Montfallcon would not listen to him. “They must die,” he told the Queen. He trembled as he moved further into the Throne Room. “There can be no ambiguity. Not now. Show Albion that you are pure, by destroying all that is impure within the palace!”
“But, good Lord Montfallcon,” she said, “that is what we suggest.”
“Then let me send men to do it.”
“It is our will.” She frowned, looking to Quire for aid, but he could not help. He shrugged.
“Good.” Montfallcon turned to leave.
“My lord,” she said, “there are other matters. The Perrotts. Know you when they plan to sail for Arabia?”
“Three days.” He was gone.
“Ah.” She turned to Quire. “Word must be sent to Tom Ffynne at Portsmouth with the fleet. But what shall he do? Attack the Perrotts or join them? If he joins them we’ll be at war with half the world—or more than half. If he attacks, we’ll have civil war. And Arabia’s movements are strange. There’s news of a great fleet, but no news of what it intends. Does Lord Shahryar threaten us—war or marriage?”
“Possibly,” agreed Quire. “If we were to avoid war…”
“Oho!” She looked down at him from her throne. “Give myself to Hassan? Would you agree to that, Quire?”
He dropped his gaze.
“You may go,” she said.
“Eh?”
“It is bad diplomacy to have you here.” She was demonstrating her power over him. “It incensed Montfallcon. It might incense others. Tell me, do you think the expedition into the walls will save us?”
“Several might. Led by a variety of your nobles, given important tasks.” He was sullen.
“Then you find my statecraft good.”
“I have never doubted it.” He did not want to leave. On the other hand he needed to see Alys, and Phil, to contact Tinkler, if he could. They must all be warned and set to work. He made a show of dignity. He stood up, bowing. “When does Your Majesty desire me to return?”
“We’ll keep you from the public eye today, I think. We’ll meet tonight. In my bedchamber?”
Quire was dry. “I’m to be the secret lover, then, am I? Because I seem a villain.”
She shook her head. “Because you are a villain, clever little Quire. It is your nature. I understand that now.”
“You punish me?”
“Why so? I love you still.”
Baffled, Quire made his way from the official rooms, back to the private apartments, doing his best to order his thoughts and scarcely able to understand how, since Wallis’s suicide, their roles had reversed in this subtle way. He would, in the past, never have allowed himself to be placed in such a position as this. He must immediately consider ways of reestablishing his authority. He went first to the seraglio and found Phil, taking him away and punishing him for his foolishness. Then he told Phil to find Alys Finch at once and send her to meet him in the maze. Then he gave a messenger a note to take to the Town in the hope that Tinkler would be found. He was frustrated, needing to take action, but not possessing sufficient information, as yet. He went to see Doctor Dee, who received him reluctantly, staunching a wound in his arm. “She grows fiercer. The philtres no longer function. You must make me a new one soon.” Doctor Dee was too weak to visit the Audience Chamber and be Quire’s ear.
Quire considered entering the walls and going through familiar routes, where he would be able to overhear almost everything, but there was too much danger of meeting either the Tatars or Montfallcon. He did not wish to betray himself by admitting a connection with the rabble which would soon be blamed for so many crimes. So he fumed.
He went to the maze and Alys Finch did not come to him. Was she, too, in the walls? With Oubacha Khan and Sir Orlando Hawes? Misleading them, as he had told her to do? Was half the Court in that province he had only lately claimed as his own? Tinkler was not found. There was no one else to work for him. He had lost three useful Councillors in a single night and suddenly had no allies on whom he could call. Dee was useless. The Queen, having cleansed herself of all sentiment, would be of no help at present. He brooded on this problem, which was central to his cause. How could he again tap the huge well of feeling that lay within the woman?
He spent the day waiting. He had never known a more terrifying one. He was impotent. And when, at last, she joined him in the bed, she talked of all her efforts to unite the Realm, to pacify the world, and wondered why he had no praise for her. She told him that Montfallcon had gone, probably into the walls, and that she feared the old lord, suddenly. She told him of her efforts to send messages to the Perrotts, begging them not to sail. She told him of a brief meeting with Oubacha Khan and Sir Orlando Hawes, and he became more interested. But the pair, it seemed, had said nothing of their plans to the Queen. She made love to him and he was passive, barely able to respond at all. She gave him up and readied herself for sleep. He wondered if he should go again to the maze and hope that Alys was there. He watched her, stroked her absently, as she began to breathe more deeply.
He was unable to interpret his own state of mind; for this unexpected mood of hers had thrown him entirely off balance. He realised, with some astonishment, that he feared the mood, that he would do anything, pay almost any price, to lift it. And yet he had weathered worse humours in his time; why should he be so discomfited now?
It dawned on him, then, that he cared for her good opinion of him—or that, at any rate, he desired her to exhibit some kind of opinion. The desire was new. He sat up in bed and was considering waking her when, from several rooms distant, there came a shriek.
Gloriana was awake. “Eh?”
Quire began to scramble from the bed, pushing back the curtains. His long shift tangled his feet. He found his sword and went to the door to listen: a babble of women’s voices, coming closer. “Some maid,” he said. “A fit.” He opened the door. There was light in the rooms beyond—lamps, candles, torches. Shadows moving; women everywhere, like hens about a fox. A giant stumbled through a door. He staggered between the ranks of night-clad ladies; he was almost naked and blood pumped out of him from three or four wounds, falling on the writhing body of the little girl he held in his arms. It was the albino twin, the guard from the seraglio, and he was dying. Quire ran towards him. The girl was one of Gloriana’s children, perhaps the youngest. Gloriana took the child from the giant and said: “Do they fight? In there?”
Quire darted past the guard even as the man fell to his knees, then sprawled as the last of his blood burst from him. The little figure in his encumbering shift, the long Iberian sword in his right hand, ran into the semi-private rooms. He pulled back draperies, sought for the door to the seraglio and found it partly opened, broken by the giant’s weight, and he was squeezing past, running up the steps, hearing the screams ahead; through the dark gem-studded caverns he ran, with the deep carpets hampering his naked feet, to reach the door where the two guards had stood. The black twin was not at his post. Quire pushed through and was in the main seraglio, looking down at the giant’s corpse. “Arioch!”
Lurking bloodletters swarmed through the low-ceilinged vaults, slaying any that showed life. Even as Quire watched, the shrieks became fewer and fewer.
It was the rabble from the walls. They were slaughtering the entire seraglio. Already most of the poor, soft creatures were dead. A few ran here and there or hid themselves, whimpering; all the dwarves and geishas, the cripples and youths Gloriana had protected here in this menagerie of sensuality. A bewildered, lumbering ape-man crashed against a jewelled fountain and fell into the bowl, two long pikes sticking from his hairy back. A little boy ran past Quire, waving the stump of a severed arm. Elsewhere was butchery even more obscene: a hellish shambles.
The rabble had come through two or three of the secret entrances Quire thought only he had known about. He looked down the long central walk to the apartments where the children had been kept. There were corpses here, too, small and large: the girls and their guardians. Eight of the Que
en’s nine children. Quire had known battlefields, ship-fights, massacres a-plenty, but never one as appalling. He was overawed by the scene. He moved through the knee-deep fresh-killed bodies, trying to speak.
Phil Starling came running towards him, all his bangles jingling on his oiled and painted body. “Oh, save me, master! Save me, Captain! I did not mean to let them in. I sought Alys!”
Quire made a movement to draw back, then realised Gloriana was behind him. He shrugged and went forward. “Phil—go through—quickly.”
But a scrawny swordsman had pounced, cutting Phil from the back of his neck to the base of his spine, opening him up as an expert fishmonger might open a sole. Phil fell forward, cloven, and was dead.
Phil’s killer stood over the body. He was panting, intoxicated by the terror of his own actions, searching for further eyes that might accuse him. He wore a fur cap, askew on his head, to match a twisted, snag-toothed face. His silk coat was all blood, as were his britches. Quire recognised him and cried:
“Tink!”
Tinkler blinked, motioned with his sword, looked hard through the semi-darkness. “Captain?”
Quire gathered himself. “Is it you leads this rabble?”
“In your name, Captain,” said Tinkler from force of habit. “In your name.” He began to gasp, as a man will who is plunged suddenly into cold water.
“Mine?” Quire moved his mouth in a horrible grin. “Mine, Tink?” Slowly he approached his servant. His voice was flat. “You brought them here and did this in my name?”
“Montfallcon gave me my instructions. He knew you had left me in charge of the mob—or guessed it. I don’t know. But you said to obey him. I could not find you, Captain. It was too dangerous to look for you. And then Montfallcon said that the Queen had ordered us to do it. That you agreed. It seemed he spoke the truth.” He looked past Quire to Gloriana. “He said that you desired the seraglio destroyed, Your Majesty. Did I do wrong?”
“Wrong?” Gloriana shared Quire’s hideous mirth. “Montfallcon…? Ah, vengeful, sullen Achilles!”
“Your Majesty?” Tinkler began to bow, as one who has accomplished a difficult task.
Then, with a cry both agonised and vengeful, Quire drew back his arm and drove his sword deep into his servant’s heart.
“Villain!” He sobbed. “Literal-minded sloplicker!” He withdrew the sword and aimed for another thrust.
The Queen was shouting at him. “No more! Call them off if you can. But no more death!”
Quire became calm as he lowered his sword above Tinkler’s twitching body. He cleared his throat and spoke loud and clear. “That’s enough, lads.” He knew he betrayed himself, gave her firm evidence of his connection with the rabble. “Come to me! This is your Captain. This is Quire.”
Slowly, in twos and threes, the weary ruffians presented themselves before him, almost eager, upon command, to pile their glistening swords at his feet.
He turned, saying to Gloriana: “I did not do this. Montfallcon ordered it.”
“I know,” she said, and went to find the palace soldiers.
As the rabble was led off, she and Quire squatted amongst the dead children, looking for life. There was none. He had expected arrest, with his men, but she had given no order of that sort, showed hardly any emotion at all as she looked into the faces of the girls she had borne. “This is what he meant, Montfallcon, when he asked me to give him permission to destroy ’all that was impure.’ And it was why he would allow no inspection of the walls. He used your mob against me. Against both of us, in a sense.” She sighed. “He asked my permission and I agreed. Do you recall me agreeing, Quire?”
He would not reply to her.
“It was my first true attempt at independent statecraft. I thought myself in command at last. Do you remember, Quire? I sent you away after that display.”
He nodded.
“I gave him permission to kill my children. My first decision.”
“You did not.” He reached out for her. Then his hand dropped. It was useless. He began to consider his own escape, certain that she must soon turn on him, realise the guilt he shared—for the mob and its commander had been his invention.
“Has Montfallcon been found?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Fled into the walls, it seems. Or perhaps somewhere in the East Wing.”
“Poor Montfallcon. I drove him to this.”
Quire saw two of the Queen’s older companions coming for their mistress. He stood up. He fingered his jaw. He wondered which route to take. He could go out to the town and hope for a ship—or go back into the walls, at least for a while: perhaps to search for Montfallcon and slay him. The Queen must soon grow vengeful. She was weeping now. She would want her scapegoat soon. The ladies who came to her were thrust back. She turned her dreadful face up to look into his. “Quire?”
He awaited the condemnation.
“Aye.”
“You must replace Montfallcon truly now. You must be my adviser. My Chancellor. I cannot make another decision. I will not.”
Quire opened his mouth, then he shut it again. He bit his lower lip. He was entirely surprised. He said: “I am honoured, madam.” He had dreamed of this but never expected it, least of all now. At once the whole of Albion was his.
He helped her to her feet. She said, leaning on him: “Can you stop the war, Quire? Is there any way?”
He hesitated.
“Quire?”
He controlled himself and said: “There may be one way. I have already spoken of it. It would involve a great sacrifice on both our parts.”
“I’ll make the sacrifice,” she said. “I must make it.”
“Later,” he said.
He was mystified by this success. He felt defeated. In the morning Lord Shahryar could be informed. The Grand Caliph would come sailing up the Thames, to rescue Gloriana and Albion; to crush the Perrotts. And his only emotion was one of disappointment, even fear, and again he could not explain the source of this unusual emotion. As he got her back to the bedchamber he said in a low, puzzled voice: “Why should you trust me now? I have been proven a liar and a traitor.”
And she replied, very coldly: “I trust you for Montfallcon’s work. Who else is there?”
Which caused Captain Quire to shiver and go, at length, to find another place to sleep.
The next morning she held formal Court for the second time. More ambassadors were interviewed, more intelligence gathered, while Quire stood, in his faded black, beside the throne, in conference whenever they were alone. Slowly, but with little relish for what he did, he manipulated her towards a decision, though he did not mention outright the solution he had already hinted at. Doctor Dee was called for, but sent word that he was ill and could not come just then. And neither Oubacha Khan nor Sir Orlando Hawes could be found.
“Well,” she said, when everyone had been seen; when Master Palfreyman had counselled fierce and absolute war against all enemies at once; when nobles had begged her to send word to the Perrotts that their father’s killers had been found; when all voices and all opinions had been heard; “what must I do, Chancellor Quire?”
He hesitated, though not for drama’s sake. He found that he had difficulty in speaking for other, more mysterious, reasons. At length: “There is only one decision which will save the world and Albion from war.” His voice was thick. He licked his long lips.
“Quickly,” she said.
He looked into her eyes. She stared above his head. “I’ll not be tormented. I can tell your advice is already formed, Chancellor.”
“You must marry Hassan al-Gaifar.”
“It will be popular with the nobles.”
“And the commons.”
Her huge face grew momentarily sad. Another, smaller face looked out of it, for a second, at Quire, and it was pleading with him. He turned away. Then she was stern. “Lord Shahryar must be sent for.”
“I shall summon him myself,” said Quire. He began to feel relief, at least for the moment
, that it was all done. He was free of obligation to Shahryar. He had done all that he had promised he would do. And he felt only weariness, inexplicable misery. Very heavily he began to walk towards the doors of the Audience Chamber.
Even as he signed for the footmen to open them he knew there was some kind of disturbance on the other side of the doors. He paused, listening. Then he smiled. Gradually he became possessed of a peculiar sense of elation. He recognised at least one of the voices. They were demanding to be admitted.
“Why do you hesitate?” she called across the empty room.
He walked backwards in the direction of the throne.
She cried to him: “Quire! What is it?”
He began to laugh. “You’re free of me, I think.” Calmly he stared into her astonished eyes. Why was he glad of this? “And there’s no excuse for war. I should have killed the old man. But my reasoning’s too devious. I saved him up. I am again betrayed by my own brain’s convolutions!”
“No riddles!” she commanded. “Who is out there?”
The doors were pushed open from the other side, slowly. They revealed a group: Oubacha Khan, in Tatar war-armour, handing his sheathed scimitar to one of the Queen’s Gentlemen Pensioners; Sir Orlando Hawes, dusty and grim, in breastplate and helm; Alys Finch, holding a small black-and-white cat, grinning her triumph at Quire; the Countess of Scaith, in male attire, filthy and haggard; and Sir Thomas Perrott, ragged, unkempt, dirty, red-eyed, in a sacking smock.
“Una!”
They all looked at Quire, none at the Queen, though she cried her friend’s name.
Quire smiled back at the girl who had rescued these prisoners, both of whom she had originally betrayed to him. “Your lust for treachery is even better developed than I thought, young Alys. So does the pupil seek to excel the teacher.”
“One hunts the largest game, Captain.” Alys Finch laughed cheerfully into his face. Neither showed malice.
Behind him the Queen was rising. “Una!”
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