You do not mind that I look at other women, I hope. I desire to be honorable in my conduct toward women, and part of that honorable conduct is to speak frankly.
My dalliances are harmless, and indeed are more the matter of comedy than of romance. As you shall discover in due course.
I looked up from my letter at the sound of shoes clacking on the paving stones of the quay, and saw a dark-haired, striking young woman walking along with a basket of turnips slung over her shoulder. The brilliant leafy greens bobbed behind her head like a soldier’s plume. Her eyes met mine, and held them pleasantly for a moment, and then the woman looked away and kept on walking. I felt it unjust that a young woman of such pleasing aspect should be obliged to shoulder her own turnips, and gathered my writing material between cardboard covers with the intention of carrying the turnips on her behalf—and then I saw, pacing along behind, Lord Utterback.
Utterback was dressed as befit his station, in brilliant blues and yellows, with swags and purfles, pinks and braid, and a doublet slashed to reveal the satin shirt beneath. A brass-hilted rapier glowed at his side, and he wore a tall hat with a plume and a diamond pin. I had become used to the plainer clothing Utterback wore on the journey, and seeing him in his role as lord caught me a little by surprise.
But Utterback was not reveling in his status, or strutting in his finery, but frowning down at the pavement with his hands folded behind his back, beneath a cape trimmed with black crow feathers.
Utterback paused, as if working at a thought that had just occurred to him, and then looked up with an air of faint surprise, as if he only now realized where he stood. Then he saw me, and gave a start of recognition.
I approached and put on my respectful-courtier face. “My lord.”
Utterback blinked. “Do you bear a message for me?”
“No, my lord. I was at the tavern, writing a letter, when I saw you walk past.”
Lord Utterback seemed to consider this for longer than the information deserved, but then asked a question which showed his mind was far from the quay, letters, or taverns.
“Goodman Quillifer, do you agree with Eidrich the Pilgrim that human purpose is to be found only in the mind’s acceptance of Necessity?”
I, more than a little surprised, took a moment to compose my answer. “I think perhaps that depends strongly on the definition of Necessity—and, I suppose, its opposite.”
“Some do call that opposite Freedom.”
“My lord,” said I, “I should find it hard to despise Freedom.”
“Walk with me,” said Utterback. I fell into step with him, and the count’s son returned to the troublesome matter of doctrine.
“The Compassionate Pilgrim said that Freedom was an illusion. That the first motion brought the world into being, and that this creation itself created more motion, and yet more motion, until in time that motion created us, and created also our compulsions and desires, and created as well the world about us with its people, and their appetites and so on, and that to win free of all this is impossible.”
“And yet,” said I, “should I stoop to pick up a rock, and throw the rock into the water, the rock then flies into the water. The rock has no will in the matter, but it seems to obey my will, as do my arm and hand.”
Utterback stopped in mid-stride, took my arm, and brought me close. His level brown eyes gazed into mine from mere inches away.
“Do you desire women?” he asked.
At this surprising intimacy, I found unwanted speculation flew through my mind on agitated wings. I resisted the urge to take a step away.
“I do, my lord,” I said.
“So do I,” said Utterback, to my relief. “Yet do we desire women through choice, or by Necessity, compelled by our natures? And do we somehow achieve Freedom by enslaving the desires that are natural to us?”
I adopted my innocent-choirboy face. “For myself,” I said, “I follow the Pilgrim’s advice, and act in accord with the dictates of Nature.”
Utterback smiled and released my arm. He continued his progress down the quay, and I again fell into step beside him. My mind whirled with the strangeness of it all. Utterback had spoken scarcely a dozen sentences to me on this entire journey, and now it seemed that he wished to debate philosophy. Were these the sorts of questions that occupied Lord Utterback’s thoughts on the long journey? Was philosophy how he endured Gribbins’s company?
“Necessity made me a lord,” Utterback said. “It is due to no special virtue of mine that I am my father’s son. But are lords themselves a Necessity? And it is Necessity that I behave as a lord behaves?”
I began cautiously. “Do you not have more Freedom than most men? You have wealth, you have access at court, you have liegemen and noble kinsmen to support you, you have your privileges . . .”
“And yet in some ways I have less Freedom than most men. I will marry a woman of my father’s choosing. I may go to court, but only to labor on my father’s behalf. If I go to war, it will be because my father sends me, or brings me to war with him. I will enlist in the cause of other nobles, as my father chooses, and conspire against cliques of nobles who oppose him. Even my friends and enemies are chosen for me.”
“It is no disgrace to obey your father’s will. All custom commends it. And of course you will inherit, and then need obey no will but your own.”
“Ah, but then it will be worse!” Utterback offered a laugh. “I myself will be creating these allies and enemies. I myself will be conspiring for power, marrying my children for advantage, trying to send my enemies to prison or to the hangman.”
“I cannot believe those are your only choices,” said I.
“Then we return to my question. Is it Necessity that great lords behave as great lords behave?”
Utterback had come to the end of the quay, where a great wooden jetty sagged on ancient pilings. The great galleon Irresistible moored there, its forecastle and steeply pitched poop shadowing the pier, its gangplanks filled with men bringing aboard stores.
“Hast seen Stayne’s ship?” Utterback asked.
“I was just writing of it to my friend. I should think it might drive the corsairs from our shores all on its own.”
“If it fights the corsairs at all.”
I was surprised. “What else should it do?”
Utterback fingered his dark pointed beard and narrowed his eyes as he looked down the quay. “Irresistible returned a fortnight ago from a voyage to the north, with a cargo of lumber, pitch, and turpentine. Eight days ago, a rider arrived from the marquess ordering the ship to prepare for war. Most of the great guns had been struck into the hold to make room for cargo, so these were brought up to fill the ports—sixty-two guns on three decks. Powder, shot, and other supplies are brought aboard, and they are recruiting a fighting crew—over six hundred men. Stayne himself is expected within the week, to sail aboard her.”
I had been calculating ever since I heard that eight days. “Where is Lord Stayne’s seat?”
“Allingham. Over the Toppings, then four or five days’ journey northwest.”
“So,” I said slowly, “he ordered the ship made ready for war before he could have known of the attack on Ethlebight.”
A smile twitched across Utterback’s lips. “Just so.”
“Could he have foreknown that the reivers were coming?”
Utterback gave a shrug. “I doubt they would have sent him notice of their intentions.”
“He could have employed a scryer, perhaps?”
“And told him to scry the whole wide ocean on the chance that a fleet of corsairs might be bound for our shores for the first time in over a generation? I think Stayne, in his highland home, is not so concerned with the safety of the coasts.”