“Naturally, but I am not sure it could be done.”
“You could do it. No one else, Quire.”
Quire nodded. “It is true that if I refused you would be hard put to find one with my skills and my opportunities. There is Master Van Haag in the Low Countries, and one or two Florentines-a Venetian I can think of-but they do not know our Court as I know it. Well, the work would be hard and it would take a great deal of preparation.”
“We are fairly patient. Our Grand Caliph wishes it to seem that he comes to Albion as a saviour, accepted both by the Queen and by the people.” The Moor had Quire half-mesmerised. “Could you do it?”
“I think so.”
Lord Shahryar said: “What we Arabians offer Albion is security, purity, morality. We are traditionally praised for these virtues. You must create the climate in which the folk of Albion would cry out for our virtues. We should come to save you-Queen and Realm.”
“And I should have revenge,” said Quire to himself. “I should be vindicated.”
Lord Shahryar continued: “You would be rewarded, of course. Made great. Would Montfallcon elevate you?”
“No, my lord. I trusted him for that.”
“Do not, Captain Quire, suggest you dislike power.” Lord Shahryar linked an arm with that of his nephew’s murderer.
“I have plenty.”
“But no position.”
“And therefore no responsibility. If I were Baron Quire I should have to set an example. Why, I’d be scarcely more free than the Queen herself.”
“A principality? A nation? To indulge your tastes with even greater imagination?”
Quire shook his head. “Like Lord Montfallcon you misunderstand me, sir. And besides, I know you would try to kill me when my work was done. This offer of a nation is nonsense. You would not tolerate a small world of my creation. No, I’ll choose my reward when my task is done. I’ll do it, as you’ve guessed, for the art of it. If I decide to help you, you will have won me from Montfallcon for a single reason-you appreciate that I am an aesthete. You have flattered me and tried to stimulate me in other ways. Well, I am flattered. I am stimulated. But it is only the commission itself that attracts. If I brought Albion down, Queen and all, and if you succeeded in killing me for my pains, I’d die in the knowledge that I had produced my greatest, most lasting work.”
Lord Shahryar withdrew his arm from Quire’s and looked into the Captain’s glittering eyes. “Does Montfallcon fear you, Quire?”
Quire stretched himself and drew deeply of the coffee-flavoured air. “I think he will.”
He contemplated a rich and bloody future, yawning like a waking leopard who opens sleepy eyes to see that, in the night, he has suddenly become surrounded by a herd of plump gazelles. He smiled.
THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER
The Countess of Scaith drew both her shutters back and felt the warmth of the sun on her face. She sniffed at her violets. From this bedroom window she looked across lawns and sprouting gardens to the ornamental lake which, this morning, had begun to lose the untidy sheen of winter. There were gardeners and the like about, trimming and twitching. The spring, when it came, thought Una with sudden melancholy, would be unwelcome. Behind her, in the curtained bed, Gloriana still slept. She had come here, weeping, at night, for comfort. In black damasked silk Una headed for the bell rope, understanding that the Queen must soon awake. But she hesitated, arms folded, to stare down at her friend, who seemed at peace. Gloriana’s huge beauty filled the bed; her marvellous auburn hair lay all around her head and shoulders in great skeins and her fair, high-boned, innocent face, half-turned from the light admitted through the curtain’s gap, showed a degree of childish wistfulness which brought tears to Una’s eyes and made her pull the curtains tight, considering a means of distracting the Queen, for a few hours at least, and making her a girl again.
For some while Una had wanted (selfishly, she thought) to show Gloriana what she had discovered about the nature of the palace. She had hesitated for several reasons: Gloriana’s time was rarely her own; Gloriana preferred to spend as long as possible in private company with Una; Gloriana carried so many concerns with her, regarding the palace, the city and the Realm, that further knowledge might increase her anxieties. And yet, thought Una, she could offer Gloriana compensation for all this, for what she would offer would be a shared secret, clear of State and politics-some private knowledge-potential, if temporary, escape. Though she could think of no appointments for today, Una continued to hesitate, impatient of Responsibility which hovered all around; yet trapped, unable to dismiss it, and in this she was almost as burdened as the Queen. She knew, too, that the bright, sharp thoughts of morning, when one was still allowed to dream unchallenged, might soon be muddied by the myriad considerations of commitment to lazily made promises and thoughtless assurances, not to mention established ritual and routine, of previous, more hectic moments. To wake Gloriana now, with breathless predictions of adventure and freedom, might serve to create a greater melancholy when the realisation of the day’s prepared events occurred. Una decided that she would wait-test her friend’s heart and discover both her public and her temperamental desires.
And so she moved from the room and its velvet-shielded bed, into the next. She moved in glinting black silk, like a supernatural being-half shadow, half silver fire-to the little bed-chamber of her maidservant, and entered without warning, as was her habit, to find Elizabeth Moffett already dressed, in good plain linen, and brushing out her hair.
“Morning, your ladyship.” Elizabeth Moffett was uninhibited by the presence of her mistress. Her face grew a little red, from the effort of the brushing. Her square, wholesome features were typical of her Northern home. All Una’s servants were from the North, for she was inclined to mistrust Southerners as muddle-headed and careless in their duties; an inherited prejudice which she knew to be unfair but which she preferred to follow in the hiring of personal staff. Una loved Elizabeth for her unimaginative relish of commonplace life.
“Good morning, Elizabeth. I have a visitor. Would you please have breakfast for two prepared and ensure we are not disturbed.”
“Ho, ho, ho.” Elizabeth Moffett winked at the Countess. Her interpretations of Una’s life were always direct and never subtle.
Una smiled and returned, rustling, to her own room, where Gloriana could be heard awakening.
The bed curtains parted and through them appeared the tangled head of the World’s Ideal, shame-faced. “Oh, Una!”
The Countess of Scaith was at the window again, watching a carthorse, which drew a cargo of seedlings, cropping, unknown to the gardener, at some recently planted privet.
“Your Majesty?” Una’s expression was gently sardonic and it made Gloriana laugh, as Una had known it must.
“Una! What’s the hour?”
“Early enough. There’s time to break your fast. What must you do today?”
“Today? But you know better than I. Tell me.”
“There are no commitments until noon, when we dine with the ambassador from Lyonne and that wife.”
“Ah, me!” Gloriana’s head disappeared. Her muffled voice continued. “But we’re free till then, eh?”
“Free,” said Una, and dared herself to add: “For exploration. Just we two. If Your Majesty is of a mind…”
“What?” The head reappeared, eyes wide. “What?”
“I have a discovery I would share. The palace is ancient, as you know.”
“As ancient as Albion, some think. Founded when New Troy was founded.”
“Aye. Old roofs are said to lie below the ground now.”