“Wrong?” Gloriana shared Quire’s hideous mirth. “Montfallcon…? Ah, vengeful, sullen Achilles!”
“Your Majesty?” Tinkler began to bow, as one who has accomplished a difficult task.
Then, with a cry both agonised and vengeful, Quire drew back his arm and drove his sword deep into his servant’s heart.
“Villain!” He sobbed. “Literal-minded sloplicker!” He withdrew the sword and aimed for another thrust.
The Queen was shouting at him. “No more! Call them off if you can. But no more death!”
Quire became calm as he lowered his sword above Tinkler’s twitching body. He cleared his throat and spoke loud and clear. “That’s enough, lads.” He knew he betrayed himself, gave her firm evidence of his connection with the rabble. “Come to me! This is your Captain. This is Quire.”
Slowly, in twos and threes, the weary ruffians presented themselves before him, almost eager, upon command, to pile their glistening swords at his feet.
He turned, saying to Gloriana: “I did not do this. Montfallcon ordered it.”
“I know,” she said, and went to find the palace soldiers.
As the rabble was led off, she and Quire squatted amongst the dead children, looking for life. There was none. He had expected arrest, with his men, but she had given no order of that sort, showed hardly any emotion at all as she looked into the faces of the girls she had borne. “This is what he meant, Montfallcon, when he asked me to give him permission to destroy ’all that was impure.’ And it was why he would allow no inspection of the walls. He used your mob against me. Against both of us, in a sense.” She sighed. “He asked my permission and I agreed. Do you recall me agreeing, Quire?”
He would not reply to her.
“It was my first true attempt at independent statecraft. I thought myself in command at last. Do you remember, Quire? I sent you away after that display.”
He nodded.
“I gave him permission to kill my children. My first decision.”
“You did not.” He reached out for her. Then his hand dropped. It was useless. He began to consider his own escape, certain that she must soon turn on him, realise the guilt he shared-for the mob and its commander had been his invention.
“Has Montfallcon been found?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Fled into the walls, it seems. Or perhaps somewhere in the East Wing.”
“Poor Montfallcon. I drove him to this.”
Quire saw two of the Queen’s older companions coming for their mistress. He stood up. He fingered his jaw. He wondered which route to take. He could go out to the town and hope for a ship-or go back into the walls, at least for a while: perhaps to search for Montfallcon and slay him. The Queen must soon grow vengeful. She was weeping now. She would want her scapegoat soon. The ladies who came to her were thrust back. She turned her dreadful face up to look into his. “Quire?”
He awaited the condemnation.
“Aye.”
“You must replace Montfallcon truly now. You must be my adviser. My Chancellor. I cannot make another decision. I will not.”
Quire opened his mouth, then he shut it again. He bit his lower lip. He was entirely surprised. He said: “I am honoured, madam.” He had dreamed of this but never expected it, least of all now. At once the whole of Albion was his.
He helped her to her feet. She said, leaning on him: “Can you stop the war, Quire? Is there any way?”
He hesitated.
“Quire?”
He controlled himself and said: “There may be one way. I have already spoken of it. It would involve a great sacrifice on both our parts.”
“I’ll make the sacrifice,” she said. “I must make it.”
“Later,” he said.
He was mystified by this success. He felt defeated. In the morning Lord Shahryar could be informed. The Grand Caliph would come sailing up the Thames, to rescue Gloriana and Albion; to crush the Perrotts. And his only emotion was one of disappointment, even fear, and again he could not explain the source of this unusual emotion. As he got her back to the bedchamber he said in a low, puzzled voice: “Why should you trust me now? I have been proven a liar and a traitor.”
And she replied, very coldly: “I trust you for Montfallcon’s work. Who else is there?”
Which caused Captain Quire to shiver and go, at length, to find another place to sleep.
The next morning she held formal Court for the second time. More ambassadors were interviewed, more intelligence gathered, while Quire stood, in his faded black, beside the throne, in conference whenever they were alone. Slowly, but with little relish for what he did, he manipulated her towards a decision, though he did not mention outright the solution he had already hinted at. Doctor Dee was called for, but sent word that he was ill and could not come just then. And neither Oubacha Khan nor Sir Orlando Hawes could be found.
“Well,” she said, when everyone had been seen; when Master Palfreyman had counselled fierce and absolute war against all enemies at once; when nobles had begged her to send word to the Perrotts that their father’s killers had been found; when all voices and all opinions had been heard; “what must I do, Chancellor Quire?”
He hesitated, though not for drama’s sake. He found that he had difficulty in speaking for other, more mysterious, reasons. At length: “There is only one decision which will save the world and Albion from war.” His voice was thick. He licked his long lips.
“Quickly,” she said.
He looked into her eyes. She stared above his head. “I’ll not be tormented. I can tell your advice is already formed, Chancellor.”
“You must marry Hassan al-Gaifar.”
“It will be popular with the nobles.”
“And the commons.”
Her huge face grew momentarily sad. Another, smaller face looked out of it, for a second, at Quire, and it was pleading with him. He turned away. Then she was stern. “Lord Shahryar must be sent for.”
“I shall summon him myself,” said Quire. He began to feel relief, at least for the moment, that it was all done. He was free of obligation to Shahryar. He had done all that he had promised he would do. And he felt only weariness, inexplicable misery. Very heavily he began to walk towards the doors of the Audience Chamber.
Even as he signed for the footmen to open them he knew there was some kind of disturbance on the other side of the doors. He paused, listening. Then he smiled. Gradually he became possessed of a peculiar sense of elation. He recognised at least one of the voices. They were demanding to be admitted.
“Why do you hesitate?” she called across the empty room.
He walked backwards in the direction of the throne.
She cried to him: “Quire! What is it?”
He began to laugh. “You’re free of me, I think.” Calmly he stared into her astonished eyes. Why was he glad of this? “And there’s no excuse for war. I should have killed the old man. But my reasoning’s too devious. I saved him up. I am again betrayed by my own brain’s convolutions!”
“No riddles!” she commanded. “Who is out there?”
The doors were pushed open from the other side, slowly. They revealed a group: Oubacha Khan, in Tatar war-armour, handing his sheathed scimitar to one of the Queen’s Gentlemen Pensioners; Sir Orlando Hawes, dusty and grim, in breastplate and helm; Alys Finch, holding a small black-and-white cat, grinning her triumph at Quire; the Countess of Scaith, in male attire, filthy and haggard; and Sir Thomas Perrott, ragged, unkempt, dirty, red-eyed, in a sacking smock.
“Una!”
They all looked at Quire, none at the Queen, though she cried her friend’s name.
Quire smiled back at the girl who had rescued these prisoners, both of whom she had originally betrayed to him. “Your lust for treachery is even better developed than I thought, young Alys. So does the pupil seek to excel
