“I need only be Queen if I choose,” she said. She paused to stare down at him through heated yet tranquil eyes. “Or if they choose.” She smiled. “Oh, little Quire.” She was forgiving. Her wonderful body still moved by a profound sensuality, she reached towards him and kissed his forehead.
At that burning touch he raised his eyes and in them was the expression she had known she would find. “I’m sorry, Glory.”
In her eyes now he saw tenderness and the promise of reconciliation. His features were quite innocent. He jumped up, quick and free as a child, somehow redeemed by her refusal to let him destroy her love. Her action had given meaning again to the emotions and the words he had all his life plundered and devalued. She had demonstrated her active refusal of his terms, put deed to word, and restored him afresh, just as she restored herself.
Still Gloriana trembled with the pleasure of her renaissance. And she roared again. And now it seemed a sudden dawn had risen upon the whole realm; through this fundamental humanity she knew she could drive away the darkness and deception of the past and ensure that it should never return.
Tugging absently at his breeches, Quire believed that her extraordinary courage, her resistance to his cowardly crime, that all-hating abuse of power, had freed her of her unjust burden—but also had lifted every sin from his soul. By some noble alchemy she had, by recreating herself, also recreated him.
Again her huge, perfect body shook. Again her great voice roared its triumphant pleasure.
Quire knew a baffling sensation which he guessed was happiness. And he, laughing loudly into the dying echo of her shout, watched while she brought the dagger down with such mighty force upon the stone that the steel shattered into fragments which fell like silvery rain upon the dirty granite of that awful chamber. “Ha, Gloriana!” And he bowed.
Then she allowed herself, with such sublime relief, to weep.
“Oh, Quire. Now we are both fulfilled.”
APPENDIX B
LYRICS LOR A PROPOSED MUSICAE VERSION OF GEORIANA
By Michael Moorcock and Peter Pavli
JOHN DEE’S SONG
(Words: Moorcock, Music: Pavli)
In my skull’s a multiplicity of spheres
An infinity of Albions,
And in one Dee is King
And she the Sage
(Would she then lust for me
And I refuse to hear her beating blood?)
World upon world
A sea of globes
And only rarely do two meet
Thus I discourse; I bow
(Ah! These pantaloons! A eunuch of me’ll make trow!)
“Oh venerable Dee—respected sir;
So noble and refined…”
(She cannot guess what thoughts do burn
In my tormented mind…)
And now a word on Nature
Next on God and Good
On Love and Death—
On Art—and High Arithmetik
(How to restrain this leaping prick?)
“Madam, I take my leave, if you’ll permit!”
Another bow—oh, my blade! I weep!
As through the door I lurch,
Groaning for surcease…
(Girl speaks):“Good morrow, Doctor Dee!”
(Dee):“Aside, fair maid, aside!”
(Girl):“Advice, good sage, I pray…”
(Dee, aside): (She’ll quench me, temp’ry bride).
“Come quickly, maid, to my bedside
And I will fill thee full of my philosophy…”
And I will fill thee full
And I will fill thee full
I’ll fill thee full
Of my philosophy.…
MONTFALLCON’S SONG
(Words: Moorcock, Music: Pavli)
I hear you weeping in the night
If you were only woman and not Albion
These sweet wives I’d leave.
I recall your yearning flesh
Your high despairing breath
Your innocence, your lust
My pleasure in your pain
I breathe your name…
I hold their hair to my ears, oh madam,
So that I no longer hear, to sleep…
QUIRE’S SONG
(Words: Moorcock, Music: Pavli)
Having been commissioned to pull down such goodly prey,
This empire in the person of its queen,
My life is much enliven’d and I bless the day
That I receiv’d the chance to vent my spleen
On all that I despise
I hate her eyes,
I hate her face,
I hate her mane
But most of all I hate her grace,
Her innocent nobility.
For I am Quire the shadow,
Quire the thief
Of virtue and ideals.
A clever little Quire am I
Realistic, brave and free
The task I’ve taken ’fore I die
To disperse this silly gaiety,
To crush the myth of happiness,
Display it for a shell,
A bauble bright before
—before a baby’s clutching paw—
To lure it into
Hell…
Dangle the bauble and the folk will dance
Promise the false gem and watch them smile,
Tell them that happiness is theirs for the taking,
And see how many friends we’re making!
For I’m a clever little Quire
To flags and bunting I’ll set fire.
At slogans I will sneer.
The only truth is fear.
The only truth
Is fear.
(Rough recordings made June–July 1977)