She refused to hear him. “Quire! I shall not let you be troubled. If it continues, Montfallcon shall be dismissed. I’ll make you a baron, stage by stage, and put you in his place.”
“Arioch forbid!” He was deliberately old-fashioned, using phrases subtly reminiscent of her father in his kindlier moods, for he knew that this reinforced her wish to please him. “Such responsibility isn’t for Quire!”
“It’s not in your nature to want high office, that I do know. I have told Montfallcon again and again.”
“He disbelieves you.”
“He becomes surly. He cannot say it is not so.”
Quire continued to stroke her, but he had let himself grow quiet. She looked up at him. She was anxious. “You are hurt by these accusations. I should not have mentioned them.”
He sighed. He let his hand fall onto the arm of his chair. She got to her feet. “Oh, I am cruel! In that Montfallcon is right-he often warned me of it when I was a child. I have much of my father in me. I should control it more!”
“No, no,” said Quire and shook his head. “But I admit I am disturbed by this. In innocence I sought to please you at the Tilt. I suppose that it was a silly scheme. While I guested with Master Tolcharde and he showed me the device, the chariot he’d made for you, I conceived the escapade in a spirit of Romance. Then this began to happen: Love. Now I find there is also a great deal of hate. I am,” he said, turning his head away, “not used to being so hated.”
“My love will vanquish all that hate,” she promised. “My love is strong. Never has anyone loved as I love you, my darling Quire!” She drew him in. “This will all pass soon,” she promised.
He stood away from her, kissing her hands. “I’ll walk a little,” he said. “In the grounds.”
Diffidently, she asked: “Shall I walk with you? I’d enjoy the cool air.”
He shook his head. “Let me gather myself. I’ll return to you soon and, you shall see, I’ll be amusing. Happy once more. And that happiness I’ll share with you.”
She was reluctant to set him free, but she knew she must resist all jealousy or it would threaten her marvellous temper. She became grave. “Very well. But do come back to me soon.”
A smile of acquiescence, a kiss of encouragement, and Quire opened the doors, moving between her cheerful ladies, down the stairs, past silent, darkened rooms, out of the windows, into the garden. He remained on the terrace, looking this way and that, then swiftly stepped through moonlight, crossing the lawns and entering the maze, where he had earlier arranged his usual appointment with his most important pawns, his two personally trained and by now proficient traitors.
THE TWENTY-NINTH CHAPTER
We have still to hear from Lord Montfallcon.” The Queen spoke with casual amusement as she sat with sampler and needle on the couch beside Quire, who had borrowed some Greek book from Doctor Dee and was reading it. The mood of the Withdrawing Room this morning was relaxed. A few ladies attended the Queen, Tom Ffynne had been and gone, to say that Lord Montfallcon and Lord Kansas had entered the walls the previous night, taking torches and swordsmen, finding an opening in a gallery above the old Throne Chamber.
“You would think a search would not take so many hours,” agreed Quire from the other side of his book.
“You do not know those tunnels. There are many. They are intricate.”
“Aha,” said Quire vaguely, as if he did not properly listen to her. Then he said: “Should I, perhaps, go with some of your Pensioners to look for him?”
“Oh, no! Why seek the one who would accuse you? He spends longer than he needs because he won’t admit there’s no evidence there against you.”
“Nonetheless,” said Quire, closing his book, “it might be practical to take a few guards to the Throne Room, at least, and to wait for them.”
“You are too charitable.” Gloriana concentrated upon a difficult stitch. “Why should you be concerned for them?”
“Perhaps I wish my own ordeal ended?” he suggested.
“Forgive me.” She set aside her sewing. “Now I understand. Very well, you can take some Pensioners, if you desire, but do not enter the walls, I beg you.”
“You humour me.” He rose and kissed her. “Thanks.” Entering her Audience Chamber, that great, brilliant, empty room, Quire glanced around at it for a moment before calling over one of the guards. “Bring six men and come with me on the Queen’s business.”
They had been told by her to obey him. The guard ran off to gather his fellows.
Quire strained his luck, he knew, by allowing himself this luxury, but he felt that if Montfallcon did recover some little piece of evidence, it would be best if the Queen were not present when it was shown to him.
Soon Quire was surrounded by Hern’s gloomy vault, staring up into the pointed ceilings and recalling, with a certain pleasure, the deeds he had performed here. It was from here that he had sent Alys and Phil about their initial seductions; where Cornfield, Ransley and Wallis had come to pursue their passions. He had overheard conversations. He had kidnapped little Patch. And now he returned commanding the Queen’s Own Guard, looking for the gallery he had used more than once himself, which Tallow had shown him: the entrance to the walls. Quire regretted Tallow’s death, though it had been convenient, and, rather more, he regretted the man’s escape, his crawling away for aid.
He smiled to himself, wondering how Montfallcon fared against the vagabond army; the rabble Quire had turned from individual scavengers into a pack which ruled the tunnels, terrorising all other occupants. It had terrified Tallow. It had run him down and killed him because he would not join it. Quire sighed. That had been the simplest part of his plan. He was nostalgic for those easy early days.
At length there came a noise from above, a torch’s flickering, and he was instinctively drawn into shadow to watch as Montfallcon, cursing, burst through. Then came two of the city guards. Montfallcon leant against the gallery rail, not seeing anyone below. Both guards were slightly wounded. There had been a confrontation and a chase.
“Where’s Kansas, my lord?” asked Quire softly from where he stood, knowing his voice would grow in the vastness of the hall.
Montfallcon turned, still leaning, and looked down at him. “Villain! Kansas is dead and half a dozen soldiers with him. There’s a mob in there. Your mob, eh?”
“You continue to credit me with far too much power,” said Quire. “What will you do? Send in a rival mob?”
“Possibly.” Supported by the guards, Montfallcon moved along the gallery and began to descend unseen stairs, until he stood staring with cold hatred upon his cat-like enemy. “You taught them to think, eh, Quire? Those rats.”
“Your reasoning’s too subtle for me to follow. Will the Queen allow more activities in the wall? She would rather-”
“Do not speak so familiarly for the Queen, rogue! Not to me! You have corrupted her. That horrible seraglio-”
“It was always there, my lord. I did not invent it. Why, she’s hardly used it since I’ve known her.”
“It is the symbol of her private indulgence, of what she has become. It is that part of Hern she allows to flourish-”
“It is possibly where she escapes from Hern-”
“-and you! Oh, you, Quire, are Hern personified. I know his logic. I had full experience of it, eh? And now we hear it made more subtle in his daughter’s soft mouth. You are Evil’s tool, Quire!”
“I assure you, my lord, I’ve no symbolic value-I work for myself alone.”
Montfallcon spat at him. “You’ll perish! I’ll see to it. All the corruption shall perish! Kansas wished to marry the Queen. Did you know that? He was courting her and would have won her, but you appeared! I wanted a Perrott for a consort, but, by Xiombarg, I’d have settled for him. And now he’s dead. Killed by you!”