in his own mind, lured the Queen and her favourites to healthier pursuits. “Hurrah!”
To horns, the hounds came forth eagerly, a brown-and-white sea, swirling and savage around the legs of the horses. Sir Orlando Hawes, close by his friend Sir Vivien, wore russet and gold, while Alys Finch rode, ladylike, upon a little gelding, in velvet skirts of soft red. Sir Amadis Cornfield was mounted and close to her, looking from Quire to the girl, anxious for an answer that could not be supplied. And Lord Gorius rode up on the other side. Both rivals wore shades of green.
Sir Thomasin Ffynne, riding in on his own horse, saluted the Queen.
“Where’s Lord Rhoone?” She had been expecting him.
“Gone back to the country, after all,” he told her.
She shrugged and handed down her stirrup cup to a groom. The hounds were on the move and the huntsmen trotted through the gates, towards the open country where a little mist could be seen on the fields. “He’s best away from the Court, I think.”
“Aye.” Sir Thomasin’s horse began to buck as the hounds went by. He was not a hunter. “And I saw Lord Montfallcon this morning.”
“He never sleeps at all.” She was careless. “Was he wandering the corridors looking for spies again?”
“He says the Perrotts have half the houses in Albion in sympathy with them.”
She spurred at flanks. “Let ’em have the whole damned Realm!”
They were away.
Soon the Queen was a good distance ahead of Quire. With flapping cloak and bending brim, he sought to catch her. Through mellow fields and over hedges moist with dew, sniffing the first scent of autumn now that they were in open country, and relishing it, Quire knew October was to be his month, his greatest success, and he could let his elation show as, chasing behind her, he entered the red trees and green shrubs of the forest, galloping on springy moss, trampling the autumn flowers as, ahead, the hounds bayed the imminence of game. “Would you not be free forever, madam-a forest spirit?” he called. “Robin Hood and Maid Marian?” And he sang a traditional snatch:
This pleased her but she did not draw rein. Again she raced ahead of him and again he must use every effort to keep her in sight, ducking beneath the branches, causing leaves of yellow and brown to shower.
Through the forest the hunt pounded, with yells and halloos, and while Quire gave chase to the Queen, Sir Amadis and Lord Gorius gave chase to Alys and Sir Orlando, who rode very close, while Lady Lyst kept on her Wheldrake’s track as he giggled and shrieked every time the branches lashed his face and body so that he barely kept his saddle at all. And only Sir Thomasin and Sir Vivien, it seemed, attended to the hunt itself.
Out of the forest and into soft sunlight, a broad, hilly clearing, of dark moss and blue autumn crocuses, labouring for the crest, then seeing, over the tops of the flowing beeches, the hounds in full cry after a fox that clove through dense bracken as a salmon through water. Gloriana rested her horse for a moment, allowing Quire to catch her. She was flushed. “Oh, Quire! We shall hunt every day!”
“Every day, my glory.”
The chestnut was set off again, springing forward and down the hill, while Quire, becoming aware of certain aches and pains, followed.
The beeches went past and his ears were full of their hiss, the thudding of the hooves, the gasp of his own breath. He was not her match, but he refused to lose her. The horns sounded some distance off. They broke out of the beeches and into the golden bracken. Quire caught a rich taste of earth and was astonished by the pleasure it gave him. He shut his mouth tight, lest he receive the shock again. Fences were leapt, and gates, and streams, and the hunt was spread out now, following the hounds, who had their quarry for certain.
“Halloo!”
Quire moved his head and looked over his shoulder. Sir Amadis and Lord Gorius were well behind and had almost lost the hunt. To his right were Alys and Sir Orlando; ahead of him, also on the right, were Sir Vivien and Tom Ffynne; while immediately ahead was Gloriana, shouting for him to keep up. Hounds and huntsmen streamed away before them, down the golden hill towards the broad waters of the Thames.
“There!” cried Sir Vivien. “There! He’s sighted!” He turned to call to the Queen, swayed strangely in his saddle, grabbed at his horse’s mane, then fell awkwardly, saddle and all, from the racing beast.
The Queen was past him before she could draw rein, but Quire had pulled his black mare short and had jumped down to kneel beside the groaning knight. “My back. Damn! I think it’s broken, Quire.”
“Bruised, that’s all,” said Quire. “What happened?”
“Groom betrayed me. Girth slipped. Off I came. Should have seen to it myself. Those palace grooms are useless for anything but the harnessing of coach-horses. Ah!” He was in great pain.
The Queen and Tom Ffynne were galloping back. In the distance, below, the hounds’ baying grew louder and fiercer. Sir Orlando Hawes, with Alys Finch beside him, looked darkly down at Quire. “What? Another accident? Are you injured badly, Sir Vivien?”
“Back’s broke. I’m alive.” He sweated in pain. “Better fetch some grooms and a gate, eh?” He looked up at his friend. “How does the hunt go, Sir Orlando?”
Hawes looked coolly down the hill. “Oh, I think they’ll soon have caught the little fox.”
THE THIRTY-FIRST CHAPTER
The public rooms almost entirely abandoned, the Queen entertained her guests in the caverns, the heavy- scented interconnected rooms of her seraglio, where celebrants were waited on by boys and girls with oiled, naked bodies, and all manner of strange people-dwarves, giants, hermaphrodites. Where last year the theme of her Autumn Masque had been the Feast of Bacchus, this year was a more directly Bacchanalian affair, looked upon by a sleepy Queen and a sardonic Quire from their common couch on a dais above the main floor where, as if they revelled in some northern Byzantium, guests lay upon cushions and grew lazy with food and lust and wine.
Hidden musicians played languid music to which some of Master Priest’s dancers, led by Alys Finch and Phil Starling, capered rather slowly. It was as if the world wound down, in luxury and impious carelessness. A few lamps and torches gave the scene light, but darkness was sought by all, and the colours of their costumes, as well as the furnishings, were all deep.
Sir Ernest Wheldrake, stripped to the waist and revealing a criss-crossed back, lifted a winecup to Lady Lyst’s near-senseless lips. With his other hand he held his book, from which he read:
