Quire was almost merry. “Albion is saved! Albion is saved! And Arabia’s vile plans are all confused!” He continued to dance backwards, seeking escape.
They moved into the Audience Chamber, to threaten him.
“Una!”
The Countess of Scaith hesitated, then curtseyed to the Queen. “Your Majesty. Alys Finch is here to testify against her master.”
“You’ll believe the word of this minx, will you?” cried Quire satirically, throwing back his cloak to free his sword. He still wore the red sash, his concession to passion. “What proof have either of you?” The sword flew out. “Have you ever seen me?”
He knew that they had not. He had been careful to remain hooded. But he knew, just the same, that he was doomed.
“Sir Thomas!” The Queen was jubilant, recognising the elder Perrott at last. She turned to Sir Orlando. “A messenger, immediately, to Kent. And another to Portsmouth.”
“It is done, Your Majesty,” said Hawes. He moved towards Quire, who was at the door which would lead him to his offices, Montfallcon’s rooms. “We’re saved from war. But now we must save ourselves from Quire. Once and for all.”
“Hurrah!” yelled Quire, drawing his sombrero from his belt, shaking out the feathers and donning the hat. “Virtue triumphs and poor Quire is denounced, disgraced, dismissed.”
The kiss he blew to baffled Gloriana seemed sincere. He went behind the drapery. The door slammed. Sir Orlando Hawes and Oubacha Khan ran to it, calling for more assistance. Quire had locked it.
When they entered the apartments at last, there was nothing to be seen but a small fire burning in a grate, some dust moving in the autumn light, as if Quire, like a malicious ghost, had been exorcised entirely.
THE THIRTY-THIRD CHAPTER
In Which Queen Gloriana and Una, Countess of Scaith, Review the Past
IFEEL NO GUILT,” said Gloriana bleakly, “and think that I should not. But then feeling—strong feeling—has gone from me. The seraglio was becoming a museum of failed hopes. My children…” She sighed. “I was never fully conscious, Una.”
The Countess of Scaith, in voluminous travelling costume, took her friend’s hand. They were alone in the Withdrawing Room. Gloriana wore dark colours to match the shades of late autumn. Light rain fell outside.
Gloriana responded to her friend. “But you are recovered, eh, Una?”
“In truth,” she said, “I share something of your dilemma, for I know that I should have felt more terror. But there was something comforting about my incarceration. It removed all responsibility from me. And Sir Thomas Perrott, once he understood that I was a friend, proved a kindly companion. We talked a great deal. We were buried so deeply and escape was so impossible that we were able to choose a variety of topics. It was, in many respects, a holiday. For one of a fatalistic disposition, at any rate.”
“But you’ll not stay at Court?”
“I may return. But not immediately. I need the air of Scaith.”
“And you take Oubacha Khan with you?”
“As my guest.” Una smiled. “He’s celibate, he tells me. A vow.”
“Aha. A vow.” She became distant.
“You still pine for Quire?”
“He is a traitor.”
“Perrott does not think so. Perrott maintains his belief that he was Lord Montfallcon’s victim.”
Gloriana shrugged. “Well, they are both gone, now.”
“I bear him no grudge,” said Una. “Because you love him so, Gloriana.”
“I love nothing.”
“You love Albion.”
“I love myself. They are the same.” Her tone was not bitter. It was worse: it was hopeless.
Una hesitated. “I’ll stay. If you think…”
Gloriana shook her great head. “Go to Scaith with your Tatar.” She moved, like a funeral barge, to stand before the window, blotting the light from the room. “You risked your life for the Realm. I’ll not have you risking your soul for its symbol.”
“Oh, Gloriana!”
The friends embraced. Una was weeping, but there were no tears in the Queen’s cool eyes.
THE THIRTY-FOURTH CHAPTER
In Which the Past Is Invoked Once More and Old Enemies Resolve Their Struggles
ALBION, WITH WAR BANISHED and the Arabian fleet dispersed even before Tom Ffynne and the Perrotts could meet with it, knew optimism again as Chivalry was at least restored. The Queen made plans for a Progress, regretting only that the Countess of Scaith could not accompany her. Sir Orlando Hawes proposed marriage to Alys Finch and was accepted. He had found the innocent in her, now that Quire’s influence was gone. Sir Amadis Cornfield and his wife were invited to the palace and came, to receive token recrimination, though the Queen’s main purpose was to offer this new, sober Sir Amadis the position of Chancellor, which carried with it an earldom. Sir Amadis begged leave to return to Kent. He said he had lost his taste for statecraft. And Gloriana was alone, as she had never been alone before, and every night she pined for her villainous lover, and her voice was heard through the emptied tunnels and vaults of the hidden palace, the deserted seraglio, as she wept; though she never mentioned his name, even there, in the darkness of her curtained bed.
The autumn grew gradually cooler, but the year was still unnaturally warm. Tatary drew back from foreign borders. King Casimir was re-elected Poland’s King. The Lady Yashi Akuya, having lost hope of Oubacha Khan, returned to Nip-ponia. Hassan al-Giafar was accepted as bridegroom by the Princess Sophie, sister of Rudolph of Bohemia, and Lord Shahryar was recalled to Arabia for execution, seeming distressed when he was reprieved. The last leaves began to fall from the trees and lie in drifts on the paths. Sir Orlando Hawes was made Chancellor, head of the Privy Council, and Admiral Ffynne became, with him, the Queen’s chief adviser. Master Gallimari and Master Tolcharde arranged a further popular display, in the great courtyard, of the mechanical Harlekinade, attended by Queen, nobles and commons. Sir Ernest Wheldrake proposed marriage, in maudlin verse, to Lady Lyst, who drunkenly and cheerfully accepted him. The Thane of Hermiston, who had unwittingly encouraged Montfallcon’s final vengeance, disappeared in Master Tolcharde’s roaring globe and never returned to Albion. Doctor Dee remained in his apartments, refusing visits even from the Queen herself. His experiments, he said, were of major importance and should not be witnessed by the uninformed. He was humoured, though he was by now considered entirely mad.
There was speculation about the fate of Montfallcon, whom most thought a suicide, and of Quire, who had evidently fled through the Spider’s Door and returned to the underworld before escaping abroad. The Queen would not speak of either. The Countess of Scaith, as she had promised, said nothing of Quire and refused to accuse him. Sir Thomas Perrott maintained the firm belief that Montfallcon was the villain who had imprisoned him. Sir Orlando Hawes kept silent on the matter for two reasons—his natural tact and his need to protect his bride’s reputation. Josias Priest emigrated to Mauretania.
The Court resumed its old merriment, and Gloriana presided over it with grace and dignity, though her laughter was never anything but polite and her smiles, when they came at all, never more than wistful. She was as loved as she had always been loved, but it seemed that the passion, which had led her to aspire to fulfillment, was now gone from her. She had become a goddess, almost a living statue, a steady, gentle symbol of the Realm. She took to walking at night in her gardens, unattended, and would spend much of her time in her maze, walking round and round until it became absolutely familiar. Yet still she inhabited it. Sometimes servants, looking from their windows, could see in the moonlight her bodiless head and shoulders drifting as if by levitation over the tops of the yew hedges.
Time went by for Gloriana, hour by slow and lonely hour, and she took no lovers. Her private time was spent with Sir Ernest and Lady Wheldrake and with her surviving child, Duessa, whose son, many years hence, would come to inherit the Realm. She counselled Duessa towards a moderation she had never hersel
f experienced, to balance Romantic faith against realistic understanding.
One night, as she undressed for bed, a palace servant came to her door with a message. She read the wavering words. It was from Doctor Dee. He wished to see her alone, he said, because he was dying and there was that on his conscience he would communicate. She frowned, wondering whether to go at least part of the way with attendants, but then decided she wasted time, if indeed he was dying. So she drew a huge and heavy brocade gown over her shift, put bare feet into slippers and went to the East Wing, towards Doctor Dee’s apartments, taking with her a candle. The way to Doctor Dee’s lay through the chilly old Throne Room, still known as Hern’s Chamber, which she had always refused to enter. She began to shudder, hating the place and its memories. She had not been here since her father’s death. In common with most of her generation she disliked the pointed or “Saracen” style of architecture, found it barbaric and inhuman. It was almost as if she entered the walls again, and only her regard for her old friend led her on. Save for a single shaft of moonlight, which struck the block and the surrounding mosaics of the floor to form a pool, the chamber was in darkness, dominated by the huge anthropoidal statues, the irregular, vaulted ceilings. She paused. There was nothing to fear now that the rabble had been transported to the new Oriental lands of the Empire, save imprecise memories. Yet, as she crossed near the brooding throne dais, she thought she heard a noise from near it and raised her candle to let yellow light fall upon the steps.
She had seen too much blood since the spring, particularly in the seraglio that dreadful night. She recognised the ragged, ruined face of the magus, the toothless mouth opening and closing, the eyes screwed tight shut as the light struck them. There was blood on his beard, blood on the torn nightshirt he wore, blood on hands and legs.
“Dee.” She climbed the dais and rested the candle down on a step so that she could take his head in her lap. “What is this? Some seizure?” But now she could see the little wounds all over him. He had been bitten as if by a whole tribe of rats. “Can you stand?” He must have been experimenting with animals, she decided. The animals had escaped and attacked him in the night.
He whispered. “I was coming to you. She is no longer in my control. With Quire gone…I feared that she would kill you, too.”
“What is it has done this? I must warn the palace.”
“You…she is you…”
Gloriana tested his weight to see if she could carry him. He was a heavy old man. Now he raved and would not be lifted. She smiled as she tried to get him to his feet. “Me? There is only one me, Doctor Dee. Come.”
He was sitting up, an arm about her shoulder. He opened his eyes and she saw in his expression the look of a lover who was intimately familiar with her expressions. She became afraid. He said: “She was you. But she went mad. She was so docile at first. Quire made her for me. Flesh. She was just like flesh. He was a genius. I tried the same experiment—in metal—but failed, as Master Tolcharde failed. Then Quire vanished. I could no longer pay him, I suppose, with potions, with poisons….”
“Quire made what?”
“He made her. The simulacrum. I was ashamed. I wanted to confess. But I was drawn in too deeply. She consoled me so well for so long, Your Majesty. I could not have you, but she was almost you.”
“Almost?” She remembered his passion. “Oh, dear Doctor Dee, what have you done and how has Quire ruined you?”
“She was mad. Attacked me. I stunned her. The philtres Quire gave me for her ran out and I was afraid to experiment, though I tried. She was already unstable. Now she wishes to murder me. For using her, she says. Yet she was made for that use. It was as if she woke up—became truly alive….”
“Where is she?” Gloriana did not attempt to follow his ravings.
“She followed me down. She is over there.” He made a movement with his head. She lifted the candle, saw a dark shadow on stone behind the anthropoidal statues. He began to shiver. “Come,” she said. “Rise.”
“I cannot. You had best go now, Your Majesty. I have given you my confession. Think not too ill of me. My mind was good and, until the end, always at your service, as you know. The poisons. I regret the poisons. I allowed Quire to convince me.”
There came a great noise, as if something heavy and metallic were dragging itself across the mosaic flagging, but the shadow remained where it was.
Gloriana could see nothing of the source until, of a sudden, into the shaft of moonlight which fell upon the familiar stone block, came an old man clad in iron, in antique armour, an enormous black sword, made for two hands, upon his shoulder. His red eyes were hot with the habit of rage. His grey face and beard were thin and his cheeks were hollow. It was Montfallcon, wearing the war-suit of his youth.
“He invented for me the most perfect simulacrum,” continued Dee, scarcely aware of the newcomer. “A soulless creature. I could worship it, however—have my way with it—and no guilt. Or hardly any…”
“Simulacrum!” Montfallcon’s frigid, heavy voice was loud in the hall as he turned to observe the shadow, which now, at the sound, began to stir. “You old fool! ‘Tis a real woman.”
Dee began to breathe rapidly and shallowly “No, no, Montfallcon. There could not be a twin. There was never any story of a twin or I should have heard it. And all witnessed the birth, did they not? Ah,” he smiled, “perhaps—from another world, as I once dreamed? Is that where Quire obtained her?”
“There is only this world.” Montfallcon clanked a few steps more, to lean himself against the block. “Dolt! It is the mother!”
“Flana?” Dee’s voice grew faint. “Flana died in childbirth.”
“She did not. I witnessed her rape and I witnessed the result of that rape nine months later. She was thirteen when she bore the Queen. We were all made to watch—both events. Hern was proud of himself. After all, it was the only time, up to then, he had been able to penetrate a woman. For some reason Flana, who was my daughter, was able to attract him. Flana?”
The shadow groaned.
Gloriana began to rise. She did not wish to hear this tale. And she was terrified of all of them now. Montfallcon spoke wearily:
“It was on this stone he raped my daughter, and on this stone he raped my granddaughter. Twice in his life was he capable of committing the act. I watched both. The blood was always bad, on all sides. I know that now. I sought to burn the knowledge from me. I willed Gloriana to her position. But the blood was bad. Now it is all over. And I am destroyed, hated by all now, because I loved Albion. History will remember your most loyal servant, Your Majesty, as a villain.”
The shadow stood up, muttering to itself. Gloriana was frozen. Her mouth went dry and her eyes refused to close.
Montfallcon gestured to the mad woman. “Come, Flana. Come to your father and your daughter.”
Flana moved with peculiar grace into the light. She looked youthful, as mad people sometimes do, though her face was ravaged and her hair, auburn like her daughter’s, was dyed in places.
“Here she is,” said Lord Montfallcon. “She ran into the walls after you were born, Gloriana, and was there until Quire snared her, drugged her, gave her to Dee in exchange for his secrets and his philtres. I would have known, but I refused to have the walls investigated for the same reasons as you. I hid the fact of Flana from myself. She loved you. Perhaps she still does. Do you love your little girl, Flana?”
“No,” said the mad woman in a thick, terrible voice. “She has been bad. She banished her only true suitor.”
“She saw Hern rape you. She watched from her hiding place within the walls,” said Montfallcon. “He waited until you were exactly the same age, and raped you on your birthday. Do you remember, Gloriana?”
“While the Court looked on. That leering Court.” She said: “I remember. Mother…”
The mad woman ran towards Montfallcon, who took her by the arm. He said: “Kneel.”
She was passive with him. She looked into her father’s eyes. Into
her hero’s eyes. She smiled and knelt.
Her head was resting on the block and Montfallcon’s sword was lifting before Gloriana could cry out. “No!”
The broadsword fell. The auburn head burst free of the shoulders. Dee whimpered and then he, too, died.
“Your own flesh,” said Gloriana. “Why?” She left Dee and began to crawl up the steps, one by one, away from the corpses.
“Corrupt flesh,” Montfallcon equably explained, putting the sword on his shoulder again and looking down at his victim. “She should have died when the rest of the girls died. But she agreed to Hern’s proposal. To save her life. I could not stop her then. When you were born, I hoped that you would come to redeem all that had taken place here. But you followed her to corruption, soon enough. My wife and the boys went next. I would not let him have the boys, you see, or my wife. He had a poor imagination, your father, like most monsters. What it was, to be in the power of an all but mindless beast! Yet I waited. I made my plans, developed my ambition. I wanted you to be the golden creature who would give point to all my suffering. You and Albion. And for almost thirteen years it seemed my work, my sacrifices, proved worthwhile and that together we achieved the Age of Virtue. Then you, too, gave yourself to a monster. And now I shall kill you and be done with it.”
She had expected this. She could make no appeal to him. She began to scramble up the steps, one by one, faster and faster, as he came after her, in creaking iron, his eyes fixed upon her throat. She reached the throne, was seated in it before she knew it. He paused. “It can begin again soon,” he said. “With the bad blood extinguished once and for all.”
She began to fear for her surviving child.
“Come,” he said, and gestured towards the block. “You shall die where you were born. You should never have existed. You are a nightmare.”
She made a gasping sound, pleading not so much for her own life, but for his soul, for the life of the great-granddaughter he did not, at this moment, know had been saved from his revenging mob.
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