Quillifer

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

he buttery of the Baron Havre-le-Creag was expansive, filled to the ceiling with tuns of wine, each branded with a name and date burned into the lid of the barrel with a hot poker, and bottles piled in dusty niches, labeled with cards in a spiky chancery hand. The wine steward had deserted his post some weeks earlier, after realizing he couldn’t stop the Cannoneers from drinking anything they wanted, no matter how rare or expensive. I took a pair of bottles from one of the dustier niches to the great hall, where I opened one and poured. Captain Lipton took a long drink, and with a sigh of pleasure scratched his bald head.

“Youngster, that little princess has made of you her enterprise, sure,” he said.

I considered this, and felt the ghost of a warning caress the back of my neck. “I do not know that I care to be so scrutinized by royalty,” said I. “I cannot see that the ending of this will bring me joy.”

“You could give the manor back,” said Lipton. “Or better still, sign it to me.”

“Tell me first how I came to own it.”

It seems that princess Floria had not understood my reticence on the day of Lord Utterback’s memorial, and had thought that I was conspiring with the others to hide some great secret about the battle at Exton Scales, something to the detriment of Utterback, or the Knight Marshal, or some other great figure. Intrigued by this seeming mystery, she had contrived to interview some of the officers, including Lipton, and these had spoken of my own part in the battle.

“Deploying the men while Utterback was off meeting the enemy, rallying the cavalry as they came back scattered, fighting in the line, leading two attacks by the dragoons on Clayborne’s artillery, defeating one of the Gendarmes in single combat, horse to horse . . .”

“I hardly did that!” I said.

“Youngster, I saw you. You bowled over that armored yaldson and danced your courser over him as neat as if you were in a horse-ballet.”

“That was Phrenzy,” said I, weakly.

Wine had filled Lipton with eloquence. He gestured broadly and continued his inventory of my martial achievements. “And then of course, fighting all day in the line, and bringing up the reserve company in the nick of time, and at the very end rallying the men beneath the guns to keep the cannon from falling into the hands of the enemy . . .”

Which was not why I had done it, but my own intentions scarcely seemed to matter in the larger scheme of Lipton’s grand narrative.

“So, after her highness spoke to me, and to some of the others—Snype, Ruthven, Lord Barkin, even Frere after I assured him that there was no court conspiracy involved—she thought you well deserved a reward.” He spread his hands. “And now you have a knighthood, as do Ruthven, Barkin, and Frere, and that—beyond exercising my genius in the serving of the guns at Exton Scales—was the best afternoon’s work of my life!”

“How is it that you avoided a knighthood for yourself?” I asked.

He laughed. “I am a mere mechanical; what do I need with a coat-of-arms? I am content with my two bottles of claret, sure, though I will take the manor if you don’t want it.” He prodded me on the arm. “It is a gentleman who wants a shield on his carriage, and that gentleman, youngster, is now yourself.”

It would be dishonest to say that I did not feel a flush of pleasure at hearing all this, but what gratified me more than anything was learning of the testimony of my comrades.

“How do I thank them all?” I asked. “They cannot all be satisfied with bottles of claret.”

“They have all got their rewards. And I have got somewhat myself, for if you look toward the bottom of the list, you will see I am awarded two hundred royals. It will come as a bill on the treasury, sure, but I may hope to profit by it in time.”

“I will redeem it at full value.”

“Bless you, youngster!” He raised his glass. “And so we have come to the land of happy endings, sure.”

I eventually understood Wenlock’s strange remark about the statue. Rather than reward the count with more land, or a title ranking above that which he held, the Queen had decided to erect an equestrian statue of Lord Utterback in one of the town squares. Wenlock, it seems, had sacrificed his son, not for the advancement and riches he expected, but for a statue. That the statue would assure that Lord Utterback would be remembered for generations was of little moment. Wenlock could have bought a statue for himself for much less than he had spent on the Utterback Troop.

I heard also that he was preparing to sue for a divorce in the House of Peers. He required a new heir, and his wife was past the age of childbearing—he needed a young girl, and he was already inquiring after the daughters of his friends.

Eventually, I learned where Hurst Downs lay, which was in Bonille, along the stretch of the south coast between Bretlynton Head and Melcaster. The size of the grant, and the state of the manor of Dunnock, were unknown, and I must visit the place to discover its boundaries and condition.

Indeed, it was time to deal with a great many matters, none of them in Howel. The war being over, Lady Tern and Royal Stilwell would find employment returning troops to Selford, and then would be returned to their owners, which is to say Kevin and myself. Sea-Holly would have similar convoy duty, but ere long, new cargoes would have to be found for her.

I also felt that I was justified in returning to Ethlebight, not as a man who had failed at everything he attempted, but as the great hero Sir Quillifer.

But first I hunted down Frere, Snype, and Lord Barkin—Ruthven had already gone home—and I thanked them and toasted their own success. That done, there was one more person to thank. As I attended the various celebrations for Priscus and the Queen, I often saw Floria, but she was always surrounded by ladies and lords and guards, and I could not manage an interview. Eventually, there was nothing to do but put on my lawyer’s gown and my apprentice cap, travel to Ings Magna, and find her in the palace.

It was a day when no celebrations were scheduled in the city, and the Queen was at home. No one prevented me from entering the Chamber of Audience, which was a beautiful, sun-filled, warm room, filled with brilliant silk hangings and carved with wonders and phantasmagoria, a delightful contrast to the cold, gloomy Great Reception Room in Selford. Neither the Queen nor Priscus were present, though I saw some gentlemen of Loretto strolling through the room, their bodies curved like willow wands. I found the princess right away, walking with some of her ladies before a tapestry of the Compassionate Pilgrim delivering his wisdom to his followers. I approached and bowed. She looked at me with a stern expression.

“Don’t expect any ceremony,” said Floria. “The Queen isn’t about to tap you with a sword. And you’re not in one of the great knightly orders or anything; you’re a plain knight bachelor.”

“I’m sure it’s more than I deserve,” said I.

“Her majesty is cross with me for adding those names to the honors list,” said the princess. “I might have implied that I did so at her command—that is what is said, though for myself I cannot remember.”

“Who was it who suggested the statue?”

A slight smile touched her lips. “My memory remains fallible on that point. Perhaps you should take my arm and remind me where to put my feet.”

Having the little princess on my arm made me feel very like a broad-shouldered ban-dog trotting in the company of a spaniel. I had to shorten my steps to avoid dragging her across the floor. Her ladies fell back a few paces to give us a degree of privacy.

“I must thank you once more, highness,” said I. “You saved my life, and now you have offered me honors.”

“I have not heard that you have acted otherwise than to uphold the Queen’s authority and dignity,” Floria said. “Her majesty will realize this in time, has she a moment or two for reflection.”

I thought that Berlauda did not seem to have a particularly reflective character, but did not say so.

“In the meantime,” said I, “Her majesty seems to dislike me. The last time she saw me, she called for the Yeoman Pregustator.”

Floria gave a sharp little laugh. “Perhaps some women are immune to your charms.” She gave me a sidelong look. “Certainly, the Marchioness of Stayne was not.”

I felt myself straighten. “I assure you that—”

“Oh, be silent!” she said. “I saw how she looked at you. At court we call her Lady Languid—but Lady Languid she was not, not when she gazed at you. And of course, there was the aftermath, with the husband trying to have you murdered.” Again she looked at me sidelong. “A case I have reason to remember well.”

I felt my mouth going dry. “I hope the gossip of the court does not—”

“No,” she muttered. “It does not. No one conceives Lady Stayne would so debase herself as to lie with a Butcher’s son.” She gave that sharp laugh again. “Sometimes, I think I am the only person here with eyes.”

I was not quite certain what to say to this, but after some thought, I managed a commonplace.

“May the Pilgrim enlarge your sight.”

“Sometimes, I think I see far too much.”

Trumpets sounded a sennet from a gallery. Floria withdrew her arm from mine.

“My sister comes. Perhaps you should withdraw.”

I bowed. “As you wish, highness.”

“Try not to get in any brawls,” she advised. “And if you do, do not involve me.”

“Your highness, I shall try with all my heart to obey.”

I fled the palace, very much afraid that I had become the hobby-horse of a fifteen-year-old girl with nothing better to do than to meddle with the lives of her inferiors. I was already persecuted by Orlanda, and I felt that the scrutiny of another powerful being was a great injustice.

* * *

Now there was nothing keeping me in Howel but the few tasks remaining. I called upon the Roundsilvers to say good-bye and to thank them for their kindness, and they wished me joy of my knighthood. I returned to the palace to collect the title to my manor, and to the office of the King-at-Arms to certify my knighthood and to register my coat of arms. Which, in the strange tongue of the heralds, part Loretto, part Osby Lords, part Aekoi, is this:

Azure, a galleon argent a chief fir twigged argent, in chief three pens bendwise sable.

Which is to say a blue shield with a white ship thereon, and a white stripe across the top, with a jagged border resembling in outline the twigs of a fir tree. In the white stripe are three black quills.

Which is a play on words, if you like: Quill-in-fir. Even the herald-pursuivant laughed.

On my final afternoon in Howel, I went to the theater to see The Red Horse, or the History of King Emelin. The vast theater was built for spectacle, with an enormous wall built behind the stage that featured marble columns, balconies, niches for heroic statues, and the apparatus for making actors fly. The ancient statues of gods and heroes that had once filled the niches had long been looted, but they had been replaced by figures in a more modern style, one of which had been dressed to represent King Emelin himself, caught in the act of witnessing his own triumph.

It was a revelation to see the play with the audience of more than a thousand people instead of a hundred or so folk at court, and when Sir Bellicosus and his cronies came out, the laughter seemed to shake the heavens. The clowns had sharpened and enlarged their performance since the premiere in the autumn, and the play was somewhat less of a pageant, for Blackwell had altered a few of the scenes to create more movement. Blackwell himself had recovered from his quinsy, and spoke out in a fine loud voice from amid his warrior’s padding.

“You did not view The Nymph,” said Orlanda.

“I never cared for the play,” I said. The comedy had played the previous afternoon, apparently with great success.

Orlanda was seated beside me, wrapped in dark green gown that shimmered with silver stars. Her red hair was upswept into a complicated knot adorned with emeralds and pearls, and the air about her was fragrant with the scent of hyacinths.

I looked behind and along of her, and no one seemed to have noticed this verdant nymph appearing in their midst, right in the middle of a bright May afternoon. Apparently, she presented herself to me alone.

Somehow, I was not surprised. I had been expecting her any day.

“Have you come to congratulate me on my knighthood?” I asked.

“Foolishly I believed the Queen decided such things,” said Orlanda. “I had thought that the hatred I had carefully nurtured in her breast would prevent her from giving you rewards.”

“Neither of us, then, calculated on a meddling little girl?”

“I will not overlook her again.”

She unfurled her fan of peacock feathers and stirred the warm spring air. The peacock eyes gazed at me, green and blue and indigo.

Laughter rolled up from the audience at the antics of Bellicosus. Her lip curled in disdain. “You have a gift,” said she, “for showing mortals as they really are, scheming and blundering in their vain, useless way to catastrophe.”

“And yet here we are,” said I. “A theater full of catastrophes, all aglow with laughter.” I viewed Bellicosus and his crew, begging the bandits for their lives. “Perhaps it is healthy for us to laugh at ourselves.” I turned to her. “Have you ever laughed at yourself, my lady?”

She did not answer, but continued her inspection of the clowns. “You achieved honors,” she said, “and it was for the one thing you did not boast of. Did you ever expect to be rewarded for modesty?”

“It is a route to fame I had not considered.”

Orlanda looked at me, a shadow darkening the green eyes. “Has war changed you, Quillifer? Has it made you reticent?”

“It has made me reticent about war.”

“Perhaps, then, some mite of wisdom has wormed its way into your brain?”

I shrugged. “That may be. To myself, I seem less wise than before.”

I looked at the stage, at Blackwell marching onstage as the doomed prince Alain, soon to be snuffed by the hero. “Do you remember our conversation outside the foundry in Innismore? I spoke of the old epics, where the air is filled by invisible members of your tribe, all whispering into the ears of men, and laying their schemes with mortals as their pawns. If that is true—if such as you are everywhere—then how can human life have meaning? What means human ambition if it is but the prompting of a god?” I shrugged. “How can Berlauda be a Queen, a true monarch, if you or your like urge her to love and hatred, and the inclinations of her own heart are not her own?”

“You have gained wisdom, then. It is what I have said all along. Human ambition is worse than futile; it is delusion.”

Applause roared up from the stone core of the old theater. I waved a hand. “Yet here we are, futile though we be. Watching our dreams parade themselves before us, on a stage that was dreamed by another people long ago. We are still here, after all this time, dreaming and laughing and beating our hands together in approval of the shades that play before us. Where are your people?”

Her expression was hooded. “We lost interest in your dreams long ago.”

“Our ambitions may be futile, as you say. Our very thoughts may not be our own. We may have no more freedom of action than those actors, who speak aloud poetry written by others, and stand and strut on the stage where they are told.” Orlanda looked down at the stage, her lip curled in something like derision.

“Yet,” I said, “as the actors must believe the lines when they speak them, we have no choice but to act as if we have freedom. Necessity is a cold mistress, but Liberty inspires delightful bed-play.”

“Finely phrased,” said Orlanda, “but finely phrased delusion.”

“What whispers in your ear?” said I. “Is there something greater than you that plays with your heart-strings?”

Orlanda’s eyes remained on the stage, where Prince Alain led his armies off to their fated, doomed encounter, and King Emelin marched on to give an inspiring speech before battle.

“Master Quillifer,” she said, “I propose a game. I shall thwart you, and hurl obstacles in your way, and amuse myself with your delusions and evasions and your antics. And this game shall continue till you die.”

I considered this. “How is this different from the game you have played these last months?”

Her peacock-feather fan fluttered in the air. “It differs in that I play it not out of anger, but for the sake of amusement.” She looked at me, and I saw that very amusement glitter in her eyes. “Come now, Master Quillifer, to defeat mortals is nothing for you. But to defeat me is achievement indeed.”

“I seem to have little choice in the matter,” said I.

“You can agree to play the game with a whole heart,” said she. “Or you can refuse, and wither away as I send you one misfortune after another, wither until you are nothing. And what sport is that?”

For a moment, I said nothing, just listened to King Emelin’s fine phrases as they boomed up from the stage. “I will agree to this,” I said finally. “On one condition.”

“Oh, ay, conditions,” said she in scorn. “That is your lawyerly way.”

“I will play your game,” said I, “if you agree not to harm those I love. For if you intend to torment me by murdering my lovers or my children or my friends, then I will first end myself in order to spare them.”

She gave me a look. “You are not fit for self-slaughter,” she said.

I stared back at her, and let my anger show. “My family is dead,” said I. “I carried their bodies to the tomb in my arms. I laid them on the cold stone. Rather than endure that again, I would kill myself. So, you will agree to my condition, or I will say farewell to this life directly, and kill myself like an ancient general in the histories of Bello.”

Orlanda’s eyebrows lifted. “Do you take me for a death-dealing monster? Unlike your other enemies, I have ways to amuse myself that do not involve murdering people.” She nodded. “I agree to your condition, then.”

I turned back to the play. “Do I now sign a document in blood?”

“It’s too early in the game for blood,” said she. “But I will see you another time.”

I did not have to turn my head to know she had vanished.

I watched Emelin’s triumph, and heard the pretty speeches, and rose with the rest of the audience in applause. I sought out Blackwell afterward, to say good-bye, and he wished me good speed.

Good speed to what? I wondered. For wherever I could go, and however speedily, Orlanda could go before me, and place one ambush after another in my path.

* * *

Early the next morning, I boarded the galley for Bretlynton Head, along with Phrenzy and my boy Oscar, and Oscar’s own mount. The horses were stabled mid-deck, the boy swung a hammock with the crew, and I had a small cabin in the quarterdeck.

I stowed away my belongings and rose to enjoy the delicate dawn light as it played on the haunting mists of the Dordelle, but then I was distracted by a sight even lovelier than the dawn. She was only a few years older than me, with a lovely warm complexion, snub nose, and a mass of lilac-scented chestnut hair.

Recently widowed, I discovered, not by war or Berlauda’s executions but by a flux that had carried away her lawyer husband. Her name was Lacey. Her brother had come for some weeks to Howel to help her, but his own business had required him to return home, and he had taken her two children back to Bretlynton Head while Lacey remained in the town to tie up the last threads of her husband’s estate. Now she traveled south to be reunited with her family.

As a near-lawyer, I felt I should take a fraternal interest in the welfare of this lawyer’s lady, and I made a point to be pleasant to her.

And that Lacey, of course, is you. And now we lie together in my cabin, your head pillowed on my shoulder while your lilac scent dances in my senses. Your sweet, regular breath warms the skin of my throat. And I see that my modest narration has eased your anxieties, and sent you at last to sleep.

For tomorrow, we will land in Bretlynton Head, and Oscar and I will take horse to my new manor, which lies some days’ travel to the east, and we will discover whether it is a ruin or a bounty. You will be reunited with your family, and new lives will begin for the both of us.

Your brother, you say, is very protective and wishes you to live in his house as a sort of unpaid servant, obliged to care for his children as well as yours. He will not permit you to remarry, at the penalty of losing your babes. I fear he will not approve of your being friends with me, new-fledged knight or no. I consider this a great cause for sadness.

I have already placed on the record, I think, my opinion of brothers.