Gloriana

by Michael Moorcock

  Their human figures were dwarfed by obsidian statues of grotesque and anthropoidal aspect—brooding statues, perhaps still dreaming of the heated, morbid and fantastical past, when Hern’s Throne Room rang with the wailing of wretched victims and the coarse laughter of the drunken, the degenerate and the despairing, too fascinated or too frightened to depart from the addictive atmosphere accompanying the indulgence of self-hating Hern’s horrible appetites.

  The place disturbed Patch, who moved closer to his master and took his hand, for comfort. “Was King Hern mad?” he whispered. “Was he, sir?”

  “His madness brought wealth to Albion,” Montfallcon answered. “Possessions of all kinds. For though he had no political ambition, in the ordinary sense, he encouraged such rivalries amongst his courtiers that they were forever adding to their own wealth and Albion’s. However, towards the end, it was almost certain that everything would be lost. Our enemies were ready to snatch them from us, for they thought we should have civil war on Hern’s death. Instead, young Queen Gloriana ascended the throne—thanks to the efforts of men like your master and myself—and in the thirteen years of her rule our world has changed from a realm of dreadful darkness into one of golden light.”

  “The only pity of it all,” said Ingleborough sadly, “is that we should have been touched by Hern’s madness. There isn’t one of us from that time who was not in some way corrupted, distorted or harmed.”

  “Not the Queen!” insisted Montfallcon.

  Lord Ingleborough shrugged.

  “And not you, sir!” said Patch to his master in loyal astonishment.

  “Lord Montfallcon and myself served King Hern and served him well, make no mistake. But we dreamed of a nobler future, Albion’s Periclean Age, if you like. We guarded Gloriana as the symbol of our hope, turning the King against those who supported him most strongly, filling his poor mad brain with evidence of plots against him so that gradually he destroyed the worst of his supporters and employed the best—men like ourselves who had no stomach for the things that went on daily in this room.” Ingleborough sighed and hugged the boy to him. “And the Queen has nine children, none of whom are legitimate. It terrifies me. She will not deny that they are hers. She cannot name the sires. If she should die…oh, it would be Chaos. Yet, if she should marry…”

  “Strife,” said Montfallcon. “Sooner or later. Certainly, if it were a man of Albion, such as we should wish, it would silence certain tongues. But she’ll only marry the one who will bring her to—who will give her peace…. And none has ever succeeded.” He looked up at the grinning statues. “Gloriana falls—and Albion falls back to this—or worse—inturned, cynical, greedy, unjust and weak—we should become small again and we should rot. Arabia wishes to preserve what we have gained, there’s no question of it—but Arabia would rule Albion, and thus disaster would come, inevitably. Arabia is too intractable, too proud, too masculine…. We survive through the Queen, her character, her very sex. She fills our people with her own idealism, with a sense of all that is best in Albion. Indeed, she infects the world. But as some men would drag the sun from the heavens so that it might be theirs alone, so do some who love Gloriana most see her as the fulfillment of their private desires: unable to see that Albion created her as much as she has created this Albion, and that if they destroy the root they destroy the blossom, too.”

  “Is there no Prince, I wonder,” said Ingleborough, “in all the world, who would give himself to Albion so that he might then win Gloriana?”

  “None we have met.” Montfallcon turned suddenly, thinking he had seen a tall figure moving behind the statues. He smiled at himself. “And no one who matches nobility of spirit with the means of comforting the Queen. By Xiom-barg! Enough have tried, Lisuarte. Soon, I think, she must reconcile herself.”

  “I fear a reconciled Queen might also become a moody Queen—a careless Queen—for I have it in my mind that Albion and Gloriana’s circumstance are interdependent—that should she ever lose hope, then Albion’s hope, too, vanishes.” Ingleborough led Patch by the hand from the old Throne Room. Montfallcon hesitated for a moment before following them.

  As they left there came a rustling behind the throne itself and, cautiously, the ragged, unkempt frame of the mad woman rose to stand with one hand upon the chair’s black arm, poised on tip-toe, alert in case they should return. Then she danced gracefully down the steps, curtseyed once to the empty throne, and drifted away into the shadows as mist might join smoke.

  Jephraim Tallow, who had been following her, emerged, standing with hands on hips, cat on shoulder, to look about him. He had lost the mad woman.

  “Well, Tom, she’s led us nowhere. I’d hoped for a pantry, at least. I think we’ve exhausted her possibilities as a guide and must find some other old inhabitants to show us more secrets.”

  He stalked to where a narrow stair ran up the wall to a gallery. He climbed. He found a bell-shaped arch and went through, crossing a narrow bridge with a parapet higher than his head. Above was darkness. Below were echoes, perhaps the sound of water. He walked quickly, found more steps and then was opening a door which took him onto a little balcony, set into a tower, and he was in daylight. He shivered, glancing down once at the two figures far below in the garden, before he went inside again.

  Oubacha Khan, son of the Lord of the Western Horde and ambassador from Tatary to the Court of Gloriana the First, clad in a long ponyskin coat that reached to his ankles, ponyskin boots that reached to his knees, and a cap of chain mail lined with wool, was walking the grey garden with the Lady Yashi Akuya, who, kimono-clad, was forced to take several little steps for every stride of his but, since she was secretly in love with the thin Tatar, she bore all discomfort (including the cold) with an eager smile. Tatary and Nipponia had long been traditional enemies, which was why the two found one another’s company so comforting at this alien Court.

  Certain that they were not observed in their distant and forgotten garden, they spoke casually of the matters most frequently upon their minds.

  “Last night it was the little ones again, and the swimming pool,” the Lady Yashi Akuya informed Oubacha Khan, “or so I had it from my girl.” (She had introduced a geisha to Gloriana’s seraglio and now the geisha sent regular reports.)

  “Followed by some obscure activity involving toy sheep, as I understand it,” said the young Khan, fingering long moustaches and causing Lady Yashi Akuya to blush. He maintained his own spy, Maurentanian, to keep him informed not of Gloriana’s specific amusements (if amusements they were) but of her condition, of her state of mind and her state of health. Several nations pursued a theory of diplomacy based very closely on their own interpretations of Gloriana’s private misery.

  “But without result, as usual,” added the Lady Yashi sympathetically. She suffered much as Gloriana suffered, but rather less intensely. Also, she was convinced that she would soon know the pleasures of orgasm, when Oubacha Khan at last decided to have his will with her.

  “She remains frustrated.”

  The Nipponian ambassadress made a small noise through her rounded lips.

  “And no suggestion that either Poland or Arabia visited her secret apartments?”

  “None. Though both were eager. Attempts were made. Notes were sent, and the like. But in the end Poland left, assured of a sister in the Queen, while Arabia consoled himself with a page or two and—this is a mere rumour—the Countess of Scaith.”

  “He hoped the Countess would provide a way to Gloriana. We can reasonably guess that it was with this in mind that he broke a lifetime’s habit.” The Tatar ambassador uttered a frosty chuckle to disguise the jealousy he felt. Although he had absolutely no ambitions concerning the Queen, he had for two years entertained a passion for her closest friend and would have courted her long since, had he not, when leaving home, taken the vow of celibacy demanded of all Tatar nobles who went as emissaries to foreign lands.

  “And yet,” said Lady Yashi Akuya enthusiastically, “both Arabia and Pol
and appear to have committed themselves even more closely to their alliance with Albion.”

  The Tatar nodded. “It is a tribute to Gloriana’s innocence and Montfallcon’s guile. I had thought, by ensuring Lord Shahryar’s discovery of the truth concerning Montfallcon’s part in his nephew’s murder, that I had provided a substantial subject for contention, but evidently Arabian ambition is so great they would relinquish all honour if it meant one slender chance of winning the Queen.” He was disapproving now. “If such a thing had happened to a Tatar, vengeance would have been taken immediately, no matter what the political gains at stake.”

  Extended lashes fluttered. “Honour is not dead,” she said, “in Nipponia, either.”

  He put habitual prejudice behind him. “The Nippon Isles are a synonym for selflessness,” he told her generously. “Our two nations stand alone as upholders of the old values in a world where pacifism has become a creed in itself. I am all for peace, of course—but a proper peace, won by victorious arms, a well-deserved rest after manly conflict. Battle clears the air, decides the issues. All this diplomacy merely complicates, confuses and suppresses problems a decent war would bring immediately into the open. The victors would know what they had won and the vanquished would know what they had lost—and everyone would have a perfectly good idea of their position, until things became cloudy again. As it is we know that Arabia wants nothing more than to go to war with Tatary but Albion frustrates her, and that is why Arabia grows degenerate, because her energies are not naturally employed.”

  They had reached the door which led into Lady Yashi Akuya’s quarters. “How refreshing it is,” she said, “to listen to such direct and healthy talk. Would you consider it self-indulgent if I invited you to talk with me so that I might listen a little longer to your thoughts?”

  “Not at all,” replied the Khan. “I am flattered by your interest.”

  She stepped aside to admit him to a room which was, like all her rooms, excessively black and white. “And you must tell me more about the Arabian murder.” She clapped her hands for her servants to come to take Oubacha Khan’s tawny coat. “Montfallcon did it, you say?”

  “His creature.”

  THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER

  In Which Captain Quire Brings a New Client to Josias Priest, the Dancing Master

  WITHIN THE NARROW CONFINES of a sedan chair carried by four none too healthy lackeys cursing and stumbling on rain-slippery cobbles, Captain Quire sat staring almost tenderly at Alys Finch, who sat with back straight, hands folded and knees together, in respectable stomacher, gown and petticoats, with a starched ruff like an aurora about her throat, emphasising her high, unnatural colour; she was as carefully costumed as her ex-swain, and as carefully trained by the demon who had mastered them both. His tone was approving: “How swiftly you rise in society, Alys. I shall soon be proud of you.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The voice was small and automatic.

  “You had natural manners and I have needed to do little in that area. I improved your taste in clothing, taught you to eat properly and to speak and so on, but I have not the time to teach you the most important accomplishment, which is to be able to laugh, smile, make witty observations at will, yet never once relax into genuine and dangerous happiness. I feel a responsibility to you, Alys, as any father might (for I am creating you more consciously, more carefully, than a natural father would), and I cannot allow you to be vulnerable. I promised to make you strong, to make you reliant only upon yourself and your master. And to that continuing end we visit Josias Priest.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You thought yourself weak and Phil so strong. I proved you wrong. It is you who are strong, Alys, and who will be stronger still anon. An able lieutenant for Captain Quire in his constant war against the world’s weaklings. For Quire is Mother Nature’s thresher.” His black eyes smouldered with self-mockery which she, mesmerised for almost two months, could neither understand nor recognise. “And that is why I have never insulted your strength and your intelligence by demanding love from you. Instead I have demanded disciplined obedience and given you power and security in return. For few men understand what Quire understands—the extent of a woman’s physical fear. It is what I exploited in you at first. And now I offer you release from that fear. I have trained you as a sergeant trains his troops. I have said, ‘Trust me with your life, your soul, your freedom—and I will protect you and teach you how to protect yourself.’” He stretched his cruel, muscular hand towards her and lifted her chin. “Do you feel safe, Alys, and strong?”

  Her grey eyes were steady, though without much vitality. “I do, sir.”

  The chair swayed from side to side and came to the cobbles with a bump. Quire opened the door and sprang out. They stood before the gates of a high-walled courtyard. Beyond the courtyard, surrounded by tall shrubs and ornamental trees, was the white wall of a two-storied house of the sort that might belong to a well-to-do merchant.

  Leaving Alys Finch within the sedan, Quire rattled the gate and called a halloo. “Priest! Are you there, man?” Dogs barked. Two lanterns appeared from the left side of the house. They were carried in the hands of middle-aged footmen in short smocks and hose. “Priest! It’s Quire!”

  Before the footmen could reach the gate a door in the house had opened and more light filled the courtyard. A skinny silhouette. A hand lifted. “Admit the gentleman, Franklin.”

  Quire went back to the sedan and helped Alys Finch, whose natural grace had, in his eyes, been improved and who was now demure by intention rather than instinct, to the stones of the street. He gave the rogues twice the fee they asked for, ignored their honestly expressed gratitude, and led his girl through the gate, calling out, as it was shut and locked behind him: “Master Priest, I have brought a young lady to you, for training in deportment and the dance, and to learn the ways of the Court.”

  Josias Priest, the Dancing Master, continued to wait at his threshold. He had a velvet evening cap upon his lank, mousy hair. His eyes were shifty and his mouth hung open, like the soft mouth of a petulant and pampered pony. On his scrawny body, a head taller than Quire’s, was a long gown of the same dark velvet as the cap. He held a dinner knife in his right hand, though his stance was entirely without aggression.

  “It’s late, Captain Quire,” he said, as his visitors came in.

  “You needn’t begin your work tonight.” Quire was bluff. Josias Priest’s watery eyes became even more alarmed. “She’s to stay here, so that she can be trained thoroughly and swiftly.”

  “I don’t accommodate my pupils, Captain.”

  Quire led the way into Priest’s dining room. Here a large table had been laid with a supper so mean that it would have shamed a river scavenger. Quire looked sadly at the cheese rind and the ham fat, the crust. “She’ll expect better food than this. She is my particular charge, my ward, and I’ll want her fed heartily, with all kinds of nourishment.” He drew back a chair for her and, eyes upon the surface of the table, she sat down. “Succeed with this one and I’ve another for your troupe.”

  “It is not good policy, Captain, to have young lady pupils staying on the premises. For one thing, there is the gossip. It also produces undue excitement in the other pupils. Moreover, there is always the danger that the young person will conceive a—an infatuation—”

  “Do you think you’re in danger of falling in love with Master Priest, Alys?”

  “No, sir.”

  “There! You’re safe, Priest. With such guarantees, how can you refuse? I want her to have everything—and you must do your best. You are good at your profession. You must teach her to walk, to dance, to make entertaining conversation. Most of all, you must teach her how to flatter. You know how to flatter, do you, Priest? Of course you do, it’s your greatest skill—indeed, it’s your philosophy! Good, then—deportment, dancing and flattery. I shall drop in from time to time to see what progress you are making. I shall expect considerable progress, Priest.”

  “Captain Quire! I h
ave no room!”

  “You have a large house and several servants. Dismiss one of the servants, if you must. It would be a charitable act, come to think of it.” Quire adjusted the sombrero on his thick, black hair, admiring himself in one of Master Priest’s many mirrors. “Be a good girl, Alys. I shall be watching out for you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll have clothes sent round,” Quire told Master Priest.

  Priest laid down his knife with a clatter, making some attempt to resist. “Lessons? Accommodation? How will she pay?”

  “I’ll pay, Master Priest.”

  “How much?”

  “In my usual currency, where you and I are concerned. I’ll pay you with six months’ silence.”

  Master Priest sat behind his supper, pushing the plate aside. “Very well. But to what purpose do you want her trained?”

  Quire paused at the door and scratched his chin. He shook his head and grinned. “None, as yet. There may never be one. My actions, Master Priest, as you must know by now, are often performed for their own sake.”