Quillifer

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

he next morning, I made my way downriver to Innismore, the capital city’s principal port, on a large island on the left bank of the Saelle. The wharves were dark with men and cargo, and the masts and rigging of galleons and round ships laced the slate-gray sky. The Royal Dockyard was boiling with activity, as shipwrights worked to ready the Queen’s Navy for the war. Almost all the warships had been laid up in ordinary, their upper masts taken down and sheds built over the decks to guard against the weather. The great guns, the rigging, anchors, and sails had been stored ashore, and left to rot or rust in warehouses, and so now there was great bustle to make all ready to repel any assault by the rebel Clayborne.

I paid little attention to the royal ships, for I was looking for a private ship that could take me as a passenger to Ethlebight, or at least as near as Amberstone. I had no intention of riding home overland, not over any path that might take me again within range of Sir Basil, or for that matter Orlanda.

I had spoken to several captains and mates, and so far found no vessel bound for the southwest, but still as I walked along the wharfs, I found my spirits lifting. Walking through the port, I felt the pull of home, and delighted in the fresh breeze that carried the scent of the sea to mix with the odors of tar and salt marsh, and the rich perfume of the tide that foamed against the pilings and tugged at the ships until their hawsers stretched taut as bowstrings.

I walked around the sterncastle of a great high-charged galleon, and saw the smaller vessel moored behind. The sight of the yellow ochre strakes touched my memory, and then with a start I recognized the Meteor, the small galleon I had last seen in Amberstone. Meteor, which was owned whole or in part by Kevin Spellman’s family. Meteor, moored fast to the wharf and discharging tuns of wine.

I dodged around a stack of stiff, untanned hides just offloaded from a barge, and trotted up to Meteor’s gangplank. Tackles fixed to the mainyard creaked overhead as they took the strain of a cargo net filled with wine casks, and I blinked up at the sterncastle to see if I could identify the ship’s master. Instead, I saw Kevin, still wearing his tall stiff hat with the brim pinned up on the side. “Hoy!” I called. “Master Spellman!”

He looked in puzzlement, then surprise, then joy. I ran up the gangway as he bounded down the poop companion, and we met on the quarterdeck and embraced. We each burst out with questions, which neither of us answered because each kept blurting out questions without waiting for an answer. Finally, we paused for breath, and I got the first question in after the interval.

“Why are you here?”

Kevin gasped for breath and grinned. “It’s your fault. You sent me the letter telling me that Meteor was in, so I rode to Amberstone to see to the ship personally. The wine was to be delivered to Selford anyway, and I came along both to ensure payment and to see if I could manage a loan to build new ships.”

“The reivers are gone?”

“They made off a day or two after you left Amberstone.” His face darkened. “Left nearly three hundred corpses on Cow Island, folk they decided were worthless as slaves, and who wouldn’t fetch a ransom.”

I felt a shard of ice touch my heart. “Anyone we know?”

“I don’t have all the names, but one was Mrs. Vayne.”

A wave of sadness washed through me. “I bought three baskets of her pearmains the day before the attack.”

“And Master Crook.”

My sadness deepened. “He had no family. I suppose therefore we may keep his library.”

Kevin spread his hands helplessly. “It is a long tragedy, and we have seen only the first two acts. Even if we raise all the necessary ransoms, still our people will be in captivity for months, more likely years, and in all that time no one knows what horrors they will endure.”

We both paused to contemplate this grim and unenviable truth, and then Kevin looked at me. “What of the Embassy Royal? Have you managed to bring us aid?”

My laughter was bitter. “I am the Embassy now! And I have spoken to the Chancellor, and briefly to her majesty, and have managed to pry a few favors from the court—and indeed, brother”—putting a hand on his shoulder—“I have a set of commissions on which I must have your counsel, both for our profit and that of our city.”

His eyes grew puzzled. “You are the only ambassador? What has become of Gribbins and Utterback?”

“That is a long tale. But first, let me ask—have you received a letter asking ransom for me?”

“Ransom?” Kevin was taken aback. “Nay, I’ve received nothing like that.”

“It won’t have caught up with you, not if you left Ethlebight just after I was in Amberstone. The letter will be in my hand, but you may safely ignore it. And as for the tonsured swine who delivers it, you may knock him on the head with my compliments, or deliver him bound to the sheriff.”

His eyes widened. “I can see there is an adventure here.”

“I have writ you a letter about all that, and I wished to find a captain to deliver it, but then decided to find a captain who would deliver my self instead.” I took him by the arm. “Come, let us go ashore and find a tavern, and I will tell you what has become of the Embassy.”

Kevin gave a regretful shake of his head. “Nay, I have too much business today. I have to see mercers, bankers, warehousemen. . . .”

“I can come tomorrow morning.”

“I will be at the Mercers’ Lodge here in Innismore. Come early, and I will give you breakfast.”

“One final question, then. Will you be returning to Ethlebight from here?”

“Meteor draws too much water for Ethlebight. But if I can raise money and a cargo, we’ll sail for Amberstone, and from there I can ride to Ethlebight, or take a smaller craft.”

“Good. For I think you will want to make that journey as soon as you can.”

“Ay?” He looked as if he were about to throw another half dozen questions my way, and then he stopped himself, and shrugged. “Well, you will tell me tomorrow.”

“Yes. And buy a stock of good gunpowder, for it will come in handy.”

And there I left him to his business, puzzled yet eager for our next meeting.

* * *

I was still on the left bank, in the town of Mossthorpe across the river from Selford, when the skies opened with a great crash, the freezing rain poured down, and I sought shelter beneath the gate of an inn. Somewhat to my surprise, I found that the inn’s courtyard featured a wooden stage, complete with a kind of tower and a balcony, and that the stage had been roofed with thatch to keep the rain off the players. They were involved with a rehearsal, none of which I could hear because of the pouring rain. On the stage I recognized the lean form of Blackwell, the actor I had met at the Roundsilver Palace, and so I sidled around the court until I found shelter by a corner of the stage, and watched the rehearsal. I had not been there long before I realized that I was watching The Red Horse, or the History of King Emelin, which Blackwell had written and which would shortly be performed for the Queen.

There was a great deal of declamation and striding about—it seemed more a pageant than a play—but the long, thundering speeches were at least relieved now and again by the nonsense of the clowns. It required an effort of the imagination to view as female the boys who played the women’s parts, especially as this was a rehearsal and they were not dressed or painted as women. By the end of the play, King Emelin of Fornland had conquered the two warring royal cousins of Bonille, along with a late-arriving pretender from Loretto, and united the realm of Duisland to bring about a generation of peace. Which union had been preserved for the last four hundred years, at least until now, when the bastard Clayborne had succeeded in uniting most of Bonille against the Queen.

The unification of the realm, I saw, was a most pertinent topic for a play at this present unsettled time. I mentally congratulated Blackwell for his political acuity.

Blackwell played Prince Alain, one of Emelin’s two Bonillean rivals, posing and declaiming with the rest. The author had awarded himself a graceful speech upon his surrender to Emelin, after which the historical Alain was marched off to a dungeon to be quietly murdered, though the patriotic play tactfully passed over this last.

By the time the rehearsal was over, the rain had ceased to fall, and a golden sun warmed Emelin’s final speech about peace, amity, just rule, and the glory that is Duisland. But I paid little attention to the words, because watching an earlier scene had made me consider how this drama might be made more amusing.

After the last speech, the actors fell out of character, shambled about, and awaited the corrections of the director—which, when they came, were brief and to the point. After which I mounted the stage and greeted Blackwell.

“Normally, we charge a penny to see a play,” the actor said.

I reached into my purse and dropped a penny into his palm. “Well worth the expense,” I said. “Though if I am paying, I should also be entitled to offer my opinion of the work.”

He spread his hands gracefully. “I willingly accept all praise.”

“Might it still be possible to expand a little the parts of the clowns?”

He smiled. “I know not if more japes will please the Queen, but they will certainly please the clowns.”

“While I was watching, I thought of some dozen or sixteen lines which might improve their comedy.”

Blackwell looked over his shoulders at the lead clown, who was slouching about the stage in a false belly and a frizzled wig. “Improving the comedy is not so very hard,” he said. “But I wish not to give them license, for then they go straight to gigues and bawdy, and this is not a vulgar play. No vulgarities before the Queen, not in a play about her royal ancestor.”

“I can write the lines down. You can keep your clowns on the book, can you not?”

“I can try. But Quillifer.” His deep blue eyes turned inward, as he considered his most tactful response. “If you intend to turn playwright, I think it only fair that you contribute in other ways to the welfare of the company.”

I laughed. “My silver is at your service! But see the lines first, and if they improve the play, you will use them to your greater glory, and I should not pay. But if my lines do naught but mar your production, then I will open my purse, and pay you for your trouble.”

“That is just,” he allowed.

“Can you give me some ink and sheets of paper? I’ll have my dinner at the inn, and show you my work this afternoon.”

He agreed, and I went into the inn and ordered a glass of beer and a bacon pie, which arrived pleasantly flavored with cinnamon, cloves, and thyme. With this inspiration I set out to improve the tale of Lord Antonius Bellicosus.

As written by Blackwell, Bellicosus was a braggart soldier who, with his henchmen Sir Slope and Lord Craven, followed the Bonillean King Rolf about, bragged about their great deeds, made rude jokes, and fled the scene as soon as the heroic King Emelin’s banners appeared on the horizon. At the end, Emelin forgave them and sent them home much cowed.

I improved this by giving Bellicosus a plot of his own, what Blackwell would call a sub-story. I had Bellicosus raise a company and march off to join King Rolf, intending to win such glory on the field that he would be offered the crown himself, of Fornland if not of Bonille. But he dawdled too long and found Rolf dead and Emelin already in triumph. So, he turned around and marched off to join Prince Alain, formerly his enemy, but on the route was subjected to a bandit attack, fled, and was captured by the bandits along with his little army. Having ruined himself by paying his ransom, he turned up in time for the final scene, where he joined in the general acclamation for King Emelin, and wanly expressed futile hopes of obtaining office.

I gave Bellicosus speeches that were prose burlesques of the poetical speeches given by the other players, and made his open greed and hunger for power a comment on the ambitions of the rival kings. Once I had begun, I found I had a lot to say, and ended up by filling four pages of crown paper. By this time, I was finished with dinner and well into my second glass of beer.

I returned to the stage, where the actors were blocking the final combat between Alain and Emelin, and during a break in the action I showed the sheets to Blackwell. He read them quickly, his face set in a frown, and then looked up.

“This will do very well. So pressed for time was I to produce this play that I had not the time to perfect the clowns’ parts, and this I think will please both the clowns and the audience.”

“So, need I open my purse?” asked I.

Blackwell feigned disappointment. “Alas, you do not.”

“May I offer another suggestion, as long as you are in a receptive frame of mind?”

The actor raised a hand in a gesture of blessing. “You may.”

“I notice that one of Bellicosus’s henchmen is called Slope. Perhaps he should be seen by the audience to visibly slope—his shoulders, for example.”

Blackwell nodded. “Plausible,” he said.

“And the other fellow, Lord Craven—could he perhaps wear a forked beard?”

The actor was puzzled. “Why should he?”

“For two reasons. First, forked beards are comical. Second, it will distinguish his character for the audience.”

Blackwell absorbed this idea with an inward expression. “Interesting,” he said. “I will consider the suggestion.”

“Have you also reviewed my suggestion regarding the purple-haired lady?”

He laughed. “She remains under consideration.”

I left the inn very pleased with my hour’s labors. I didn’t know if Blackwell knew enough of the court and its politics to understand the significance of my additions; but when the play was performed before the Queen and her court, many would recognize in Bellicosus the Marquess of Stayne, not to mention his minions Fork-Beard and Slope-Shoulder. The bold cavalier and his friends who meant to overthrow a kingdom, but who were routed and taken prisoner by a bandit—and who now would be the subject of mockery by the entire court, and shunned by the Queen as an unproven rebel.

And whose wife I would be quietly enjoying, in my little apartment above Chancellery Road.

I returned to my rooms and found a messenger from Amalie saying that Mistress Freeman could come that afternoon. She was always careful with her messengers, and used no-one from her husband’s household, and never used her own name. Instead, she would venture in the morning to court or to visit a friend, and from there choose a messenger from the various hangers-on always to be found in the street. Then she would hire a litter to carry her to my apartment, and when it was time for her to leave, I would find another litter to take her home.

I gave a crown to the messenger and readied myself for Amalie’s visit, building a fire, bringing out two of my silver cups, and filling them with moscatto. She arrived after half an hour, having come straight from court. When I helped her free of the cloak and hood she had worn to remain unrecognized, I saw that her court gown was scarlet satin, frogged across the front in her personal style, and she wore a collar of rubies about her throat and strands of pearls in her tawny hair. I kissed her just below the ear, and she smiled with her little white teeth.

“Much ado at court this morning,” she said. “It was announced that the new Master of the Hunt would arrange a great hunting party for the first week in November, at the Queen’s lodge in Kingsmere.”

I dropped the bar on my door, and checked that the pollaxe was where I had left it—I had no intention of my afternoon being interrupted again. Then I hung Amalie’s cloak from a hook.

“Will you go to this party?” I asked.

“I shall now. For no sooner had the announcement been made, and the Queen publicly congratulated Viscount Broughton on his arrangements, than Broughton’s wife appeared along with her father. She’d been kept out of the way at Hart Ness, but her father must have ridden there to let her know of the Queen’s interest in her husband, for she came fully armed to the battle in a gown painted with serpents. She walked to where her husband stood by the throne, and kissed him full on the lips before turning to acknowledge the Queen.”

“Did the Queen send her to a dungeon, or hack off her head?”

A smile tugged at the corners of Amalie’s languid long eyes. “No, she did not.”

“We have a civilized monarch, to be sure. What did her majesty do?”

“Sat in that cold way of hers, nodded to the viscountess and her father, and then turned away to speak with her mother.”

“Who was laughing and cackling in obscene triumph?” For Leonora hated Broughton and was thought to favor the Loretto alliance, or so Amalie had told me.

“She managed,” Amalie said, “to screw her face into something like an attitude of sympathy.”

“That must have taken great strength of will.” I picked up the wine-cups and sighed. “Yet I want the lovers to find happiness—want all lovers to find happiness.” I kissed Amalie and offered her a cup. She took it.

“All lovers may find some happiness,” she said. Her hand played with the laces of my doublet. “But we must know the proper moment to take it.”

* * *

At times, she seemed much older than seventeen. Perhaps carrying a child did that, or it was simply her upbringing, brought up in a house full of servants and treasures and the political schemes of her family.

Or so it seemed an hour later, reclining on a pillow with Amalie’s head on my shoulder, and my senses aswim with the scent of her hair and the wine and our coupling. The pearls she wore in her hair had come partly undone, and lay across my arm. She was telling me her latest efforts to raise Stayne’s ransom.

“Do you truly want him back?” I asked.

She gave a serious frown. “I must do some things, and be seen to do them,” she said.

“You do not speak of him with any great affection.”

Again she frowned. “I’ve known him all my life. I do not despise him.” Her long, lazy-lidded eyes gazed up at the beams of the ceiling. “My expectations of marriage were never sanguine. My mother told me that in service to my family, I would be expected to lie with a man I did not like, and have children by that man, and that I would love the children if not the man, and provided there were children, I could then do what I liked.” She kissed my cheek. “So, I will have a child, and in the meantime I am doing what I like.”

For the first time, I felt sadness for the glittering noblewomen who paraded through the court in their glittering satins. Sadness for Amalie, sadness for the Queen and the viscountess, victims alike to the ambitions of one pretty man.

Butchers’ daughters, I believe, are permitted to marry for love, if only because there is so very little at stake; but for the daughters of the wealthy, there is too much money and influence in the business for affection to overrule calculation.

“I fear what might happen if you are discovered here,” I said.

Again amusement creased her long eyes. “Very little will happen to me, I think. I am concerned more for you—your birth does not give you the kind of immunity my own confers upon me.”

I tried to shift the conversation away from the implications of this. Her husband, I remembered, had raised half a troop from among his friends, well-armed and well-disposed to violence. I wondered how vengeful he might be.

“Your husband will not lock you in a tower?”

“He is notoriously careless with his possessions—I don’t think he cares enough for me to do such a thing. After all, he rode off to war and rebellion and stranded me here among his enemies.”

I picked up the pearls that draped my arm, dandled them from my fingers. “I have wondered about King Stilwell’s death, coming at a moment that seemed so propitious for his bastard son.”

“You imagine a plot?” She gave a little shake of her head. “Were there a scheme to do away with the King and put Clayborne on the throne, my husband and father would have been neck-deep in it. Yet they were as surprised as everyone else when the King died, and were away from court when it happened, with the salt sea between them and Clayborne. I think the plot was hatched when Stilwell fell ill, and thrown together in great haste with as many conspirators as were already at hand.”

Amalie took the strand of pearls from my hand, and twirled it lazily in the air.

“The light gives the pearls a rosy cast,” I observed. “As if they were blushing.”

She was amused by that. “Let them blush for me, then,” she said. “For I do not blush.”

“I have seen the color rise in your cheeks,” I said, and caressed her cheek with the backs of my fingers. She ran her jaw along my fingers, like a cat. My hand sought her breast. “And I have seen you blush elsewhere,” I said.

Amalie turned to me, her body warm and languorous in my arms. She draped the pearls carelessly across her throat, an act that made her throat more desirable than ever it had been.

“I do not believe that I blush,” she said. “And I do not believe that you can make me.”

I felt myself smile. “Hardly a challenge I can resist.”

She gave me her lazy smile and stretched her arms above her head, as might an athlete readying herself for a contest.

“Sir,” she said, “you have my leave to try.”