Quire shook his head. “I have not the conscience of good, bluff Lord Rhoone.” He pretended to frown and consider alternatives. He had been much relieved at Lord Rhoone’s removal from the Court (by Quire’s own suggestion). He remained nervous of all those he had encountered before assuming his present role. Rhoone, in his gratitude for the apparent saving of his family’s lives, had never suspected Quire to be the same hooded villain he had once led to Lord Montfallcon’s presence; at Montfallcon’s constant urging, however, two could be added to two at any time and Rhoone become a potential enemy instead of a useful friend. The first victim of this enterprise had been Sir Christopher (who had been poisoned because he might have remembered Quire’s face as well as his name), but now there were none close to the throne, save Montfallcon, whom he daily discredited, with any knowledge of his intimate past. He considered, for a moment, hinting at Lord Ingleborough’s position, but this was already Sir Thomasin’s. He looked towards Ffynne, arm in arm with a maid of honour, who had come up to them as they talked. “The Queen believes I should seek honest employment, Sir Tom.”
The old sailor was shrewd behind his twinkle. “What’s your vocation, Captain, I wonder?”
Hilarity. The Queen and Lady Lyst fell into one another’s arms again. Quire pretended embarrassment while he and Ffynne exchanged their private irony in a swift glance. “Not much, I fear. A small talent for acting, I suppose.” He referred, they thought, to his performance at the Tilt.
Sir Thomasin said: “My friend Montfallcon considers you a spy. Sir Christopher Martin is not yet permanently replaced.”
“Oh, Sir Tom!” cried the Queen. “Captain Quire would be nothing so base as a thief-taker!”
“Secretary, then?” Lady Lyst blinked, hearing her own slurred voice with some shock. She relapsed.
Gloriana became sad, then stifled the emotion. Quire was quick to understand and changed his tone at once. “My vocation is to serve the Queen in any way she will. I’ll let her decide my fate.”
She took his hand and sat him down between herself and Lady Lyst. “It will take much consideration. I shall question you, Captain, as to your proficiencies.”
Sir Orlando Hawes appeared upon the terrace above. He wore conventional shades of dark colours, purple and black, for he joined in the mourning, as did most of the court, of Lord Ingleborough, whose funeral had earlier taken place. With his black skin, he was almost a shadow, but Quire noticed the eyes linger on little Alys as she danced and ogled her lovers. Quire was greatly satisfied with her work. She had become his stalking bitch, and he had developed in her a lust for treachery as another might develop a lust for gold or pleasure.
Sir Orlando hesitated, seemingly saddened by the sight of this private masquerade, perhaps embarrassed by its echoing of the costumes of his own ancestors. Then, slowly, he took the steps into the garden, removing his black feathered hat as he bowed. “Your Majesty. Lord Ingleborough is entombed.”
The Queen resisted guilt as, the minute before, she had resisted sadness. “Did the funeral go well, Sir Orlando?”
“It was attended by a great many, Your Majesty, for Lord Ingleborough was loved by the people.”
“As we loved him,” she said firmly. “The people were apprised of our inability to attend?”
“Through ill-health, aye.” He straightened his back and stared about him.
“I have seen too much of misery these past months,” she told him. “I’ll remember Ingleborough alive.”
Sir Orlando looked towards Sir Thomasin. “We missed you at the feast, sir.”
“I saw Lisuarte buried. It was enough. I was never one for public ceremonies, as you know.”
Sir Orlando disapproved. His opinion of Sir Thomasin had ever been low. He did not acknowledge Captain Quire at all.
“Lord Montfallcon spoke in the Queen’s name, Your Majesty,” he continued. “As her representative.”
“So Sir Thomasin has already informed me.”
“He is with me. And Lord Kansas. He sent me ahead to request—”
“Perhaps he would prefer an interview this evening?” she suggested.
“He is wearied by the day’s events. It would be best, Your Majesty, if you saw him now.” Sir Orlando gestured back at the terrace. “He is on the other side of the gate.”
The Queen looked enquiringly at Quire, who shrugged acquiescence. It would not do to show malice toward Montfallcon. Not yet.
“We shall receive the gentlemen,” said Gloriana.
Another bow and Sir Orlando had returned to the gate to bring back Lord Montfallcon and Lord Kansas, who were also in the uniform of mourning.
Quire saw the Queen become guiltily aware of her own unsober costume. He squeezed her hand and whispered: “They’ll drag you down if they can. Remember my words—trust no one who would make you feel guilty.”
She rose, as if he controlled her, and went smiling to greet the three nobles. “My lords. I thank you for coming here so soon. The funeral went off, I’m informed, with proper dignity.”
“Aye, madam.” Montfallcon bowed slowly. Kansas followed his example. The Virginian was troubled and sympathetic, whereas Montfallcon was merely accusatory. Quire knew a moment’s anxiety when he contemplated Kansas. “You’ll forgive us for intruding upon your"—Montfallcon cast a mighty glare over the garden and its occupants—“games.”
“Of course we do, my lord. In such melancholy times we must divert ourselves. It does no good to brood on death. We must be optimists, eh?”
These were unfamiliar words from her, and Montfallcon looked to Quire as the suspected author.
“Will you not join us, my lord?” asked Quire with mock humility. Then, as though he checked his malice, “But I forget myself. Lord Ingleborough was your dearest friend.”
“Aye.” Montfallcon looked through Tom Ffynne. “I have none left now. I must be self-reliant.”
“You are the strong central pillar of the Realm,” flattered Gloriana, linking her arm through his. He started, as if he would pull free, but courtesy forbade it, as did habit.
He let her lead him towards the maze. “There was a reason for my visit, madam.”
Lord Kansas, Captain Quire and Sir Orlando Hawes stalked in the wake of this pair, three black and ill-matched birds of passage.
“And what’s that, my lord?”
“Business of State, madam. A meeting of the Privy Council must shortly be convened. We have news. Your guidance is required.”
“Then I shall call the Council together for the morning.” She was anxious to show that she did not reject all Duty.
“Later today would be better, madam.”
“We entertain our friends presently.”
They went into the maze. Montfallcon’s head disappeared entirely, but Gloriana’s could be seen, together with her silk-clad shoulders, over the top of the hedges. Then Quire went in, then Kansas, and finally Hawes.
From where she sat, Lady Lyst began to giggle. She saw the Queen’s auburn, ruby-studded hair. She saw the crown of Sir Orlando’s tall hat, the top of Lord Kansas’s head, with its cap and feathers. Wheldrake came to sit beside her, wanting to know why she laughed. She pointed. The two visible faces, at different points in the maze, were very grave. The bobbing feathers looked like carrion birds, scuttling along the tops of the hedges. Even Wheldrake, who was at his composition, allowed himself a smile or two.
“Why have they gone into the maze?” he asked.
Lady Lyst was unable to answer.
When Doctor Dee came up, having changed from black to robes of lightish purple, the Thane of Hermiston, in the dark mourning set of his clan, beside him, he could not see the joke at all.
“Where is Captain Quire?” asked the Thane, placing his large hand upon his red beard. “And what’s all this idolatry? Is there no piety left at Court at all? Why is everyone so naked? And with Ingleborough scarcely put to rest?”
Master Wheldrake said: “It is the Queen’s pleasure. She is bored with Death
’s company.”
“Captain Quire,” said Lady Lyst with significant hilarity, “is in there!”
The Thane and Dee looked towards the maze. “Everyone is drunk, I think,” softly said the Thane, by way of interpretation and possible excuse. “Though I would not expect it of our visiting sage.” He spoke of Quire, whom he regarded as his greatest prize.
Phil Starling screamed.
They all gave him their attention.
Master Wallis had borne him to the ground and was wrestling with him in a peculiar way. It was not possible to tell if this were true violence or play. The Thane took a step towards them, then halted as the couple began to roll over and over on the grass.
“How swiftly manners change,” murmured the Thane, who was just back from an adventure. “The Queen permits all of this?”
“She encourages us,” said Lady Lyst, very suddenly serious. She pulled herself up. “It has happened since the Countess of Scaith disappeared. We all grieve for her.”
“Where’s she gone to?” the Thane would know.
“Perhaps to one of your other spheres,” Wheldrake suggested, “for she’s nowhere to be found. Oubacha Khan has been searching for her. He thinks she’s still somewhere in the palace.”
“How?”
“In the walls,” said Lady Lyst. “But where?”
“Montfallcon thinks she murdered Perrott,” Doctor Dee told the Thane.
“Not Perrott,” said Lady Lyst.
“Not anyone,” pointedly remarked her lover.
“Not anyone.” Lady Lyst rubbed at her weary eyes. “We’re suspected of Perrott, Wheldrake and I.” She sighed.
“Montfallcon seems to think Quire came from the walls.” Doctor Dee was dry. “He’ll not believe the truth, that’s why. But Montfallcon and Kansas discussed the matter at the feast today. They were for going in, not to seek the Countess, but to find proof of Quire’s origins.”
The Thane chuckled. “They’ll have to look further afield for those.”
“Captain Quire has powers that are not of our world,” Doctor Dee murmured. “He is a brilliant alchemist.”
“He has said nothing to us.” Lady Lyst became interested, for her own tastes were shared between the wine bottle and natural philosophy.
“He is a greatly modest man,” said the Thane approvingly. “He will give the Queen good advice.”
“Yet some blame him for all this idleness,” Wheldrake told him.
“It cannot be so.” Hermiston was firm.
“Or if it is so,” added Doctor Dee, noting that the Queen and Montfallcon, still arm in arm, were emerging from the maze again, “it is for sane reason and the Queen’s well-being.”
Montfallcon seemed a little mollified. Wheldrake saw Tom Ffynne turn the corner of a hedge, note his old friend, and turn back again, taking a maid or two with him.
Kansas, Hawes and Quire were still within the maze.
“Then we shall see you this evening, madam?” Montfallcon said.
“This evening,” she promised. She asked of Wheldrake: “Where is Captain Quire?”
“Yonder, madam.” Wheldrake showed her. “He followed you in.”
She seemed agitated to be parted from him so long. “Will someone fetch him here?”
The Thane began his stride towards the tall hedges. As he reached the entrance he stopped with a hint of a yell as Phil Starling flew out, still giggling, pursued by Master Wallis. There was sweat on Master Wallis’s pale skin. Some of Phil’s kohl had smeared, giving him the rakish appearance of a dissolute foxhound. The Thane made another effort to enter and did so. They saw the feather of his bonnet for a moment. Panting, Phil and Wallis came on. Montfallcon grew angry. “Master Wallis!”
Florestan Wallis came to a halt, one hand on the boy’s soft arm. He cleared his throat. “Aye, my lord?” Phil continued to grin.
“There is a meeting of the Council called.”
“I shall be there, my lord.” Wallis dropped his hand. Phil stared through bold, luscious eyes at Lord Montfallcon, smiling at him as a harlot might smile on a potential client. This was too much for Gloriana. Once again regal, she dismissed them both with a wave.
“The impiety spreads,” said Montfallcon in his cobra’s hiss. “One understands the Queen’s desire to maintain her whores. She feels responsibility towards them. Let us hope that one day soon the responsibility will be removed—” He broke deliberately from this to his next phrase. “—but when the denizens of the seraglio are brought out into the open, to be displayed for all to see, one wonders if, after all, the Queen is wise to continue with her old customs. What was reasonable and private divertissement now becomes public, senseless and all-consuming rapture! Shall we soon see in Albion some pasha’s opulent and decadent Court? Is this to become Hern’s Albion, where no maid nor youth was ever safe from infamy?”
“We shall meet again, my lord, when the Council meets,” said Gloriana distantly. “Where is Captain Quire? Is he lost?”
No one answered. Lord Montfallcon could not leave, or did not desire to leave, without his friends, and they were in the maze with Quire. The Queen caught sight of Sir Amadis, looking a little sorry for himself, coming along the broad walk, and she seized on him. “Sir Amadis!” He looked up, doing his best to soften brooding features. Alys Finch had slighted him for the third or fourth time that day and had linked hands with Lord Gorius, even as she had flirted at two of the Queen’s maids. He had turned his back on them, though he knew he would return to her if she called. He was helpless. He was that treacherous nymph’s absolute slave. “Sir Amadis!”
He joined the Queen’s party. “Your Majesty?”
“We wondered if you had news of your wife’s kinsmen. Any letter from there?”
The Queen was singularly cruel, he thought, to remind him of his inconstancy, just as he brooded so satisfyingly upon fickle Alys’s. “No letter, madam.”
Under Montfallcon’s dreadful gaze he toyed with an Oriental bangle.
“Her brothers will not let her communicate with anyone at Court,” he continued, anxious to be released from this double ordeal.
“And you’ve no urge to join them, sir?” Montfallcon knew nothing of Sir Amadis’s infatuation, so his question, in that respect, was innocent.
“I serve the Queen, my lord.”
Lord Montfallcon grunted. “As we all do, Sir Amadis. There is a meeting of the Privy Council. All other business set aside until our debate’s over.”
“What’s the cause, my lord?” Sir Amadis became almost sober.
Lord Montfallcon would not discuss such matters before those who were not of the Council. He looked around him, back and front, side to side, to show his fellow Councillor how Sir Amadis momentarily forgot himself. He made some sounds in his throat.
Sir Amadis noted Quire striding from the maze to save him. “Here’s Captain Quire.”
The Queen brightened.
Montfallcon, seeing how swiftly her colour altered, likened this blush to the unnatural shade of those poppies fed by alchemists with blood and rare earth to give forth an intoxicating and intense perfume for a few hours before withering. “Be wary, madam,” he murmured before he remembered to check himself.
She ignored him.
Montfallcon looked for Kansas and Hawes, but they were not yet free of the maze. Tonight, he thought, he and Kansas would go into the walls, as they had agreed, and there discover the evidence he must have before Quire could be convicted and disgraced. In the meantime he had sent for Tinkler. He would use Quire’s former servant against the plotter.
Captain Quire came up and stood close by the Queen.
Montfallcon turned to Doctor Dee. “Are all our members now aware of when we hold the meeting?”
“I think so, my lord,” said Dee, a little taken aback by Montfallcon’s civility. Montfallcon, these days, found new virtue in old enemies.
The Queen cried: “Ladies. To my chambers. I must change.”
With Quire still beside her s
he was strolling for her terrace, the maids gathering to attend her. Lifting their backs, the various courtiers looked one to the other, perhaps wondering at how much a number of them had altered in the past few weeks. The Orientals confronted the sober mourners almost as two alien armies might draw up their ranks before a battle.
Sir Amadis, hearing a familiar cry from the maze, made his excuses and, with Indian gold rattling upon his flesh, went running as a dog on the scent.
Within her bedchamber the Queen dismissed her ladies, setting them to seek more formal robes than those she wore, leaving her alone with Quire. She stretched her huge frame upon the sheets and let her head fall into his lap. He stroked her with familiar tenderness. She sighed. “Oh, Quire. Montfallcon’s determined to destroy our idyll. He refuses to believe that I shall return to full Duty in time.”
“What’s so urgent,” casually asked Quire, “that he needs to call a sudden meeting?”
“He’s afraid of war.”
“With Arabia?”
“With everyone. He fears that the Empire must dissolve if present events continue in their courses. The Tatars are ready to make use of any opportunity. There have been disputes for some while concerning Cathay’s borders. There have been reports that the Afghanians seek an alliance with the Tatars, with whom they believe they have more in common. The Perrotts, in order to take their vengeance on Arabia for the killing of their father, are now likely to spark off a dozen different wars. We’ve Poland to consider, and the war they plan. The Tatars will overrun Arabian borders, given the chance, for they know Arabia would attack them. So Montfallcon sees the Perrotts as central to the scheme and would make me marry one of them.”
“Perhaps you should,” said Quire.
She became alarmed. “We would be separated!”
“But our happiness cannot be considered here.”
“It would be stupid to sacrifice my person. You have told me that yourself. Quire—you said that I should not give my soul or my body to the Realm, merely my presence and my brain!” She craned to look, as a small, frightened child might look, into his saturnine face.
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