“You’re ill, my lord?”
“Damn you, Quire, you know it’s not a physical condition. Sometimes I wonder what I do and why I should bother to employ such as you.”
“Because I am the best. At this work of ours, sir. But I’ll not justify my role. I merely explained myself. Justification is for you to do.”
“Eh?” Montfallcon brought out the box of gold. His hands shook.
“One acquires a necessary relish for the pain and humiliation of one’s fellow creatures, my lord. It is in the nature of the work. Yet, as a soldier (when the battle’s won) will wax sentimental over the shame and the waste and the pity of it, so could I weep, and cry ’Horror! But it must be thus!’-and console myself (and you, my lord, for that is what you seem to expect of me today). I refuse such sophistry. Instead I cry ’Horror! But how sweet it is!’ Should I be the victim, I think I should still learn to relish my own misery, for that, also, is a means of amplifying and defining the senses. But I seek the freedom of power. It gives me a wider field. So do I grasp at privilege-which your patronage affords me-the privilege of power. I would rather relish another’s pain than my own.”
“Pain’s for bearing, that’s all. You are a creature, Quire, perverse and stunted in your soul.” He put coins in a bag, counting them carefully.
“No, sir, my soul’s as noble as thine own, sir. I merely interpret its demands in a manner different from yours, sir.” Quire was offended not so much by Lord Montfallcon’s insults as by his misreading of the truth.
Lord Montfallcon’s hand shook as he held out the bag. “Admit it-you work for money!”
“I am not a liar, sir, as you know. Why do you wish me to reassure you in this way? We have worked together harmoniously up to now.”
“I am sick of secrets!”
“You do not employ me, my lord, to console you.”
“Go! Your vulgar ironies ring dull to me!”
A ragged bow from Captain Quire, but he would not leave. There was an unstated demand. He stood his ground. It seemed that he was furious. “For that, my lord, I’ll readily apologise. I lack the practise. I can’t aspire to sing as bright and clear as you lords of the court, for my calling demands blunter tones.”
“You bait me, Quire! I’m no bear for your amusement. Go!”
Captain Quire took the money and tucked it in his belt, holding his stance. “I’m used to speaking to those who are near deaf with terror, or half dead with pain. Thus it is, also, with those who teach the young, or tend the mad and sick, sir. Their vocabularies wither, their style simplifies, their art becomes the art of the country mummer, their humour the bumpkin humour of the Fair.”
“And your apologies bore me, Master Quire. You are dismissed.” Montfallcon seated himself.
Quire took a step forward. “I offer you plain truth and you reject it. You questioned me, my lord, and I replied. I thought we both spoke truth. I thought there was no ambiguity between us. Must I lie to maintain your patronage?”
“Perhaps.” Lord Montfallcon locked his drawer. He drew a breath and said: “Do you say I am an imperfect employer?”
“Perfect up to now, sir. Do we not possess an understanding, as between men of equal sensibility?”
“Indeed! We do have an understanding! I pay You kill, kidnap and conspire.”
“An understanding of the skill, my lord, involved.”
“You’re clever, aye.” Montfallcon became baffled. “What more must I say to make you leave? Is there a charm? Do you seek public honours? Would you have me make you a Prince of the Realm?”
“No, my lord. I was speaking of the art of it, that is all. My belief that you appreciated that art for its own sake.”
“If you like.” Montfallcon waved him away.
Quire was shocked. “What?”
“Go, Quire. I’ll send for you.”
“You offend me deeply, my lord.”
Montfallcon’s voice rose, shaking. “I protect you, Quire. Remember that. Your wicked life is permitted to continue unchecked-your seductions, your blackmailings, your killings on your own account….” Montfallcon placed thin fingers upon his grey brow. “I’ll not respond to your ambiguous demands! This is no time…I have important matters to consider…matters more important, Quire, than the balming of a villain’s pride. Go, go, go, Captain Quire!”
The flop of tawdry black, and Quire was vanished.
As Captain Quire left the shadows of the palace and entered the ornamental garden, now a tangle of budding brambles and unchecked creepers, he paused to look back at the high wall behind him, to frown, to shake his head. His pride was, indeed, most mightily injured. He began to investigate the sensation as he walked on, through the gates and down the hill to the line of trees where Tinkler leaned whistling against the fence, staring at the ragged, racing sky.
“Tink.” Quire climbed the fence and stood with his back to Tinkler, looking along the road towards London’s smoke.
“What’s afoot, Captain?” Tinkler was sensitive to his master’s moods as only one who fears for his life can be. He paced forward in his stiff, cracked coat, thumbs in his doublet belt.
“I’m shocked.” Captain Quire was murmuring, rolling a stone with the pointed toe of his jack-boot. “I thought I was respected. Aye, that’s what’s attacked, my self-respect. I am not understood as an artist. Hasn’t anyone an idea of the skill, the genius involved in my work? Have I not proved it constantly? How else could I prove it? Who else could do what I do?”
“I admire you, Captain. Greatly.” Tinkler was placatory without being truly sympathetic, for he had not the sense to interpret stance or gesture. “We all do-at the Seahorse, the Gryffyn and elsewhere.”
“I meant my peers. I thought Montfallcon sensible to a fellow artist, a realist. I’m stunned, Tink. He’s nought but a pump room cynic!”
Tinkler thought he guessed the cause of this. “He didn’t pay, is that it, Captain? He always-” He was forestalled as Quire pushed the purse into his hand. “Ah, thanks.”
“All this while I believed he understood the nature of my game. He doesn’t appreciate the finesse, the comedy, the irony of it, but most of all he doesn’t understand the structure, the vision, the talent, the hard, unblinking eye that looks upon reality and transmutes it into drama. Oh, Tink!”
Unused to this display of emotional confidence, this revelation of his master’s inner life, Tinkler was at once fascinated and at a loss for words. “Well,” he said, falling in beside Quire as he set off, flustered and flapping, down the track. “Well, Captain…”
“Every artist requires a patron.” Quire looked about him at the black poplars waving in the wind. He yanked at his wandering cloak, he pulled his hat more firmly upon his head. The crow’s feathers fluttered like little drumming fingers against his crown. “And unless he has an appreciative patron he can soon wither, turning his talent to mercenary gain, to please the majority. I have never pleased the majority, Tink.”
“Indeed you haven’t, Captain.”
“My wealth has gone, every copper, on materials. Invested for the art’s sake.”
“You were always generous, Captain.”
“That is what he failed to understand-that and my pride. I took his insults, his apparent contempt, for I understood it to be the part he chose to play.”
“We must all play parts sometimes, Captain.”
“And all the while he displayed his true character, his true opinion of me! Oh, the old fool!” Quire stopped in the middle of the track.
London was in sight-red, grey and white below. On the city’s walls swayed the ramshackle shanties and tents of those who lived and worked there; beyond were roofs of green or silver slate, roofs of thatch, of copper and, in one or two places, of gold leaf. Spires, delicate and thin; heavy domes; battlemented towers; tall temples of knowledge-colleges, libraries in the latest Graecian mould, or in older pointed, gothic shapes, of brick, granite and marble; theatres made of wood and brightly painted, pasted over with a thousand posters; street upon street of dwelling houses, inns, taverns, ordinaries, drapery shops, butchers’ shops; the shops of fishmongers, greengrocers, signpainters, goldsmiths, jewellers, scriveners, makers of musical instruments, clothiers, saddlers, tobacco merchants, vintners, glaziers, barbers, apothecaries, carriage builders, blacksmiths, metalworkers, printers, toy-makers, bootmakers, tinsmiths, chandlers; the high corn exchanges, the shambles, the merchants’ meeting halls, the exhibiting galleries where painters and sculptors displayed their creations….