Gloriana

THE TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER

Nonetheless,” Lord Montfallcon maintained his stand, “the Accession Day Tilt must take place and thereafter the Queen must make her Annual Progress. Never has it been more necessary These ceremonies, Sir Amadis, are not empty ritual. Their function is to assure the people of the Queen’s majesty, her reality, her charity. Already rumours proliferate in the capital and must be spreading across the nation, across the very world. If the Queen does not appear, then the rumours will fatten like flies on dung and infect the Realm with an hundred moral diseases, weakening us in every quarter. We have dismantled the Rule of Might and replaced it with the Rule of Justice. That Justice is symbolised by the Queen. We maintain our provinces, our world empire, not by soldiers, but by means of a philosophy exemplified in the person of Gloriana. Mithras! Our own faith is implicit in her and how she acts.”

Sir Amadis Cornfield felt discomforted by the surroundings of Lord Montfallcon’s oppressive rooms, which were, as ever, unaired and overheated. He felt that it might be possible to catch a very ordinary disease of the body here. Yet he was reluctant to go without convincing his fellow Councillor. “The Queen mourns,” he said. “She is enfeebled by so many terrible events. With her greatest friend suspected of murder…”

“She’s free of an enemy.” Montfallcon was glad and grim. “The Countess of Scaith’s influence threatened the security of the Court and the Realm. It is evident that she plotted with Sir Tancred to murder Lady Mary, that she killed Sir Thomas Perrott in her own rooms-the blood has been discovered, on floor, bed, tapestry; there is blood everywhere. Doubtless Sir Thomas’s body will be found anon.”

“This is evil gossip, my lord.” Sir Amadis was shocked.

“Then why has the Countess fled the palace?”

“Could she not also be a victim?”

“She is not the kind to be a victim, Sir Amadis.”

“I did not know, my lord, that victims were chosen according to their temperaments.”

“Your knowledge, sir, is not informed by my experience.”

“Nonetheless, the Queen grieves, half-mad with uncertainty.”

“Public business will steady her.”

“And who’s to replace the Countess at the Tilt? First Tancred’s gone, now her. It’s as if Fate takes any who would be the Queen’s Champion.”

“Lord Rhoone has agreed to play the Peasant Knight.”

“Then let’s hope he survives until Accession Day.” Sir Amadis looked at the clock, all brass and polished oak, above the fireplace. The hand stood near to the half-hour. He had no time for further pleading. “I’ve spoken my mind on it.”

“So you have, sir.”

“It could be put out that the Queen is ill.”

“And make matters worse? I have steered this ship for many years. I know what is good for Albion. I know the tides-the powerful tides of the common will. I know the shallows and the reefs. I know what cargo to carry and when to hold it, when to dispose of it. That is why the Queen relies on my judgement. Why she will do as I suggest. Why she must not be weak or be thought to be weak at this time! At the Tilt every important noble will be watching her, to take news of her mood across the world.”

Sir Amadis shrugged and, with the curtest of nods, was off.

He made his way swiftly to the disused suite of rooms behind the old Throne Chamber, where his little mistress-minx, trollop, virgin innocent-had agreed to meet him and, at last, be fully his. Her decision had been taken at the instigation of a gentleman, her guardian, who had pitied Sir Amadis in his discomfort, his distraction and his grief, and informed the girl that her interests would be best served by kindness to a Queen’s Councillor.

Sir Amadis felt warm gratitude towards this courteous gentleman who had concerned himself with the relief of the heart’s ache, the frail body’s pain, and Sir Amadis also felt a pleasant sense of victory over Lord Gorius, his rival, who would now be thwarted.

As he reached the half-deserted East Wing he came suddenly upon Master Florestan Wallis fancifully attired in floral reds and yellows, in deep conversation with someone Sir Amadis took for a kitchen doxy. Master Wallis peered around (a guilty flash), then took a dignified defiant stance, his back to the girl. “Sir Amadis.”

“Good morning, Master Wallis.” Cornfield was careful to pay the girl no attention, but he was amused, for he had never visualised the Secretary as anything but asexual, a celibate. To see him thus (gaudy, embarrassed) added further to Sir Amadis’s cheer, though he felt no malice. Rather he enjoyed something of a sense of conspiracy with his fellow Councillor.

He passed on, leaving them murmuring. He dismissed a very small suspicion that crossed his mind, linking kitchens with kidneys.

Lord Montfallcon glowered up from under his heavy brows, and Master Tinkler, scratching a head that was the chosen field of warring tribes of vermin, shifted his feet, cleared his throat, rubbed his nose, before settling.

Lord Montfallcon re-read his list, knowing that the longer he kept Tinkler waiting, the more rapidly Tinkler would answer his questions and therefore have less of a chance to colour his information with pointless interpretation.

“No Quire?” It was his usual opening.

“Dead, sir, for certain.” Tinkler was helpless. “And I was not the only one who hunted him. Six months have passed, sir. We must give him up.”

“Who else hunted him?”

“Fathers of daughters, and of sons, he’d wronged. Kidnapped or killed. Who knows now?”

“The mood in the town?”

“Quire’s forgotten by most.”

“Fool. I meant the Queen.”

“Loved, as always, my lord. Revered.”

“Gossip?”

“Unimportant.”

“Aye?” A sceptical twitch of the eyebrows.

“Not…” began Tinkler awkwardly. “Not worthy…”

“What’s the gossip, Tinkler?”

“Of several murders, of a return to the days of Hern’s mad Court, of a Queen driven insane by her…”

“Unfulfilled lust?”

“You might say”

“What else?”

“Sir Thomas Perrott imprisoned by you, my lord, and tortured. The Perrotts banished and planning rebellion. And the Queen’s favourites ravishing any virtuous girl they can find.”

“Worthy of Quire, that gossip.” Lord Montfallcon’s short laugh was horrible. “The old days, in truth. What’s the remedy suggested in the ordinaries?”

“Every man and woman has a different one, sir.” Tinkler began to warm to his subject now that he knew what was expected of him.

“But in general.”

“There’s a common belief Her Majesty should marry, my lord. A strong man, they say. Like yourself.”

“They’d have me marry her?”

“No, sir. Well, not many.”

“Because I’m not trusted, eh?”

Tinkler blushed. “They think you too grim, sir, and too old.”

“So who?”

“A suitor, you mean, my lord?”

“Who does the mob think the Queen should marry?”

“A King, sir.”

“Poland?”

“No, sir, for Poland’s King is not considered strong enough for a hard-willed woman. As consort, many think that the Saracen monarch, who was much admired during this winter’s visit for a handsome, manly, martial King, would be the proper candidate.”

“Why? We are not at war.”

“The broadsheets. The street songs. I brought you some, my lord. All speak of it. Do they not? Of civil war. Of war with Arabia. Or war against the Tatars.”

“Where there’s a will to war, a war will always follow,” mused Montfallcon. “That intent must be changed.”

“I didn’t hear you, my lord, I regret.”

Montfallcon studied Tinkler. “So the Queen shall marry the Grand Caliph, who will master her, lead Albion to victory…”

“Many sympathise with the Perrotts, sir. The murder of Lady Mary sparked their imaginations.”

“Such murders always do. And that contained all the proper elements. Innocence destroyed!”

“So they believe the Perrotts will rise, my lord, and that many will join them. They think that the Perrotts will support the Queen and clear the palace of…” Again Tinkler paused.

“Of Hern’s old men?”

“Aye, my lord.”

“The Queen is virtuous. But not her servants?”

“Aye, my lord.”

“She’s too weak to rule alone?”

“Pretty much what they do say, my lord.”

Montfallcon lowered his head, fingered his lip, nodding slowly. “And they fear that a weak Queen means a weak Albion.”

“A strong-willed woman badly advised is closer to the mark.” Tinkler moved his dented velvet hat upon his head. “This is not shared opinion. Some disagree.”

“But Faith weakens, eh?”

“Not too much. Save for the murders, all would be forgotten in a day. Even the murders will be forgotten in time. If there had been no more-but I heard.”

“There have been no more murders.”

“The Countess of Scaith fled, I heard, after attempting to poison Lord Rhoone, killing his children.”

Lord Montfallcon waved a hand. “Nonsense. She fled for other reasons.”

“Some say you had her incarcerated, my lord. In Bran’s Tower. With Sir Tancred. Sir Tancred was popular, too.”

“And I never was.” Lord Montfallcon smiled. “How easy it is to give them heroes and villains. And I was content it should be thus, until that murder. If only I had Quire. What a beautiful ferret. What a golden-tongued spreader of tales. Well, it’s up to you, Tinkler. You must tell them how the Queen is strong, that she considers dismissing me, that I am close to the end, that my health fails, as does Lord Ingle-borough’s.”

Tinkler’s eyes were widening. “This cannot be, my lord.”

Montfallcon threw down gold. “Your pay’s safe, Master Tinkler. Tell them the Accession Tilt may be witnessed as usual, for a week from walls and roofs, by the commons, that the Queen will appear and that, shortly thereafter, she’ll begin her Annual Progress through the Realm. Tell them Sir Thomas Perrott was almost certainly murdered by the Countess of Scaith, who has herself fled Albion-that’s the truth-and that when the Perrotts realise this they’ll become wholly loyal and obedient again. We’ll not say, yet, if the Queen plans marriage, for that’s the best counter-rumour we have, and it would be foolish to use it too soon, before suitors were selected.”

“The Queen receives suitors, my lord?”

“Tell them that, if you wish.”

“I think it will cheer the commons to know all this,” said Tinkler soberly.

“Aye, it might.” Lord Montfallcon put a quill to his teeth and picked. “You may go, Tinkler.”

The obsequious quasi-Quire padded away. Lord Montfallcon rang his bell and the little page Patch, in green velvet, entered, doffing his cap and bowing low. “My master’s without, sir. With Sir Thomasin Ffynne.”

“Let them enter.”

Patch signed and stepped aside. Lackeys came slowly forward, with the poles of Lord Ingleborough’s litter upon their shoulders. In his chair, dreamy with pain, left hand on weakening heart, Ingleborough swayed as he was lowered. He reached out a knotted fist to Patch, who ran forward. There was love-father and son, husband and wife-between the two, and even Montfallcon was touched by the affection they displayed. Ingleborough was so consumed by gout that there was hardly a muscle free of some degree of agony, but his brain remained good, when he did not attempt to drug himself with drink or opiates. Behind him hobbled Sir Thomasin Ffynne, serious of face, in dark velvets and black linen. Patch closed the doors on the departing lackeys and, at a word from Lord Montfallcon, locked them.

Lord Montfallcon sighed. He offered Sir Tom a chair, which Sir Tom took, lifting the weight from his ivory foot. “It’s hot.” He massaged the joint above the foot. “Like the Indies.”

“Would that you’d gone there, Tom,” grumbled Ingleborough. “The diplomacy involved in freeing you! The Moors have been tardy as a matter of policy. Neptune knows why! They’ve ambitions…”

“We can be sure of that,” said Lord Montfallcon.

“It all smells of war.” Ingleborough winced, for he had clenched his hand too hard. Patch stroked the pulsing knots. “I’ve never known it more imminent, since Hern’s time. What’s the answer, Perion?”

“The Queen must marry.”

“But she won’t.”

“She must.”

“But she won’t.” Lord Ingleborough laughed. “Gods! She’s worse than Hern, for she can’t be deceived and flattered as he was. She knows us too well-we three in particular. She’s been privy to our casual talk since she was a child. She knows all our tricks.”

“But she also loves us and will follow our advice,” said Montfallcon significantly. “Now, Tom, what have you to say concerning Arabia’s and Poland’s rivalry?”

“Since New Year’s this was hatching.” Tom Ffynne’s ruddy cheeks seemed to shine the brighter as, smiling, he reported his heavy news. “Casimir and Hassan left here deadly rivals, each thinking that with the other dead the Queen would be his. A familiar tale-the woman or the man is never asked, the rivals develop their feud as fully as the lack of facts permits. The fewer facts, the greater the development. The less interested the courted object, the more the rivals are certain she pines for one of them and will be his, if the other’s gone.”

“We know these failings, Tom.” Montfallcon was impatient by nature and, of late, had begun to lose the self-control he had for so long maintained. “But the specific rivalry…?”

“There’s to be a duel between Poland and Arabia.”

“No!” Montfallcon was amused, disbelieving.

“I have it from the Emir of Babylon, who’s close to the Caliph.”

“Where do they fight?”

“On a ship. A Turkish ship. In the very middle of the Middle Sea.”

“With swords?”

“With all the weapons of Chivalry.”

“Horsed? They can’t be!”

“So I hear. The ship is large-the whole deck will be given to the tournament. Lance, sword, mace and so on.”

“To the death?”

“Or a wounding.”

“But death’s possible? Is it, Tom?”

“Aye.”

“So we’ll have the threat of war between Arabia, whom we protect, and Poland, our best friend.” Montfallcon was very grey. He fell in his chair. He looked at his two friends. He bit his lip.

“And Tatary will move,” said Lord Ingleborough. “They are poised to detect a weakening in the fabric we’ve woven for thirteen years.”

“The Queen should choose one of them. That would stop ’em. But which?” Lord Montfallcon straightened his back. “Poland, whom our people can’t respect, or Arabia, who couldn’t give us the heir we’ll need? Which?”

Tom Ffynne put his finger along his nose. “Arabia. There’s plenty who’ll sire the heir for him.”

Montfallcon continued to brood. “A little more of this talk and there’ll be a hundred claimants for kinship with the Queen’s nine daughters. You know that, do you, gentlemen? You’ve considered that?”

“For the crown?”

“It’s likely.”

“Things aren’t so bad,” said Tom Ffynne.

“Not quite. But in thirteen years we have created the Golden Age. Such creation takes very little time. But it takes still less for terror to descend, willy-nilly, upon a nation. Gloriana should marry Arabia. Hassan is a citizen of Albion, after all. There are Roman precedents. Greek.”

“He’ll give us further trouble. For the Saracens wait only for our sanction to make war on Tatary. The Queen knows that. It is one of the reasons she’ll not consider marriage to Hassan. She fears that she will put too much power into the hands of another Hern.” Lord Ingleborough’s voice trembled as pain seized him.

“We shall have to control him,” said Montfallcon.

“There’ll be Saracens at the Court, seeking to control the Queen-and us,” said Tom Ffynne. “I think we’d be poorly off with Hassan as consort.”

“It could be made plain he is consort, and not King.”

“In words?” said Lord Ingleborough. “Certainly, that can be agreed. But in actuality? He has ambitions to use Albion’s might against the Tatar Empire. All know that. And if there’s a hint of a marriage, we can be certain that the Tatars will attack Arabia, at least, before they are attacked. It’s better, Perion, to stand alone, behind the Queen. Or find a husband closer to home and scotch the reason for the fight. Albion’s seen worse threats.”

“War would destroy all we’ve achieved,” said Lord Montfallcon. He groaned. “How has this happened? In a few months we have become threatened from within as well as from without! I kept everything in perfect balance. How did I lose control?”

“With Lady Mary’s murder,” said Lord Ingleborough, “and dissension here, amongst us.”

“One murder? Impossible!”

“Perhaps Poland learned of your scheme to kidnap him, Perion,” said Tom Ffynne. “If so…”

“He’d need that verified. And there’s none, now, who can be believed. The main kidnapper’s dead.”

“You had him killed?” Lord Ingleborough struggled in his chair.

“Not I. Arabia.”

“Why?”

Montfallcon shrugged. “He over-reached himself in a matter of espionage.”

“On your behalf?”

“On Albion’s.”

“Now you have it!” said Lord Ingleborough. There was sweat on him. “It is as I always warned. Use the old methods-and you see the old results emerging.”

Montfallcon shook his head. “That’s nought to do with Lady Mary’s murder and the rest of the business with the Perrotts. For we must not forget them. If they attack Arabia…”

“They’ll be popular for it,” said Tom Ffynne.

“We’ll not be able to support them.” The Lord High Admiral was wincing as he spoke. “We cannot.”

“And if we stop ’em,” said Tom Ffynne, “half the nobles in Albion will be against us, as well as the commons. We could have some sort of uprising. Not a large one, possibly. But who knows? One thing leads swiftly to another.”

The pain in Ingleborough’s face was reflected in Montfallcon’s, who again saw his great dream fading, even as they spoke. He stood up. “There must be a way to save all that we have schemed for, all the good we have created!”

“Not by the old methods.” Lord Ingleborough drew Patch to him, as if to protect the lad from Montfallcon’s rage. “We acquired bad habits in Hern’s service, even as we worked against him. You cannot help yourself, Perion. You continue to use the instruments of secrecy and terror-modified, perhaps, but you still use them. You plot along conventional lines.”

“To protect our Queen and Albion!” Montfallcon did not raise his voice, but his tone intensified and was therefore much more fearsome. “To protect the innocence of the girl whose life we three protected for so long from the cruelty and caprice of the father! My whole soul has been invested in this service-as have yours. I refuse to accept your inference, Lisuarte, that my actions have been in any way misguided.”

“Or immoral?” Ingleborough spoke quietly his teeth clenching. The pain continued to increase in him. A hand to the heart again.

“Most morally have I protected Albion and all Albion means to us. The world’s not perfect. I have had to use certain tactics…but never have they touched the Queen. No stain…”

“Spilling blood for Albion is spilling blood in the Queen’s name.” Ingleborough sighed, lowering his chin upon his chest.

Tom Ffynne was up. “This is no good. If we three quarrel, then all we’ve achieved is surely lost.”

“I have never acted,” continued Lord Montfallcon, “unless the Queen (and therefore the Realm) was in some way threatened. Many of the dead were amiable enough, I suppose, but foolish, luring the Queen into like foolishness-indirectly, often. She never knew. We could not have the Realm discredited.”

“I fear your next admission,” groaned Ingleborough, “that you’ve had the Countess killed. And those others.”

“The Countess’s influence upon the Queen was never good. Her advice paid scant respect to Duty. And the Queen is Albion and Albion is Duty.”

Tom Ffynne cried: “Friends! No more of this. You drive yourselves to opposing ends of a brittle plank. When it snaps you’ll both fall. Let’s keep to the middle. Remember. Our business is to maintain the balance. It is what we have always agreed. And you, Lisuarte, are in monstrous bad pain. You must retire. I’ll talk to Perion. He claims more than is true, as a man will become drunk on his own poetry and add substance to his stories and thus maintain the song.”

Montfallcon sat down behind his desk. Patch ran for the lackeys to bear away his master’s chair. Tom Ffynne stood beside the empty fireplace and listened to the ticking, to the grinding levers, of the clock above his head.

When Lord Ingleborough had gone, Sir Thomasin Ffynne looked down at his remaining friend. “There can be no more killing, Perion. Another death here and our plans are defeated forever.”

“I’ve killed nobody. Not the ones Ingleborough speaks of, at any rate.”

“I said nought of culprits.” Tom Ffynne stretched himself. “Besides, in conscience, I can’t imitate Lisuarte’s tone. I’ve done my share. And come adrift. This last venture was a stupid trick and I’ll not sail out again. I’m shorebound from now on. I merely said we must have no more. We must see to it that there is no more. We clear the air, Perion. We must bring back the light. We must make the Queen happy. For all our sakes. It cannot be done with the old ways of iron.”

“What other ways are there?” Montfallcon sulked, but he did not deny, in his stance, the truth of Ffynne’s words. “Iron threatens: iron defends.”

“Gold defends, too.”

“We pay our way clear? That’s never worked in all history!”

“Golden ideas.” Sir Tom laughed at himself. “Golden dreams. It’s what we’ve lived on, you and I, for many years. Golden faith.”

Montfallcon agreed. “The Queen responded. She brought us back our faith for a little while. It seemed that all was well again. Then the Countess of Scaith is proven a murderess and the Queen crumbles. She’s been moping ever since. She’ll see no one. Count Korzeniowski wishes an audience on important matters concerning Poland-perhaps he wishes her to stop this duel, for he loves his Casimir. Oubacha Khan talks openly of Tatar armies gathering at Arabia’s borders while spreading rumours, got from his crony, Lady Yashi, that Lady Lyst and Master Wheldrake aided in Perrott’s murder and threw his body down a disused well, so now Lyst and Wheldrake go fearful for their lives, lest the Perrotts catch the rumour.”

“You believe them innocent?”

“Aye. Those two have no murder in them.”

“There’s gossip of perversity.”

“Mild. I know his tastes. He would be chastised by the Queen every day, and Lady Lyst’s his substitute. And her taste’s for nought but wine. The Queen could make such gossip disappear, but she will not. She has not carried her sceptre for more than a week. She has not received ambassadors. She has not entered the Audience Chamber. She refuses to listen to me. And now there comes a deputation of Saracens, some fifty strong, to speak urgently-doubtless on the same matter as Korzeniowski-and she spurns them, virtually insults them, and they wait daily in the Second Presence Chamber-all etched steel and warlike battle-silks (though they bear no weapons), like an army giving siege.”

“The Countess of Scaith. If she were found?”

“She’s gone for good.”

“You’re prejudiced against her.”

“So I am. But I can read character. She was softening the Queen.”

“The Queen believes now that she was a traitoress?” Ffynne was perplexed.

“The Queen says nothing to me.”

“She thinks you deceive her, Perion, perhaps?”

“Perhaps.”

“Does Ingleborough have her ear?”

“He dodders.”

“He did not today.”

“He has spoken some conventional comfort to her, Tom, but she dismissed him, also. Apparently she half suspects that the Countess of Scaith was murdered, too. She thinks the blood in the room was her friend’s.”

“Could it not be?”

“There would have been signs of a struggle.”

“And no signs of Perrott’s death, then?” Ffynne was sceptical of the theory.

“The whole mystery has been debated.” Montfallcon rose slowly. “She had all the time in the calendar to make sure she was not detected in Perrott’s death. She would not flee unless she felt suspected. Would she?”

“But was she suspected?”

“By me. I have always been suspicious of her.”

“And no news of her in Scaith?”

“None. None. She’ll be abroad. She has estates everywhere. Some even say the Emperor of Tatary is her lover.”

Tom Ffynne wiped his face with his sleeve. “The Queen needs support, Perion. If she’ll not accept it from me, she’ll find it elsewhere. Una of Scaith was her closest friend. Perhaps her only friend, in private life.”

“The Queen is not a private personage,” said Lord Montfallcon. “She’ll recall soon enough that Albion’s friends are her friends. It’s a simple equation.”

Sir Thomasin Ffynne pursed his lips. “It could be, my lord, that we have made our equations too simple. Where, by the by, is Doctor Dee? I should have thought he’d be pleased to comfort Her Majesty.”

“Obsessed with his experiments. He scarcely emerges from his lodgings, these days.”

“It seems we’re all divorced from her at once.” He limped towards the door. “What explanations are there for that, d’ye think, Perion?”

Montfallcon looked up. “What? You blame me, too?”

Tom Ffynne turned back to study him. “You’re quick to suspect accusation. I but asked the question, hoping that your subtler brain might find an answer.”

“I’m plagued by many questions.” Montfallcon had become ashamed of himself. “Forgive me, Tom.”

“Well, think on it. Your mission is, after all, to maintain the unity of the Court and the Realm. And the core of that unity is, as always, Gloriana. Should the core collapse, the whole structure collapses, eh?”

“I have always said so.”

“Yet we are not thinking too much of protecting the core. Of healing it, if it is wounded.” Tom Ffynne spoke kindly. “We must be gentle. She is still, in one sense at any rate, not a woman. So think of her as a child, Perion.”

But Lord Montfallcon drew in a weary breath. “The tenderness is all gone, Tom. Now there is only Duty.”

“By such means are marriages turned sour and cynical, I think.” Tom Ffynne was leaving. “But, like Lisuarte, I never married, so I’m not the best judge, perhaps.”

“I have been married many times,” said Montfallcon, his voice deepening with grief.