Paths of Glory by Jeffrey Archer

are all fully qualified, and would be insulted were you to describe them as amateurs. But they would be even more insulted if you were to suggest that their presence on this expedition was motivated by a desire for financial gain.”
    This reply was greeted by the loudest applause of the evening, and prevented anyone other than Young and Mallory from hearing Finch say, “If he really believes that, he has no hope of coming back alive.”
    After two or three more questions, Scott once again thanked the RGS for sponsoring the lecture and for their wholehearted backing of his latest enterprise. This was followed by a vote of thanks from Mr. Hinks on behalf of the Society, after which the audience stood to attention and lustily sang the National Anthem.
    While Young and Finch joined those leaving the theater, George remained in his place, unable to take his eyes off the stage Scott had occupied; a stage from which one day he intended to address the RGS. Finch grinned when he looked back and saw the immovable Mallory. Turning to Young, he said, “He’ll still be sitting there, listening just as intently, when it’s my turn to deliver the annual lecture.”
    Young smiled at the presumptuous pup. “And what, dare I ask, will be the subject of your talk?”
    “Everest conquered,” Finch replied. “Because this lot”—gesturing with a sweeping arm—“won’t let me stand on that stage unless I’m the man who gets there first.”

BOOK TWO
    The Other Woman

1914

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
    M ONDAY , F EBRUARY 9 TH , 1914
    “W HEN E LIZABETH ASCENDED the English throne in 1558, neither the court nor the common people welcomed her as their monarch. However, when she died in 1603, forty-five years later, the Virgin Queen was as popular as her father King Henry the Eighth had ever been.”
    “Sir, sir,” said a boy in the front row, his hand held high.
    “Yes, Carter minor,” said George.
    “What’s a virgin, sir?”
    George ignored the sniggers that followed, and carried on as if he had been asked a serious question. “A virgin is a female who is virgo intacta , Carter minor. I hope your Latin is up to it. Should it not be, you can always look up Luke 1:27, ‘To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph…and the virgin’s name was Mary.’ But back to Elizabeth. This was the golden era of Shakespeare and Marlowe, of Drake and Raleigh, a time when the English not only defeated the Spanish Armada, but also put down a civil insurrection led by the Earl of Essex, who some historians have suggested was the Queen’s lover.”
    Several inevitable hands shot up.
    “Wainwright,” said George wearily, only too aware what his question was going to be.
    “What’s a lover, sir?”
    George smiled. “A lover is a man who lives with a woman, but not in the state of holy matrimony.”
    “Then there’s no chance of a lover being virgo intacta , is there, sir?” said Wainwright with a smirk.
    “You are quite right, Wainwright, although I suspect that Elizabeth never took a lover, as it would have called her authority as monarch into question.”
    Another hand shot up. “But wouldn’t the court and the common people have preferred to have a man, like the Earl of Essex, on the throne rather than a woman?”
    George smiled again. Graves, one of those rare boys who preferred the classroom to the games field, was not one to ask frivolous questions. “By that time, Graves, even Elizabeth’s original detractors would have preferred her to the Earl of Essex. Indeed, over three hundred years later this woman surely ranks as the equal of any man in the pantheon of English monarchs,” he concluded as the chapel bell sounded in the distance.
    George looked around to see if there were any more questions. There were none. He sighed. “That will be all then,” he said. “But gentlemen,” he added, his voice rising, “please be sure that your essays on the religious and political significance of Henry the Eighth’s marriage to