shouts of a drunken crowd.
Montfallcon pushed urgently through until he reached Gloriana’s side. She was laughing at something the King of Poland had just said, to Hassan al-Giafar’s annoyance, her face shining as she watched the explosions, which grew louder and brighter in increasingly rapid sequence.
“The ice, madam. There’s a danger it might collapse!”
A blinding burst of light and heat. Her lips parted. “Ah…”
“The ice is breaking!” screamed Montfallcon. “Your Majesty! The ice is breaking!”
The figure in the bearskin moved beside the embankment wall again, through the trees, looking back at the throng, hearing Montfallcon’s voice as it called now into silence. He paused to watch as slowly the gathering began to move, following the Queen. She left the ice and returned to her carriage. Then, with an amused lift of his shoulder, he ducked down behind a shrub, through a gap in the West Minster wall, and out into a narrow alley which would take him eastward to a house where further entertainment awaited him.
In the Queen’s sleigh, side by side, sat Poland and Arabia, while opposite them was the Queen herself, with her companion, the Countess of Scaith.
Shaggy Casimir the Fourteenth was in high spirits. “It’s been fine adventure, since I came to Albion! By the Gods, Your Majesty, I am glad I made my decision! If I’d come in state, with all my fleet and gentlemen, I’d have had a duller time, and no mistake.”
Hassan al-Giafar put the nail of the little finger of his right hand to a gap between his front teeth and picked at a piece of meat, staring moodily out of the window at the retre
ating river. “There was really no danger,” he said. “The ice is still firm.”
“My Lord Montfallcon exists night and day only for the Queen’s safety,” said Una with a smile of irony.
The young Caliph scowled. “Do you permit this man to monitor your every decision, madam?”
Gloriana was dismissive. “He has protected me since I was born. I fear that I am so used to it, Your Majesty, that I should feel strange without Montfallcon clucking somewhere in the background.”
King Casimir was shocked. “Hermes, madam! Are you never free?” He laid an innocent and sympathetic hand upon the Queen’s knee.
Gloriana found herself with a further problem in diplomacy, but she was rescued from it as the sleigh struck an obstacle and Casimir was flung, chuckling, back on his cushions, sliding against Hassan, who sniffed: “If this Montfallcon were my vizier, I should have him whipped for spoiling my entertainment.”
Gloriana smiled.
“But then, of course, I am a man,” said the Grand Caliph of Arabia.
“It’s true that women do tend to be more merciful,” observed King Casimir. “To abolish death by hanging from your land and replace it with exile seems to me an ideal solution, if one suffers at all from conflict of conscience. I, of course, am not bothered with such conflicts, since my power comes to me from the Parliament.”
“That is no power at all, in my opinion.” Hassan was determined to be contentious.
“Actually it is the same, if one accepts that power is given to one as a responsibility by the people one serves, eh?”
“I think we are all agreed on that,” Gloriana strove as usual, for equilibrium.
The place was reached and with bows and curtseys they went to their separate lodgings to enrobe themselves in their costumes and study their parts for the Masque.
Gloriana was met by Lord Montfallcon as she returned. “I must apologise, Your Majesty, for cutting short the entertainment. It seemed to me…”
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