“With swords?”
“With all the weapons of Chivalry.”
“Horsed? They can’t be!”
“So I hear. The ship is large—the whole deck will be given to the tournament. Lance, sword, mace and so on.”
“To the death?”
“Or a wounding.”
“But death’s possible? Is it, Tom?”
“Aye.”
“So we’ll have the threat of war between Arabia, whom we protect, and Poland, our best friend.” Montfallcon was very grey. He fell in his chair. He looked at his two friends. He bit his lip.
“And Tatary will move,” said Lord Ingleborough. “They are poised to detect a weakening in the fabric we’ve woven for thirteen years.”
“The Queen should choose one of them. That would stop ’em. But which?” Lord Montfallcon straightened his back. “Poland, whom our people can’t respect, or Arabia, who couldn’t give us the heir we’ll need? Which?”
Tom Ffynne put his finger along his nose. “Arabia. There’s plenty who’ll sire the heir for him.”
Montfallcon continued to brood. “A little more of this talk and there’ll be a hundred claimants for kinship with the Queen’s nine daughters. You know that, do you, gentlemen? You’ve considered that?”
“For the crown?”
“It’s likely.”
“Things aren’t so bad,” said Tom Ffynne.
“Not quite. But in thirteen years we have created the Golden Age. Such creation takes very little time. But it takes still less for terror to descend, willy-nilly, upon a nation. Gloriana should marry Arabia. Hassan is a citizen of Albion, after all. There are Roman precedents. Greek.”
“He’ll give us further trouble. For the Saracens wait only for our sanction to make war on Tatary. The Queen knows that. It is one of the reasons she’ll not consider marriage to Hassan. She fears that she will put too much power into the hands of another Hern.” Lord Ingleborough’s voice trembled as pain seized him.
“We shall have to control him,” said Montfallcon.
“There’ll be Saracens at the Court, seeking to control the Queen—and us,” said Tom Ffynne. “I think we’d be poorly off with Hassan as consort.”
“It could be made plain he is consort, and not King.”
“In words?” said Lord Ingleborough. “Certainly, that can be agreed. But in actuality? He has ambitions to use Albion’s might against the Tatar Empire. All know that. And if there’s a hint of a marriage, we can be certain that the Tatars will attack Arabia, at least, before they are attacked. It’s better, Perion, to stand alone, behind the Queen. Or find a husband closer to home and scotch the reason for the fight. Albion’s seen worse threats.”
“War would destroy all we’ve achieved,” said Lord Montfallcon. He groaned. “How has this happened? In a few months we have become threatened from within as well as from without! I kept everything in perfect balance. How did I lose control?”
“With Lady Mary’s murder,” said Lord Ingleborough, “and dissension here, amongst us.”
“One murder? Impossible!”
“Perhaps Poland learned of your scheme to kidnap him, Perion,” said Tom Ffynne. “If so…”
“He’d need that verified. And there’s none, now, who can be believed. The main kidnapper’s dead.”
“You had him killed?” Lord Ingleborough struggled in his chair.
“Not I. Arabia.”
“Why?”
Montfallcon shrugged. “He over-reached himself in a matter of espionage.”
“On your behalf?”
“On Albion’s.”
“Now you have it!” said Lord Ingleborough. There was sweat on him. “It is as I always warned. Use the old methods—and you see the old results emerging.”
Montfallcon shook his head. “That’s nought to do with Lady Mary’s murder and the rest of the business with the Perrotts. For we must not forget them. If they attack Arabia…”
“They’ll be popular for it,” said Tom Ffynne.
“We’ll not be able to support them.” The Lord High Admiral was wincing as he spoke. “We cannot.”
“And if we stop ’em,” said Tom Ffynne, “half the nobles in Albion will be against us, as well as the commons. We could have some sort of uprising. Not a large one, possibly. But who knows? One thing leads swiftly to another.”
The pain in Ingleborough’s face was reflected in Montfallcon’s, who again saw his great dream fading, even as they spoke. He stood up. “There must be a way to save all that we have schemed for, all the good we have created!”
“Not by the old methods.” Lord Ingleborough drew Patch to him, as if to protect the lad from Montfallcon’s rage. “We acquired bad habits in Hern’s service, even as we worked against him. You cannot help yourself, Perion. You continue to use the instruments of secrecy and terror—modified, perhaps, but you still use them. You plot along conventional lines.”
“To protect our Queen and Albion!” Montfallcon did not raise his voice, but his tone intensified and was therefore much more fearsome. “To protect the innocence of the girl whose life we three protected for so long from the cruelty and caprice of the father! My whole soul has been invested in this service—as have yours. I refuse to accept your inference, Lisuarte, that my actions have been in any way misguided.”
“Or immoral?” Ingleborough spoke quietly his teeth clenching. The pain continued to increase in him. A hand to the heart again.
“Most morally have I protected Albion and all Albion means to us. The world’s not perfect. I have had to use certain tactics…but never have they touched the Queen. No stain…”
“Spilling blood for Albion is spilling blood in the Queen’s name.” Ingleborough sighed, lowering his chin upon his chest.
Tom Ffynne was up. “This is no good. If we three quarrel, then all we’ve achieved is surely lost.”
“I have never acted,” continued Lord Montfallcon, “unless the Queen (and therefore the Realm) was in some way threatened. Many of the dead were amiable enough, I suppose, but foolish, luring the Queen into like foolishness—indirectly, often. She never knew. We could not have the Realm discredited.”
“I fear your next admission,” groaned Ingleborough, “that you’ve had the Countess killed. And those others.”
“The Countess’s influence upon the Queen was never good. Her advice paid scant respect to Duty. And the Queen is Albion and Albion is Duty.”
Tom Ffynne cried: “Friends! No more of this. You drive yourselves to opposing ends of a brittle plank. When it snaps you’ll both fall. Let’s keep to the middle. Remember. Our business is to maintain the balance. It is what we have always agreed. And you, Lisuarte, are in monstrous bad pain. You must retire. I’ll talk to Perion. He claims more than is true, as a man will become drunk on his own poetry and add substance to his stories and thus maintain the song.”
Montfallcon sat down behind his desk. Patch ran for the lackeys to bear away his master’s chair. Tom Ffynne stood beside the empty fireplace and listened to the ticking, to the grinding levers, of the clock above his head.
When Lord Ingleborough had gone, Sir Thomasin Ffynne looked down at his remaining friend. “There can be no more killing, Perion. Another death here and our plans are defeated forever.”
“I’ve killed nobody. Not the ones Ingleborough speaks of, at any rate.”
“I said nought of culprits.” Tom Ffynne stretched himself. “Besides, in conscience, I can’t imitate Lisuarte’s tone. I’ve done my share. And come adrift. This last venture was a stupid trick and I’ll not sail out again. I’m shorebound from now on. I merely said we must have no more. We must see to it that there is no more. We clear the air, Perion. We must bring back the light. We must make the Queen happy. For all our sakes. It cannot be done with the old ways of iron.”
“What other ways are there?” Montfallcon sulked, but he did not deny, in his stance, the truth of Ffynne’s words. “Iron threatens: iron defends.”
“Gold
defends, too.”
“We pay our way clear? That’s never worked in all history!”
“Golden ideas.” Sir Tom laughed at himself. “Golden dreams. It’s what we’ve lived on, you and I, for many years. Golden faith.”
Montfallcon agreed. “The Queen responded. She brought us back our faith for a little while. It seemed that all was well again. Then the Countess of Scaith is proven a murderess and the Queen crumbles. She’s been moping ever since. She’ll see no one. Count Korzeniowski wishes an audience on important matters concerning Poland—perhaps he wishes her to stop this duel, for he loves his Casimir. Oubacha Khan talks openly of Tatar armies gathering at Arabia’s borders while spreading rumours, got from his crony, Lady Yashi, that Lady Lyst and Master Wheldrake aided in Perrott’s murder and threw his body down a disused well, so now Lyst and Wheldrake go fearful for their lives, lest the Perrotts catch the rumour.”
“You believe them innocent?”
“Aye. Those two have no murder in them.”
“There’s gossip of perversity.”
“Mild. I know his tastes. He would be chastised by the Queen every day, and Lady Lyst’s his substitute. And her taste’s for nought but wine. The Queen could make such gossip disappear, but she will not. She has not carried her sceptre for more than a week. She has not received ambassadors. She has not entered the Audience Chamber. She refuses to listen to me. And now there comes a deputation of Saracens, some fifty strong, to speak urgently—doubtless on the same matter as Korzeniowski—and she spurns them, virtually insults them, and they wait daily in the Second Presence Chamber—all etched steel and warlike battle-silks (though they bear no weapons), like an army giving siege.”
“The Countess of Scaith. If she were found?”
“She’s gone for good.”
“You’re prejudiced against her.”
“So I am. But I can read character. She was softening the Queen.”
“The Queen believes now that she was a traitoress?” Ffynne was perplexed.
“The Queen says nothing to me.”
“She thinks you deceive her, Perion, perhaps?”
“Perhaps.”
“Does Ingleborough have her ear?”
“He dodders.”
“He did not today.”
“He has spoken some conventional comfort to her, Tom, but she dismissed him, also. Apparently she half suspects that the Countess of Scaith was murdered, too. She thinks the blood in the room was her friend’s.”
“Could it not be?”
“There would have been signs of a struggle.”
“And no signs of Perrott’s death, then?” Ffynne was sceptical of the theory.
“The whole mystery has been debated.” Montfallcon rose slowly. “She had all the time in the calendar to make sure she was not detected in Perrott’s death. She would not flee unless she felt suspected. Would she?”
“But was she suspected?”
“By me. I have always been suspicious of her.”
“And no news of her in Scaith?”
“None. None. She’ll be abroad. She has estates everywhere. Some even say the Emperor of Tatary is her lover.”
Tom Ffynne wiped his face with his sleeve. “The Queen needs support, Perion. If she’ll not accept it from me, she’ll find it elsewhere. Una of Scaith was her closest friend. Perhaps her only friend, in private life.”
“The Queen is not a private personage,” said Lord Montfallcon. “She’ll recall soon enough that Albion’s friends are her friends. It’s a simple equation.”
Sir Thomasin Ffynne pursed his lips. “It could be, my lord, that we have made our equations too simple. Where, by the by, is Doctor Dee? I should have thought he’d be pleased to comfort Her Majesty.”
“Obsessed with his experiments. He scarcely emerges from his lodgings, these days.”
“It seems we’re all divorced from her at once.” He limped towards the door. “What explanations are there for that, d’ye think, Perion?”
Montfallcon looked up. “What? You blame me, too?”
Tom Ffynne turned back to study him. “You’re quick to suspect accusation. I but asked the question, hoping that your subtler brain might find an answer.”
“I’m plagued by many questions.” Montfallcon had become ashamed of himself. “Forgive me, Tom.”
“Well, think on it. Your mission is, after all, to maintain the unity of the Court and the Realm. And the core of that unity is, as always, Gloriana. Should the core collapse, the whole structure collapses, eh?”
“I have always said so.”
“Yet we are not thinking too much of protecting the core. Of healing it, if it is wounded.” Tom Ffynne spoke kindly. “We must be gentle. She is still, in one sense at any rate, not a woman. So think of her as a child, Perion.”
But Lord Montfallcon drew in a weary breath. “The tenderness is all gone, Tom. Now there is only Duty.”
“By such means are marriages turned sour and cynical, I think.” Tom Ffynne was leaving. “But, like Lisuarte, I never married, so I’m not the best judge, perhaps.”
“I have been married many times,” said Montfallcon, his voice deepening with grief.
THE TWENTY-THIRD CHAPTER
In Which the Queen Attends Her Accession Day Celebrations, in Which Chivalry Is Affirmed; in Which She Discovers a New Champion
IN BURNING GOLD and blazing silver, in shimmering jet and glinting steel, in plate and chain, in surcoats of the finest rippling silk, in bright blues and reds, in greens and yellows, in purples and browns, in a dancing sea of rainbow plumes, with lances bound with samite scarves, with shields fabulously charged, with standards starched and brilliant, their horses clad as gaudily and armoured as fancifully as they, the Queen’s Jousters clattered through the wide gates into the Great Square and began their procession around the perimeter. Above them, on walls and roofs, according to ancient privilege, from four sides the commons roared and cheered their favourites. From the old balcony on the East Wing, where her father and grandfather had sat, Queen Gloriana waved to her knights, distributed roses (flung at random) and was saluted, to louder shouts and wilder huzzahs by a crowd delirious from the pageantry and the heat of high summer. Lances were raised and dipped; bucklers were displayed while heralds called the Rolls of Arms. From throughout the Realm the knights had come to compete before the Queen. Here were famous names—Tirante, Duke of Lyonesse, from the Isles of the West; Sir Gandalac of the Vale of Lune in the North Country; Sir Esplandian of Valentia; Sir Hector of the Ranach in Hibernia; Sir Turquine of Lincoln; all with their yeomen, their pages and their gentlemen, their heralds and their squires. And from beyond Albion came Sir Hakan of Tauron, the Huron King, with his armour all decorated with war-feathers and beads; Sir Herlwin of Wicheetaw; King Desrame of Mauretania; the Emir of Saragossa; Prince Hira of BomBai; the Sultan Matroco of Aethiopia; Prince Shan of Cathay; Sir Bulamwe of Benin—many of them familiar to the crowd, for they attended the Tilt every year, competing not only in arms, but in the splendour of their accoutrements, their weapons, their horses and their attendants; who were clad in fantastical costumes as fauns, wild-men, godlings. Some brought beasts, such as unicorns, elephants and cameleopards, to draw their marvellous chariots; some rode as if to hounds, with packs of trained hyaenas, or apes; and Sir Miles Cockaigne, whose boast was that he had never won a fight in his whole career, had fiddlers and dancers in his entourage, while his yeomen carried sack-buts instead of arms and he himself, in chequered surcoat and loose, lozenge-linked motley-coloured mail, came as Sir Harlekin the Bold, to bring laughter to both Queen and crowd.
All sought to please Gloriana, yet the nobles from the castles and the great houses of Albion, who maintained their estates and tenants in her name and the name of Chivalry, who administered her laws, who belonged to that generation which worshipped her and for whom she was a symbol of faithfulness and idealism, they studied her, anxious for affirmation which she must supply, knowing how easily the virtues of Romance can
transmogrify and become the vices of Cynicism. Through her, and with her absolute support, Montfallcon had re-fashioned the mood of Albion, through a subtle use of pageantry and myth—telling a golden lie in the strong belief that it stood, in time, to become a silver truth—a lie which almost all were ready to accept, for the same reasons as Montfallcon gave it out. And the Accession celebrations, which would last the full week, were a visible sign of their participation in and commitment to those principles. So they saluted Gloriana, and were merry, fighting in good friendship and according to complicated Chivalric codes, in a display to please the commons, to confirm their loyalty to all that Gloriana meant, to compete not merely in matters of physical grace, but in rituals of honour and humility, to give visible reality to their will towards spirituality, towards the true meaning of Chivalry.
The Queen, withdrawing into the long gallery, where, as was the royal habit, she might sit and watch the tourney through the glass which protected her from dust and, to a degree, from noise, behaved in manner so easily that some of those who did not know her might have thought her callous, that she forgot lost friends so swiftly. Many foreign ambassadors filled the gallery, as well as favourite maids of honour and companions, their suitors, relatives of Privy Councillors, wives and children of the competitors below, acquaintances of the Queen from the provinces who took this chance to visit her, as well as the best part of the Privy Council itself, which would not today attend the Tilt, but would wait upon her, in the colours of Romance, on the last day, Accession Day, when she must appear as Queen Urganda the Unknown, mysterious and beneficent sorceress of legend, friend of heroes, saviour of the noble and the brave.
Gloriana acted the role of Gracious Sovereign with an energy derived from unfamiliar anger at the injustice of her position. Montfallcon had insisted she be there, recalling to her those pledges she had made to him even before she took the throne, reminding her of Albion’s heritage, its meaning and its worth. Her conscience had been awakened by him, but not her spirit. She had seen the sense of his insistence, but nonetheless resented it. She had always, in the past twelve years, enjoyed her Accession Day ceremonies, culminating in the Masque in which she played the central role, but with Una gone, with Mary gone, with kind, silly Sir Tancred gone, she could only feel their absence more poignantly, and she mourned for them while she smiled and chatted and from time to time lifted a gay hand to the window.
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