“They died before,” he said. “Only you did not know-save for a few. How many were murdered far more horribly than Lady Mary?”
“What do you say?” She turned, frowning. “What do you know?”
He grew cautious. “What I have heard. Ask Montfallcon.” He risked his own security. If Montfallcon guessed that he had revealed those secrets, his safety was all gone.
“In my father’s time, you mean?”
He retreated. “Aye.”
It was as if she strapped armour about her, moment by moment. He sought a chink with: “I love you.”
She shook her head and let the letter fall. “You think you do. And I you, little Quire. But this…” She rose to pace the dark chamber. “The Court crumbles. The dead increase. I believed that I acted to save us from further death. Yet here’s poor Wallis gone. And in our own secret quarters that represented our retreat from death, from the past. It is too much, Quire.”
“You seem to blame me.”
“Wallis did.”
“Aye. His brain was disordered. Many would make a scapegoat of me.”
“The Phoenician scapegoat bore the whole tribe’s sins and was killed to free them. I do not want you killed, my love. I do not want a Realm which requires a scapegoat.”
“I assure you, I agree.”
“I must look to the safety of Albion’s spirit. I must stop these wars. I must reunite the nobles.”
“It is too late.” He saw his power weakening. Again he shifted his ground. “So, I’m to go away? You have no more use for Quire’s comforting.”
“I need it more than ever,” she said. “Yet it diverts me too greatly.”
“You trust me so little that one vague letter can turn you against me?”
“I do not know. There is much I have refused to consider. I know you, Quire, because I love you. Yet I have no words for that knowledge. I am confused.”
“Come to bed. Let me banish confusion.”
“No. I would debate this with myself.”
He realised that the morning would bring news of Lord Gorius’s death and Sir Amadis’s flight. He had perhaps overreached himself, for he had also been accused of injuring Sir Vivien. He lay on their bed, brooding. He must consider urgent plans. He must win her back to him for the few days needed until his great plan was brought to full bloom. He must appeal to her in some way. He must pretend to agree. So he waited in silence for a while in the hope that she would feel the need to fill it. He knew her nature.
And at last she said, sadly:
“I am unworthy of my people. I have no intelligence. I have made a monstrous mad thing of my wisest Councillor.”
He continued in his silence.
“I have betrayed my duty. I have allowed my friends to perish, to suffer, while those who are not my friends prosper. I am infamous and my subjects turn against me, for I betray their faith by losing my own. In my pain and my fear I sought help from Eros-but Eros rewards only those who bring him virtue and goodwill. I have been foolish.”
He climbed from the bed with a great display of impatience. “This is mere self-pity.”
“What?”
“You continue to blame yourself for the crimes and weaknesses of others. You’ll never test your own strength if you follow this course. You were Montfallcon’s foil-now you claim me as your influence. You must consider your own decisions and make ’em. So I’ll leave, as you desire.”
She halted. “Forgive me. I am distressed.”
“You fear to take any form of retribution on your enemies in case it should reveal your father’s cruelty in you. You are not cruel-but there must be firmer justice. You have been only the reflection of your nation’s needs. Now you must impose your will and show that you are strong. It is the way to end all this madness.”
She drew massive, beautiful brows together. “You stand to suffer most from any retribution,” she reminded him.
“Do I? Put me to trial, then. By whatever jury you select. Or try me yourself.”
He drove her back to tears; he exploited her general guilt; he offered her escape through hysteria. She did not take it. Instead she found dignity. She rose, huge and sympathetic, and took him, to his astonishment, to her breast. “Oh, Quire, Quire.”
“You must rest. For a day or so.” His voice was muffled. “Then make your decisions.”
“Do not advise me, my dear. Do not try any further to reduce my aspirations. You taught me not to mind my affliction. But it was that very affliction which represented my love of Albion. I shall risk the pain, in order to serve the Realm again.”
“This is weighty….”
“I shall decide, in the course of the coming week, on what I must do.”
He felt thwarted, even though he saw success.
He gave himself up to her awesome kindness.
Next morning there came the news of Ransley and word that Sir Vivien was dead of his fall. The Queen, in her puzzling and novel mood, took both deaths with a kind of tolerant dismay and had Tom Ffynne sent for. She intended to discuss the problem of Cornfield’s disappearance from the palace, though it was by now well-known he had ridden southeast on the Dover road and almost certainly went to his kinsmen.
Quire was not ignored by Gloriana, but he was not consulted any longer by her. She continued to show towards him the affectionate detachment of a mother for a charming but demanding child. And she allowed him to go with her when she robed herself in her encrusted gown, her crown, and took her orb and sceptre, to return to the Audience Chamber she had all but abandoned. As she moved through the Presence Chambers she greeted astonished petitioners who had long since given up any real belief they might be granted an interview. She was distant; she was friendly. Her humanity was all but gone and she was little else but habit, a monarch. Quire followed, nodding and bowing to those he knew, showing a confidence which, for once, was not much with him, attempting to give the impression that he had at last persuaded the Queen to do her duty.
She was enthroned and Quire took the chair at the foot of the dais; the Countess of Scaith’s chair. Lord Montfallcon was summoned but did not immediately appear.
Lord Shahryar was the first foreign ambassador to be received. He looked hard at Quire, not daring to ask, even with his eyes. He was tall and self-contained, in his silks, and his steel, and his gold. “Gracious Majesty. My master Hassan, Grand Caliph of Arabia, sends his greetings and asks me to express his deepest affection for your self. An affection, he asks me to tell you, that goes deeper than mere admiration for the world’s most beautiful, most loved, most honourable sovereign, ruler of the world’s mightiest and noblest Empire. He awaits the moment when you will send him a sign that you share this affection, so that he might fly to your side, to help you in this troubled hour of history.”
“Troubled hour, my lord?” She seemed amused. “What troubled hour is that?”
“Well, Your Majesty, there are rumours. Certain of your subjects-unruly and unwise-disobey your wishes….”
“A minor domestic matter, my lord.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” He said no more. He did not look at Quire at all. Quire knew, however, that Shahryar might believe himself betrayed and, in turn (for he had nothing to lose), might betray Quire.
The doors of the Audience Chamber groaned open on unoiled hinges. Montfallcon entered. He wore his black robes of office, his gold chain. His grey face was drawn and there were blotches of red, like a drunkard’s blush, on his cheekbones, showing that he had slept hardly at all for many nights. His eyes shifted in his head as he noted the Queen, then Quire, then Shahryar. He had one hand wrapped in the heavy folds of his cloak as if he clutched his own costume to steady himself, and when he spoke, his voice was rapid, ragged. “Your Majesty sent for me?”
“We hope we do not inconvenience you, dear Lord Montfallcon.”
His glance was suspicious. “What are we doing here?”
“We are giving audience, my lord. We are debating important matters of State.”