Triumff: Her Majesty's Hero (36 page)

    He set down his lute, and edged his way between the waiting musicians towards the exit.

    “Monsieur Cedarn,” called Master Couperin from the lectern, “qu’est-ce que vous faites, maintenant?”

    “A moment, master,” Cedarn called back. “I must visit the latrine.”

    Outside, at the back of the tent, it was dark and cold. Triumff snorted in the cool air a couple of times to clear his lungs of the greasy smoke of the marquee’s atmospheric fug. He edged his way down towards the rear of the players’ tiring tent.

It was a long jump, far longer and more hazardous than anything de Quincey would ever have dared attempt under normal circumstances. His feet slithered for purchase on the roof tiles, and, for a moment, he thought he was about to plunge back into the darkness below him. He managed, somehow, to hold on, and slowly got to his feet. Mother Grundy was crouching next to him on the roof.

“You made it, then?” she asked.

    “You’re more sprightly than you appear, madam,” he said, breathing hard.

    “I like to keep fit,” she said. “Besides, this does seem to be the only way back down, doesn’t it?”

    “Are you both all right?” Hans Holbein called softly from the window above them.

    “Yes!” de Quincey called back. “Stay where you are. We’ll be back for you.”

    Without thinking, he took Mother Grundy’s hand and led her up over the sloping darkness of the roof. After a moment, he realised what he’d done, and realised too that Mother Grundy hadn’t pulled her hand away. For all her bluster and drive, she was clearly as nervous as he was. In a strange way, this comforted him.

    The far slope of the roof took them down to a two storey gutter from where they overlooked the stage of the Masque. They had a clear view of the Royal Pavilion and the adjoining marquees. Down on the stage, clowns were brawling.

    “Can you see Jaspers?” asked Mother Grundy.

    “I can’t really see anyone properly,” he replied. “Is that him? No, no, it’s the Earl of Richborough.”

    “Don’t move,” said a cold voice from behind them.

    The huscarl marksman slid down the roof to them, his sight-mounted crossbow ready with an arrow that never wavered from them.

    “Who are you?” he asked. “What the blood and mercy are you doing out here?”

    “Listen-” de Quincey began, hoping that the truth would be the best option. His Militia credentials wouldn’t explain why he was crawling around on a roof within bow-shot of the Queen’s person.

    But Mother Grundy squeezed his hand to silence him. She looked at the huscarl, and said, “Put it down.”

    Those quiet words were the most commanding de Quincey had ever heard. His spine tingled.

    Without question, the huscarl set his weapon down in the gutter.

    “Now sleep,” Mother Grundy said, her words as commanding as before. The huscarl laid down and began to snore.

    De Quincey looked at Mother Grundy with his eyebrows raised.

    “The Voice of Command,” she explained, “an old trick, and one I don’t like to use too often. It’s too close to Goety for my taste.”

    De Quincey took up the huscarl’s crossbow, and trained the telescope spotter on the scene below. After a moment, he said, “There! There he is! Next to Lord Salisbury in the VIP tent.”

    “Let me see,” she said.

    He was about to hand her the weapon, but then stopped, saying, “He’s getting up. Moving out of the tent. I’ve lost him!”

    He looked around at Mother Grundy. He didn’t like the look in her eyes.

Below them, Slee saw Jaspers move out of the tent opposite. He clenched his fists. It was time.

    Jaspers reached the back of the players’ tent, and sat down on a trunk, smiling to himself. He took one of the velvet pouches from around his neck, and opened it, sliding out the talisman. He held it up to the candlelight and smiled again.

    “That’s nice,” someone said, “and clearly very Magickal. What’s it for?”

    Jaspers looked up. Louis Cedarn was smiling straight back at him.

The Ploy’s the Thing.

    “You’ve made the most appalling mistake, my friend,” said Jaspers, “and it’s not one you’ll live long enough to regret.”

    “I know you,” said Cedarn, nerves that had seen him through nineteen sea actions showing no sign of breaking. “You’re Jaspers of the Guild. I wondered which wretch from the Church was behind this. I should have guessed.”

    Jaspers got to his feet, confident but curious.

    “Do I know you?” he began, staring at Cedarn’s face. “Of course I do. Blond and beardless, but it is you, isn’t it, Triumff?”

    Triumff nodded.

    “De la Vega was right about you. He will be pleased. He said you were a dangerous element. Of course, you’re only in time to receive the proxime accessit. You’re far too late.”

    Triumff’s punch knocked him to the ground. The talisman bounced from his fingers across the grass.

    “Late for what?” asked Triumff.

    Jaspers reached for the talisman. Triumff stood on his hand.

“What are you trying to do here, you bastard?” he asked.

    Triumff was thrown off his feet by a blow to the back of his head. He sprawled into the flaps of the tiring tent, and struggled around, his head spinning.

    De Tongfort encircled Triumff from behind and put his rapier across Triumff’s throat.

    “So, you’re Triumff,” he said. “I might have known. Are you all right, your worship?”

    “I’ll live,” said Jaspers, getting to his feet and retrieving the talisman. “Take him off somewhere and kill him. Swiftly. I have a schedule to keep.”

    “Come on,” said Triumff, “you’ve got me cold. At least let me watch this. I’d hate to die not knowing what I’m dying for.”

    Jaspers nodded to de Tongfort, who kept the blade pressed against Triumff’s Adam’s apple.

    “Then observe, Sir Rupert,” said Jaspers. “I am about to release Goety undreamt of, and the Queen is about to die.”

They came up through a fire-pit in the Clavier Banqueting Hall. It was dark there too, but the light from outside flooded in through the windows.

    O’Bow was waiting for them.

    Agnew dusted himself down and helped Drew to a seat. Uptil stood by O’Bow, and the pair of them stared out into the party.

    “Any lotion as to where the Frenchie might be?” asked O’Bow.

    “No. None.”

    O’Bow frowned and turned away. By the fireplace was a table lined with racks of musket. O’Bow put his sword on the table and took up a bottle, uncorking it with his teeth.

    Uptil licked his lips. He took a deep breath, knowing that the moment was upon him.

    He grabbed O’Bow’s sword, hurled it away across the room and swung his hardest ever punch at the Irishman.

    O’Bow took the entire table of racks with him, and they all hit the wall in an explosion of smashing musket flasks and flailing limbs.

    “That’s for Drew,” Uptil explained, picking up the stunned O’Bow by the collar. He hit him again, knocking him across the banqueting table and through the candle sticks.

    “That’s for Rupert,” he added, rounding the corner of the table.

    O’Bow’s punch doubled Uptil over, knocking the wind out of him. He fell to his knees at O’Bow’s feet, gasping like a punctured bellows.

    “That’s for starters,” said Tantamount O’Bow.

    Agnew and Drew leapt at him, but he threw them away like a stripper discarding her clothes. Drew landed on the floor by the window, too stunned to rise. Agnew landed, seated, in a chair by the door. There was a terribly disappointed look on his face.

    “So,” said O’Bow, lifting Uptil by the throat with one hand, “you’re betraylors after all.”

    “I’m sorry,” said Agnew, rising to his feet. “Please, spare my friend Uptil.” He balled his fists and assumed a boxing position. “I’ll give you a fight if you want it.”

    O’Bow threw Uptil’s limp body aside, and marched towards Agnew.

    “Do not revoke me,” he said. “I’d make minx meat out of you.”

    Agnew threw a neat punch that smacked O’Bow in the face. O’Bow didn’t move. Agnew winced and shook his injured hand. O’Bow smiled and slid his ballock knife out of his belt. He held it up, and the light glinted off it.

    “It’s pig-sicking time,” he declared.

The Cat pounced.

    It came down from somewhere in the rafters like a bolt of tawny lightning, and O’Bow disappeared beneath it. Agnew gasped despite himself, and backed away from the thrashing bodies on the floor: O’Bow, and a huge cat every bit as large as him, a cat with fingers, and a doublet and breeches.

    The fingers sprouted claws from under the nails.

    The screaming began.

“Then where goest honour and duty?” Doll asked of the crowd.

    “By whichever means, it goest swiftly,” rejoined Alice Munton. “Dear Goddess, tell us how we may receive your bargain.”

    Doll opened her arms and gestured to the multitude. At her feet, the hunters of love - Artemis, Diana and Orion - sat, looking up at her with adoration in their eyes.

“Peace, ho!”
cried Doll,
“I bar confusion,

Tis I who must make conclusion,

By honour, mercy, duty, right,

Look not to the dame of night,

But to the Goddess of the day!

Gloriana! Sweet Gloriana!

A nobler brow never held ‘loft crown,

A nobler hand ne’er ruled this town!

This town, this burgh, this demi-land,

Of all towns sweet, none can compare

Proud Rome, Vienna dear, wat’ry Venice

Where the throats of gondoliers hymn to the beauty

Of the Great Lagoon, Noble Madrid,

fair Barcelone, and Paris, Jewel of the Continent!

None is as fine as this sweet London,

Hung as if a locket on the silver Thames.”

    Doll stopped, because the crowd had broken into such applause that it drowned out any further words. She stood, her arms still wide, waiting for it to subside. She glanced down at Alice and Mary.

“Wonderful, wonderful,” murmured Mary Mercer, her eyes wet with tears.

    Alice was so pale with emotion she couldn’t speak. Doll looked at Horace Cato - Orion - with unease. He was staring at the Royal Pavilion, his hand clenching and unclenching at his bow.

    The applause began to drop.

“But what is the beauty of the silver Thames,

To this, the perfection of worldly contents,

The Gloriana Divine, the Goddess of the Day?

If truth be true, And our hearts united in this Unity,

Then let us crown her crowned head again!”

    The applause was even greater now. The cheering was picked up by the multitude outside the Palace walls, and the Richmond Shene shook the night with rejoicing. Noblemen in the Royal Pavilion were bowing to the Queen, and throwing their hats up into the night air like dud fireworks.

    Doll waited again, breathing so hard, the effort lifted the gauze of her attifet.

    She wondered where Rupert was.

Triumff’s guts were shifting uneasily in his torso. He was standing behind Jaspers in the fly of the tiring tent, with de Tongfort’s sword pressed against his neck. Jaspers was moaning something at the talisman in his sweaty hands, and it was this indistinct noise that unsettled him. He felt like he had done when Woolly had tested him with the obscene parchment. There was Goety flowing through the air, of that he had no doubt.

    From where he stood, he could see Doll on stage, searing the crowd with her words, Alice Munton, Horace Cato and Mary Mercer at her feet.