Quillifer

CHAPTER TWENTY

he high-ribbed timber ceiling, which resembled nothing so much as a ship inverted, echoed to the chanting of monks. Smoke dulled the fitful light. The air was scented with burning charcoal and the searing stench of white-hot metal.

“It sorrows me to say this,” said His Grace of Roundsilver. “But I think it best if you stayed away from court for the present.”

I felt defiance straighten my spine. “I have done nothing wrong,” said I. “I have in fact done the Queen a service. Why should I hide?”

“The whole world knows of the Queen’s distaste for your presence,” said Roundsilver. “Should you appear at court, any who hope for royal favor will be obliged to shun you. It will be humiliating, and will do your cause no good.”

I thought for a long moment. Anger boomed dully in my veins. “I understand,” said I.

“Other matters will soon occupy the court’s attention. After that, you may return.”

The duchess looked up at me, her blue eyes deep with compassion. “I warned you, did I not, that you should think before you acted?”

“A court conspiracy,” said the duke, “is sometimes better left unmasked. If you meant to help Broughton, you failed. If you meant to uncover the guilty, you succeeded all too well. The Queen was forced to take action, and well does she resent you for making her take notice of the intrigue at her court.”

After capturing Burgoyne, Toland and I had taken the renegade knight to a magistrate, accompanied by a pack of the inhabitants of Ramscallion Lane. The sheriff’s men turned out, not because of the prisoner, but because they thought a riot was about to begin.

While Burgoyne was marched to jail, I led the mob to one of the countinghouses where I kept my funds. At the sight of this pack of unruly stew-dwellers, the good bankers began locking doors and slamming shutters, certain they were about to be stormed by an angry rabble. It took a bit of negotiation, but eventually I was allowed inside to collect some of my silver, after which I paid the mob to go away.

That same morning, before leaving Kingsmere for the capital, the Queen had appointed Lord Slaithstowe to be the new Attorney General, and put the investigation into his hands. Slaithstowe rode ahead of the Queen’s party and arrived late in the afternoon to find Burgoyne already in custody.

The Queen in the interim announced a reward of three hundred royals to the person capturing the fugitive, again without knowing that Burgoyne had been taken.

The next day Slaithstowe spent in putting the assassin to the question before the Court of the Siege Royal and coercing him to name his accomplices. What Slaithstowe heard probably had him tearing his beard out by the roots, but he did his duty, copied the transcript of the interrogation in his own hand—not trusting anyone else—and reported to the Queen first thing the next morning.

For Burgoyne admitted that he was in the pay of both Leonora, the Queen’s own mother, and her best friend, the Countess of Coldwater. Each rejoiced in her nearness to the Queen, and both feared losing the Queen’s love to the interloper Broughton—and in addition Leonora, for reasons of policy, favored Berlauda’s marriage to Loretto’s prince and heir, rather than to a minor viscount with a pretty face.

The countess’s father, old Coldwater, had been Burgoyne’s liege-lord. Burgoyne’s service in foreign wars had allowed him to return to Duisland with a competence but, being a rake and gambler, he had lost it all. The Countess gave him a few crowns now and again and kept him in reserve, in case she needed someone to intercept a messenger or cut a throat. And then came the inspiration to kill Broughton’s wife and blame the husband for the deed. It was one of the Countess’s ladies who commissioned the dagger with the Broughton badge.

Queen Berlauda must have been appalled and devastated by the news, but she lacked neither courage nor resolution. Burgoyne was sent to the gallows that very day. The Countess of Coldwater was ordered to Coldwater House on the northeast coast, there to await the Queen’s pleasure; and Queen Leonora was sent to the royal residence and fort at West Moss, beyond the Minnith Peaks, and as far from the capital as it is possible to travel without actually wading out into the ocean.

As for Broughton, the scandal was too great for a man without powerful friends to survive. Though he was innocent of anything but ambition, he was obliged to resign his post as Master of the Hunt, given the new office of Inspector General of Fortifications, and sent off to view and report on the state of every fort, castle, and city wall in the kingdom. And, as he had borrowed heavily to outfit himself as a great man at court, and to provide the entertainments at Kingsmere, he would be pursued on this pilgrimage by his creditors, or their representatives.

Whether Lady Broughton rejoiced in the return of her husband, I do not know.

An official announcement was made that Burgoyne had been hanged after an attempt to assassinate the Queen. No mention was made of the Countess or Queen Leonora, though everyone at court knew the story within hours. Presumably the bastard Clayborne, when he read the despatches of his spies, was greatly entertained by the affair.

Those responsible for the violence were punished, but the punishment did not stop there, for Berlauda deeply resented losing everyone she loved and trusted, and viewed without charity those who had brought her this intelligence. She could not abide the sight of Lord Slaithstowe, and found the pain of his presence too much to bear. He kept his office less than a week, which must have been a great blow, as he had performed his duty as well as it could be done—and he lost also the sweeteners he would have been paid by anyone whose business brought them before the Attorney General, a sum that would over time have been a great fortune. Instead, he was appointed Commissioner of the Royal Dockyard in Amberstone, where the opportunities for enrichment were small by comparison.

And as for me—I, who had been the subject of praise and the object of envy after my capture of Burgoyne—I was told merely that the sight of me was disagreeable to her majesty, and that I should avoid her royal presence. Unlike Slaithstowe, I was not offered a job, lest the offer be construed as a reward rather than a punishment.

I wondered if Virtue had triumphed over Iniquity, as in Blackwell’s masque. Berlauda’s court had been cleansed of one conspirator and one adulterous nobleman, but no doubt there were many of that sort who remained. The court was also rid of one half-lawyer who trusted too much to his own luck, and had suffered the consequence of that trust. I could almost hear the laughter as it echoed from the great roof beams of the foundry.

Was it Virtue who laughed in her chaste home, or was the laughter that of her demicolleague, Iniquity?

I still waited for the three hundred royals promised for Burgoyne. If I ever received it, I would divide it evenly between Toland, Merton’s family, and Ethlebight’s fund for redeeming prisoners.

At least the Roundsilvers did not shun my company—they moved in a circle so grand that the whims of the monarch barely mattered. I had been invited to the foundry at Innismore where the duke intended to cast his two great siege cannons, and if I had not been so angry at Berlauda and her court, I might have found it interesting. Instead, I found the business intolerable.

The twenty-four monks, who sat in a gallery built specially for them, sat with their backs to us, so the purity of their hearts and prayers would not be distracted by the activities of the profane. Their droning was maddening, like that of an audience bored with the play, and I felt like an actor on the stage before that audience. So frustrated and miserable was I that I wondered if my mere presence would negate weeks of chanting.

Nearer at hand, the engineer Ransome and the Abbot Ambrosius, who I had met at that dinner at the Roundsilver Palace, competed with one another in smug self-satisfaction. Rather than listen to them, I kept my mind on the details of the casting.

The cannons had been first created in wax, tons of the stuff molded into vast effigies that modeled the great guns in every detail, from the cascabel to the chase. Also modeled were the many ornaments, from the royal arms, the royal cypher BR, the handles in the shape of leaping dolphins, the laurels of victory that gracefully twined the breech, the images of old gods hurling thunderbolts, and goddesses puffing out their cheeks to blow the cannonball toward its enemy, the inscription and date ascribing the casting of the cannon to the duke, and sorcerous formulae that promised strength and destructive power. The duke had not abandoned his worship of Beauty, even in so deadly an instrument as a cannon.

The effigies had been packed in clay and then heated, so that the wax melted and ran out, leaving a hardened clay mold behind. The molds were set upright in a pit, near the great crucibles that held the molten bronze.

Ransome urged us to withdraw so that we would not be spattered with hot metal when the pour began. He had been bustling over the last hour, supervising the melting metal, sprinkling his alchemical powders into the crucible. I drew back and found myself standing next to a white-haired man in a worn leather jerkin and a cloth bonnet that bagged out about his ears, and failed to entirely conceal his baldness.

“If yon fellow scurries much faster,” he said as he nodded at Ransome, “he may accidentally leave behind his conceit.”

“Or the cannon may crack. That will dent his vanity.”

He shook his pointed white beard. “If the cannon cracks, he will blame the monks. One of them may have harbored an impure thought or two during in the last twenty-odd days, sure, and spoiled the spell.”

The man had the accent of the northwest, with its lilt and lolling r’s. I looked at him.

“Do you work here at the foundry?” asked I.

“Nay. I am a master cannoneer. I represent the guild, which requires that one of its masters be present at the creation of every gun destined for the royal armory.”

In my rambles about the city, I had passed by the hall of the Loyall and Worshipfull Companie of Cannoneers, and marked the sheer aggression of its facade, with genuine if venerable pieces of artillery mounted on the roof parapets, and aimed casually down the street, or at neighboring houses.

“I have seen your guild hall,” said I. “I know of no other hall that so successfully threatens an entire neighborhood.”

He grinned at me with crooked, yellow teeth. “We are a formidable crew, to be sure. No element of a contract goes unenforced.”

“I shall examine your contract carefully, then, should I ever require some artillery.”

“Ah! Look! Something is afoot.”

Abbot Ambrosius walked purposefully to the monks, sat in front of them—facing both the monks and the rest of the building—and in silence signaled for a change in the chant. The monks began a new incantation, raising their voices to echo more forcefully off the great wooden beams of the ceiling.

The alchemist Ransome hardly waited for the new chant before he waved an arm to begin the pour. The foundry’s journeymen tipped the great crucible, and ninety hundredweight of brilliant, white-hot bronze poured into a channel that led straight to the cannon’s mouth. Smoke, steam, and sparks shot upward, and there was a growling dragon’s roar as superheated air began to hiss from the channels of the clay mold. I held out a hand to shield my eyes from the glare.

Bronze filled the matrix and began to overspill from the funnel-shaped depression on the end of the mold. Sparks danced on the foundry floor. Ransome gave a shout and a wave, and the journeymen returned the crucible to its upright position and began throwing into it ingots of copper, tin, and zinc, all in proportions to Ransome’s alchemical formula. Other apprentices readied themselves to shift the channels so that the next pour would be directed into the matrix of the second gun.

The monks lowered their voices and began a less strident chant. It would be hours before the cannon cooled, and some time before the metal intended for the second gun was ready, and so I congratulated the duke and duchess on their new destructive power, and left the foundry’s blazing heat for the crisp November day outside.

The wan winter sun hung over the yardarms of the ships clustered at Innismore’s wharves. The air was filled with the scents of tar, smoke, and the abundant richness of the flowing tide. From somewhere, over the cry of gulls, I could hear the clack of capstan pawls along with the song and stamp of a chantey and the cheerful song of a pennywhistle.

At the sights and sounds of the harbor I felt the onset of a great homesickness, and suddenly I yearned to be in Ethlebight. I had done what I could for my city during my stay in the capital, and could do no more. I could not advance here, and I might as well be home.

But I knew that I longed not for the blackened, looted Ethlebight as it was now, but the safe, homely Ethlebight of my boyhood, which was gone forever. My yearning was useless. I could not go home even if I tried.

“Like you my work?” said Orlanda.

I had half expected to see her ever since I’d received word of my banishment from court, and so I managed not to leap out of my skin, though my heart still thrashed in my breast like a wild animal. I turned to face her, and tried to master my whirling mind.

Orlanda was dressed in the blue velvet skirt and dark scarf in which I’d first seen her, and didn’t look out of place on the waterfront. Her deep green eyes glimmered in triumph.

“I knew of the conspiracy against Broughton,” said she. “I knew that bland bitch Berlauda would not welcome the news that her mother was in league with her closest friend and a hired murderer.” A cruel spirit tugged at her lips. “And I knew you, Quillifer. I knew that you could not refrain from trying to get to the bottom of the affair. You would never hold back, not when there was a chance of flaunting your superiority in front of the whole court.” She stepped close. “I know you well, Quillifer. I know that there is one thing that you simply cannot do, and that is to do nothing.”

“In that case,” said I, “you yourself did nothing. You simply let events take their course.”

“No. I confronted you the previous night, and told you that I would be concerning myself with you. I knew that would spur you into action. I knew that you would leap into this business in order to prove to yourself that you were your own master, and not my pawn.” Her cruel smile returned. “It was a fine piece of handiwork, think you not?”

“It called for fine judgment,” said I. “Though the same events may have occurred in any case, without your lifting a finger.”

“But then how could I rejoice in my victory?” She smiled. “Rejoice in the knowledge that it was I who brought you to this pass, and not mere chance?”

I regarded her smile, and nodded. “You may rejoice, as well, that you have taught me a valuable lesson. That my successes, whatever they may be, will be mine. My failures will be your doing, and will reflect not on me.”

Her smile faded.

“For you see,” I continued, “people are often troubled by their failures, and spend many long, anxious hours scrutinizing their errors, and examining their consciences, and wondering how they might have prevented unhappiness. You have spared me all that—I need concentrate all my efforts only on achieving success.”

“Perhaps I will raise you up,” she said, “so that your fall will be all the greater.”

“You may sport with me, sure,” said I, “as a wanton boy with a fly, but it hardly seems worthy of you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What do you know of worthy?” she demanded. “Was your conduct toward me worthy?”

“Ay,” said I, “take me for your teacher, then, and behave as badly as I. Worse, if you like.”

“Faithless!” she hissed. Though to my ear the word seemed to lack somewhat of its former conviction.

“I have had time to consider my situation in the last weeks,” said I. “And your own as well. And I would like to know, Where are the rest of you?” I reached out an arm to encompass the island, the sailors, the ships, the hawkers trundling by with their carts. “According to the old epics, the world was full of nymphs, and naiads, and dryads, and mighty gods, all interfering in the business of mortals. Where did they all go? Are they off on the Comet Periodical, as the follower of the Pilgrim allege?”

“I know nothing of this comet,” said Orlanda. “And that Pilgrim, he was naught but a gaunt, bitter cenobite full of slanders.”

I looked at her. “Are you the only one left? No wonder you take rejection so to heart.”

She laughed. “Perhaps we grew tired of mortals so persistent in their foolishness.”

“But yet you are not tired of me, and I am foolish as the rest.”

Green fire blazed in her eyes. “You woke me!” she said. “I was content till you came.”

“Has bedeviling me then made you more content?” I asked. “Are you more content now than you were a week ago?”

“Are you?” Orlanda responded. “That is more to the point.” Her lips parted in a thin, angry smile. “I have centuries to find contentment. Have you?”

I blinked, and she was gone, and where I stared was a waterfront lane full of busy chandlers and tipsy sailors going about their day. Perhaps she had made her point; perhaps she was finding a dispute with me harder work than she supposed.

As I pondered this matter, I joined the Roundsilvers in one of the foundry’s buildings, where wine and dinner had been provided, and some dull entertainment in the form of Ransome discoursing on his alchemical experiments. He was very much involved, he said, in removing superfluity from his Stone through Calcining, Loosening, Distillation, and Congealing. I asked him what Stone was to be so congealed.

“Any Stone you wisheth,” said he. “The process of purification is the same. For look you—” He lifted a piece of honey-cake. “When I eat of this cake, it goeth to my stomach, where my stomach’s great heat concocts it, just as it might be concocted in my study by an alembic. The cake is then transformed into chyle, which then passeth to the liver, where it is concocted a second time to become blood. From the liver the blood goeth to the right-hand chamber of the heart, where it receiveth an admixture of vital spirits, and only is then fit to be taken up by the body as nourishment.

“So it is with the Stone. For a Stone must pass through stages until it reacheth perfection, and of course the most useful element for refining is known as the Ravenous Gray Wolf.”

I had just had a disturbing interview with a divine being, and that made Ransome’s pronouncements about his Stone, and his guts, all the more fatuous. I wished the actor Blackwell present, that I might enjoy his sardonic observations on Ransome and his art, but it appeared that I would have to provide any such entertainment for myself.

“What is this Wolf?” asked I. “Has it another name, or must I believe that purification can only be achieved through the employment of a wild beast?”

Ransome feigned amusement, but he ate his honey-cake before he answered. “We who are adepts in the Art can translate these names esoterical. The Ravenous Gray Wolf, depending on its usage and the occult school to which the philosopher belongs, is known also as the Green Dragon, or—begging your pardon, your grace—the Menstrual Blood of the Whore.”

The duchess showed more fascination than embarrassment, so I felt free to continue.

“I fear that I am only more confused,” said I, “for I see nothing to connect public women with dragons, or with ravenous wolves, except perhaps the fanciful mind of a dreamer. Perhaps the element has also an exoteric name?”

“Those whose knowledge of the Art is imperfect—an apothecary, perhaps—do call it antimony.”

“Terrible stuff,” said the gunner Lipton. “A doctor prescribed an antimony purge for me once, and it cleaned me both up and down. I barely survived.”

I looked at him. “Did you feel more perfect afterward?”

He cackled. “Nay. But I had lost my superfluity, sure.”

I turned back to Ransome. “Why do you need these esoteric names at all? Why not print up your recipes in plain language, like my mother and her recipe for red hippocras?” I turned to the duchess. “Which, by the way, I recommend, for she uses spikenard and ginger, which in winter produce a pleasing warmth in the blood.” I looked at Ransome. “Or perhaps in chyle, I forget which it might be.”

Ransome’s answer was a little short, which indicated perhaps that his patience was growing thin. “With all due honor to your mother,” he said, “Practitioners of the Noble Art can scarcely be compared to hostesses and brewsters. Many years of study and experimentation are necessary to perfect our understanding.”

“The years would be less if you hadn’t had to sort out your Purple of Cassius from your Powder of Algaroth, your Orpiment from your Phlogisticated Air. Why, if you merely wrote the recipes down in plain language, everyone could perfect their own Stones.” Lipton gave another cackle. I affected sudden illumination. “Well,” said I, “if that were the case, they would not need to pay alchemists, would they?”

“Your examples sort not together,” said Ransome, “which demonstrates to the illuminated mind the dangers of an untutored experimenter. For much of what we do is dangerous, and if we hide our Art behind metaphor, it is as much to protect the public as to shield our mysteries.” At which point he excused himself, to drop more of his powders into the crucible.

After some hours, the time came for the second pour, which progressed much as the first, with the sparks flying and the pure-hearted monks praying till the roof-beams rang. I joined the Roundsilver party in their galley for the return to the capital, and there returned to my room, empty and cold, and where no message from Amalie waited. I had nothing to do but contemplate my failures, and my longings, and my losses, and wish my mother present with the rest of our family, and hippocras warming on the hearth.

* * *

For lack of any other occupation, I returned to the foundry next morning, to see the clay molds knocked off the guns. Revealed were shining red-gold pillars brilliant as a blazing fire, all wreathed with ornament perfectly cast and gleaming in the light. The tubes were marred somewhat by the bronze that had filled the sprues and channels that allowed air to escape the mold, and the metal to reach every part of the matrix. These would be sawn off, and the remainder polished.

Also, the cannon had been cast as solid metal pillars, and the great bores would have to be drilled out. The guns would remain upright for this procedure, lashed on platforms like huge capstans, and rotated by teams of oxen. The drill would be suspended point-down from the ceiling, and carve out the cannon over the course of many hours.

Now that the cannon had been cast, and the metal cooled, the monks had returned to their home. Apparently, it was not necessary to bless the oxen, or the drill.

Ransome bustled from one task to the next, perfectly satisfied in his own genius.

“He hopes for an appointment as the Queen’s Gunfounder,” said the gunner Lipton. “The office is vacant.”

“He seems at least to have done a good job,” I commented.

“We’ll see. I’ll have to test the guns before her majesty’s government can accept them. Put forty pounds of powder in the breech, and fire a sixty-eight-pound solid shot to discover if the gun shatters.” He nodded at the guns. “We’ll see if Ransome knows his business or not.”

Lipton invited me to dinner at the Companie of Cannoneers the next day, and I was pleased to accept.

No message from Amalie waited at home. I began to wonder if the finger of Orlanda was again stirring my affairs.

The dinner with the Cannoneers was pleasant, though there was no talk of artillery. All anyone wanted to do was talk about the court, and about the conspiracy against Broughton, and my own part in uncovering it. The gossip had tumbled down from the castle and spread itself over the town. At least I did not lack for an audience when I told my story.

I did not see Amalie for another few days, when she arrived early, while I was still digesting my breakfast. Her father had been visiting, she told me, and it was impossible to get away. He had agreed to loan the money to ransom Stayne, so provided that Sir Basil remained honest in the matter of ransoms, her husband would soon be free.

I was not entirely delighted to hear this, but tried to be as pragmatic as she in regard to her marriage and its necessities. “We should enjoy your freedom while we may,” I said, and she agreed, though only after a cup of wine.

As I was an exile from court, my chief source of news became Amalie, who provided a pleasingly satiric view of life at the Castle. Broughton’s departure had cleared the field for every lord in the kingdom to dandle his son before the Queen, and the unending parade of ephebes, imbeciles, rakes, middle-aged widowers, down-at-heels gamblers, jack-a-dandies, and mere schoolboys was described by Amalie with wicked relish. What the Queen thought about them all could hardly be imagined. If Berlauda intended to choose a new favorite, she was keeping her choice to herself.

Indeed, her majesty was proving very adept at not making up her mind. Half the offices in the land remained unfilled, which kept hopeful situation-seekers thronging the court, gossiping, conspiring, and trying to somehow attract the Queen’s attention.

And soon there would be more of them, for Berlauda had called the Estates to raise the money in order to prosecute her war with Clayborne. The Estates normally met over the wintertide, in the winter capital of Howel; but Clayborne was presiding there over his own assembly, and so quarters had to be found in Selford for a new wave of arrivals. The House of Peers would meet in the Great Reception Room of the palace, while the Burgesses would use the prayer hall at the Monastery of the Pilgrim’s Treasure. In the meantime, the arguments over taxation had begun, and there was much talk of socage, scutage, tallage, carucage, ship-money, the salt-tax, and escheats. All wanted relief for themselves, and for the taxes to fall more heavily upon others. It was hoped that Chancellor Hulme would keep the Burgesses, at least, in order, though nothing could discipline the nobility, unless it were the monarch herself.

Another pressing issue was the matter of who would command the army. The Knight Marshal was an old veteran of the late King’s wars, but perhaps superannuated; and the other candidate was the Count of the Stable, known less formally as the Constable. He was a hale, vital man, martial and gallant, but unfortunately his son and heir, Lord Rufus Glanford, had not only joined the rebels, but taken with him his regiment, the Gendarmes, which were based in Howel, and who with the Yeoman Archers formed the monarch’s bodyguard. On account of the son’s considerable sins, Berlauda therefore was not inclined to trust the father.

Many of the great nobles also felt themselves qualified to be the Queen’s Captain General, and were cultivating a martial appearance, and loudly discussing ravelins, sallies, culverins, and defilades whenever her majesty was within earshot.

“I think the Queen should have a tournament and make them joust,” said I. “At least we could see which of the candidates can sit a horse.”

Amalie smiled sadly. “Berlauda would never do anything as amusing as that.”

I considered the Queen and her throngs of courtiers. “I begin to see a method in Berlauda’s decisions,” said I, “or rather the lack thereof. As long as so many offices remain unfilled, the candidates will remain in hope, and will strive to please her. Whereas if she fills all the offices before the Estates can meet, they will not only have no reason to please her, but some may be active in thwarting her.”

Amalie cocked an eyebrow. “Do you think Berlauda’s so ingenious as that?”

“Perhaps not. But the Chancellor is.”

“You could ask your exquisite little friend, the duke. He sits on the Great Council.”

“He is discreet where those meetings are concerned.”

“Offer him your theory. Then see what he says—or admits.”

I did so. His grace smiled and said, “Please don’t mention this to the office-seekers. They are petulant enough already.”

It was some time before I could report this to Amalie, for her husband had returned, though he didn’t stay. Berlauda had not forgotten Stayne’s presumed treason and snubbed him at court, which convinced him that there was no point in remaining for the meetings of the Estates. Stayne remained in the capital less than a week before riding off south to raise a militia and beat the Toppings for Sir Basil and his gang. I very much doubted whether Stayne would find his quarry, and wondered rather if Sir Basil would capture him a second time.

Amalie once more began to visit my rooms, but we both began to discern that our liaison was undergoing a period of fatigue.

Certainly, our horizons were limited. For fear of discovery by the servants, I could not visit her at her own home, and so we met at my lodgings. Amalie was too well-known among her set to walk with me in the street, or meet me at the theater—she was far too grand to be seen with me, at least without suspicion. Nor could she pass for anyone of my class—her languorous manner, her accent, and her clothing all marked her as a member of the aristocracy, and though the clothing could be changed, the rest could not. Plus, she was carrying a child, which could not be concealed.

And so, we were confined to my two small rooms, which seemed to grow smaller, darker, and colder as wintertide progressed. She came less often, and the visits were not prolonged. When she was not there, I found the rooms filling with memories of her scent, her long, lazy eyes, the satin touch of her skin, even her little white teeth. . . . But I could feel the memories wither, even when she was with me.

I wondered if Orlanda had a hand in the fading of the affair, but I was inclined to doubt it, and instead found myself absorbed in the same sort of self-examination that I had told Orlanda would no longer be a part of my life, and I reviewed my past conduct to see if there was aught I could have done to produce a more hopeful result.

But no, the girl was married, and carrying the child of another man, and our end was foredoomed.

Our doom fell shortly after the new year, when the Marquess of Stayne returned from his punitive expedition to the Toppings, having failed to capture a single outlaw, let alone retrieve his ransom. I didn’t hear the news for a week, until the Duchess of Roundsilver informed me at one of her dinners. She looked at me with care as she told me, to see if I was badly affected; but I had been anticipating the news, and merely asked if he’d encountered any bandits, and for the next weeks concentrated on my business.

For, as Orlanda had remarked, I could not do nothing. I had decided to put my fortune, such as it was, out into the world, and earn my living as a speculator. My father had done well in business, and I hoped to emulate his success. But my father had also made most of his income from loans, and I decided against that course, for he had loaned to people from Ethlebight who he’d known all his life; and I knew no one in Selford, and most especially no one I knew to be trustworthy.

I consulted acquaintances at the Butchers’ Guild, at that of the cannoneers, where I was now welcome as an amusing friend, and with Blackwell and the Roundsilvers. The duke suggested I invest in property and become a landlord, and Blackwell that I buy an interest in his new play.

I laughed at Blackwell’s suggestion, and he, having made the offer facetiously, laughed with me. I decided against buying property because I knew not where I wanted to live, whether I would continue my bleak life in the capital, return to Ethlebight, or travel abroad. So, I returned to the business I knew best, and bought cattle and swine. There was war in Duisland, for all there had yet been no fighting, and I knew that soldiers and officers and sailors must eat. My animals were intended for the camps that would soon be forming around the capital, or to be salted and put up in casks for the navy. This put me in touch with people who contracted to supply the military, and one of them told me of a venture that had fallen short of money. A friend of his had bought a ship with the intent of leasing it to the state to convey soldiers and troops to the war in Bonille. But the ship proved to be in a poorer state than he was led to believe, and required repairs before it could leave port. He had put his entire fortune into the Sea-Holly, and was desperate; and so I rescued him, paid for the repairs, and now enjoyed a half-interest in his emprise.

I was a little disturbed to discover that the government paid my new partner not in silver but in bills drawn on the treasury, which would be honored only at the government’s convenience. I reflected that I was probably safe enough, as I knew the Chancellor personally, and could apply to him for payment if I so needed. Still, there was a large secondary market in these notes, and I purchased a few of them at a discount, some from my own partner. I could afford to wait to redeem them, as I still had enough to live on and, though running low on coin, had not yet begun to sell the jewelry I had got from Sir Basil’s treasury.

The Estates began meeting after the new year, and the new taxes were going into place under the direction of the Chancellor. I owned nothing that could be taxed besides a burned-out house in Ethlebight, and so far the government was not taxing land without whole structures on it.

Master Lipton, the cannoneer, invited me to the tests of the duke’s great cannon, and so I paraded out of Innismore along with the glittering guns, each drawn by forty horses, lumbering along with great caissons containing the necessary powder and the round stone cannonballs, the whole array under the command of members of the Guild of Carters and Haulers. Gun crews had been drawn from the Loyall and Worshipfull Companie of Cannoneers, who, once we had arrived at the gun range, took charge of the guns, and also began clearing nearby trenches and earthworks of debris.

The duke himself did not come, as he was involved with the Great Council and the House of Peers, and the duchess was acting as his hostess for a series of dinners and salons in which many of the issues plaguing the Estates would be settled.

The guns were set up on the north bank of the Saelle, and their fire was to be directed at an uninhabited island about three hundred yards away. It took half an hour to load the first gun, what with forty pounds of gunpowder being ladled down the long barrel, and the giant cannonball hoisted up on a special sling. I, along with the Carters and Haulers and most of the cannoneers, watched from an earthwork two hundred yards away as an apprentice put a portfire in the touch hole and lit it. He scampered for safety in a trench, and the huge gun went off with a roar that stunned into silence the gulls and bitterns that had been calling from the mud flats. I could actually see the huge ball fly through the air and plow its way through the reeds on the island bank.

Flame continued to lick from the gun’s muzzle even after the stone ball had crashed to a halt in a shower of mud. A vast cloud of white smoke rolled over the scene, and I could taste the sharp taste of brimstone on the air.

Lipton, standing next to me, gave a nod. “That flew well. Maybe there is something in that monkish nonsense chanting after all.”

The guns were each fired five times, which took up most of the day, after which Master Cannoneer Lipton agreed to sign the papers certifying that the guns would make a suitable addition to the royal armory. But by that point, I had lost interest in the proceedings, for I recognized a small galleon drifting up the river along with the tide.

Meteor, the privateer’s commission of which was shared by myself and Kevin Spellman. And which was coming up the river with flags flying, for behind it came a capture, a galleon even larger than the privateer, and flying the white flag of submission.