Dee was reluctant, alarmed by Quire’s manner. “I think…” Then he checked himself. He became afraid. “You will help me with her?”
“As soon as my business is completed.”
“You swear it, Captain?” He was pathetic.
“I have been good to you, Doctor, and asked few favours.”
“You are a very clever philosopher, sir, that I do know.” Doubtfully: “So I suppose your business cannot be evil.” Thus Dee convinced himself as he moved towards his cabinet. He handed Quire a phial. “You’ll return soon?”
“As I promised. And remember-be cautious, Doctor.” Quire skipped from the room, his spirits beginning to rise. Then he was off to find his stalking bitch, his little Alys Finch.
THE THIRTIETH CHAPTER
The summer left its stamp most solidly upon the autumn so that October in this thirteenth year of Gloriana was the warmest any had known. No breezes came to blow away the threat of war, and neither was Gloriana’s ardour for her little lover cooled. The Court’s euphoria increased, if anything, in private-while angry ambassadors prowled the corridors and Presence Chambers and grew impatient, as their masters grew impatient, for intelligence, becoming more and more dependent upon rumour, gossip and fabulation (which had increased a hundredfold since Quire’s appearance at the palace); the ambassadors, in the main, wanted reassurance from the Queen so they could inform their homelands of the practicality of peace, but, unable to provide news, they were helpless to counter the heady talk of fleets and armies, cannon and cavalry, the authority of precise-sounding terms which disguised the ugly and ludicrous facts of the chaos they pretended to describe. Maps were got out and paper fleets were launched with all the usual silly ritual and sane men looked desperately to Gloriana, hoping for the regal, maternal command to put the toys away before the squabbling became earnest.
Albion’s nobles mingled with the ambassadors, growing uncertain and quarrelsome as they waited for instruction, dismayed and disheartened by the Queen’s new mood, for she gave audience so rarely and with such misinterest that she made worse what her silence had begun. The Empire, founded on a grand myth, must have the myth sustained if it were not to disintegrate. There were many in the palace who saw the disintegration already beginning and spoke of Hern’s bad blood showing at last, and they whispered stories of the Queen’s monstrous appetites, of the legendary seraglio where every night scenes were enacted to make those of Hern’s time seem like good-hearted, innocent frolics. Yet only Montfallcon and a few of his party saw Quire as the instigator of all this. He represented himself, when he appeared, as one who sought to remind the Queen of Duty and who failed. He was, he told them, as dismayed as they were, for they must know how much infected he was by the Romantic spirit of Albion-after all, it was how he had come to meet the Queen. So they thought him a kindly dupe of the Queen’s, a sop to her tormented conscience, and said that it might be well for them all if, as Montfallcon raved, Quire did control her-that he would make the better monarch.
The walls had been closed up again, on the Queen’s orders, and she considered plans to destroy those interiors or, at least, to bury them more solidly. She blamed Montfallcon for the death of Lord Kansas, of whom she had been very fond, and she blamed him for the other deaths; for the death of the city guard who had somehow died of minor wounds a day after the expedition had returned. Montfallcon was disgraced. She did not see him at all. He received communications from her through intermediaries-through Sir Orlando Hawes and Sir Vivien Rich, who were not so outspoken against Quire and who, it seemed, gradually grew to accept Tom Ffynne’s opinion of her lover: “Lucky, rather than cunning, though he thinks himself a complete rogue.” All could see that Quire loved the Queen, as if he had never loved anyone before.
Meanwhile Oubacha Khan advised his lord that Tatar might soon reclaim lands regarded as rightfully their own; Lord Shahryar sent optimistic reports to Arabia; Count Korzeniowski begged his new King to hold his forces, without success; and the Perrotts, in Kent, gained allies almost by the hour. Quire was proud of his achievement. There remained but one main move to make. “She was infatuated,” he told the Saracen ambassador, “and now the infatuation slowly deepens into love. Then I’ll withdraw and down she’ll tumble-into your master’s arms.”
The Queen, when she asked advice from any but Quire, sought portents from a Dee who steadily became stranger, but who supported Quire’s opinion with increasing certainty. Sir Tancred flung himself from the battlements of Bran’s Tower, and it seemed that Chivalry died with him in Albion that morning, and from its corpse grew the richer, darker, morbid blossoms of inward-looking erotomania which, as it often will, adopted the trappings of Romance. Alys Finch, who had given herself twice each to Sir Amadis Cornfield and Lord Gorius Ransley and had then, at the right moment, resumed a kind of modesty, had them, as she put it, panting for her like dogs no longer content with bones but drooling for the richer meat. Both had reached the stage of being willing to promise her anything in order to have her again, while berating her, accusing her, hating her for what she did to them. Phil Starling shared this lust for treachery, the consolation of the unimaginative, and slipped free of Master Wallis whenever he could, into the beds of a dozen minor courtiers, or into the Queen’s own seraglio, where he discovered himself a treasure-house of pleasures.
Lord Rhoone returned from the country to find the Court so altered he was entirely baffled. He did not see the Queen, but he spoke to Tom Ffynne of his bewilderment. “Is this Quire to be King? What becomes of Albion?” Tom Ffynne held the opinion that Quire would make an excellent candidate for Consort-a realist was Quire, with a bit of experience of the world-and not of the generation, as Montfallcon was, which feared a return to Hern’s ways so thoroughly that it was actually likely to bring about the terror by brooding on it too much. Oubacha Khan found the small black-and-white cat, now completely healed, and made enquiries of Elizabeth Moffett. He discovered an unexpected ally in Sir Orlando Hawes. Alys Finch was put by Quire to stalking Hawes. She won her way to his bed but, she told Quire, had to give him rather more than she had given the others. It would be worth the expenditure, Quire was certain. Oubacha Khan visited the members of his retinue, warriors all, who lodged outside the palace gates. Quire heard of this with some amusement. Tinkler reported that Montfallcon had sent him into the walls to try to parley with the rabble there (Montfallcon did not know that Tinkler had captained it when it had killed Kansas and the others, for Quire had put him in charge, then). Quire instructed Tinkler to continue to obey Montfallcon, to serve him to the letter until such time he countermanded his command. Montfallcon spoke secretly with Count Korzeniowski, telling him of Quire’s part (but not his own) in the abduction of the King. He hoped that Korzeniowski would then tell the Queen. Instead Korzeniowski withdrew himself from the Court and sailed for Poland, to advise swift war. Montfallcon grew madder. Quire grew stronger. The Queen continued to be in love.
Ernest Wheldrake received a knighthood; the only honour in the whole season.
quoted the poet, perched upon a monstrous stallion in the stableyard of the palace, and clad all in tawny colours, his red hair blazing, his stiff arms waving as he found his stirrups and caused Lady Lyst, leaning a little in her saddle, to sigh.
“Splendid, Sir Ernest!” cried the Queen, who had not understood a word. She was in doublet and hose astride her chestnut beast. She wore forest green save for white ruff and cuffs, with a little hunting sword at her belt and a pointed cap upon her own red curls. Captain Quire, in black, climbed into the saddle of his black mare and grinned at them all as they prepared for the hunt, which would be led by Sir Vivien Rich, plump and happy, glad that he had,
