I wore Lady Westley’s sunburst pendant a few days later, at the season’s first regatta on the lake, held at midmorning before the afternoon winds rose, and so that the court could celebrate afterward with a dinner. The day was sunny, and the morning chill faded quickly as we rowed to the starting line. Even on the lake we could smell our dinner cooking in the palace kitchens. The galleys would travel under oars alone, on a roughly triangular track across the lake. We would cross behind two low islands on the far side, then return to the starting line. Bright red buoys had been laid out around the islands to mark the intended course, and another pair of buoys had been laid out to mark the start and finish.
There were nearly a score of racing galleys in the water, all sponsored by the nobility or the great guilds of the town. To keep out the meiny, there was a bond of fifty crowns for each vessel, in return for which we were given a printed copy of the rules for the race. I paid very close attention to the rules, studied carefully, and thought I had found something to my advantage, but most of the rules were immaterial today, for they dealt with the management of sails, and today we would be under oars alone.
Most of the galleys were commanded by the owners of the boats, but some had professional captains. There was a good deal of wagering going on, and I had made my own bets with some of my rivals.
Their Majesties were also on the water, on their barge, which was ornamented with gilded reliefs of the tritons of Fornland, while its hull was painted in the royal colors of scarlet and gold. Their thrones were set beneath a silken canopy, and the barge’s gilding was blinding in the sun.
I looked at Their Majesties through my glass, and I found Queen Berlauda much as I remembered her: blond and handsome, tall and adorned in satin, velvet, and jewels. From behind an ostrich-feather fan she wore a bland air of satisfaction that suggested the world matched her expectations exactly. Some of her ladies of honor stood about her, glittering rather less than the queen, but still a formidable array in their composed and dignified silence.
One man stood near them, and this I somehow understood to be Lord Edevane, Her Majesty’s principal private secretary and supposed spymaster. The man who had encompassed the ruin of the Marquess of Scutterfield was about thirty, of ordinary height, and wore his hair and dark beard long. He dressed in purple velvet that set off his gold chain of office, and wore thick gold-rimmed spectacles that gave his eyes a blank, dead quality, like a pike that had been caught and lain too long in the sun.
His dead eyes were directed toward the courtiers around our king, and he wore an expression of polite attention. I do not imagine he failed to hear anything he cared to.
Her Majesty’s husband, Priscus, to whom she had awarded the style, honors, and power of king regnant, was tall and swarthy, with a large beaky nose like a blade, and a beard so short that it might have been taken for a week’s failure to shave. He wore a tall conical hat with badges in the red and gold of Duisland, and a white satin doublet absolutely covered in pearls, so closely sewn onto the garment that the doublet seemed solid, glowing softly like an opalescent breastplate, and like a breastplate seemed to be propping him up on his throne.
Priscus was more lively than his bride and spoke to his circle of gentlemen, a group that seemed equally from Duisland and from Loretto. Standing a little apart, frowning and white-haired, was Lord Thistlegorm, the attorney general, who was also the judge of the race. Dressed in the white silk doublet, hose, and trunks that marked him as a Retriever, he watched as the galleys jostled for their place at the start. At the sight of the attorney general, I raised a hand to my breast, for I had tucked a copy of the printed rules into my doublet, and I wanted to be certain I could quote from them at need. I had trained as a lawyer, though the sad death of my master prevented my ever being certified to practice at the Bar, and against the attorney general I knew that I would need all my lawyer’s skill.
I saw Thistlegorm glance toward the quay, and I followed his glance to find my friend Coronel Lipton and a group of his cannoneers, all shining in their uniforms and clustered about the small field gun that would signal the start and completion of the race.
I was obliged to put down my glass and maneuver Dunnock to avoid collision, and I looked at a nearby galley and locked eyes with the Count of Wenlock. He looked at me with a fierce expression on his pale face as a gust of wind tore at his grizzled hair.
He hated me for reasons that were obscure, at least to me. I had been a friend to his son Lord Utterback, who had commanded at Exton Scales and had fallen in the battle, and Wenlock blamed me for the fact that Her Majesty had not advanced the count in rank after the battle, or given him grants of land. I had won a knighthood and a manor, and in Wenlock’s way of thinking, I had stolen these rewards from him and sullied his dead son’s glory. Yet it had not been Wenlock who had been the hero of the battle, but his son Utterback, and I did not understand why Wenlock expected to be rewarded for his son’s success.
Because Utterback had been Wenlock’s heir, and his wife was past the age of childbearing, he had been forced to divorce his wife and find a younger bride in order to insure his title’s succession. There was now a two-year-old Lord Utterback toddling about his house, and Wenlock had added to his collection of gray hairs. I suppose he had reasons for his choler, but I still don’t know why his ire settled on me.
Wenlock snarled when he saw me, and though I felt a thrill of apprehension, I grinned at him. I had faced battle, storms, and shipwreck, and I had no reason to fear a disgruntled nobleman.
Or so I told myself.
I turned back to Thistlegorm, and I saw him raise a hand with a white flag, and I told my lads to cock their oars and be ready to pull. I tucked the tiller securely under my arm. The flag fell, the gun went off with a bang, and the oars came down to turn the water white. The galley surged forward, and I felt a breeze on my face and a fine, cool spray.
Off we sprinted, and I kept Dunnock in the middle of the pack until we approached the first island, when I steered off to larboard—for I was aiming for the tail of the island, and the others were heading for the first buoy that was meant to mark the course. I was thus able to cut inside them, and save my crew a deal of rowing.
Because I stayed inside the buoys instead of outside, my course was at least a quarter league shorter, and though my men were rowing easily, I was ahead by a great margin as I swung around the second island and headed for the finish. The others were clustered behind, rowing furiously as they battled one another for the lead—for they paid no attention to me, being confident that I had fouled out of the competition for not staying on the marked course.
As my lead was considerable, I kept my oarsmen at a moderate pace and only ordered them to sprint when the leaders of the pack threatened to overtake me. I crossed the finish line five or six boat-lengths ahead and immediately swung Dunnock round to the royal barge in order to deliver the protest that I already knew I would have to make.
Coronel Lipton’s gun signaled the end of the contest when the first of the pack crossed the line—Ostra, owned by His Grace the Duke of Roundsilver and captained by the duke in person. Second place went to the Count of Wenlock, which meant that captains from Ethlebight had taken the topmost three places, a great compliment to my native city.
I let Dunnock hover off the royal barge’s quarter as I waited for the song of trumpets and a herald to announce that His Grace had won the race. After the applause died down, I had my crew give a single stroke to their oars and drifted to where Thistlegorm stood on the prow of the barge, his white suit shining like silver. I donned my respectful-apprentice face. “My lord!” I said. “Surely you err! I won the race plain as the sun in the sky!”
He frowned down at me as the scent of gunpowder drifted on the breeze. “Sir, you fouled out of the race,” said he.
“I protest!” I said. “For I committed no foul!”
He spoke as if to a simpleminded child. “You strayed from the course,” he said. “You failed to stay outside the buoys.”
“The buoys are nugatory,” said I. I reached into my doublet and withdrew my copy of the printed rules. “The rule book does not mention buoys at all, my lord. It says only that we must pass behind the island.”
“Not mention buoys?” The attorney general’s face reddened. “Why in the blessed Pilgrim’s name did you think the buoys were there at all?”
I lofted the rules again. “My lord, the rules do not oblige me to think about the buoys in any way at all.”
His brows came together. “What is your name, sir?”
“I am Sir Quillifer the Younger of Ethlebight,” I said. I donned my innocent-choirboy face and offered the rule book. “If your lordship would consult your copy of the rules… ? Or you may borrow mine, if you like.”
I saw Her Majesty’s fine blue eyes glance at me sharply when she heard my name, and I wondered if this adventure would see me banned from court again. Lord Thistlegorm, on the other hand, clearly knew my name, probably from that business of the would-be assassin Burgoyne. He had one of his secretaries bring him a copy of the rules.
“My lord,” said I, “if you would view part the third, ‘Concerning the Course,’ which I believe you may find on page seven?”
I adopted a patient air while I waited and concerned myself with keeping Dunnock from drifting too far from the royal barge. I saw His Majesty conferring with his gentlemen, and the flash of white teeth in his dark face as he laughed, a kind of caw-caw-caw like a crow. While I had probably not pleased the queen, at least I had provided the king with amusement.
From the dead-fish eyes of the man I assumed to be Lord Edevane I received an interested look, and I felt a cold finger touch my neck. I did not rejoice in having the man’s full attention, not least because he seemed to be mentally dissecting me on the spot.
Lord Thistlegorm read Part the Third, and then read it again. With great impatience he flipped through the rest of the rule book, found nothing that pleased him, and rolled the rules into a tube, which he clamped in his fist. He signaled the trumpeter to play another sennet and reached for a silver-chased speaking trumpet.
“The results of the previous race are ruled invalid!” he said. “The race will be repeated as soon as the competitors can be brought to the start.” He lowered the trumpet, then raised it again. “No wagers may be settled! Wagers may be settled only after the race is run again!” There were cheers at this, for apparently few people had wagered on my success. Then, his mouth twisted in frustration, Lord Thistlegorm called out again. “All boats must stay outside the buoys! All boats!” he added, with an eye on me.
I bowed to him. “Your lordship’s ruling displays surpassing wisdom,” I said, “and fully justifies the trust Their Majesties have placed in their attorney general.”
Then I took off my cap, bowed to Their Majesties on their thrones, and maneuvered my galley to the starting line, nearing again the Count of Wenlock, who sneered at me. “Stealing another victory, Quillifer?” he asked.
I ventured a laugh. “Victories are the result of good planning, my lord!”
In the jostling at the start, I managed to claim for myself the place farthest to the larboard, giving myself the best chance to remain inside the others as we rounded the course.
In the end this was not necessary, for I had kept my crew at an easy pace for most of the preceding race, while the others had had their oarsmen flailing the water in a perfect frenzy for the entire length of the course. My own men were much fresher than the exhausted crews of the other galleys, and Dunnock pulled ahead easily from the start and kept the lead for the entire race. We won by a greater margin than we had the first time and were saluted by Coronel Lipton’s gun as we crossed the finish. We all disembarked at the quay, and His Majesty presented me the victor’s pennant as I knelt before him.
“I offer this to Sir Keely-Fay, the only captain who has read the rule book.” He smiled, his words hidden amid a thick Lorettan accent, and then cawed thrice at his own wit, sounding more like a crow than a king.
The flag, which bore the triton of Fornland and the hippogriff of Bonille, I brought to Dunnock and placed on the staff where I normally flew my own flag. I would possess the flag only until the next race, when it would be awarded to the winner, but in the meantime I could flaunt it on the water.
Though many would find my day’s victory, and the means of it, comical, I supposed an equal number would find it insufferable. My own ambitions were to be neither comical nor insufferable, but known.
I could loiter about the court like every other provincial knight, hoping to be noticed and employed in some office or other; or I could trot at the heels of some grand noble in hopes of becoming a part of his affinity; or I could take some action that would put me before the eyes of the court, and this had I done.
I would be dismissed as a jumped-up coxcombical rudesby, but those inclined to that opinion would be certain to dismiss me anyway. To those of a more open cast of mind, I hoped to be seen as someone possessing gifts that might be useful.
And even those who disliked me, I thought might soon be wearing my gemstones.
I sent my boat’s crew to my house for their dinner and told them to come back late in the afternoon. I collected my winnings from the other captains and saluted His Grace the duke.
“I am sorry to have deprived you of a victory,” I said.
He cocked an eye at me. “I think you are not so sorry as all that.”
“In faith, you think correctly.”
He smiled. “The next race, I think, will not be so easy for you.”
I bowed. “I know you will make certain of that, Your Grace.”
I strolled down the quay to Coronel Lipton, standing with his gun crew, and offered him a salute. “I hope you put money on my galley,” I said.
He grinned at me with his yellow teeth. “I have won a little white money, sure.”
“I hope you will use it to drink my health.”
“Ay, as soon as the Carters and Haulers can be bothered to carry the leather gun away.”
I looked in surprise at the small field piece. The barrel, wrapped in brown suede, was about four feet long, and the carriage light. “Do you mean to say the gun barrel is actually leather?”
“Come, youngster, I will show thee, so.” He took me before the barrel. “A thin barrel of brass, with leather wrapped around it, and secured with iron hoops. It will fire a six-pound shot, like a saker.”
“And will it do so without bursting?”
Lipton made an equivocal gesture with one hand. “They have all burst, so far. I have yet to find the right prescription for the metal. Yet they will fire half a dozen or more shots before they fail.”
“And you brought a bursting gun to Their Majesty’s regatta?”
He laughed. “There was no danger, sure, for there was no ball in the gun, just a ropen wad.”
“And the purpose of this leather bursting gun, Coronel?”
“It weighs but little, youngster. If the ground is too uncertain to pull the gun in the ordinary way, one man may carry the barrel in his arms, and another the carriage upon his back. And if the ground be firm and not too uneven, the crew may run along with it, and pull it on a rope. You can hardly do that with a demiculverin that weighs thirty-four hundredweight.”
I remembered Lipton’s guns in the fight at Exton Scales, stranded where the Carters and Haulers left them, to be overrun if the fight went against us. “This could be a formidable weapon,” I said, “if perfected. For you could push these guns ahead of the foot, smash up the formations of pikes, and then send in our own pikemen to finish the enemy.”
“That is my hope. But I have little support from my superiors. We are at peace, and they care only for pomp and show.” He plucked at his splendid blue doublet and the sash that marked his officer’s rank. “For this. And there is no knight marshal, and no constable, to make of the army anything but ornaments to the throne.”
“The Marquess of Exton is no longer knight marshal?”
“He is dead, Pilgrim rest him.”
I was surprised by the sadness I felt, for Sir Erskine had never liked me, and for my own part I had not been impressed by the shambling, superstitious old man, or his equally shambling campaign. “I am sorry, but not surprised,” I said, “for he was old and ill.”
“He was lucky,” said Lipton. “That is all that matters, in a commander.”
I looked down at the gun. “Does Ransome support your endeavors?”
“The queen’s gunfounder has greater projects in mind. He cannot demonstrate his art on little weapons, and so casts guns greater and greater. Cannon that must be emplaced for an enemy to come to them, for they are too heavy ever to move to a battlefield.”
“Who pays for your experiments, then?”
“I have some support from the Guild of Cannoneers, sure. But for the most part I pay myself—you will recall,” said he, looking at me, “that we made some little fortune, in the late war.”
I remembered him staggering beneath the weight of a great sack of loot, and smiled.
“Who casts the gun? Does he know metals? For I need a deviser for a project of my own.”
“My engineer is a young fellow from Dun Foss called Mountmirail,” he said. “He will make his mark, I’m sure—for he knoweth his metals and his alchemical prescriptions, and he knoweth his reduit and his glacis and his bastion and his contravallation, along with the names of the Thousand Gods of the Aekoi, and how many leagues a salmon may swim in a day. He maketh little toys that roll and tumble about his study, and perhaps one day he will put Howel on stilts and walk it about the countryside.”
“I should meet this prodigy,” I said, “though I care not for any report on salmon.”
“He was called away to Deubec, to rescue a tower that was leaning over the lord lieutenant’s quarters and threatening to destroy it. But he is now the savior of that tower, and the lord lieutenant also, and will be back within the week.”
“Bring him to my house when he arrives,” said I, “and in the meantime I would like to see this leather gun fire.”
“You will see it explode, an you are unlucky.”
At that point the trumpets blew again, along with a thunder of kettledrums. Lipton looked westward, toward the water gardens. “We are summoned to the feast,” he said. “I to drink my fill, and you to have your fill of glory.”
It being a fine autumn day, we dined out of doors, on an island in the water gardens, our tables surrounded by hibiscus, dahlias, camellias, and other flowers of autumn. Water-lilies stood like sentinels in the aqueous ways between the islets, and smiling statues of goddesses and nymphs viewed our revels with serene faces. Their Majesties sat on thrones at the high table, beneath a canopy in the royal gold and red. Behind them was the scaffolding of the great hall they were adding to the palace, and the cranes that were lifting the great golden blocks into place.
We were set out in strict order of precedence, so I was very far from Their Majesties, and found myself with a set of knights and the younger sons of the nobility, many from Loretto. I thought it would be some time before I had my “fill of glory,” as Lipton had put it, and I would have told him so, but he was seated below me, in fact on the other side of a bridge. As a cannoneer, he ranked below the miscellaneous gentlemen who served the court as secretaries, and well below the officers of the Queen’s Own Horse, who dined near Their Majesties.
There were ten or twelve removes, beginning with a thick frumenty pottage with almonds, sugar, saffron, and currants. This was followed by pike, caught in the lake, that had been cooked in a broth of white wine and horseradish, after which we had roast lobster swimming in sweet butter. There was roast pig stuffed with fig pudding and studded with cloves, venison backstrap wrapped in bacon, collared beef cooked in claret, ginger, mace, cloves, and nutmegs.
As the beef was brought forward, I caught a sweet whiff of rot behind the odor of spice, and I thought the condiments were perhaps intended to conceal a flank of beef that was far past its prime. I declined my share, but my companions were not so overparticular, and they ate with a will. Whether they became sick after, I know not.
There followed veal stuffed with mince, again flavored with many spices, and I wondered if I had brought any of the spices to Duisland in my Royal Stilwell.
Next came the fowl, for there had been a hunt a few days earlier and several thousand birds sacrificed for our pleasure. Bustards served with sugared mustard, pigeons in butter and rose water, and blackbirds baked in a pie, gravy bubbling out of slits in the crust. The last and greatest of the fowl were the swans, who were served roasted and clad in their feathers. The bird carried to the royal table wore a gold collar studded with emeralds.
I had seen swans served this way at Berlauda’s coronation and wondered how it was done. Now I discovered that each roast bird wore the tanned skin of a swan with the feathers preserved. The skin was laid like a cape over the roast bird, with some internal stiffening so that the head was curved gracefully on its long neck.
The most impressive skins were reserved for the royal table, and the best of what remained for the nobility, with the rest spread out down the lines of tables, again in strict order of precedence. The cape that covered my table’s swan was old, much used, and decrepit, with more than half of its snowy coat gone.
The bird, however, tasted perfectly fine.
Afterward came the sweet finale to the meal, a sugary blood pudding, a quaking pudding served on a plate of sugar, a stepony drizzled with rose water, and almond cakes cooked with musk and ambergris. These did not entirely please me, for so many of the previous removes had been sweetened that the pudding seemed superfluous.
Throughout the meal there was music, beginning with the trumpets, sackbut, and drums of Her Majesty’s demilances. Their martial music was not suited to digestion, and so they were replaced by Mistress Concini’s choir of nuns singing their devotions, then by a boys’ choir that sang morally improving songs of the type approved by Berlauda, and lastly by strolling musicians wandering up and down the lines of tables. One of these, a black-eyed young man with a scant beard, a turned-up nose, and hose stitched in gaudy yellow and black checks, came to my table, bowed, and began.
Quillifer, Quillifer, active as miniver
Waited on water for sound of the gun
Quillifer, Quillifer, aqua-philosopher
Heard the big blast, and the boat it did run
The oars struck the water and turned it to white
In the midst of the mellay sailed the tall knight
The pace of the race was a heartening sight
All of the galleys rowed for the first turn
But one boat alone that custom did spurn
For jewels and rules were his tools of concern
Refrain:
Quillifer, Quillifer, never did malinger
As the boat sped on for the far isle
Quillifer, Quillifer, trader of mace and myrrh
Had conned the rule book and learned to beguile
First came the knight across the line
His galley bold had held the bowline
His ploy of the buoy was all his design
“Hold!” cried the judge. “For you have fouled out!”
But the knight’s reply brought the ruling in doubt
He footnoted and quoted his foes to a rout
Rather than sing the refrain, the minstrel then played it on his guitar, with fancies and flourishes that excited my admiration, and with clever triplets that stood in for the syllables of my name. When he was done, he returned to his song.
Tempers were foul as all bets were suspended
At the start of the race the boats were re-blended
“On!” was the call, and the brawl was contended
The knight took the lead, and the buoys were passed
Sure-eyed was the hero, and his crew was handfast
The pack was outrun, and the gun it did blast
Refrain:
Quillifer, Quillifer, unwilling to defer
The pennant of victory placed into his hands
Quillifer, Quillifer, the racecourse geographer
The best in the test, and the best in the land
I laughed and reached in my purse for a pair of crowns, which I pushed across the table. “I believe I would like to hear that song again.”
Again he sang it, and I and some of my companions sang along with the refrain. I pushed another pair of crowns his way.
“ ‘Best in the land,’ ” I said. “And some call me a flatterer.”
He placed a hand over his heart. “Yet you have given me a generous vail,” he said. “How is that not the best?”
“Very well,” said I. “I must therefore be the best. And you must be congratulated for finding so many rhymes for Quillifer.”
“Some I did not employ,” he said. “ ‘Scrofular,’ for example.”
I laughed. “That was wise—though while we are on the subject, I am not entirely satisfied with ‘miniver.’ I am not certain I enjoy the comparison with a weasel.”
“With an ermine, sir. A royal animal, for none but the Emelins and the peers may wear ermine on their cloaks.”
“True.” I considered him. “What rhymes with your name, goodman?”
“There are too many. Begot, besought, bowknot.”
“Your name, then, is Naught?”
“Knott, sir. With a K. Rufino Knott, sir, at your service.”
“Well, Goodman Knott, I hope you will sing that song before Their Majesties.”
Knott raised an eyebrow. “I think I have not been paid enough to croon such an impertinence before the high table.”
“Then sing it for everyone else.” I pushed another coin across the table, and Knott snatched it up, bowed, and continued up the line of tables.
“Ay, this Duisland is a different sort of country,” said Dom Nemorino d’Ormyl, one of the Lorettan knights. “For Dom Keely-Fay, if you had flouted the rules of the race in Loretto, you would even now be off to prison on a warrant royal. And that little rogue”—nodding at the minstrel—“would lose his head.”
“I did not flout the rules,” said I. “I followed them strictly. And His Majesty was amused.”
“That would not matter,” said the knight. “King Henrico would never stand for such an affront to his dignity.”
I reached for my wine. “Should I ever stand before King Henrico,” I said, “I will restrain my impudence.”
“You would be wise to do so, Dom Keely-Fay.”
Trumpets and drums sounded as Their Majesties rose from the high table and retired to the palace. We stood as they did, and then I finished my wine—of indifferent quality, slightly better than that given to servants—and excused myself. The gardens were filled with people, the ladies floating over the grass like lilies gracing the surface of the water. A great many ladies, I saw, were from Loretto, and were in search of husbands. I have spoken, I believe, of how our Duisland nobility are more rare than that arrogant rabble that infect Loretto, and the ladies of Loretto had taken note of this and were hunting down our bachelor peers.
Strolling, I saw Lady Westley in a gown of blue watered silk that trailed on the green grass, with a partlet and kirtle of brilliant white samite patterned with gold threads and puffs of blue and black. For a day at court, she had whitened her face and then brightened her lips and cheeks with alkanet. The blue gown, reflected in her eyes, made her eyes seem even more intense, and the gold flecks more brilliant. I came to her and bowed, the sunburst pendant dangling. She remarked it, but made no comment.
“I have heard that songster’s ballad,” she said, “and admired its ingenuity. For I’m blessed if I could have come up with a single rhyme for Quillifer.”
“I never had occasion to find one,” I said, “for I have never made songs on myself.” I considered the question and added, “Though I see no reason I should not.”
She smiled. “I’m sure you would praise yourself with a fine eloquence.” She turned and looked at the palace, partly concealed by the bulk of the new great hall. “Do you know I have an apartment in the palace?”
“I was not aware,” I said.
“My husband’s position comes with lodging,” she said, “though the rooms are very small, and we use them rarely as we keep a house in town.”
“Yet it must be convenient,” I said, “if, for example, you find yourself fatigued after a great feast.”
She gave me a look from beneath her fine level brows. “I believe I am fatigued in just that way,” she said. “I think I shall retire for a while. But I remember that I promised to show you something, and if you could come to my rooms in, say, half an hour, I would be in a position to receive you.”
“I would be honored to oblige you. Though will your husband not be present?”
She smiled. “He is at Entham Lodge, making arrangements for the stag hunt in two days.”
“Then I will be very pleased to keep the appointment, my lady.”
She strolled away, toward the palace, the blue gown trailing on the grass. I wandered about for a while, enjoying the water gardens and idle conversation, and then I encountered Rufino Knott again, where he sat on a marble bench, contemplating the statue of an oread, and eating a blackbird pie that had managed to escape the guests. He jumped up with an apology, and I told him to sit and eat his dinner. I examined his guitar, which had six courses and a convex back, like a viol.
“You play it well, Master Knott,” said I. “I admired those dextrous figures you played when you were resting your voice.”
Knott swallowed a bite of pie, then spoke. “Thank you, Sir Quillifer.”
“Where did you get a guitar with that rounded back? I’ve never seen one.”
“The work is signed ‘Blanco.’ I understand he was, or perhaps still is, an Aekoi luthier from the Empire, but who lives, or lived, in the south of Loretto, in Pantano Morto, I believe. But he did not make the instrument for me, for I won it in a game of cards.”
“I have a seven-course guitar from Varcellos, which I found there on a voyage. But while I can strum it well enough, I learned from sailors who learned from other sailors, and I lack your proficiency. I wonder if you would consent to give me lessons?”
He lowered the pie that he had lifted again to his lips. He seemed surprised. “I would be honored, sir.”
“Can you come to my house—Rackheath House, that is—the day after tomorrow? In the afternoon, following dinner?”
“Yes, of course.”
I rose, and he rose with me until I waved him back to his seat. I walked toward the palace through the dispersing throng, passed around the incomplete structure of the great hall, and then entered through the grand rear portico past the Yeoman Archers in their black leather doublets and red caps. I found a stair, went up several flights, and made my way to a part of the palace divided into small apartments, either for officials or pensioners. I had never been in this part of the palace before. The smell of the place was unwholesome, and the apartments I saw through open doors were small, and some were wretched. The contrast with the glittering public parts of the building was unmistakable.
I found the door to Lady Westley’s rooms, battered oaken planks painted black, with the name Sir Edelmir Westley picked out in graceful painted script. I knocked lightly, and then I heard Lady Westley’s voice. “Who is it?”
“Heliodor.”
“Please come in.”
The room was small and dark, with only a small window high in the far wall, but it was lit by a dozen candles that filled the air with the mysterious scent of hyacinths. Mirrors and radiant wall hangings served to make the room seem larger and brighter than it was.
But I paid scant attention to that, because of what I found in the center of the room, pale and lovely in the candlelight. Lady Westley was naked, rising like a goddess from the milky pool of the robe that she had just let fall from her shoulders. The yellow diamonds in their new settings of white gold glittered below her ears, and the single white diamond hung on a silver chain between her breasts. Candlelight glittered knowingly in her gold-flecked eyes.
For some seconds I was struck dumb, and I felt little but my own scalding blood as it sluiced like molten bronze through my veins. She raised her head and arched her brow.
“Why are you surprised?” said she. “I promised I would model the stones, did I not?”
I finally managed words. “You did not promise to outshine them so, my Girasol.”
I had just enough presence of mind to bolt the door, and then I took her in my arms. We spent the afternoon in an exchange of delights, each discovering new ways to please the other, and then, as the candles burned down and the sun neared the horizon and sent its rays in a long bright beam through the window, I began my practice as lady’s maid, in aiding her toilette, and making her presentable for a return to the court. Yet I found dressing her too stimulating, removed her clothes again, and disported a while before I could, in a less frenzied frame of mind, resume my task. I tried to banish all distractions from my mind, and so I tied her garters, tightened her corset, inserted her busk, tied on the farthingale and the bumroll, added the kirtle, forepart, and partlet, and then helped draw the blue gown over her head. I laced the points, and then helped her feet into her scarlet latchet shoes.
Her chestnut hair had become disordered, and I did my best to put it in order, but my mistress was much more proficient at such things than I. In the end the mirrors showed a properly dressed court lady, and I helped her pin on her cap and then put my arms around her. I kissed her ears with their dangling jewels, and then her mouth. She melted against me for a moment, then drew back and considered the room.
“The servant may make the bed,” said she.
“I will do it. I will also remove any material evidence.” For I had employed scabbards, so as to prevent a cuckoo appearing in the Westley nest.
She lifted an eyebrow. “You are thorough in performing your maid’s duties,” she said.
I bowed. “I am entirely at your service, Girasol.”
“You should leave first, I think.”
This required another toilette, my own this time, before I could put the sunburst medallion around my neck, kiss my lady good-bye, and slip away into the corridor.
Outside the palace, an autumn wind had come up to chill the twilight. I walked to the quay and found my boat’s crew, who by now had been waiting for hours. At a modest pace we returned to Rackheath House, the winner’s pennon snapping over my head. I sent my crew a bottle of brandy to warm them after their long wait on the quay, and then went into the house and ordered up my supper.
Even after such a banquet as I’d had that morning and over the long afternoon, I still found myself hungry for more.
Do you know, my sweet, I am so very thankful that I may speak so frankly in your presence. So many others, uncertain perhaps of my love, would find my candid talk of other women vexing, or hateful. But you know I am completely devoted to you, and understand that I view my other amours as but imperfect versions of yourself. If I praise Lady Westley or some other, it is as if I praise a mere shadow, for your light is such as to cast all others into darkness.
It is you, of course, with whom I choose to commit treason, and it is your courage that inspires me to the daunting tasks that lie before me. So kiss me, my dear, and I will return to my modest narration.