Gloriana

considerable skill as a craftsman and can make almost anything I need.”

“He lives only to make more and more fantastical devices.” Una laughed in concert. “He cares not if they are used. The Queen accepts the gifts, admires them, sends them off to be incarcerated. He is content to make her others. There must be a score of mechanical birds and beasts, at least-each increasingly elaborate!”

Doctor Dee had begun to pick up his charts. His face was red and sweat darkened his beard.

“I did not intend to make too much fun of Master Tolcharde,” said Una. “In reality, I respect his gifts.”

“Are you well, Doctor Dee?” The Queen was solicitous.

“Well? Aye, madam. (O, gods, would that I had the courage to pull you from that throne and bear you down upon this floor and plunge flesh into flesh….)”

“You have a fever?”

“No, madam. Perhaps the heat. My own rooms are cooler. (They must be, or I should burst into flame!)”

“You’ll be with us, later, at dinner?”

“With your permission, madam (though I’d rather chew at your sweet shoulder).” He bowed, and gasped. “Ah!”

“Doctor Dee?”

“Until dinner, madam!” His voice was high as, in blustering cloak, he fled the Throne Room, out into the passage which branched to the left, head down, as if he pressed urgently through a powerful wind, so that when Lady Lyst, the beautiful young drunkard, most brilliant of scholars, turned a corner and fell, with a hiccup, against him, he did not recognise her and made to push her from his path.

“Good morrow, Doctor Dee!”

“Aside, fair maid, aside!”

But she clung to his jerkin and at last he saw her face. “Advice, good sage, I pray.”

“Advice?”

“On a matter of philosophy.” Glazed, cheerful eyes looked up into his. A warm hand encircled his waist as she steadied herself.

“Aha!” He could think of no lovelier substitute. He became avuncular. He, in turn, squeezed her shoulders. “To my apartments! Come quickly, Lady Lyst, and I swear I’ll fill thee full of my philosophy.”

Amiably, he helped her mount the steps to take them to the East Wing and his tower, where, a traditionalist in all things, he maintained his studios, his laboratories.

THE FIFTH CHAPTER

In Which Captain Quire Is Brought Secretly to the Palace, and Lord Montfallcon, to Be Apprised of a Desperate Mission

Lord Bramandil Rhoone, huge and jovial, Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners, the Queen’s Guard, /received charge of Quire (hooded like a querulous hawk) from Sir Christopher’s men and immediately began to brush and primp at the shrinking spy, whose clothes (borrowed) bore more than a fair share of the contents of Marshalsea Jail; dung, straw and mould gave Quire something of the odour of a long-deserted farmyard.

“This won’t do, villain, if ye’re to have audience with the great Lord Montfallcon. Though why the identity of such as you should be protected I don’t know.” The round, red face beamed above the scarlet ruff, the ruddy hands straightened Quire’s collar while Quire promised himself that if ever Lord Rhoone should fall foul of Lord Montfallcon, or if he should ever stray into the thieves’ twitterns in the city, he would take precisely forty-eight hours to kill him, giving him mercy on the sixtieth second of the forty-eighth, while he smiled beneath his hood and came close to curtseying, bobbing in the big man’s grasp. “Thank you, my lord. Much obliged to you, my lord.” And suffered Rhoone to slide his good sword from its sheath.

“This must be kept. No swords at Court, save for the Queen’s Gentlemen and her Champion.” He tapped his own. “Come.” Striding rapidly along the corridor, a hand on Quire’s arm, so that the half-blinded captain was forced to run, aching as he was already from the buffets of his jailers and from the bench and stones of the prison in which he had spent an entire night.

“A little slower, my lord. I have not been well.”

“Lord Montfallcon is anxious to see you. Perhaps he’d question you further concerning the Saracen. You’re lucky Lord Montfallcon spoke for you, saying you were on his business in Notting village that night and that the man mistaken for you was a scoundrel similarly dressed.” Casting his eye over patched motley, Lord Rhoone relished the telling of what he strongly suspected was a compendium of lies. “Still, I’ve no fondness for Saracens. Or murderers,” he added piously, “whatever their reasons. The Queen has made her views plain.”

“I agree entirely, my lord.” Quire panted and clutched at his side. “A stitch, I fear.”

Lord Rhoone’s thick lips flapped like the lips of an overheated stallion. “We’ll soon be there, man.” They reached a large hall, the Third Presence Chamber, wide enough to be a good-sized market square, in which courtiers conversed in clusters, taking a passing interest in the hurrying pair. Lord Rhoone greeted some, here and there. “Sir Amadis. Good morrow, Master Wheldrake. Lady Lyst.”

Captain Quire, on the other hand, was careful not to recognise his few acquaintances, though with his hooded head he drew more attention than Lord Rhoone. They took the central passage, turning aside before they reached the doors of the Throne Room, stepping before a door whose handle only could be seen, for the rest was hidden by a tapestry. Lord Rhoone rapped. They were admitted.

Lord Montfallcon stood beside his fire, his back to them, his warrior’s shoulders hunched. “Rhoone?”

“My Lord Chancellor. He’s here.”

“I thank you.”

Lord Rhoone flicked at Quire’s shoulders once more, then, smiling to himself, he departed, bearing the Toledo sword away. Quire looked after it once, furiously, then composed himself. He did not want to waste time, however, on feigning humility. He scanned the room. It held nothing unfamiliar. He scratched his ear. He removed his sombrero from beneath his borrowed cloak. He tugged his hood free to disclose his dark little self.

“Captain Quire, sir. I did your bidding and here I am.”

Lord Montfallcon nodded, pulling a coat of silk and beaver about his chest as he began to turn. “You are lucky, Quire, aren’t you?”

“As ever, my lord.”

“Not even on the night of New Year’s Eve. You were clumsy, overreaching, and you were seen.”

“I was not clumsy, my lord.” Quire threatened to flare.

Lord Montfallcon sighed and revealed a frozen, angry eye. “Tinkler brought me your note. The intelligence concerning Arabia was useful. But Lord Ibram was well-connected. Indeed, we had assured his uncle he would be safe in London. If it were not for a reputation for wildness in him, which went a way to explaining what happened, we should be mightily embarrassed, Quire. Perhaps I should have let you suffer the full consequences. An unlucky Quire is no use to me.”

Quire warmed his hands. He did not posture, but spoke with reasonable pride. “Slay me? Aye, in the cause of Knowledge, perhaps-for an I die, then the foot I keep on Pandora’s lid shall lift and out shall pour all those secrets best left bottled. Or perhaps you’d disagree, sir, with such cautious philosophy, and play Doctor Fauste with the Queen’s darker mysteries?”

Montfallcon listened, not from interest in the subject, but because he believed he gained insight to Quire’s soul.

Quire continued. “However, sir, I know this cannot be your thinking. You’ve already seen the point of preserving Captain Quire’s life. At all costs, sir, eh? At any cost, what? For I am guardian Cerberus turned to keep the devils and the damned from ‘scaping Hades. I am the protector of your security, Lord Montfallcon. You do not honour me sufficiently.”

Thinking Quire had gone too far, and thus betrayed himself, Lord Montfallcon became more relaxed. “Ah, it’s a misunderstood dog, is it?”