“There is only this world.” Montfallcon clanked a few steps more, to lean himself against the block. “Dolt! It is the mother!”
“Flana?” Dee’s voice grew faint. “Flana died in childbirth.”
“She did not. I witnessed her rape and I witnessed the result of that rape nine months later. She was thirteen when she bore the Queen. We were all made to watch-both events. Hern was proud of himself. After all, it was the only time, up to then, he had been able to penetrate a woman. For some reason Flana, who was my daughter, was able to attract him. Flana?”
The shadow groaned.
Gloriana got to her feet. She did not wish to hear this tale. And she was terrified of all of them now. Montfallcon spoke wearily. “It was on this stone he raped my daughter, and on this stone he raped my granddaughter. Twice in his life was he capable of committing the act. I watched both. The blood was always bad, on all sides. I know that now. I sought to burn the knowledge from me. I willed Gloriana to her position. But the blood was bad. Now it is all over. And I am destroyed, hated by all now, because I loved Albion. History will remember your most loyal servant, Your Majesty, as a villain.”
The shadow began to rise, muttering to itself. Gloriana was frozen. Her mouth went dry and her eyes refused to close.
Montfallcon gestured to the mad woman. “Come, Flana. Come to your father and your daughter.”
Flana moved with peculiar grace into the light. She looked youthful, as mad people sometimes do, though her face was ravaged and her hair, auburn like her daughter’s, was dyed in places.
“Here she is,” said Lord Montfallcon. “She ran into the walls after you were born, Gloriana, and was there until Quire snared her, drugged her, gave her to Dee in exchange for his secrets and his philtres. I would have known, but I refused to have the walls investigated for the same reasons as you. I hid the fact of Flana from myself. She loved you. Perhaps she still does. Do you love your little girl, Flana?”
“No,” said the mad woman in a thick, terrible voice. “She has been bad. She banished her only true suitor.”
“She saw Hern rape you. She watched from her hiding place within the walls,” said Montfallcon. “He waited until you were exactly the same age, and raped you on your birthday. Do you remember, Gloriana?”
“While the Court looked on. That leering Court.” She said: “I remember. Mother…”
The mad woman ran towards Montfallcon, who took her by the arm. He said: “Kneel.”
She was passive with him. She looked into her father’s eyes. Into her hero’s eyes. She smiled and knelt.
Her head was resting on the block and Montfallcon’s sword was lifting before Gloriana could cry out. “No!”
The broadsword fell. The auburn head burst free of the shoulders. Dee whimpered and then he, too, died.
“Your own flesh,” said Gloriana. “Why?” She left Dee and began to crawl up the steps, one by one, away from the corpses.
“Corrupt flesh,” Montfallcon equably explained, putting the sword on his shoulder again and looking down at his victim. “She should have died when the rest of the girls died. But she agreed to Hern’s proposal. To save her life. I could not stop her then. When you were born, I hoped that you would come to redeem all that had taken place here. But you followed her to corruption, soon enough. My wife and the boys went next. I would not let him have the boys, you see, or my wife. He had a poor imagination, your father, like most monsters. What it was, to be in the power of an all but mindless beast! Yet I waited. I made my plans, developed my ambition. I wanted you to be the golden creature who would give point to all my suffering. You and Albion. And for almost thirteen years it seemed my work, my sacrifices, proved worthwhile and that together we achieved the Age of Virtue. Then you, too, gave yourself to a monster. And now I shall kill you and be done with it.”
She had expected this. She could make no appeal to him. She began to scramble up the steps, one by one, faster and faster, as he came after her, in creaking iron, his eyes fixed upon her throat. She reached the throne, was seated in it before she knew it. He paused. “It can begin again soon,” he said. “With the bad blood extinguished once and for all.”
She began to fear for her surviving child.
“Come,” he said, and gestured towards the block. “You shall die where you were born. You should never have existed. You are a nightmare.”
She made a gasping sound, pleading not so much for her own life, but for his soul, for the life of the great- granddaughter he did not, at this moment, know had been saved from his revenging mob.
“Sin upon sin,” he said. “I should have stopped it then. It went on for too long and Albion was almost brought to ruin by it. Come.”
“No.”
He reached out his grey, gauntleted hand and he took her almost gently by the wrist. “Come.”
Her great strength was all gone. She became reconciled. She rose slowly and was obedient. At her feet the candle began to gutter.
She reached the circle of moonlight. With his hand still on her, Montfallcon pushed her mother’s headless body away from the block. Gloriana, swooning, fell to her knees. Fell into blood.
From the gallery a cool, amused voice called out to her. “Aha, Glory. I see you’ve found your old friend.”
Montfallcon growled and forced her head towards the granite.
“Here I am,” said Quire. He spoke conversationally, as if to Gloriana. “He’s been searching for me for weeks. ‘Tis a game we’ve been playing, Mont and me, in the walls.”
“Ah!” She broke free and began to crawl back towards the dais.
Montfallcon stumbled over the corpse of his daughter, regained his footing and slowly began to raise his broadsword as he pursued her.
Then Quire was flitting down the steps, his own rapier in his little hand, his black cloak flying, his sombrero thrown clear, his thick hair bouncing around his long face, darting towards Montfallcon as a terrier at a bear, until he stood grinning between them. “Here I am, Mont.”
The broadsword swept down, whistling, to crash with all its weight on Quire’s guard. Montfallcon voiced frightful glee as Quire went down. Quire steadied himself with his free hand and tried to reach for the dagger in the scabbard on his hip, but it had slipped too far around his waist. He ducked, instead, and came up behind the turning Montfallcon, who sideswept with a blow that would have cut Quire in two at the thigh. But Quire had danced back, aiming his riposte at Montfallcon’s cheek, just below the eye, but was knocked back with an iron arm. The broadsword rose again.
Gloriana cried to them: “No!” She could tolerate no more killing. She would rather die herself.
Quire was smiling as his thin blade struck into Montfallcon’s right eye and pierced the head.
The crash of the grey lord’s falling echoed and echoed in Gloriana’s brain. She covered her ears. She closed her eyes. She was weeping.
Through the darkness Quire approached her and again she began to climb backwards towards the throne, as afraid of him as she had been afraid of her grandfather.
Quire paused. “I have saved you, Glory.”
“It does not matter,” she said.
“What? No gratitude left? No love?”
“Nothing,” she said. “You taught me well. You taught me to love only myself.”
He was pleased with his victory over Montfallcon. He advanced with his old swagger. “But I am a hero today, not a villain. Surely I have reprieved myself a little? A kiss, at least, Glory. For your Quire, who loves you dearly and always shall.”
“You are a liar! You cannot love. You are a creature made up entirely of hate. You can imitate any emotion. You can feel very few.”
He considered this. “True enough,” he agreed. “Once.” He came on again. “But I love you.” He sheathed his sword. “I’ll go. Only thank me first.”
“How long were you there? How long were you watching? Did you let the drama run its course to maximum effect until you acted? Could you not have saved that poor creature’s life-my mother, whom you used so badly?”
“Dee found her pleasant and, while her mind was soothed by what I gave her, she was pleased by Dee. They
