THE SIXTH CHAPTER
The scarlet light which filled the small chamber came from a score of hanging candles in parchment shades, after the fashion of the Cathay Court, and through shadows of darker scarlet moved the Queen, back and forth, on the pace, hands on waist, on thighs, on breasts, folding, unfolding, against the face, upon the shoulders, as if she feared her trembling body might at any moment fly apart. She took wine from a ruby beaker, poured from a ruby flask, she pushed back her robe of silk-lined wolfskin; save for a pair of linen under-hose, from waist to knee, she wore nothing else. She combed at her auburn hair with long fingers on which red gold glinted; she strode to the fire and stood before it, straddled, as if she prayed the heat would burn her tension from her. “Lucinda!” It was almost a scream.
From heaped scarlet cushions in a corner a sleepy, dark-skinned child peered.
“No!” Gloriana’s hand waved Lucinda back to sleep. Her conscience could not let her further tire the girl. Besides, her tender mood had passed, much earlier in the night, and now she craved sensation as her only substitute for satisfaction. Her fist ground at her groin. She removed a key from the mantel above the fire; she pulled aside heavy drapery, unlocking a door to apartments still more secret than those she presently occupied.
A short flight of stairs took her up into barbaric, blazing torchlight, into a hall of asymmetric splendour, whose ceilings rose and fell and whose walls were studded with huge gems, like the walls of some faerie cavern, whose carpets sank deep beneath her naked feet, whose tapestries and murals showed crowded, obscure scenes of antique revels. At the far end of the hall two giants drew themselves to attention. One was an albino, red-eyed, white-haired, muscular and naked-the other was a blackamoor with jet eyes, jet hair, and yet the absolute identical twin of the albino. The merchant adventurer who had found these two and matched them had discovered the albino in Muskovy and the blackamoor in Nubia and, seeking trading rights in Albion, had brought them as a clever gift to the Queen. Now they bowed, awaiting her pleasure, adoring her as they had always done; but with a word of affection she passed them by, pushing open the doors into another, darker cavern, filled with the odour of heated flesh, of blood, of salty juices, for this was where her flagellants convened, men and women, passive and dominant, who lived only to enjoy or wield the lash. And, as she passed, some raised gasping heads and recalled the ecstasy they had enjoyed, could only enjoy, at her kindly, knowing fingers, and some paused to stare and remember her wounded flanks and how their piss fell from her inviolable body, and these called out after her, but she was not, tonight, obedient. A short, connecting passage, another key, and she was amongst her boys and girls, smiling but impatient, as she continued on, through a series of chambers where her geishas, male and female, whispered greetings. And in her wake, half-dirge, half-celebration, her name:
“Ah!”
Past the beasts and their lovers, past frigid beauty and sensual ugliness; past old men and youths, past the naked and the fancifully costumed, past baths of milk or wine or blood, past blocks and beds and gallows-these were the ones who chose to live here, who had begged to remain, for Gloriana would keep none against their will; past her young girls, her matrons, the creches and the nurseries, schools and gymnasiums, libraries and theatres; past the blind, the mad and the overly sane, the crippled, the dumb and the deaf; past faces innocent and lustful, generous and greedy, past bodies gross and beautiful, thin, fat, exquisite and ordinary; past nobles and commoners-
— Past orgies, banquets, games and dances, past consorts of music, of players, gladiators and athletes; through chambers pale and featureless, through peculiarly shaped rooms which were dark and populated, furnished with the treasures of the world; through halls, along galleries, cloisters, dormitories, past alien statuary and paintings-
“Oh!” She sobbed, half-running now. “Ah!”
To a quiet hall. Hairy men, lazy and huge, looked up from where they lounged, in a pack, beside a heated pool of blue and gold tiles. She scented them, half-apes, and went to sit amongst them. They were scarcely aware of her at first, but slowly their curiosity was aroused. They began to inspect her, pulling at her wolfskin coat, stroking her hair, her body, sniffing at her breasts and hands.
“I am Albion,” she told them, smiling. “I am Gloriana.”
The hairy men grunted and puzzled at the sounds but, as she knew, they could not understand her-neither could they repeat the names.
“I am the Mother, the Protector, the Goddess, the Perfect Monarch.” She lay back and their fur was coarse against her flesh. She laughed as they stroked her. “I am History’s Noblest Queen! The most powerful Empress the world has ever seen!” She sighed as their hot tongues licked her, as their fingers touched her sensitive places. She embraced them. She wept. In turn she reached below their hairy stomachs and tickled them, so that they grunted, frowned and grinned. She stretched. She writhed. “Ah!” And she smiled. She groaned.
They began to shove each other gently, in order to be closest to her. She embraced one, taking him down onto her. While he snuffled and moaned she stroked his muzzle, his head and his hairy back. She scarcely felt him enter. She pushed; she seized his buttocks; she pulled him; she heaved. He shuddered and she opened her miserable eyes to see his grinning, sated jaws, his benign beastly countenance staring mildly down at her.
A few moments later he and his fellows lost interest in Gloriana and wandered over to the side of the hall to seek food, leaving the Queen of Albion sitting cross-legged beside the pool, looking into the foul tranquillity of the water.
THE SEVENTH CHAPTER
With considerable satisfaction Captain Quire watched the bank of cloud gradually move across the moon. Ahead, the horizon vanished, the sea no longer gleamed. The lights of the Polish galleon, the
The light-keeper moaned. There was a round-pommelled dirk in his back, O’Bryan’s.
“By Jupiter, O’Bryan,” said Tinkler, blowing on his gloved hands, “won’t you finish off that poor devil?”
“Why should I?” O’Bryan spoke reasonably. “The longer he lives, the warmer he stays. In this weather a man must make use of everything possible to keep him from freezing. That’s the trick of survival, Tink, look you.”
Quire put his spyglass to his eye. As he lifted his arms, the wind caught his cloak and blew it back from his shoulders. He tucked the glass in his belt and recovered the cloak, fixing it at the throat by the silver clasp he sometimes wore. He repositioned the spyglass and thought he sighted the galleon. The brim of his hat was bent back against the crown, his hair was blown like weed in a whirlpool, and the spray from the sea below, a curling steamer of foam, pricked that part of his face not protected by the cloak’s collar.
“A perfect night for a wreck.” O’Bryan re-lit his long clay pipe and shifted his rump a moment, to give the keeper a few extra breaths. O’Bryan wore a huge fur hat, after the Ukrainian fashion, and had on a bearskin coat made from the whole pelt, so that the claws hung about his hands and the beast’s head acted as a high collar. His square, ruddy features bore the drinker’s mark and his eyes revealed his character even if his smile and easy manner did not. He looked up at the tower, a scaffold set above the watchman’s two-roomed cottage, where a red
