well as tragedy. If you will allow me, I’ll bring them to your next entertainment.”
“Again and again, Master Tolcharde. We thank you.”
Tolcharde had never been more pleased. Beaming, he followed in the wake of his Harlekinade.
Quire thought he had seen the dead dancing. He got up. He required, he said, to relieve himself.
As he went by, Sir Amadis plucked at his cloak. “Captain Quire?” The tone was pleading. From a distance, on golden cushions, suffering the attentions of two geishas, Ransley glowered.
“Aye, Sir Amadis? What can I do for you?”
“Your ward-your charge-your dell-the girl.”
“Alys is not my responsibility, sir. Not any longer. Once I protected her virginity, but now there is nothing to protect.” Quire was firm. He was moral.
“But you spoke for me once.”
“I should not have done so.”
“Will you speak for me again, Captain?”
“I cannot, Sir Amadis. You must speak for yourself”
Ransley had risen and was stumbling over to them. “Be wary, Amadis, of any plotting you do. I can hear. I can hear.”
Quire pulled himself away from them. “I cannot. You must decide this for yourselves, gentlemen. I am not a god.”
’You have a god’s power, Quire,” Lord Gorius said. “In some respects, at least. Zeus! How you’ve seduced us all!”
Quire paused, his back to them. “How’s that, my lord?”
“Look at us. Drunk, besotted with lust, like some tyrannical Roman Court of old. And all your doing, Quire.”
“Indeed.” Quire swung about. “Then I must be a god, as you say, my lord.”
“When the inquest’s done on the death of Albion’s honour, at the end of the world-not far off, I’d say-the verdict’ll be murder. And the murderer, sir, shall be named Quire.”
Quire scratched the back of his head. “The corruption lies in the fact that a myth was used to manufacture an imitation of reality. Could Albion fall so swiftly if the foundations were secure?”
“You don’t deny…?”
“I deny everything, my lord.”
“What of Alys Finch?” Lord Gorius became weak. “Won’t you intercede? Or select one of us?”
“I am not a god,” said Quire. “I am not even a King. I am Quire. You must settle your problem for yourselves.” He continued on his way, leaving Ransley and Cornfield in conference, mouths to ears.
Sir Orlando Hawes was talking politics to Alys Finch, who had the flatterer’s trick of rephrasing the words of her companion and handing them back as her own opinion. “I blame Montfallcon. He clung so desperately to his belief. He felt the only way to hold the Empire together was by making Gloriana seem a goddess and, to ensure she believed the tale herself, keeping her in innocence of all he did to preserve the legend. He clung on to the point of madness. As it happens, I believe he is a victim of Quire’s as much as he believed others were Quire’s victims. I gather evidence, even now, but not so publicly as Montfallcon.”
“You think Captain Quire a villain then, with his eye upon the throne?”
“I have no great dislike for Quire. He would make an excellent King. If his motives were not at odds with mine I’d tolerate him. But Albion’s fabric rots before our eyes. The glamorous tapestry Montfallcon wove cannot be allowed to drop all at once and reveal the reality beneath-neither nobles nor commons could accept it. The curtain must be raised inch by inch, over a period of years.”
“There are holes in the tapestry already. That is why so many nobles side with the Perrotts. They see corruption beneath the brocade-or think they do.”
“There’s no real corruption here. Just a bereaved woman’s euphoria, which will pass. But Quire has let the extremes of it be seen. Some view the entirety-a little entertainment like this one-and think it must represent a greater, unseen horror. Romance inspires the imagination and makes imagination grow-but if that imagination’s misapplied, searching for ugliness rather than for beauty, then a terrible force is unleashed.”
“You share Captain Quire’s dislike of Romance.” “I share that. But I do not share his hatreds, Alys. And worst, most destructive of all, is his hatred of himself. It is what binds him so, though neither will admit it, to the Queen.”
“You think he loves the Queen truly?”
“If it is possible for Quire to love anything.”
“You were speaking of Oubacha Khan and the expedition you plan with him-following Montfallcon’s tracks into the walls.”
“Aye. The cat, Oubacha Khan thinks, might lead us to the Countess of Scaith. It’s a faint hope-but we go secretly, with fifty Tatars, fully armed. They’ll easily defeat the rabble, I’m certain. They are the greatest fighters in the world. Oubacha Khan, you see, loves the Countess. He thinks her the victim of a plot-either Montfallcon’s or Quire’s-and would find her, even if it means finding her corpse.”
“You dredged the well, you two?”
“Aye, and discovered only a vagabond, probably some denizen of the walls.”
“When do you leave?”
“Very soon.”
“You’ll tell Montfallcon?”
“No. He’s bound to betray us-inadvertently. He is no longer in control of any of his senses. He has not been for some time, or he would long since have detected Quire’s work, since the murder of Lady Mary. He now speaks of destruction as the only answer to our ills.”
Alys Finch saw her master, Quire, returning, and she frowned to herself.
Quire was stopped by a weeping Wallis. “Quire-Captain-the boy betrays me,” Wallis whispered. “Speak to him. I am dying with the pain he causes me.”
Quire smiled down at poor Wallis and patted him on the head. “Of course, I shall.” He looked about for Phil. Starling was enjoying the attentions of half a dozen ladies and seraglio gallants, but he saw Quire at once and he laughed, mocking them both. Quire sighed. “He lacks grace, that youth. He always did.”
“You must make him behave.” Wallis was tense.
Quire’s gesture was not encouraging. “How?”
“He is your responsibility.”
Quire smiled slowly. “As the Queen discards them, I accumulate them.” He would be happier when his work was finished.
“He kills me,” said Wallis simply.
“Find another,” said Quire. “There are so many here. They’d be flattered by attention from one of your station.”
“I love him.”
“Ah,” said Quire. He was looking over to where Sir Amadis and Lord Gorius were rising, ready to leave. He put a hand to his lips. Then he saw the Queen. She was very drunk, beckoning to him. “I must go. Duty, Master Wallis.”
Abandoning the wretched Secretary, he moved between the cushions, ascending the dais at Gloriana’s summons.
“Let us retire,” she said. She could scarcely speak for drunkenness.
Quire saw that Sir Ernest had fallen over the sleeping body of Lady Lyst and now slept also. Half the guests were in a like state. The denizens of the seraglio crept quietly back to their various quarters. Quire let Gloriana put a hand on his shoulder and steady herself. She towered over him. He summoned more of his strength than he would normally reveal and began to help her down the steps.
“My children,” she said.
Quire was puzzled.
“I promised to see the girls.” She pointed towards the end of the hall. “They are through there. In the adjoining apartments. Not in contact, of course, with…”
“I know,” he said. “But it will have to be tomorrow. You spend the day with them tomorrow.”
