the teacher.”
“One hunts the largest game, Captain.” Alys Finch laughed cheerfully into his face. Neither showed malice.
Behind him the Queen was rising. “Una!”
Quire was almost merry. “Albion is saved! Albion is saved! And Arabia’s vile plans are all confused!” He continued to dance backwards, seeking escape.
They moved into the Audience Chamber, to threaten him.
“Una!”
The Countess of Scaith hesitated, then curtseyed to the Queen. “Your Majesty. Alys Finch is here to testify against her master.”
“You’ll believe the word of this minx, will you?” cried Quire satirically, throwing back his cloak to free his sword. He still wore the red sash, his concession to passion. “What proof have either of you?” The sword flew out. “Have you ever seen me?”
He knew that they had not. He had been careful to remain hooded. But he knew, just the same, that he was doomed.
“Sir Thomas!” The Queen was jubilant, recognising the elder Perrott at last. She turned to Sir Orlando. “A messenger, immediately, to Kent. And another to Portsmouth.”
“It is done, Your Majesty,” said Hawes. He moved towards Quire, who was at the door which would lead him to his offices, Montfallcon’s rooms. “We’re saved from war. But now we must save ourselves from Quire. Once and for all.”
“Hurrah!” yelled Quire, drawing his sombrero from his belt, shaking out the feathers and donning the hat. “Virtue triumphs and poor Quire is denounced, disgraced, dismissed.”
The kiss he blew to baffled Gloriana seemed sincere. He went behind the drapery. The door slammed. Sir Orlando Hawes and Oubacha Khan ran to it, calling for more assistance. Quire had locked it.
When they entered the apartments at last, there was nothing to be seen but a small fire burning in a grate, some dust moving in the autumn light, as if Quire, like a malicious ghost, had been exorcised entirely.
THE THIRTY-THIRD CHAPTER
I feel no guilt,” said Gloriana bleakly, “and think that I should not. But then feeling-strong feeling-has gone from me. The seraglio was becoming a museum of failed hopes. My children…” She sighed. “I was never fully conscious, Una.”
The Countess of Scaith, in voluminous travelling costume, took her friend’s hand. They were alone in the Withdrawing Room. Gloriana wore dark colours to match the shades of late autumn. Light rain fell outside.
Gloriana responded to her friend. “But you are recovered, eh, Una?”
“In truth,” she said, “I share something of your dilemma, for I know that I should have felt more terror. But there was something comforting about my incarceration. It removed all responsibility from me. And Sir Thomas Perrott, once he understood that I was a friend, proved a kindly companion. We talked a great deal. We were buried so deeply and escape was so impossible that we were able to choose a variety of topics. It was, in many respects, a holiday. For one of a fatalistic disposition, at any rate.”
“But you’ll not stay at Court?”
“I may return. But not immediately. I need the air of Scaith.”
“And you take Oubacha Khan with you?”
“As my guest.” Una smiled. “He’s celibate, he tells me. A vow.”
“Aha. A vow.” She became distant.
“You still pine for Quire?”
“He is a traitor.”
“Perrott does not think so. Perrott maintains his belief that he was Lord Montfallcon’s victim.”
Gloriana shrugged. “Well, they are both gone, now.”
“I bear him no grudge,” said Una. “Because you love him so, Gloriana.”
“I love nothing.”
“You love Albion.”
“I love myself. They are the same.” Her tone was not bitter. It was worse: it was hopeless.
Una hesitated. “I’ll stay. If you think…”
Gloriana shook her great head. “Go to Scaith with your Tatar.” She moved, like a funeral barge, to stand before the window, blotting the light from the room. “You risked your life for the Realm. I’ll not have you risking your soul for its symbol.”
“Oh, Gloriana!”
The friends embraced. Una was weeping, but there were no tears in the Queen’s cool eyes.
THE THIRTY-FOURTH CHAPTER
Albion, with war banished and the Arabian fleet dispersed even before Tom Ffynne and the Perrotts could meet with it, knew optimism again as Chivalry was at least restored. The Queen made plans for a Progress, regretting only that the Countess of Scaith could not accompany her. Sir Orlando Hawes proposed marriage to Alys Finch and was accepted. He had found the innocent in her, now that Quire’s influence was gone. Sir Amadis Cornfield and his wife were invited to the palace and came, to receive token recrimination, though the Queen’s main purpose was to offer this new, sober Sir Amadis the position of Chancellor, which carried with it an earldom. Sir Amadis begged leave to return to Kent. He said he had lost his taste for statecraft. And Gloriana was alone, as she had never been alone before, and every night she pined for her villainous lover, and her voice was heard through the emptied tunnels and vaults of the hidden palace, the deserted seraglio, as she wept; though she never mentioned his name, even there, in the darkness of her curtained bed.
The autumn grew gradually cooler, but the year was still unnaturally warm. Tatary drew back from foreign borders. King Casimir was re-elected Poland’s King. The Lady Yashi Akuya, having lost hope of Oubacha Khan, returned to Nip-ponia. Hassan al-Giafar was accepted as bridegroom by the Princess Sophie, sister of Rudolph of Bohemia, and Lord Shahryar was recalled to Arabia for execution, seeming distressed when he was reprieved. The last leaves began to fall from the trees and lie in drifts on the paths. Sir Orlando Hawes was made Chancellor, head of the Privy Council, and Admiral Ffynne became, with him, the Queen’s chief adviser. Master Gallimari and Master Tolcharde arranged a further popular display, in the great courtyard, of the mechanical Harlekinade, attended by Queen, nobles and commons. Sir Ernest Wheldrake proposed marriage, in maudlin verse, to Lady Lyst, who drunkenly and cheerfully accepted him. The Thane of Hermiston, who had unwittingly encouraged Montfallcon’s final vengeance, disappeared in Master Tolcharde’s roaring globe and never returned to Albion. Doctor Dee remained in his apartments, refusing visits even from the Queen herself. His experiments, he said, were of major importance and should not be witnessed by the uninformed. He was humoured, though he was by now considered entirely mad.
There was speculation about the fate of Montfallcon, whom most thought a suicide, and of Quire, who had evidently fled through the Spider’s Door and returned to the underworld before escaping abroad. The Queen would not speak of either. The Countess of Scaith, as she had promised, said nothing of Quire and refused to accuse him. Sir Thomas Perrott maintained the firm belief that Montfallcon was the villain who had imprisoned him. Sir Orlando Hawes kept silent on the matter for two reasons-his natural tact and his need to protect his bride’s reputation. Josias Priest emigrated to Mauretania.
