“I wouldn’t care to disappoint the duchess by taking her husband away from her.”
“Well”—he waved a hand—“if conscience is an issue, surely we will all hang ourselves. Yet indeed they are a beautiful couple.” He looked down at his notes, then cleaned his pen and stacked his papers. “I’m supposed to be writing a play, not amusing myself with translations.”
“I wish you and your hexameters every success.”
I rose as he put his papers in a portfolio and walked toward the door. He stopped, and turned to me with a thoughtful manner. “It seems to me that my projected play is itself an argument against the existence of the gods,” he said. “Were the gods real, would they not object to the way they are treated in our entertainments? Would I not be bringing upon myself some kind of damnation by treating your friend’s nymph lightly?”
“I would not chance it,” I said, perhaps a bit too firmly.
His brows rose. “I thank you for your advice,” he said. “And I will also reconsider the matter of the lady with her purple hair.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The women at court were aglitter with diamonds and rubies, embroidered fans and gowns of hand-painted silk, and the men, if possible, outdid them in the matter of splendor. The duke wore a cape trimmed with sable fur, a scarlet silk doublet woven with gold wire and stitched with seed-pearls set into swirling designs, a ring on every finger, shoes with gold buckles, a hat pinned up with a carbuncle the size of a hen’s egg, and a large pearl dangling from each ear. Nor was this his own extravagant fashion, for the raiment of the great noblemen was equally lavish. Many dressed in the royal colors of scarlet and gold to emphasize their nearness to the throne. I looked like a poor brown hen cast among peacocks, but I was grateful that my blue velvet was not ready, for the suit I had considered very grand would have looked vulgar in this company. I would have seemed as if I were trying to ape my betters, and failing.
A very few of the men and women were dressed entirely in white silks or satin, enough to make them conspicuous. Though the color was simple, the fabrics were rich and luxurious, and glittered with silver thread, pearls, or diamonds. I turned to his grace.
“Who are the lords and ladies in white?”
“They are called Retrievers. They attempt to free the philosophy of the Pilgrim from the corruptions attached to it over the centuries.” He shook his fair head. “I would find it grim work, for the Pilgrim’s original philosophy was cheerless indeed.”
I smiled at the duke’s We-twievers. “In Ethlebight, the followers of the Pilgrim are too few to have fragmented into sects.”
“I seem to constitute a sect of one,” said the duke. “For I hold that the supreme virtue is Beauty, and I endeavor to serve and admire Beauty above all other things. For Beauty fights no wars, lays no plots, and causes harm to no one. Other virtues, like honor and fidelity and justice, are a source of endless strife, but all people know Beauty when they see Her, and worship Her in their own way.”
I was on the verge of conceding the truth of this observation when our conversation was now interrupted by an acquaintance of the duke. It was the first of many interruptions, to which his grace responded with his usual charm. We had by this point advanced through the Outer, Middle, and Inner Wards, and were now in the Great Reception Room, a vast chill hall crowned by ancient timbers, dimly lit by a clerestory, and inadequately warmed by a pair of giant marble fireplaces carved with nymphs and salamanders. Tapestries of Emelins and gods circled the room, and would have shown brilliantly if the light had been brighter. Every bit of the room that could bear an ornament or carving did so, and we were regarded as we walked by the eyes of birds, animals, monsters, fishes, and grotesques. A throne stood beneath a canopy at the far end of the room, but the throne was empty, for the Queen was meeting with her Privy Council in another chamber.
This left the glittering courtiers with nothing to do but gossip and conspire with one another, and so they circulated, interrogating one another about available offices and commissions and the state of Clayborne’s rebellion. Roundsilver, as a member of the Great Council and a near relative of the Queen, was presumed to know a great deal, and so was often approached. He politely introduced me to the each of his interlocutors, and I put on my dutiful-apprentice face and tried to keep straight all the peacock lords and ladies. They, for their part, were so intent on the business of politics and office-seeking that they barely acknowledged my existence at all. Probably they thought I was some kind of servant.
The throng was brought to silence as a sennet, played by trumpets hidden high in a gallery, echoed from the hammer-beam ceiling; and then her majesty entered, followed by her Privy Councillors. We all took off our hats and bowed low, and as I rose I noticed among the royal party the Queen’s mother Leonora, the Queen’s particular friend the Countess of Coldwater, and also the young man, still dressed in his diamond studs, who at the coronation banquet had served the Queen her roasted swan, and who had been favored with so many of Berlauda’s smiles.
“Who is that gentleman?” I asked, in the duke’s ear.
“Viscount Broughton of Hart Ness,” said he.
I saw the scowls on the faces about the young viscount, and said, “He is not popular with the Queen’s friends, though her majesty seems to like him right well.”
“When news of Clayborne’s rebellion first reached the capital,” said the duke, “no one knew how far the conspiracy extended, or who among the peers was loyal, or whether Queen Berlauda’s reign would last more than an hour before one of Clayborne’s allies invaded the palace and toppled the Queen into a dungeon. Even the Yeoman Archers, who guard the monarch, were suspected, because in Howel the other royal regiment, the Gendarmes, had declared for Clayborne. Viscount Broughton raised a troop of his friends and rode into town to declare his loyalty to the Queen, and to pledge his gentlemen as her guard. It is generally admitted that this was well and bravely done.”
“And the others, no doubt, wished they had done the same?”
“The others wish they had cut Broughton’s throat before he thought of it. For now her majesty favors him, and has made him Master of the Hunt and given him a place on the Privy Council, and—they say—her heart.”
I viewed the viscount. He was a small man, but well-formed, with a blond beard and yellow hair worn past his shoulders. Today the diamond studs fastened a green velvet doublet stitched with silver thread, and with a neat white ruff at throat and wrists.
“He is a handsome man,” said I. “Perhaps her majesty, too, worships at the feet of Beauty.”
The duke smiled. “Beauty,” said he, “is rather inconveniently possessed of a wife.”
“Her father divorced,” I pointed out. “And more than once.”
The duke nodded. “It would be a sad way to begin a reign, to snatch such a play-pretty from his spouse, behavior too reminiscent of the late King. And this, too, while the realm is under threat. Arguments will have been made for a match that better secures the throne.”
I observed the royal party as they made a circuit of the great room, and saw the look in Berlauda’s eyes as she regarded the man by her side, as well as the firm jut of her chin.