wrapped about with thongs and strips of cloth and borne up on the shoulders of the mob, her sword flung away.
Una, shuddering, babbling demands, was carried closer and closer to the throne to be placed, almost gently, on the lowest step. She glared and fell silent.
The figure stood up, face and limbs still hidden, and looked down on her. It spoke to the young girl. “Excellently done. It is she, sure enough.”
Una stared back, finding courage as she controlled her heart’s rapid beat. “You were expecting me?”
“We hoped, that’s all, my lady. You are the Countess of Scaith, the Queen’s closest friend. Dark Una-the deceptive Truth-”
“Truth, sir, is a mirror. Peer away.” Una disdained to struggle in her filthy bonds. She had become cool.
Her captor seemed amused by her answer. “The best of all of them. Better than Montfallcon, even. An enemy to fear. Well, madam, we’ve a use for you. Not much, really. You might keep the old man quiet. Do you find madness embarrassing?”
“What?”
His question had been rhetorical. He signalled her dismissal and again she was picked up, carried through the shifting shadows of the hall, along a short passage. A barred door was opened. She smelt ordure, the stink of a human being who had been incarcerated for some time. She heard an animal noise-a shriek, a roar, a rattling of iron. The mob laughed as she was hurled into the room to land on rotting cloth, and one of them cried out with considerable relish:
“Here you are, old man. Here’s what you need to calm you down! It’s a woman! All to yourself!”
The door was shut, a key turned, and Una, in the darkness, listened to the inhuman noises issuing from the creature which now, through reeking straw, slowly advanced towards her.
THE TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER
Nonetheless,” Lord Montfallcon maintained his stand, “the Accession Day Tilt must take place and thereafter the Queen must make her Annual Progress. Never has it been more necessary These ceremonies, Sir Amadis, are not empty ritual. Their function is to assure the people of the Queen’s majesty, her reality, her charity. Already rumours proliferate in the capital and must be spreading across the nation, across the very world. If the Queen does not appear, then the rumours will fatten like flies on dung and infect the Realm with an hundred moral diseases, weakening us in every quarter. We have dismantled the Rule of Might and replaced it with the Rule of Justice. That Justice is symbolised by the Queen. We maintain our provinces, our world empire, not by soldiers, but by means of a philosophy exemplified in the person of Gloriana. Mithras! Our own faith is implicit in her and how she acts.”
Sir Amadis Cornfield felt discomforted by the surroundings of Lord Montfallcon’s oppressive rooms, which were, as ever, unaired and overheated. He felt that it might be possible to catch a very ordinary disease of the body here. Yet he was reluctant to go without convincing his fellow Councillor. “The Queen mourns,” he said. “She is enfeebled by so many terrible events. With her greatest friend suspected of murder…”
“She’s free of an enemy.” Montfallcon was glad and grim. “The Countess of Scaith’s influence threatened the security of the Court and the Realm. It is evident that she plotted with Sir Tancred to murder Lady Mary, that she killed Sir Thomas Perrott in her own rooms-the blood has been discovered, on floor, bed, tapestry; there is blood everywhere. Doubtless Sir Thomas’s body will be found anon.”
“This is evil gossip, my lord.” Sir Amadis was shocked.
“Then why has the Countess fled the palace?”
“Could she not also be a victim?”
“She is not the kind to be a victim, Sir Amadis.”
“I did not know, my lord, that victims were chosen according to their temperaments.”
“Your knowledge, sir, is not informed by my experience.”
“Nonetheless, the Queen grieves, half-mad with uncertainty.”
“Public business will steady her.”
“And who’s to replace the Countess at the Tilt? First Tancred’s gone, now her. It’s as if Fate takes any who would be the Queen’s Champion.”
“Lord Rhoone has agreed to play the Peasant Knight.”
“Then let’s hope he survives until Accession Day.” Sir Amadis looked at the clock, all brass and polished oak, above the fireplace. The hand stood near to the half-hour. He had no time for further pleading. “I’ve spoken my mind on it.”
“So you have, sir.”
“It could be put out that the Queen is ill.”
“And make matters worse? I have steered this ship for many years. I know what is good for Albion. I know the tides-the powerful tides of the common will. I know the shallows and the reefs. I know what cargo to carry and when to hold it, when to dispose of it. That is why the Queen relies on my judgement. Why she will do as I suggest. Why she must not be weak or be thought to be weak at this time! At the Tilt every important noble will be watching her, to take news of her mood across the world.”
Sir Amadis shrugged and, with the curtest of nods, was off.
He made his way swiftly to the disused suite of rooms behind the old Throne Chamber, where his little mistress-minx, trollop, virgin innocent-had agreed to meet him and, at last, be fully his. Her decision had been taken at the instigation of a gentleman, her guardian, who had pitied Sir Amadis in his discomfort, his distraction and his grief, and informed the girl that her interests would be best served by kindness to a Queen’s Councillor.
Sir Amadis felt warm gratitude towards this courteous gentleman who had concerned himself with the relief of the heart’s ache, the frail body’s pain, and Sir Amadis also felt a pleasant sense of victory over Lord Gorius, his rival, who would now be thwarted.
As he reached the half-deserted East Wing he came suddenly upon Master Florestan Wallis fancifully attired in floral reds and yellows, in deep conversation with someone Sir Amadis took for a kitchen doxy. Master Wallis peered around (a guilty flash), then took a dignified defiant stance, his back to the girl. “Sir Amadis.”
“Good morning, Master Wallis.” Cornfield was careful to pay the girl no attention, but he was amused, for he had never visualised the Secretary as anything but asexual, a celibate. To see him thus (gaudy, embarrassed) added further to Sir Amadis’s cheer, though he felt no malice. Rather he enjoyed something of a sense of conspiracy with his fellow Councillor.
He passed on, leaving them murmuring. He dismissed a very small suspicion that crossed his mind, linking kitchens with kidneys.
Lord Montfallcon glowered up from under his heavy brows, and Master Tinkler, scratching a head that was the chosen field of warring tribes of vermin, shifted his feet, cleared his throat, rubbed his nose, before settling.
Lord Montfallcon re-read his list, knowing that the longer he kept Tinkler waiting, the more rapidly Tinkler would answer his questions and therefore have less of a chance to colour his information with pointless interpretation.
“No Quire?” It was his usual opening.
“Dead, sir, for certain.” Tinkler was helpless. “And I was not the only one who hunted him. Six months have passed, sir. We must give him up.”
“Who else hunted him?”
“Fathers of daughters, and of sons, he’d wronged. Kidnapped or killed. Who knows now?”
“The mood in the town?”
“Quire’s forgotten by most.”
“Fool. I meant the Queen.”
