Gloriana

THE THIRTIETH CHAPTER

The summer left its stamp most solidly upon the autumn so that October in this thirteenth year of Gloriana was the warmest any had known. No breezes came to blow away the threat of war, and neither was Gloriana’s ardour for her little lover cooled. The Court’s euphoria increased, if anything, in private-while angry ambassadors prowled the corridors and Presence Chambers and grew impatient, as their masters grew impatient, for intelligence, becoming more and more dependent upon rumour, gossip and fabulation (which had increased a hundredfold since Quire’s appearance at the palace); the ambassadors, in the main, wanted reassurance from the Queen so they could inform their homelands of the practicality of peace, but, unable to provide news, they were helpless to counter the heady talk of fleets and armies, cannon and cavalry, the authority of precise-sounding terms which disguised the ugly and ludicrous facts of the chaos they pretended to describe. Maps were got out and paper fleets were launched with all the usual silly ritual and sane men looked desperately to Gloriana, hoping for the regal, maternal command to put the toys away before the squabbling became earnest.

Albion’s nobles mingled with the ambassadors, growing uncertain and quarrelsome as they waited for instruction, dismayed and disheartened by the Queen’s new mood, for she gave audience so rarely and with such misinterest that she made worse what her silence had begun. The Empire, founded on a grand myth, must have the myth sustained if it were not to disintegrate. There were many in the palace who saw the disintegration already beginning and spoke of Hern’s bad blood showing at last, and they whispered stories of the Queen’s monstrous appetites, of the legendary seraglio where every night scenes were enacted to make those of Hern’s time seem like good-hearted, innocent frolics. Yet only Montfallcon and a few of his party saw Quire as the instigator of all this. He represented himself, when he appeared, as one who sought to remind the Queen of Duty and who failed. He was, he told them, as dismayed as they were, for they must know how much infected he was by the Romantic spirit of Albion-after all, it was how he had come to meet the Queen. So they thought him a kindly dupe of the Queen’s, a sop to her tormented conscience, and said that it might be well for them all if, as Montfallcon raved, Quire did control her-that he would make the better monarch.

The walls had been closed up again, on the Queen’s orders, and she considered plans to destroy those interiors or, at least, to bury them more solidly. She blamed Montfallcon for the death of Lord Kansas, of whom she had been very fond, and she blamed him for the other deaths; for the death of the city guard who had somehow died of minor wounds a day after the expedition had returned. Montfallcon was disgraced. She did not see him at all. He received communications from her through intermediaries-through Sir Orlando Hawes and Sir Vivien Rich, who were not so outspoken against Quire and who, it seemed, gradually grew to accept Tom Ffynne’s opinion of her lover: “Lucky, rather than cunning, though he thinks himself a complete rogue.” All could see that Quire loved the Queen, as if he had never loved anyone before.

Meanwhile Oubacha Khan advised his lord that Tatar might soon reclaim lands regarded as rightfully their own; Lord Shahryar sent optimistic reports to Arabia; Count Korzeniowski begged his new King to hold his forces, without success; and the Perrotts, in Kent, gained allies almost by the hour. Quire was proud of his achievement. There remained but one main move to make. “She was infatuated,” he told the Saracen ambassador, “and now the infatuation slowly deepens into love. Then I’ll withdraw and down she’ll tumble-into your master’s arms.”

The Queen, when she asked advice from any but Quire, sought portents from a Dee who steadily became stranger, but who supported Quire’s opinion with increasing certainty. Sir Tancred flung himself from the battlements of Bran’s Tower, and it seemed that Chivalry died with him in Albion that morning, and from its corpse grew the richer, darker, morbid blossoms of inward-looking erotomania which, as it often will, adopted the trappings of Romance. Alys Finch, who had given herself twice each to Sir Amadis Cornfield and Lord Gorius Ransley and had then, at the right moment, resumed a kind of modesty, had them, as she put it, panting for her like dogs no longer content with bones but drooling for the richer meat. Both had reached the stage of being willing to promise her anything in order to have her again, while berating her, accusing her, hating her for what she did to them. Phil Starling shared this lust for treachery, the consolation of the unimaginative, and slipped free of Master Wallis whenever he could, into the beds of a dozen minor courtiers, or into the Queen’s own seraglio, where he discovered himself a treasure-house of pleasures.

Lord Rhoone returned from the country to find the Court so altered he was entirely baffled. He did not see the Queen, but he spoke to Tom Ffynne of his bewilderment. “Is this Quire to be King? What becomes of Albion?” Tom Ffynne held the opinion that Quire would make an excellent candidate for Consort-a realist was Quire, with a bit of experience of the world-and not of the generation, as Montfallcon was, which feared a return to Hern’s ways so thoroughly that it was actually likely to bring about the terror by brooding on it too much. Oubacha Khan found the small black-and-white cat, now completely healed, and made enquiries of Elizabeth Moffett. He discovered an unexpected ally in Sir Orlando Hawes. Alys Finch was put by Quire to stalking Hawes. She won her way to his bed but, she told Quire, had to give him rather more than she had given the others. It would be worth the expenditure, Quire was certain. Oubacha Khan visited the members of his retinue, warriors all, who lodged outside the palace gates. Quire heard of this with some amusement. Tinkler reported that Montfallcon had sent him into the walls to try to parley with the rabble there (Montfallcon did not know that Tinkler had captained it when it had killed Kansas and the others, for Quire had put him in charge, then). Quire instructed Tinkler to continue to obey Montfallcon, to serve him to the letter until such time he countermanded his command. Montfallcon spoke secretly with Count Korzeniowski, telling him of Quire’s part (but not his own) in the abduction of the King. He hoped that Korzeniowski would then tell the Queen. Instead Korzeniowski withdrew himself from the Court and sailed for Poland, to advise swift war. Montfallcon grew madder. Quire grew stronger. The Queen continued to be in love.

Ernest Wheldrake received a knighthood; the only honour in the whole season.

“In autumn, when the wind and sea

Rejoice to live and laugh to be,

And scarce the blast that curbs the tree

And bids before it quail and flee

The fiery foliage, where its brand

Is radiant as the seal of spring,

Sounds less delight, and waves a wing

Less lustrous, life’s loud thanksgiving

Puts life in sea and land.”

quoted the poet, perched upon a monstrous stallion in the stableyard of the palace, and clad all in tawny colours, his red hair blazing, his stiff arms waving as he found his stirrups and caused Lady Lyst, leaning a little in her saddle, to sigh.

“Splendid, Sir Ernest!” cried the Queen, who had not understood a word. She was in doublet and hose astride her chestnut beast. She wore forest green save for white ruff and cuffs, with a little hunting sword at her belt and a pointed cap upon her own red curls. Captain Quire, in black, climbed into the saddle of his black mare and grinned at them all as they prepared for the hunt, which would be led by Sir Vivien Rich, plump and happy, glad that he had, in his own mind, lured the Queen and her favourites to healthier pursuits. “Hurrah!”

To horns, the hounds came forth eagerly, a brown-and-white sea, swirling and savage around the legs of the horses. Sir Orlando Hawes, close by his friend Sir Vivien, wore russet and gold, while Alys Finch rode, ladylike, upon a little gelding, in velvet skirts of soft red. Sir Amadis Cornfield was mounted and close to her, looking from Quire to the girl, anxious for an answer that could not be supplied. And Lord Gorius rode up on the other side. Both rivals wore shades of green.

Sir Thomasin Ffynne, riding in on his own horse, saluted the Queen.

“Where’s Lord Rhoone?” She had been expecting him.

“Gone back to the country, after all,” he told her.

She shrugged and handed down her stirrup cup to a groom. The hounds were on the move and the huntsmen trotted through the gates, towards the open country where a little mist could be seen on the fields. “He’s best away from the Court, I think.”

“Aye.” Sir Thomasin’s horse began to buck as the hounds went by. He was not a hunter. “And I saw Lord Montfallcon this morning.”

“He never sleeps at all.” She was careless. “Was he wandering the corridors looking for spies again?”

“He says the Perrotts have half the houses in Albion in sympathy with them.”

She spurred at flanks. “Let ’em have the whole damned Realm!”

They were away.

Soon the Queen was a good distance ahead of Quire. With flapping cloak and bending brim, he sought to catch her. Through mellow fields and over hedges moist with dew, sniffing the first scent of autumn now that they were in open country, and relishing it, Quire knew October was to be his month, his greatest success, and he could let his elation show as, chasing behind her, he entered the red trees and green shrubs of the forest, galloping on springy moss, trampling the autumn flowers as, ahead, the hounds bayed the imminence of game. “Would you not be free forever, madam-a forest spirit?” he called. “Robin Hood and Maid Marian?” And he sang a traditional snatch:

“Bold Robin came down to the water’s side

For his lady fair was there,

’Oh, Marian, I would make of ye my bride

Out of love for your red-gold hair.’”

This pleased her but she did not draw rein. Again she raced ahead of him and again he must use every effort to keep her in sight, ducking beneath the branches, causing leaves of yellow and brown to shower.

Through the forest the hunt pounded, with yells and halloos, and while Quire gave chase to the Queen, Sir Amadis and Lord Gorius gave chase to Alys and Sir Orlando, who rode very close, while Lady Lyst kept on her Wheldrake’s track as he giggled and shrieked every time the branches lashed his face and body so that he barely kept his saddle at all. And only Sir Thomasin and Sir Vivien, it seemed, attended to the hunt itself.

Out of the forest and into soft sunlight, a broad, hilly clearing, of dark moss and blue autumn crocuses, labouring for the crest, then seeing, over the tops of the flowing beeches, the hounds in full cry after a fox that clove through dense bracken as a salmon through water. Gloriana rested her horse for a moment, allowing Quire to catch her. She was flushed. “Oh, Quire! We shall hunt every day!”

“Every day, my glory.”

The chestnut was set off again, springing forward and down the hill, while Quire, becoming aware of certain aches and pains, followed.

The beeches went past and his ears were full of their hiss, the thudding of the hooves, the gasp of his own breath. He was not her match, but he refused to lose her. The horns sounded some distance off. They broke out of the beeches and into the golden bracken. Quire caught a rich taste of earth and was astonished by the pleasure it gave him. He shut his mouth tight, lest he receive the shock again. Fences were leapt, and gates, and streams, and the hunt was spread out now, following the hounds, who had their quarry for certain.

“Halloo!”

Quire moved his head and looked over his shoulder. Sir Amadis and Lord Gorius were well behind and had almost lost the hunt. To his right were Alys and Sir Orlando; ahead of him, also on the right, were Sir Vivien and Tom Ffynne; while immediately ahead was Gloriana, shouting for him to keep up. Hounds and huntsmen streamed away before them, down the golden hill towards the broad waters of the Thames.

“There!” cried Sir Vivien. “There! He’s sighted!” He turned to call to the Queen, swayed strangely in his saddle, grabbed at his horse’s mane, then fell awkwardly, saddle and all, from the racing beast.

The Queen was past him before she could draw rein, but Quire had pulled his black mare short and had jumped down to kneel beside the groaning knight. “My back. Damn! I think it’s broken, Quire.”

“Bruised, that’s all,” said Quire. “What happened?”

“Groom betrayed me. Girth slipped. Off I came. Should have seen to it myself. Those palace grooms are useless for anything but the harnessing of coach-horses. Ah!” He was in great pain.

The Queen and Tom Ffynne were galloping back. In the distance, below, the hounds’ baying grew louder and fiercer. Sir Orlando Hawes, with Alys Finch beside him, looked darkly down at Quire. “What? Another accident? Are you injured badly, Sir Vivien?”

“Back’s broke. I’m alive.” He sweated in pain. “Better fetch some grooms and a gate, eh?” He looked up at his friend. “How does the hunt go, Sir Orlando?”

Hawes looked coolly down the hill. “Oh, I think they’ll soon have caught the little fox.”