Thus we stood to win a share of the profits from those nine commissions, and without risk or expense to ourselves. Ethlebight’s smaller ships, the pinnaces and so forth, were ideal privateers, since what was required to capture merchant ships was speed and aggression, not large broadsides of great guns.
We would be making money for ourselves, but would also serve the Chancellor’s larger objective, which was to bring wealth to Ethlebight. I would use my profits to rebuild my family home, and Kevin would ransom his family, build ships, and expand the Spellman business.
Since Kevin met me at the Mercers’ Lodge, where men of business met daily, it was easy enough to find a notary to review our agreement, and others to witness our signatures. Then Kevin left to prepare Meteor for the outward journey, including the purchase of the fine corned gunpowder that I had suggested the day before, and I made my way back to Selford very pleased with my morning.
No messenger awaited from Amalie, so I put on my apprentice cap and went up Chancellery Road to the various Moots, in hopes of obtaining my certification as a lawyer. None were willing to take my word that I was ready to practice, which was nothing less but what I had expected. I hoped to be able to enroll as an apprentice, but as I did not come recommended by any lawyer of their acquaintance, this ambition was also dashed. Carefully I explained that my master had been taken by pirates, and that my letter of recommendation from Judge Travers had been captured by bandits, but this obtained me no leniency.
“You seem a careless person to have so misplaced your master and your recommendations,” said one little clerk. “We desire no careless lawyers in the Yeomanry Moot. Good afternoon.”
I was now at a loss. I had come to Selford to make my reputation as a lawyer, but that was now impossible. I had no hope of office, no prospects for employment. My only occupation, if you could call it that, was to be the covert companion to the Marchioness of Stayne—which, viewed as employment, was hardly flattering.
I wondered what my father would have said if he could have viewed me now. Nothing good, I thought, and in a downhearted spirit I left the Yeomanry Moot.
Yet, I thought, I had friends, some high-placed. My privateering prospects were good. Perhaps I should become a man of business, like my friend Kevin.
I walked down Chancellery Road to the sound of bells ringing, and guns being fired from the Castle. I asked someone on the street what had caused the celebration, and was told that “Old de Berardinis hath held Longfirth for the Queen.” I knew not who Old de Berardinis might be, but I knew that Longfirth was a large port city on Bonille, just across the sea from Selford, and that its declaring for the Queen meant that the war would begin there, either as Clayborne sieged the place or as the city was used as a springboard for the Queen’s invasion of Bonille.
I later learned that Sir Andrew de Berardinis was the Lord Warden of the city’s royal garrison, and that after some days of confusion he had seized the city by main force, cutting off the heads of the mayor and the Lord Lieutenant of the county, both of whom favored Clayborne. Selford’s Trained Bands, the militia based in the capital, were now to be mustered in great haste by the Queen and sent to reinforce Sir Andrew by whatever ships could be found in the port—fortunately, Meteor, with its privateer’s commission, was exempt, being already in the Queen’s service.
I had not been to court since my debut as Groom of the Pudding, and did not care to return so long as I kept the bribes I had received in that character. I did not wish to reject the gifts, which might offend, and yet I did not wish to remain in the debt of these gullible strangers; so I decided to send gifts of equivalent value to my benefactors, along with expressions of eternal goodwill and friendship. Accordingly I despatched rock-crystal goblets, a gold-plated salt cellar, pearl studs, biliments, girdles, and other small treasures to my new friends, who now at least were no poorer than before.
And while I was visiting the jewelers, I found something for Amalie that I thought would suit her very well.
At a pawnshop I found a black lawyer’s robe trimmed with marten fur, hardly worn at all, and thereafter I went to court whenever I pleased. The Yeoman Archers, in their red caps and black leather costumes, would turn away anyone who obviously did not belong; but in my robe and apprentice cap I looked respectable enough, hardly a great lord but plausibly someone who had business in the castle. I took Kevin with me on one of these occasions, and was able to introduce him to Their Graces of Roundsilver. Roundsilver knew his father, of course, and was pleased to know that Kevin would be advising me in the matter of awarding the privateering commissions.
The night before Kevin and Meteor planned to set out for Amberstone, I joined Kevin at the Castle for the command performance of Blackwell’s history of King Emelin. A stage had been constructed in the vast chill space of the Great Reception Room. The Queen, wearing a gold circlet on her pale hair, faced the stage on her throne. Before and about her the nobles had chairs, and the rest of us sat on benches or on the flagstone floor. I had come early and tipped a porter to give us benches close to the stage—though we were forced to sit on the side, so as to give the nobles a better view. Knowing how difficult it was to warm the enormous room, I had brought cushions so we would be comfortable, and rugs so that we would stay warm.
Near the Queen’s lady mother sat the Marchioness of Stayne, a vision of beguiling languor wrapped to the throat in shadow fox fur. She looked at me only once, from the corners of her long eyes, and lifted one eyebrow, which by itself was enough to send a surge of blood to my limbs.
A trumpet call echoed from the ancient roof beams. Blackwell opened the program with a pair of poems, the first on the virtues of the Queen, and the second an epithalamium—some months late—for the nuptials of his patrons, the Duke and Duchess of Roundsilver.
What Joy, or honors can compare
With holy Nuptials, when they are
Made out of equal parts
Of years, of states, of hands, of hearts?
When, in the happy choice,
The Spouse, and Spoused have the foremost voice!
The sentiments were lovely and the verses fine, but both poems invoked a multitude of goddesses (those of Virtue, Victory, Fertility, the Marriage Bed, etc.) to bless their subjects, or to serve as a flattering comparison. I found myself wondering if Orlanda would answer the summons and appear, either to bless the Queen or skin me alive.
No actual goddesses appeared, so far as I knew.
After applause, Blackwell withdrew and Lord Bellicosus and his minions entered, and I enjoyed hearing one of the ranting speeches I’d written for him. Blackwell had added exposition explaining the civil conflict in Bonille in which King Emelin intended to interfere, and the clowns had added enough comic business that I felt a little offended that they were not paying more attention to my lines.
After Bellicosus marched off, King Emelin came on, with a speech about the dangers of civil rancor and foreign intervention, and the necessity of reuniting the broken halves of the ancient kingdom of Duisland, which had come apart some hundreds of years earlier under the assaults of the Osby Lords. Situated as I was to the side of the stage, I kept one eye on Queen Berlauda, and saw that she seemed quite enraptured by her ancestor’s words.
Nor was she alone. Emelin exited to such enthusiastic applause that King Rolf’s entrance was delayed.