Her grey eyes were steady, though without much vitality. “I do, sir.”
The chair swayed from side to side and came to the cobbles with a bump. Quire opened the door and sprang out. They stood before the gates of a high-walled courtyard. Beyond the courtyard, surrounded by tall shrubs and ornamental trees, was the white wall of a two-storied house of the sort that might belong to a well-to-do merchant.
Leaving Alys Finch within the sedan, Quire rattled the gate and called a halloo. “Priest! Are you there, man?” Dogs barked. Two lanterns appeared from the left side of the house. They were carried in the hands of middle-aged footmen in short smocks and hose. “Priest! It’s Quire!”
Before the footmen could reach the gate a door in the house had opened and more light filled the courtyard. A skinny silhouette. A hand lifted. “Admit the gentleman, Franklin.”
Quire went back to the sedan and helped Alys Finch, whose natural grace had, in his eyes, been improved and who was now demure by intention rather than instinct, to the stones of the street. He gave the rogues twice the fee they asked for, ignored their honestly expressed gratitude, and led his girl through the gate, calling out, as it was shut and locked behind him: “Master Priest, I have brought a young lady to you, for training in deportment and the dance, and to learn the ways of the Court.”
Josias Priest, the Dancing Master, continued to wait at his threshold. He had a velvet evening cap upon his lank, mousy hair. His eyes were shifty and his mouth hung open, like the soft mouth of a petulant and pampered pony. On his scrawny body, a head taller than Quire’s, was a long gown of the same dark velvet as the cap. He held a dinner knife in his right hand, though his stance was entirely without aggression.
“It’s late, Captain Quire,” he said, as his visitors came in.
“You needn’t begin your work tonight.” Quire was bluff. Josias Priest’s watery eyes became even more alarmed. “She’s to stay here, so that she can be trained thoroughly and swiftly.”
“I don’t accommodate my pupils, Captain.”
Quire led the way into Priest’s dining room. Here a large table had been laid with a supper so mean that it would have shamed a river scavenger. Quire looked sadly at the cheese rind and the ham fat, the crust. “She’ll expect better food than this. She is my particular charge, my ward, and I’ll want her fed heartily, with all kinds of nourishment.” He drew back a chair for her and, eyes upon the surface of the table, she sat down. “Succeed with this one and I’ve another for your troupe.”
“It is not good policy, Captain, to have young lady pupils staying on the premises. For one thing, there is the gossip. It also produces undue excitement in the other pupils. Moreover, there is always the danger that the young person will conceive a-an infatuation-”
“Do you think you’re in danger of falling in love with Master Priest, Alys?”
“No, sir.”
“There! You’re safe, Priest. With such guarantees, how can you refuse? I want her to have everything-and you must do your best. You are good at your profession. You must teach her to walk, to dance, to make entertaining conversation. Most of all, you must teach her how to flatter. You know how to flatter, do you, Priest? Of course you do, it’s your greatest skill-indeed, it’s your philosophy! Good, then-deportment, dancing and flattery. I shall drop in from time to time to see what progress you are making. I shall expect considerable progress, Priest.”
“Captain Quire! I have no room!”
“You have a large house and several servants. Dismiss one of the servants, if you must. It would be a charitable act, come to think of it.” Quire adjusted the sombrero on his thick, black hair, admiring himself in one of Master Priest’s many mirrors. “Be a good girl, Alys. I shall be watching out for you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll have clothes sent round,” Quire told Master Priest.
Priest laid down his knife with a clatter, making some attempt to resist. “Lessons? Accommodation? How will she pay?”
“I’ll pay, Master Priest.”
“How much?”
“In my usual currency, where you and I are concerned. I’ll pay you with six months’ silence.”
Master Priest sat behind his supper, pushing the plate aside. “Very well. But to what purpose do you want her trained?”
Quire paused at the door and scratched his chin. He shook his head and grinned. “None, as yet. There may never be one. My actions, Master Priest, as you must know by now, are often performed for their own sake.”
“I can’t understand you, Quire.”
“I am an artist, and you, Master Priest, are a tradesman. For you, every action must result in an evident cash profit, however small, however indirect. You keep accounts. I create events. There’s room for us both in the world. Do as I tell you. Do not try to understand me. Remember both those things and you’ll be a happier Priest, Josias.”
A hard, important look into Alys’s eyes, and Quire was gone.
THE TWELFTH CHAPTER
The long table resembled to Gloriana a white path along which she must run, as in a nightmare, with traps at regular intervals on both sides and a tangle of obstacles (a silver nef for spices, elaborate salts shaped as fabulous beasts) to block her progress down the centre; each place setting representing a malevolent spirit. She took more wine-for once abandoning her normal caution-and pretended to listen to her nearest guests, on left and right, while making abstracted expressions of interest, astonishment or sympathy. Refusing both apathy and cynicism, she must suffer her pain, her yearning, unadulterated (for the wine did nothing but remove a little of the accompanying tension).
Indeed, my lord. How true, my lord. What a pity, my lady. How clever…How sensible…
Lord Montfallcon, as grey as granite, in black plush, with a grey, starched ruff, and a chain of ebony and gold upon his chest, spoke portentously across the table to Sir Amadis Cornfield, who tried to ignore the murmurings of his small wife and hear his lordship.
“There are those, Sir Amadis, who would take Poland’s example and make a democracy of Albion. I have heard such views expressed here, in the palace itself. Some would do away with our monarchy complete! The penultimate step to total decadence, as Plato says, is the establishment of democracy in a land.”
Oh, to have the burden lifted! But no, there is Duty…Duty….
Sir Amadis, in his conservative elegance, in contrast to his wife’s rather lively gown of purple and green, put a morsel of partridge between moustache and beard and chewed slowly, to show that he listened with appropriate gravity. “And Arabia? Are there not others who look to tyrannical Arabia-and would make Albion a war-like nation, an all-devouring dragon?”
“To weaken herself forever in one great, bloodthirsty rampage.” Sir Orlando Hawes waved a black, short-fingered hand in which he gripped a pickle-fork. “Wars waste money as well as lives. They take a country’s youth. All investments are squandered to gain glory, which we do not need, and land, which requires tending.” Sir Orlando’s economic theories were still sufficiently radical for the majority not to understand him.