

### Letitia Unbound

### Trevor Veale

Published by Trevor Veale at Smashwords  
Copyright 2012 Trevor Veale

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Cover design by Rita Toews

Cover art by kind permission of James & Co

Copyright granted from the Donald McGill Archive

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The Queen Rises

Chapter 2 The Reception

Chapter 3 The Servants' Discussion

Chapter 4 A Nightmare Scenario

Chapter 5 Catheter's Formative Fumblings

Chapter 6 Hunting The Snaggle-Tooth

Chapter 7 The Queen Reminisces

Chapter 8 Dawna's Awful Dilemma

Chapter 9 The Unlucky Lovers

Chapter 10 The Wedding

Chapter 11 The Exposure

Chapter 12 The Retirement Rumor

Chapter 13 Sharon's Life

Chapter 14 An Inauspicious Honeymoon

Chapter 15 Sharon's Shameful Secret

Chapter 16 Letitia Finds Refuge

Chapter 17 Managing Marital Miseries

Chapter 18 The Prince And The Politicians

Chapter 19 Dawna Defuses A Riot

Chapter 20 Letitia Left in The Lurch

Chapter 21 A Wizard And A Painful Prophecy

Chapter 22 Simpkins's Other Life

Chapter 23 The Old Queen's Send-Off

Chapter 24 The Plot

Chapter 25 Dawna's new Affair

Chapter 26 TheFerociousWinter

Chapter 27 Sharon's Affair Revisited

Chapter 28 Dawna Takes Center Stage

Chapter 29 The Plot Thickens

Chapter 30 The Insurrection

Chapter 31 The King's Humiliation

Chapter 32 The Incarceration

Chapter 33 Sharon's Big Day Out

Chapter 34 The Royal Helpers

Chapter 35 The Humiliation Continues

Chapter 36 The Plot Deepens

Chapter 37 Sharon's Weakness

Chapter 38 Arabella Gets Her Scoop

Chapter 39 The Plan Firms Up

Chapter 40 Institutional Life

Chapter 41 Escape IntoThe Night

Chapter 42 A Slobodian Welcome

Chapter 43 Ferdy's Mansion

Chapter 44 The Slovos At Home

Chapter 45 A Touch Of Evil

Chapter 46 Basking In Bulimia

Chapter 47 Godfrey For President

Chapter 48 Sharon Gets A Proposal

Chapter 49 A Firm Decision

Chapter 50 Return To Melloria

Chapter 51 Slamil Seeks Relief

Chapter 52 The Campaigners Return

Chapter 53 The Dawna Factor

Chapter 54 The People's Party Shows Its Hand

Chapter 55 The First Election

Chapter 56 The Die Is Cast

Chapter 57 The Shot Heard Round The World

Chapter 58 The Aftermath

Chapter 59 Fighting The Fundamentalists

Chapter 60 Lucinda Gains Acceptance

Chapter 61 A Mortal blow To The President

Chapter 62 Another Servants' Discussion

Chapter 63 Catheter Hits Back

Chapter 64 The Disinheritance

Chapter 65 The Boy King

Chapter 66 The Departure

Chapter 67 Island Life

Chapter 68 Morning Glory

Chapter 69 The Crowning

Every man is a king, every woman is a queen.

Trevor Veale

Then where are all my subjects?

Queen Letitia

Chapter 1

### The Queen Rises

"Not another bloody banquet!"

Lifting her hairnetted head from the dimpled pillow, Queen Letitia angled her dismay at the luckless countess. Mary Sedeekly, Countess D'Armoire, first lady of the Queen's Bedchamber, deflected her gaze to the lurid tapestry of beagles worrying a great elk in the Forest of Gorm that adorned one entire wall of the bedchamber. She searched her mind for an appropriate response, deferential yet robust.

"With respect, ma'am, the engagement of His Highness the Heir Apparent to the Crown Princess of Bulimia is undoubtedly the highpoint of the season, and therefore –"

"A banquet it will have to be!" The queen gave a resigned sigh. "All this fuss! Thank God it'll be the last time for Cathy." She blinked scornfully and tears sprang to her eyes. "This is all going to end in tears, I just know it. Look, mine are starting already!"

The countess, who had spread her hands while speaking, now folded them over her abdomen and stared at her fingers.

"Oh well, tradition is tradition – there's no arguing with that," the queen sighed. "Dammit, I'm putting on so much weight from these blowouts! We had two last week!"

"Did you sleep well last night, ma'am?" the countess asked, in a feeble attempt to divert the drizzle of dismay.

The queen looked at her sharply.

"I haven't had a decent night's sleep since Cathy trotted back from Bulimia with a doomed look on his face and a betrothal bond in his briefcase. I've been having nightmares about the whole bloody business. Wouldn't you? I mean, the tittle-tattle in the gossip columns has been appalling! Why is it that when a Crown Prince announces his engagement, all sorts of 'ex-girlfriends' come out of the woodwork – like woodlice?"

The countess fell silent. She was at a loss to know who all these ex-girlfriends were. Only one existed to anybody's knowledge, and she and the prince clearly considered each other soulmates.

"Doesn't anybody know the meaning of decorum any more?" the queen pleaded, turning her streaming sea-colored eyes toward the tapestry. The sound of a crowd of boisterous commoners outside the palace burst through the silence.

"What the devil is that racket all about?" the queen asked. "Is today some holiday I don't know about?"

"Not exactly, ma'am." The countess shot an anxious glance at the lurid tapestry, looking for inspiration and finding none. "They're waiting for the arrival of Her Highness Princess Dawna."

The softness that had covered the queen's face while the tears trickled quickly disappeared.

"I find it hard to believe that people can be so easily excited," she said.

Chapter 2

### The Reception

Queen Letitia gazed at the other members of her family and wished she were back in bed. They were assembled in the state reception room and looked as restless as a pack of beagles. Her husband, she noted sourly, was fidgeting with his sword in an unkingly way and her two sons looked about ready to start fighting with each other like a pair of four-year-olds. Only her mother, the dowager Queen Gloriana, looked serenely unaffected by the occasion, and the queen put that down to senility. Turning to a lady-in-waiting, the queen whispered: "I only hope Her High and Mightiness is worth all this kerfuffle."

"Indeed, ma'am," the lady replied, "She looked very nice on TV this morning."

The queen uttered a despairing snort at the woman's idiocy and gave her family another disapproving look. King Godfrey was wearing the uniform of Admiral of the now-defunct Royal Mellorian Navy. To mark the Day of Shame when the navy's last ship had been blown out of the water by the Slobodians while they were seizing the Mellorian coast and the prize resort of Shekels, Godfrey had vowed to wear naval attire on the first Thursday of every month until the precious jewel of Shekels was restored, or until the uniform fell in tatters from his back – and Letitia feared the latter was visibly looming.

Crown Prince Catheter and his younger brother Prince Anton were also in uniform, each adorned with the medals of various orders and knighthoods. Neither looked particularly worthy of his glittering array, and the effect was like that of a pair of animated mannequins who glared at each other testily. The superior decorations on Catheter's cheat were goading Anton to occasionally rattle his brother's ornamental sword, and war was about to break out.

Queen Gloriana, her head sagging like an old bird at rest, wore long black widow's weeds with a sequined border and her gnarled hand rested on Rupert, her page, a fresh-faced youth of seventeen. When her daughter's gaze met hers, she lifted her straggly eyebrows and pointed a trembling finger at a nearby canapé-laden table.

"Isn't it time we had our lunch?" she said. "I'm gagging for some nosh!"

"Oh do shut up, Mummy – we'll be having a bloody banquet soon!"

Queen Letitia had been jolted into a realization of how much time they had spent waiting and she barked at the others: "Get out on the balcony and wave, for God's sake!"

Prince Catheter wrestled his sword from Anton's fingers and emitted a croaking whine.

"We can't expose ourselves to the people now, Mummy - _she_ isn't here yet!"

"Oh hang Her Blessed Loveliness!" Letitia retorted. "The people are milling about down there and expecting a royal appearance, and here we are standing around like dummies!"

"Stop diddling with your sword, Cathy," Anton jeered. "Get out on that balcony and show 'em your willy!"

"Mummy, I don't like being spoken to like that," Catheter said. He watched as his brother darted up to the balcony and poked his head out. The crowd erupted with cheers and whistles.

"That's enough!" King Godfrey ordered. "When we go outside, we'll all go together – with dignity."

He moved stiffly toward the balcony, wincing from time to time, and beckoned to the others.

"Come along, I think it's high time we showed our faces. Catheter, take your mother's arm."

"Yeah, take your mummy's arm, Cathy!" Anton taunted from beside the balcony drapes.

"Mummy, he's calling me Cathy again!" Catheter said, before being propelled by his father's grip toward the balcony. He just had time to hook his arm under his mother's.

"Wait for me – I'm game for some fresh air!" Queen Gloriana wheezed, and she shuffled toward the balcony on her page's arm.

As the royal party emerged onto the balcony, the cheering from below increased, and then turned to laughter. Anton had ostentatiously lifted the back of Catheter's tunic to reveal the tailored princely buttocks. A brief slapping contest ensued between the princes, bringing loud guffaws from the groundlings. Letitia looked appalled, and Godfrey reluctantly grabbed the two squabblers and hustled them back inside. Letitia followed, her face red with embarrassment, just as Queen Gloriana stepped slowly onto the balcony, leaning heavily on Rupert's arm.

"Godfrey, put him across your knee!" Letitia commanded, as he grappled to pry the two princes apart.

"Put him across my knee? He's twenty-seven!" Godfrey groaned. He released his grip while he caught his breath, and the two princes stood glowering at each other.

"I don't know why I'm getting all the blame," Anton said. "I just wanted to show 'em Cathy's booty!"

A servant with a tray of freshly-poured champagne approached and whispered conspiratorially to the king. A few moments later the state room doors were flung open by another flunkey and Princess Dawna entered, pink and flustered, wearing a blue silk ruffle dress. The queen recoiled, recognizing it at once as a cheeky dig at her own navy silk dress with its sober sleeves. She felt a dull rage rising inside her.

"Well, here you are at last!" she exclaimed. "What was the cause of your delay – a blocked toilet?"

The princess blushed a deep shade of rose. Her startling blue eyes looked from queen to king.

"I'm awfully sorry, Your Majesties. We were held up by the incredible amount of traffic all the way from the airport."

"Well, I trust Your Highness is ready to join us now," the king muttered, disconcerted by the princess's delicate beauty.

"Perhaps we can get on with the balcony scene at last," the queen prompted. "And this time, Anton, I expect you to behave like a grown-up!"

The princess looked down at her black lace-up boots in antique leather. She knew the protocol and waited in silence until Catheter approached her. He pulled an awkward smile and offered his arm. She returned the smile shyly, and the two betrothed royals walked through the open balcony drapes. Meanwhile Anton expelled a loud fart. His father glared at him while Letitia looked into the distance, studiously ignoring everybody. As they all stepped onto the balcony to roars from the crowd, Queen Gloriana's plaintive voice assailed them.

"Where the bloody hell have you lot been? I'm all alone with the lad out here!"

Chapter 3

### The Servants' Discussion

Seated on upturned baskets in the palace laundry room, a small group of servants were gathered around Simpkins, the royal butler, who was reading from the _Melloria City_ _Bugle._

'"Accompanied by her private secretary and a small personal entourage, the princess arrived at King Egbert Airport to be greeted by enormous crowds. Cheering masses lined the route to Calliper Palace, where the king and queen, her future parents-in-law, joined her fiancé, Prince Catheter, and other members of the royal family at a reception in her honor...dee-da-dee-da...It seemed as though Melloria had gone wild with excitement. A display of pageantry led by a corps of ladies of the royal household and the palace guard, costumed as Sabine maidens and their ravishers, received a rapturous applause from the huge throng in Constitution Square awaiting the appearance of the newly-betrothed couple...yatta-yatta-yatta...Towards 6 p.m. the day's celebrations reached a climax when from the balcony of the east wing of Caliper Palace, the glittering figures of King Godfrey and Queen Letitia, Prince Catheter, Prince Anton and Queen Gloriana the Queen Grandmother, were glimpsed by the eagerly waiting crowd. Shortly afterwards, the crowd's patience was rewarded when Princess Dawna appeared beside her future husband and his family, to huge roars of appreciation.

"'From where I stood watching this vast assembly, (writes our royal correspondent Arabella Somebody-or-Other), I saw boys and even elderly men climb trees, railings and lampposts to obtain a better view of their new princess, while ladies of all ages swooned and jostled each other in their eagerness to catch a glimpse of her pale, delicate face and shyly waving arm. I heard more than one lower her opera glasses, turn to her companion, and shout: "I saw her smile!"'

"What a load of bollockwash!" Simpkins exclaimed. Setting the paper aside, he took a swig of cold tea from a mug by his side. He grimaced, belched and took another swig.

"They'll have to put in an apology for that misprint," a maid called Sharon said.

"What misprint?" a page asked.

"They'll have loads of people writing in!"

"What fucking misprint?" he persisted.

"Don't you talk to me like that!" Sharon said. "Saying the Old Queen's the queen's grandmother – she's her mother!"

"Well, she's such an ancient old cow – who can blame 'em?" an underbutler added. After all, the queen's fifty-seven."

"So what? It's fertility treatment, innit?" Sharon mysteriously replied.

For several minutes a balloon of silence carried the group along. Then Simpkins slowly rose to his feet.

"We can't sit here all day doing nothing, On your toes, you lot – we got work to do!" he announced.

"You bet your buns we have," Sharon said. "I got to see to Her Highness's room for tonight. She'll want fresh flowers and all that."

"Well, if you see Berryman when you're out in the garden, tell him I'm still waiting for them bags of blow I paid him for!" the underbutler, whose name was Hughes, remarked.

"Ted, I don't have no dealings with him! I usually go to his deputy, Heaney," Sharon replied. "Berryman is always stoned out of his face."

"You can say that again," Hughes said. "It takes him all bleeding day to plant a row of carrots."

The group dispersed to attend to their various duties, all heading for the door except Simpkins, who paused in front of a row of dryers and inspected the folds of his morning coat in a glass panel. He allowed the others to drift past until Sharon sauntered close to him. Then he turned his head slightly and whispered: "The conservatory. Four o'clock. How about it?"

"I ain't got no time for hanky panky today!" Sharon said, though turning to exit the room she added: "Make it half past."

"Done!" Simpkins said.

Chapter 4

### A Nightmare Scenario

Queen Letitia awoke from a racking nightmare. It had been her worst yet. Her head ached, she had trouble getting her breath and she was shivering. The silk damask bedspread, much rumpled by her nocturnal thrashings, had slipped off the bed and the Chinese silk pillowcases, which she loved, irritated her neck as she swiveled her head from side to side, trying to get comfortable.

She had awakened with boundless relief at first, when she realized that what she had undergone was just a dream, but then the awful content of the nightmare hit her like a blow in the stomach. She dimly recalled being conveyed with Godfrey through the streets of an extremely grimy-looking Melloria City. Not only that, but the carriage they were in was shabby and creaking, its gold paint flaking, and instead of ermine and glittering jewels, she and Godfrey wore polyester and (in her case) clunky costume jewelry.

Although she and her husband waved periodically and maintained their aloof demeanor, she was filled with unease. Things just weren't right – Melloria was the world's smallest absolute monarchy, but they weren't _that_ bloody poor! That simple fact should have alerted her that she was dreaming, but as usual she missed her chance.

Outside the carriage, a swarm of people in holiday mood ignored the mendicant monarchs. These are not our people, she thought, there are no desperate-looking men in cheap clothes, no children in rags, no old women in anonymous peasant black – they're tourists! The sight of these decently-clad visitors strolling about the grungy streets of the city, free to come and go as they pleased, made the tawdriness of their carriage-ride especially galling. I'm a prisoner, Letitia thought, a prisoner in a poverty-stricken country, doomed to spending the rest of my days trundling back and forth in miserable processions!

So the queen awoke, her depression only slightly mitigated by a quick half-dream of a long sandy beach trimmed by a gleaming expanse of ocean, with white flecks on a sparkle of cobalt blue. Wind, spray and the roar of breaking waves filled her eyes, ears and nostrils. Godfrey stood beside her as she gazed out across the glittering arc of sea and sand. There were people in sun loungers sprawled like seals in front of them. A woman in a tight swimsuit reared up to oil herself before flopping down and complaining to her well-oiled neighbor that she never had time to read her book.

Why not get one of your servants to read it for you, and tell you the plot? was the thought that went through Letitia's mind.

She was amused to think that these lounger-seals had not yet learned the trick of doing nothing for themselves. Some of them were hauling themselves up from their sunbeds and turning them to soak up the sun.

Nouveaux riches! She thought. She would never have bothered her head with moving her own lounger. There were servants on hand to move her and her lounger at the slightest flick of her hand.

Then she was truly awake, with a catch in her throat and her eyes filling with water as salty as the rolling breakers she remembered. She was wracked with the unbearable sadness of knowing she would never enjoy the bliss of lazing on a beach with all her royal duties behind her. Monarchy was a job for life. Beneath her tears was a white rage. Why shouldn't she and Godfrey be able to spend their golden years in blissful retirement? They were prisoners of tradition and it was all so bloody unfair!

She shook her head and stared at the patch of sunlight gilding a gap in the heavy drapes covering her windows. What's the matter with me? She asked herself. Why am I in such a damn funk? The shivers and headache returned, along with a feverish awareness of the phrase _a mismatched marriage,_ and she groaned. Even the arrival of Agatha Armstrong-Pitt, Duchess of Dimchester, the second lady of the Queen's Bedchamber, did little to dispel her gloom. A woman of excellent birth, background and breeding, the duchess was prone to moments of extreme absent-mindedness, when she might as well be a million kilometers away. She knocked briskly on the door and sailed in, brandishing a copy of the _Bugle._

"You won't be happy at what's in the paper today, Your Majesty!' she announced. "Her Highness the Princess of Bulimia has stolen your thunder and used it to feather her own nest!"

Well, she's as welcome to it as you are to your mixed metaphor, Letitia thought, while snatching the _Bugle_ from the duchess and scanning its pages. When she came to the gossip column, _Trumpet Blast_ , she gave a gasp and rolled over in the bed, letting the paper drop to the floor. It lay there face up, describing the sartorial rivalry between Letitia and Princess Dawna. Letitia had attempted to match the modish retro look of the young princess by wearing genuine old-fashioned clothes to a function, only to draw the scorn of the columnist who thought her floral print dress better suited to a chintz armchair. Meanwhile the oversize clip-on earrings with matching semi-precious stone pendant which should have been a joke but which looked sensational on Dawna had sparked a stampede in Mellorian society for enamel and paste jewelry.

A different page of the _Bugle_ was being firmly grasped by King Godfrey, sitting up in bed in his somewhat austere bedchamber. He was frowning over a report of the huge political demonstration in Constitution Square the day after the revelries surrounding the arrival of Princess Dawna. It had been organized by a radical outlawed movement called the Mellorian People's Revolutionary Party.

"Funny how we never hear any of the noise these demonstrators make," he said aloud. Considering it a tribute to the stout walls and reinforced windows of the palace, he yawned and turned the page. Steam from his morning cup of coffee curled as he chuckled at the gossip column that had so offended his wife. Skimming a crabby political piece by the liberal-leaning editor which made his blood boil, he smiled at the prim etiquette lesson by Miss Manners – today's instruction was on the correct from address for members of the clergy – as he raced toward the racing pages. The news page he gave barely a glance – that was all political stuff better left to the prime minister and his palace advisers, Sir Michael Pest and Clive Fatsi. He preferred to place bets on outsiders and enjoy his dark Colombian coffee.

At the same moment the king was sizing up the winner of a steeplechase, Princess Dawna stood on the small round balcony of her bedchamber and stared sleepily at her Android. She had been hoping to watch a tiny movie on the phone while her maid ran a bath, but she hadn't reckoned on Melloria being the blackest of cellphone blackspots, and had to content herself with reading a text her friend Tori had sent a few days earlier. When she backpacked across Europe on her way to see Dawna in Bulimia, she had stumbled into Melloria. She chuckled at the wicked way her friend ran the place down.

'...the hostel in Mell City is dreadful unles ur ok with no towels soap bog paper or bathplugs. The food is unspeakabl. Brekfast is millet bun on cabbage in vinegar & all u get in the market is pulpy toms & wormy apples. Yeh ther's meat if u don't mind big black flies all over it. The Mells hav a saying A Mell always eats well as soon as he leavs Melloria. Poor u having 2 marry ther Prince Charming. Not! Don't worry I'll b ther 4 the wedding. I'll smuggl Nutella 4 r millet bunz!'

Dawna powered off her phone and stepped back into the bedchamber. Beyond the palace lawns and the railings that surrounded them, she could hear the early morning hubbub of the city. She closed the doors firmly. It was a pleasant day in May and her wedding was less than a week away. Her stomach lurched. _My wedding!_ She had invited all the people she considered to be her friends to the ceremony and she hoped that one at least – Tori, her only real friend – would be brave enough to face the rigors of Mellorian hospitality.

Chapter 5

### Catheter's Formative Fumblings

In the week leading up to his wedding, Prince Catheter, Crown Prince of Melloria, Heir Apparent to the Mellorian throne, scion of the ancient family of Gorm, felt like he had just jumped out of an airplane at 10,000 meters – with no parachute, only a voluminous pair of loon pants, making his descent and inevitably agonizing landing slow enough to give him time to enjoy – probably for the last time – his two most passionate pursuits.

His first love, indeed his lifelong obsession, had been sound. Ever since he could remember, he had been fascinated by the noises that surrounded him. When he was just a toddler, he discovered a little Panasonic portable recorder in a discarded cardboard box in the gift room. He dug it out of its stryrofoam casing and when his nanny tried to pull him away from it, fearing she would get into trouble for letting her young charge wander into the gift room, he screamed blue murder. The nanny retreated and left him to feast his attention on his exciting discovery.

When his parents learned of his new obsession, they were amused enough to indulge him by giving him a tape recorder every Christmas and on his birthday. It was his father's idea of a joke – the future king of Melloria as an amateur sound engineer – but the joke backfired, and Catheter couldn't seem to get enough of sound-recording machines. He carried each machine around with him, like other children might carry a pet hamster, and with each new upgrade he packed the previous model away in his toy cupboard. At night he always kept a recorder under his bed.

On his first day at kindergarten, an entire wing of the building had to be evacuated after the humming recorder he had left in the coatroom was mistaken for a bomb. For this, he was severely reprimanded by his father but nothing seemed to stop him. He developed a talent for being able to rewind or fast-forward any tape to the exact spot he wanted, without using the counter. His parents would amuse themselves over this by asking him to play a song from the middle of the tape, hoping to catch him out. He would sit on the big Persian carpet in the drawing-room and put his ear next to the tape deck. His face would light up when he reached the right spot and he instantly pressed the Play button. The chosen song would start up, perfectly timed from the beginning. He never missed an opening bar, even when his parents tried to distract him with yells, whistles and sarcastic comments, and he always screamed with delight at his success.

His greatest joy was making his own recordings, and he carried his recorder whenever he went outdoors. He loved being left alone in the palace gardens, even for just a few minutes, so that he could make recordings of birdsongs or the rustling wind or even Berryman the gardener coughing his lungs up. He progressed from these outdoor sounds to recordings of himself talking in different voices or acting out war scenes that were full of screeching shells, booming cannon and whirring helicopters. Later he grew adept at mimicking various animal sounds – whinnying horses, bellowing elephants or the droning of a hive of bees. He eventually began incorporating these noises into dramatic productions he made up and he stored the results in his tape cabinet. These dramas soon involved human voices, and even little scenes of interactions between himself and his parents, or between other family members, which involved frequent snarls, arguments and slamming doors.

His enthusiasm for creating sound effects tempted him to dream of a career as a movie director. He knew that his position as Heir Apparent, plus his tendency to neglect things like plot and character in his dramas, made the dream seem increasingly unlikely and the hopelessness he felt, as his dream dwindled, added to his already melancholic temperament. Whenever he played one of his dramas to his mother – his father treated his son's hobby with ill-disguised contempt – his tendency to jump from one loud noise to another without explaining why and rushing through the dialog to achieve another sensational sound made her convinced that he should be thoroughly shielded from Hollywood and its "action movies."

"Why can't I hear what anyone is saying?" she once pointed out in exasperation. "I'm sure that last bit wasn't even a proper word."

"But if it wasn't a proper word," he argued, "why did I just say it?"

As he progressed through adolescence and young adulthood, Catheter took to carrying his tape recorder in a waterproof ziplock, even when swimming. He attached it to his trunks, so that he could record underwater sounds. Unfortunately, he often failed to seal the bag properly and the waterlogged tape was wasted. At night he always played his recorder while he slept and kept the windows open, to record night sounds. The machine he used, black and silver and shining, was one he loved so much he was later to stash it under the bed on his wedding night and record the consummation.

Prince Catheter's other great passion was, of course, the love of his life, his soulmate Lucinda Limehouse-Blewit. They met on the polo field (Catheter and his jeering younger brother Anton being required by Mellorian law to be adept at the sport, as was their father), although not as team mates or adversaries. Lucinda had been taken on as a groom by the master of the Royal Horses, and the first time she met Catheter was when he was trotting back to the stables on his palomino. She took the bridle of his mount confidently, although only a girl, and intrigued him by showing no nervousness at his rank. After the horse had been put in his stall, they sat together sharing a can of cabbage and burdock – the Mellorian national cola – and engaged in some light banter. Lucinda's own gray mare (the one she was allowed to ride as part of her job) was stabled in the same row as Catheter's palomino and they found themselves getting slightly light-headed as the conversation turned from horses to sound recording, which Lucinda said she found fascinating.

At first Catheter saw Lucinda as a little crazy – she was a girl, after all – but he was too fascinated by her and the amazing feelings tearing through him to retreat into his usual shell. No girl had ever spoken to him so freely and he hardly knew what he was saying, although he was saying plenty. Plus, he liked the way she looked. She wore jodhpurs like himself and a tight jumper that accentuated her girlhood. Her hair was loose and carefree-looking and she had a lopsided smile that he couldn't help wanting to look at. They quickly made arrangements to go for a ride together when the paddock was empty.

He felt like he was in a dream while they walked, then trotted, then walked their horses again, and when the ride was over he dismounted quickly and offered his hand to her. She touched it to acknowledge his chivalry, then immediately sprang off her horse and startled him with a kiss. At first, he gagged at the completely unexpected mouthsuck and she convulsed into laughter.

"For goodness sake, relax!" she said, still shaking with laughter at his awkward reaction to her kiss. He felt himself flushing hard, his confusion mixed with the delicious sensation of sexual arousal. He suddenly felt anger at his predicament, and directed it at her for making him feel so incredible.

"How dare you!" he blazed. "You've no right to kiss me – you're a commoner."

"So what?" she replied, unfazed. "Nobody's perfect."

After that first encounter, they began taking rides together whenever they could, progressing from going at a trot to a canter to (on one occasion) a gallop to a spot on the far side of the paddock, where they let the horses graze. They then dismounted and settled down behind some hay bales, where no one could see them. There she could stroke his face and play with the hair curling over his ears. "You look so sad when you're quiet," she murmured. "It makes me feel sad, too."

He felt the flush of shame after she spoke, and started telling her how his life had been mapped out for him from childhood on, and how he hated what lay ahead for him, yet somehow knew that if he managed to maintain a dignified front, he would be able to bear the pain. She responded by taking an old horse blanket from under the hay bales and spreading it out.

"I think it's time your life took a turn for the better," she breathed.

He watched hypnotized as she pulled him down beside her and brushed her lips against his. The reek of stale sweat and mold from the horse blanket seemed to fade into all the perfumes of Araby. "Um, this is my first time, you know," was all he could say.

She nodded, then leaned back and motioned him to kiss her. When he did, his kiss was like that of a young boy, so she kissed him gently in return, the way an inexperienced girl would. He paused, then kissed her again. This time he pushed his hand under the small of her back and lifted her slightly. Then with his other hand he fumbled with the crucifix chain around her neck. She became afraid his tentative advance would go on forever and she would soak the blanket, but she held still. Finally his hand left her neck, slid over her T-shirted breasts and dropped down to touch the fly of her jeans.

"Catheter," she sighed, "my Poopsy Prince!" Unable to restrain herself any longer, she arched her back, allowing him to release his hand and press it beside the other at the place between her legs. Bingo! she thought. "Oh baby!" she whispered. He squeezed gently and her whole body convulsed.

She hadn't been handled this way before, not even during her short, disastrous affair with an older man called Simpkins, and she found Catheter's hesitant fumbling a terrific turn-on. Nevertheless, she hoped his hesitation was merely a prelude to a wantonness she could hardly begin to imagine. As things turned out, her hopes were more than justified and after their first sexual encounter they began to meet clandestinely at her apartment in East City. The bed was narrow, but to the two lovers it was as sumptuous as a king. Alone and undisturbed, they explored each other's bodies and Catheter eventually lost his nervousness as well as his virginity.

Now, alone in his bedchamber a week before his wedding, Catheter moped and relived the experience of descending from a great height in a pair of billowing loon pants. It reminded him of the queasiness he felt early in his childhood when he was learning to use the high-diving board. The harsh parenting standards imposed by his father required that he climb to the highest board in the palace swimming pool. He then had to jump from it, even though he had barely learned to dive. He was traumatized, nevertheless his father insisted he go to the very top. There, with his feet planted on the board, he heard his father's voice bellowing from far below: "I want you to show some balls!" Catheter remembered waiting until the roaring in his ears had gone away, then – terror-stricken – he looked down at the water cruelly glinting in the pool below.

As his father's insistent growl lacerated his ears, he nosedived off the board and plummeted toward the pool, his arms and legs flailing. His acceleration was hastened by his plump physique and, as the water zoomed closer, a scream burst from his lips. Then he slammed through the water with a gigantic crash. As he spun underwater, he felt like he had been dragged at speed through sheets of melting glass and he knew he would bear a terrific red welt on his stomach for weeks to come. Bursting through the blue surface, he saw his father sitting impatiently above him.

"Come on, Cathy, you can do better than that!" the king bellowed. "Try again!"

Catheter splashed to the side of the pool where his father sat like a statue. Coughing and spluttering, he opened his eyes. "You could have killed me!" he shrieked.

Chapter 6

### Hunting The Snaggle-Tooth

Two days before his son's wedding, King Godfrey decided he would take his two sons on a hunt for the rare Mellorian snaggle-tooth antelope. Even though it was the wrong time of year – hunting the snaggle-tooth didn't officially start until September to allow the mating season to progress – Godfrey figured that, being king and consequently above the law, he was entitled to take a few liberties with the course of nature, especially since his older son would soon have little time for hunting, shooting and fishing (not that he did much of either) once married life took over.

Hunting was a passion that consumed Godfrey almost as much as sex had once done. It began with a ritual down in the gun room, a hallowed section of the palace basement. He liked to prowl at dawn in the dimly-lit cellar for his rifle and cleaning case, and now he and his sons were doing the same. Godfrey liked to perform the necessary preparations without the help of servants. A major objective of the hunt was to sharpen one's military skills, and one never knew when the ability to arrange one's shooting gear on a rough wooden table, assemble the cleaning rod, swab the barrel and load cartridges into the clip would come in handy. For all one knew, when the next Slobodian attack came, the skills honed on hunting trips would prove absolutely crucial.

The next stage of the ritual was for the three huntsmen to tramp upstairs to the palace kitchen and eat a hearty breakfast. Godfrey had learned from painful experience not to attempt to have their breakfast in the drawing-room. The drawing-room, although most comfortable with its regency furniture and Persian silk carpet, was now strictly off-limits to breakfasting hunters. The one time Godfrey had attempted it, he had experienced his wife's scolding tongue after she had discovered evidence of dirt marks and gun-oil smears on an antique sideboard, china figurines and – worst of all – on her priceless regency sofa.

Now Godfrey and his two sons were inhaling the steam that rose from a pewter coffee pot and looking forward to the piles of hot buttered toast and platters of crispy bacon rashers and shiny fried double-yolk eggs that a serving-wench was placing before them. After she had gone to fetch some venison sausage, fried tomatoes and mushrooms, the king looked up from his plate and fixed his eye on the high arched windows.

"What a glorious sky!" he enthused, staring up at the reddening dawn sky outside. His two sons grunted, shoveling forkfuls of fried egg and bacon into their mouths, and the king beamed a huge, satisfied smile. God's in his heaven, all's well with the world, he thought. Then he poured himself a brimming mug of coffee and inhaled the steam again, his nose almost touching the rim. He sipped his coffee with a nonchalant air, then put down the mug and began tearing into his breakfast with unrestrained pleasure. Already the bacon rashers the wench had brought had almost all gone, and he was just able to impale a few on his fork. Wielding the fork with gusto, he attacked the crunchy slices.

"Bring us more bacon!" he called out to the perspiring kitchen workers.

Guns, provisions and a pack of beagles packed in the Range Rover, Godfrey started the engine and they rumbled out of the palace courtyard. The brooding crenelated pile with lights still blazing fell back, and the dark road beckoned. It was the time of year when Godfrey felt glad to be alive, and although the Range Rover bounced painfully on the underrepaired pavement of Melloria City – about which Godfrey had nagged his advisers to no avail – within half an hour it hit a smooth highway and settled down to whisk them through the freshening dawn. Jammed in a corner beside the beagles, Catheter began to feel a sense of ease at last. He could almost dream that he was in another world, with a dark highway in front and flashing trees on either side.

He leaned toward Anton, stretched full length, his head resting on his backpack and his feet among the beagles.

"Wouldn't it be nice to just keep going, until we were out of this bloody country?"

Anton snickered. "Which of us is gonna kick dad out, you or me?"

"I heard that!" Godfrey growled from the front. "I want you boys to look at the map – there's a trail we're going to cross just past Crapula."

He reached over to the glove box and fished out the map, which he flipped into the tangle of princes and dogs.

It landed near Anton, and he groaned and opened it. Catheter switched on the overhead light.

"You should be watching for a dirt road on the left," Catheter said

"Shout when you reach it," Godfrey said, then immediately began to drowse. When they came to the dirt road he drove past, and by then Anton and Catheter were dozing. Only the beagles perked up, urgently wagging their tails and yapping as though tormented by horseflies, but nobody was listening.

"How much longer till we reach this blessed dirt road?" Godfrey asked, snapping fully awake.

"A few more k's I guess." Anton's voice was slow and slurred.

A brown rabbit darted across their path, eyes refracting the headlights, before disappearing in the darkness.

"See that?" Anton croaked.

Catheter nodded. That's done it, he thought. A rabbit crossing my path – seven years bad luck for sure. I'll probably never see Lucinda again.

Anton glanced down at the map.

"Oh, oh," I think we're gonna have to do a U-turn," he said, shame-faced.

After two hours on the road in the rattling Range Rover, the three hunters reached the dirt road and sped past the depressing shanties littering the East Mellorian Highway. They veered off the paved road and the four-wheel-drive engaged with Clarksonian efficiency. The vehicle sank and rose in the ruts and potholes and Godfrey, nursing the dregs of a brandy hangover, chuckled as the weathergirl's voice from the radio chirped optimistically about how pleasant the morning would be – just the weather for a brisk walk.

"Or for killing a brace of bucks!" Anton piped from the rear of the truck.

Godfrey turned off the radio. They had just passed a sign that said: ROYAL FOREST OF GORM, NO TRESPASSING. They swerved into a lumpy morass of tangled roots and mud. It felt like they were going over a long succession of speed bumps. Gobs of sticky mud slapped against the windshield and the long wipers had to be used. They pulled to a halt near a steep bank, and Anton and Catheter busied themselves leashing the six jostling beagles. Godfrey climbed out stiffly and let down the tailboard. The newly-freed beagles tumbled out, lunging toward the edge of the steep bank, and had to be yanked back from the brink by Catheter and Anton who scrambled out of the truck. Then Godfrey gave the order to advance, and the bundle of men and dogs slithered down the embankment and into the groves of birch and cedar that marked the beginning of the forest.

Once they had picked up the trail of the snaggle-tooth, Godfrey unclipped the leashes and let the dogs loose. The princes hurried after the baying hounds as they surged among clumps of tall trees, frothing and yelping, clawing at tree trunks and leaping in the air, their sides pumping and their breath coming in quick spurts.

"Oh, how nice to be taking the dogs for a walk!" Anton mocked in a puffed voice. Catheter dipped his head and strode on without comment, his silence dominating the trek.

They reached a stream that cut across their path, and the dogs joyously plunged their muzzles in the water, lapping and lifting their panting heads. Godfrey nodded to his sons and all three sat on tree stumps and rested. Shortly, Catheter stood up and went over to the stream, bending over the beagles, rubbing their ears and letting them lick his cheeks. From his pack, Anton opened a can of Mellorian _Bullet_ beer, drank deeply and gave a loud belch in Catheter's direction. Godfrey unshouldered his rifle and pushed cartridges into the clip, then he shoved the clip in and injected a cartridge into the chamber. Watching his sons haggle over who got to finish off the beer, he took three of his painkillers. The breathless run through the woods had brought on his stomach ache, so he swallowed the pills and washed them down with brandy from his hip flask.

Whistling at the dogs, Godfrey got up and set out along the trail, stepping through the stream. The dogs bolted ahead as if they knew the route well, and were soon frothing around a little clearing deep in the forest. A short while later the three hunters caught up with them and Godfrey whistled them to come to the edge of the clearing and remain still. He took each of them by the collar and snapped on their leashes. The next stage would require delicacy and precision. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he took out a small packet of salt which he emptied in the middle of the clearing. Then he took two of the dog leashes and crouched behind a bush. He pressed the two dogs behind him and motioned for Anton and Catheter to do likewise.

They all waited silently for many minutes until they heard a faint thrashing in the depths of the forest. A female snaggle-tooth, its speckled back glowing in the dappled light, ventured into the clearing. It lowered its head and began licking the salt. Godfrey flicked the safety off his rifle, took aim and was confronted with the big brown eyes of the animal, which looked up at the click from his rifle.

Damn, Godfrey thought, hate shooting them between the eyes. Still, mustn't back down now – have to set an example. Steadying his aim, he fired the trigger at the pair of soft eyes. Not waiting to see if he'd hit the doe, he snapped the leashes on his two beagles and let them surge out of his hands. When the last echo from the gun had faded, the doe could be heard bleating weakly as she tried to crawl toward the trees. The beagles were pawing her flanks, their jaws snapping around her wounded neck, and Godfrey got up and walked into the clearing. Calling the dogs away, he lifted his rifle and, with a quick hip shot, put the creature out of her misery.

The dogs surged forward again, and Anton and Catheter allowed their hounds to join in the melee. Godfrey barked at the dogs to keep back, then he gutted the antelope with his hunting knife and threw them the slops. By now, Catheter had reached the end of his endurance. He stood up, his face like chalk, stared at the freshly-killed carcass and the excited beagles feasting on its entrails and vomited a colorless fluid. Anton, looking only slightly less sick, emerged from his hiding-place and slumped against the trunk of a birch tree.

Twenty minutes later, the Range Rover was back on the road again. Bouncing beside the carcass of the antelope in the back of the truck, Catheter couldn't remember a time when he felt worse. Anton was uncharacteristically silent, rubbing one of the beagles, and Godfrey had turned the radio back on. Melloria's only official station (the king never played the pirate ones) was broadcasting a concert by _FreeksHoh_ , a Mellorian indie folk-rock band, and the announcer was gushing about the band's style of music in a way that made Godfrey groan. The band's lead singer Uno, known to his friends as Brian, had originated the band's style, which was known as _Brianism,_ a blend of minimal, fiddle-driven, rustic primitivism that drew its inspiration from the soulful, despairing, introspective melodies that underpin the bulk of Mellorian folksongs, describing life in the world's smallest absolute monarchy in a way both gut-wrenching and self-lacerating. Codswallop, was Godfrey's sour thought and he quickly switched the radio off.

By now, the three hunters were beginning to feel the effects of their copious consumption of breakfast coffee, plus the beer and brandy they had swilled. They were riding past a stretch of mountains scarred by the striations of desperate Mellorians seeking firewood, and Godfrey remembered there was a creek nearby.

"We're going to stop for a piss," he said, yanking the steering wheel to bring them level with a one-lane bridge over the creek.

They all got out and strode onto the bridge, but while peeing over the rail none of them noticed the rash of rickety wooden hovels perched on the bank of the creek. These decrepit dwellings, shored up with cement blocks to prevent them sliding into the water, were home to families of displaced refugees from the port of Shekels, which the Slobodians had seized, and who were regarded as pariahs by the local Mellorians, since they had renounced their nationality, under duress, for Slobodian citizenship.

People in ragged clothes gazed curiously from makeshift doors and plastic-sheeted windows and children peered through knotholes in the walls as three thin streams of royal urine splashed into the creek. The hunters had been trying to outdistance each other in a pissing contest, and the inhabitants of the hovels were glad none of them had enough peeing power to drench their dwellings. Eventually the three royals zipped up their pants and went away, leaving the shanty-dwellers to their back-breaking trade, the men sorting piles of junk into copper and steel scraps, the women sorting out rags and glass bottles.

Tumbledown shanties and drafty wooden shacks, some beginning to cave in, festered alongside the road back to the palace. A few of their occupants had tapped illegally into the electricity grid by slinging wires over the main line, others used makeshift lamps made from tins filled with kerosene, whose smoke filled the huts. It was easy for a child or a dog to knock these over, and fires sometimes started, spreading from hut to hut and burning everything hidden in the roofs for safe-keeping, including the welfare benefit books on which the inhabitants depended.

None of this caught the attention of Godfrey or Anton, although Catheter flicked uneasy glances out the window as they passed the rows of rickety dwellings. This royal indifference toward the king's poorest subjects was matched by the cabin dwellers themselves. Their meager store of loyalty to the king and his family dwindled daily as they struggled to scratch a living from their flimsy holdings. Families who were too poor to raise cattle, pigs or sheep, and who would have eaten the same animals' feed to keep themselves alive, kept goats and scrawny chickens and sustained themselves on millet seed and comforted themselves from small plots of the local marijuana, _Saints'_ _Breath_.

_Saints'_ _Breath_ , or _Saint_ , made their grim lives bearable, as did the visits of saints of a different sort. Men and women in the black uniforms, red ball caps and yellow boots of the Mellorian People's Revolutionary Party, popularly known as the People's Party, trudged from cabin to cabin dispensing cans of pickled cabbage and onion stew, powdered milk, baby food, condoms, sanitary napkins and rat poison. They also ran mobile provisions stores from the backs of trucks for those with a little money, breaking packs of cigarettes and selling cigs for a moon apiece, stale ones for free. They also sold aspirins, Tylenol tablets and other pharmaceutical supplies, as well as shotgun shells or cartridges for amounts that varied according to caliber. Paperback books with revolutionary or subversive contents were always given away free.

These benefactors from the People's Party were acting under the instructions of a Central Committee, whose Chair, Paul Slamil, had determined there would one day be a revolution that would sweep away the monarchy once and for all. He had taught political science at Shekels Community College before the Slobodian occupation, and had arrived in Melloria City in a refugee truck. He soon began organizing the party into an effective thorn in the flesh of the government and, although a price had been put on his head, he had survived arrest by moving from safe house to safe house, sleeping on floors and living on onion stew and cabbage soaked in vinegar, the food of the people. Since his leadership began, local party cells and action groups were steadily expanding the party's reach, influencing more and more people to join the party and educating them in the techniques of revolutionary politics and terrorist action. A rash of underground cells poured out propaganda from clandestine publishers and bloggers. The party produced a free newspaper that was scathing of the monarchy, without wallowing in the celebrity gossip of the _Bugle_.

Chapter 7

### The Queen Reminisces

One day before her son's wedding, Queen Letitia was sitting up in bed, her head propped up as usual on three pillows. She was rifling through a box of old greeting cards while steeling herself for a delayed visit to her mother, the dowager Queen Gloriana, who had fallen ill after eating a dodgy canapé at Princess Dawna's reception. The Old Queen, as she was affectionately known to the people, had been moved from the hospital to a nursing home which Letitia hated having to visit. It distressed her to see her mother hobbling about on her walking-frame or on Rupert's arm. Her young page had transformed himself into an apron-wearing care assistant to conform to health and safety regulations. He no longer wore the black and gold livery of a royal servant, but a blue cotton uniform and a pair of plastic crocs. I suppose gay men don't mind a change of costume, Letitia thought.

The odor of old age, urine and overcooked food in the home was something she didn't want to think about. She had always been sensitive to smells, particularly bad ones, and the reek of decay that she also smelled on her mother – in spite of perfumes and colognes – filled her with despair. The Old Queen's skin was now almost transparent and mottled with dark liver spots. Her eyes were thick with cataracts and sunken into folds of skin, her face was criss-crossed with broken veins and even her hair – once thick, dark and luxurious like Letitia's – had become scant and snowy white and revealed her scalp, dotted with more liver spots. Nevertheless, visiting her mother was a necessary burden.

Necessary burdens were becoming increasingly irritating to Letitia, particularly the burdens of monarchy. The novelty of opening a new hospital ward or shopping center had long worn off and she resented the crowds of people jostling her and shouting their inane cries of "Long Life!" – she wished they could have _her_ life. There seemed to be no end in sight to all the sacrifices she had to make. And now there was the upcoming marriage between Catheter, whom she knew had no desire to be king, and the unknown quantity of Her Supreme Scrumptiousness, whom she strongly suspected was going to be a bundle of trouble. So she now decided it was time to sift through a box of old cards she had collected for a wallow in cheap sentiment.

Most of the people who showered her with cards on her birthday assumed that roses were her favorite flower. Consequently red roses, yellow roses, and roses in every imaginable combination lay spread out on her quilt. She tolerated the pictures of kittens and winsome-looking puppies wreathed in roses, but drew the line at goats and chickens in idealized barnyards with roses in the foreground as being too Mellorian for her taste. As for Godfrey's latest card, showing a posse of beagles snapping at the heels of a doe garlanded with roses, she just had to laugh. He always included a hunting scene as part of his birthday greeting. She opened the card and perused the text. It contained some lines by Stanislaw Crust, the Mellorian national poet:

Life changes the maid to the suitor

And the prey to the hunter, my friend;

For we all drink deep drafts from life's pewter,

And we all drain our mugs in the end.

Near the bottom right corner, Godfrey had inscribed, in his loping but well-formed handwriting, the message: 'Chin up, old thing – fifty-seven and still going strong! Much love, Godders.'

Reading Godfrey's stilted sentiments made her mouth curl into a sad, wistful smile. He was clearly trying to console her, in his clumsy masculine way, about the transitory nature of life and the advancing of the years. She accepted his stiff sensitivity as the best he could manage, and laid the card aside.

She turned to a card illustrated with grapes and apples – and mercifully, not a rose in sight – from her aunt Flora in Croydon, England. The card reeked of spinsterhood, being lavender-scented and bearing the florid inscription: 'From Your Loving Aunt Flora to Her Darling Lettie.' Aunt Flora was her mother's youngest sister and barely ten years older than Letitia. So why the accusing "57" in golden numerals, like a can of Heinz beans, on the front of the card? She was convinced it was a sly dig at her accumulating age. Why were people so keen to remind her how old she was getting? Still, it was nice that one member of her family had sent her a birthday card, given that the rest of them regarded her mother and herself as hoity-toity toffs for marrying into minor European royalty.

This train of thought led her to reminisce the strange circumstances by which she had come to be Queen Letitia after being born and raised as Lettie Smiles in England. The fateful holiday on the Adriatic Coast after the windfall of the life insurance following her father's death. The afternoon's sunbathing with her mother on the beach that turned into a date with the handsome foreigner who said his name was Godfrey Prince! She had to laugh! It took a while for her to wrangle the truth out of him, that he was really Prince Godfrey, the Heir Apparent to the throne of Melloria, a country she had never even heard of. He was so stiff and aloof at first. Still, he did sweep her off her feet, and when his dad gave them the nod, that was it – boom, they were married! Her mother was all over him of course – she had to beat her off with a stick – and she even came to live with them in Melloria after the wedding! Her mother! She looked up at the antique ormolu clock above the fireplace and realized it was time to get ready for the dreaded visit. She let the card drop and rang for her maid.

Chapter 8

### Dawna's Awful Dilemma

On the night before her wedding, Princess Dawna stumbled about her bedchamber, bumping into a sideboard and shaking the Sevres vase filled with roses.

She was looking for somewhere to plug in her phone charger. Tori had sent lots of photos and she had barely had time to look at them when her phone died. Bummer! While it was charging, she decided to make another trip to the bathroom as her stomach was about to erupt. Just short of the bathroom door, she threw up. Embarrassment swept over her, the moment her stomach stopped heaving. She tottered over to the silken cord that hung beside the bed and pulled it. Now she would have to face the maid she'd summoned to clean up the mess. No, she couldn't! Pausing to take a swallow of Evian from the glass on the nightstand, she disappeared into the bathroom.

Sitting on the loo she could hear Sharon the maid knocking on the bedchamber door. "Come in," she groaned and sank her head almost to her knees as she thought of the poor woman having to wade through a room strewn with bridal paraphernalia to clean up a puddle of sticky vomit. She hadn't had time to clear away the hat-boxes and shoe-boxes that had spilled their contents and littered the bed with tissue. Elsewhere, intimate garments had been carelessly flung all over the place. Oh God, what a mess! A mess in more ways than one, she thought.

After the maid had left, Dawna emerged from the bathroom and picked up the charged phone. She made a space on the tissue-strewn bed and curled up with her beloved Android. Although she loved her iPod for convenience when listening to songs, somehow the iPhone just didn't cut it for her. All those apps were just too confusing! Clicking through dozens of pictures made her feel sleepy, however, and she lay the phone aside and closed her eyes. Now she was moving far away from her current woes and into the delicious land of dreams.

Just before she fell asleep, while she still had some control over the images that floated into her mind, she remembered an incident so far back in her life that it set off an incredible unrolling of memories. The incident was slight enough in itself, involving a drunken kiss at a garden party from the son of a grand duke. But it was enough to change her life forever. The drunk boy jammed his tongue into her mouth and ran his hands over her body, and his clumsy probing terrified her. The day after the party she began seriously raiding the pantry and the refrigerator. She had been told by a friend at school that being fat meant boys wouldn't grope you. She would wait until the servants were asleep and creep into the kitchen at Porcellan Palace, her home in Bulimia. She would make a peanut butter sandwich, tuck it under her nightdress and go into the bathroom to eat it. Her mother, Queen Ada, had been a binger and purger in her younger days, which was why she appeared slim and highly-strung, so Dawna didn't feel entirely alone in her craving.

At first her father, King Hector, would indulge her. "Oh, let her have another potato," he'd say to her mother. "She's a growing girl." Her mother's voice would become tense. "If she has a potato, she shouldn't have dessert." "She should have both," her father would say, and he'd reach over and touch her cheek or hand or arm.

As Bulimia was a normal monarchy, not a weird one like Melloria, she wasn't home tutored after kindergarten but sent to boarding school and made a few friends. She was glad to get away from the palace – her mother had given birth to another girl, whom they named Hernia, because she had been a pain from the start. At night sometimes she and her two besties, Natalie and Anastasia, would sneak downstairs to watch old movies on the common-room telly. She was fascinated by Monroe and other screen goddesses, but didn't want to be voluptuous – she wanted to be like her friends, who drank smoothies and were all bones and tight skin. She ate lean meat and salads with the other girls, then went to the kitchen at night and built huge strange sandwiches of cold bacon, bananas, peanut butter and cheese.

One of her friends, Natalie, was thin, gangling and flat-chested, yet was attractive enough to boys for them to give her a second glance. The other, Anastasia, was thin and intense, a heavy smoker with a brittle laugh. She was also very intelligent, and her shyness with boys was due to her knowing she made them uncomfortable. Because she was smarter than they were, she couldn't understand the levels they lived on.

Natalie and Anastasia told their friends that Dawna never ate. When it was lunchtime, they watched her refuse the potatoes, ravioli and fried fish their Catholic school served up. Sometimes she only ate a salad. No one observed her making sandwiches and taking them to her dorm after classes. No one saw the store of Milky Ways, Butterfingers, Almond Joys and Hersheys Kisses far back on the shelf of her tiny closet, behind the jumble of musty clothes. She didn't think of herself as a hypocrite in those days – she believed she was truly dieting. She just forgot about the candy she stashed away. During puberty she thought about candy with heavy lust. Thoughts about sex took second place.

One night walking home from a movie, Anastasia told her she was lucky she didn't smoke, adding: "It's incredible what I go through to hide ciggies from the nuns!" Little did she know the yearning I had to be in bed in the dorm, Dawna thought, enjoying the sensuous pleasure of eating chocolate in the dark. I didn't need to smoke, I certainly didn't need to have sex – I already had my vice!

She was really drifting now, right on the edge of sleep, but her schoolgirl memories led inevitably to thoughts of uni. She had gone to a girls' college at Oxford to read history, where the other girls were mostly from wealthy families and wore charity shop clothes, work shirts and even overalls to shake off the memory of school uniforms. To keep in with them, Dawna dressed in grunge, but from Harrods not Oxfam. In the refectory she ate the way she had at boarding school, not to maintain her deception or even to lose weight but because it had become a habit. She signed up for sports during Fresher Week, but later regretted it when in the locker room or out on the volleyball or badminton courts with the other girls. She saw how awful her body looked and began secretly gorging herself on candy bars.

I like my body in parts, she thought, if not in whole. I like my blue eyes that are like mum's. They're not shallow eyes. I like my lips and chin, they're okay, and the soft skin of my face, although my nose is probably too long. I like my hair – I like washing it and drying it, then laying naked on the bed, smelling of shampoo and feeling my hair all soft round my shoulders and neck.

Thinking of uni, college, made her remember Tori, because that was where they first met. Tori was thin, short-haired and wore thick glasses. She basically didn't give a fuck, although at night she would sometimes cry in Dawna's room in the hall of residence. She didn't know why she was crying, she said she was unhappy, but she couldn't say why. Dawna confessed she was unhappy too, and when she moved out of halls and into her first flat, Tori moved in with her. One night, Tori talked for hours, sadly and bitterly, about her parents and how they had fought with each other before their divorce. When she finished she hugged Dawna and they went to their beds. Then in the dark Tori spoke across the room:"Dawna, I just wanted to tell you: One night last week I woke up and smelled chocolate. You were eating chocolate in bed. I wish you'd eat it in front of me, Dawna, whenever you feel like it."

She remembered the shame that burned her cheeks, but she couldn't think of anything to say. She thought of pretending to be asleep, but realized that if Tori thought she was asleep, she'd tell her again another time. So she spoke up to get it over with.

"Okay," she said. "And if you want any choccy yourself, take as much as you like – it's in the top drawer of my dresser."

It was a pivotal moment and for the next two years they shared apartments and exchanged emails during the summer vacs. Tori didn't like staying with either of her parents, who hated each other and forced her to take sides, and Dawna found the dreary round of court life unbearable. She dreaded palace functions, where she was presented to aristocrats and foreign dignitaries as the eligible Princess of Bulimia. In their first moments of meeting, their eyes told her she was someone they were obliged to respect, but after the initial pleasantries their eyes would dismiss her. She didn't really count until she had married a future king. Then there was her pain of a younger sister! Hernia had become the complete teenage rebel and was prone to show up at balls wearing a bra and miniskirt made from torn leopard skin and a diamond nosepin. She missed her friend terribly and longed to be back in the apartment with her. She even invited her to Bulimia, but somehow Tori never made it to her homeland until after she graduated.

Each fall they greeted each other with embraces, laughter and tears, and treated each other to a gourmet meal with wine. Dawna was saddened, however, as graduation drew near, that they might never see each other again. Her existence was so divided, and the division would grow even sharper once she had married. The world she had been born into had nothing in common with their friendship and the intimate nights they shared. She knew it was unrealistic to imagine she could find a place for Tori at court. She couldn't really ask her to be her Lady in Waiting!

In the Easter hols before they took their finals, Tori fell in love. She emailed Dawna about him, but didn't go into detail, and this hurt her more than if Tori had expressed the joy her words tried to conceal. They spent their final summer in the apartment they shared. Tori still valued Dawna's sympathetic ear at night when discussing the hatred between her parents and her own bouts of misery, but she now spent her weekends at Cambridge where her boyfriend was majoring in music. He played viola in a string quartet. During the week she often spoke hesitantly of sex – she wasn't sure if she liked it, though Michael obviously did. Dawna began to wonder if Tori was being truly honest, however, or whether she was keeping back those delights that she, as a virgin princess, would have to wait to discover.

One Saturday night when Tori had just returned from Cambridge and was unpacking her weekend bag, she looked at Dawna and said: "I was thinking about you, coming home tonight." Looking at her concerned face, Dawna prepared herself for possible humiliation. "I was thinking about when we graduate. What you're going to do and the life you'll lead. I want you to be loved the way I am." She paused awkwardly, then: "Dawna, if I help you, really help you, will you - ?"

"What?" Dawna asked, apprehensive.

"– see a therapist about your eating disorder?"

She shuddered when she recalled that moment, when Tori's words hit her like a bullet. She said nothing, went straight to bed and, the next day being Sunday, went to a buffet restaurant serving brunch and ate everything she could, openly and shamelessly. She piled food onto her plate and went back again and again to the buffet counter. She felt there was a meaning to this, but it lay beyond her grasp. When she had eaten so much she was nauseous, she went to the bathroom and threw up.

That night in the apartment as Tori lay sleeping, she ate all her candy bars then went to the kitchen and emptied the fridge. She brought it all up in the bathroom, making enough racket, she thought, to wake up the street. The next morning Tori walked out on her, telling her she was a lost cause, and she breakfasted alone on one scrambled egg on toast and a cup of black coffee. She burned the toast dark to reduce the calories, and from then on her breakfasts were the same. For lunch she ate broiled tofu with bok choi and soy sauce, and for supper a pineapple smoothie. She became weak with hunger in the evening and nervous and tense all day.

She made the rigid diet her ritual for the next few days, alternating fish and chicken breast with tofu. It made her incredibly irritable. She had never before been so afflicted with bad temper, and she looked on it now as a demon which, along with her bingeing and purging, had taken possession of her soul.

During an early evening walk in a little park near her apartment, she met Tori. They stood on a wooden footbridge looking down at a dark reedy pond. Tori talked sadly of nighttime and how darkness made her more aware of herself. She wondered at night why she was at college, why she bothered to study, why she was alive. She'd been staying with her boyfriend in Cambridge, but they had now broken up and she was homeless. She kept talking and looking like she was about to cry. Suddenly Dawna found herself saying: "I'm sick of being a princess. I wish I could live a normal life like other people. I never want to go back to court again – I hate it!"

Tori just listened without saying anything, and Dawna realized the pain and suffering in Tori's face was strangely soothing. Then she felt ashamed. Before she could apologize, Tori turned to her and said gently: "I know, it must be awfully hard."

They went back to the apartment and made a pact. Tori would move back in and Dawna would let her do all the shopping. That way she would not be tempted to either binge or starve herself. Tori appeased her guilt by telling her she knew how hard it must be to go into a supermarket when you were a princess. This made her smile – actually it wasn't hard at all, the hard thing was living in a palace! She remembered that summer as being golden – she began attending healing sessions with a practitioner of Chinese herbal medicine and took a weekly Tai Chi class. She and Tori both gravitated toward Eastern mysticism, and bought singing bowls and Tibetan incense for the apartment.

She graduated with an upper second, good enough to appease her parents, and returned to Bulimia. Flying back over the Alps, she was reasonably pleased with herself and anticipated a warm enough welcome from her family – even Hernia now knew she wasn't the complete airhead she had suspected! But she also realized she would have to keep her eating rituals a close secret, especially from her mother who had an uncanny knack of being able to flush out the truth from her. The Eastern meditation she had dabbled in had certainly helped to calm her mind, as did the Enya and Clannad songs she played over and over. She resolved she would eat sparingly in public and voraciously in private – if she had to. With a brusque shake of her head, she refused the bag of pretzels offered by the stewardess. From now on, this is how her life would be.

She had been right about her family's reaction. Her mother had marveled at her slenderness – a rival to her own – and her father laughed and hugged her, saying "But there's so little of you to love!" He told her she was beautiful and his eyes bathed her with affection. She felt herself squirm, however, fearing that this affection was about to go into overdrive. Her horrid sister brought her down to earth, saying that uni degrees were crap and that she was still a blond skank. But when the euphoria of the welcome party had worn off, she was glad to rush off to her room and fling herself on the bed. She wished she'd been able to stay in England or some other country and try to make a career in fashion modeling – something several of her friends had hinted she might be good at.

In the ensuing weeks she had several bad moments when she thought bitterly of the struggle she had to endure to keep her weight down, of the nights of trying to sleep when her stomach growled like an angry bear. She had to deal with an irritability that would take command of her at any moment, and she knew her friendship with Tori was ending. Tori had promised she would attend Dawna's wedding – and even be her maid of honor if required – which she gladly agreed to. Tori had even showed up in Angina, Bulimia's capital, and she had feted her friend at court for a couple of weeks. But all that was winding down. Tori moved on to another country, and shortly afterward Prince Catheter of Melloria, their neighbor, was received at court. He had flown in ostensibly for a weekend of talks and duck shooting with King Hector, but at the gala ball held in his honor he danced with her and it was made clear their courtship had begun. He was the first man to kiss her, other than her father, since the grand duke's son mauled her when she was sixteen, and she was not impressed. She felt no feeling of affection for Catheter but was prepared to do her duty. She was twenty-three and her parents had impressed on her the need to fulfill her role in life by marrying the heir to the Mellorian throne. She was even prepared to sacrifice her virginity, which, she now realized, she was going to miss after it was gone.

But that's for tomorrow, she thought as she finally entered sleep. Oh God, it's only a few hours away...

Chapter 9

### The Unlucky Lovers

On the morning of his wedding, Prince Catheter woke up ravenously hungry. He was eager to feast himself on...something. He imagined the warm coffeeshop smell of croissants and muffins among the musky odors of the bed sheets. Snuggling beside him, Lucinda awoke to hear his whispered fantasy of coffee and pastries, to which he now added spoonfuls of guava jelly. "Some yoghurt would be nice," he murmured, then he turned abruptly to face her.

"Why don't we buzz over to Mania for an anonymous breakfast at some peasant café?" he said.

She pulled her freckly face into a look of perplexed delight.

"You're amazing," she said. "How can you be so sure we won't be recognized?"

"Mania's too remote for the paparazzi – especially at this time of day. If we leave now we'll be able to eat and go before the civilized world wakes up."

Lucinda chuckled and wrapped herself around him, prompting his penis to twitch. She loved that they were in a private place – her apartment – and could be as unrestrained and passionate as they pleased. In public, where they pretended not to be lovers, she was forced to keep her excitement in check. Here she was free to let it rip.

Catheter was feeling about the same, although his libido was tempered by the thought of his imminent wedding. He felt his penis go slack.

"Fuck! It's wedding day," he murmured.

"Let's make love them," she said in a rough whisper, "while we still have the chance."

He nodded, eager to be brought back to pleasure, and rolled on top of her – hardening again – and toggled his way into her. He began pumping – her gasps urging him on – and soon found himself working up a head of steam. He didn't want to come inside her, however, although he knew she was on the pill, so when he reached the point of no return, he yanked himself out and pasted the middle of her stomach.

"Are you trying to protect me?" she said.

"No, I'm trying to protect us both. If I knocked you up, we'd never be allowed to marry. In Melloria, a future king may only marry a virgin."

"Strange laws we Mellorians have," she said. "In other countries, if a man makes a woman pregnant he has to marry her!"

He squirmed in embarrassed silence, feeling he'd just reached another moral impasse, thanks to Mellorian law. His hard-on disappeared.

Lucinda was not completely satisfied so she attempted to rehorn him and, by maneuvering her hips, bring him back inside her. However, for him the moment had passed, and he reached across her to pull out a tissue from the box to wipe away the goop. He felt he could not embark on another fuck, even though she was obviously still horny and continued to coax him in. This made him laugh and he pinned her hips down so she couldn't move them. She fought to release his grasp, alternately laughing and groaning.

"Please, I order you to enter me!" she said.

"Jawohl!" he replied hoarsely and tried to crank up his lust. By giving it all he had he managed it somehow, and gave her the orgasm she wanted.

She looked at him and wondered at his stamina. His breathing was now ragged and it was clear he was pooped, while she was finding some ultimate place where pleasure was the only emotion. The faint noise in the apartment, the dark shuttered bedroom, the bed, even his face above hers, swam into oblivion. She wanted sweet exhilaration to stay with her forever.

He suddenly found some energy. "Come on, get your clothes on – I'm hungry!" he gasped.

The light was already seeping in between the shutters as she stumbled about the room, looking for her clothes. Then, while she dressed, Catheter put on the bushy black beard and steel-rimmed glasses with bottle lenses he wore to avoid recognition. Lucinda immediately tore them off him, laughing uncontrollably.

"You don't need to look like a Russian spy, you stupid fuck! You said we wouldn't be recognized!" she shrieked. Catheter smiled sheepishly. "No, you're right. Let's just go," he said.

They crept out of the sleeping building and into Catheter's Jaguar. Soon they were slipping through the shabby viscera of East City, heading out to one of the remotest places in Melloria. Their goal was a tiny village whose largest building was the church of Our Lady of Mania, perched high on a cliff overlooking the roaring River Lupus, a place where miracles were rumored to occur.

I need some miracles right now, Lucinda thought, leaning on Catheter's shoulder. Number one – let this bloody wedding be called off!

The potholed road they were on was completely empty, save for the occasional donkey cart. It was too early for motorized transport in the part of Melloria they were heading for. They raced to the top of a hill where the road petered out. Catheter stopped the engine and looked at Lucinda imploringly.

"I know you think I look like a dork, but _please_ let me put on some bloody disguise before we get there! I don't want some sneaky peasant with money on his mind blabbing to the press that I've been out here with my... sweetheart. Worse – taking pictures!"

Lucinda softened. "Go on, then, put on your Groucho beard and glasses. I don't care!"

Catheter couldn't remember Groucho ever having a full beard, but he didn't care either. He reached into the glove compartment and put on his second-best disguise.

The car was parked on the edge of an enormous ridge that overlooked the churning Lupus. To reach the church of Our Lady of Mania and the tiny village beyond, they would have to make their way slowly down the side of the gorge, cross the river using rocks at its narrowest point and climb the other side of the gorge. Never did a couple make so much effort in search of a quiet breakfast. That they did so, using the sagebrush for handholds, was a tribute to their tenacity. Feeling lightheaded from the fragrance, they practically danced down the slope, laughing and listening to wild bees buzzing over the roar of the river.

A half-hour later they emerged from a jungle of fig and honeysuckle trees just below the church. It appeared on its craggy outcrop like some Tibetan lamasery. Huge boulders loomed over it. They stopped and looked down at the gorge they had just crossed, thick and bushy like the pubes of a hairy giant, and continued past the church to the village. Catheter's earlier dream of croissants and guava jelly vanished at the sight of the lumpy hovels, among which lurked a traditional Mellorian eatery.

When they sat to order they decided to both go for the Breakfast Special, which turned out to be eggs mellorian with dark brown cabbage in plum and goat meat sauce.

"Yummy!" Lucinda exclaimed, after the waitress had brought the steaming bowls and she slurped her first spoonful of the vermilion sauce. "Gosh, Melloria must be the wildest place on earth – it's completely uncivilized."

"Typical Mellorian slop," was Catheter's comment after his first mouthful. He looked around the village square desolately as he chewed for dear life. "Look, the local zombies are out already!"

From the far side of the square and kicking up dust as they shuffled along, four raggedly-dressed men with straggly beards and matted hair were making their way directly toward them. They reminded Lucinda of pigeons in the park converging on people with food.

"I wonder if they really are zombies," she giggled.

"No, just poor bastards out of their faces on _Saint_ ," Catheter grumbled. "I doubt if any of them has had a wash in years."

"What if one of them is a Wise One?" Lucinda persisted. She had been thinking again about miracles she wanted to have, and her second one would be for Catheter to increase her allowance.

Catheter gave a short cynical laugh. "Only one way to find out," he said and fished out his wallet from his chinos.

As the first of the ragged men approached their table, the couple could see that his gaze was fixed glassily on a spot directly in front of his face. Yet he shuffled with unerring precision. Catheter laid the wallet on the table beside his bowl and took off one of his shoes. Carefully, he laid the loafer on the dusty ground half a meter in front of their table. As the man drew near it, without looking down he silently sidestepped the shoe, shuffled two paces and stopped beside Catheter's chair. The man stank of stale sweat but not of _Saint_.

"Good morning, sir," he said in a deep, resonant voice that belied his scruffy appearance. "Is there anything I can do to help you today?"

"Ha, ha, you've got me!" Catheter exclaimed. "You certainly know your way round a shoe!"

Catheter and Lucinda were at a loss to know what to say next. They knew that about one in every hundred _Saint_ stoner was actually a Wise One, and that these sages didn't smoke weed and lived in Sufiesque seclusion in a network of caves that wound deep inside the rocky escarpment below the church of Our Lady of Mania, but beyond that they knew very little about them.

Lucinda was suddenly inspired to blurt out what was uppermost on her mind.

"I've been praying for miracles!" she said, then added: "Would it do any good to go to the church of Our Lady?"

"Would it do any good to kiss the Infant of Prague?" the man said rhetorically. "Only if you believe in Our Lady."

"What if you're not a believer," Catheter inquired. "Where can you go then?"

"For miracles?" the man said. "Only other place to go is to the Magic Mountains."

At this both breakfasters laughed. The man had done well avoiding the shoe, but perhaps he was only a lucky stoner after all, even though he didn't have the smell on him.

"The Magic Mountains of Melloria, you mean?" Catheter decided to tease the fellow.

Yes, of course. Do you know about them, sir?"

"Of course I do, every bastard in Melloria knows about the Magic Mountains!" Catheter was becoming exasperated. "The thing is – where the hell are they?"

"In the fourth dimension," the man replied.

"And where's that?" Lucinda asked.

"Just next to this one," the man said softly. "But you have to keep very quiet to find the way in."

"Okay, we'll all keep very quiet now," Catheter said. He had decided the man was a wackadoo after all. "Here, take this and be gone." He pulled a hundred-moon bill from the wallet and dropped it in front of the man.

The man's face contorted in something like a smile. "Thank you, sir. Thank you, miss. I wish you a very good day!" he said and scooped up the bill. He waved it at the three other zombies and they converged toward him.

"Yeah, whatever," Catheter replied, and they watched the men shuffle away. "Well, what do you think of that?" Catheter added.

"Oh, I believe, I believe!" Lucinda gushed. "After all, why not? I mean, there's so much we don't know about."

Catheter scratched his beard. "Well, there's one thing I know about – I'm gonna be fucking married today. Bastard!"

Lucinda touched his arm and waited till the waitress, bearing a steaming pot of acorn coffee, had gone.

"Poopsy darling, don't get upset. I know, it's going to be difficult – "

"Difficult? It's going to be fucking impossible! I feel like a rat in a trap – I'll probably go insane."

Lucinda blinked in surprise at his vehemence. "Poopsy, you won't do any such thing! You're a Gorm, you're strong. You'll see this thing through."

He pounced on each word. "Strong... see it through... Yes, if I don't kill myself first!"

His thick bottle glasses misted and his eyes filled with tears. She felt wracked, looking at his pain, the anguish and rage flooding out. His eyes spilled over.

"Don't," she said bleakly. "Stay alive for my sake."

She gestured toward the now-deserted village square. "One day we'll escape this awful place and live somewhere far away – in peace and happiness."

He turned away and momentarily took off his glasses to wipe his eyes. "Okay, enough about me! Let's finish our slop and get back to Hellhole Palace."

While Lucinda silently chomped on a few more mouthfuls of egg and sauce and sipped her coffee, Catheter grimaced, and not just because of the chunks of tough goat meat he was chewing. Before the stupid churl had interrupted them, Catheter had been enjoying a mild intoxication. The sight of Lucinda's face in the morning sunlight, the sound of her laughing voice, the scent of her perfumed body had beguiled him into a state of sheer bliss, and now he felt like a man just hours away from the guillotine.

"Poopsy darling, I've got something I have to ask you," Lucinda said in the awkward silence Catheter had created. "Is there any chance you can increase my allowance?"

The silence just got awkwarder. Catheter gulped down his chewed meat and pondered a new problem. Whenever Lucinda mentioned money, a stuffy flintiness he had inherited from his father seized his mind. While he was willing to freely give her his seed, his essence, his manhood – the giving of money was something else entirely. He wanted to say No bluntly, but realized in the present circumstances bluntness would not be appropriate. In his mind he began to elaborate a suitable excuse.

"Well, Lollipop," he said slowly, "I really can't right now. You see, after I'm married the personal allowance I get from the Mellorian treasury will actually go down – it's because of something called joint spousal retainer, and it's written into Mellorian law – "

"Oh God, Poopsy, I'm so broke!" Lucinda suddenly cried. "Everything's always going up – food, clothes...And my landlord keeps hassling me to pay more rent! The other day he trapped me on the stairs, he just went on and on, said he might have to evict me – and he was staring at my boobs all the time he spoke!"

His face went into a variety of spasms, and she put her hand up to his face, fearful lest the spasms dislodge his beard. "Don't worry, Poopsy, I'll manage," she said gamely. "Now is obviously not the right time to – "

"I'll think about it, okay?" He suddenly felt a surge of anger at the way the world was pressing down on him. He looked blazingly at her, and she visibly wilted. Now he felt like a shit.

The serving wench approached with more coffee, poured it liberally into their cups and sat down on an empty chair close to Catheter. It was a local custom in this part of the country that she engage them in some conversation, and the two breakfasters squirmed in awkward acquiescence.

She began with a complaint. "All the young men these days spend their time sitting in cafes, smoking _Saint_ and discussing how to live without working! Thank God the government is cutting the welfare at last or nobody would work! When the Slobodians finally come – "

Lucinda silenced her with a hand placed firmly on her arm. "I think we'll have the check now, please!"

The two soon-to-be-estranged lovers left the village by a different route where the landscape was less romantic – birch trees, wooden shacks, goats and chickens, mounds of manure and roaming packs of dogs. Old ladies stood by the roadside with bunches of wild lupins in their hands, begging rather than selling, their faces filled with forlorn hope.

The passed some corrugated-iron shacks perched on a hillside and Catheter turned off onto a dirt road. The endless birch trees whizzed by, then they came to a steep grassy bank where Catheter stopped the car. He took Lucinda's hand and they climbed until their legs ached. At the top of the bank, the slope on the other side dropped down to a marshy plain, beyond which gleamed the Sea of Slobodia, a twinkling line of water far in the distance. This was actually a lake which had been named after the country that now possessed this strip of coast. The marshy plain belonged to Slobodia by right of conquest, as did the barely-visible township that lay on the lake.

"Isn't that Shekels over there?" she said.

"I hate Shekels!" he replied.

She was taken aback. She knew that his parents had their summer palace there – before the Slobodian invasion – and that it had been their favorite resort. She tried to imagine what it had been about the marina, the plaza, beachfront casino and tacky giftshops that had so endeared the place to them.

"Isn't that where your family went every summer?" she asked tentatively.

"Yes, worst luck. The Slobodians are welcome to it!"

She stood closer to him, stroking his arm. The sun was rising higher and a breeze had whipped up. She felt they probably wouldn't meet again for a long time. She acknowledged that he was under great pressure to make the marriage work and produce a future heir, and she felt bad about asking him for more money. She resolved to find another way to solve her financial difficulty. Most of all, she wanted him to know she would always support him.

"It's all right, Poopsy," she said. "We'll find a way out of this."

"He grunted and shifted his feet.

"Won't you give me one last cuddle to keep me going till we meet again?"

His response was sudden and, despite the vehemence of his passion, unexpected.

"I want to fuck you!" he said. "Right here, right now."

They stood for a moment looking at each other, and she slipped off her shirt. She began to unbutton her bra. This time, though, her lust was forced and mingled with misgivings. She stopped, with her bra half unfastened. She couldn't do it, it wasn't right – it seemed more like adultery, now they were so close to his wedding. She dropped her arms.

He stepped close to her, his pants around his ankles. "What is it?" he whispered.

She put her hands up to his face, careful to avoid touching his flimsy beard.

"I can't."

He touched her arm. "Lollipop."

"Poopsy darling, it's going to be very difficult once you – perhaps we should start... restraining ourselves."

He looked crestfallen and pulled his pants up.

She now felt terrible. It was like refusing a dying man his last wish. "Look, darling, I – " she started to say.

He turned away and zipped up his pants. "Excuse me, I need to make sure I'm decent, before I go back." His voice was choked.

They stumbled back down the slope to the car, hand in hand. Catheter slammed the driver's door and they drove back in silence. As they neared the city they glimpsed the distant turrets and battlements of Calliper Palace. At the sight of them Catheter tore off his beard and glasses and cursed.

Chapter 10

### The Wedding

Midway through the ceremony of her son's wedding, Queen Letitia yawned. While others were watching the cathedral doors for the bride's triumphal entry, she found herself gazing at the forest of gigantic stone pillars hung with faded banners that rose above the stone-flagged nave. Her mind, no longer anxious or indignant, took on the dull ache of boredom. Her nostrils twitched – the sour, musty air was infused with clouds of incense swung in her face by an energetic altar boy – and she had to pinch her nose to avoid embarrassing herself by sneezing. The billows from the boy's censor increased as he made another pass alongside her and the build-up to the sneeze became almost unbearable. Her face reddened and trembled as she pinched her nose ever more tightly and held herself rigid. She didn't feel bad about yawning, but a sneeze would never do.

To distract herself, she listened to the thin, reedy voice of Thomas Lesot, the Archbishop of Melloria, intoning the opening prayers of the wedding service in preparation for the arrival of Her Blessed Loveliness. The archbishop was a roundish balding man who stood in front of the high altar in his white and gold surplice and his voice fluttered about the nave as he led the chants that the other priests were obliged to follow. His dirgelike drone, periodically joined by the muffled response, echoed like the sound of some strange Amazonian monkey-cries in the rainforest.

This auditory resemblance so tickled the queen that she began to imagine that the intricate tracery of carved stone on the pillars and windows were vines, ferns and mosses and that the pillars themselves were giant trees. This image reminded her of her walled-in garden at the palace, her favorite outdoor spot. She mentally basked in its rose bushes, now in bloom, and the rockery, sundials, small fountain and fishpond. Among its trellises and arbors she found a comfort and joy that she rarely found between waking up and bedtime.

She had planned to install miniature grottos that would be lit at night, so that her flowerbeds would twinkle and she could gaze at them through the windows of her bedchamber before retiring. When it was moonlit, the mystery of the silver light glimmering on the fountain and reflected in the fishpond would be practically magical. She believed that by positioning halogen lights in the new grottos, the spectacle would become extraordinary. Never mind Queen Ada and her grottos, rock pools and classical sculptures in the Porcellan gardens. Soon she too would have something to boast about.

These pleasant thoughts kept her occupied until the sound of herald trumpets from the entrance brought everyone back to the moment. Princess Dawna, on the arm of her father, King Hector, was sweeping up the aisle toward her jittery bridegroom, and everyone rose to greet her. Sitting next to his wife, King Godfrey gave her a sidelong glance. He had been enjoying a reverie of his own while waiting for the bride's arrival. He had been remembering when, as a young prince and officer cadet. his father, King Egbert, had sent him and some other young Mellorian officers to Italy for some godforsaken reason – certainly not to learn how to fight – and he had been on furlough, strolling along a beach and ogling the young female sunbathers. A young English girl caught his eye and he found a reason to talk to her by picking up a seashell and asking her, in broken English, what she thought it might be. Her name was Lettie and she was on holiday with her mother, Glo, who had been recently widowed.

Godfrey saw in Lettie a girl who looked lovely, young and self-confident – all qualities he was looking for in a wife. Her quiet sense of dignity disconcerted and charmed him, and when he ran out of things to say about the shell his next line was: "Let's go for a stroll on the beach so I can see if your swimsuit matches the sand or the sea." Her response was to giggle and stammer: "Let me find my sandals." He smiled at the recollection. They had taken their stroll and later began dating. After months of communicating by letter and long-distance phone, he finally – with his father's permission – asked her to marry him. And now their older son was about to marry. Continuing to gaze at his wife, who was watching the bridal procession, he realized he still found her attractive. True, the intervening years had taken their toll: the fine geometry of her face was sagging and her eyes had lost the piercing blue urgency they had when he first met her thirty-nine years before. Her hair, though mostly gray under its auburn sheen, was still springy and lustrous, and he noticed that her back still descended in a pleasing arch to the delightful hillocks of her rump. This feature had especially aroused him as a young man and he thought of her then, stretched out on her beach towel, with her pert breasts, smooth legs and delicious buttocks. He now felt thoroughly aroused, even as he sat witnessing this sacred ceremony, and only by planting his hymn book in his lap was he able to conceal the erection stretching the folds of his dress pants.

He speculated whether his wife would concede him his marital rights after the reception was over, and mentally phrased a request to be allowed to discharge his conjugal duties. He knew she was still interested in sex, palace gossip emanating from the Ladies of the Queen's Bedchamber told him as much, it was his own staying power that was the problem. He remembered the last time they had done it, on the occasion of their wedding anniversary after they'd stayed up late watching _9 ½ Weeks_. "Sorry," he said afterwards, breathing hard and rolling away from her. "I'm short-winded tonight."

"Don't worry," she said to console him. "I'm not about to place a personal ad for a prince charming."

They both laughed and he smiled at the thought. I wonder if I'll get lucky tonight," he thought. Then a twinge of pain in his lower abdomen brought him back to earth. The twinge became a sharp pang that made him forget his erection and shift in his seat uncomfortably. Silently cursing, he reached into an inside pocket of his tunic for his painkillers and zinc tablets. He swallowed them and endured the remainder of the service stoically, his mind wandering to erotic fantasies about his daughter-in-law as the ceremony wore on.

If Letitia had known what was going through Godfrey's mind during their son's solemn nuptials, she would have given him a sharp kick. Her own mental wanderings ranged from thoughts of her garden to dwelling on how strangely Agatha Armstrong-Pitt had acted recently, wearing increasingly garish clothing and dashing about the bedchamber in the morning with a clatter and fuss that gave her a headache, to the layout of the banquet at the reception. She had planned on a formal champagne and foie-gras lunch, with traditional Mellorian roast duck with brown cabbage, cheese-and-potato dumplings, edible toadstools, poached salt venison with onion broth, as well as oysters and caviar. Her Delicate Stomachness had scotched the idea of the trad feast (with her mother's connivance) and insisted on Chinese fare, in accordance with her I Ching divinations and Feng Shui consultations, and she feared they would all be slurping noodles and won tons and chewing bok choi, with not a crumb of wedding cake in sight. In the event, reason and the influence of Dawna's father had prevailed. In spite of his airy-fairy ways, Hector was a trencherman and the wedding feast would be a mixture of traditional Mellorian and Bulimian delicacies.

The reception for the newly-wed prince and princess was held under cut glass chandeliers and huge oils in the banqueting hall of Calliper Palace. Everyone ate fruit cake and trifle at the end of the banquet, and some of the guests even braved the Mellorian national pudding, cacah, which tasted like damp pumpernickel soaked in sugared vinegar. The only hitch, as far as Letitia was concerned, was the humiliation she suffered during the Presentation when she was shunted aside as a mass of people swarmed to congratulate the princess. Her deliberate silence completely failed as a retaliation. Dawna was too busy talking to a gaggle of fashion designers to even notice. The gala ball that followed was hardly any better. Letitia and Godfrey felt passé as they joined the twirling pairs of dancers on the ballroom floor. Everyone's eyes were on the prince and princess, the latter almost impossibly glamorous from her startling blue eyes to her gold lame heels.

This whole extravaganza of banquets and balls is outrageous, Letitia thought bitterly. The socialists are right; they ought to be abolished.

The final act in the wedding drama took place in the bridal suite. Catheter contemplated it as he stood at the sink of his bathroom and gargled his hydrogen peroxide. Then he rinsed his mouth with warm water and grimaced at his mirror image.

"Well, here it comes," he said to the haggard thirty-seven-year-old face, its lips speckled with toothpaste. "The first night of the rest of my life."

From the adjacent bedchamber, the tinkling of Balinese space-clearing bells and Tibetan gongs mingled with the swirls of sandalwood incense that so niggled his senses. He knew his bride of a few hours was in there, flitting around raising the _chi_ , and it depressed him. He wished he had had the guts to stand up to his parents when the subject of a royal alliance was first raised. He also wondered how Lucinda would be spending the evening. He imagined her sitting disconsolately at her dressing-table combing her hair. In his mind he glided to her and scooped her up in his arms. He would carry her outside where the palamino and the splotchy gray mare were saddled and waiting.

At that point in his fantasy he realized the futility of going any further in their imagined flight and, dropping his paramour in mid-scoop, he turned and plodded into the bedchamber. What followed was a barely endurable horror in which he seemed to plunge into a maelstrom of lusting agony, where the only redemption was his body's anticipation of an ejaculation. After some tentative sparring beneath the sheets, the two bodies in the bed writhed in sweaty abandon while piercing screams rent the night. He emerged from the ordeal to find his bride flushed and gasping, her head pressed into the pillow, her limp hand clutching a blood-spotted tissue.

Chapter 11

### The Exposure

Cather's assumption of where Lucinda was on his wedding night was way off beam. Far from staying at home moping, she was taking care of her financial needs by sitting in a crowded pub just off Constitution Square and pouring out her heart to a journalist. Outside the open doors, people in outrageous costumes were partying to the point of exhaustion. Many had painted their faces in black and yellow, the Mellorian national colors, while others wore their country's colors in diagonal stripes on T-shirts and pants to proclaim their allegiance. The colors festooned the barroom and hung above the table where Lucinda nattered with Arabella Scott-Natterson, the royal correspondent of the _Bugle_.

"Of course I'm happy for them both," she said between sniffs into a tissue. "It just makes me choke up when I think of how much happier he would have been if they'd let him – "

"– marry the woman he loves?" Arabella offered, looking up from the notes she was tapping into her iPad.

"Well, yes, since that would have made him happy," Lucinda agreed.

"And you are that woman?" Arabella prompted.

"Yes, I am the woman he loves and I love him. Catheter and I have always been an item, and we always will be – "

The noise around them suddenly increased as a group of revelers burst through the entrance.

"When did you find out he was getting married?" Arabella yelled above the din.

"Oh, it was that horrible day he flew back from Bulimia," Lucinda said, her voice tight and teary. "He came straight from the palace to my flat, looking devastated. I cried when he said the words 'royal alliance' and he wrapped his arms around me and squeezed my face into his chest, trying to stop the tears, He held me really tight while my tears flooded into his shirt. My shoulders were shaking – "

Arabella popped some of Lucinda's phrases into her tablet. Not bad, she thought. She must read a lot of romantic novels. Her mind began wool gathering, as she teetered between Nick Sparks and Danielle Steele as Lucinda's fav read. Then she was brought back to the moment by Lucinda's next comment.

"He was mumbling something about having to do it just to please mummy and daddy. Oh, he was in such pain!"

"Did you try to talk him out of it?" Arabella asked instinctively.

"Talk? I begged him!" Lucinda shouted. "Catheter, please," I begged, "don't make yourself unhappy just to please _them_!"

"What did he say then?"

"He didn't answer – he just turned away, shaking his head. Shortly after, he left."

"Awesome!" Arabella bellowed. "This is going to make a fantastic story."

She put her tablet on the table and motioned to their empty glasses.

"Would you like another Cosmo, Lucy? I'm absolutely gasping myself."

Lucinda shook her head and Arabella gave the merest shrug. Then she pushed past the knot of revelers that blocked her way to the bar. When she reached the bar she sat down and laid her purse on the counter. She waited for Larkin the barman to mix her Cosmopolitan, while studying the cavorting cavalcade all around her.

"Ain't seen you around here lately," he said, setting down the brimming glass.

"Yeah, time flies, doesn't it?" she replied. She felt buoyed, sipping the drink and delighting in Lucinda's recent confession. "Here," she said, extracting some bills from her purse. "Have one yourself, Phil."

"Thanks, Bella," Larkin said, slipping the bills into his pocket.

"Here's looking at you!" She lifted her glass, draining it at a gulp.

"So what's going on?" Larkin said. His attention was almost immediately distracted by the noisy demands for beer from carousers who surged up to the bar.

"Oh, you know – same old scandals. Always some rumpus going on at the palace."

"Oh yes?" He pumped two liters simultaneously, shoved them at their owners and snatched their money. "Hey, there's a rumor going round that the king and queen are gonna retire."

Arabella looked up so abruptly that the stool she was on gave a wobble.

"Where did you hear that?" she asked.

"From the horse's mouth. Amis the PM was in here last night and you know how he likes to blab. He swore blind Cathy and his missus will be wearing crowns inside a year.

Chapter 12

### The Retirement Rumor

The rumor that Amis had been spreading arose from a dinner-table exchange between Queen Letitia and King Godfrey the night Princess Dawna flew in from Bulimia. Under gigantic brown oils of hunting scenes in their tarnished gilt frames, Letitia, Godfrey, Catheter, Anton and Dawna chomped on tough venison and overcooked vegetables by candlelight in the big, gloomy dining hall. It was during the dessert course that the queen dropped her bombshell, criticizing the princess's decision to arrive at the palace a full week before her wedding and sleeping a mere two wings away from her future husband.

"It would never have been allowed in my day," she said dismissively.

Catheter looked nonplussed. "Why the fuss, Mummy – it's only a week! What's the harm in our sleeping in the same palace?"

Letitia looked at her son in a severe, uncompromising manner.

The others looked on, logy after several platters of tough, stringy venison and now lingering over the cacah. Dawna kept her head meekly down, attempting to swallow a morsel of the soggy dessert, but Catheter, jaws working, appealed to the row of satiated faces.

"Am I missing something here?" he said.

"Letitia's eyebrows began to quiver. "Yes, you are," she said. "The protocol of how a betrothed couple are supposed to behave."

Catheter snorted and swallowed his cacah with a loud vulgar sound. Dawna shook her head, attempting not to giggle. Anton barely stifled a snicker.

Godfrey frowned at the three young dissenters. "Let's have some better manners at table," he demanded.

Catheter flushed. "I was merely voicing an opinion," he said.

"Opinions like that are best left unvoiced. Your mother has spoken – you should heed her words." Godfrey was nearing the end of his patience.

A shadow crossed Catheter's face. He was well aware that while he lived in his father's palace he was subject to his father's will.

"Then I'm withdrawing for the night," he said. "I might as well go to my room if I'm so lacking in manners."

Wishing his parents goodnight, he rose abruptly and went to leave the dining hall. The servant who opened the pair of oak doors for him just managed to overhear the king and queen's ensuing spat.

"Really, Dear, there's no need to get worked up over a matter of protocol," Godfrey began.

"That sounds like the pot calling the kettle black – your whole life is ruled by protocol!" Letitia parried.

Somewhat taken aback, Godfrey returned a thrust. "But of course – tradition is the warp and woof of the monarchy."

"Tradition, tradition! The sooner I leave this world the better!" Letitia said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Godfrey looked totally dumbfounded.

"It means I'm sick to death of this whole charade – I was never brought up to be a queen!"

"What would you have me do – retire?" Godfrey's face took on the texture of distressed wallpaper.

It was at this point that the servant was compelled to close the doors on the conversation or risk being upbraided for snooping, but the damage was done. The rumor that the king and queen had discussed the subject of retirement ran around the court like an Olympic torch-bearer, and soon blazed brightly on the front page of the _Bugle_.

Chapter 13

### Sharon's Life

Sharon, the royal maid-of-all-works, picked up a copy of the _Bugle_ in the servants' quarters and glanced at the front page listlessly. She had just reached the end of a long shift and was in no mood to read the paper. Nevertheless, the startling headline: KING AND QUEEN ABOUT TO RETIRE made her throw back her head and laugh.

"God, I wish I could bloody well retire!" she exclaimed. She sat down on a vacant chair and sighed a huge sigh of relief. It was the day after the royal wedding and her workload had been incredible. All together she and the other servants must have picked up hundreds of plates of half-chewed cacah from the banqueting hall after the royal guests had departed, not to mention stacking and putting away the huge pile of gifts piled up, Mellorian style, around the edges of the ballroom where the guests had been dancing. Before that, there had been all the costume changes of Her Royal Highness that she had to attend to, the preparation of the bridal suite that had to be decorated with fragrant white and red plants – the colors of matrimony in Melloria – all that was her work. In addition, at the princess's insistence a number of oriental thingummies had to be put up. It was no wonder she felt she had been run ragged, and she yawned until her eyes ached.

Throwing the paper back on the table, she shook herself awake and prepared to go. She had to pick up her son from school and she only had twenty minutes to get there. It was the second day of a week-long public holiday and none of the buses were running, so she would have to fight her way through the mobs cramming Constitution Square. Much as she admired the royals for representing her country, she couldn't get worked up about the wedding. In her view, the two newly-weds should be allowed to have a quiet wedding – just family and friends- and then slip away for their honeymoon like any normal couple, instead of having to endure the slow drive to the airport through throngs of gawping people, standing cheek-by-jowl in the blazing sun and waving little flags. It was just stupid. Of course she did feel a bit of envy that they were going to Barbados, but who could blame them with all the money they had?

All these thoughts assailed her as she stepped through the side door of the palace which the servants used. Another thing that irked her was that Craig was in his class today, when all the other schools in Melloria were closed. His class was a remedial, for children with behavioral difficulties, but it still didn't justify keeping him in on a holiday in her view. Thank God her dad had been able to take him there in the morning. She'd have never been given the time off work – not on the day after Royal Wedding Day!

She felt no affinity with the people she pushed aside who were jostling to get a view of the couple in the white Bentley crawling through the palace gates. She was just aware that the walk to the school was going to take twice as long, and the little stalls selling celebratory street food – goatmeat sausage on beds of brown cabbage – that dotted the flag-festooned square held absolutely no appeal to her, although she hadn't eaten for hours. The crush and noise and smell of overcooked sausage just irritated her, and by the time she reached the school her body was sore and sweaty.

A different smell assailed her as she walked down the long corridor to Craig's classroom: a mixture of chalk dust, disinfectant and unwashed young bodies, that reminded her of her own schooldays. As an added reminder, a knot of fidgeting, dirty-faced kids loitered outside the classroom door.

"You been sent out of class then?" she asked the least vacant-looking of them.

"Yeah, Mrs Pomfret's on today," he said, "and she kicks you out for the leastest thing."

Sharon smiled and took up her position behind the small group at the door. She wondered what punishment these malefactors would get from the principal when Mrs Pomfret's class was over. She had been in their place once, trembling with anxiety as she awaited her fate for some minor infraction of the rules. The thought made her chin tremble, then she felt a flush of irritation toward Craig. Why was he so stubbornly refusing to learn at more than a snail's pace? Was he doing it out of spite because he had no father, or was it because of his genes?

Through the frosted glass door pane she heard the teacher's voice haranguing her charges.

"Who can give me the most shameful date in our history?" her sharp voice intoned. "Yes, Heidi!"

A girl's slow voice said: "The Day of Shame, Thursday, August the First last year."

"Indeed, and who can tell me why we remember it?"

A silence descended. The sharp voice acquired an edge.

"I hope I'm not the only one willing to stay here an extra hour."

At this, Craig's voice piped up, and Sharon listened intently.

"Please Miss, it was because King Slob gave our boys a beating and we couldn't have Shekels back no more."

Sharon frowned at his clumsy diction.

"Well, that's one way of putting it," the sharp-edged voice replied. "Can anyone put it more intelligently?"

Above the ripple of giggles, a girl's impatient voice cut in.

"We remember it as a day when our glorious armed forces were crushed by the Slobodians' overwhelming numbers, the day we lost our coast and the jewel of Shekels..." Other voices tittered. "Well, I know about Shekels because my dad used to own some shops there," the girl's voice said to the titterers, then continued "... and we were forced into humiliating defeat."

"Well said, Angela – maybe you'd like to tell us why we were attacked." The edge in Mrs Pomfret's voice had acquired a creaminess.

"Certainly, Miss," the clear, confident voice continued. _"I_ don't want to be kept in another hour! For centuries Shekels, the jewel in our crown, was envied by the Slobodians for its prosperity. Their own resort of Slit is like a shithole in comparison – " A wave of childish giggles broke out, and Mrs Pomfret spoke out sternly.

"Children, please, mind your language!"

The confident voice carried on: " – and so the Slobodian king demanded that we give Shekels to him, and when our king went to his country to sort it out with him, the two kings got into an argument and King Slob got his tunic torn after pulling off some of King God's medals. So we had to go to war. Unfortunately, we lost..."

"And," Mrs Pomfret's voice rose dramatically, "in spite of our army and navy's heroic resistance, our beloved soil was wrested from us by the cruel Slobodians and the jewel was torn from our crown!" Her voice swooped to a conclusion. "Ever since that shameful day just one year ago, our king – who, incidentally should not be referred to as 'King God" – our beloved king, King Godfrey, has worn the proud uniform of Admiral of the Mellorian navy every First Thursday, and will continue to do so until our treasured Shekels is ours once more!"

The emotionally-affected voice could barely croak: "Class dismissed!" In an instant, the door was flung open and Sharon could barely catch Craig's arm as he and thirty others hurtled out.

"I heard you in there," she said. "You sounded right bleeding ignorant!"

Craig twisted free and faced her angrily.

"So what if I did! You know bleeding well who I got it from!" he yelled.

Chapter 14

### An Inauspicious Honeymoon

Three days after her son's wedding, propped up on three pillows, Queen Letitia stared at the front page of the _Bugle_ with delighted horror. Her secret was out at last, and in spite of many misgivings she hoped it would influence Godfrey to rethink his insistence on remaining a monarch for life. Retirement from all the stresses and strains of her role as queen seemed to beckon like a golden dream now that the subject was open for discussion. Following the front-page story to its conclusion, she let her eye wander to the other items of news. She got a shock beyond measure when she realized that the only other story the paper seemed interested in was a lurid confession by the stable girl that Catheter had been dallying with.

The whole paper was awash with it, relegating the wedding ceremony to a single column next to a dull photo of the couple exchanging rings. What the -! the queen thought, being unable to even think the word that was on her mind. How on earth could even such a guttersnipe paper like the _Bugle_ print such drivel! It was beyond her comprehension how the editor could have allowed these besotted ravings of a schoolgirl in heat to be published. He even had the nerve to present them as an indictment of royal hypocrisy! The man should be arrested for sedition, she thought. It's high time these closet republicans were flushed out once and for all. Her blood pressure rose the longer she pored over the sprawling fantasy, boggling at the sheer outrageousness of it, although she couldn't drag her eyes away or stop herself reading the rot.

'I awoke marveling at his sheer bulk,' she read. 'I couldn't breathe, my arms and legs were numb, but I didn't move a millimeter. I didn't want to be released. How long I was able to stay like that, with him coiled around me, I'll never know, but eventually I fell asleep. I don't regret offering my discomfort, even though he never knew it. For all I knew, that night would be the last I'd spend in his arms.'

Good God, that must have been the night before the wedding! She shuddered at the trollop's brazen effrontery. Were there no depths to which she wouldn't sink? My only consolation, she thought, is that there are no pictures of Catheter to substantiate these juvenile ramblings. She turned the page gratefully, only to freeze at a photo of Catheter bathing naked in a stream above a quote from Lucinda: "Without his clothes he was so terribly sexy."

The selfsame prince, now clad in swimming trunks, was at that precise moment jumping off a rock somewhere in Barbados. He had been on honeymoon two days and was taking solace in a solitary swim. Dawna, who confessed she didn't swim very well, stayed at their villa in a nice part of Sandy Lane, reading trashy novels on her Kindle or basking in the infinity pool. Sometimes she wandered out to their private stretch of beach and padded about it like a panther in a cage, a beautiful blonde panther who looked longingly at the ocean and the sophisticated world beyond it.

During the remainder of the honeymoon a great deal of sulking went on, mainly on Catheter's part. He found the company of his new wife unendurable, and although he tried to escape by exploring the parts of Barbados he didn't find insufferably vulgar, with his beloved sound equipment, he ached with acute frustration and thwarted desire for the entire time they were away. He had seen online excerpts from Lucinda's big splashy revelation of their relationship and felt tormented, but he forgave her for selling their story and blamed himself for not upping her allowance. He desperately missed her and their wonderfully exciting sex life. For her part, Dawna consoled herself by visiting a spa where she was given the VIP treatment of chakra therapy, underwater massage baths and warm herbal infusions. It was here she submitted to a young limber Bajan therapist who gave her a full aromatherapy body treatment designed to regulate her energy patterns. While Catheter recorded the commotion of fishermen heaving in their bulging nets at a nearby cove, Dawna settled down to her Bajan boy's massage, followed by the cooling application of essential oils and leaves while listening to whale sounds and Tibetan cymbals.

Two weeks later the couple flew back to Melloria, Catheter complaining that the days had been too hot and Dawna that the nights had been too cold. They were painfully aware of their incompatibility, and the princess was also aware that her life was about to change again – drastically. After eight weeks and two missed periods she knew it was true. Although their one awful night of sexual congress was never repeated, it had left its mark.

She began putting on weight, but told herself it was only the pregnancy and would leave after the birth. She was hungrier than she had been since her college days and she began eating between meals and after dinner. She tried to eat only carrots and celery but she grew to hate them, and her desire for sweets was as vicious as it had ever been. She went down to the palace kitchen and ate bread and jam in secret and fled the palace in her BMW coupe for furtive shopping trips, buying candy bars and eating them on the drive back. Her cheeks started to fill out, loose flesh appeared under her chin and her arms and legs became plump. Godfrey and Letitia began to notice her weight gain and became concerned. Catheter paid her scarcely any attention – he was much too occupied in plotting secret dates with Lucinda.

Chapter 15

### Sharon's Shameful Secret

Sharon sat at the kitchen table and stared out the window at her dingy backyard. Rain was splashing down on the dull metal of a beer keg and several sagging boxes of empty bottles that rotted in the rain. She felt tired and crabby waiting for her father, Lusher, to finish reading the _Bugle_ and clear off. Without looking up from the smudgy newsprint close to his nose, he pushed his teacup toward her.

"Is there any more left in the pot?" he said.

She grabbed the cup and filled it to the brim carelessly, so that tea sloshed over into the saucer. She was irritated – since she had paid for it – at having to wait so long for the paper. It seemed she was always waiting: either for the royals she served to finish doing what they were doing in their bedchambers so that she could come and clean up or for someone to help Craig get through school or to help her dad off the bottle or herself to get some freedom.

Lusher continued reading and she watched him pour milk from a carton into his tea without looking, till the milky slop spilled over the edge of the saucer. Unaware of the mess he'd made, he lifted the cup and sucked noisily. She felt like retching.

"You should read what old Prince Cathy's been up to," he called from behind his paper, and went on slurping.

She glanced dully around the room, resting her gaze on the pathetic collection of toys scattered over the floor: an old Pokemon coloring book, some trodden-on magic markers, a GI Joe with one leg pulled off. She felt wretched knowing she didn't have enough to buy Craig what he really wanted. She wished she could give him the moon!

"By God, I didn't know he had it in him!" Lusher croaked.

"Had what?" she asked, vaguely curious.

"All that sex he and his bit of stuff Lucinda Wassername got up to – according to what's in here," he announced, squinting at the page. "The _Bugle_ must have paid her a packet. Listen to this: 'I remember once when we went riding in the woods...la-dee-da...the dry twigs scratched our hips and the mosquitos bit our rears as we lay on the forest floor, our horses grazing.' I reckon they couldn't have had no clothes on! Then she goes on: 'We pressed our bodies against each other, my breasts covering his chest, so the bugs couldn't attack our private parts. What his body was doing to mine was killing the pain of insect bites as well as that of the woman he was fated to marry.' Talk about Prince bleeding Charming! He's a regular love pump!"

He refolded the paper and pushed it over to her. "Well, I better be on my way or else the pubs will run dry."

He stood up heavily, pushing his chair out from the table, lifting his jacket slowly from the back. Sharon registered the tremor in his voice and his watery bloodshot eyes. Craig had probably got some of his alcoholic genes, she thought. God knows what kind of a man he'll turn out to be. She laid the paper aside and got up to clear dishes from the table. When she heard the front door close, she dumped them in the sink and sat down to read the article her father had been drooling over. Her eyes widened at each salacious tidbit. She thought of her father's remark: "The _Bugle_ must have paid her a packet," and marveled that such obvious drivel could earn a large amount of money. Still, somebody must want to read it, she thought. A thought that brought her up short. If Lucinda Cowface could be paid a packet for her silly little affair, what could _she_ , Sharon Keeler, expect to earn for all she had to tell? It was mind-boggling! If only she had the guts to call the paper and tell all.

She looked at the rain dribbling down the window and couldn't understand why she had waited so long. Why shouldn't she get her share? She didn't suppose Lucinda Thingamabob ever gave a hoot about loyalty to the crown when she went to cash in her chips. Sharon did possess some residual loyalty to her king and queen, who were also her employers, but it was fast losing out to the temptation of selling her story for a big check.

She went to the cupboard for something to eat and took out a packet of custard creams. Then she poured herself a cup of tea. She needed to steady her nerves. This was big stuff she was thinking about. She wished she had some brandy. She had to keep a clear head though, if she wasn't going to let the newspaper people put one over on her. She seriously began to consider who she would call and what she would say. Her biggest bombshell was so big it would knock everything else off the front page. A wave of excitement swept over her and she began to tremble.

The voice on her line was faint, and Arabella Scott-Natterson paused to turn up the volume on her headset. Sitting reflectively at her desk, she'd been caught off-guard by the unexpected call. She'd been gazing at the rain falling on the city from her office on the top floor of Melloria's tallest building and discerning through the mist its thousand glittering rooftops.

The woman's voice issued furtively from her headphones with a hint of defiance. She said her name was Sharon and that she worked in the royal household.

"What are you offering?" Arabella said.

First off, I want to know what you're prepared to pay," the voice hissed.

"Depends what it is."

"Can't you give me a hint?"

Arabella waited out the long silence.

"Okay," the voice whispered. "I can tell you for a fact the queen takes anti-flatulent lozenges that she keeps under her pillows. That's one reason the king and queen have separate bedrooms."

Arabella's mouth began to twitch. She wondered just how unprofessional it was to giggle during a negotiation.

"Are you saying that the lozenges don't work?" she asked.

"They do, but she only sucks them for a minute or two. Then she takes 'em out of her mouth and sticks 'em under her pillows. I know, because I sees 'em in the morning when I'm doing the beds."

Arabella began giggling helplessly – the woman was priceless! She was toying with the idea of including the tittle-tattle in her weekly column _Trumpet_ _Blast_ , a gentle tilt at the monarchy.

"I'll pay you a hundred moons, Sharon," she said when she recovered her composure. "Come to the front desk of the _Bugle_ and you can sign a chit for the money."

"A hundred!" The voice almost choked. "That's chicken feed – I bet you paid Lucinda a lot more than that."

"Lucinda had an incredible story," Arabella replied.

"Well, so have I."

"Like what?"

"Like the fact my son's King Godfrey's love child!" the woman screamed.

Arabella's throat went dry. She felt her skin prickle as she absorbed the woman's tone. It didn't feel like the woman was some eccentric greedy crone. Rumors abounded that the king had sown enough wild oats during the first two decades of his reign to sire a bevy of bastards, yet so far no one had claimed their offspring was of royal blood. It was assumed that either infertility or a vasectomy had protected the king's reputation.

"Come to the front lobby right away," Arabella said. "I'll meet you – just tell the receptionist who you are. I think we can talk serious money."

The woman hung up after a brief muttered thanks. Arabella felt her palms dampen as she laid her hands on her lap. Her instinct told her the woman wasn't blowing smoke up her butt. Wow, she thought. This could well be the scandal of my career!

Sharon lost no time in setting out for her appointment with Arabella.

She wanted to get it over and done with before she had to pick up Craig from his reading class so she decided to take the subway rather than the bus. The rain continued in a steady downpour as she trudged toward the station. In spite of the rain and wind ripping at her, she threw her head back. Her eyes were brimming with long-suppressed exaltation, she was so happy she was almost crying. Serious money, Arabella had said! The only thing that could stop her now was if the king himself were to leap out from behind the potted palms in the station foyer and beg her to be his queen. Fat chance! So what if people thought she was cashing in on the king's good name – she'd kept her shameful secret long enough, and at great personal cost, she might add. She realized what a fool she'd been, believing his lies that he'd look after her and the boy. Well, a fifteen thousand a year maid's salary didn't look after much!

People who passed her on the escalator seemed limp and devitalized, as if they'd been smoking _Saint_. On the platform, waiting for the train, the crowd looked bored and slouchy. It's because no one except me knows what a secret I've got – the biggest, most explosive in Melloria! I've got enough dynamite to blow up the kingdom. The next moment a wave of exhilaration crashed over her, quickly followed by a spasm of terror. Who am I to decide the fate of the monarchy? She thought. Even if I've been wronged. Her next thought chilled her to the marrow. How would all the money I'm getting ever protect me from the queen's wrath?

She knew what a terrible temper the queen had - she'd experienced it first hand when she'd blundered into the queen's bedchamber at an inappropriate time and been almost blown out through the door. It was something all the servants feared. The thought of Queen Letitia on the warpath after reading what she had to say in the _Bugle_ made her hang back from the other people when the train arrived. She would have to ask Arabella for complete anonymity, otherwise her goose was cooked.

On the train she pressed herself against the sliding doors and kept behind the other passengers' backs. She told herself not to feel guilty – she'd suffered in silence long enough. It was time to do what was right for herself and Craig. I've always been considerate of the king's reputation, she thought, but if I don't make a move now I'll spend my old age in the poorhouse.

She kept her face to the doors, even when the train lurched and bodies slammed against her. She felt a sharp pang of regret as the train came out of a tunnel and the rain-washed city she loved drifted by the glass. As soon as she got the money, she and Craig would have to leave. How could they stay in a country where she would be denounced as the king's whore and her son as his bastard? She knew her wish for anonymity was unrealistic – in a country as small as Melloria her identity could never be concealed. She twisted her body so that she kept her face away from the window, and as she turned a loud, rending sound made several people look at her. She kept her head down, and from the corner of her eye she could see that she was being stared at. What the fuck was going on? She looked down at her legs. The seam of her right pant leg had split from cuff to knee. Nearby, a boy of about ten looked guiltily away. His foot had pressed down on her hem when the train lurched and the sudden turn of her body had caused the tear.

She felt both embarrassed and annoyed – she couldn't meet Arabella looking like a crazy slut with a giant rip in her pants. Yet she was also relieved. Events had intervened to prevent her awful secret being divulged. She smiled at the boy – she couldn't blame him, he looked about Craig's age and was clearly contrite. The torn garment gave her the excuse to follow her doubts and overrule her burning desire for redress. She got off at the next station and went to collect Craig from school.

Chapter 16

### Letitia Finds Refuge

The atmosphere at Calliper Palace during the summer months was benignly torpid. Queen Letitia carried out her round of royal duties as graciously as she could, although since the story in the _Bugle_ about her retirement she felt emboldened in complaining to a small circle of intimates of the burdensome tasks of monarchy. Whenever she felt the insufferability of a particular duty or engagement, she developed the habit of wishing she were back in bed.

Pretending she was snug in bed, the quilt under her chin and Mary or Agatha – in her fantasy she didn't mind which – bustling about with her lemon tea and morning paper was her way of protecting herself from the hysterical, shouting mob that assailed her at every turn. Thus she distanced herself from the demands of her role and was able to attend to her duties with an outward sang-froid. Truly, the early morning was her favorite time of day.

One of her less arduous assignments was judging the annual children's poetry competition. Poems were sent to the palace from schools around the country and were passed to the queen for scrutiny by her secretary. Her comments were then relayed to a nominal panel of judges, and the child whose poem was judged the best was rewarded with a scholarship to Stanislaw Crust High, Melloria's only fee-paying school.

This year the majority of the poems were about Princess Dawna, which set Letitia's teeth on edge. She baulked at the idea of awarding a prize to any of them. Picking up one of the submitted entries off the pile, she read:

"To the lovely graceful princess who lights our way.

We watch you grow more beautiful with each passing day.

We're glad you've come to live with us and we hope you'll stay,

But if not, we'll say adieu and wish you godspeed anyway."

Letitia read it twice, because she couldn't believe her eyes, and added the comment: "I think the last line shows much promise."

As summer progressed into early autumn, the weather began to shrivel up the leaves. Stiff winds bombarded the grimy streets of Melloria City. Letitia found herself caught in just such a wintry blast as she stepped out of the Bentley to perform the opening of a Women's Refuge in a poor quarter of East City. Against the stinging wind, she and her small entourage trudged to the front of the building which flapped with flags and bunting. The building stood in a narrow street, flanked by impoverished retail businesses. On one side was a crude beauty shop with three seats and tin basins, and on the other a dowdy produce and meat market. In its wind-rattled display windows pathetic scraps of merchandise rotted in musty silence.

Bending her scarfed head against the fury of the wind, Letitia was in a stew of agitation. Agatha, her most reliable source of gossip, had told her that morning that Dawna had been observed bingeing and purging by prying servants, a condition that had first been detected during her college days. Now that she was in the fourth month of her pregnancy – a pregnancy that was crucial to the survival of the monarchy – she was risking the baby's health and even life by foolish eating habits that should have been shaken out of her by sensible discipline. As she battled the wind's onslaught, Letitia was weighed down by anxiety.

Her first impulse was to call Dawna's mother, Queen Ada, with whom she was barely on speaking terms. She wanted to have the little puker bundled off to Bulimia where she belonged. Then she dismissed the idea. Ada was herself a lifelong bulimic and had probably been colluding with her daughter all along. Letitia knew there was no one she could rely on, that it would be down to her to find some clinic or therapist to pack her daughter-in-law off to. But who did she know who could be trusted to be discrete enough to do the job? It was a new source of worry that she wished she didn't have.

Refuge workers and residents stood in an awkward bunch, brushing their clothes and trying not to appear nervous as the queen stepped over the threshold. Staring eyes lapped over her and she eased her headscarf off. She glanced around the hall and wondered what kind of a place this was that desperate women would flock to live here. It looked clean and functional, if a little stark, and the staff looked competent. But something about the place made her shudder.

One of the workers who seemed to be in charge darted forward and shook the queen's hand with a barely-observed curtsey. It seemed strange to be greeted by a woman without a proper curtsey, but Letitia put it down to changing customs and the influence of the internet. She gave a perfunctory nod, and suddenly resolved to send her daughter-in-law back to Bulimia, come what may. It would get her out of harm's way at least.

The woman who had greeted her was telling her that some of the workers at the refuge were counselors whose job it was to let residents come and talk with them when they were unhappy or just wanted to. Their job was to listen to the client, help realign her disturbed thinking and help her find relief.

She herself was a qualified therapist who held weekly goal sessions with each resident to encourage her to set two goals: one she chose for herself and the other given as part of her rehab program. It's a pity you don't live in Bulimia, Letitia thought acidly, I could send you a client you could really get your teeth into!

Out of making-small-talk-habit, the queen asked the woman, who was now leading her upstairs, for an example of such a goal as she had described. The woman went into elaborate detail about creating worksheets to identify healthy or unhealthy coping skills, and Letitia wished she had kept her mouth shut. They were now inspecting the dormitory bedrooms and Letitia had to swallow against the fetid stench of recently-arrived residents and the implant of their bodies on the rumpled sheets.

"I'm afraid such is the level of demand for beds that we have to sleep six women in rooms designed for one or two," the woman said. Letitia pushed down her disgust while struggling to frame a suitably caring question. "What on earth possesses these women to leave their homes in the first place?" was all she could come out with.

The woman mumbled some diplomatic reply and led her to another dormitory. Letitia's mind was a million kilometers away, plotting Dawna's therapeutic exile. Her first task would be to find a suitable therapist with a practice in Bulimia, and that, she felt, would call for all her resourcefulness. Meanwhile, the woman droned on, here and there introducing the queen to several of the residents. Letitia suddenly remembered the name of Spencer Drool, a creepy but inexpensive therapist who might do the job, and she immediately brightened.

"... that's really the aim of our work," the woman was saying, "helping each client to head out in the right direction."

"Golly, you all sound like you're ready to float off to the Magic Mountains!" Letitia said gaily. She flashed the woman a dazzling smile

"I know where they are," a voice croaked from below. A woman, sitting on one of the beds, was rolling a _Saint_ spliff.

"Really, dear, and where might that be?" the queen asked, disconcerted.

"In the fourth dimension." The woman had a hollowed-out face that looked as though it had been stamped on by a heavy boot.

Hereupon, the woman in charge of the refuge intervened. "You know you mustn't smoke any of that in here, don't you?" she said.

The woman gave her a big, toothless grin. "I'm not smoking," she said, "I'm rolling!"

This coded reference to the drug _Ecstasy_ went sailing right over Letitia's head, and she turned to the woman in charge.

"I think we'd better get on with the opening ceremony," she said. "I have to leave in ten minutes."

Chapter 17

### Managing Marital Miseries

Princess Dawna, anxious to ensure the continuity of the monarchy, spared Letitia the trouble of hiring a therapist for her. Through her contacts in the fashion world, she procured the services of a healer who treated bulimic models, and began flying to see him for weekly sessions. She also tried visualization to free herself from her eating disorder. Instead of making herself vomit in the bathroom at night, she took herbal remedies washed down with Evian and visualized herself as slim as a wand while sitting cross-legged with eyes closed.

Catheter was no help to her at all. Entangled in the complex arrangements he had to make to maintain his love life, he adopted an air of aloof detachment, occasionally chiding her for her weight gain. His abrasive criticisms drove her back to her old ways. She began hiding candy in her underwear drawer, almost to spite him. She ate it during the day and at night while he slept. At breakfast she was distracted and waited for him to leave for his round of royal duties before beginning her cycle of plug and chug, plunder and chunder. Returning from his engagements in the evening Catheter glared at every soiled plate and glass she happened to leave on the table as if detecting traces of infidelity, and at every meal they fought.

"Just look at you," he said to her in front of the others at dinner. "That's the third piece of hominy bread for heaven's sake! When are you going to stop? It's not simply that you're eating for two, you're putting on kilos. I can see it. You'll be breaking your bed – pretty soon, you'll be sleeping on a trampoline."

Anton snickered at Catheter's last remark, spewing morsels of food from the edges of his mouth. "Gone back to your old bed then, Cathy?" he gurgled. "So it's true you only did it once!"

Dawna ran from the dining room in tears, and Godfrey was moved to remind his sons of the requirements of gentlemanly behavior. "I'll help her," Catheter said defensively. "I''ll eat the same things she eats, and she can see what it does to me." But his actions didn't approach the determination and love that his words promised. In his heart he pined for Lucinda, and was continually looking for ways to escape. Indeed, the whole family was looking for a way to escape the awkwardness and tedium of each other's company.

And Dawna's behavior toward each other merely showed this impulse in its most acute form. Catheter's petulant outbursts, railing at his wife then pleading with her as she walked out of the room, Dawna's continual hunger - she longed for Catheter to go to bed so she could get a candy bar from her nightstand and wished she could eat it in front of him while he nagged her. She considered the possibility of divorce – absolutely forbidden for the wife of the Heir Apparent – and the more alluring possibility of suicide. At other times she wished she could have the baby with her now, as an ally against Catheter and his hateful family.

Anton reacted to the gradual disintegration of his family by spending more and more time away from home. For a while he listened to lots of rap and consorted with hooded homeboys, then he got into the less angry world of Live-Action Role Playing. He took to it like a duck to water and was soon turning up at dinner in strange costumes with books like _Dream_ _Park_ or _The_ _Magus_ under his arm. His rapid rise to Game Master and his group's all-night sessions in medieval clothes near the Slobodian border began to seriously worry his parents. The made efforts to steer him in the direction of marriage to Dawna's sister, Princess Hernia – even inviting her to a stodgy birthday ball at the palace in his honor. Next morning the _Bugle's_ report of her appearance at the ball 'looking menacingly sexy in a piss-tight denim mini, graffiti-sprayed torn top and a snakeskin belt made from a whole snake, complete with head' made Letitia choke on her lemon tea.

At breakfast Catheter questioned Anton, who wore earphones throughout the meal and drank an Orange Snowman with his cereal, about his feelings for Hernia.

"Not exactly my type," Anton said, "but okay in an aggressive sort of way. Her hair's long and straggly now, sort of a female vampire look, which is better than when she was a slaphead, and she plays a good game of pool. We played in dad's billiard room after the ball, must've stayed up till four – and she took me outside for a blow after I let her win a game."

"Blow meaning..?" Catheter's embarrassed look made Anton cackle.

"Blow job, of course. We did it against the wall of the Orangery. Actually, I did her as well. I'll never forget the taste of her – "

"All right, you don't have to go into details, I've got the gist," Catheter cut in. "Just one question: you let _her_ win?"

"Okay, maybe she did beat me," Anton conceded, "but only on a technicality."

"Do you think she likes you?" Catheter dogged.

"Definitely. Her last words to me were 'I'm gonna tweet to the whole world what a bastard you are!'"

After slurping the last of his Snowman, the remnants of the cereal swirling around his guts, he gave a loud belch.

"That's quite enough of that!" Godfrey reprimanded.

"Okay, Pops, don't swallow your crown," was Anton's surly reply.

Dawna found a way of detaching herself from her family's craziness by plunging into the world of fashion and media glamour. She was invited to appear on Mellorian TV in a program called 'An Audience with the Princess' which, as her agent assured her, involved "nothing perilous – you just have to sit on a plush seat in a TV studio and be interviewed by some boring fart."

Letitia, having got wind of the broadcast, sat in the drawing-room and instructed a servant to tune in to the appropriate channel, not being accustomed to using the remote, and began watching the show.

"Her neckline is so plunging it could win an Olympic diving contest," she grumbled to Mary, Countess D'Armoire sitting beside her.

"Well, at least Her Royal Highness is not as awful as Her Highness Princess Hernia," Mary said in an effort to be conciliatory. "When she came to His Highness Prince Anton's ball she wore a shocking outfit and spiky boots that left holes in the carpet."

"Shush!" Letitia commanded. "I want to hear what she's saying."

Answering a question from the studio audience, Dawna said: "I'm in my twenties so I have to be concerned about combination skin. I have a greasy T-zone and dry cheeks and I need plenty of makeup. Fortunately, my beautician is able to do something about my spots and my dark stress circles."

In reply to another question, the interviewer, a fey-looking man in a pinstripe suit and butterfly-print shirt gushed: "A woman in a red dress is like a voluptuous bouquet of roses!"

Surprising the countess, the queen reached for the remote herself and switched off. "I've had enough glamour and chic for one morning," she told her viewing companion.

Dawna's media appearances were hugely successful, and she quickly became part of Melloria's social set, which met for cocktails in fashionable apartments in West City, where the decorations included merino wool cushions and tufted Afghan rugs, and Warhols and Francis Bacons hung on every wall. Although she hardly needed to earn a living, she was bombarded with offers via her agent and tentatively agreed to be photographed in Versace and Galliano maternity wear. Newspapers and bloggers began calling her 'the world's most beautiful woman.'

When she first heard this tag line at a state banquet, Letitia shook her head in disbelief. She looked at Godfrey as if she had just woken up.

"This is far more serious than before," she whispered to him. "She'll have to be curbed – and quickly."

He watched her face twitch, and cast around for something to say to neutralize her anxiety.

"It's just sensationalism," he said. "The papers will move on to someone else when the fashion changes."

The twitch intensified. "I know she's just doing it to undermine us," she said in an odd tremolo. "There's absolutely no need for her to parade herself to the hoi polio - I bet her mother's putting her up to it." Her posture became rigid and her eyes bulged as she spoke. "These things should be a warning to us," she hissed at him, "it's a straw in the wind."

Godfrey knew the incipient signs of rage and decided to say no more.

Chapter 18

### The Prince And The Politicians

As Queen Letitia began seriously considering how to take her daughter-in-law down a peg, Prince Catheter – who was becoming increasingly aware of being eclipsed by his wife's popularity – decided to throw himself into the strange world of Mellorian politics. He knew that his image had suffered in recent months. He was routinely portrayed by the media as the long-suffering philanderer, a strange, slightly comic figure. One damaging article was titled _Should_ _This_ _Clown_ _Wear_ _The_ _Crown_? Discomfitted by this wave of displeasure, he ordered his chauffeur to take him each morning to Government House to listen to the debates of the Royal Assembly, Melloria's parliament. This way, he hoped to bolster his image as a future king who chose to listen to the voice of his people.

These debates were as King Godfrey called them "talking shops", since all decisions on the governing of the country were made by the king, who as absolute monarch, did not need to take anyone's advice, but deigned to meet every Wednesday with his advisers for private consultations. The advisers who made up the Wednesday cabal were Amis, the Prime Minister, Clive Fatsi, the Political Secretary, Sir Michael Pest, the Lord Chamberlain, and (occasionally) Albert 'Bunty' Buftecay, the Duke of Mellinda, an old drinking buddy of Godfrey's and honorary Lord Chancellor. They met at the palace to drink brandy and shoot the breeze and treated the Government House meetings with contempt.

The first debate Catheter attended dealt with the state of the Mellorian economy, and much blame was heaped on the Slobodians for their seizure of Shekels. After being introduced as 'His Royal Highness Prince Catheter, our future king' and presiding over the loyal toast and oath of allegiance, he settled down to listen to the first speaker, a coarse-featured, tubby man who clearly enjoyed the sound of his own voice.

"All of us remember the golden beach at Shekels,' he began, "and the wonderful days we spent there, enjoying our own precious seaside resort." He paused while his listeners yawned and fidgeted. "Its glistening sand and the beckoning blue waters lapping its shore. Sun, sand, sea and Shekels – a lucrative combination for the whole nation. And now this jewel set in a silver lake has been closed – yes, closed – to all marine traffic because of water pollution, and the Slobodians, the proud all-conquering Slobodians have so buggered up the place with sewage that all that's left is sun and precious few shekels!"

"What do you propose to do about it then?" a sneering voice said.

"Plenty, my honorable friend, plenty," the speaker countered. "In fact, I propose we launch a counterinvasion tomorrow!" "Ha-ha, only joking," he added, as cries of agreement sped through the chamber. "What I propose in fact is that His Majesty the king lead us in restoring our country to its former glory!"

The speaker paused to let his words sink in, confident that their provocative nature would elicit a response.

The other men and one woman who sat round the huge circular table all began to talk at once. Shouts of derision and cries of approval reverberated to all corners of the room until the chairman, a tall, silver-haired man, rapped his knuckles on the table and bellowed at the top of his voice "Order! Order!"

Order being restored, the speaker continued to elaborate his argument.

"I see some of us need a basic lesson in economics," he proclaimed. "So I'll give you one right now."

"And make it quick!" a voice heckled.

"I shall indeed," the speaker promised. "First off, how did Melloria survive economically for so many years, even though we're the world's smallest absolute monarchy?

" _Saint's_ _Breath_!" someone shouted.

"Well, yes, _Saint_ is, although not strictly legal, a mainstay of our economy," the speaker conceded. "But I'm talking about tourism. In summer our towns and villages used to be filled with shrieking throngs of foreign tourists, waving camcorders and credit cards. Once upon a time they flocked to Shekels. You know it used to be – they would cluster around every gift shop, buying little ships made of birch twigs with Mellorian flags attached to their masts, and snapping up sailor caps with slogans like _Sweet_ _But_ _Not_ _Innocent_ and _Here_ _Today_ _Gone_ _To_ _Maui_. Every little stall would be selling souvenir cards and knick-knacks –the locals did a roaring trade. Now where are they - those oafish, camera-toting tourists with their fistfuls of money? I'll tell you where – Spain, Italy, Greece, Croatia, everywhere but here! Why? Because there's nothing left to buy except dope! Sure, we get a few spindly-legged, backpack-wearing sociologists doing their thesis on _The_ _Social_ _Structure_ _of_ _an_ _Absolute_ _Monarchy_. And how much money do they spend? Bugger all!"

The speaker paused again, and the only female member, a somewhat depressed-looking woman, saw her chance to add to the debate.

"My honorable friend is right about the loss of tourism," she said. "In remote parts of our country people who once worked hard now find they have no work. Children with torn, dirty clothing and unwashed hair run wild in the streets – "

"They do that in East City!" a heckler shouted.

" – because if no tourists are buying the little boats made of birch twigs, then the people who make them for a living have no means of livelihood," the woman went on not missing a beat. "Personally, I can't stand the goggle-eyed hordes who spill over our sidewalks and shout to one another in strange languages all summer, but if they bring much-needed dollars, euros, pounds and yen into our county, I say Let's have them!"

The speaker nodded, and resumed his address. "Thank you," he said. "The honorable lady has touched on a very important point. If we don't sell what we make, we'll never make any money and kids will be running around with no shoes on their feet."

"Some already are," the tall silver-haired chairman intoned.

"Indeed, Mr Chairman," the speaker affirmed, "so what are we to do? This is what I propose: starting with monogrammed polyester sheets and tin plates with the royal crest copied from Sevres originals at the palace, His Majesty the King should give his approval to bankrolling the royal name to save us from economic ruin. If we put our unemployed craftspeople to work making House of Gorm toothpaste and shampoo, Queen Letitia bedsheets and pillowcases, Prince Catheter rucksacks for hikers and skiers" – he bowed in Catheter's direction – "as we know His Royal Highness is an outdoorsman, electronic games featuring the kings of Melloria as heroes in the war against evil – "

"And King Slob as the devil!" someone called.

" – as well as King Godfrey pen and pencil sets and the like, thanks to the magic of merchandizing, we'll have unique souvenirs to offer the tourists – who'll be back in droves – and the country will be saved!"

The speaker sat down and other members rose to their feet in the ritual of polite applause. Some were shaking their heads, however, and others were drawing fingers across their throats.

Catheter's chauffeur appeared behind the prince's chair. "Excuse me, sir, it's time we were getting back. It's nearly lunchtime," he said.

Catheter nodded. "Well, I wouldn't mind shaking that man's hand."

"I wouldn't if I were you, sir" the chauffeur said. "He's about to get arrested."

He gave the chauffeur a confused look, then watched as two burly uniformed guards led the tubby man out of the chamber.

"What on earth are they arresting him for?" he said.

The chauffeur drew his brows together, "Treason. He should never have made that speech about what His Majesty should do. No one decides for the king."

The street outside the government building was busy with cars and crowds. Sitting in the back of the Bentley, Catheter pondered the outspoken speaker's fate. The poor wretch had only been speaking his mind, yet he had fallen foul of tradition. He felt he was in the same position, especially when he spoke with anyone about his marital woes. Protocol restricted him, and it was making him irksome and irritable. Bloody hell, he thought gloomily, I'm getting like my father.

His father's thoughts were, if anything, even gloomier. King Godfrey had been irked by stomach cramps and urinary difficulties for a number of years and was beginning to wonder if he was physically up to the job. A king had to be fit if he was to set an example, go hunting and ride a horse without wincing. The word _abdication_ had begun flitting across his mind lately, and for the first time his retirement was on the agenda of a Wednesday meeting.

The timing of the discussion was excellent. The two most conservative members of the cabal: Amis and The Duke of Mellinda were both absent, and the gathering consisted of Sir Michael Pest, Clive Fatsi and the king who laid his worries before them.

Pest and Fatsi, who had arrived without knowing the item was on the agenda, reacted with amazement. Pest, a defender of royal protocol, was alarmed that the king was even thinking of relinquishing the crown to an untried and dubious successor, and Fatsi, a diehard traditionalist, was concerned that the successor had acquired the reputation of a philanderer.

Both men were deeply worried that, as king, Catheter would possess neither the will nor the popular support to withstand the encroaching forces of the People's Party and the Slobodians.

When Godfrey had finished outlining the plan he had conceived to ease himself out in favor of his son, Pest looked at him with undisguised panic.

"Your Majesty, while we note with heavy hearts your worsening physical condition, we fear it would be a grave mistake to consider retiring at this critical time." He said. "The damaging war with Slobodia and the present threat of future conflict, the propaganda war currently being waged against Your Majesty by the People's Party, in addition to its recent terrorist outrages – for all these reasons, the Mellorian people need Your Majesty to continue guiding their destiny."

"Well, I don't think I can guide it much longer," Godfrey replied. "I get aches and pains down below whenever I exert myself. That's why I produced a son and heir – to take over when I start getting past it."

"With respect, Your Majesty," Fatsi said in a soft voice, "you're far from past it. You're the best king this country has ever had. Even your detractors admit you are a wise, mature and experienced monarch."

"Detractors?" Godfrey blinked with surprise. "I thought they were all in prison!"

Fatsi giggled shrilly and Pest gave a brittle snort of a laugh.

"Most of them are, sir, except Paul Slamil and his villainous band," Pest assured him. "And no doubt they would be delighted if you were to abdicate. The rest of us would be in despair."

Godfrey knitted his brows. "But surely my son, Prince Catheter, enjoys unswerving support from my subjects?"

"Of course, sir," Fatsi said. "As Crown Prince, His Royal Highness is highly regarded. There are, however, areas where his conduct gives cause for concern."

"Such as?" Godfrey folded his arms.

Fatsi looked nervously at Pest, who returned a firm look.

"Your Majesty, His Royal Highness has been involved in a farrago of a sexual nature which has made him appear reckless and uncaring in the eyes of the people," Pest argued, "particularly as Her Royal Highness Princess Dawna enjoys such huge popularity."

Godfrey rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "You're right, dammit," he said. "The boy's made a bloody fool of himself with that stable girl – God knows why he let it go on so long."

He turned his searching gaze on the two advisers.

"All right, what do you think about leapfrogging Catheter and letting Anton have the throne?"

Fatsi lifted a handkerchief to his nose and blew loudly, while Pest gave several discrete coughs.

"I'm afraid that would be a complete non-starter, sir," Pest said, raising his eyebrows," His Highness Prince Anton is far too young and inexperienced for such a demanding role. Appointing him to the throne at this time has all the makings of an unmitigated disaster."

Fatsi nodded vigorously in agreement. "His Highness is barely more than a beardless youth, sir, and up against a low-born Machiavellian swine like Slamil he wouldn't stand a chance."

"But surely he'd have the Mellorian Government to advise him?" Godfrey persisted.

Pest coughed behind his hand and smiled wearily at the king. "Sir, you know what a collection of fuddy-duddies, losers, wasters and misfits congregate at Government House – I hardly think their advice would save King Anton from disaster."

"Don't let Amis catch you saying that," Fatsi chortled.

"So your advice is that I must soldier on," Godfrey summarized.

"Until such time as His Royal Highness has recovered from his unfortunate indiscretions, I'm afraid so, sir," Pest affirmed.

"In that case, there's no more to be said!" The king gathered up his papers and strode out of the room.

He went up to his study for a nap and in due course descended to the dining-room for lunch. During the meal he turned to Catheter and Anton.

"I'm getting old and my body's wearing out," he said, "and I've started thinking about the succession. However, I've been advised that I must see the current crisis through."

"And we all support you one hundred percent in the difficult role you're performing," Letitia cut in. Privately she was extremely pleased that Godfrey was at last heeding the inner voice of reason and putting himself on notice.

In fact, she repeated the mantra of support on every public occasion she attended, the next one being an agricultural show in Mellinda. At a cheese tasting where the cheese was as ripe as an open sewer, she politely declined the offer of a generous chunk which almost took her breath away.

"I'm sorry I'm allergic to ammonia," she said, adding "but of course I support my husband one hundred percent in his great and gallant role."

Chapter 19

### Dawna Defuses A Riot

A few days later, Godfrey and Letitia were relaxing in their favorite wing-backed armchairs in the drawing-room. She had picked up her _Country_ _Life_ and was perusing its pages, the lenses of her spectacles twinkling in the firelight, and pondering the merits of swapping her life for that of a mere aristocrat, shorn of the burdens of monarchy and living simply on an English country estate. She saw herself dwelling in an elegant Georgian mansion with tenant farmers to oversee and village shops to patronize. She saw Godfrey relaxing in his oak-paneled study after a day's shooting, while she received visitors for cream tea in a drawing-room much like the one she was in. They would have a wide oak staircase to sweep down, dazzling their guests at functions and balls... Balls was right! Who was she trying to kid? Visitors? Guests? She'd had enough of them to last a lifetime. She would be spending her time relaxing in her bed or puttering about the garden. Let Godfrey receive the visitors and guests.

The thought of bed made her yawn. She put the magazine down and was tempted to take a snooze. "I'm going to take a nap before lunch," she announced. "No doubt lunch will be late – it always is on a Sunday." She removed her glasses, letting them dangle on their chain, threw back her head and closed her eyes. Godfrey watched his wife drift into a doze and became drowsy himself. He eased his head back, letting it rest on the padded upholstery of his chair. Before closing his eyes, he glimpsed the large buck's head, its wide rack of horns thrusting outwards, mounted above the fireplace, a trophy of a successful day's hunting. His empty brandy glass beside him, he felt the liquor burning pleasantly in his stomach and listening to his sons murmuring as they played a game of _Angry_ _Birds_ on the regency sofa. His daughter-in-law had buzzed off in her BMW – he knew not where, but strongly suspecting she was out buying candy. Nevertheless, he felt content. His wife softly snored beside the blazing fire and two beagles lay at his feet, one licking its genitals, the other lazily scratching itself.

What a bumpy road we've been on lately, Godfrey thought, savoring the tranquil sound of the antique brass clock on the mantle as it ticked away the minutes before lunch. With all the damn kerfuffle over Catheter's stupid affair and Dawna's ridiculous eating problems and our own bodily malfunctions, it's been a rough ride. Thank God we have some stability at last, and – God willing – a grandson on the way to safeguard the monarchy until long after I'm dead.

His happy musings were cut short by an urgent rapping on the drawing-room doors. At a drowsy word from Godfrey they were opened, and Simpkins bowed and entered. His face bore the grave expression he assumed when bringing unpleasant news.

Godfrey stirred in his chair and Letitia awoke and began blinking. The king nodded at Simpkins.

"Your Majesty," he announced, "I fear there is a riotous assembly gathered outside the palace. A large crowd of ruffians are being incited to attack Your Majesty and his household."

Letitia gave a derisive snort. "And who is inciting them, pray?"

"Two louts from the People's Party, Your Majesty. They're on soapboxes demanding that all welfare benefits be restored to refugees."

Letitia's eyebrows shot up. "Restore welfare? But we gave alms to over a hundred of them outside the cathedral this morning. Every Mellorian with proof of citizenship was given a little bag of coins."

Simpkins's brow wrinkled. "With respect, ma'am, the refugees these subversives are referring to are the ones who were forced to renounce their citizenship in Shekels by the Slobodians – before being kicked out."

Godfrey gave the butler a stern look.

"No one was forced, Simpkins. The Slobodians made unspecified threats about public whippings and internment camps, but those who held out were allowed to stay. The spineless ones were thrown out to destabilize the Mellorian economy."

The butler looked nonplussed.

"Melloria doesn't reward cowards," the king continued. "Anyone who can't stand up to the Slobodians' bluff and bluster should not expect kid-glove treatment."

"You sound like that dreadful man, Amis – the one who comes to the palace every Wednesday," Letitia said. "At least I think it's Amis – perhaps it's Amiss. Anyway, he's always going on about loyal Mellorians as opposed to pond scum from Shekels."

"The prime minister is right in this instance," Godfrey maintained. "These people have compromised their loyalty and don't deserve public handouts."

Simpkins cleared his throat and rocked gently on his heels.

"Very well, Simpkins," Godfrey growled. "Send out the palace guard to disperse the mob."

A pained, embarrassed look crossed the butler's face. "I regret to inform you, sir that the palace guard are out on maneuvers – it's the first Sunday of the month, sir."

"Ridiculous!" The king's face darkened. "This is all Amis's fault – he should never have merged the palace guard with the regular army, budget cuts or no budget cuts!"

"Well, at least the gates are locked," the king muttered. "Is Trashmountain about?"

"Yes, sir," Simpkins replied. "I sent him to keep an eye on the gates lest the mob try to break in."

"Very good, Simpkins," the king said. "Well, I suppose there's nothing more to be done – unless we call the police."

Anton looked up and smirked. "No good calling the Babylon – they get Sundays off nowadays."

"Sundays off? Why, I've never heard of anything so ridiculous!" Godfrey said. "Isn't anybody on duty today?"

"Yes, dear – you are!" Letitia trilled. "Go out and read the riot act – they'll listen to you, you're their king. And try to get them to go away before Her Glorious Gorgeousness gets back from the sweet shop – we don't want her involved in exciting the crowd."

She sat back, a satisfied smile on her face, and closed her eyes. Godfrey's jaw dropped and he looked abjectly about him. His gaze fell on his sons, who had left their game and were wolfing down a box of Ferrero Rocher on the sideboard.

"All right," Godfrey said, "you heard what your mother said – it's time to do our duty. Put your boots on, boys – we're going out to deal with the mob."

His mouth filled with chocolate, Anton looked anxiously at Catheter, who swallowed his mouthful and folded his arms.

"I don't think it would be wise for us to go with you, Daddy. If the mob turns vicious the heir to the throne and his successor risk being hurt, perhaps fatally."

Godfrey's face hardened and he glared at the princes. "Well, there's a centimeter-thick bullhide belt in my study with a wide brass buckle – that could _really_ hurt somebody."

Anton's face twitched and he gave a nervous laugh. "Of course we're going with you, Pops – hey, we're princes, that's what we do."

The three royal warriors stepped into the palace courtyard, accompanied by Trashmountain, the palace doorman, a giant of a man over two meters tall, who wielded a large club. All four wore Barbour jackets against the blasting north wind, which the princes hoped would eventually disperse the crowd. Godfrey clutched a bullhorn. The mob they were facing pressed against the palace railings, shaking fists and waving hand-drawn placards through the wrought-iron rails. The heavy palace gates were being severely shaken.

"That padlock and chain won't last long," Godfrey said with concern. "Trash, go get some more locks and chains – we need to secure these gates."

The giant grunted and departed, leaving the three royals to police the courtyard.

Above the shouting from the bodies crushed against the railing and pushing at the gates, two voices, a man's and a woman's, could be heard haranguing the crowd. By telescoping his neck, Godfrey was able to make out a man with a brutal face wearing a red ball cap and a woman with a black beret standing a few meters apart. Both were standing on platforms and their jeering voices baited the crowd with surly belligerence.

"At this very moment," the man announced, "the royal family are feasting on venison and caviar, washed down with the finest champagne, while you, the hard-working people, must eke out your onion stew and acorn coffee with your kids!"

The baying crowd roared their agreement.

Then the woman urged the mob to end this disgraceful state of affairs by storming the palace and taking what was rightfully theirs. They're just taking advantage of the police being off-duty, Godfrey thought. He hoisted the bullhorn and looked around for a place from which to address the crowd. The courtyard was empty, save for the imposing bronze statue of his father, King Egbert, on its stone plinth.

Clambering up the podium and over the plinth, he hooked an arm around the bronze coat sleeve of his saber-wielding forebear. He was aware that he looked like one coated old drunk hanging on the arm of another, but he had to reply to his taunters. Clearing his throat, he raised the bullhorn to his lips.

"May I say a few words!" he shouted, close to the mouthpiece. "While I may be luckier than some, because I ate a bowl of granola with milk early this morning – no sugar, I might add – since that time not a morsel of food has passed my lips nor those of my sons!"

He waved the bullhorn toward Catheter and Anton, who had been slouching, hands in pockets, near the base of the statue. They immediately straightened up, and flashed quick smiles at the crowd.

"So – contrary to what our friend in the red cap has been saying – ," his amplified voice boomed, "far from feasting on caviar and venison, none of my family will eat a damn thing until you good people have all gone home!"

The crowd replied with a mixture of cheers and jeers, and Godfrey realized his voice sounded overripe and hypocritical, even in his own ears. The man on the platform quickly took up the argument.

"Did you hear what he just said?" he taunted. "Did you hear what the king just said? He said that as soon as you all go home like good boys and girls, him and his bleeding family will tuck in to their venison and champagne!"

Godfrey gritted his teeth and clung grimly to the bronze statue's arm. He knew it was his duty to stand out here, in the biting wind, his stomach rumbling, until all these bloody people had cleared off, but he wished he had a better speech writer than himself."

Meanwhile the woman with the beret was adding her two-cents worth. "King Godfrey says he hasn't eaten since breakfast," she bellowed. "Poor king! How many of you didn't even have a breakfast today?"

The crowd roared in approval and some voices answered in the affirmative.

"She knows how to work the crowd," Anton muttered to his brother, "but I couldn't fancy her in a pitch dark room with a bag over her head."

Summoning his reserves of cunning, Godfrey raised the bullhorn again. "You're quite wrong about one thing!" he yelled. "I have no intention of eating any food until every hungry person in this crowd – and their children – has been fed. In fact, as soon as you all disperse, as the law requires, I will make it my duty to ensure supplies of food are available to all who need them – including Mellorians from Shekels who were forced to renounced their citizenship by the bloody Slobodians!"

The man in the red cap bellowed a reply, but Godfrey had the impression he and his co-agitator were on the defensive now. Some of the crowd began drifting away, and the number of people pressing against the gates seemed to lessen. Godfrey wondered whether he'd been too rash in promising to feed an unspecified number of people from the government's meager budget. He knew Amis would have a fit, but reasoned that a few distribution centers located in obscure areas keeping short opening hours, announced by an obscure ad in the back pages of the _Bugle_ , should reduce the amount of supplicants.

He climbed down from the statue and stood beside his sons. Tucking his bullhorn under his arm, he thrust his hands deep in his jacket pockets. The wind made their coats flap and the cold air stung their cheeks. How much longer can these bloody demagogues keep a crowd of people standing out in this weather? He wondered. He craned his neck to see if any more people had left, but noticed that for every person who slunk away, others pressed forward, shuffling their poorly-shod feet on the sidewalk.

The agitators stepped up their ranting, the man calling the king a liar and repeating that as soon as everybody had gone, he and his family would be wolfing down prime venison and truffles, washed down with vintage Dom Perignon. Of course we will, Godfrey thought irritably, the sooner the bloody better. I'm parched and absolutely starving! He glared at the crowd, wiling them to leave, but underneath his resolute veneer he felt a growing sense of unease. What if the buggers stay all night – they could pitch tents and light fires – while we three morons freeze to bloody death? We daren't let the servants come out and attend to us – it would look like we were being pampered. These unwelcome thoughts pressed on his mind.

The woman with the beret was telling the mob that the royal regime was bankrupt and that the treasury didn't have a pot to piss in, so the king's promise to feed the hungry was nothing but a hollow sham, a fraud which the people should treat with contempt. The afternoon gloom was deepening and the street lamps suddenly came on.

"Listen, people are cheering!" Catheter suddenly announced, his lips beginning to turn blue.

"It's because of the bloody lights, you tosser!" Anton snarled through chattering teeth, but Catheter gestured toward the crowd.

"No, the cheering's getting louder – hey, perhaps the palace guard are coming back from maneuvers!" His voice fluttered and Godfrey's breast rose in response.

"Thank God! I knew our chaps wouldn't let us down!" he cried. The welcome image of uniformed troops armed with rifles forging their way through the ragged throng, intent on seizing the agitators and rescuing their king and his sons blazed in his mind. It rekindled his waning hope of salvation.

Through the shifting melee of figures outside the palace gates the three royals saw the headlights of an approaching car. The beams were coming from a BMW coupe in powder blue, with plum pink leather upholstery, that slowly approached the beleaguered gates. The car's sole occupant – its driver Princess Dawna – stared with deep apprehension through her tinted windshield. Her sudden appearance in the midst of the hostile crowd had an immediate and amazing effect. For no obvious reason people leapt around the car in childlike glee, urging the nervous princess to step out and favor them with her presence. That she merely flashed a terror-stricken smile from inside the car did not deter them one bit. The voices of the agitators all but vanished as people yelled: "Over here, Dawna!" "Doesn't she look lovely!" "How far is she – five months?" "Will it be a boy or a girl?" "When's it due?" and even "When's it popping out?"

Godfrey was temporarily stunned by the crowd's reaction, but the sight of his daughter-in-law staring, wide-eyed and panic-stricken, at the crowd pressing against her windows and tapping on the bullet-proof glass galvanized him into action. He fished in his jacket pocket for a key and rushed forward to unlock the gates.

"Make way! Make way, I say!" he bellowed, his pitted face flushed with determination, and amazingly the people who had earlier been jeering at him pulled back and watched him unlock the chain. His newly-confident eyes met those of the pregnant princess and a strange frisson of emotion passed through him. If I didn't know myself better, he thought, I'd say it was love! The thought made him shiver. He pulled the chain off and swung open the wrought-iron gates. The car swished past him, and he marveled anew how, with her beguiling beauty, the princess had transformed the crowd into the docile, happy subjects he dreamed of ruling.

He and Trash, who had at last appeared, slammed the gates shut, pulled the chain through the bars and locked it. Behind him, the car had stopped and Dawna stepped out, to be formally embraced by Catheter. The crowd went wild. People suddenly produced cameras from hidden places and an explosion of flashlights seared Godfrey's eyes before he could turn away. He hurried back inside the palace, following Dawna and the two princes. That's one up for the monarchy, he told himself as they trooped into the drawing-room. Thank God one member of the family has pulling-power! He eased himself into his chair and gratefully took the large brandy that Simpkins had poured for him.

His mood of relief took a nosedive during their delayed lunch. Letitia made clear her disapproval of Dawna's effect on people– upstaging Godfrey's efforts to disperse the crowd –by passing the truffles to her last of all. Later, while serving her family cocktails in the drawing-room, she underlined her displeasure by failing to hear Dawna's request for a pineapple Daiquiri, so that the princess was forced to drink a Drambuie instead.

Chapter 20

### Letitia Left In The Lurch

The next morning Queen Letitia awoke to sunlight stabbing her eyes through a gap in the carelessly pulled drapes. I'll kill that maid, she thought, groping for her eyemask. She was feeling disgruntled. Princess Perfect had done it again. If it wasn't enough that she liked to flaunt her belly at every concert, fashion show and cocktail party, now she's doing crowd control as well. And everyone thinks it's amusing. Well, I'm not amused – in fact I'm downright ruffled. Ruffled? Hell, I'm damn near corrugated!

She removed her eyemask when she became accustomed to the light and looked around her. The dark furniture and looming tapestries seemed to close in on her. The bed was the room's finest feature: a high, sturdy mahogany four-poster with bedclothes of Shanghai silk, a gift from the Chinese ambassador. Most of the other decorative furnishings in the palace were gifts, not purchases. The Gorm family was always pleased to accept them, reasoning that they were saving their subjects tax money. She contemplated the enormous tapestry of beagles worrying a great elk that blanketed one entire wall. Must find a better place for that awful wallhanging, she mused. Perhaps I should give the blessed thing to Catheter, as a christening present for the baby. It seems to make the bedchamber look smaller, which is not what I want. The world seems to be shrinking anyway – if it gets any smaller I'll go off my rocker!

A delicate knock on the doors heralded the arrival of the queen's lemon tea and morning paper. Mary D'Armoire swept in and briefly performed the curtsey that decorum required. Then she smiled her nervous smile and wished the queen good morning.

"Did you bring any gingersnaps with my tea?" the queen asked, scrutinizing the tray she was holding. The countess blushed redder than a damask rose.

"To be honest, ma'am, I thought you said you were cutting down on biscuits, as part of your diet."

"I said I was cutting down on chocolate digestives, not all biscuits!" Letitia replied. "You should have listened with both your ears!"

Scanning the front page of the _Bugle_ , Letitia frowned at the headline DAWNA DEFUSES RIOT. "She did nothing of the sort!" she told the countess. "The mob was already leaving when she arrived – the king had persuaded them to go. I know, because he told me himself."

Mary blinked in bewilderment and bowed herself out of the room. In her indignation, Letitia had forgotten to tell her to pull the drapes tight, so she was left squinting in the streak of sunlight. After a few sips of tea and some casual flicks of the _Bugle's_ pages, she stretched for the bellpull, rang for her maid and yawningly attended to het toilet.

A hundred meters farther along the corridor, King Godfrey, who was an early riser, was sitting in his study with a cup of dark Colombian coffee answering his correspondence. He found the task irksome, as he now did all his royal duties although he had once enjoyed them. As a child he had been an emotional waif, never able to win his parents' love, and to compensate he had embraced the calling he had been born to, with all its rigid traditions and ceremonies. Slowly his enthusiasm had crumbled over the years, and he had lately begun to think that Letitia had a point in wanting to retire.

On a shelf in his oak-lined study he reached for one of the mildewed volumes of Mellorian traditional law. He hefted it to his desk and began peeling apart its pages. The old mahogany desk, its elegant legs scuffed and striated, now bore the weight of the tome as he pored over a chapter dealing with the rights of succession. His delving revealed the disturbing truth that Mellorian law, which was entirely based on precedent deriving from a series of ancient prophecies, did not allow the reigning king to abdicate without forfeiting the succession to his brother or brother-in-law – an unthinkable outcome, since Godfrey had no brothers, and his bother-in-law was King Slobodan of Slobodia, husband of his sister Latrina! In addition, the only way the Heir Apparent could succeed to the throne was upon the death of his father or upon the successful overthrow of an unlawful dissolution of the monarchy, such as an insurrection or foreign conquest, during which the previous monarch had been forcibly removed from his throne.

As neither possibility was remotely palatable to Godfrey, he shut the musty volume and returned it to the shelf, vowing to keep silent about his findings – especially to his wife. He turned to the pile of correspondence his secretary had left for him. Mostly begging letters, it contained some emails which his secretary had printed out. These he dropped into the waste basket, reasoning that anyone fortunate enough to have an email account didn't need his financial help. He began reading the letters and suddenly realized just how badly the economy was doing. Line after heartrending line revealed families in grinding poverty, despair reeking from every page. Parents begged for enough to feed their children for the few days it would take to sell all they had. Others begged for help in warding off the scourge of homelessness.

Touched as he was by these tales of unremitting poverty, Godfrey began to wonder how people who were at famine's door could afford writing paper, pens and stamps. Finally he resolved the dilemma of whom to favor with help by applying the formula dictated by tradition. He selected the handful of letters flagged to indicate that they came from Mellorians with seven generations of citizenship, and authorized the dispatch of a check of one hundred moons to each eligible supplicant. To the remaining petitioners the king's secretary would send the following proforma reply:

"The king has gratefully acknowledged your letter and would like to thank you for apprising him of your circumstances. However, the paucity of royal funds and the perilous state of the country's economy do not permit the remittance of monetary relief at this time.

Wishing you better luck for the future."

His gloomy task accomplished, he sipped his coffee and rang for his valet. It's time for breakfast, he thought. He wanted to shake off the letters reeking of poverty and cast his mind over the list of breakfast fare on offer at the palace: six kinds of cereal, waffles, sausage, jam, scrambled eggs, French toast, bacon, ham, cream cheese and bagels, Brie, fruit, banana bread, five kinds of juice, tea and coffee. He felt his stomach growl.

In the breakfast room he was assailed by Letitia who continued to complain about Dawna's dangerously encroaching popularity, as witnessed by that morning's report in the Bugle.

"She'll have to be kept in check," she told him, "if somebody doesn't put his foot down things will only get worse."

Godfrey chewed a piece of toast and marmalade with growing apprehension. That someone is supposed to be me, he thought. He had intended to go riding to exercise his chestnut cob, and now he feared he was being pressured into giving the princess a good talking-to. It was something he didn't relish, particularly as he found nothing disturbing in the way Dawna was conducting herself. Underneath his prim façade, he was a passionate man, with equal parts of repression and desire. His self-imposed chastity, due more to age than lack of libido, did not affect his feelings for the princess, which were what really disturbed him.

He expected to hear Letitia utter the words: "You'll have to talk to her" at any moment. To deflect the moment, he flashed his wife a beguiling smile.

"You know, I've been thinking," he said. "Maybe you were right to stay in bed tucked up with those travel brochures last winter. We should take a vacation this winter – you pick the spot."

She shot him a steel bolt of a glance. "Don't change the subject – we were discussing Her High and Mightiness and what to do about her." "Although," she added, "I'll definitely hold you to that offer."

Letitia swallowed her last bite of banana bread. "There's nothing else for it – you'll have to talk to her, Godfrey."

Godfrey's smile drooped. There was no way out – he would have to bite the bullet. At that moment, however, Simpkins approached the royal pair and stood attentively in his black and gray morning suit while the king wiped his mouth with a napkin.

"You Majesty," he addressed the king, "a young man has arrived at the main gate and says he wishes to speak with you."

Godfrey looked at him with unmitigated relief. "Does he say what his business is?" he asked.

"Only that he wants to make you a very important offer, sir – for a book."

Letitia sighed wearily. "If he's a salesman," she said to the butler, "tell him we're not interested."

Godfrey, who was saying a series of silent hoorays, held up his hand before the butler could leave.

"Just to be sure he doesn't have something important to say, escort him to the library – I'll see him in five minutes."

Simpkins bowed and departed. Letitia frowned warily. "This is just an excuse for you to put off giving Miss Muffet her talk, isn't it?" she said. "Don't think you can wiggle out of it that easily. I'm coming with you, and as soon as this interview is over you're going to give Princess Perfect a talking-to."

Chapter 21

### A Wizard And A Painful Prophecy

The visitor sat on a regency chair in the cool of the library, gazing at the rows and rows of shelves crammed with leather-bound tomes. He looked about eighteen, was thin and pale – almost scrawny, Letitia thought – and wore a sweatshirt and jeans. His pitch-dark, untidy hair framed a slender, almost schoolboyish face and he had bright green eyes under round, old-man's glasses. Hughes, one of the underbutlers, stood behind his chair, holding the young man's rucksack.

When King Godfrey and Queen Letitia entered the room, the young man rose and gave an awkward bow. Godfrey motioned for him to be seated, and led his wife to the sofa.

"Now then," Godfrey said. "I believe you have something to say to us."

"Yes indeed, Your Majesty," the young man said, "I'd like to buy one of your books, please."

Godfrey smiled hesitantly while Letitia glowered in irritated silence. She was irritated with her husband for putting off his important task, and she wanted to get this young oddball out of the palace as quickly as possible.

"Young man, you've come to the wrong place," she said with barely-disguised impatience. "This is the seat of the Kingdom of Melloria, and all the books here belong to our kingdom. They are definitely not for sale. So if you wouldn't mind –"

"Hold your horses, My Dear," Godfrey cut in, realizing that the longer he could keep this young man in the palace, the better his chances of being excused the dreaded talking-to. "Why don't we hear this young man out first." Turning to the youth, he said: "Tell me why you want one of our books?"

"Um, because it's a magic book," the young man said, somewhat hesitantly. "It'll show me the way to get where I want to go."

"And where's that?" Godfrey asked.

"The Magic Mountains," he replied innocently.

Both monarchs burst out laughing. "But we Mellorians don't know if the Magic Mountains even exist," Godfrey chuckled. "It's a very ancient myth, not something we take seriously."

"That's because you're Muggles!" the young man blurted out.

"Because we're _what_?" Letitia suddenly leaned forward and scrutinized the young man's face. She noticed that he had a very faint zigzag scar on his forehead.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude," the young man said, blushing. "It was force of habit."

Letitia was now convinced she had seen or heard of the young man before. It was either some book she'd read or... "Tell us your name," she said finally.

The young man smiled a smile of wary acknowledgement. "The name's Potter, Harry Potter," he said.

"I know you from somewhere, don't I?" Letitia asked shrewdly.

Harry Potter's smile broadened. "You may have read about me or seen me in a movie – or eight," he said with a stab at modesty.

"Yes, and now I know you're a phony!" Letitia cried triumphantly. "You didn't say the name quite right, did you?"

"I beg your pardon?" Harry looked completely nonplussed.

"in the book I read – about a boy who finds a magic potion in his teacher's desk, drinks it and finds he can now drive his father's car, even in the dark, jump off tall places without fear and fight people bigger than himself – the boy's name wasn't Potter!" she said.

"What on earth are you talking about?" Godfrey exclaimed, starting to feel a twinge of alarm.

"The book, the book, it was the first of a series – it was called _Barry_ _Trotter_ _and_ _the_ _Magic_ _of_ _Alcohol_!" Letitia protested.

Harry gave a derisive snort. "That sounds like a cheap knock-off to me!"

"It was actually quite interesting," Letitia maintained, "although the second book, _Barry_ _Trotter_ _and_ _the_ _Magic_ _of_ _Ecstasy_ was a little less punchy. Turns out, the reason he has to keep taking these potions is to give him the courage to defeat his arch-enemy Foll-Dee-Roll. They're written by somebody called Deepe Rolling."

By now, the young man was visibly shaking with laughter, while Godfrey looked from him to his wife with growing bemusement. "I wish somebody would tell me what's going on," he said.

Harry gave the king a wry grin. "Clearly, you Mellorians are getting ripped off by some knock-off merchant!" he said. "My name's definitely Harry Potter, and the woman who wrote about me – she's _Rowling_ , not Rolling. As for my enemy – Voldemort was his name, actually. Not that it matters now."

"Anyway," the queen said, starting to feel embarrassed, "whether your name's Trotter or Potter, we really don't think we can be of assistance to you – there are no 'magic' books in the royal library. Our books are all sane and rational"

"But you're Muggles, you see – "Harry began, then backtracked as he realized his mistake. "I mean, the book I'm looking for probably won't seem magical at all. It'll seem very ordinary, like – a car manual!"

Godfrey laughed lightly. "Our chauffeur has all the manuals he needs in his workshop. The books in this library –" he glanced around at the tightly-packed shelves " – are mostly on the subject of Mellorian history and tradition." "By the way, Mr Potter," he added, "you are welcome to take a look at any book in this library, as long as you replace it when you are finished."

Letitia glowered at Godfrey. She didn't think it was appropriate to let this youth, of whom they knew nothing beyond his doubtful name, roam freely about the library looking at books.

The young man got up and began scanning the shelves, walking close to one wall and then another, scrutinizing the leather spines of books. Letitia watched him, while Godfrey conversed with the Hughes, the underbutler. She noticed that every once in a while he would scratch his forehead as if his scar was prickling.

"What have you got there?" Godfrey said to Hughes.

"Young gentleman's bag, Your Majesty," the servant replied. "We had to search it for security, and Trashmountain found these things inside."

Harry spun around. "Trashmountain? Is that the big hairy lug who frisked me? He looked like Hagrid on a bad day!"

Godfrey was intrigued by the contents of the rucksack that the servant laid out for him on the regency table. Quite an interesting collection, he thought, casting his eye over the quill pens, parchment, long black cloak and cherry wand. "I see you have a conjurer's wand in your knapsack, Mr Potter. Do you do magic tricks?" he asked.

Harry, who had now honed in on a book on the bottommost shelf, gave a short laugh.

"Do I ever!"

"I once wrote to the authoress of those books about you, Mr Trotter," Letitia said to change the subject. "'Dear Deepe Rolling,' I wrote to her, 'how on earth do you manage to dream up such amazing fantasies?'" "Never did get a reply."

"This is the one!" the young man exclaimed. "I recognize it by the purple binding."

This piqued Godfrey's interest. "I never knew we had any book with _purple_ binding," he said. "They're nearly all in yellow and black – the national colors."

Harry stooped and pried the book out. He returned with it to his chair and laid it on the table, next to his things.

"Yes, this is the one!" he said excitedly. "How much do you want for it?"

Godfrey and Letitia laughed at once. Godfrey was willing to let the young man stay another hour or as long as it took for Letitia to forget about his impending talk with the princess, whereas Letitia was anxious for him to leave as soon as possible. They were on a collision course.

"There really is no point you offering us money for this book, Mr Trotter, Letitia said. "As I said before, these books are not for sale."

"First off, my name's Harry Potter," Harry said, a tad irritated. "Second of all, this book means all the world to me..!" He suddenly sank his head in his hands, to their surprise, and gave a loud, anguished sigh. Godfrey was quite moved by the young man's emotional outburst and touched his knee lightly.

"Now, now, Mr Potter, if there's anything we can do to help you, we will. It's just that these books represent Mellorian traditional culture and are very old, and we cannot part with them lightly."

"We cannot part with them at all!" Letitia corrected him.

"Look," Harry said, his eyes brimming with tears, "I know it's hard for you Muggles to understand –"

"That's another thing that's not quite right," Letitia cut in on him. "In the _Barry_ _Trotter_ books, we non-wizards are called _Muddles_ , not Muggles!"

"I don't care!" Harry cried, clearly overwrought. "Ruddy hell, it's like having teeth pulled!" He looked from king to queen, searching for some light of comprehension. A glimmer of hope suddenly flashed across his brow.

"If I tell you why I must have this book," he said, "will you look into your hearts and see if you can find a way to say Yes?"

"How long will this take?" Godfrey and Letitia said together, he hopefully, she doubtfully.

"Not long, I promise you," Harry began. "After leaving school last summer, I decided to take a year and go backpacking around the world with two friends of mine, visiting places where there's wizardry, and the Magic Mountains is one of those places. We went to Greece to see the chimaeras, to Egypt to hang with the alchemists... bur going into the Magic Mountains will be the icing on the cake, the fulfillment of a life's dream! In another nine months I'm going back to England to finish the rest of my life. I'm going to marry my girlfriend Ginny and have three kids – it's all in the last book."

Letitia turned to Godfrey impatiently. "Well, have we heard enough? Shall we have Trash escort him to the front gates?"

"Not quite..." Godfrey countered. "Let's have a look at the book Mr Potter's so keen on." He dragged the heavy volume toward them. Opening it drew a cloud of dust from its antique pages. When the dust had settled, Godfrey peered at the strange cuneiform on each page he turned.

"This is written in Old Mellorian, an extinct language," he said. "You would need a scholar to decipher this script."

"We wizards have our own way of deciphering script," Harry said.

"Show us!" Letitia said impulsively.

Harry hesitated a moment. " _Revello_!" he said, pointing to the top of a page. They both looked hard and Godfrey saw what looked like a tiny map. He peered closely. "It's a map of Mania," he said, "where the church of Our Lady is located."

"You see, Harry said. "There's more to this book than meets the eye. Every page has a clue that'll help me find my way into the Mountains."

"All right, Mr Potter. What's your offer for the book?" Godfrey suddenly said. Letitia gasped.

Harry rubbed his chin. "What about ten thousand moons?" he said.

Letitia snorted. "Mr Trotter, an antique book like this would fetch at least fifty thousand at Southeby's!"

Harry looked pained. "Ten thousand is all I've got saved up," he said sadly. Then his face brightened. "Unless you'd like me to throw in a prophecy as well!"

"A prophecy?" both monarchs said at once.

"A prediction, something that's going to happen within the next year."

Letitia gave Godfrey an old-fashioned look. "Well, I've heard some cute conman's spiels in my time," she said abrasively, "but that takes the biscuit! You'll be telling us that you can forecast the weather next!"

Harry looked like he'd reached the end of his patience. "I don't have to do it this way, you know. I could've put on my Invisibility Cloak, walked into your palace, taken the book, tucked it under my arm and made off with it!"

In spite of doubts, something about the confident way the young man spoke made Godfrey think he was genuine, or at least had something positive to offer.

"Well, we're glad you didn't do that," he said, "and I for one am willing to see what's in your bag of tricks, so to speak – " he smirked at Letitia " – before I give my final decision."

"I think you're both potty!" Letitia said. "And I don't have time to sit listening to all this nonsense!" She got up and strode to the door, which Hughes hastened to open for her. She turned to address Godfrey before leaving: "Don't think I've let you off the hook. You'd better talk to that minx before lunch!"

She strode out and Godfrey motioned to the servant to leave. After their departure, he leaned forward and tapped Harry's knee. "Now, Mr Potter, why don't we begin with one of your magic tricks?"

Harry smiled. "Sir, please call me Harry. It'll be my pleasure. If you'll just hand me my rucksack, please..."

He began rummaging in the empty rucksack and reached right into its depths. Godfrey watched his arm sink right up to the armpit, and then he pulled at something. The edge of a gilt-framed mirror slowly appeared. When it was all the way out it was easily as big as the rucksack itself. Godfrey gasped. "Harry, that's the best bit of conjuring I've seen in a long time," he said.

"You ain't seen nothing yet!"

"What exactly is that mirror?" Godfrey inquired.

"It's an enchanted mirror like the one my godfather gave me," Harry said. Godfrey could detect a catch in his throat.

Harry propped the mirror against the table and they both sat in front of it. Harry took his wand from the table and pointed it at the mirror like a TV remote. "Let's see if I can remember this one," he said and uttered the word: " _Startupio_!" The mirror's bright surface at first reflected billowing silver gray clouds, as if a skylight had opened behind them. Then the clouds cleared away and Harry's heart missed a beat. A much-loved, long-bearded face smiled delightedly up at him.

"Professor Dumbledore!" he could hardly contain his joy.

"The very same, Harry. It's wonderful to speak with you again – and with your royal host," the sonorous voice proclaimed, nodding at King Godfrey.

"Who's that?" Godfrey asked in a hushed voice.

"It's my ex-headmaster, Professor Dumbledore."

"Is he a wizard?"

"He's the best," Harry said reverently. "Listen, the prophecy is about to begin."

The sonorous voice became heavy with foreboding. "These events will take place in one reality or another before one of your years has passed," Dumbledore said. "At this moment, with the momentum that has been created, they are highly likely to occur in your time."

Godfrey felt his throat go dry and gave Harry a tense glance.

"Firstly, the weather patterns are set to progress from freezing mists in December, to storms and blizzards starting in January and reoccurring until late March. In February the weather will become too cold for snow and a hard frost will descend. Then in late February a great snowstorm will blanket Melloria, causing much disruption of daily life. Further storms will follow well into March, when the first thaw will begin. The shortages and deprivations occasioned by the severe weather will cause a great deal of social unrest and provide the impetus for an uprising that will have severe consequences for the monarchy."

Godfrey's fear and anger burst out of him. "Who are the ringleaders of this uprising and where can they be found?" he asked.

Dumbledore paused to accommodate this interruption.

"The ringleaders are those who are convinced that the only course of action open to the powerless is to storm the palace, seize its treasures, distribute them to the masses and imprison its occupants. They are to be found wherever the feelings of resentment and powerlessness are strongest."

"You're talking in riddles – I want names!" Godfrey snapped. Harry gave him a disapproving look.

"You want to stop the uprising?" Dumbledore asked.

"Of course!"

"Then give the monarchy to the people. Open your palace doors to them and let them share your good fortune."

Godfrey's mouth went slack, and he narrowed his eyes as if he were gazing at the sun.

"What you ask is utterly impossible!" he said to Dumbledore's placid face. "For one thing, the monarchy isn't ours to give. As king we are appointed by God and the law of the land to occupy our palace in furtherance of our duty – which is to rule our subjects. We don't own anything."

"Yet you enjoy lives of wealth and luxury of which most of your people can only dream," the image replied.

"Those are merely our working conditions. You can't expect the king and queen to live like paupers – for one thing, the law won't allow it. Do you know that by law we're supposed to eat two kilos of venison a day? What I'm saying is that nobody owns the monarchy. It's held in trust for the people, in perpetuity."

"Then the people are about to wind up the trust and distribute its assets among themselves."

"But that's anarchy!"

"Actually it's unity," the professor said simply.

"Professor, please," Godfrey's voice rang out. "You have information that we need to safeguard our country. Who is behind this uprising?"

"Look inside your mind."

"You've lost me."

"I patiently await your return," Dumbledore said, smiling. And to Harry: "Look closely, Harry, we are all here – those you have loved and those you have not!" He chuckled. "That doesn't matter to us. Over here there is no evil and no enemies!" At that, he stepped aside and Harry gasped at the sight of people who had passed over greeting him with warm smiles: his parents, Lily and James Potter, Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, Fred Weasley, Ted Tonks and Bathilda Bagshot, old Mad-Eye, his eye fully restored, Gregorovitch, the wand maker, and even long-dead wizards like Beedle the Bard. Dead enemies, along with the redeemed Severus Snape, also appeared: Dolores Umbrage, Mundungus Fletcher, Bellatrix Lestrange, even Voldemort - no longer snake-faced but looking more like a radiant King Cobra – , all smiled and waved at him from the shining mirror. Finally, Dumbledore appeared for the last time.

"We are leaving now, Harry – in this form at least. But we all look forward to seeing you, Ron and Hermione again in the Magic Mountains!"

The images faded and the mirror resumed its glassy blandness.

Harry's jubilation at seeing his old headmaster and his parents could hardly be contained. Even Godfrey, who now had things to ponder, was aware of the young man's joy and told him he could have the book.

"Thank you! Thank you!" Harry shouted and punched the air. As a gesture of gratitude he reached into his rucksack and drew out an exact replica of the purple-bound antique book. He walked over to the bottommost shelf and slid it into the gap left by the other book. The only difference between them was that the replica did not contain the tiny hidden clues.

Godfrey watched in amazement as Harry placed the extremely large mirror, with the antique book and his other things, back in his rucksack, which afterward showed no bulges and only a faint clinking as he hoisted it onto his shoulders. "How did you manage to do that?" Godfrey asked.

"Undetectable Extension Charm, a trick I learned off a friend of mine," Harry said. "Talking of which I must dash. I'm meeting my two best friends in half an hour."

The king shook Harry's hand, walked him to the palace entrance and said farewell. The sight of the young man, swinging jauntily across the courtyard with his whole life ahead of him, lifted his spirits somewhat. He did not feel so happy about Professor Dumbledore's warning of dire consequences if he didn't allow the people to share some of his privileges. He wanted to discuss with Pest and Fatsi how he could maintain his centuries-old monarchy in a country seething with poverty, but he knew what their reaction would be if he told them the origin of his concern. He wanted his wife to know about the extraordinary experience she'd missed by flouncing out of the library like a ballerina with a hole in her tights. I'll have a chat with Lettie about it after lunch, he thought, and if she thinks I'm bonkers, so be it.

Chapter 22

### Simpkins's Other Life

On a cold, misty day in December, Sharon Keeler threaded her way among the stalls of a crowded street market in East City. All around her red and green lightbulbs twinkled – Christmas lights – as she scoured the meager display of artifacts each vendor was touting. She had been saddened that morning to hear of the death of Queen Gloriana, the dowager Queen, who had been gravely ill for several months. She could still recall the distraught face of her former page, Rupert, telling the TV cameras how much he missed his queen. She was looking out for a game console for Craig. Her son was crazy about a game called _Thrones_ _of_ _Glory_ that he played with his friend at his friend's house. She was hoping to buy him his own console, though she couldn't afford a fancy Xbox like the one his friend possessed. Nor was there much on offer in this noisy, smelly market sprawled across a junction of four streets. The hawkers' shouts, the stench of goat meat in the cold air, the scurrying and babble of voices made her feel tired.

Glancing at another tawdry stall, she was suddenly aware of a figure watching her. She looked up and saw Simpkins, looking slightly shifty and wearing a black leather jacket and jeans.

"Hello, Sharon," he said, "doing your Christmas shopping?"

"That's right," Sharon replied. "I'm looking for a cheap game console for Craig."

"No worries, Shaz," Simpkins said roughly. "I can get you one of them Xboxes dirt cheap – or would you like a PlayStation?"

She eyed him suspiciously. "Where do you get stuff like that dirt cheap?"

Simpkins tapped the side of his nose. "Ask no questions, my girl," he said. "What else you got on your shopping list then?"

She shrugged. "Only odds and ends. I'm getting dad a big bottle of _Bullet_ _Premium_. No brandy for him this year." "And I thought I'd send the king and queen a card," she added, "even though we didn't get no Christmas bonus."

"Ha! I wouldn't give 'em a hit of my last spliff!" he snorted. "Bloody scroungers, the lot of 'em. Listen, seeing as you ain't got much shopping to do, fancy a cuppa tea in that caff across the street?"

Sharon hesitated. "I don't know, Sim. Us palace workers ain't supposed to get too friendly outside working hours."

"Oh yeah?" Simpkins laughed. "We was getting very friendly _inside_ working hours though, weren't we?"

Sharon sniffed and watched people in rags moving through the cold, misty streets. His coarse manner wasn't very appealing, but she'd just about had enough of tramping about this bloody market and her feet were cold.

"Okay," she said.

In the steamy cafeteria they queued for cups of tea. "And I'll have a custard slice," Simpkins said to the woman behind the counter. Sharon couldn't get over how different he looked off-duty. The suave palace butler wore a shabby leather jacket over a dingy sweatshirt, faded jeans and scuffed sneakers. He looked like a down-at-heel street vendor, his face pale and pudgy as he munched his custard slice. He wolfed it down in record time, too.

"Hear about the Old Queen?" she said.

"Yeah, sad," he said, licking his fingers, "Poor old cow... still she's better off now, the way things are going." His eyes flitted about the dingy room.

"What you doing round here then?" Sharon asked. "You don't live in East City."

"Nah, I got a place in North City, but I got some business to attend to down here."

"What kind of business?" He was lighting up a cigarette now with a flashy silver lighter.

"This and that," he said. He held out the pack of cigarettes to her. His smoking fitted right in with his altered image. Sharon shook her head at the offer, although she couldn't help staring at the cigarette in his mouth. She was dying to lean forward and take a puff.

"How's that son of yours doing?"

"All right. He's got a remedial class today."

"Seems to me he's always got a remedial class, poor sod!" He snorted smoke from his nostrils. "Perhaps he needs a helping hand with his education."

She looked up sharply. "Chance would be a fine thing."

Simpkins drained his cup and stubbed out the cigarette.

"Well, if you need a bit of extra cash, I can help you out. I'm doing some business for a couple of toffs in West City. They live in a fantastic place – it's got everything: swimming pool, tennis court, huge LD screens on the walls, Dolby surround in their movie theater. Your kid would love it – he could play computer games like you wouldn't believe. Anyway, they're looking for a daily help who's honest and reliable. Wanna see their house? I got the key."

Sharon sipped her tea and reflected. She was hung up on the smoldering cigarette in his saucer. She felt the smoke in her lungs. It was six weeks since she stubbed out her last butt. In addition, strange feelings were rising in her, ones she enjoyed yet didn't want to acknowledge.

"You got a boyfriend now?" he asked suddenly.

"What's it to you?"

"What's it to me? That's a good 'un. We were an item once, if you remember, and we could be one again – if you play your cards right."

The cup she was sipping from froze centimeters from her lips. "I can't believe you said that!"

"Why not?" He looked almost offended. "You were happy enough to meet me in the butler's room, the linen closet, the conservatory and anywhere we could do it when we was – "

"– I was stupid then, and anyway – as I found out - you're married!"

She felt dizzy. Her hand holding the tea cup began to tremble.

"Listen, things are different now," he was saying. "The wife and me have split up, so I got more breathing space. Come on, let's pick up your son from his class and go look at this house."

"How do I know you're not bullshitting me?"

Simpkins flashed her a smile and reached in his pocket. He produced a key-ring and dangled it under her eyes. "Come and have a look at the merc. I'm parked across the street. You'll see who's bullshitting."

Sharon crossed the street with him, the damp cold air wrapped around her. She reflected that she really had nothing better to do. She didn't relish going home where her dad would be sitting in front of the telly with bottles rolling around his feet and the food cupboard empty. The need she had thought she'd dispensed with was still spreading all over her like a rash, and she watched with curiosity the scratched, sapphire-blue Mercedes with the shaky fender roll up to the curb. Simpkins leaned out the driver's window and blew her a kiss.

There's one thing about Simpkins, she remembered. He _is_ good with kids – probably because he's had three of his own. Three that I know of, anyway.

They waited for Craig outside the school gates, while streams of children passed in and out. When Craig came out, Simpkins staged an elaborate show for the boy's amusement, chasing him along the sidewalk, bent over, arms dangling like an ape. Craig was almost hysterical with laughter. He eventually slid into the Mercedes next to Simpkins and they drove off to the westernmost edge of West City.

All the way to the fabled house Simpkins kept trying to impress Sharon with his influential connections. He told he had been given the merc by a grateful client and said he used it to drive to Slobodia 'on business.'

"But the border's closed," she protested. "We're still technically at war with Slobodia – you'd be interned if you went over there."

"Not me, my girl – I got contacts in high places, here _and_ across the bloody border. The Slobodians turn a blind eye to the business I do. I don't have no trouble with our lot, either."

Sharon immediately suspected something illegal, probably drugs. The scruffy clothes, the shiftiness, the evasive answers to her questions about his business – it all pointed one way. She shifted in the back seat, mindful of Craig, and kept her suspicions to herself.

"So are these people gonna be home when we get there?" she asked.

They were winding around a pine-tree forested mountain. Craig sat in the front listening to Simpkins's bragging, and she worried that he would start to get interested in what he heard. "Nah, they go abroad a lot."

She continued to feel apprehensive and began to wonder if she'd made the right decision. Perhaps her drunken father wasn't such a bad old sod after all.

Suddenly they were purring up a steep driveway. They approached a walled villa and Simpkins stopped the car in front of a set of wrought-iron gates. He leaned out his window and pushed numbers on a keypad and the gates swung open. They parked in the courtyard of what looked like a Turkish fortress and Simpkins climbed out and opened the doors for Sharon and Craig. Once a butler, always a butler, she thought. They followed him up a flight of stone steps to a locked front door. He opened it with his key and led them across a floor laid with ceramic tiles and adorned with oriented silk carpets. They were in a high-ceilinged room where Chinese artifacts were displayed in glass cabinets. They walked through a library, then a room with a huge LD screen, sound equipment and a pool table. Simpkins motioned them to sit on a black leather sofa while he went over to a walnut-paneled kitchen counter overhung with stainless steel utensils. He returned with Cokes and Doritos on a tray. Installing Craig in front of one of the flat screens with a PlayStation, a Coke and a bag of nachos, he led Sharon up a marble staircase to the bedrooms.

Sharon looked inside each room and noticed every window opened onto a tiled balcony. Each room had an ensuite bathroom with sunken tubs set in black marble, gold faucets and gold mirror frames. Gold chandeliers hung overhead. She was awestruck and wondered about the owners of the house. How did they get the money to buy all this and what would they be like to work for?

Simpkins led her by the hand into the main bedroom and slid open a closet door. "Why don't you just walk in and pick out a dress?" he said. "Anything you like."

She peeked inside. It was almost as big as Craig's bedroom and she marveled at the owners' taste, not knowing whether it was good or bad. She picked out a black silk evening gown and held it up to herself in front of the closet door mirror. Simpkins cackled. He lay stretched out on the bed and was watching her.

"That's very you, Sharon. Nice and sexy. You should try it on." He lit another cigarette and motioned for her to change into the gown. It felt strange and embarrassing, but she took off her shabby blue coat and pulled her black woolen dress over her head and was soon posing for him in the elegant black silk like a runway model.

Simpkins ogled her, smoking and holding a jewelry box near his lap. "If it weren't for that crap on your hair you'd look like a real lady," he said. "Come over here and I'll put something nice on you."

She rankled at the reference to the henna on her hair, but noticed he was holding a diamond necklace out to her. She wanted to be wearing diamonds more than anything in the world.

She sat on the bed and waited while he laid the necklace around her throat and fitted the clasp. She began to feel like a queen adorned in her finery, and her only regret was that Craig's father wasn't the man giving her silks and diamonds and now touching the stones on her throat.

"How about a kiss then?" he whispered hoarsely.

She turned her face toward him and opened her lips. Outside the bedroom door she heard Craig's whining voice.

"Mum, I'm bored. When can we go home?"

Chapter 23

### The Old Queen's Send-Off

The state funeral of the dowager Queen Gloriana took place a week after her death. A thick, whitish freezing fog lay over the city as many of the people who had attending the royal wedding seven months earlier sat waiting in the cathedral's solemn nave for the arrival of the funeral cortege.

Queen Letitia was battling the same urge to sneeze as she had the last time she sat with Godfrey in the royal pew. The same damn altar boy was swinging his censor dangerously close to her nostrils and the tickling from the incense was becoming unbearable. This time, however, there was no mumbling archbishop's chant to distract her. The Deputy Archbishop, the Very Reverend Dr Martin Bribe, was conducting the funeral service as the archbishop was 'indisposed.' Probably nursing a hangover, Letitia thought and her irritation grew. Bribe was determined to maintain silence during the waiting period, so there was nothing for it but to look for an alternative distraction. Letitia's eyes, already starting to water, alighted on the chancel where the priests stood in silent readiness for the royal coffin.

Among its furnishings was sturdy wooden lectern in the form of an eagle whose straight back bore a huge leather-bound bible. As she focused on it she noticed that its beady eyes were staring directly at her. She felt a strange discomfort, that slowly turned to anger. How dare this impudent creature stare at her like that! Was it trying to outface her? The carved wooden beast was an indecency. She began fantasizing a suitable punishment for the brainless creature's mockery and lack of respect for the queen. It should be turned to face the commoners' pews and never be allowed to face the royal pew again, she thought. That would be a good start, though not enough to make it pay for its impudence. She envisioned dropping a black cloth over the beast's head, thus plunging the brute's malicious eyes into complete darkness. Hah! A cloth would be too lenient, better a wire cage to remind the upstart bird that while a queen may stare at an eagle, particularly a dumb wooden one, an eagle must never stare at a queen! The cage would impress on the creature that while the queen and her family were free to come and go as they please, the wretched beast was to remain in its place, forever serving as a humble bookrest. Then, if the beast still wouldn't show humility by softening its gaze, further punishment would be inflicted. This thought pleased Letitia greatly.

She imagined the offending avian having its pebble eyes ripped out by a sturdy pair of pliers. Trash could do the job – he'd put the fear of God into the beast! Then in her mind she watched him compound the bird's humiliation by sawing off its beak, which she considered insolently tilted upward. A hammer would next be used to crack its arrogant claws. Finally if the recalcitrant bird still refused to bow its head, a bucket of acid would be tipped over its entire body, melting it into a pool of pathetic sludge.

Letitia began rocking gently in her seat as she struggled to avoid giggling. She shoved a fist in her mouth and gnawed on it. She was beside herself with mirth as she imagined the bird's complete destruction. She herself had suffered a thousand indignities in her life and now she was getting her own back. The bird would be stripped of all its vain pretensions. An upwelling of laughter began pushing through her defenses. It rippled from her stomach into her chest and up to her throat, and she uttered a strangled guffaw that echoed in the silence. The next moment she felt a sharp though discrete nudge in her ribs and heard Godfrey's voice whisper: "Not so loud, my dear – remember we're in church!"

Godfrey, sitting in the plush leather upholstery beside his wife, sighed and flicked his eyes toward the cathedral entrance. He was concerned that the cortege's journey from the royal chapel of rest to the cathedral was taking far too long. Even allowing for the throngs of people waiting in the cold outside the cathedral, the coffin and coffin-bearers should be here by now, he thought. He was still mentally chewing over the prophecy that the strange face in the mirror had made, particularly about the threat of an uprising, and was beginning to wonder if terrorists had sabotaged the cortege. It was a bizarre idea, since Queen Gloriana had enjoyed much popularity during her lifetime. She had a quirky way about her, as Godfrey well knew, which only served to endear her to the Mellorians, who were a quirky lot themselves. He couldn't see how upsetting the funeral of such a much-loved public figure would serve a political end, although recent bomb outrages in various parts of the city indicated that the People's Party were desperate enough to resort to extreme measures.

Suddenly, to everyone's great relief, the doors of the cathedral were flung open and eight members of the palace guard entered, bearing the flag-draped, flower-bedecked coffin which they carried to the chancel. Everyone rose and the king and queen, with their two sons and daughter-in-law, left their pew to stand in front of the coffin. The congregation began singing _Guide Me O Thou Great_ _Redeemer_ and Letitia's eyes streamed with the tears she had been holding back.

Driving back to the palace in a convoy of limousines, the king and queen were greatly moved by the sight of piles of flowers and messages of condolence outside the palace gates. People had been coming in droves to lay flowers and a whole roast pig was being carved by cooks in the middle of Constitution Square. Pieces were being distributed to the throng who were also consuming large quantities of _Bullet_ beer and cabbage and burdock cola. In spite of the freezing fog, crowds had stood outside the cathedral to pay their respects to the nation's grandmother: the handicapped in wheelchairs joined veterans of the war with Slobodia in fatigues and bandannas in front of a band playing traditional Mellorian laments. Constitution Square became the focus for a popular remembrance service after the pork barbecue. There were speeches by dignitaries, more anthems from the band and four viewing screens positioned around the square displaying huge faces of the Old Queen beaming a rare smile.

Chapter 24

### The Plot

On the same freezing December day that the huge demonstration of public mourning was taking place, a meeting of the Central Committee of the People's Party was being held in the cramped basement of a party 'safe house' in East City.

Seven members of the committee sat on lumpy cushions in a rough semicircle: Paul Slamil, the Chair, Joe Steel, his Deputy, four Revolutionary Women of Melloria (a feminist caucus within the party), namely: Stella Mastoid, Mickey Miskiss, Dolores Unchain and Penny Slam, and a man with a snub nose and a Slobodian accent who answered to the name of Caspar.

They shared a bottle of brandy as an antidote to the cold. The windowless room, lit by a single overhead bulb, was unheated and cluttered, having recently been vacated by a party activist who had stayed three weeks. In one corner of the room was an unmade bed, in another a dressing-table heaped high with what looked and smelled like dirty laundry. Through an air vent they could hear mourners passing by outside. Periodically the room resounded with the sound of a brass band.

Paul Slamil cleared his throat and perused his notes. He began the meeting by spelling out the Party's objective for the coming winter.

"Things are shaping up, comrades," he said. "In the three months leading up to December, the party gave out six thousand blankets, nine hundred kerosene heaters, twenty-seven hundred hectoliters of kerosene and forty tonnes of food and essential supplies. When the dreadful weather comes, as the forecasters say it will, the people will be well looked after thanks to our efforts. Then, when we launch our spring offensive against the monarchy, the people will be with us and there will be little or no resistance when the putsch comes – "

"When putsch comes to shove!" Caspar, an addict of bad puns, interrupted.

Joe Steel's brutal face twitched. Among the women, only Penny Slam, a bespectacled, bright-eyed woman snickered.

"You sound pretty confident our push will succeed, Paul," Steel said, before grabbing the bottle and taking a swig.

Slamil's craggy features gave a barely perceptible tic as he silently considered the remark.

"We'll certainly do better than our last public outing," he said finally.

"That was a cheap shot, Paul," Dolores Unchain countered. She was a tall, brooding woman with a penchant for black leathers and berets.

Slamil turned to Steel and Unchain, who sat next to each other. "What I can't understand," he said, "is how, with a hungry, desperate crowd and no police or palace guard up against you – an ideal situation – you couldn't get the crowd worked up enough to burst open the bloody palace gates!"

"You know perfectly well what happened – let's not bullshit each other!" Unchain said. "The king showed up with his two sons and distracted the crowd with some piss and wind, then when Princess bloody Dawna arrived in her beemer the crowd went completely out of control – no one could have agitated that mob!"

Steel seized the passing bottle and gulped another slug.

"That fucking bitch will have to be dealt with!" he said.

Slamil's features broke into a smile. "Hey, if she's that good with crowds, maybe we should get her on our side – anybody know what her politics are?"

Mickey Miskiss, a big, fuzzy-haired woman with heavily-tattooed forearms, gave a snort of derision. "She's radical chic – so long as it's in fashion," she said.

Unchain, who didn't want to lose out to Slamil, shuffled on her cushion. "Let's get back to the point, shall we?" she said. "Joe and I were doing pretty well with the crowd outside the palace at first. He made some good speeches and so did I – "

"So what, Doll! Nobody cares about speeches if they don't get results!" Steel replied moodily. "Speeches don't get reported in the media – action does."

"So how do we make sure there are no more screw ups?" Stella Mastoid broke in. "I think we should have a really good plan in place the next time we try to topple the monarchy."

"We need the people to respect us, not see us as a bunch of loud-mouthed tossers,"Miskiss added. Slamil held up his hand.

"We have an excellent plan in place, Stella," he said. "We've already started our warm-up actions, and there more to come over the next month. "You're right about the media, Joe. The only way to get publicity is to create a few bangs."

"Let's have a few high-profile bombings then," Steel added.

"And for God's sake, no more cock ups!" Mastoid wailed.

Chapter 25

### Dawna's New Affair

In his austerely-furnished bedchamber Godfrey perused his copy of the _Bugle_ , sipping a cup of his favorite dark Colombian. There was a report of a bombing on the front page next to some big, splashy picture of his daughter-in-law and some actor who looked vaguely familiar. Godfrey read the report. Someone had planted a quantity of semtex at the National Bank and it had blown out the front of the building. A robbery had then occurred and a large amount of money taken. It made him think about the old professor's prophecy and its dire warning of an uprising against the monarchy. This is just the first stage, he thought. They terrorize the country with bombs, stealing money for weapons and more explosives, and then they launch their attack when we're least prepared. If only I knew where these renegades are hiding out, I'd have then flushed out in no time. East City is like a rabbit warren – they could be in a hundred different places.

He turned the page and found another report that dealt with the People's Party's stepped-up efforts to win popular support. Party workers were visiting impoverished houses and delivering much-needed provisions as the cruel winter began to bite, provisions that came from Party supply dumps near the Slobodian border. The reporter speculated on whether the money to buy these supplies came from disgruntled _Saint_ growers, angry with the government for its harsh laws against cannabis, or from the Slobodian government, which for its own reasons were backing the Party's efforts to destabilize the country.

Finding nothing else of interest, Godfrey cast the paper aside and stretched out on his spacious bed. Damn the bloody Slobodians! He thought. They'll do anything to help those bastards attack us. And there's not a damn thing we can do about it. He looked about him at the sober furnishings and felt a modicum of relief. The palace is safe – for now, at least – and the job I have isn't too taxing. He reviewed the events of his day: coffee and the morning paper, breakfast, a trip to the forest with the head ranger to see what the fierce weather was doing to the deer population, back to the palace for brandy and a game or two with Bunty in the billiard room, lunch – he envisioned the venison chasseur, artichoke hearts, truffles, dessert of brandy cake with stilton and port in the drawing-room – then a nap before meeting ambassadors or foreign dignitaries, more brandy, dressing for dinner, a state banquet for visiting royalty, brandy and bed. It was a shame his body was starting to give out, he thought, or he'd be happy to stay on until he keeled over. And an even bigger shame that Letitia wasn't as content with their life as he was.

It puzzled him just how discontented she was; after all, she had it even easier than he did, spending her time either in bed or in the drawing-room reading _Country_ _Life_. She had once told him she thought that Hamlet's famous question should be 'To do or not to do,' and he knew exactly what her answer to it was. She preferred inaction to action as her default setting and indulged her preference whenever she could. She complained that they were prisoners of protocol and tradition, which he thought was a bit rich. He considered tradition the bedrock of the monarchy and its sure protection, though he was starting to think that the monarchy needed to adapt to the modern world if it was to survive.

These thoughts brought him back to the professor's prophecy and how the old man had urged him to open up his palace to the people. He could just imagine what his palace advisers, Pest and Fatsi would think of that! Still, it might not be a bad idea to raise revenue by opening the palace to paying visitors during the summer months that he and his family were vacationing abroad. Visitors could be charged ten moons a head to gawp at the throne room, the state banqueting room and other grandiose rooms. He would raise the matter at the next Wednesday meeting. With that pleasant thought on his mind he rang for his valet.

Farther along the corridor, Letitia was almost choking on her lemon tea. Pictures of Princess Dawna in an intimate tete a tete with an American film actor at a fashionable café in West City were all over the _Bugle_ and she thought she would have a heart attack. The Prancing Princess will have to be firmly dealt with, she thought.

"She'll have to be packed off to Bulimia for a long period of rest as soon as the baby is born," she told Agatha, the Duchess of Dimchester, "or the family's good name will be destroyed forever. Godfrey is head of the church for heaven's sake! Never in all my years as queen have I seen anything like this. Even when Godfrey's sister Latrina ran off to marry a monster, it was never plastered all over the paper. Not that Latrina is anything to look at, so maybe this is a compliment to her Glamorous Gorgeousness. It's one thing for male members of a royal line to be seen sowing their wild oats, but the wife of the Heir Apparent and mother of a future king – we hope – flaunting herself in a café with an American!"

The duchess, her rouged cheeks flaming, was wishing she hadn't rushed into the queen's bedchamber that morning, brandishing the _Bugle_ to let the queen know that a dreadful bombing and robbery had taken place at the National Bank. She had naively thought the queen ought to be informed, but all she had said was: "It's private money – it won't affect the royal purse, will it? I presume the bank is insured against loss. It looks as if a Robin Hood is at work, robbing the rich to give to the poor – or to himself." Letitia had chortled at her own wit, snatched the paper and her tea, then almost had an apoplectic fit when she saw the offending pictures.

The incident which had caused the queen's apoplexy had begun when the princess attended a ball held to celebrate the engagement of her sister, Princess Hernia to Prince Anton. There she had met an American actor, twenty years older than herself, whom she found scrumptious. They had agreed to meet for lunch and, while sitting and chatting over their ahi salads with ginger and crispy noodles at an upscale café on King Egbert Avenue, Melloria's most fashionable street, were ambushed by a paparazzo who got some excellent shots of the enraptured pair.

After breakfasting alone, which he usually did as his wife was such a late riser, Godfrey repaired to his study to deal with his correspondence. The pile of begging letters had swollen due to the extreme weather and took longer than usual to dispense with. His gloomy task accomplished, he sat at his desk with a large brandy. He gazed at a painting of a bloody battle scene displayed above the fireplace while he sipped. At that moment the ancient study door squeaked open and Letitia's head appeared. Godfrey craned around on his chair.

"To whom do I owe this unexpected pleasure?" he drawled.

She shut the door hard. "Listen, we have to do something about these scandals and we have to do it quickly. I presume you saw those ghastly pictures in the paper – well, just read this!" She thrust a computer print-out into his free hand and watched while he read it. It was a blog written by Arabella Scott-Natterson and hinted that Dawna and her new beau, the actor Jamie Dipp, were fast becoming an item on the dinner party and nightclub scene. At a film producer's party the previous evening, after their fateful lunch together, Dawna and Dipp had caused a commotion when, to catch his attention the six-months pregnant princess had pushed a lit candelabra closer to an ice sculpture on their table. This succeeded in melting its base and the whole thing crashed onto their plates. Hearty laughter ensued, and her goal was attained when she and Dipp were observed leaving together and disappearing into the night.

"Well," Letitia said when Godfrey had finished reading. "Don't you think we ought to send her out of the country just as soon as we can?"

"Into exile?" Godfrey stuttered, temporarily confused.

"No, stupid – just for a few months, to let her cool her heels."

As Godfrey struggled to form an opinion, a brief exploratory knock on the door announced the arrival of the king's secretary.

"I'll tell you what I think later," he whispered to Letitia, then he bellowed: "Enter!"

Rebuffed but not defeated, Letitia retired to her bedchamber and snatched up her own pile of correspondence. Angling her pillow to prop up her head, she began leafing through the letters her secretary had left for her attention. Unlike Godfrey, she received no letters asking for money. Each of her missives begged only for the pleasure of her attendance at balls, dinners and concerts, and deciding which to say yes to involved very little heart searching.

One invitation she opened was to a charity performance at the opera house of Verdi's _Macbeth_ which she decided to decline, judging that the combination of Shakespeare and Italian opera singing would bore her to tears. Another fundraising concert, this time at the sports stadium, featured Melloria's most notorious rock band, _FreeksHoh_ , which she knew would render her migrainous for at least three days. She had only ever heard the sounds emitted by the band once, when she unwisely opened the door to Anton's room to complain about the noise. The amplified wailing she likened to chickens being throttled in a wind tunnel.

None of the other epistles on her bed interested her, so she pushed them onto the floor. A maid would return them to her secretary by and by. She frowned restively and wondered whether a Barcardi and bitter lemon might prove a better restorative than her usual gin and IT. She pulled her bell cord and, while awaiting the servant, her thoughts wandered to the shenanigans of her cavorting daughter-in-law. She had never fully approved of Catheter marrying the girl and had made her views well known. Her reasoning was that while her son's quirks were familiar and manageable, even his protracted fling with that damn stable girl, Dawna was an unknown quantity. She appeared to be a loose cannon, and to allow such a questionable entity into the tightly-knit Gorm clan was to invite the possibility of disaster.

Events were proving her correct, though she took no satisfaction in that, and now that Dawna's frightful sister Hernia was being lined up as Anton's bride, she feared more disaster was looming. Anton was at the age when he should be decently married, but there was nothing decent about Hernia. She wore inky black rags with holes in them and had a metal stud through her tongue. All the better to lead her to the pigpen, Leticia decided. Dawna presented a more pressing problem, and it was clear she and Catheter were totally incompatible. In other circumstances divorce would be the solution, but the future king of Melloria could never divorce. Letitia considered Catheter's conduct in the performance of his duties adequate, if a little stodgy. He didn't dash around in a BMW at breakneck speed, he let himself be driven by a chauffeur while he sat in the back, decently occupied. His only flaw was his infatuation with that awful Lucinda, a more manipulating minx she couldn't imagine. The girl was obviously trying to get her hooks into him and she was succeeding. The fact that she had no breeding or class had no effect on him, and all she could hope for was that he kept his meetings with the slut as discrete as possible. The fact that Lucinda had a passion for horses was a point in her favor, and Letitia had read in the _Bugle_ – a newspaper she devoured – that she had set her heart on running a riding stable to provide work for young people who would otherwise be idling. The stable would train thoroughbreds, some of them owned by the Gorms. That was the kind of enterprise she found wholly commendable.

Chapter 26

### The Ferocious Winter

In January the winds that swept down from the Slobodian plains brought storms and blizzards. The blizzards continued into February until the weather became too cold for snow.

Then a hard frost descended and the country became quiet and crystalline. In the white silence few ventured out unless dire necessity compelled them. King Godfrey abandoned hunting when the snow became too deep for the beagles. He went out on skis with Catheter and Anton, using deer shot to bring down whatever game he could find, but fetching the carcasses home became too difficult as servants lost their way in the snow. Poor people waited until dusk, when starving deer came out of the woods to look for scraps of food other animals might have left. They picked off their prey with rusty shotguns or homemade crossbows, defying the law which prohibited commoners shooting deer. Some hunters were arrested. At night people lay shivering in their beds, listening to the baying of hungry wolves running down the deer in the moonlight.

Throughout January black-coated People's Party workers struggled through knee-deep snow to bring blankets and kindling wood, and were greeted with thankfulness. They were also admired for stoically refusing gratuities of _Saint_ or the crude liquor the poor people made from potato peelings. However, they occasionally accepted a plate of vinegar cabbage in a frozen kitchen to keep up their morale. This continued into February, when a great snowstorm blew relentlessly for days on end, smothering everything in its way. Entire farms of cattle, pigs and chickens were buried overnight, and whole villages were lost up to their rooftops. People who went out became marooned in a vast whiteness and disappeared. In downtown Melloria City people died slumped against lampposts, their heads and shoulders protruding from the banks of snow. In country areas bodies of people frozen against barbed wire fences they were trying to cross stood in deep snow, their heads visible like raisins in frozen milk. Further storms followed well into March and the snow created eddies and dunes until Melloria looked like a white beach under which drowned bodies remained until the snow sank away in April.

The weather took on a hateful malevolence that changed without warning from screaming gales and snowstorms to the bitterest frost, when the temperature sank low enough to snip ears, toes and fingers like wire cutters. Among the poor, the ony remedy for frozen hands and feet was for people to dip them in buckets of warm fresh urine, and children whimpered in their sleep even under blankets supplied by the People's Party. The difference between having toes or not, between staying alive overnight or not, was often economic. Those who could afford thermal underwear or snowshoes were able to move about, but even among the middle-classes, people in snowshoes took several hours to walk half a kilometer, and reached their destinations with faces as hard as plywood. Animals died in their stalls, and many livestock farmers lost all they had. The shortage of snowplows made many town dwellers resentful, and everyone complained about the inaction of a government they couldn't vote out of office.

One morning in early February Godfrey almost froze to death when he tried to mount his horse on the worst day of the frost. Ignoring the way the horses in the stalls were acting up, nipping each other and rearing up in their stalls, he led his chestnut cob outside and was almost welded to his pommel and reins, one boot jammed inside the iced-up stirrup, the other stuck to the cobblestones. He was quickly freed by a groom, but the incident jangled Letitia's nerves so badly, that she cancelled all her appointments and took to her bed for the rest of the winter, snuggling up first with _Country_ _Life_ , then with _Island_ _Life_ , a Caribbean retirement homeowner's magazine. Her action caused the court to grind almost to a standstill, and the propriety of her behavior was the subject of much discussion. She did not waver in her determination to hibernate, however. "Inaction leads to insights," she told Agatha one morning. "Let my battlecry be: Life, liberty and the pursuit of idleness!"

The slowing down of court life gave Catheter the impetus to escape his duties. He enjoyed skiing more than the other members of his family and went out every morning for a brisk glide along trails in the royal park that no one else knew about. He skied well and always took his minidisc recorder to capture sounds that fascinated him. If in the course of his rambles he encountered a skier – a rarity in a country as poor as Melloria – his shyness and self-consciousness would cause him to choke and cough, indicating his displeasure. If the skier approached him from behind and the trail was narrow, he would assert his royal right of way and decline to let him pass.

Returning from one such outing he arrived at the back door of the palace and stopped to unclip his skis. On impulse he looked up and saw his wife at her bedchamber window, standing perfectly still, the sun gilding her heavily-pregnant nakedness. Had she come to the window at the sound of his knocking the snow off his boots? What did she expect to see? Was she relieved or disappointed? He thought he could feel his wife trembling at the window. She was hugging herself, her hands clasping her sides above the swollen belly. He took off his snow goggles and shaded his eyes with a hand. How beautiful she is, he thought. The effect was striking. The window was so clear, the female body so voluptuous.

Catheter began to generate hope that his problems might be resolved, that reconciliation, even forgiveness was possible. He shrugged off the sound equipment he was carrying and raised his hand to wave at his wife. Show a hand, he pleaded. Please show a hand. He wanted no more than for her to give him a wave, like the one she gave to thousands of people at every public event. Just that - a simple gesture of acknowledgment. He felt he could build a whole life on it. He raised his hand higher and waited.

Eventually she noticed him, gave a shocked glance and turned away, vanishing from sight. At least she didn't flip me the bird, he thought.

During the remainder of the winter (the worst on record, the _Bugle_ proclaimed), Catheter made several more skiing trips, sneaking out while the rest of the palace barely stirred. He made sound recordings of the wildlife he encountered, but never saw any of the desperate struggles of poor people trying to cope with the winter horrors. The rest of the time he continued a schedule of light duties, attending Government house debates whenever the weather allowed, and secretly communicating with Lucinda by text and cellphone. Dawna remained indoors due to her advanced pregnancy and a nasty encounter with a snowplow that damaged her BMW (a car ill-equipped to deal with the Mellorian winter), and ventured no further than the end of the corridor, except at mealtimes.

In late February and March screaming winds that hit people as hard as revolving doors and tumbling snow flying in their faces battered the Mellorian population. April brought a breathing space, in which farmers calculated the aftermath – cattle stalls, pigpens and chicken coops blown away with their occupants – and grieving next-of-kin made grim discoveries as the snow melted: Bodies were raised up from bizarre resting places. King Godfrey and Queen Letitia sent letters of condolence and sympathy, as tradition required, to all Mellorians who had lost loved ones in the ferocious winter. They also attended a memorial service at the cathedral. It was Letitia's first appearance after her hibernation. She continued languishing in bed nevertheless, enjoying a laziness that was so pleasant that she wished she could extend it to the rest of the year. She reluctantly began carrying out royal duties at Godfrey's insistence, consoling herself with forays into her newly-thawed garden. Godfrey resumed his regular activities, only shooting clay pigeons instead of pheasants, and court life recommenced, with seven-course dinners, state banquets and costume balls. A gala ball to celebrate the arrival of spring drew four hundred guests, who arrived in limousines and horse-drawn carriages, to join in the champagne toasts, cheers and yahooing that went on far into the night.

On the First of April Princess Dawna gave birth to a son, amid much rejoicing, and after the christening ceremony at the cathedral, Prince Angus was brought out by his mother onto the palace balcony and shown to the people. A huge throng in Constitution Square cheered and made merry, and Mellorians of all stripes celebrated until the early hours.

Chapter 27

### Sharon's Affair Revisited

Craig was having a wicked tantrum and Sharon inwardly cursed him. She cursed Simpkins as well for putting the idea into the boy's head that he could come with them to Simpkins's place. She knew what Simpkins had in mind when they got there, and she didn't want Craig tagging along. Craig was howling hard, screaming so loudly that she wondered whether his body could take it. He tried to rip his T-shirt in his rage, but couldn't get a grip on the fabric. His face was wet and mucous ran out of his nose. His whole body was shaking and he began scratching his face, so she decided shock treatment was called for.

She gave him a slap and he stopped screaming. He gave her a look of such malevolence that she shrank back. The he kicked out at her but couldn't reach her.

"I hate you!" he yelled. "I hope you get AIDS!"

He turned and ran up the alley beside the house. He skidded around the corner, just as Simpkins pulled up in the merc, and ran helter-skelter down the street.

Simpkins looked at Sharon nonplussed.

"Don't mind him," she said. "He's just pissed because he can't come with us."

"Oh-oh, looks like there's been a change of plan!"

She looked at him, wondering how much he realized the impact he was making on her life and that of her son. After their first meeting they had begun a tentative courtship, seeing each other at a certain bench in a little park near her home. But Sharon felt it was more a restart of their earlier fling than anything more serious, although he told her he was a free agent now. He'd also found her some part-time work for the lah-dee-dahs who lived just outside West City, but because of the lousy bus service and her other commitments she could only do one day a week. Still, she owed him one and was willing to go to his place and see what happened.

"It's okay," she said, "he'd only be whining if we brought him along. He's better off playing with the other ragamuffins."

"Yeah, that's true," Simpkins conceded. The he took her hand and led her to the car. When he told her he rented a small apartment in North City he didn't mention that it was in a seedy hotel, two stories up, its balcony wrapped in ugly black railings. Sharon took an instant dislike to the hotel and trudged up the stairs feeling like a cop entering a suspect's lair.

Her misgivings were confirmed when Simpkins began boasting about the money he left in the place the moment they were inside the door. He took off his boots and five hundred moons fell out. The pictures of his three kids on the dresser all had hundred moon bills behind them and there were a thousand moons in a bureau drawer.

He laid the money out on a round glass coffee table and beamed with pride.

"There you are, my girl – enough to buy Craig some ace computer games."

What do you think I am, a prostitute? She felt like saying, but instead said: "Oh my."

"You're a bit quiet today, Shaz – everything all right?"

"Yeah, fine."

He sat down on the couch, lit a cigarette with his silver lighter and picked up the remote.

"Come on, sit down and get comfy. We can stay here for a bit then go out for a meal."

He started changing channels on the TV. She sat next to him and he put an arm around her. He had _The_ _Simpsons_ on really loud.

"Fancy a smoke?" he said.

"I quit ages ago."

"No, I mean a _smoke_ – you know, helps get us in the mood."

Oh God, he's still using that shit! she moaned to herself. She felt she was going back to the days when he and Hughes, the underbutler, bought bags of weed from the head gardener.

He looked at her and smiled. "It's all right," he said. "The cops ain't gonna bust us here." He put his smoldering cigarette in the ashtray.

She could feel his eyes on her face and wondered about what future she would have with him – another addicted man she would have in her life. She couldn't believe it; she was thirty-eight and sitting on an orange couch watching a fifty-something man roll a joint. What was that all about? She felt it was unreal, and glanced at her watch.

"Don't do that," he said. He was igniting the end of the joint with his burning cigarette.

"What?"

"Look at that watch all the time. Take it off."

She looked at the watch on her wrist. It suddenly seemed absurd, like a Salvador Dali soft watch. Ticking away the hours in a world that didn't make sense.

"Give it here, come on!" he took a long pull on the joint and put a hand out. He motioned with his fingers and she meekly stripped off the watch and placed it in his hand.

"That's better," he said. "What do you need to know the time for? You're with me – I'll tell you the time. Cop hold of this spliff."

He handed her the joint and put the watch in his pocket. "Don't worry about the watch. I'll buy you a new one. That one was junk. I was embarrassed to see you wearing it. You'll have a Rolex next time."

Yeah, and pigs'll fly out of my butt, she thought.

Against her better judgment, she took a deep tote on the joint. She immediately felt dizzy.

"I got a sackful of watches," he told her. "I got all the colors: red, black, gold. You name it."

"Where?" She studied his face. As the effect of the dope kicked in, the fleshiness of his features were accentuated.

"In the bank," he said. "In a safety deposit. Not here of course. In Slobodia – and all the cash that isn't stashed away here." He smiled and took back the joint.

They smoked it down to the roach and Sharon realized she'd lost all track of time. The air in the room felt stuffy and hard to breathe. The smoky smell got up her nose and Simpkins's hand was creeping up her blouse, toward her bra hooks.

"Let's work up an appetite," he said. He turned the television off.

Although the apartment had a double bed, with a brown and green swirl bedspread, they made out on the scratchy couch. Simpkins pulled his shirt over his bloated body and threw it inside-out on the TV. He slid his belt out and unzipped his pants. She watched him yank them down over his plump legs and began to feel apprehensive. His skin looked mottled and thick curly hair grew all the way up his legs to his gray underwear.

She could smell him from where she was sitting. He smelled ripe and gamey, the cheap cologne he wore at the palace unable to conceal his odor. She thought of game birds that hung in the palace kitchen and started to feel nauseous, so she undressed quickly and stretched out on the couch with her arms at her sides. Her bum tickled, and she almost giggled when Simpkins straddled her and began kneading her butt. He kissed her and nibbled her nipples, yet inwardly she felt numb. Thankfully her vagina was as juicy as an overripe papaya and her heavy breathing, under the impact of his slamming, made it sound like she was panting with pleasure, so the experience was soon over.

Afterwards they had shrimp and pasta at a nearby café and Simpkins played footsie with her under the table.

"This is like old times," he said. "Only better, 'cause now we can start planning our life together."

He put three shrimp tails in his mouth and crunched them. Crunchity-crunch. This is how my life is gonna be, she thought.

They arranged to meet the following week at the bench in the little park. She wore her one pair of clean underpants, jeans and a white T-shirt, as the spring weather was so mild – and no bra. It was over an hour before she saw him, walking toward her with a brown canvas bag. He sat down next to her.

"How are you?" he said. He gave her a sly smile. Why do I always feel I'm being used, she thought.

"Good," she replied.

He looked more disheveled than the last time she'd seen him. His canvas bag was bulging.

"D'you like flowers?" he said. He unzipped the bag and pulled out a bunch of battered begonias. "I got these across the border," he said, winking.

He brushed the flowers against her cheek and she closed her eyes at their softness. She felt his fingers gently seeking hers. They sat for a moment, their hands joined, and she saw the strain in his face. Whatever he did in his spare time it was certainly taking it out of him – or maybe it was the drugs.

"Sharon... I want you to come and live with me... I'm so messed up..." His voice began to crack.

"God, Sim, you really put me on the spot," she said. "It's too early – I don't even know what you do when you're not at work."

"I'm a recreational substance courier," he said lamely. "I do runs across the border."

"Drug running – I might have known! You'll get yourself killed."

"No, I won't," he said. "I've got you in my life – that'll keep me alive."

"Why don't you just quit?" she said.

"That's the difficult part," he said, fiddling with the zipper of his bag. "When you sign up with the Slobodians, it's like being a soldier – you gotta do what you're told, or else..."

She stared at him, wide-eyed. "I can't believe I'm hearing this."

Nevertheless, she went on meeting him, and eventually invited him to her place. He and Craig got on famously, often playing video games together in front of the TV, although her dad usually kept out of the way. Sometimes she wouldn't see him for a week, then she'd come home and he'd be sitting on the front steps, smoking. He'd look up at her and smile. "I was expecting you," he'd say.

The end of April made everything come to a head. Days were getting longer and the weather was warm enough for T-shirts. Simpkins wore one that said I WENT TO SHEKELS AND ALL I GOT WAS BURNED. They talked about it and his deteriorating appearance.

"I watch you doing your rounds," she said. "You used to look so smart – now it's like you've gone to seed. What happened?"

He shrugged. They were walking back to the car and the sun was going down. It was a fresh-looking sunset, red and glowing. Clouds formed islands in the red sky. "Yeah, I know I look bad, really bad, like I just crawled out from under a rock, but this is a disguise: blue jeans, black leather jacket, old sneakers – like a uniform. In fact, it's just like when I'm in service!"

He gave one of his cackles. Then he stared at her. "You look lovely, you know that?"

She put her hands on her hips.

"Know what this is?" he asked.

He reached behind his back and pulled out something from under his shirt. It was a switch-blade. "Want to see the gun?" he said, smiling.

She shivered. They were standing near his car, he was about to take her home. She felt it had been exceptionally warm for the last few weeks, but now the air felt chilly.

"I'll be sorry when you get out of this car," Simpkins said, opening the door for her. "I hate it when you leave. You want to get tipsy?"

She shook her head.

"You want to get high then?" he smiled.

"I like being sober."

"I've lost track of time," she said as they were driving back. She didn't have a watch any more, and he still hadn't given her a Rolex.

"I want to fuck you," he said. "Let's sneak upstairs when we get to your house."

"No," she said emphatically. She turned away from him and looked out the window.

"Okay, okay. You got Craig and your old man to think about. I understand. Let's go to my place then."

"You should go to a clinic," she said.

"Why?" he looked amused. "Because you're on drugs. Coke, crack, whatever it is."

"Who told you that?" He gave her a sidelong glance.

"It's obvious."

"Okay," he said. He lit a cigarette. "I'll think about it." He cackled again.

She stared at him. Part of her wanted to reach out and take his cigarette. She was weakening again.

"You shoot cocaine, I bet. You take crazy risks. For all I know, you might have AIDS."

"You think I'd fuck you without a rubber if I had that?" Simpkins looked hurt.

They fell silent. She was thinking he was the worst kind of boyfriend: bloated, in denial, a criminal, possibly sick.

He smiled. "I can't believe you think I've got AIDS."

"Have you taken an AIDS test recently?"

"Listen, you got nothing to worry about, all right?" He sounded genuinely offended. "I don't need a fucking AIDS test – I don't shoot coke, I don't even snort it any more. The most I do is booze and _Saint_. Here, have a ciggie – I know you been dying for one."

She opened her mouth and breathed in the lit cigarette, feeling the smoke in her lungs. She hadn't had one for three months. Her hands began to tremble. They smoked quietly as they drove through the murky streets, passing the cigarette back and forth. The air in the car was smoky and blue. When they got to her place she invited him in.

That same night, Sharon's father, Lusher, who'd been sinking half liters of beer in the pub all night, overbalanced while stepping off the curb and pitched headfirst onto the pavement. A passing policeman had sat him on a low wall outside the pub, and called an ambulance. In the early hours after Simpkins had gone, Sharon heard the approaching sound of an ambulance as she lay in bed. Her father had incurred a jagged wound when he rapped his head on the pavement, and the hospital, understaffed and starved of resources, had been unable to do more than disinfect and bandage the old man's scalp, before returning him home. Sharon realized she had been left to care for a father addled as well as an alcoholic and began to feel increasingly desperate.

Chapter 28

### Dawna Takes Center Stage

Halfway through May a grand inaugural ball was held at Calliper palace, to celebrate Princess Dawna's twenty-fifth birthday and her reentry into court life after her post-natal recuperation. Her entrance into the grand ballroom was dramatic. She wore a deep blue dress to emphasize her startling eyes, blazing sapphires round her neck, and a single gold bracelet on her slim right arm. Her golden hair was fashioned in a regency style, and her earrings were two perfect pearls suspended from golden clasps. Her allure was breathtaking, and after her entrance no one could speak for several seconds.

To break the silence she smiled her resplendent smile, displaying superb dentistry, and the assembled guests burst into spontaneous applause. King Godfrey, aloof and prim in his admiral's uniform (for it was a First Thursday) at the other end of the room, stroked his chin and began humming like a sun-soaked bee besotted by the fragrance of a flower. Other dignitaries, similarly beguiled, wanted no more than to spray the lovely princess with adoration. Queen Letitia, who after seeing the princess's dress instantly regretted her own, would have preferred to spray her with invective, especially as she thought _Invective_ was a powerful pest control.

Impelled by a moment of rash delirium, Godfrey swept forward through the crowd, his medals clinking on his chest, lifted the princess's hand to his lips and kissed it. Prince Catheter, who had been about to plant a formal kiss on his wife's cheek, was galvanized at his father's obvious infatuation to move forward and gently pry her hand from Godfrey's slavering mouth. Then he caressed her, to another burst of applause.

Although his love had long been dedicated to Lucinda, Catheter felt pleased and a little lightheaded as he hugged his wife, the mother of his infant son. He felt his brain beginning to dissolve into the same sugary sludge he experienced the first time Lucinda called him her Poopsy Prince. Moving through the crowded ballroom, he kept his hand on his wife's waist and pulled her close beside him when the court photographer stepped forward.

Pictures published the next day showed the royal couple looking as happy as a pair of puppies, with just a slight gritting of the teeth detectable in Dawna's smile. Sitting up in bed, Letitia froze in horror at the pictures in the center pages of the Bugle. It seemed to her that Dawna occupied a more prominent position than Catheter, infringing the rules of protocol, while she and Godfrey were relegated to the background – which was completely out of order.

Consternation flared up in her innards. She's taking over, she told herself. It was like Frankenstein's monster come alive. She felt herself facing a hideous menace – being sidelined by her own daughter-in-law. She tugged the bell cord and let her maid lay out her clothes while she hurried through the morning shower, her mind going back and back to those horrifying pictures. Since her son's marriage she had found herself wearing an almost perpetual frown at her daughter-in-law's encroachment. She had tried to shrug off her misgivings and welcome the princess into the Gorm family, but this latest impudence made her bowels freeze.

A week later Dawna handed her son Angus to his nurse Betty for bottle feeding. She had tried breastfeeding him, but found it too painful. She could not enjoy her body through her son's mouth; it was too much like suckling her husband, whom the baby resembled. When Catheter discovered she had given up nursing the baby and taken up flirting with Jamie Dipp, he became angry. One night, after more pictures of Dawna and Dipp appeared in the _Bugle_ , he stood in the center of the living room that adjoined the two princely bedchambers and railed at her. His loud voice woke the baby, who had been sleeping in his crib in a corner of Dawna's bedchamber. Beneath her husband's rant she heard the soft crying, felt it in her heart, and quietly rose from her chair to comfort her child. She went to her bedchamber, took him from the crib and brought him back to the living room where she sat holding him in her lap, pressing him gently against her waist. Catheter realized she was using the baby as a shield against his scolding and left the room, slamming the door hard.

Left to herself, she thought tenderly of Tori, her roommate at college, stir-frying bok choi and tofu in their kitchen, and walking with her in the evenings. She wondered if Tori had another boy- friend now, as she had hinted in her last text, and if she still suffered from depression. She thought of inviting her to Melloria for a visit, then laughed to herself. Although she longed to see her friend again, Catheter had objected to her continuing contact with her, on the ground that she was a commoner. Angus slept on in her arms.

When she put Angus to bed she got a candy bar from her nightstand. It was routine now- she had returned to her world of food gratification and enjoyed it with a delight reminiscent of revisiting a childhood haunt. She ate the candy bar in the bedchamber, watching her son sleep. She considered her possibilities. If her new relationship with Jamie Dipp turned serious she would definitely get a divorce, no matter what the fusty old laws of Melloria decreed. Then she would fly to America and base herself either in New York or LA. If however, as she suspected, Dipp was going to drift out of her life she would need to plan carefully. She didn't want to be caught living as a single mother relying on modeling, however much people praised her beauty. She went over to the crib and laid a hand softly on Angus's sleeping body. She felt a surge of vindication and relief. She kissed his forehead then went to her underwear drawer and took another candy bar. She unwrapped it, feeling so happy that she was leaving Catheter and that he was going to suffer.

A few days later, on a moonlit night in early June, two people on horseback converged along a bridle path that girded the fringe of the Forest of Gorm. The riders leaned forward in their saddles and greeted each other with a kiss. Catheter and Lucinda were meeting again.

Lucinda now lived in a cottage to be near the stables where her splotchy gray mare was boarded. She worked at a nearby training school where she had set up the work experience program for young Mellorians that Letitia approved of. Although he rarely mentioned it, Catheter was equally impressed with Lucinda's project, especially as it provided jobs for unemployed youth.

They cantered back to the stables, bedded the horses and walked hand in hand across the paddock to Lucinda's cottage. There they ate broiled trout and shared a bottle of wine before their trek upstairs. In the small square bedroom he undressed her slowly and explored her body as if they had been separated for years. She let him, and although she wanted to do the same to him she knew how important it was for him to arouse himself by being firmly in command. She only hoped he would continue to be firmly in command when he became king.

In the early hours of the morning Lucinda awoke. Catheter was asleep with his mouth gaping open. Lying beside him, she thought about their future. It seemed pretty hopeless, but she was determined to wait out the years, seeing him whenever she could, until some sort of miracle occurred – or death intervened. Catheter's breathing settled into an odd rhythm of puffs and sighs. Wide awake with her thoughts, Lucinda stared at the round white clock on her nightstand. The ticking sounded loud in the tiny room and the shafts of moonlight on the pitch pine floor made everything look romantic, which was to her sweetly ironic.

Suddenly she heard the doorbell ring. A small urgent ringing. She was out of bed in an instant, stumbling across the floor. "Poopsy, there's someone at the door!" she turned and hissed.

Catheter let out a whimper in his sleep and rolled over. She went over to the bed and gently shook him.

"Lollipop?" He blinked and sat up.

The ringing began again.

"Oh shit! It's the secret service – I bet they've been following us," he groaned.

She pointed to the bathroom. He slipped quickly across the room and shut himself inside. She shot a terrified gaze around the room and quickly smoothed the rumpled bed. Then she tiptoed downstairs and opened the front door.

Her Royal Highness Princess Dawna stood mirroring her startled gaze.

"Oh hello, um, er, Your Highness, I think we met once before – at an equestrian gala event!" Lucinda babbled.

"Okay, where is he?" the princess asked.

"Where's who?"

"Look, I'm not a moron, you know. His car's not outside – but then, he wouldn't be that stupid."

She looked over Lucinda's shoulder into the living room.

"Is he skulking upstairs somewhere?"

Lucinda blushed deeply. "I wouldn't know," she stumbled.

"No, you wouldn't! Oh well, I don't want to make a scene here – for all I know I might have been followed by the paparazzi. Just tell him from me – if he wants to play around, he'd better be more discrete."

Lucinda watched the princess turn on her heels and walk away. Then she shut the door and went back upstairs.

"You can come out now," she said. "It was your wife, but she's gone."

The bathroom door swung open. Catheter stumbled out, clutching a towel around his waist.

"What did she want?" His voice was barely a whisper.

She looked at him with surprise, and he returned it with a surly look.

"She knew you were here," she said flatly.

He looked at her suspiciously. "You told her?"

"Of course not – she's not stupid. She must have tailed us."

Grumpily, they both went back to bed. Barely two hours later, Catheter rose and dressed. Lucinda got up, went to him and touched his shoulder.

"Don't go, Poopsy," she whispered.

He wrapped his arms around her to contain her, pinning her to him while he squeezed her face into his chest. Tears sprang to her eyes. He held her stiffly while her tears flooded onto his shirt, her shoulders shaking. She burrowed into him, wrapping her arms around his body, and pressed herself against him.

"Catheter, please," she begged, looking up.

His face twitched, and he dropped his arms and stepped away from her. There was enough pain and regret in his face to make a flower wilt.

"Excuse me," he said brusquely and pushed past her.

Not even bothering to wipe the tears that made an ugly smear on her face, she hiccupped, "Bye, Darling!" and watched him leave.

She swallowed hard. The divorce of her parents, the pain of her childhood, her own troubled relationship and all her personal miseries welled up inside her. She fell on the bed and wept.

Dawna was hiding candy, but she didn't conceal her other indulgences. She ate between meals, and at dinner she ate whatever she liked. She gloated as Catheter coldly watched her and grew petulant, and she endured his taunts as passively as she did her mother-in-law's disapproving looks. "For goodness sake," Catheter once commented at dinner, "what awful muck you eat! No wonder you look like a skeleton."

She had been eating tofu, bean sprouts and soy sauce, separately from the others. She ignored his remarks. "It's difficult to get organic food here," she told the others. "I have to have boxes of soya milk an organic supplies flown in. Otherwise I make do with what's available, with supplements. It's not my fault the local food is so awful."

A silence fell upon the dining room, and Letitia coughed hard over her pudding until a servant poured her a glass of water. Meanwhile Anton was giggling to himself and Godfrey frowned at he implied insult to Mellorian produce.

"You never touch me any more, so why should you care what I eat?" Dawna suddenly said to Catheter.

"I don't want to touch you," he snapped. "why should I? Have you looked at yourself – you're like a bag of bones, though, God knows, you eat enough!"

Her eyes filled with tears and she threw her fork down.

"You don't touch me because you're getting it from your mistress," she said.

Catheter sat, white-knuckled with anger, and looked across at his mother. Letitia did not meet his gaze, but darted glances at Godfrey and Anton, who were looking down at their plates. In desperation, she fixed a stare on her daughter-in-law.

"You're overwrought," she said. "Get a grip."

Dawna's lips trembled. She glanced at her father-in-law, who thought she looked achingly beautiful in her vulnerability. He had a sudden urge to embrace her and take her away from this madness. In a stew of confusion, he merely shrugged, and emitted a weak smile.

Dawna turned to Catheter. "You love her more than me, don't you?"

"Love doesn't have anything to do with it," he replied coldly.

"You spend all your time plotting ways to see her alone – "

"– and you spend all your time eating slop and moping around the place like a depressed diva!"

Her cheeks flamed red and she spat out the word: "Bastard!"

"All right, I love her, dammit!" Catheter snarled, feeling everybody's eyes on him. "A man can have a lover, can't he?"

"So much for your denial!" she cried.

"Huh! You're a fine one – you've been bedding Mr Dipp for the last month!"

"Don't accuse me of infidelity, you hypocrite! If I am having an affair, it's you who drove me to it!"

Blinded by tears, she stumbled to her feet and clattered unsteadily to the doors. Catheter tore off his napkin and followed her. Catching up with her he tried to clutch her hand, but she pushed him away.

He reached out again, but she shuddered at his touch. "I don't want you to come near me!" she screamed. He protested that she was creating an unnecessary scene.

Hearing raised voices from the doorway, servants appeared and Letitia rose from her seat to shoo them away.

"It's all right – you can go about your business," she said. "We won't be needing any more dessert."

Dawna ran sobbing down the corridor.

Chapter 29

### The Plot Thickens

In a press release to the media two days later King Godfrey and Queen Letitia let it be known that though it grieved them to contemplate losing their daughter-in-law, a period of rest was deemed necessary by Princess Dawna's doctors to relieve her from nervous exhaustion brought on by the recent birth of their grandson. Accordingly the princess would shortly be flying to Bulimia, accompanied by her son, Prince Angus, for an extended period, not expected to be less than six weeks. This announcement was reported in the _Bugle_ and on Mellorian TV and radio, and the news brought a buzz of interest to the Central Committee of the People's Party, who were meeting in a different basement in East City.

Paul Slamil, Joe Steel, Caspar (who now bore the title of Special Operations Liaison officer), Stella Mastoid, Mickey Miskiss, Dolores Unchain and Penny Slam had been discussing the timetable for the revolutionary overthrow of the monarchy, beginning in a week's time.

"Well, now that she's gonna be out of the country for the next six weeks, it should be even easier," Slamil said. The basement room they were in was unusually spacious, and they all sat on chairs around a large coffee table.

"Yeah, that's one less royal to round up," Steel replied.

"And the kid'll be out of the way, too," Dolores Unchain added.

Slamil picked up a pencil and made a few slashing lines across a notepad's open page on the table. Then he gazed at Steel's heavy features.

"You know what I mean, Joe," he said, smiling. "She's the one point of resistance, around which the people might rally. I say _might_. She's an unknown quantity, but we don't want to be taking chances – and now we won't have to."

Mickey Miskiss, her bushy hair bristling, looked at her partner, the ethereal-looking Stella Mastoid, and laughed.

"So what's the master plan for after we take over?" she asked. "Do we take the royals out or lock 'em up and throw away the key?"

"Neither," Slamil said. "We've got a much better fate lined up for them. They're going to fight an election against us and lose – and the shame of that will drive 'em into exile!"

Steel gave a brittle laugh. "What the hell do we need an election for? Once we've seized power, the whole country's in our hands."

"That's the beauty of the plan, Joe. If we simply take control by force and leave it at that, we'll be branded as totalitarians, like the North Koreans and the Cubans – "

"To name but two," Penny Slam said.

"Right. So to legitimize our government and show that it's a true government of the people, we going to win an election. Only one. After that, we'll pass laws to secure our rule in perpetuity."

"Sounds like the present regime," Slam said cynically.

Slamil laughed, then he glanced at Steel, who continued to look disapproving.

"I think the idea's crackers, Paul," he said. "You can't predict the outcome of an election like you can the barrel of a gun."

Slamil doodled on his notepad, his face strained. "We'll make sure this election is in the bag. We know a lot about winning the people's hearts and minds."

"You win 'em best when you've got 'em by the balls!" Steel replied.

Slamil looked at him dismissively. "And how long do you think that will last? We don't have the resources to run a police state . We're strapped for cash as it is."

"And you ain't getting no more from our lot," Caspar said in a thick whisper.

Steel shrugged and reached for the brandy bottle. "Okay, I'll go along with it, but I'm warning you –if we lose, then we're really fucked. We might as well be shoveling snow in July."

"We might as well be whistling Dixie through the keyhole," Caspar said.

Slamil was unmoved. "Don't worry, the way we'll fix it the royals won't stand a cat in hell's chance."

Hugely relieved by the imminent departure of Dawna for Bulimia, Letitia surprised everyone at lunch by giving a speech on the joys of marriage, especially the boon of children and the closeness which the ripening years can bring. She directed her gaze at Catheter and Dawna, who sat at opposite ends of the table, and stressed her wish to see the blessings of matrimony bestowed on her son and daughter-in-law, expressing the hope that they preserve their sacred union,

Dawna, her ears burning, squirmed in her seat and awkwardly toyed with her fork. She was thinking Should I put up with this crap or walk out? She decided it would be easier on her frayed nerves to leave, so she suddenly rose, and with a mumbled "By your leave" stumbled out of the room. Everyone remained silent, although Catheter gripped his knife and fork extra tightly. Letitia turned to her husband.

"Either you or Catheter must talk to that woman – somebody will have to!"

A number of thoughts passed through Godfrey's mind – none of them happy ones. Personally he didn't give a damn whether Catheter and Dawna attempted to make a go of their marriage or threw in the towel. He held out the hope – constantly pushed to the back of his mind – that if the luscious princess ever did come to her senses and give Catheter the boot, she'd cast a glance in his direction. He tried to blank out the tempting thought of a liaison with his own daughter-in-law. The main problem was political. If the couple divorced, it would mean the future king and head of the church would be a divorced man, and that had never happened before. He knew the archbishop would be opposed to it, even if he was a drunken old sot. Diplomatic issues were also involved, since the marriage created a union between the Houses of Gorm and Lattis, and since Hector had no son to succeed him, the kingdoms of Melloria and Bulimia would be joined upon his death. The union would be a perfect defense against the Slobodians, who would think twice before attempting to invade a country as large as Melloria and Bulimia combined. A divorce would bring this alliance crashing down and open the door to the Slobodians. With that thought in mind, Godfrey swallowed his piece of venison and rose from his chair.

He walked out of the palace and looked around for the princess. He figured she was likely to be in the garden where servants didn't venture, and discovered her in the rose garden. She was sitting on a bench, her eyes wet and her hands folded in her lap. At Godfrey's approach she raised her head and flushed with embarrassment. She didn't want anyone to see her in her present visible distress.

Godfrey sat down beside her and patted her folded hands. "Come, come, there's no need for tears," he said with guarded tenderness. "I know how upsetting this whole business is for you – and God knows, you have reason to be upset. Wasn't that speech the queen gave absolutely awful? It's just that – "

She turned her face to him and interrupted. "I can't go on like this – the marriage is a farce. I'll go crazy if I have to stay with Catheter any longer. We quarrel every day and whenever I speak to Her Majesty, she makes me feel it's all my fault. I think divorce is the only option."

A terror-stricken look distorted the king's face.

"Oh my God, you can't – it would be catastrophic. The monarchy might never recover. As it is, we will have to be very careful in announcing the separation. Are you sure you can't reconsider – perhaps you could both try marriage counseling?"

Her misery turned to anger. "And I want custody of my son," she said. "I want him to be brought up a Bulimian!" Godfrey looked as though he were about to collapse, which softened Dawna's anger. She composed the semblance of a smile.

"All right, Daddy, I won't divorce him, but we'll have to have a complete separation. I need to be free to get myself together."

Godfrey smiled back. "That's my girl – I'm sure we can arrange something."

Daddy, he thought happily. She called me Daddy.

Reconvening in the drawing room, the others were told Godfrey's good news.

"It's all right – she's not going to divorce, just separate for a while so she can go away and get better. Now, where's my brandy?"

"Ho-hum," Letitia mused. "Let's see how long this interlude lasts."

Chapter 30

### The Insurrection

Queen Letitia awoke with a start and sat bolt upright in bed. She was sweating, having dreamed that she was about to have dinner in the banqueting hall. Godfrey, Catheter and Anton were seated around the table, and an enormous cut-glass chandelier was directly over her head. Suddenly she heard a gigantic crack, looked up and noticed that every glass drop of the chandelier was broken. It startled her beyond imagination.

She was relieved to catch sight of the familiar objects in her bedchamber. As she looked around at the tapestries, dark furnishings and high arched windows, an image of the broken chandelier came vividly back. Why was each piece of glass cracked like that? She asked herself. There must be a meaning to the dream, but she couldn't fathom it. She closed her eyes to try to recapture something of the dream, but it was too far away now, leaving only a sense of extreme disquiet and foreboding.

A sharp knock at the door brought her back.

"Who is it? Who is it?" she mumbled.

"Your Majesty, terrorists have struck – the mob is at the gates!"

"Not again!"

The plaintive yet ripe tones of Agatha Armstrong-Pitt reminded her of the times the duchess had brought bad news to spoil her morning. She pulled the silk sheets over her head.

"Go away!" she cried in a muffled voice.

"Ma'am, I beg of you, awaken!" Agatha bleated. "The whole country has been seized!"

"I don't care – let the police and the army deal with it!" Letitia groaned. The wretched woman had broken her concentration on the puzzling dream – it was all too much.

"It's not my wish to alarm you, ma'am," Agatha's voice trembled, "but the police and the army have lost control!"

At that moment, the telephone, which rested on its onyx base on the nightstand, began to warble.

"Oh, this is getting beyond!" Letitia snatched the phone off its hook and held it with distaste a few centimeters from her ear.

"Well?" she said.

The cultured tones of King Godfrey vibrated from the earpiece.

"I think you should come downstairs, my dear. It seems we have an insurrection on our hands."

Half an hour later, a thoroughly frazzled Letitia sat nibbling a croissant in the lightly-curtained drawing room. Dazzling shafts of sunlight played on the regency table as she ate, while the ruins of Godfrey's breakfast was removed from the table by silent servants. He was on his last cup of coffee and the medals on his commander-in-chief's uniform jingled as he lifted his arm.

"Isn't your uniform a little ornate, dear?" Letitia said, indicating the coils of gold braid looping around the row of medals.

"We're at war!" he spluttered. He was in the foulest of moods, she realized, and decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

He slammed down his cup. "If we don't show these ruffians what we're made of, there'll be hordes of them trampling through the palace!"

A white-haired servant with parchment skin approached the king and stood trembling in his black and gold livery, while Godfrey wiped his mouth with a napkin.

"Your Majesty, we have received a communique from the Prime Minister," he said. He produced a scuffed white envelope from behind his back.

"When did this arrive?" Godfrey said and tore the envelope open.

"A page dressed in civvies managed to smuggle it from Government House, which is under enemy occupation, sir."

Godfrey grunted, then his eyes widened as he read the note. He gasped, and gripped his stomach. Letitia almost told him to take one of his painkillers.

"It looks like the government has fallen and Amis has gone into hiding."

Letitia dismissed the servant with a curt wave.

"What do we do now?" she asked, wiping crumbs from her mouth.

"I'm going to call a council of war in my study." He tinkled a little bell beside his cup and, when the servant returned, began issuing orders. Letitia got out her compact from the handbag she kept on the floor by her chair. She anticipated a long, tiring day.

The war council convened as soon as Catheter and Anton arrived from their bedchambers. Catheter had suffered a restless night, one of several he had endured since his wife and son had flown to Bulimia, and look thoroughly disheveled. Anton merely looked sleepy. The joined Godfrey and Letitia around the study table, along with Thomas Lesot, the archbishop, who had come early to the palace to discuss Catheter and Dawna's marital situation.

"This meeting is called to order," Godfrey announced. "As Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, I intend to make a number of appointments. Catheter, you will be Secretary of War – so go get your tape recorder, you'll need to keep a record of this meeting."

"Um, actually, the minidisc is out for repair," Catheter said. "Dawna threw it at me the night before she left."

Letitia gave him a sharp look. "I hope Her Passive-Aggressiveness will pay for the repair when she flies back."

"It doesn't look as though she will be flying back," Catheter replied. "The terrorists have surrounded the airport and all flights are canceled."

"Bludclaat! The bolshies're mashing us up!" Anton exclaimed.

Godfrey slammed his fist on the table and made his brandy glass clink. "I won't tolerate defeatist talk!" he growled. "Those bolshies are scum from the gutter and will be defeated as soon as our armed forces have regrouped and launched a counter-attack. Then they'll crumble like gorgonzola!"

He paused and smiled. "And I bet they smell like gorgonzola!" he added.

The archbishop, who had been sitting in a semi-inebriated daze, was roused by the king's voice and hoisted himself to his feet. His head wobbling, he raised his glass.

"I think His Majesty's words call for a toast," he croaked.

The others dutifully rose and raised their glasses, except Letitia who was fuming at the thought that her daughter-in-law would remain safely in Bulimia.

"God save the king!" they intoned flatly, and Godfrey bowed his head in acknowledgment.

"All right, now back to business," he said. "Anton I want you to take – "

"Okay, Pops, I'll do it!" Anton interrupted, over-eagerly. "You want me to take command of the air force, right? Seeing as I'm the only one here who knows how to fly the 'copter."

The king's face turned an unsettling shade of puce. "First of all, you address me as Commander-in-Chief or sir. Now, you cheeky young pup, don't jump to conclusions. I'm putting you in charge of the palace guard. Simpkins will be your second in command."

Anton pouted and looked deflated. "The palace guard? That bunch of old broom pushers? They're pants! I want to smoke the bolshies from a chopper!"

"There isn't enough fuel in the 'copter, you young whelp!" Godfrey said. "We only have enough fuel to fly us out of here." "That's if we absolutely have to," he added hastily.

Anton began to sulk, staring out the window and taking no further part in the proceedings. Letitia placed her hand firmly on his slouched shoulder. She was worried that, like Catheter, he was beginning to look jittery.

A knock on the study door interrupted them.

"What is it?" Godfrey barked. "Come in, damn you!"

The door opened and Simpkins walked in. His black morning coat and gray pants had been replaced by camouflage fatigues. His face looked pouchy and tired. "Excuse me, Your Majesty," he announced. "We've just received a fax from the insurgents."

He went over to Godfrey, saluted, and handed him a roll of paper tied with a black-and-yellow ribbon. Then he stepped a deferential pace back.

Godfrey untied the ribbon and rolled out the paper. He read its contents then looked at the others in angry astonishment. "The bounders are demanding that I meet the leader of the People's Party under a flag of truce!"

"We're saved! We're saved!" the archbishop gasped, jowls shaking, as he took up his glass. "The Lord has blessed Your Majesty!"

Godfrey shook his head. "I fear your rejoicing is premature, Archbishop. These people are cunning swine and their leader is an upstart who began his nefarious career inciting riffraff in the back alleys of Shekels. I don't think he's ready to surrender. No, it's something more devious – we'll need our wits about us when we get out there, Simpkins."

Simpkins's expression took on a sickly hue when his name was mentioned, and he rocked on his heels. The others looked relieved that they hadn't been called on to join the pair, even Letitia.

Turning to the butler, Godfrey said: "I want you to fashion a white flag. We'll wait at the palace gates and see what Mr Slamil has to say when he arrives." To the others, he added: "This meeting is adjourned for the time being. I trust you will await our return."

Then he strode through the study door, leaving Simpkins to close it behind them.

Chapter 31

### The Kings' Humiliation

The normally-bustling Constitution Square was completely deserted when Godfrey and Simpkins walked out through the main gates of the palace, which the two men found unnerving. The total absence of activity was a dramatic indication that everything was far from normal. The heat of the July day was almost unbearable, and both men were soon soaking under their tunics. After the ferocious winter and deliciously mild spring, the summer was like a hot air bath, rising from the ground in waves. Even the weather's against us, Godfrey thought.

Squinting against the glare, he could just make out a huddle of black figures on the far side of the square. He caught the glint of field-glasses and turned his back sharply. Simpkins, who had marched out of the palace with his white flag held high, propped it against the railings. He attracted the king's attention with a discrete cough.

"What is it, Simpkins?

The butler pointed to a flag flying from a nearby rooftop. Godfrey stared and did a double take. The royal standard of the Kingdom of Melloria had been replaced by an alien design. In the middle of the six black-and-yellow stripes the white disk now bore a red star at its center. It looked as though a malevolent giant with a nosebleed had gone around using the royal crest as a handkerchief. Godfrey turned to Simpkins. He looked incredulous; then realizing the implications of the upstart flag fluttering so close to the palace, he hung his head in despair.

"Sorry to have to draw your attention to it, sir..." Simpkins began.

"I think we're finished, Godfrey said.

Simpkins nodded miserably. He felt pity, seeing the bitter desolation on the king's face, and the few consoling words he might have uttered dried in his mouth. The unrelenting heat was making him feel faint, his mouth was aching with thirst and his stomach rumbled aggressively. He was tempted to ask the king if he would like a long cold drink, but he knew duty required him to stand beside the monarch as long as was necessary.

"How much longer must we have to wait?" Godfrey grumbled. "Are we supposed to stand here until we melt!"

"The fax didn't say how long they would be, sir," Simpkins said. He scrunched up his eyes to peer into the distance.

Godfrey decided that he'd had just about enough. "If they're not here in ten minutes, we're going back. I've got a council of war meeting to finish," he said briskly.

The next moment a hideous belching roar echoed from the other side of the square as an armored vehicle shot through the haze and rumbled toward them. The black, yellow and red-star flag was draped across its side panels. It screeched to a halt in front of the two men, and its roar dwindled to a cough.

A side door in the vehicle swung open and a man in the black uniform, yellow boots and red cap of the People's Party emerged. He saluted the men.

"I've come to escort King Godfrey to Party HQ. He is to come alone."

"But what about my servant?" Godfrey mumbled. The man gave him a withering look.

"The servant class has been abolished!" he replied. "Melloria is now the People's Republic."

To Simpkins, he added. "You may go back to your workplace, where you'll receive further instructions from the Party."

Godfrey looked at the man's face. It had the strong, square features of a Mellorian peasant, its symmetry balanced by a bushy mustache. Then he shrugged and meekly followed the man to the armored vehicle. The man let him get in first, then climbed in and shut the door. The driver then shifted into gear, and they trundled off. As they passed Simpkins on the curb, the driver gave him a broad wink. Simpkins replied with a guarded smirk. Then he went back into the palace, leaving the white flag behind.

"Pleased to meet you, King Godfrey," Paul Slamil said, looking up from his desk. "As Melloria is now the People's Republic, I'll dispense with the royal form of address if you don't mind." Godfrey, who had been brought under guard into the office, grunted: "As you wish."

Godfrey sat down before Slamil, who wore a faded denim shirt, and gazed at the desk. It was the former prime minister's desk and was strewn with official papers bearing the royal crest. Slamil noticed Godfrey's gaze and pushed the papers off the desk. "As you see," he said, laughing. "Mr Amis left before he could clear his desk."

Slamil's craggy features continued to look amused as Godfrey said: "Mr Slamil, I have come here to hear your terms of surrender."

"I love your optimism, King Godfrey," he said. Then he nodded for Godfrey's escort to stand in front of the door.

Slamil leaned back and put his hands behind his head.

"Now these are my terms," he said. "The People's Party is committed to making far-reaching changes for the benefit of the people, and to holding an election at the end of the year which will determine the future government of the country."

"I see," Godfrey said. "And where do I come in?"

"As you know, in order to hold an election, there have to be at least two opposing candidates. King Godfrey, I want you to be my opponent." Slamil gave a tight smile. "And if you win, then you will be free to restore your glorious monarchy - if you wish."

"And if I lose?" Godfrey said.

"Then you and your family remain simple citizens of the Mellorian People's Republic," Slamil said. "So, what do you say?"

Godfrey drew himself up stiffly. "At my coronation, I swore an oath before God that I would remain king of Melloria until my dying day. If you want my kingdom, Mr Slamil, you'll have to kill me first."

Slamil's face became serious and he leaned forward. "You know, we could have put you and your tribe up against a wall and gunned you down. That's how the people got rid of Ceausescu, the Romanian dictator, and his wife... then there was Colonel Gaddafi – I could go on!"

"Why didn't you shoot us then?" Godfrey said flatly.

"Because we the people of Melloria are not brutal and because our party is fully committed to the democratic process. We believe in the ballot box, not blood, bullets and bombs – we want what's best for the country, not just for ourselves..." He stopped, seeing Godfrey yawn.

"As potential enemies of the state," Slamil continued, "you and your family will be removed from the People's Palace and placed in secure custody. The length of the custody will depend on whether you are willing to cooperate with the government. Accept my offer, and you and your family will enjoy much better conditions. It's your best chance of avoiding extreme discomfort ."

"And your best chance of avoiding a charge of treason is by calling off your revolution and surrendering to my armed forces!" Godfrey snarled.

A burst of laughter escaped Slamil's mouth and his shoulders shook. "Armed forces? The army and the palace guard are already on our side. They're fighting under the People's flag, where they'll be well-paid and their families looked after. You haven't got a pot to piss in, mate!" He stopped to compose himself.

"Now, whether you agree to run against me or whether I have to find another candidate, there _will_ be an election! The Party will abide by the result of the election, that whoever wins will form a new government. This is your only chance of getting back in power. You should take it!"

Godfrey grunted. He was getting tired of hearing politician's speeches. "Do you happen to have some brandy?" he asked.

Slamil nodded and rummaged in the drawers of his desk. He found a bottle of cognac and passed it to Godfrey.

"I'm putting you under guard now, so think about my offer. You have a limited period of time to change your mind. Remember, if you do, you and your family will be much better off. In the meantime see how much you like your secure accommodation! Enjoy your cognac, King Godfrey – courtesy of your last royal prime minister!"

Chapter 32

### The Incarceration

Queen Letitia looked down from Godfrey's study window at the curiously-camouflaged truck fluttering red-star flags above its cabin. It came to a halt after trundling through the unlocked palace gates, and she was at first shocked at the brazen effrontery of the driver. Then she started to panic. It had been over an hour since Godfrey had been taken away in the armored car. Now she was beginning to wonder if he was ever coming back. Lurid images of Godfrey being held to ransom in some dripping cellar played on her mind, interspersed with grimmer ones of him slumped against the wall of a ghastly yard, his blindfold askew, the smoking rifles of his firing squad lowered. Have they come to shoot us too? she wondered, watching black-clad men pouring out of the truck that stood in the palace courtyard. Isn't that what they did to the Romanovs?

In the time since Godfrey had left them, the other members of the council of war had drifted away from the table and hung about like passengers in a fogbound airport lounge during a layover. Catheter and Anton had unearthed a chess board and were playing a badtempered game, while the archbishop took the brandy decanter to the couch and hunkered down, muttering to himself. Letitia had left the study for some fresh air, made her way to the garden and found a bench beneath a cypress tree where she sat down to collect herself. She looked sadly at the red roses that were wilting in the heat at the tops of their spiky stalks a few meters from where she sat. She felt more depressed at the poor state of the flowers than at the day's turn of events, which she knew was not sensible. So she went back to the study and stood gazing at the faultless sky, its startling blue stroked by a few wispy clouds. It might have been snowing for all she cared. I just wish the bolshies would make it quick if they're going to drag us out and shoot us, she thought wearily.

Now from the floor below them came the sound of a shot, followed by raised voices and the noise of scurrying feet rushing up the stairs. Without knocking, a young page burst in and stood, white-faced, before the shocked assembly.

"They're all over the palace!" the young servant said. "They shot Trash!"

A loud pounding on the study door made everybody jump. Catheter, who had taken up a poker from the hearth, cautiously asked: "Who's there?" Rough voices told them the door would be broken down if it wasn't opened quickly. Catheter put the poker back on the fireguard and opened the door. He was almost immediately pushed back as the door burst open.

A squad of black-uniformed men and one woman, all wearing yellow boots and red caps, fanned out inside the study. They carried assault rifles, and their ranks parted to allow a potbellied man in the faded blue shirt and jeans of a party high-up to elbow his way forward. He had a droopy black mustache and he looked at the royals with disdain.

"You are all under arrest as enemies of the people!" he barked. "You must leave this building at once and await transportation to your new quarters."

Letitia's first impulse was to laugh, hysterically. What right had this jumped up little nobody to barge into their private room in their private palace and throw his weight around? Then her royal conditioning kicked in, and she gave the man an icy look.

"Certainly not!" she said, contempt vibrating from her lips. "We are waiting for the return of His majesty the King and will stay put until he arrives." The potbellied man looked pained, like a walrus with tooth decay, and turned to the black-uniformed woman.

"This one thinks she can stay here all night," he said. "Tell her where the king is now, comrade."

"The king is waiting for _you_ , love," the female party worker said. "He's in protective custody – which is where you're going."

Letitia turned the withering force of her iciness on the woman. "By whose authority?" she asked, her lips at full sneer.

"By the authority of the people!" the woman screeched. "Resist and you'll all be put in chains!"

Letitia's lips were drawn in a tight line. In spite of her outward sang-froid, she was trembling and sweat stood out on her forehead.

"I'm afraid we need a little time to ourselves first. The archbishop is leading us in a prayer for our dear king." She made a gesture toward the archbishop, who had been dozing before the commotion but was now awake and blinking at the others.

"How devout of you all!" a new voice said.

Paul Slamil, after uttering these words, stepped into the study with the hint of a swagger and sauntered toward the queen. His faded denim shirt, wellworn jeans and yellow workman's boots marked him out as the party leader.

"The Gorm family is a very devout one," Letitia countered. She remained aloof and impassive, although her heart was fluttering. Slamil approached her, his lips curled in a smile, and nodded a quick touché.

"Well, you'd better carry on praying then. The people respect freedom of worship."

He started rummaging in his pockets, and eased out a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches.

"Do you mind if I smoke?" he asked casually.

Letitia looked at him in amazement, her cheeks burning. "Yes, I do mind! This is a study, not a smoking lounge."

He merely nodded, lifted a cigarette to his mouth and walked over to the couch where the archbishop was huddled like a guilty schoolboy with his brandy decanter.

"You've made liberal use of the brandy, I see," he remarked. He lit the cigarette. "Helps you pray, does it?"

The archbishop mumbled something incoherent and clutched his empty glass in his shaking hands. Slamil leaned over him and blew a cloud of smoke near his face.

"What are you muttering about, you sly old bastard?" he murmured.

"Nothing, my son, nothing," the archbishop replied. "I'm merely saying a prayer."

"Oh really? Well, I've got news for you, father. There's a new religion in town – it's called reason. Soon your prayers will be redundant."

He turned back to face Letitia and gave an exaggerated bow. "Do pardon my awful breach of etiquette, ma'am," he said with elaborate pomp. "I'm here on behalf of the people of Melloria to invite you and your sons to join His Majesty the King in your new residence. When you've finished your prayers, perhaps you'd like to go down to the palace courtyard, while your bags are being packed, where your vehicle awaits you."

He flicked his cigarette into the fireplace and turned to the archbishop again. "Good day, father, I'm sure you'll be able to catch the bus home." Then he sauntered toward the door. The potbellied man and his troops filed after him.

"I'll give you five minutes," he said before leaving.

The worst day of Letitia's life continued unabated as she climbed down from the mud-colored truck and looked about her. She recognized the mental hospital immediately, having opened its Crisis Intervention Unit a few months before, and a more soulless, depressing place she couldn't imagine. At least the grounds were pleasant, she thought, admiring the shrubs, rockery and hydrangea bushes. The only jarring aspect were the kilometers of chain-link fencing surrounding the complex.

The potbellied man with the droopy mustache was barking orders at the three Gorms as they scrambled out of the truck, along with two former palace servants who had volunteered to help the Gorms with their baggage. The latter were being treated less harshly.

"Each royal must carry as much luggage as possible – don't leave it to the workers!" the man bawled. "The two workers may go to the canteen for refreshment when you're all inside."

They filed cautiously up the front steps, stumbling with their luggage, past black-uniformed troops who had emerged from the front of the truck and who formed a ragged guard, their assault rifles cocked and ready.

"Raasclaat! What do they think we're gonna do – mash up the staff?" Anton whispered to Catheter.

Letitia was hit by waves of nausea when the sour institutional odors hit her nostrils like a pepper spray. It reminded her depressingly of the nursing home where her mother had lingered. A line of disoriented-looking people were waiting to greet them. Attendants in green cotton scrubs were fussing around, preparing the Gorms for their indefinite stay. One of the attendants motioned the royal party to a small cubicle office beside the dining hall. They were told to wait and Letitia was invited inside, to meet the superintendent.

He was seated at his desk when she walked in, and he came round to pump her hand. "It's an honor to have you stay with us, ma'am," he said.

"How long are they going to keep us here?" Letitia asked. She sat down with her handbag in her lap and gazed through the window at the high, vaulted ceiling of the dining hall. It caused the noise from the diners to turn into a bouncing roar.

The superintendent was a pale, nervous man in a brown suit and a striped tie. "I really have no idea," he said. "I was only told about your stay a few hours ago. Also, I'm not allowed to offer you any privileges."

"Nor do we ask any," Letitia replied. "We merely require comfortable lodgings for ourselves and our servants, in the hope that we will soon be relocated to a friendly country."

The superintendent smiled weakly. "Your staff will not be staying, I'm afraid, ma'am," he said. "They are leaving as soon as your bags are unpacked."

Letitia groaned inwardly. It was yet another humiliation being piled on them – they weren't even allowed the help of their servants, something they had come to totally rely on . The superintendent was wittering on.

" – in the meantime let me welcome you to your new home. A member of staff will show you where your rooms are. Tonight's supper will be cod and boiled potatoes, and we'll be serving tea at four-thirty in the dining hall."

Letitia's jaw sagged. She was gloomily envisaging the tea and soggy institutional biscuits she would have to get used to, as well as the carb-heavy meals of peas and potatoes crowding the small cubes of meat or limp slices of fish. She could almost smell these miserable feasts drifting along the corridors and seeping into their rooms at night, long after supper was over. She felt she would soon be close to utter despair. Get a grip! She told herself. You can't go insane – that's just what they want.

She left the superintendent's office and went upstairs with her sons. They were led along a dingy white corridor. She was shocked at how bare the walls were – she was so used to tapestries and fine oils – and quickly began to understand how the residents of such a places could go permanently crazy.

The attendant escorting them opened a door and ushered her inside. In a narrow room, whose walls were grimy and stained, Godfrey sat on one of the two iron beds and stared out the barred window. Letitia stood openmouthed. He was still wearing his commander-in-chief's uniform and smelled faintly of the cognac that clung to him like an aftershave. He turned his head around and gave a rough, very loud laugh.

"Well, this is what we've come to!"

Letitia sat on the other bed and put her handbag down. "Buck up, Godders – we mustn't lose heart."

"Lose heart? I've lost my bloody kingdom!" he roared.

Godfrey's features were so crumpled and tired that a chill ran over her. He looked like he'd aged ten years in a few hours. She wanted to say something morale-boosting, to offset the calamity that had so swiftly befallen them, but the look on his face made her bite back her words.

'"Did you get a visit from Paul Slamil?" he said.

She unclasped her purse and searched for a tissue. "Don't mention that horrible man's name!"

She wiped her face, opened her compact and applied a little make-up. "He was perfectly obnoxious and dreadfully rude to the archbishop. I hope he rots in hell."

Godfrey who had been swaying drunkenly now pulled himself straight. "Rot in hell he will, but right now he's in charge of our country and he says his lot are going to make sweeping changes"

"What kind of changes?" She was anxious to learn anything about the people who were lording it over them.

"He said they're going to hold an election in December to decide who's going to run the country, and he wants me to form a political party and run for leader."

"He said what?" She could hardly believe her ears. If this were true, and not one of Godfrey's drunken ramblings, this could be a way out of their awful situation.

"Said he wanted me to be the leader of a political party and run against him..."

Godfrey's body was slumping again and his eyes were getting droopy.

"Those degenerate bastards..." he muttered. "As soon as the army launches its counterattack, I'll..." His voice trailed off, his left arm hanging down.

"You should lie down," she said lightly. "You need to sleep off that brandy hangover before we go downstairs for our cod and potatoes."

She helped him onto the bed where he lay down heavily and stretched out. He lay motionless, staring at the ceiling. "I'm not going to abandon our people to the mercy of those ruffians..." he said drowsily. "As long as there's a breath left in my body, I..."

He began to doze. The next four hours, the longest she had ever known, were spent sitting on the bonehard bed while her husband slept. Under any other circumstances, she would have kicked off her shoes, loosened her tight-fitting waistband and flopped onto the blanket, rough as it was. But the shock of her sudden incarceration, coupled with the hope that they would somehow find a way out of this mess – a hope so strong in her she was almost afraid to breathe – kept her awake and upright. She kept turning the words Godfrey had just uttered over and over in her mind. Godfrey... leader of a political party... running in an election... against Slamil... It almost didn't make sense, but in her mind's eye she could see how with the right training and the right people helping him to reach out to the masses, Godfrey could make a formidable political figure. If only she could push him into the training and find the people!

Her eyes grew heavier and she started to doze off, then came to with a start. From the courtyard below erupted a babble of male voices, rising up to the window. Noisy footsteps clattered outside the door, fading down the corridor. She got up and went over to the window. Looking down, she saw two People's Party troopers with assault rifles standing in the courtyard. They were clearly there to guard the royal inmates. The two guards conversed briefly, and one stayed while the other went off to patrol the perimeter of the building. Footsteps and the clink of metal outside the door told her other guards were in the corridor. She went back to bed. Now they were really in prison and the powers that be were making sure they stayed there.

A knock at the door announced the supper hour. If the mental hospital was as strict about protocol as the palace, she thought, they would be expected to join the other inmates downstairs, with no excuses accepted. She went to shake Godfrey. He opened his eyes and awoke in an utter bewilderment of confusion. He turned over and would have slept on another two hours if Letitia and the green-uniformed attendant, who came in from the corridor, hadn't hauled him to his feet.

They went downstairs and sat with the others at a long formica table in the dining hall. Another attendant served supper trays from a wobbly aluminum cart. Two black-uniformed People's Party guards sat on tubular metal chairs on the far side of the room, one of them reading a magazine, the other idly watching a TV screen that blared in a corner of the hall. Letitia peered at the TV, then stopped in her tracks. It was a news report showing the People's Party apparently ransacking Calliper Palace. Trucks containing everything the Gorms had owned were stacked high in the palace courtyard, and smiling Party workers carried silverware and jeweled ornaments to add to the pile. The camera followed a reporter inside the palace, and Letitia was shocked to see the empty walls, their paintings wrapped and stacked, and the stripped bareness of the rooms. She saw female Party workers pulling clothes out of closets and searching through drawers. She guessed they were looking for the kind of stuff women hide away: money, letters, extra pieces of jewelry. Then with a jolt she realized the room being ransacked was her own bedchamber.

She gave Godfrey a sharp nudge. "Look, they're robbing the palace!" she cried. The sight chilled her to the bone. Godfrey was still too drunk to take in the awfulness of it, and just nodded.

Letitia took her seat next to Godfrey and watched her two sons furiously eating. The sight of her beloved palace being stripped had shocked her beyond belief. She looked at Godfrey who swayed over his plate of gooey sludge. "You'd better eat something, dear," she said. "People are watching us."

He gave her a look of brutal derision. "How can you expect me to eat this slop?" he said loudly. He selected an individual lump of goo with his fork, bit into it and immediately spat it onto his plate.

"Get rid of this awful muck!" roared, his voice booming around the hall. "I'd rather eat a bag of horsefeed!"

The others at the table looked up or squirmed in their seats. Anton guffawed, then went back to wolfing down his food. At the other end of the room, one of the guards glanced over at the commotion, while the other continued to read his magazine. Letitia watched in dismay as Godfrey took his supper tray off the table and lurched to his feet. He tried to toss the tray back on the attendant's cart, but his chair went over and gave the aluminum cart a bash. The attendant leaped to the other side of the cart to keep it from going over like Godfrey's chair. There were giggles from some of the others at the table, and scattered mutterings passed around the news that King Godfrey was drunk.

Godfrey had everyone's attention by now, including the guard who'd been reading a magazine. He set the magazine aside, a trace of annoyance on his face, and called out: "All right, that's enough! You must remain seated until supper is finished. If anyone wishes to make a disturbance, we'll find them a padded cell!"

"For God's sake, sit down!" Letitia whispered to Godfrey who was enjoying being the center of attention. He turned a belligerent face to the two guards and spoke so loudly that his words racketed around the hall. "You sit down if you want to!" he shouted. "If I can't get any decent food tonight I might as well go back to bed!" He looked about between the rims of his drooping eyelids and gave a loud belch. The room became utterly silent as people waited for the guards to respond to his provocation. He looked as if his knees were about to give way. Several people leaned toward him to help prevent him from falling. An attendant offered his arm, but Godfrey shrugged him off and lumbered across the hall to the foot of the staircase.

He paused and pounded his fist on the banister, too inebriated to feel the soreness of his knuckles, and said in a snarly voice: "I hope you all sleep well tonight, even the bastards in black uniforms!"

The he turned and stumblingly climbed the stairs, while the diners in the hall lapsed back into a dilatory scraping of forks on plates. The two guards marched after him, and Letitia rose to follow them at a discrete distance, anxious to avoid an ugly scene. When she caught up with them, she explained briefly that her husband had had a long and exhausting day, and would soon be resting quietly in his room. The guard who'd been reading his magazine, which turned out to be _Socialism_ _Today_ continued to look annoyed, but the other guard nodded and asked politely if the king would like a nightcap. "Oh yes, a jug of iced water and two glasses would be lovely!" Letitia cried.

Back in the grimy little room she shared with Godfrey, Letitia poured water from a plastic jug into two plastic beakers, supplied by the friendly guard, and gave one to Godfrey. "I want you to get a good night's sleep," she said. "You'll need all your strength for the days ahead."

Godfrey sat on his bed and took a few sips, then his face turned an ominous shade of green. He motioned to Letitia to hand him the almost-empty jug. She watched in horror as he held it up to his mouth and spewed a phlegm-colored liquid. When he had finished, she took it to the window and tipped it through the bars. I hope that bad-tempered guard is standing right beneath us, was her last uncharitable thought before she went to bed.

Chapter 33

### Sharon's Big Day Out

Sharon sat idly flicking through the _Bugle_ as she sipped a cup of lukewarm tea. She didn't read the _Bugle_ much these days, ever since the revolution had replaced the royal gossip column _Trumpet_ _Blast_ with the dull _Social_ _Round_ _Up_ by someone called Bella Scott. But the announcement jumped out at her from an inside page. It promised a fun time at the Grand Opening of the Calliper People's Palace, and – most enticing of all – it was free to anyone who was accompanied by a child or children. This mattered to Sharon who, since being laid off from her job at the palace, had had to rely on part-time work – principally housecleaning for the high-ups who lived outside of West City.

She had just spent an hour applying henna to her otherwise mousy hair, and her scalp tingled. The prospect of an outing with Craig, dragging him away from his computer games, plus a nosey round her opulent former workplace was suddenly appealing. She put on her checkered blue and white cotton dress, rounded up Craig from his bedroom and set off in high spirits.

She was feeling so good, in fact, that she decided they would take the subway, renamed the People's Metro, and they swung through the palm-fronded station foyer. The station was teeming with people. It was a Saturday, and children and their parents were all heading toward the palace opening, which included a carnival set up in the palace gardens. The adults were looking forward to offloading their offspring to the care of childworkers, while they wandered childfree around the palace, admiring its ornamental splendor.

They got out at Constitution Square, renamed Revolution Square, and Sharon's spirits dipped as she relived the days and nights she had tramped across it on her way to work. She and Craig were walking past benches crammed with cursing, cat-calling drunks and potheads, from whom she tried to shield her son. Bleary-eyed old men congregated among the trees and bushes, giving her pause for thought. It was never as run-down as this when I used to come here! What the hell happened? In the distance the old palace loomed, with its turrets and battlements, its rambling east and west wings, its maze of corridors and its museumlike rooms. She felt a bolt of nostalgia, mingled with relief. I don't miss those bleeding long hours, she thought.

Just inside the main gates, where the gatekeeper's hut stood, a white-haired woman in a blue uniform sold tickets to adults without children, while another woman with frizzy red hair and beads dangling from her inclined neck leaned over the children that were entrusted to her care. She touched tiny shoulders and cupped her hand under infant chins, and periodically led them in batches to the kiddies' play area. Sharon stopped at the booth with Craig, while people jostled them on either side. "I've got a ten-year-old here," she said in a low voice.

The woman in the booth pushed a "free-entry" ticket across the counter, releasing an antique lavender perfume as she moved, and told Sharon to present it to the attendant at the palace doors. Meanwhile, Craig was led with some other children toward a Bouncy Castle. Sharon took the ticket and crossed the palace courtyard in an expectant mood. She would pick up Craig later. Now she just wanted to see the old place from a fresh perspective. She marveled at how easy it was for a former servant to pass through the imposing stone pillars with their Corinthian capitals. She recalled the times she had trudged around the side of the palace to the servants' entrance, at the start of a long, hard shift of scrubbing, dusting and bedmaking, all for a bare pittance and a Christmas card from the king and queen by way of thanks. Nevertheless, she treasured the cards and kept them in a drawer. Their Majesties had at least given her a full-time job.

Then the reason she had obtained that job floated into her mind and she quickly overlaid her thoughts with bitter resentment. "The servant class has been abolished!" she repeated to herself. Now the king's getting a taste of his own medicine, wherever he is, and the queen too. She wondered what the government had done with them and their sons – there were all kinds of vague rumors about their whereabouts. Some people said they had been secretly flown to Bulimia to join Princess Dawna and little Prince Angus, others that they were in prison awaiting trial for crimes against the people. The TV and radio never gave out any news about them, and the _Bugle_ was just full of government propaganda. It was all very mysterious.

With such thoughts occupying her mind, she drifted through room after grandiose room. She was surprised that so few of the fine renaissance tapestries, 17th-century oil paintings and 18th-century furniture remained. She remembered there being much fancier ornaments and more elaborate décor than was now displayed. Most of the rooms held nothing more than framed photographs and display cases, full of items like servant uniforms and utensils used in the kitchen.

She became aware of people milling around her, carrying her along. She found herself in a high-ceilinged room that the servants always referred to as the marble room. It used to have a preponderance of classical statues, athletically poised on their podia, Greek vases and Roman urns with veined marble surfaces. Now all that was gone, replaced by cheap-looking replicas and more framed photographs. What the hell have they done with all the statues? She wondered.

"This old room brings back some memories, don't it? Remember how it had to be kept tip-top, with everything gleaming – even when Their Majesties were away? Otherwise the queen would have a fit!"

She almost didn't recognize Simpkins, even though she had become used to seeing him off-duty in leather jacket and jeans. This time he was wearing a faded denim jacket, over a dingy white T-shirt, faded jeans and his usual scuffed sneakers. His face was paler and pudgier than before and his portliness had bloated into stoutness. There was something extra shifty and seedy about him, and the dark glasses he wore looked incongruous in the gloomy room.

"You don't look good," she blurted out. "What you been up to?"

"Oh, just the usual," he said. He laughed a brittle laugh.

"I thought you musta disappeared over the border, I ain't seen you in such a long while."

"I ain't a border-hopper no more, Shaz. Mind you, I ain't doing so bad for meself."

"How's that?" She was genuinely curious.

"Some high-ups in the government have got me working for 'em."

"What kind of work?"

"Commercial traveling," he said curtly. Something about his manner put her off asking him for details. He took her arm.

"Anyway, my girl, _you_ are looking beautiful," he said. "Except for that crap on your hair – why don't you wash it off? It makes you look like a whore."

It was the kind of remark a sleazeball would make, and she was taken aback. He had become even more of a shabby lowlife than ever, and she started to feel anger rising. Who the hell did he think he was, calling her a whore? And what right did he think he had to take her by the arm, as if nothing had changed between them?

Painful memories were being revived and she fumed as he walked her out of the marble room. Yet something else was stirring again, and it made her stomach lurch. It began with the way he looked right at her – she could feel his eyes behind the shades he wore sliding up and down her body. She smoothed the cotton dress; at least she had always kept a decent figure even after years of drudgery – and having Craig and a disabled dad to look after. Strange feelings were rising, yet not so strange because she'd been through this all before.

"You still ain't got a boyfriend yet, have you?" he said.

"How about you?" she countered. "How's _your_ sex life these days?"

"Lousy," was all he said.

She felt dizzy. They were standing at the foot of the grand staircase, where visiting dignitaries would have to wait while the king and queen descended in dazzling array, graciously acknowledging their presence.

"Listen, I been a bloody fool. I should've stuck with you, Shaz, instead of drifting away like I did, after your old man – " His voice trailed off. "How is he, by the way?"

"All right," she said listlessly. "His head's still funny, but he has his good days... sometimes."

"Listen, I think we should have a chat," he said. "Come on, I'll buy you a coffee – you look a bit peaky."

She was propelled down the corridor and into the former servants' room without further protest. The room was now a cafeteria, and she was left standing near the door while he went to buy two cups of coffee.

"Let's sit down," he said and motioned for her to follow him. He pointed to a chair at one of the tables and she sat in it, feeling like a zombie. It was all so unreal, Simpkins breezing back into her life yet again, just when she thought she'd seen the last of him and the need he represented.

He lit up one of his cigarettes, but this time didn't offer the pack to her. He didn't have his flashy silver lighter either, just a book of matches. She wondered if he'd come down in the world, assuming he could get any lower.

"How's Craig these days?"

"Good. He's outside at the carnival."

"Carnival! What a load of bollocks that is!" He snorted smoke from his nostrils. "A shabby old merry-go-round with dings on all the horses, a creaky ferris wheel, a few tatty sideshows and some battered bumper cars trundling about. It's a farce! Still, the whole bloody country's going to rack and ruin, if you ask me."

Sharon sipped her coffee and reflected.

"Do you ever wonder where the king and queen are?" she asked.

"I know where they are – they're banged up. This government wants to make commoners of 'em, so they're being kept out of the way till people have forgotten all about 'em. It makes sense when you think about it – the government don't want people hankering after the good old days."

"Well, at least I had a full-time job back then," she said, her thoughts shifting.

"And you will again, my girl, just as soon as I can arrange it. How d'you like to work for a couple of Party lesbians?"

She burst out laughing. "Well, now that you put it like that – how could I refuse!" she said. "Really, Sim, where d'you come up with all these weird ideas?"

"Nothing weird about it, it's a straight offer – if you'll pardon the pun."

So it came to pass that Sharon found herself riding a shaky, crowded bus up a pine-tree forested mountain to the west of West City, on her way to her new job. She recognized several other ex-palace servants on the bus and reckoned they were all now employed by Party high-ups. As they climbed the hill, where bougainvillea hung in lumps over high stone walls, Sharon pulled the stop cord. She recognized the area – the out-of-town toffs where she had worked on Simpkins's recommendation, had their house nearby.

When she reached her new employer's house, the morning rushed by in a blur of hurry-scurry-flurry-worry. Her boss, Mickey Miskiss, the government's foreign minister, seemed to spit out faxes and phone calls as she breathed, and Sharon was rushed off her feet delivering messages, answering the phone, serving coffee to visitors in the den and running to the front doorbell. Midway through the morning. Paul Slamil and Joe Steel held a long conference call with Mickey, who later drove off to Party HQ. Sharon began to understand that the reason for the increased activity was the start of the Party's election campaign. Unable to persuade the former king to run against the Party, Slamil and Steel had enlisted the cooperation of the deputy archbishop, Martin Bribe, who fancied his chances as leader of a newly-formed Church Party that was pledged to overthrow the People's Party on the grounds that they were godless atheists.

Mickey's partner, the tall delicate-looking Stella Mastoid, waylaid Sharon in the kitchen as she was putting away the coffee. She wore a skintight, iridescent blue-green shirt and a long black silk skirt, that clung to her legs, so that she looked like a mermaid emerging from an oilslick.

"What a busy morning!" she said huskily. "And all because some crucifix-waving cleric thinks he can be the next president!"

"Mm, yes," Sharon replied, busying herself with the creamer and the sugar bowl. "I've been working non-stop."

Stella watched her as she cleaned up the kitchen counter. Sharon had the feeling that she was doing more than watching the daily help, that she was peeling the daily help's clothes off, layer by layer, with her eyes. She pushed down the uncomfortable feeling and opened the dishwasher door.

"Why don't you just leave that for a minute," Stella said. "I'm fixing myself a drink. Would you like one?"

"Oh no, that's all right," Sharon said. Stella mixed her a Sidecar without listening to her reply and handed it to her.

"Come and sit down in the den."

Like a child, she did as she was told. Stella led her to the couch and they sat down. Sharon took a few sips of her cocktail and wondered what was coming next.

"Of course, this Bribe person is a loser and the whole election business is a smokescreen," Stella said. Her words came soothingly as though she were caressing her with them. "Come December it'll all be over and then we can really party."

Sharon wasn't sure if it was Stella's voice that made her feel tingly, or the liquor she was drinking. Both sensations were smooth and seductive.

"Do you think the Church Party stands a chance?" Sharon asked, trying to maintain her composure.

"None whatsoever." Stella was watching her as she drank, and she was aware how stiff and tense she was, as if ready to spring back to her duties.

"But a lot of people are religious." She felt Stella edging closer to her.

"Ha! They can stuff as many people into church halls as they like – it won't make any difference to the final count on Election Day." Her eyes seemed to be laughing, though not at Sharon. "In an election, it's numbers that matter – numbers of ballot papers."

Sharon was still tense, but she tried to make an effort to relax. Stella's eyes were taking in her body: the flesh of her thighs, hips and plump breasts under her dark skirt and white blouse.

"Oh, you mean the government controls the actual numbers!" she said, attempting a knowing smile.

Stella laughed softly, then she whispered: "We've talked enough, Sharon, don't you think? I don't want to give away all my secrets – not on your first day."

They both put down their drinks at the same time, then Stella moved closer and put her arm around her.

"You're really attractive, you know that? You're nice and cuddly like my friend Mickey."

The kiss, when it came, was tender, not boozy and rough like the kisses Simpkins gave her. Stella took her hand and led her into the bedroom. Then she took Sharon's clothes off and removed her own, draping them over a chair. The spacious room had a light, airy feel, the walls a pale pastel blend of blue and gray, the furniture blond and modern with a king-sized four-poster bed. Stella kissed her on the neck and put her hand on her cheek. Then she let it drop to her left breast, rubbing the rosy nipple until it was hard.

Oh well, Sharon thought, succumbing to the delightful sensation, this is one Party worker I wouldn't mind partying with!

Chapter 34

### The Royal Helpers

In a screened-off area of the gardens behind the newly-named People's Palace guests of the People's Party milled and chattered around the shaved lawns: laughing, shaking hands, nodding heads and coalescing into little knots, their gossip buzzing through the air like wasps. They smiled when the official photographer asked them to pose and breathed in the summer scents of flowers, perfume and cold shrimp platters. Some of them wandered into a shaded area under a flapping, yellow-and-black canopy where long tables of food had been laid out and people sat on folding chairs with their plates, eating and talking inexhaustibly. Waitstaff in white shirts brought drinks and snacks to those who were standing around the Deputy Leader, Joe Steel. Alone among the bustling conviviality, Arabella Scott-Natterson stood and watched with a mixture of professional interest and utter boredom.

She stood holding her glass of Chardonnay, her face set in a half-smile. Before the revolution she used to enjoy palace garden parties – the combination of booze, views and titillating gossip invigorated her. But this outdoor bash made her feel superfluous, and the people all around her were beginning to disgust her. Some were piling potato salad, shrimp, coleslaw and bread rolls onto their plates as if their lives depended on it, as they jostled around the food table. Others were sucking up to Joe Steel, whose brutal features were partly concealed by his red cap. Government officials wore faded blue denims, yellow boots and red baseball caps, as a symbol of solidarity with the workers, and Arabella was reminded of her college days when posh girls wore dungarees and parkas as if they were single mothers on welfare.

Steel was holding forth, surrounded by fawning Party hacks and government groupies, and he seemed to Arabella the embodiment of everything she hated about the new regime. She abhorred the crassness of its blaring propaganda, the loutishness of black-uniformed Party toughs shouting slogans in the streets, anger bristling from their faces, and those damn red-starred flags hanging form every building, along with portraits of Paul Slamil.

Another thing she hated was the suspicion that now fell on her as a journalist. It wasn't enough that she was forced to write bland adulations of the regime and vicious condemnation of its enemies under the pen name Bella Scott. She was also subject to phone-tapping, censorship and even being followed about in the street. It was starting to make her paranoid. Her insecurity merely reinforced her intense distaste for the Party, which she felt was conning the people by promising a democracy it would never allow. Day after day her neutered newspaper filled its columns with pro-government blather, promising full and free elections, although she knew – as part of the propaganda machine – that the Party had no intention of permitting a realistic opposition party to grow, and the token one they had allowed was a joke.

The official opposition, the Mellorian People's Christian Party, popularly known as the Church Party, was held in mild contempt by most non-churchgoing Mellorians, and had been allowed to campaign merely as a sop to the international media, members of which were beginner to filter into the country. Support from United Nations relief agencies and the World Bank would be crucial to the economic development of the country after the election, particularly since the Slobodians had turned off the tap of financial support to the Party. Thus the government had permitted a motley collection of bishops, boy scout and girl guide leaders and church worthies to emerge, with Martin Bribe as its leader, and the archbishop, Thomas Lesot - who was considered by the Party as too unreliable for leader – as his deputy. Its chance of winning the election being laughable, people were beginning to grudgingly accept Paul Slamil as their future president for life.

Gloomy thoughts of the election as a foregone conclusion lingered in Arabella's mind as she stood with her Chardonnay. A fragrant warm breeze was blowing in her face, and she decided to put her glass down and take a stroll in the former queen's garden. Walking away from the braying voices of Steel and his sycophants, she reached a grove of cypresses that formed a small arboretum beside the garden and found two former courtiers on one of its rustic benches.

Mary Sedeekly and Agatha Armstrong-Pitt were so deep in conversation that they didn't notice Arabella's approach.

"Oh, it's all so distressing," Mary was saying, "I never thought I'd live to see the day when hordes of commoners would be tramping over the palace, poking about in every room, and the government charging us to go in!"

"It's absolutely monstrous," Agatha agreed. "I saw lowborn women rooting about in the closets in the East Wing, pawing the linen and towels and oohing and ahing over each monogrammed royal crest. What did they expect – Martha Stewart!"

"I know," Mary exclaimed. "I overheard some hussy clucking about all the beds and saying 'Do you think this is nylon or rayon?'"

They convulsed in giggles for a moment, then Mary pulled a brochure from her purse. "Just listen to this – from the government's _Guide_ _to_ _the_ _People's_ _Palace_ : 'The people's revolution has one aim and objective: to reward the hard-working people of Melloria for their struggle and sacrifice during the corrupt era of the monarchy so that they may now enjoy the fat of the land – _their_ land – that the Gorm dynasty once lived off. The people are the ones who deserve to luxuriate in the splendors of this palace, and experience the delights that once only kings and queens could enjoy.'"

"How dare they!" Agatha cried. "The sheer cheek of those awful Bolsheviks! And they make us, the ladies of the queen's bedchamber, pay good money to enter our own former workplace. Before this dreadful revolution, ladies and gentlemen of the court could come to the palace whenever they jolly well chose to, and not have to pay for the privilege!"

"Indeed," Mary said, "the people had respect for one in those days."

Arabella moved close enough for the two ladies to notice her. She felt their plummy aristocratic voices drawing her to them like an old, nostalgic melody.

'Do I know you?" Agatha said. "Your face looks awfully familiar."

"I'm Arabella Scott-Natterson. I write for the _Bugle_ ," she said simply.

"Of course! I remember seeing you at many a glittering ball, sitting in some corner scribbling in your notebook. I used to think it was such a shame you couldn't take a twirl on the dancefloor with some young buck."

"Well, that was my job – writing about who was dancing with whom," Arabella said. "I had to stay alert and objective. Dancing would have made me too giddy."

"Oh, those balls, I can see them now!" Mary enthused. "The rustle of silk taffeta as some dashing dragoon whisked one around the room!"

"I always thought taffeta looked rather cheap," Agatha remarked.

Mary looked abashed.

"What about the banquets!" she countered. "Remember those sumptuous feasts? Some of them went on for days. Oh, court life was such fun..."

She suddenly trailed off, and reached into her purse for a handkerchief. She dabbed it around her eyes. "But now those dear dead days are gone!" she wailed "The barbarians have taken over!"

Arabella was beginning to wonder if she'd made a mistake in approaching these two. All she could remember about the banquets was that no one was allowed to touch the food before the king and queen arrived – and they were always hours late.

"You're right about court life," Agatha said reflectively. "The banquets and balls were quite wonderful – though trying to wake up the queen the next morning was decidedly daunting."

"Not something to be undertaken lightly," Mary concurred. "Her afternoon naps, too, were a minefield for the unwary!"

Arabella began to chuckle. She remembered hearing stories about the queen's fearsome temper, and how she hated to be disturbed before she'd finished her nap. Beneath her amusement, she started to feel the stirrings of an instinct that nudged her like a bird trying to push open its cage door, hoping to be free.

"Do either of you ladies happen to know where the queen is these days?" she asked.

Oh yes," Mary said. "My daughter's a visiting physical therapist and she swears she saw Their Majesties and the two royal highnesses at some institution she goes to on West Gorm Road. What a terrible thing – to lock up the king and queen in a mental home!"

Agatha tugged at the chiffon scarf around her neck, as if it was constricting her, and threw it with emphasis on the bench between herself and Mary. "I could kill that Paul Slamil for what he did to our king and queen!" she said. "The man should be locked up himself!"

"Thank you for confirming the rumor I heard – there's been a complete news blackout on the king and queen's whereabouts," Arabella said to Mary. "Do you know if Their Majesties are allowed visitors?"

"Well, my daughter said that apart from herself – and she only goes once a week – the only outsiders allowed are the doctor and the priest."

Arabella thought briefly. The doctor would be a government appointee, but the priest would be answerable only to the archbishop.

"I think those of us who are loyal to Their Majesties should be allowed to send them a message of support," she suggested.

The suggestion was enthusiastically taken up. "Yes, let's ask the archbishop if he'll let us pass a message on to them," Agatha said.

"You know the archbishop is giving a speech to the Church party next week. One of us could go along to it and petition him," Mary added.

At that moment the cage door swung open and the bird flew free, singing its heart out.

"Would you mind approaching the archbishop and asking him to grant me an audience?" Arabella asked. "I have an idea I think he would appreciate."

Several ideas were swirling around inside her head. She'd been thinking about an article she had to write about the Church Party, ostensibly to reinforce the popular view that it consisted of a bunch of old clapped-out clergymen, church hens and bible-bashers, and to altogether slag off its faltering deputy leader. Yet this same deputy leader, Thomas Lesot, could be the catalyst to spring the royals from their imprisonment. They could then be spirited away to Bulimia, where they would be a focus for the anti-government resistance, and give the Church party a boost for its election campaign. It would also make a fabulous story. Her _Trumpet_ _Blast_ column, although expunged from the _Bugle_ , appeared in several Bulimian newspapers, and she knew a story like this would sell for many moons.

After discussing with Mary some of the things her daughter could accomplish on her next visit to the mental home, Arabella waved goodbye and walked away, her mind filled with exciting possibilities.

Chapter 35

### The Humiliation Continues

Godfrey woke up smelling the rank, funky odor of his new abode. It was a mixture of sweat, decay and rancid cooking fat, and it helped him remember where he was. It also choked him emotionally and he felt like crying. It was a great effort to hold back the tears. He was wracked with spasms of regret, not the least of which was his refusal to respond to Slamil's offer of better living conditions for himself and his family in return for political cooperation. He had left it far too late, in spite of Letitia's nagging, and when he finally asked the superintendent to pass on the message of agreement, the brusque reply told him that the Party had already found a suitable opposition candidate and his services were not required.

He rolled over and almost fell out of bed. It was so difficult sleeping on a single. He caught sight of his wife, sleeping on her back and snoring lightly with her mouth open. She was naked where the blanket had rolled off her and he started to feel aroused.

Dammit, he thought, here I am, deprived of my kingdom, deposed, humiliated and thrown into prison – and now I'm starting to get a boner!

He slid the blanket down and eased himself out of bed. Then he padded over to Letitia's bed and rolled the blanket completely off her, as gently as he could. He began sniffing her body, starting with her neck. As he moved down her torso he fantasized invading her, starting with his nose in her pubic tuft. She woke up when he reached her navel, muttering: "What are you doing? Stop it this minute! Where's my blanket, Godfrey?"

"Sorry," he said.

"There's no two ways about it – you'll have to see a psychiatrist," she said. "Your behavior's getting more and more peculiar."

"Nonsense! A shrink's the last person I need to see," he replied defensively.

Letitia got out of bed and found her robe. She grappled with the complexity of it, looking for the armholes which turned out to be inside out.

"Oh God, I wish one could ring for one's maid!" she cried.

"What with, your hands? There are no bells here!" Godfrey said. He struggled with his own recalcitrant robe.

When they had succeeded in dressing themselves, they each toileted and went down to join the rest of the inmates for breakfast. By the time they entered the great gloomy hall, the others had mostly finished. Catheter was reading a well-thumbed Stephen King paperback at the table, a practice Godfrey abhorred but didn't comment on. Instead he sat down and poured himself a coffee. He inhaled the steam rising from his cup, but it gave him no satisfaction. Coffee no longer smelled good. He suspected the coffee they were given here was made with acorns and chicory.

He inhaled again, and Letitia gave him a nudge.

"Godfrey, don't keep smelling your coffee like that. What with that, er, other thing you did, it's giving me the willies."

"Sorry," he said.

"And don't keep saying sorry," she snapped.

After breakfast Godfrey walked down to the workout room. He didn't want to be involved in any of the group activities scheduled for that morning, such as yoga or flower arranging. He was looking forward to releasing his tension and bitterness on the weight machine. A male attendant offered to give him personal training, but he preferred to use his own routine. The attendant looked uneasily past Godfrey at a man standing in front of the universal gym. The man was big, with long, straggly white hair streaked with shocks of red.

He stood like an Easter Island statue contemplating the machines.

"This is Balthazar," the attendant said. "He'll be with us for a few days until we can get him on the Community Program."

The Community Program was the process by which inmates of the Home were gradually being relocated, either to relatives, paid foster carers or (as a last resort) to a dilapidated group home in East City. Balthazar had proved impossible to billet so far, but the social workers continued to keep trying.

"Hail Caesar!" he said to Godfrey. Godfrey supposed the admiral's uniform he was wearing (it being a First Thursday) was the reason for this bizarre greeting, but he felt strangely touched.

"Hello, my friend," he replied. "Please don't let me disturb you."

Godfrey sat down at the leg press and started exercising. There was too much weight on the rack, but he didn't stop to change it. After six or seven presses, he began seeing lights flashing behind his eyes and decided to take a rest.

"You're not," Balthazar suddenly said, and Godfrey realized the man was catching up with his own earlier remark. Balthazar was someone for whom time passed more slowly, like a traveler approaching the speed of light. His forehead was yellow and waxy. His prominent nose, standing proud on his face, waved in Godfrey's direction. He grinned, his pale eyes alive and merry under shaggy gray eyebrows.

"What say we bust out of here and find ourselves a couple women?" he said. He raised his arms and flexed his biceps. The lumpy muscles jumped erratically under the sagging skin. "I'm in good enough shape to sort out a wench or two. What say you, Caesar?"

A young female attendant came up to them, collecting trash.

"Hot damn!" Balthazar said, leaning sideways to watch as the girl moved between the machines. "We don't even have to go out – she'll do!"

"She's too young, my friend," Godfrey said. "She's hardly out of school."

A long silence elapsed.

"She'll grow out of it," Balthazar said gravely. His collapsed lips drooped into an inverse smile.

Godfrey shrugged, suddenly feeling nostalgic.

"Time and tide waits for no man," he said.

The young care assistant came closer and began to retrieve a towel left centimeters from Godfrey's face. He closed his eyes and breathed in, nostrils flared, to catch her fragrance.

"I'm lucky to be alive," Balthazar said to her. "Look at me." He opened his shirt and showed her a smooth white scar on his stomach.

"How did you get that?" the girl asked.

Balthazar flexed his arms and made the gnarly biceps leap. The shadow of melancholy passed across his face, as if he were recalling sad times and lost loves.

The girl folded the towel and moved away.

"A Slobodian bullet," Balthazar said at last.

Godfrey got up from the machine and went into the men's room. "Well, I'm not going to yoga or flower arranging – or bloody group therapy!" he told himself, standing astride the urinal and leaning back to avoid the powerfully astringent fumes of the deodorant bar. "They can stick it up their anal retentives," he added.

Balthazar shuffled in. "Are you coming along, Caesar?" he said. "I know a place where we can pick up women with big boobs."

Godfrey shook his penis and zipped up.

"I'd love to," he said dryly, "but I fear my wife will come looking for me."

Godfrey went back upstairs and took a shower, putting his face directly under the spray. He smelled roses in the stream. The cascade overwhelmed him with its freshness and he felt he was a young prince again. The hint of roses led by association to a riverbank, maybe a lake, a fine house in the country. And there was a gathering of some kind, people he knew but couldn't name. There were voices among the roses, by the river or lake, and the familiar house, a mansion tucked in the hills, was full of music. "He's here," he heard someone say. Someone else said:" And how long are you going to be in that bloody shower?"

He turned off the spigot, groped blindly for a towel and began rubbing himself vigorously. He emerged in the corridor damp and irritated, to find Catheter and Letitia waiting, towels and shampoo at the ready, to take their turn in the single shower which the whole corridor shared.

At the end of their first month of incarceration, Letitia begged Godfrey to submit to a haircut. He was adamant he would never let a barber touch his hair who hadn't been royally appointed, considering it a degradation of his rank. Nevertheless, under the pressure of his wife's relentless nagging, he found himself sitting in a chair in the lounge and permitting a towel to be draped around his shoulders. Fuming with impotent anger until his throat and face were red, he waited until the young girl care assistant who had been to hairdressing school was ready to begin.

"What kind of haircut would you like?" she asked.

"I don't give a damn," Godfrey said. "Take it all off, why don't you?"

"All of it?"

"You heard – sheer me like a sheep!"

When he rose from the chair his buzzcut bullet head made him look like a convict. He squinted in the mirror the girl held up for him and nodded with grim approval. His point was made; he had endured his humiliation without flinching. He thanked the girl and ambled out, whistling tunelessly.

Godfrey wore no hat or cap to hide his shaved head. Letitia became increasingly concerned, noticing that, as well as his lack of interest in his appearance, he no longer ate with his customary relish; he was barely picking at his food. He would select an individual carrot or potato with his fork, bite into it and spend the rest of the meal chewing mechanically. With his other hand he dragged his teacup to his mouth and swallowed with equal unconcern.

"Have you gone off your food?" Letitia ventured to ask on one occasion.

"I don't seem to have any appetite these days." His voice was a sad groan.

As the weeks dragged on strange and surreal, Letitia felt her life was a series of instants, each following the other with no rhyme or reason to any of them. She had long taken comfort in contemplating the past and the glorious tradition of monarchy that brought the past into the present and promised to continue doing so for all time. But time was now disconnected to any tradition, glorious or otherwise, and she felt confused and violated, like the victim of a vicious mugging.

She hadn't the remotest idea when they would be released – no one told her anything. The superintendent was evasive whenever she broached the subject, and Godfrey was becoming too apathetic to care. She was completely out of the loop, and it was driving her loopy.

Meanwhile life at the institution demanded a much greater degree of self-reliance. She hated having to dunk her own teabags as much as she hated having to dress herself without a maid, and she desperately missed her servants. Godfrey soon acquired the art of swishing his bag around in his cup, and seemed to find the process satisfying, which made her feel even more alone.

The only time she felt content was at night, after hearing the heavy iron gates slam shut for the last time and the tread of guards patrolling the corridor fading from earshot. She pulled the blanket up to her chin and felt free from cares. Then she would fall asleep and dream of nothing for several hours. Inevitably Godfrey's snores would merge into her dreams. She would suddenly find herself menaced by his snarls and snorts, battling with his grunts. She slept through all the exterior night noises and on waking would lie in bed thinking of Calliper and how it looked in the early morning mist, its halls now ringing to the vulgar shouts and curses of its present occupants. She appreciated more and more the memory of being woken by one of her ladies of the bedchamber with her morning tea. Now she was roused by the brisk knock of an attendant in a green uniform, who shouted if there was no reply.

She missed the sunlight that used to flood into her bedchamber in the morning like the blare of trumpets. Somehow it had filled her with a confidence to get up and face the day, which she now was barely able to do. The sun didn't just illuminate, she realized. It made everything and everyone shine like gold. The sun conferred benevolence – something that couldn't be bought, though it could be taken away. She and Godfrey had somehow allowed a gang of impudent bandits to take the glory from them, leaving them to exist like institutional patients, slopping about in their robes all day.

Chapter 36

### The Plot Deepens

Arabella Scott-Natterson found herself at the center of a slow-moving pinwheel as the coordinator of the plot to free the king and queen. She quickly learned that most of the courtiers and royal advisers had slipped over the Bulimian border or had gone into hiding. Through Mary D'Armoire's daughter she discovered that Bart, the handyman at the mental home, was a closet royalist and willing to help the plotters, as well as enlist other helpers at the home. This left only the problem of transport for the four adults to be smuggled over the Bulimian border. She contacted Lucinda Limehouse-Blewit, who readily agreed to make herself and two horses available. Unfortunately, neither Arabella nor any of the other helpers possessed a car. Not even Archbishop Lesot had his own car and was forced to ride the bus in the People's Republic of Melloria.

When she wasn't coordinating the Gorms escape plan, Arabella was trying to trace the woman who called herself Sharon. She placed several discrete ads in the _Bugle_ asking Sharon to call her, but no message came. It was possible the woman no longer read the Bugle, had never read it or perhaps was illiterate. She could even have left the country. As frustrating as it was to Arabella, who was hoping to verify the woman's claim to have borne King Godfrey's love child, she kept the hope alive while she fulfilled her busy schedule of appointments, beginning with the inaugural Church Party rally.

It was held in the auditorium of a cinema in North City, and was Thomas Lesot's first address to the party. The party leader, Martin Bribe, Lesot's Deputy Archbishop, was unable to address the meeting as he was at an ecumenical conference in Stockholm.

Thomas Lesot was a plump, balding man who wore wire-rimmed glassed. Shy and retiring, his secret drinking had driven him deeper into his own world. Going out in public was not something he enjoyed. He couldn't stand the noise, the rudeness, the coarse language people used. Everywhere he went he observed atrocious manners and vulgar stupidity. Even before he began drinking, he had lived in a cloistered environment where everyone kept feelings safely under lock and key. The only place in Melloria where he felt decency still existed was the royal court at Calliper palace. Now that the People's Party had slammed shut the door to that arcadia, he had thrown his weight behind the only organized resistance to the hateful new regime and had accepted the deputy leadership of the Church Party.

He reminded himself of this commitment as he stepped up onto the stage and prepared to approach the speaker's microphone. His detestation of public speaking meant his nerves were on edge, and he had liberally fortified himself with brandy earlier in the day. A cheerful canoness was already on the podium, announcing in a bouncy voice that after the archbishop's address the lights would be dimmed and a film shown on the role of the church in Mellorian family life.

The canoness wound up her address by telling the audience that it was a great honor to have a deputy leader who was not only the spiritual head of Melloria but a man dedicated to defending traditional family values against the rampant materialism of the present regime.

Archbishop Lesot smiled weakly when called upon and stumbled to the microphone. In his nervousness he spoke so closely into the mike that his voice ricocheted around the hall. "My brethren!" he shouted, "This is indeed a joyous occasion that brings us here tonight. No less than the birth of a new political party, the Mellorian People's Christian Democratic Party – which is such a mouthful that most people call us the Church Party!"

This brought chuckles from the audience, and he took heart. "It's an honor for me to address you all," he went on, "since we are all striving to protect the same eternal principles: piety, sobriety and loyalty." Here he stopped, expecting an appreciative murmur from the audience. They remained silent, however, most of them unmoved or unimpressed by his slogan. He continued, feeling slightly irritated. "I have only a few more things to say and then we can have the film," he said. This time there were murmurs of approval and the archbishop suddenly started to feel real annoyance. If all they wanted was a few pious platitudes and a bland propaganda film, then he would jolly well use this opportunity to get a personal and painful humiliating experience off his chest.

He began again, his voice slowly rising in pitch and intensity. "I'm going to tell you very briefly something our country's self-appointed leader, Mr Paul Slamil, the boss of the Mellorian People's Revolutionary Party, said to me on the day he and his gang of strongarm men came to arrest Her Majesty Queen Letitia and Their Royal Highnesses Prince Catheter and Prince Anton, and drag them away to join His Majesty King Godfrey in their present shameful confinement in an unknown place."

He stopped once more for emphasis, and the angry muttering from all parts of the hall told him he'd vindicated himself.

"Mr Slamil said to me," he said, in a quavering tone filled with suppressed rage, "that there was a new religion in town, namely reason, and so all our prayers are now redundant. Well, I've got news for Mr Slamil. We are Christians and our prayers will never be redundant!"

Loud applause broke from the auditorium and voice rose in agreement. Fully emboldened, the archbishop pounded his fist on the podium, as if he were slamming it against Paul Slamil's head and then, recovering some of his composure, concluded in a whining snarl: "And foremost in our prayers will be the safe return to their palace of our beloved Royal Family. God save the king!"

He tottered away from the podium and in the sudden absolute silence, the stunned audience watched him grope his way to his seat. Then cheers erupted, and the hubbub from the auditorium rose to a pitch that made Arabella's eardrums ache. Sitting at the back of the auditorium, she felt moved and strangely aroused and a tingle flashed down her spine. People could be heard warmly commending the speech and those sitting near the archbishop were on their feet, shaking his hand.

Arabella stood up to leave the hall. The curtains masking the cinema screen were now being rolled back, and choral music blared. The screen lit up and white letters wobbled over a shot of a large family enjoying a cookout in a field intercut with a church interior where a vested priest led a procession of worshippers up the aisle.

Arabella stumbled outside the building and rubbed her eyes in the streetlight's glare. She hailed a cab and sat in the rear, feeling that Lesot's speech showed how committed he was to helping the escape plan. She was now confident that he would be willing to pass on the necessary message. Her next move was to secure an audience with the archbishop, and she mentally listed the people she knew who could pull some helpful strings.

That night, a few hours after his tumultuous speech. Archbishop Lesot suffered his first heart attack.

Chapter 37

### Sharon's Weakness

Walking back from the busstop after her first day at the new job, Sharon ruefully reflected on the way things had gone. Things had gone quite a long way with Stella, until her friend Mickey suddenly showed up, with her fat ass and her tattooed arms, and kicked her out of bed. Then there was nothing for it but to dress, give in her notice and leave before the earsplitting row between Stella and Mickey really got out of hand. Numbers, Stella had said, it was all about numbers. Well, she had a new number in her life – it was back to square one. She wondered if Simpkins knew any other Party high-ups who were looking for a daily help. She felt angry – she still had Craig and her dad to look after, and now she had to find herself another job as well.

As she walked, she became aware that someone was following her. It wasn't Stella, she was sure of that – she'd have her hands full coping with Mickey! She thought about the people who might be watching her. It could be a secret service agent tailing her because of who her employer was – her ex-employer now. All the government ministers had knives in each other's backs or so it seemed. Thank God she was nearly home.

Arriving at the house, she let herself in through the back door and was surprised to find Craig sitting in front of the TV screen with his game console in one hand and a half-eaten grilled cheese sandwich in the other.

"What are you doing here?" she said. "I thought you were going round your friend's house."

"We had a bust up." He said laconically. You're not the only one, Sharon thought. She thought about going to the drinks cabinet and pouring herself a brandy, then decided to wait until Craig had gone to bed. She knew her dad was already asleep.

"Well, don't stay up too late," she warned. "You got school tomorrow."

"No, I don't," he said, his tone surly and his mouth full. "I been expelled. They said they warned you I had ADD, but you didn't do nothing about it!"

Oh God, Sharon thought. Now I'll have to find him a home tutor. She packed Craig off to bed and picked up the TV remote. Surfing the channels, she hit on a news program and was surprised to see pictures of King Godfrey, taken before the revolution. She had wondered about him ever since her last meeting with Simpkins, but hadn't expected to see him on TV. She turned up the volume and heard Princess Dawna say some flattering things about her father-in-law. Then the program cut to a discussion in another language, and she realized with a groan that she was watching a Bulimian channel.

"Damn government, never gives us any decent news," she grumbled to herself. "We never know what's going on half the time."

She heard a knock at the front door and when she went it was Simpkins, looking decidedly better than the last time she'd seen him.

"Well, what do you want?" she said, not letting him in.

"That's a nice way to treat your old boyfriend, my girl," he said. "How d'your new job go then?"

"I was fired," she said, starting to feel shamefaced.

"Fired? What for?" She couldn't tell him the truth - apart from anything else he might find her little romance with Stella a turn-on and that would be embarrassing.

"I just didn't get on with Mickey," she said. Simpkins gave one of his dirty cackles.

"What, did she come on to you?" I knew it would come to this, she thought, he's obsessed with sex. She noticed he had a package in his hand.

"No, she didn't as a matter of fact. We just didn't get along. That's all. And now I'm looking for a new job."

"Well, ain't you the lucky girl then!" he said. "Not only is the Deputy Party Leader himself looking for a maid of all works – you'll have to work late, mind, there's always parties at Joe's house – but I got something nice for you here."

He showed her the package, gift wrapped. I wonder what it is this time, she thought sourly. Lacy underwear, perfume or that long-awaited Rolex?

"Aren't you gonna let me in then?" It was that wheedling tone again.

"I followed you all the way from the busstop. I really wanna see you again."

She ran agitated fingers through her hair. He was just going to be more trouble, she was sure of that... she didn't want to lure him in...yet she really needed that job he was talking about.

She stepped aside, and he walked into the living room.

Chapter 38

### Arabella Gets Her Scoop

On September the First Arabella Scott-Natterson attended a pre-election campaign bash thrown by Joe Steel at his penthouse suite. With their campaign about to start, many in the People's Party were feeling buoyant and optimistic. Steel wanted to celebrate their expected victory with a lavish fare of caviar and champagne, served by staff from the pool of service workers the Party used for its bacchanals. He chose to do so on a night when Paul Slamil was out of the country, on a state visit to Cuba. Steel's celebration would be the glittering highlight of the revolution, with himself as the guest of honor.

His penthouse was located on the top floor of Victor Jarra Mansion and dominated the summit of a hill overlooking Melloria City, with the classiest view in Melloria. When night fell the country's only four-lane highway turned into a glistening grid of fluid light. Red and silver ribbons, gleaming like fireflies, swam in a black sea speckled with the lights of Melloria City.

Steel looked down from his roof garden early on the evening of the party, thinking what a spinetingling view it was, especially after a joint of _Saint_. He had hired designers to lay out the roof as a formal Chinese garden with a gazebo, a fish pond and a little curved bridge. He greatly admired the Chinese communist system, particularly the power and influence of the People's Liberation Army, and his roof garden reflected his admiration. He sauntered back to the penthouse, stopping to gaze from the little bridge into the dark shiny water, where carp flashed and broke the surface with a slap, before sliding beneath it again.

Inside his elegant home, with Bang and Olufson sound systems in every room and a den where guests sat on chrome stools and ordered drinks from a brushed aluminum bar, more guests were arriving. Steel met some of them in the hall, smiled and vaguely pointed them in the direction of the living room. Among the crowd, Arabella drifted into a large room where a DJ had set up a phalanx of thundering speakers to drown the scattered conversations with drum 'n' bass, and Arabella was met with frowns or goofy smiles whenever she greeted someone.

The room was already filled with people and Arabella headed for a space near the wall-sized windows. Ahead of her she saw a maid with her back turned, passing among the guests and making sure their glasses were brimming with champagne. A pair of loudly-debating hearties blocked her path.

An owlish scholar in brown slacks and a corduroy jacket sparred with a chubby People's Party hack in faded denims and yellow boots. The party hack sounded aggressive and the scholarly type smug, and they were disparaging each other's viewpoint.

"It's all very well soaking the rich and the not-so-rich," the scholar said, "but when the middle-classes are slacking off, using their wiles to make money off the books and skipping off to Bulimia, where taxes are lower, you're in deep trouble."

"Arseholes!" the party clone snarled, his speech getting slurred. "Anybody who's earning good money when half the people are starving should pay their taxes – tax cuts would only make things worse!"

""Worse?" the scholar scoffed. He'd been slurping champagne while the other talked. "We're worse off than Cuba or North Korea. At least the Cubans have ex-pat dollars, and the North Koreans have... South Korea!"

"You're talking bollocks," the hack replied, after draining a tall glass dry. "When our policies have had a chance to work we'll have a first-class health service, an education system second to none – "

The scholar cut in " – with peeling walls and a shortage of beds in your hospitals and overcrowded classrooms in your schools!"

"Listen, you pillock," the clone sneered, snatching another glass of champagne from the maid, "this government – the first people's government in our country's history – is committed to healing the sick, sheltering the old and feeding the poor – and if we have to tax the well-off to do so, that's all right by me!" He finished off his glass.

The scholar grabbed a glass from the maid and finished it off with a few quick gulps.

"Let's see, healing the sick – how are you going to afford the latest medical technology when all your high earners have gone abroad?"

The hack's voice was getting thicker and his language coarser. "All right, you fucking smartarse, tell me this: there's a hundred thousand homeless people living in the streets. How's the fucking private sector ever gonna help them?"

"By employing them, if the government will just give business a break from high taxes and red tape."

"Waging war on poverty doesn't come cheap – and businesses have the money to pay for it."

"If you're waging war on poverty, you need to make peace with wealth."

"Listen – when it comes to creating jobs we've done more than the monarchy ever did."

"You've taken money from the high-earners and used it to create a vast bureaucracy. Jobs, yes. Wealth creation, I don't think so!"

"What do you want us to do then? Lower taxes so the bleeding wealthy will work more and make more money, I suppose!"

"Well, if you did lower taxes, you'd get more from the wealth-creators in the long run," the scholar said. "At least they wouldn't be pouring their talents into under-the-counter work or leaving the country!"

"Nobody's leaving the country, mate," the clone growled. "With truckloads of border guards, electrified fences and a system that takes forever to get a fucking exit visa? I don't think so!"

The clone chortled, and the scholar gave him a disapproving look.

"And how much is all this vigilance and bureaucratic obstructiveness costing the country?" the scholar said.

"It's money well spent."

"If I thought all the money you're spending on bureaucracy would create better public services, I'd support you to the hilt, but – "

"But! There's always a fucking but with you bastards! I only wish you'd get off _your_ fucking butts and help us build a better world!"

"Cut taxes and we will."

"Get stuffed! There's plenty of money sloshing around."

"Really?" The scholar pointed to the maid in her shiny black dress. "I wonder how much Sharon over there is making? And she's employed!"

"You're talking through your backside!" the clone said. "New businesses are starting up every day."

"Businesses? Those are street peddlers and they're barely making a living – and none of them pay taxes."

"You go to give 'em time to grow – "

"– and most of them claim welfare on the side. I bet Sharon is claiming benefits to support herself and her family."

"So what? At least she isn't starving."

"She isn't generating wealth, either. Children, maybe..."

"You're just a cynical turd. You ought to go and live in the States."

"I will – as soon as I can get an exit visa."

"Ha, ha! Fat chance!" the clone said. "Hell's gonna freeze over first. Unless of course you want to give me something to swing it for you!"

Arabella was staring at the maid, whom one of the debaters had called Sharon. Could this woman be the one she'd been looking for? If so, it was strange and fateful to be standing so close to her.

"Uh-hum!" Arabella said. "Excuse me..."

Sharon hefted her tray of drinks among the guests. She turned to Arabella, frowning. "Yes?"

"Sharon – a woman called Sharon phoned me at the _Bugle_. I'm Arabella Scott-Natterson and I write a column called – "

"Oh my God! It's you – I used to read your stuff every day!"

She almost dropped her tray. Arabella extended a hand to steady it, and the two women laughed. Then Arabella beckoned her over to a quiet part of the room.

"I'm flattered you read my stuff, Sharon, but what I really want is to know more about _your_ story."

Sharon gave her a sharp look. "You'll have to pay me then. I don't earn a lot doing this, you know."

"That's understood. We'd better not say any more here, though – I'm sure every room is bugged. What time do you finish, Sharon?"

"I get off at midnight," Sharon said.

"Okay, I'll see you in the parking lot downstairs, at quarter past twelve. I'll be in a cab."

The two women parted company and Sharon continued serving drinks until her tray was empty. She retreated into her cubbyhole beside the bar, where she listened to people laughing good-humoredly in the other rooms. The sounds of festivity from the living room reached a crescendo, and drunken voices boomed all around her. Someone was screaming "Oh my God, what am I doing? I'm so drunk!"

A woman came running past, her face chalk white. She bolted for the bathroom, where Sharon could hear her being sick into the toilet. She knew it would soon be time to turn off the lights, clean up the kitchen and leave for her meeting with Arabella.

She had finished cleaning and was putting on her jacket when Joe Steel, in a flimsy kimono and flipflops, suddenly appeared in the doorway.

"You've done a good job tonight, Sharon – so good I'm going to give you a hundred moons extra."

"Oh thanks, Mr Steel," she mumbled.

"Call me Joe, love – all the others do!"

He threw a silk-sleeved arm around her shoulders. "I've got just one more job for you, Sharon – in the bedroom."

She heard him say "one more job for you," but after hearing "in the bedroom" wondered if he had left out a word, such as "hand" or "blow."

She was reaching for the door. "I'm really sorry, Mr – er, Joe. I have to go right away. My son's sitter has to go home – "

"It'll only take a few minutes – why don't you take your jacket off?"

Oh God, she thought. I wonder what else he wants me to take off?

"Look, Joe, my dad's really sick –ever since he fractured his skull. I have to get back in case he takes a turn for the worse. A friend is waiting for me downstairs – "

He dropped his arm and made a coaxing gesture. "Well, she can come up here and wait – there's plenty to eat and drink!"

His voice was soft and wheedling, a complete contrast to his looks.

"Let me go to the loo first."

She decided to buy time. His reputation as a party hard man made her afraid to provoke him. He went on into the bedroom.

When she entered the bedroom he was sitting naked on the vast bed, one hand massaging his erection, the other scrabbling inside a bag of nachos. She felt a sudden access of courage, and an anger that he could be so blatant in how he wanted to use her.

"I'm going now," she said.

"Like fuck you are – I'm as hard as a rock!"

He stood up and reached out with nacho-coated fingers, trying to pull her down, but she shook him off.

She ran down the hall and flung open the door. She could hear his pleading voice as she slammed it shut. She took the elevator down and tottered into the parking lot, confused and angry, and wandered about until a voice called "Sharon!" She climbed into the cab next to Arabella.

"Joe Steel tried to rape me!" she blurted out. "I want to get as far away from this place as possible!"

"Where would you like to go?" Arabella asked once they were clear of the mansion.

Sharon's anger had subsided and she was in a more emollient mood. "Oh, God knows. Somewhere where I can have a large vodka!"

"What about going to a pub I know?" Arabella said. "We could have a drink while we talk."

Sharon laughed. "All right, let's go!"

They found a table in a quiet corner of the pub. At twelve forty-five the place was almost empty. Looking around, Sharon realized it was the pub her dad used to go to and everything about the place choked her up. Stained into the woodwork were the ancient remains of beer, sweat, dried blood from long-forgotten fights, and other intangible reminders of the pub's history. There was something evocative, almost nostalgic, about the place. She felt a strange sadness, though, knowing it was where her dad had sunk his last half-liter.

Arabella felt pleased she had brought Sharon here, because it was a typical East City pub and she thought it would make her feel at home. She also hoped it would sharpen her memories of her liaison with King Godfrey. She went up to the bar and ordered a Cosmopolitan for herself and a large vodka tonic for Sharon. The barman flashed her a weary smile as he poured the drinks. He looked tired, as if he'd been rushed off his feet all night by clamoring beer-swillers.

She took the drinks back to their table and placed them on the formica top. An old Patsy Cline song _Walkin'_ _After_ _Midnight_ was playing on the juke box.

"Here, drink up – we can talk about what happened tonight if you like. If not, that's okay too."

Sharon nodded and drank deeply.

"Thanks, I feel better for that."

In the silence that followed, Arabella counted out a wad of money from her purse. She passed it to Sharon. "Here's the down payment. I want you to be properly paid," she said.

"Thanks, Arabella," Sharon said, slipping the money into her clutch bag. "I think I'll pass on talking about what happened tonight. I just wanna put it out of my mind."

"Okay, Sharon. Well, I guess we'd better get down to the nitty-gritty then," Arabella said. She got out her iPad. "Is it okay if I take notes?"

On the other side of the bar an old man sat upright, his mouth open, asleep with his empty glass in his hand. A young couple, whispering over their Appletinis, were the only other people in the pub.

Sharon drank more of her vodka and began talking. "About ten or eleven years ago, I was working for His Grace the Duke of Mellinda, who's a big pal of King Godfrey. They were always going out on the town together – " "And both cheated on their wives," Arabella murmured.

Sharon flashed a knowing smile. "Well' they had had plenty to drink one night when they came back from one of their sprees. I was just locking up for the night and getting ready to go home, when the duke told me to get him and the king one last drink. The king started flirting with me when I gave him his brandy, and made me drink some. He told the duke to put on some dance music, real quiet and slinky. Then he said he wanted to dance with me and started showing me steps. One-two-three. One-two-three. Twirling me round the room. He would step away, then pull me toward him, snapping his fingers. I wanted to go home really, but I was getting drunk and didn't have the confidence to say no. Anyway, we did a slow sexy tango.

"Then the duke put some traditional Mellorian tunes on the stereo and we danced Mellorian-style, clinging very close together. Round and round the room we twirled, till the duke who'd been working his way through a bottle of brandy, started taking his clothes off. So the king started taking his off. He was really into it. First his shirt, flinging it at the duke who sat watching us, stark naked and playing with his thing – "

Arabella gave a sharp intake of breath.

"Yeah, it was really gross, but there was no stopping the king – he kept twirling as he stripped. One-two-three. Soon he was totally naked. I was losing my inhibitions after what I'd drunk, so when the king started taking _my_ clothes off – moving to the beat while he did it – I just laughed and let him strip me. He took everything off except my watch. That stayed on my wrist. It made me look a bit tarty, but I didn't care. Then the duke really started slamming his thing. I couldn't look – it was so awful, but the king just grinned. I was getting a bit brazen and I twisted myself around him, teasing him. He grabbed my arm and spun me and we smacked together. He grabbed hold of my bottom, his fingers buried right in the cleft." "'Scuse my language," she added.

Arabella smiled. "So, to cut to the chase," she said, "you and the king did it. Did he keep in touch with you after the event?"

"Nah," Sharon laughed. "Wish he had! After it was all over, they called me a cab to go home, and I never heard from the king again. The duke must've said something to his wife, because Her Grace started to get a bit funny about me working there, and a month later, I got my notice. Well, I missed a couple months and realized I was expecting. It was just before Christmas, and I was pregnant! I went to church and prayed for a miracle. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I didn't want to get rid of it. So right after Christmas I plucked up the courage to write to the king. I knew lots of other people wrote to the king for money when they needed it, and some of them got some. So I told him I needed some help because he and the duke had taken advantage and I was pregnant. I named the night and what went on and the next thing I knew I got a hand-written note to meet someone at the palace. I went and saw one of the king's advisers and he paid me some money and offered me a maid's job if I kept my mouth shut. I needed the money since I was carrying, so I started working at the palace right after. I took a couple days off when Craig was born – my dad looked after him while I was working – and that was that. Then I got laid off when the revolution came, and here I am."

Arabella chuckled, reached over and squeezed Sharon's hand. "That's an amazing story, and I'll make sure it gets published, but obviously not in Melloria – not yet, anyway. I think there are several Bulimian newspapers that would be interested."

Sharon groaned and finished her vodka. "I'm beginning to have second thoughts now – do you really think I should tell the world about it? I mean, it would be a terrible thing for the queen to hear about."

Arabella sipped her drink reflectively. "Yes, I think you should tell your story, Sharon. As for the queen, well, she's got a pretty thick skin and she knows her husband's no saint." She stopped drinking and challenged Sharon with her eyes.

"If all goes well, you'll get a pretty good payment for your story. Have you thought about what you and Craig will do when the story breaks?"

"I guess we'll have to leave Melloria – my dad too," Sharon sighed. "I hate the thought of having to go, but I don't want people calling my son the king's bastard."

"Actually," Arabella said, dropping her voice, "I'm arranging to transport some people to Bulimia in a few weeks' time. All I need is a car, and we'll be ready to go. Would you - "

"I know somebody who's got a car, a big Mercedes!" Sharon jumped in. "I could ask him to be your driver. You'd have to pay him, of course."

"Yeah? What's his name?" Arabella asked.

"Simpkins."

Chapter 39

### The Plan Firms Up

Arabella Scott-Natterson arrived at the screened-off corner of the ICT unit carrying fruit and a bunch of irises. She was taken aback at the sight of the archbishop. The oxygen tubes protruding from his nostrils like weird rubber tusks trembled while he breathed listlessly. His eyes were closed and he was frowning as if having a fierce dream.

"Archbishop Lesot?" she said, as if doubting his existence.

"Oh hello," he said, opening his eyes and managing a weak smile. "Do I know you?"

"I'm Arabella Scott-Natterson and I write for the _Melloria_ _City_ _Bugle_." She put the fruit and flowers on his nightstand and thrust out a hand.

"Oh please, no interviews – I think I'm going to die!"

Arabella's face tightened. The archbishop's death, at this delicate stage of the plan to liberate the royals, might be a setback.

"Surely not, you've just had a heart attack, that's all," she said. "You're a man with a lot of life in him – and I thought as much when I heard your inaugural speech to the Church Party."

The archbishop blinked. His eyes grew indistinct, as if sinking into a pool of blue water. Each eye released balls of water that rolled down his cheeks until the oxygen tubes caught them. "I don't think I'm that man any more," he said sadly. "I want to be allowed to go."

"But you've so much to live for!" She lowered her voice. "Your Grace, a great many people want to restore the monarchy, and we need your help. It's absolutely crucial."

The archbishop began to sob. "I'm so sorry, Miss Natterson. Helping to bring back the monarchy would be a wonderful thing, and now I'm going to die." His hands were shaking and Arabella looked at her own hands. Was she going to lose this important link in the chain?

"Listen, Your Grace," she said desperately. "Before you die, would you do me one enormous favor?"

The archbishop nodded, through his sobs.

"I need you to visit His Majesty in the place where Their Majesties are being confined. The daughter of one of the queen's bedchamber ladies and the handyman who works there are willing to help the royal family to escape and flee to Bulimia. We need someone with your authority to deliver a vital message to the king."

The archbishop stopped crying and looked startled.

"Escape?" he quavered.

"Yes, escape!" she asserted. "Your Grace can deliver the note to His Majesty – then he'll know help is on the way."

"I'll do it," he said softly. "By God, I'll live long enough to do it."

It was late in the evening when the doorbell rang. Sharon was angry when she saw Simpkins's red face. He was drunk and had obviously come straight from one of his drug runs. Now he intended to get more drunk and stoned, and be entertained. He had gone back to wearing a black leather jacket and was carrying a brown holdall. He had taken to dropping by unannounced, getting loaded and stoned and showering her and Craig with gifts from his bag. Craig's consisted of a PlayStation and a bunch of games. For her he had brought some lingerie and a jar of Estee Lauder Age-Correcting Crème, which she took to be a very backhanded compliment.

She had been feeling sharp and irritable all day. She had decided to spend Arabella's down payment on her story setting up her dad's nursing home care. To supplement it with a government care allowance, she had waited hours in drafty benefit offices and endured the truculent questions of insolent bureaucrats, so when Simpkins attempted to smother her with a hug she shook him off with contempt.

"I've had enough of this crap," she said. "You're sozzled, just like my dad used to get."

"I'm sorry," he said, that pleading look on his face. "It goes with the territory, kind of. I'm really sorry, Shaz," he repeated. "Look, I've brought you, Lusher and Craig some presents."

She didn't ask him in. "Oh for Christ's sake," he said. He brushed past her and walked into the living room.

"I'm trying to quit, I really am." Simpkins looked at her. His serious look. She thought about it. "Try harder," she said finally.

"Okay, I will," he offered. There was a long silence. "Get the brandy out," he said. "Let's have a drink, to celebrate my safe return."

"I don't need a drink," she said, annoyed.

"You need to lighten up," he said. He went to the cabinet where the liquor was kept and took a bottle.

She noticed him go to the sofa and sit down in front of the TV. Soon she joined him, bringing two glasses. He filled both, and when they were empty he filled them again.

"Are we just going to sit here getting drunk?" she asked.

He looked past her into the kitchen. Craig was sitting at the table, eating and watching the portable TV Sharon had bought with some of Arabella's money.

"Wotcha, Craig!" Simpkins shouted. His voice hit her ear like a radio, blatant after weeks of being switched off.

"Give me that bottle – you're pouring too slow," he said to her. "Don't look like that. You look like you're going down for the count. Here." He handed the glass to her. She could smell the brandy. She opened her mouth and took a sip. Then she took and lit one of his cigarettes and took a drag, then another sip.

"I need you to help me," she said.

"Right," he said. She took another sip.

"First off, you gotta stop this drug running business. Before you get yourself killed."

"That's the difficult part." He was lighting up a joint now. "Like I told you before – "

"You're a fucking idiot!" She stared at him, bug-eyed. Drunk as he was, the panic in her voice frightened him. "At the very least you'll end up in jail," she added.

"Okay, then, I'll walk away from it," he said, rattled. "God knows what I'll do for money."

"That's just it," she said. "You don't need all that grief – you can do other things. You were a good butler once and you could be again."

This government don't need no butlers – too lah-dee-dah for 'em. Skivvies, yes. Butlers? They can fuck off."

He lit the joint, took a drag, exhaled slowly and handed it to her.

"Thanks. Well, actually, there _is_ something you can do... I know this journalist lady – she writes for the _Bugle_ , and she gave me some money – "

"Oh yes?"

She took a toke and blew out a thick blue jet of smoke.

"– and she's got a plan to smuggle the king and queen and their sons outta the country."

"Jesus Christ!"

"She needs somebody to drive 'em away from that rathole where they been banged up – it's out on West Gorm Road – and take 'em across the border to Bulimia – "

"Holy shit!"

" – and then they can help the Church Party to get rid of this bleeding government, and we can all get our jobs back!"

He fell silent, took a long pull on the joint and sucked in the smoke he'd exhaled.

She took a sip of brandy and launched into her argument. "You'll be doing it in the early hours, Sim, when nobody's about. You only have to drive 'em up to the border. They got family on the other side."

"Wait a minute! You're asking _me_ to do this? You must be crazy, my girl. That's serious danger!"

She snorted. "What about that drug running you do? That's about as dangerous as it gets!"

"Look, I've only got one more trip and then I'm done, honest. I told you, I'll walk away."

"Last time you came here you said that," she said, taking another drag.

"Yeah," he said ruefully. "Well, things didn't quite work out."

"No, they never do," she said, the effect of the dope kicking in. "You're driving me nuts!" she lifted her hands for him to see. "See? I'm going crackers!"

"What can I say?" he mumbled. "How can I make it plain?"

She shook her head, trying to clear it.

"What you have to understand," he said carefully, putting the joint in the ashtray, ""is this... all those nice presents I been giving you and Craig come from my work. It's the only way I can make any decent money in this country, the state we're in."

He picked up the joint for one more toke. "You gotta let me go on a little bit longer, Shaz. It's the only work that pays halfway decent money!"

"Well, there's other work you can get if you'll only listen to what I'm telling you."

"What, you mean political stuff like smuggling the royals across the border? That's dynamite, my girl – "

He made an effort to approach her, but she fended him off.

"You can help me outta this shit, you know. Women are stronger than men,"

"Not in this family," she said. "In my family the women just collude and the men drink their sorry asses into the grave. That's the tradition, if you want to know. My mother died young, God bless her, and left me to stay and look after my dad. But I'm not going to stay and look after another drunk – or a dumbass drug runner. So you better sort yourself out if you wanna live with me."

She took another sip of the brandy. When this glass is empty, she thought, I'll pour another till the bottle's dry. Simpkins was stubbing out the joint. He looked completely helpless.

"Well, I wanna live with you, Shaz, I really do..."

"I want you to go straight," she said.

"Sorry," he said. "I'll do anything you want me to, Shaz."

Sharon sipped her brandy. He's had a drink, he's had a smoke, she thought. Now it's time he had a fuck – and me, too. "You better be serious," she said.

"I am. Truly."

"Then prove it by doing that job I asked you to do – next Thursday. It's only a short drive to the Bulimian border."

"It'll be the last time I drive anybody up there!"

She sighed in exasperation. "Once will be enough, trust me."

He nodded his head in agreement. She finished her glass, but did not pour another.

"Come on, lover boy, let's go to bed," she said.

Chapter 40

### Institutional Life

Godfrey looked out the barred window. Darkness had come without his knowing it. Another fruitless day had passed. The one highlight – using the word loosely – had been the strange visit of Archbishop Lesot. He had come, he said, because the priest who paid weekly visits to the home was indisposed, which Godfrey thought was extraordinary. Why would an archbishop come in place of a priest? The archbishop was less drunk than usual, but – to Godfrey's gratification – he quickly remedied the situation. He had brought along his hip flask of cognac under his soutane, and he and Godfrey liberally laced their tea.

Lesot looked very sick, and when he replaced his teacup on the saucer, Godfrey could see the pink expanse of scalp blotched with unhealthy brown patches. After the old churchman had shuffled off, leaving him with a bundle of magazines, Godfrey was approached by Anton in the lounge.

"What kind of mags you got, Dad?" he said, eager for some fresh reading material.

"Church magazines, a present from the old archbishop. He came to see me today." Godfrey placed the magazines on a coffee table and sat down.

"Church magazines? Pants! Sure you didn't get any girlie ones?" Anton reached for the magazines and grabbed one, flipping through its pages with a look of disappointment. Suddenly a piece of folded paper sailed to the floor.

Godfrey noticed it before Anton did. There were black letters on it which he could read without bending down: DO NOT BE SEEN WITH THIS.

He scooped it up and, without saying anything to Anton, read the few brief lines of writing inside the folds: ' _Visit Bart the maintenance man in his shed at 4 p.m. Tuesday'._

He read it again. He had to be sure the letter was genuine. It looked like the archbishop's handwriting, but he didn't want to misconstrue the message.

"What you got there, Pops?" Anton had finished flicking through the magazine.

"Nothing – just a piece of tissue. I need to blow my nose!" Godfrey said quickly. He put the paper close to his nostrils and blew. Then he scrunched it up and put it in his pocket.

"Why don't you use the waste basket?" Anton asked.

"Hygiene!" Godfrey replied mysteriously, and clumped upstairs. When he got to their room, he flopped onto the bed. His stomach and bladder continued to be a source of pain and he wished he hadn't drunk the tea, which was lukewarm and tasted metallic, but had taken the cognac straight. Letitia was bustling about in the room.

"How was the archbishop?" she asked.

"Worse than I've ever seen him – I don't know why he came. Brought some nice liquor with him, though. Oh, by the way, he left some magazines for us and out of one of them dropped this – " He retrieved the crumpled paper from his pocket and gave it to her.

"Ugh! Looks like somebody blew his nose in it!" she said, smoothing out the note. She gave a start. "Did you read this?"

"Yes, and I don't know what to make of it." Godfrey remained skeptical.

"Oh, Godfrey, this is our chance!" she cried. "You can't believe how much I've prayed for a way for us to get out of this hellhole. I've dreamed of it since they brought us here. And now a way has opened up – and we've got the handyman on our side!"

"You go to Bart if you want to," he said. "I'm keeping out of this – it may be a trap."

He took the note from her eager hands and pulped it in his glass of water. Then he drained the glass.

"That's awfully brave of you, dear," she said, "considering the state of your digestion."

He nodded his agreement and belched.

At five to four on Tuesday, Letitia jumped to her feet in the dining hall, while the others sat sipping their afternoon tea, and announced: "I'm just going out for a little while, to speak to Bart. He's repairing a doodad for me."

She found Bart in his shed, surrounded by tools, junk, and plastic trash bags. He was poring over the crossword puzzle in the _Bugle_. At Letitia's approach, he roused himself from his deliberations and stood to greet her.

"Oh, don't get up," she trilled, pleased beyond measure that at last one of the staff was showing her some respect, treating her like a queen, "I think you know why I'm here."

Catheter woke up early with a splitting headache and padded across the room he shared with his brother. Anton was lying in an untidy heap with his face buried in the pillow. Despite the autumn chill, the room was fetid and stuffy.

"Get up, it's nearly time for breakfast!" Catheter said sharply.

"Fuck off!" Anton mumbled, trying to ward off the daylight like a stricken vampire.

"Get up!"

Catheter's tone became firmer. Borrowed from his father, it was the voice he intended to use when he became king.

"What the fuck! Oh, all right! Let me wash my face..." Anton got up, shook his head a couple of times and went outside to the communal bathroom. While urinating, he inclined his head to examine his face in the mirror. He thought he'd seen the last of acne when he got into his twenties, but ugly sores encrusted his chin and upper neck. His whole face was beginning to display the ravages of a dissipated youth. After splashing some water on it, he came and sprawled on the bed, his eyes closed. "You'd better start getting dressed," Catheter said, looking pained. "Dad'll be chewing his tits off otherwise."

Anton laughed, a simple uninhibited guffaw. "Where'd you pick up an expression like that?" he said.

"It's an old Mellorian saying: the son who causes his father to chew off his tits shall be cursed unto the third generation."

"You're fucking weird!"

Anton turned over onto his stomach and farted. He pushed his face back in the pillow. He'd been up playing Monopoly with Catheter, Balthazar and Jeff, the friendly People's Party guard, but unlike the others he had spent several more hours listening to his iPod.

Catheter shrugged and went to the bathroom. Unlike Anton, who seemed to take it lightly, for him the incarceration was a source of deep torment, and he ached with acute frustration and thwarted desire. Days and nights had stretched interminably ahead, bleak and empty, until he learned of the escape plan from his mother. Then he began thinking of Lucinda with renewed hope and optimism, although he still throbbed with unfulfilled lust. Owing to the shared bedroom and the communal nature of the bathroom, he was even denied the comfort of masturbation.

As he looked at his haggard expression in the mirror, an image of Lucinda's body came vividly back to him. He thought back to the last evening they'd spent together and began to feel fuzzily amorous. Get a grip! He thought. The sudden intrusion of one of his mother's favorite expressions into his thoughts made him stop. He began splashing water onto his face.

A sharp knock at the bathroom door and his father's voice: "Are you going to be all day?" brought him back. He didn't answer, just kept looking at himself in the mirror. Not a bad face, he thought. A little hangdog perhaps, and balding slightly at the temples – which struck him as being grossly unfair, since he was only thirty-seven. Still, it was a family characteristic - his father's hairline was receding – and genes were genes. A few minutes later, his father's voice bellowed again, and he made an unpleasant face at himself in the mirror.

Back in his shared room, Catheter found it difficult to keep his temper. Anton's laziness and the reek from his farts were getting on his nerves.

"Are you getting up for breakfast or not?" he said, frowning.

"Not," Anton said, his voice muffled by the pillow. "Well, I've tried my best," Catheter said to himself.

"All right now, get ready and come to breakfast!" Catheter repeated. "You can't keep the family waiting."

Anton lifted his right hand and made a gesture which Catheter interpreted as vulgar.

He frowned again. "You really are the limit," he said.

"Go fuck yourself – you're a wanker!"

"I beg to differ," Catheter said ruefully. "Oh-oh, here comes the care attendant! I'll see you downstairs in a few minutes."

Chapter 41

### Escape Into the Night

The first part of the escape plan involved Lucinda, who got up from her bed when the round white clock on her nightstand glowed three-thirty. The shafts of moonlight on the pitch pine floor guided her to the half-open door. She didn't switch on any lights, just went downstairs and into the kitchen in her riding boots. Thinking Catheter and Anton would get hungry on their long journey, she used an entire pack of luncheon meat and a whole loaf of white bread for sandwiches.

Outside she packed the sandwiches and a thermos of water into the saddlebag of her mare and tied the gelding's reins to her saddle. Then she rode the two horses toward West Gorm Road. When she reached the perimeter of the big house, she stopped to cut the chain-link fence to enable herself and the horses to walk through. She reached the side of the building without incident and stood on the mare's back. Thus she was able to reach up to the windowsill of the room Catheter and Anton shared and run her hands over the sill. She had been told that the bars would be hacksawed through, needing only a tug to dislodge them. Then she opened the window and climbed inside.

The two blanketed figures twisted in their sleep in the dark. She recognized Catheter at once – he was lying naked under the blanket and the feeling of desire began tingling her. Keeping her thighs squeezed tight, she leaned over Catheter's bed..

"Wake up, Poopsy," she whispered, "It's time to get out of here."

He gave a whistle and a snort, then rolled over onto his other side.

"Psst!" she said, blowing in his ear. "It's me – Lollipop. You've got to get up!"

"Lollipop?" With startled recognition, through sleep-smeared eyes, he saw her face peering down. He gave a whinny of surprise.

She clamped one hand over his mouth, and with the other massaged the back of his head. "Relax, Poopsy," she said. "You mustn't make the least bit of noise or they'll hear us."

She waited till he raised his head and fully opened his eyes. "Let's go," she whispered.

She stood listening near the door while he stumbled out of bed and woke up Anton. The brothers wriggled into their clothes, then a backpack was hoisted onto Anton. By turns they climbed out the open window, lowered themselves onto the patient mounts, Cather and Anton on the gelding, and sank into their saddles.

In the room she shared with her husband, Letitia remained awake and waiting. She knew she must sit up all night or she would drop off to sleep and miss the opportune moment. To keep herself awake, she tried watching the lit face of the clock. One, one-fifteen, one-thirty. At four we begin our plan of action, she told herself. She looked at Godfrey. He slept with his pillow in his arms. The bed creaked as she shifted around to get more comfortable during her vigil.

She started having half-dreams involving antique dressers with china cats and dogs on them, and pictures of Godfrey's ancestors in their gilt frames swam up at her.

She suddenly snapped awake, realizing it was four, and got out of bed. She woke Godfrey and they packed and dressed in silence. Finally they slipped out, clicking shut the door, and tiptoed down the corridor. At that moment, Letitia had calculated, the two guards who habitually met up under her window were conversing in the courtyard. In another five minutes one of them would be patrolling the corridor. She led Godfrey down the dimly-lit corridor which ended in a stairwell. The door to the service stairs was directly ahead. She was just able to pull it open when they heard the clatter of running feet inside the building. The sound died down and she took a chance and opened the door a crack. She glimpsed black-uniformed backs vanishing down the stairs. The guards were hurrying to reach the floor below where one of the inmates (Balthazar) was making a crashing noise with a hammer.

With time on a needle's edge, Letitia took the bold step of following the guards and leading Godfrey, huffing and puffing with their bags, to the exit. The guards were shouting curses at each other as they stumbled down the stairs in their yellow boots. The royal pair scurried down behind them, keeping a safe distance, and stopped when the guards burst through the emergency door of the floor below. Then they carried on down to the ground floor.

Letitia pushed the steel bar of the emergency exit door and they stumbled outside. The courtyard was empty, the patrol guard was around the other side of the building and Letitia felt the night wind like satin on her face. She took a deep breath. So this was what freedom felt like. She felt she was being kissed by the soft autumn night.

They trudged up the gravel path, shadows from the ornamental shrubbery covering them, and reached the edge of the compound. Bart had cut the chain-link fence, leaving a gaping hole through which they both stepped. Then it was a short walk to the highway and the waiting Mercedes.

Simpkins was slicing himself a lump of _Saint_ resin with a silver-handled pocketknife. He kept a block of it in his pouch and was sawing it when he spotted the royal escapees approaching. He quickly shoved the cut-off piece in his mouth, savoring the taste. He wouldn't be able to smoke for the next hour – the queen would have a fit – but reasoned that if he ate some now the journey would seem more bearable.

He swallowed his lump of resin and greeted the royals with appropriate protocol when they climbed into the car. He then stowed their bags into the trunk and moved his pouch off the front seat.

"Simpkins, roll down my window and watch the road signs!" Letitia's imperious tone made it feel just like old times.

They set off smoothly and everyone felt a sense of relief. The fear and tension that had accompanied them began to fade, to be replaced by creeping fatigue. They had all stayed awake too long, waiting for this moment. Now all the passengers wanted to do was lean back their heads and sleep.

As they rolled on toward the border, the moon came out from behind a bank of cloud and the landscape brightened. Tall trees swept by on either side and white lines down the center of the road glowed at intervals. Simpkins straightened in his seat and fought off a yawn. He glanced at the dashboard clock. It was nearly 4.30. We should reach the border in half an hour, he thought, and then I can relax. He was dying for a smoke. Whenever he noticed himself slumping , he straightened his back again and felt better for a while. Then tiredness crept back into his eyes which stung and watered. He took a sidelong glance at the queen, who was sleeping, her lips slightly parted, her head leaned back on the seatrest. Godfrey was also dozing.

I'll have a smoke as soon as I've dropped them off, he thought. The Bulimians don't mind you carrying a bag of blow – they're not uptight like our lot. He thought of Sharon, and of the promise he'd made to her that he wouldn't fuck this job up. I know it'd be a damn sight easier to keep it if I could have a smoke, he told himself.

Thy drove past a crossroad that Simpkins knew well and a sign promised they would reach the Bulimian border in 45 km. Simpkins yawned. His thinking of his new life with Sharon and the familiarity of the route relaxed him, and he started to drive more from habit than alertness. Wisps of fog were forming and blue-gray night began to soften into dawn. The road began unfurling in a gentle white mist and Simpkins found the foggy half-light disorienting. The insubstantial white billows whirled like giant swirls of cotton candy in the headlight beams and he tightened his grip on the wheel, letting the force of habit guide his direction.

Gradually, as the sky lightened, the realization settled on him that they were on the wrong road. He let out a frustrated sigh, reddened, then discretely coughed.

Letitia opened her eyes. "Where are we?" she murmured, momentarily bewildered.

"I'm afraid I'm on the wrong road, ma'am – " Simpkins began.

Letitia groaned. The wretched man had woken her up form a haunting and peculiar dream involving her mother and her early life before she became queen – and now, as his words sunk in, its atmosphere of dread and guilt surged back to torment her.

"Well, turn the car around then," she said, closing her eyes. She let her head tilt back. This was all too much for one night.

While he'd been speaking to the queen, Simpkins had managed to miss a large sign that said: DANGER. SLOBODIAN BORDER 1 KM. TURN BACK NOW. He slowed the car to a crawl as, through the fog, he saw the twinkling lights of a border post. A high fence stretched out to the left and right. Directly ahead loomed the floodlit bulk of a concrete blockhouse. It looked ominous and impregnable.

The passengers stirred and squirmed in their seats. Eyes began to open. Gradually the realization settled on them that they were at the wrong border. Letitia gave Simpkins a withering look, and he reddened again. The happy anticipation that had fluttered in the royal breasts like the Mellorian flag of old now sank without trace in the abyss of anxiety.

The Mercedes rolled up to the barrier with a kind of stately majesty. Inside, Godfrey quietly cursed and Letitia flared as the vehicle slowed and stopped before a massive steel gate that blocked the road. Floodlights burned down and gun muzzles poked out of slits in the blockhouse walls.

Letitia was now beside herself with rage. Turning her attention from the chastened Simpkins she leaned out her window and gesticulated.

"Open up, I say!" she shouted in badly-accented Slobodian. "What do you low-born accumulations of sheep droppings think you are doing keeping us waiting? We are bona fide travelers! Simpkins – sound the horn and wake these idiots up!"

"You must stop!" a harsh voice said from the fortresslike border post.

Chapter 42

### A Slobodian Welcome

A green-helmeted soldier came out of the blockhouse, pointing his rifle at the car. He had a young acne-cratered face, and touched his helmet in mock salute when he saw who the occupants of the car were. Then he returned to the guardhouse in haste and moments later a peak-capped officer emerged. The officer looked quickly into the car, issued an order to someone inside the post and the barrier was raised. The merc rolled forward past troops who had tumbled out of the guardhouse and stared goggle-eyed at the spectacle.

"Welcome to Slobodia, Your Majesties!" the officer said, pushing aside the troops who were crowding around the merc. He stood beside Letitia's window, looking in. "Now will you please step out of the car."

Three of the guards who had been smoking, dropped their cigarettes and crushed them out. Then they unsnapped their holsters and strode to the other side of the car where they formed a row behind the Mercedes, their hands on their revolvers and their legs apart.

Stiff with embarrassment and fatigue, the occupants of the car climbed out and submitted to a perfunctory frisking. The officer walked back to the guardhouse and could be seen on the telephone. Meanwhile the royal party were led into the blockhouse where the officer waited at a small table. Several soldiers stood against the walls.

"Sit!" the escorting soldier barked.

The trio sat obediently in front of the table. "We're awfully parched," Godfrey croaked. The officer half-rose from his table. "Water!" he called. One of the soldiers left the room.

"Cigarette?" the officer asked. He held out a pack of a particularly smelly Slobodian brand.

"Ugh!" Godfrey drew back. "No thanks."

The officer took one out and offered the pack to his soldiers, who helped themselves. The Gorms, and even Simpkins began to gag as all around them soldiers lit up and suffocating cigarette smoke rolled into their faces.

"Now," the officer said, exhaling a pungent cloud. "I presume you merely lost your way, right?"

"Exactly!" Godfrey beamed. "We were merely returning home from a visit to, er, friends." He haltingly spun out a story about getting lost trying to find their way back home.

The officer listened closely to Godfrey's explanation, and then stubbed out his cigarette. "Interesting," he said.

The soldiers against the wall grinned. The sight of Godfrey, in his dark blue pinstripe suit and Letitia in equally well-dressed attire, was a treat. The soldier who'd been sent to fetch water returned with glasses and a jug of clear liquid.

"Please,' the officer said, and poured himself a glass. Letitia was appalled. In Melloria the host always served the guests first, even if they were his prisoners. She took the glass offered to her. The water was strangely flavored, and she suddenly realized it was neat vodka.

"To your stay in Slobodia!" the officer shouted and raised his glass.

And may it be an extremely short one, Letitia prayed as they all drank. She had to hold a sneeze in, the alcohol was so strong. It burned all the way to her stomach.

"That's some water!" Godfrey spluttered.

"It's little water," the officer replied. "Vodka, the diminutive of voda."

Trust a Slobodian to give us a language lesson at five o'clock in the morning, Letitia thought sourly.

"Well, you are welcome to help yourselves," the officer said, smiling. "I have sent a fax to High Command for further instructions. We may have to wait a couple more hours for a reply."

Godfrey almost tipped over his chair. "A couple more hours! Why, that's outrageous! Don't you know who we are?"

Letitia groaned.

The officer smiled again. "Yes, your Majesty – you are the Mellorian king and queen, and... a chauffeur..." he looked at Simpkins who was sheepishly gazing at the floor. I think I know who you are," he told him, "and you will be dealt with separately, but for now please enjoy our hospitality."

Simpkins nodded cautiously, and the officer turned back to Godfrey.

"Tell me, where are your two sons, Prince Catheter and Prince Anton, and where is the beautiful Princess Dawna?"

Godfrey dipped his head. The officer made a small gesture to one of the soldiers and the man refilled their glasses.

For almost two hours the prisoners sat drinking and enduring the choking fug as the officer and his men smoked their way through two more packs of cigarettes. The air reeked of vodka and stale tobacco. Finally the door was flung open and a soldier marched in holding a piece of paper. He gave it to the officer, who opened it and cleared his throat.

"Your transport is ready," he said to Godfrey and Letitia. "You must leave right away." To Simpkins he said: "We will deal with you shortly."

Letitia felt a surge of terror. On impulse, she said: "We will go when we're good and ready."

The officer chuckled and shook his head. "I'm going to miss this Mellorian humor. Now, one last toast!"

Then he snapped his fingers for more vodka, which was instantly poured by one of his men. The officer stood. "Health, long life!" They all drained their glasses out of politeness, even Letitia, who felt ready to pass out.

She put her empty glass down with exaggerated slowness, afraid she might miss the table and cause embarrassment. Her mind was rolling. The glass met the table with a hard bump. "Well, I'm off then and a goodnight to both of you," she said thickly to the blurred image of the officer. She felt her words floating up like bubbles and popping out the top of her head. From somewhere she heard the man's reply. It sounded like "Look after your mother" or maybe "Look after one another."

The green uniform and glistening skin of his face floated up to her, and she reached out to him, to stop herself from falling. The officer drew back with a cry and suddenly it seemed the table flew up and almost slammed into her face. Then she was on the floor. She groaned and picked herself up. Where was she? She found out when two of the soldiers hauled her to her feet and dragged her to the open door. Outside, the early morning air was so fresh she almost collapsed again. A dim remembrance of decorum kept her legs from giving way.

Everything was waving in and out of shape. She felt loose and lubricated, although she was beginning to experience nausea. Everything in the courtyard was tilted at an odd angle.

"Leave me alone!" she managed to say. Soldiers in shiny green helmets were bearing down on her, and she felt hemmed in. She looked around, bewildered. Godfrey was nowhere to be seen, and the men in the blockhouse had also disappeared. Disoriented, she grabbed at the doorpost and attempted to go back inside.

"Get out, you drunken bitch!" one of the green-helmeted soldiers said.

I'm drunk, she thought, he's right.

She pushed away from the door and, swaying, stood with exaggerated care. Her head was spinning, but her woosiness was clearing in the fresh dawn air.

"Get in that truck! "the soldier bellowed.

"Oh, I can't. It's too far," she said, affecting bashfulness. She was prepared to use any ploy to stay where she was, where she felt safe.

Nausea suddenly swept up, and she knew it would be impossible to fight it. She pushed the tip of her finger right inside her mouth as far down as it would go, then released it. A stream of whitish vomit erupted from her mouth and landed with a sickening smack on the courtyard. She contorted several more times, then swallowed hard and, lifting her head, gave the soldier one of her royal smiles.

He took her arm and attempted to pull her away, so she planted her feet, resisting him. He responded by tugging harder. Keep calm, she told herself. Eventually she gave up the battle and let him frogmarch her to where an army troop carrier was waiting. Built like a bus, its sliding door was open.

"Get in!" the soldier ordered, and gave her a sharp prod.

She looked inside to see two more soldiers, one of them the driver, sitting in the front. Behind them two rows of empty seats separated Godfrey, huddled in the back. Reluctantly, she climbed aboard. Afterwards, two additional soldiers climbed into the truck, the last one sliding the door shut. The soldier who had been rough with her swung around in his seat to glare at the two passengers. "Welcome to my country," he said. "You're going to have the time of your life!"

Chapter 43

### Ferdy'sMansion

The two horses, with their three riders, plodded along a leaf-carpeted bridle path in the moonlit Forest of Gorm. Lucinda's mare led the way, the gelding with Catheter on its saddle and Anton on its blanketed rump, close behind.

Both princes were groggy from lack of sleep, and Catheter had the reins wrapped around his wrists while Anton clung to his brother's waist. Around them, the mysterious sounds of the forest kept them barely awake.

Better doze, I suppose, Anton thought, yawning, and he clamped his arms tighter around Catheter's waist. He squirmed on the gelding's bony rump. The thermos of water slapped against the bag of sandwiches in the saddlebag as Lucinda let her mare pick a surefooted way through the bushes and shrubs. The gelding plodded along indifferently, as if resenting his extra burden, his lozenge-patterned head swinging low to the ground and keeping time like a pendulum to the hooves softly clopping along the path.

As the ride wore on, Anton began a long, guiltless sleep. He knew he was the inferior rider, that Lucinda would keep the pace, eyes on the mare's bobbing head, and that Catheter would always be watching her with those adoring eyes of his. Telling himself he was just too pooped to keep his eyes open, he drooped his head and dreamed he was still awake, listening to the caw of a crow or the hoot of an owl and gazing at the moon between the jiggling pair of heads. He awoke suddenly, to find the two heads still jiggling, and the thick clusters of trees thinning out into scrub and reeds as they entered the marshy borderland.

A rosy morning light smeared the horizon, birds were singing and he could make out tiny human figures in the distance. He was surprised to find his arms still latched around Catheter's waist, and he unfastened them to relieve their stiffness. Shortly afterwards, Lucinda let go of the reins and the mare stopped. Catheter pulled up the gelding, and he and Lucinda dismounted, dropping to the dirt with a stagger. Then they coaxed Anton, numb with cramp, to swing his left leg over the gelding's head and jump down. The gelding gave a snort of delight, glad to be free of his double load.

They squatted down beside the horses, ate sandwiches and drank water from the thermos. The smell of the doughy bread made the horses nostrils twitch and the gelding trained his murky brown eyes on the sandwiches.

"No chance!" Anton told him, and stuffed a whole sandwich into his mouth. Lucinda swatted the side of his head and fed each of the horses a sandwich. Then she got up and went to a nearby myrtle bush, stripped a few leaves and crushed them between her palms. She rubbed the resulting pulp on her arms.

"You should rub this on your skin," she told the two princes. "It acts like wax, keeping the mosquitos off."

Catheter began stripping and crushing myrtle leaves, while Anton merely rolled down his sleeves and buttoned his shirt at the neck.

When they had sufficiently rested, they got back on the horses and rode on, to the edge of some agricultural land. The figures in the distance proved to be two men in denim overalls, working in one of the fields. They waved cheerily to the riders as they approached. Two potbellied donkeys waited patiently at the edge of the field.

"Bulimia – here?" Lucinda asked haltingly.

"Yah, Bulimia!" one of the men replied, showing a mouthful of bad teeth.

"Peasants!" Anton muttered.

The rosy light of morning was whitening and it covered the whole sky. The riders maintained their pace, stopping once for food and water, and letting the horses sample the stringy marsh grass. As the sun climbed higher, they saw a steep grassy bank from whose summit rose a line of giant trees. These were leaning at odd angles like drunks queuing for the bathroom, and Catheter sat up in his saddle.

"Behind that hill is Cousin Ferdy's place," he said.

Lucinda urged her mare up the bank, stopped and slipped off. She began scaling the bank, ahead of Catheter who galloped up, dismounted and scrambled after her. Anton got down from the gelding and ambled up behind the other two.

Reaching the top, they glimpsed the castellated outline of an enormous mansion. Lucinda let out a cry.

"We're there!" she yelled. "I can see a big white mansion about 2 k's away."

"That's Ferdy's house," Catheter said, struggling up beside her, "my second cousin, Ferdinand, Duke of Melancholia."

The three travelers went back for their mounts and rode around the bank. On the other side, a smooth black road wound through green meadows, gradually giving way to a series of ornate gardens. A final stretch through groves of flower-hung trees opened onto a vista of parkland set with fountains, before the ultimate bend in the road that ended in front of the white mansion.

They gazed up in wonder at the turrets, pillars, mullions, towers, hectares of windows and rows of crenellation.

Fuck! This place makes Calliper look like a lean-to shed! Anton thought, clinging to Catheter's waist as their horses trotted along.

They pulled up in front of a grand entrance with Corinthian pillars, and an ornately-dressed servant opened the front portals and stood awaiting their arrival.

"I presume this is the residence of His Grace, the Duke of Melancholia?" Catheter said.

"It is, sir."

"Good. I was concerned we had the right address. We've been riding for hours and we're tuckered out. Kindly convey to your master that Crown Prince Catheter and his brother Prince Anton are here with Miss Lucinda Limehouse-Blewit."

"Of course, Your Highness. Follow me if you please."

The servant bowed deferentially and, after instructing an ostler to take care of the horses, ushered the visitors inside. They walked along a corridor hung with enormous tapestries, their grimy footprints impacting the pile of the oriental carpet, to a pair of oak doors which the servant prized open with difficulty.

'Welcome to my modest abode," a tremulous voice quavered. "Welcome." The owner of the voice, a parchment-faced old man with white hair, dressed in a red padded smoking-jacket, sat in solitary splendor in his oak-paneled drawing room. He rose, bowed stiffly and held out his hand.

"We so glad to be here, Your Grace," Catheter said, accepting the ancient hand and pressing the fingers lightly, "and we're hoping that Mama and Papa will be joining us in Bulimia soon. We've had quite a journey!"

"I can see by your appearance that you've been traveling hard," the old duke said. "But pray come into my study and have some refreshments, all of you."

The livered servant departed and returned with a tray of warm croissants, butter and conserves, and the duke offered them drinks from his enormous mahogany cabinet. They all sat round a table laden with glasses and decanters.

"So tell me how it all began," the duke asked, pouring himself a brandy.

His eyes widened as Catheter and the others told their tale, and he trembled and gasped when told about the Gorms' incarceration.

"Terrible! Terrible!" he rattled. "Those damned Bolsheviks must be made to pay for what they did to my dear cousin and his wife! How awful for Their Majesties to be locked up in a mental home! How is His Majesty, by the way?"

"He is well, I hope, and by now he and Mama should be safely over the border and on their way to Porcellan Palace to join Their Majesties King Hector and Queen Ada."

"I will telephone Their Majesties in a short while to confirm that Their Majesties have arrived safely or are on their way," the duke replied. "In the meantime, I think it's time you had some rest, all of you. My servant will show you to your rooms. Please make use of my paltry accommodations."

The servant led them down another corridor adorned with tapestries. The whole place had an embalmed look, as if it had died and been mummified. After climbing a flight of oak stairs, the servant left them to their three rooms, shaking his head at the mud they had left on the carpet.

"He looks like a ghost, man," Anton stage-whispered. "This whole place is so spooky, it's creeping me out."

"I think your cousin's old-world courtesy is charming," Lucinda said to Catheter, who looked at her adoringly. He and Lucinda quickly disappeared into one of the rooms.

Anton slung his backpack on the bed in one of the remaining rooms. "Might as well text that bitch, Hernia," he said to himself. "See if _I_ can get a shag."

He wrestled his cellphone from his pocket and began thumbing numbers and letters. He punched the Send button, laid the phone on his nightstand and stretched out on the bed. Soon he was dozing, and was only awakened by the reverberation of the lunch gong. Down in the cavernous dining room, where swags and plaster garlands adorned the upper walls, an elaborate seven-course lunch was being served. When Anton strolled in, Catheter, Lucinda and the old duke were already tucking in. The old duke's shriveled face broke into a smile and he beckoned Anton to his seat with a bony finger.

Midway through the meal, an elderly servant in green brass-buttoned livery appeared." It is not my wish to disturb Your Grace," he said, "but I bring grave news."

"Whatever can that be?" the duke said, head bobbing over his devilled quails.

"Sir, Their Majesties the King and Queen of Melloria have been taken prisoner by the Slobodians and are being transported to Duodenum Palace."

"Ha! They must've taken the wrong road!" Anton said. "I bet that pothead Simpkins drove 'em to the wrong border."

"Oh dear, Mummy and Daddy are up shit creek," Catheter muttered to Lucinda, and continued munching on a quail.

The duke lurched to his feet and addressed his three guests. "If there is anything I can do to assist in the present situation regarding Their Majesties, I am at your disposal," he cried.

"Thank you, Your Grace, but the only thing we can do now is wait and hope," Catheter replied. "Meanwhile, I think we'll just finish our lunch and wait for the limo to take Anton and myself to King Hector's palace, where no doubt my wife and son will be waiting..." His voice trailed off on a miserable note. "And I have to be returning with my horses to Melloria," Lucinda chirped up.

An hour later a Bentley bearing the royal crest of the House of Lattis rolled up outside. The driver saluted the two princes, and told them he was to convey them to Porcellan Palace. Catheter thanked the driver, kissed Lucinda and they climbed in after saying goodbye to Cousin Ferdy. Lucinda watched them drive away, her face watery with tears.

Chapter 44

### The Slovos At Home

Queen Letitia was feeling worse than at any time since she was admitted to the mental hospital. The troop transporter carrying her and Godfrey to who knows where bounced over the rough road that marked their introduction to Slobodia, and the soldiers in the front sat huddled in glowering hostility. The driver looked a bit crazy, she thought. She'd seen enough crazy people during her stay at the home – and they were on the staff! The driver had a mouthful of silver teeth and it looked like he'd been in plenty of fights.

She heartily disliked the Slobodians, with their high Slavic cheekbones and broad faces. Their eyes were small, and few of them looked intelligent, in her opinion. Despite their clumsy attempts at bonhomie, everything about the Slobodians reeked of corruption and indiscipline. There was a nasty undertone of brutality in the way they yelled mocking insults whenever the truck sped past some down-at-heel beggar at the roadside. She felt outraged the first time this happened, and made a point of giving each beggar they overtook a cheerful wave.

One of the soldiers passed a pack of cheap cigarettes around, and soon strong-smelling tobacco smoke billowed from the front of the truck – another source of annoyance. They also sang obscene triumphant army songs – _Today We_ _Take Melloria_ was a particular favorite – and she knew they were singing it to rile their passengers.

Sitting in the cramped rear seats was so uncomfortable that she wondered how long she would be able to keep going without seizing up. Godfrey was seated across from her, staring out the window, and when they slammed over potholes and ruts in the road, and had to cling hard to the armrests of their seats, she worried about him with his stomach cramps and dyspepsia.

"Hell's teeth!" Godfrey groaned, clutching the sides of his seat. "This is like some appalling nightmare."

"How are you feeling?" she asked him.

"Hung over and incredibly thirsty," he muttered. "I wish they'd give us something to drink – my throat's as dry as an old maid's tit."

"I know how you feel," she whispered.

Godfrey sighed. "Last night on the road to freedom – before we ran into these blackguards, I was full of hope and optimism. Now it feels like doom is riding me like a demon, weighing me down."

She leaned across and patted his shoulder. "Chin up, old thing," she said. "Mustn't let them think we're losing heart."

She fell silent and watched the dull landscape: long stretches of grassland and occasional trees flashing by, and she knew in her heart she could offer very little comfort to Godfrey. She periodically felt the faint fluttering that preceded nausea, but she had nothing left to expel, so she prepared herself for the dry heaves. To distract herself, she addressed the soldiers in the front of the truck.

"Where exactly are you taking us?"

She had images in her mind that she didn't like to entertain: a ghastly cement block building with damp walls, a gray prison yard, a blank wall with dried blood on it, a firing squad. Her heart was hammering.

The soldiers in the front began whispering to each other. Finally the one who had so roughly manhandled her said: "You are going to Duodenum Palace, the royal residence of the House of Slovo."

Her eyebrows shot up, then knitted together. She felt abhorrence. She hoped they would be able to stand up to whatever brutality King Slobodan and his court might throw at them.

Godfrey was now settling down for the journey. He was sleeping fitfully through the bumpy ride, having woken up once, sleep-fuddled and declared: "We must be inspecting a military parade today – there are so many soldiers." At this the soldiers had shaken their steel-helmeted heads and laughed.

Letitia started mentally calculating how long it would take to get to Duodenum. She had only been there once and it had taken two hours by plane from Melloria City, so it must be an awfully long drive from the border. What made it worse was the fierce wind that blew down on them from those unending stretches of grassland – the Slobodian steppes. The notorious Slobodian wind – blamed for many a harsh Mellorian winter – slammed at them in a stinging fine-grained roar that whistled around the truck. They kept going against its onslaught, and as the wind grew louder, small rocks hurtled against the windshield, bouncing across their view of the road. The soldiers huddled in the front of the truck seemed subdued by the force of the screaming wall of air.

Outside Letitia noticed women working in the fields, muffled like muslims against the wind. The first village appeared, and the few people out on the dust-blown street had all tied on handkerchiefs, scarves, anything against the maddening blast that fought with them. A vehicle passed them too closely on the other side of the road and the soldier who was driving leaned his head out the window, yelling – but his voice was snatched away and tossed around. People on the street gestured to each other in sign language. Talking was useless. Words were torn away as soon as they were uttered.

The truck clattered over a bridge spanning a dirty brown river. The river must be irrigating these damn yellow plains, Letitia pondered, noticing fields of arable land stretching out to right and left. Groups of wind-tortured men and women worked the fields, turning over the ground with hoes. They looked weak and exhausted by their exertions, but they stopped and bowed wearily as the truck sped by. These obsequious attentions were ignored by the soldiers who laughed at the peasants and shouted Slobodian curses. "Eat dirt, you petrified pieces of pigshit!" was one that rang in Letitia's ears.

The wind died down and fields containing tall rows of sunflowers replaced the arable ones, and they soon began passing strings of cement buildings that Letitia surmised were apartment blocks. Factories with billowing smokestacks overshadowed them, and here and there an ancient-looking building broke the monotonous world of industry and populations. For the most part the buildings looked grimy and cheap.

The road they were trundling along broadened out and joined a vast cloverleaf of whizzing four-lane traffic, making Letitia feel nauseous. Below them as they crossed the cloverleaf, flimsy shanties alternated with billboards proclaiming dream-fulfilling luxuries. The contrast between the dire poverty of the underclasses and the triumphant consumerism of the rulers couldn't have been starker. Near the clumps of shanties women were washing laundry in a ditch. An old woman in a headscarf caught Letitia's eye who had braved the buzzing traffic to set up a table at the roadside selling slices of watermelon. They're probably going for ridiculously low prices, she thought.

The drone of the traffic and the haze of diesel fumes were giving her a headache, to add to her upset stomach. So it came as a relief when they suddenly stopped. The driver, laughing and joking with the others in the front, had smacked into the rear of a delivery van. Letitia jerked forward in her seat belt, but Godfrey, who had neglected to buckle up, was projected halfway down the aisle like a human cannonball. There was a moment of absolute silence, then a great gust of laughter exploded among the soldiers. Godfrey seethed with anger as he groped his way back to his seat, sensing that the laughter was laced with contempt.

The soldier who had been driving jumped out and began arguing with the van driver. While the argument continued, other traffic rattled past them: a truckful of armed soldiers who hooted obscenities, a man driving three-wheeled car, a dented pickup overflowing with dour peasants. The soldier who had roughhandled her opened the side door for Letitia to step outside. Godfrey, still fuming, was left to stagger out on his own. The air reeked of traffic smells, but she moved quickly from the truck and was soon walking away from the yawning, stretching soldiers. She wanted nothing more to do with them, and found a quiet spot at the side of the road. When she felt sufficiently apart from the others, she turned and watched the two drivers arguing.

A small boy of about eight or ten dressed in rags approached her and held out his hand. She dipped into her purse and found a few coins to place in the boy's palm. As the boy looked up and smiled, the soldier who had been rough with her marched over and callously grabbed the boy's neck. The boy sobbed as his coins were taken off him; then the soldier kicked him away and began chastising Letitia for giving money to a beggar. "They're nothing but scum," he said with a sneer. She turned her back on him, speechless with anger.

The argument between the two drivers was finally settled after one of the soldiers lifted his automatic rifle and fired a few rounds into the air. The van driver got the point and paid a hefty bribe. Then he drove off and the passengers were herded back on board. The journey continued, and they soon reached the outskirts of Slovograd, the Slobodian capital. We won't be long getting to the palace, thank God, Letitia told herself as she watched the crowded urban streets flow past. She noticed that images of King Slobodan were ubiquitous on gigantic hoardings from which his face beamed over the populace, on mammoth stone effigies, on the front pages of newspapers that she glimpsed on passing newsstands, and, along with pictures of his son, Prince Royston, on the covers of glossy magazines.

The face of King Slobodan was too profane and sensual to be handsome, even if he were several decades younger. Letitia considered even the touched-up versions of his physiognomy on the shiny covers of _Celebrity_ and _Society_ and _Illustrated_ _Weekly_ were ugly. There was something coarse about the nose, the mouth was set in a sneer and the eyes too often concealed behind dark lenses. Passing a giant billboard with the king's face on it, she noted that his green tinted glasses looked cheap.

They approached an overcrowded intersection and the vehicle slowed to a crawl. A large throng of people were making it impossible to advance, and the driver angrily sounded his horn. The people barely moved, acting as if they had been ordered to block the road. Up ahead, a marching squad of green-clad troops were stamping past the intersection to the blare of a military band. The truck and its occupants had to wait a full twenty minutes before the milling crowd broke up, as if by order.

"Too many fucking people!" one of the soldiers said to the driver.

"No worries, mate – we'll resettle that fucking lot once we establish Greater Slobodia."

The driver's words, and its reference to the planned annexation of Melloria, had the other soldiers smirking. Several twisted their heads around and flicked glances at the passengers, to see their reaction.

Godfrey's face tightened with suppressed rage, and Letitia nudged him sharply. "Don't make any comment," she said.

Presently they rattled through plantations of plum trees, their autumn fruit purple and ripe for plucking. They were part of a huge park and Letitia caught the smell of burning leaves. It was a crisp sunny afternoon and the air smelled damp and mellow. She thought of camping holidays in England when she was a child and felt a wave of nostalgia wash over her. It made her feel intoxicated and slightly delirious. They were now driving through extensive orchards, the trees pimply with fruit. Very nice, she told herself, but where are the people? Other than a scattering of laborers, toiling in sweat-drenched shirts to pick apples, and a pair of uniformed outriders on motorcycles, who fell in discretely with the troop transporter, they saw no one. The laborers were stripping the fruit from the trees into large plastic sacks.

A huge stone arch stretched above the road. Massive steel gates, operated by remote control, slowly opened as the truck passed through. Beyond the arch, a long avenue of oak trees led up to the perimeter of a huge palace. Flags on long white poles unfurled to right and left the whole length of the avenue. They drove over a hump-backed bridge with stone columns at either end, each topped with a bronze double axhead, the emblem of Slobodia. There seem to be plenty of old battleaxes about, Letitia thought and stifled a snicker. For some reason, she thought of her sister-in-law, Queen Latrina, her of the disgusting personal habits. One of them was squeezing her nostrils between thumb and forefinger, blowing noisily and drawing down a glutinous silver string which dribbled to the floor. It was as if she'd never heard of a handkerchief, Letitia thought.

The last time they had met, Letitia had been repelled by Latrina's fetid odor and had asked her if she ever washed her hair. Of course, she replied – once a year in fermented human urine. Apparently it was an old Slobodian custom designed to promote fertility. The result had been their son, Royston – ghastlier outcome she couldn't imagine. She began helplessly to giggle, and soon she was convulsed. Since Royston was Slobodian and was Latrina's only child, the smelly fertility treatment had clearly produced a stinker! After her fit of giggles had subsided, she felt a little abashed. She knew she shouldn't give way to frivolity like this, when she and her husband were taken into the very heart of an enemy country.

Duodenum Palace, which seemed endless, was a massive fortress that had been the seat of the Slovos for centuries. Its turrets with their slit windows gave it a dark and dangerous air and its battlements were the spikiest Letitia had ever seen. She thought it the ugliest palace in the world. With its gargoyles, towers, turrets, chimneys, vanes and flagpoles, she considered it a vastly-overdone wart erupting from the quiet greenery of the surrounding park. Its façade was an excess of gothic ornamentation and its crenellations and domed towers were in the worst possible taste.

They were now approaching a huge pair of brass-studded oak gates, spiked with steel, which creaked slowly open to admit them. Letitia noticed that the soldiers were becoming more relaxed. She guessed they were looking forward to handing their awkward prisoners over to the Praetorians, King Slobodan's feared and brutal personal troops. The one who had been nasty to her and the beggar boy and who had throughout the ride fluctuated between silence and sullen aggression, now twisted his head around and nodded to his passengers.

"This is your new home," he joked, indicating a courtyard flagged with gray stone and the other soldiers laughed. He pulled out a bottle of brandy from his knapsack and offered it to Godfrey. Letitia glowered and watched her husband uncap the bottle and bring it up to his mouth, swallowing for many seconds. He belched and handed the bottle back to the soldier. Although she had no wish to converse with any of the soldiers, being a person who recoiled instinctively from the raucousness, jostling and perspiration of uncouth people, she decided to address the soldier with the bottle. She asked him whether she could make a phone call to Bulimia from the palace, to inquire if her sons had arrived.

"Bulimia?" the soldier said, reacting to the word as if he'd been made to swallow a bitter pill. "I spit upon Bulimia!" Perhaps discretion really is the better part of valor, she thought, and lapsed into silence.

The truck pulled to a halt in the courtyard. The soldiers got out and one of them motioned for the passengers to leave. They scrambled out of the truck and were confronted by a line of uniformed Praetorian Guard, looking exceptionally mean. The Prets, as they were called, wore dark gray uniforms, a silver axhead embedded in black tabs on their collars. An officer who had been standing stiffly beside an inner gate, gestured to the couple.

"You may enter now," he said. They walked toward the main entrance, Godfrey carrying their bags, and gazed up at the huge structure four stories high with courtyards on two levels and turrets at the top. Prets stood in rows on either side as they stumbled through the inner courtyard, feeling thoroughly intimidated.

King Slobodan stood waiting to greet his guests. He was a thick-set, stocky man with a bull neck, a barrel chest and a compact paunch. He looked younger than his sixty-five years, although his face was red and wattled. His red cheeks and short, wiry hair gave him the look of an old roué. He wore a smartly-cut, crisp green uniform, its collar and epaulettes richly embossed with golden oak leaves, and a leather belt round his thick waist. A large German Shepherd fidgeted and sniffed beside him. When the royal couple were halfway across the vast carpet, Slobodan stepped forward, his eyes bright and merry, to embrace Godfrey in a bear hug. Dammit, I need a shave, Godfrey thought, trying to ignore his brother-in-law's garlicky kisses. The German Shepherd, open-mouthed, panted and sniffed the two new arrivals in turn as they were greeted with an embrace. Then Slobodan led them through halls of badly-painted and worse-hung portraits of dead Slovos, under the cold gaze of the Prets.

Eventually they reached a gargantuan dining hall where a banquet was being laid. A smeary autumn light fell through the high narrow windows onto the long wooden table piled high with covered dishes. Steam and coarse meaty smells rose to greet their nostrils. Along the cheerless stone walls of the hall hung banners with the double-headed ax of Slobodia. Everything looked overelaborate, and Letitia was reminded of an awful paisley dress she'd once ben given by a half-blind aunt.

"How's Queen Latrina?" she asked with a forced smile. "Not indisposed, I hope."

"Just her usual lazy self," Slobodan growled. "She'll be with us soon. Please, take your seats, most honored guests."

The three honored guests sat and waited, while a servant brought a decanter and served them each a glass of brandy.

"This is our famous slifka," Slobodan boomed. "Made with the choicest plums - enjoy!"

Letitia sipped her slifka cautiously, but Godfrey took along drink.

I wonder where Latrina is? Letitia thought. I bet she's just got out of bed and stopped in an alcove to empty her nose.

Slobodan snapped his fingers for more slifka, which was instantly poured by one of the servants. He lurched to his feet. "Health, long life!" They all drained their glasses, then Slobodan leaned toward Godfrey.

"Well, your country's in the hands of the reds now – the People's Party own Melloria!

Godfrey swallowed more slifka. "They stole Melloria! And it's our job to take back what's rightfully ours – or die in the attempt."

Slobodan roared with laughter.

Godfrey's rapid drinking was beginning to take effect on hs empty stomach. The world was looking blurred now and he started to become expansive. "Still, I'm glad we're out of the damned rathole the reds kept us in!" he said, leaning back in his chair." It was a living hell, and I swear I'll get the bastards who dethroned us. But now it looks like we've walked into the lion's den."

Slobodan's brow furrowed. "The lion's den? Surely not! You and your wife are among your own. I know we've had our differences – and I still think you owe me for that shirt of mine you tore – but I can laugh about it now. Let bygones be bygones!"

You would say that – you've got Shekels, Letitia thought, and she frowned at Godfrey's increasingly drunken state.

Queen Latrina sauntered in, wearing a dingy brown velvet dressing gown that swished the ground around her bare feet. She was tall and bony, with something of her brother's stiff bearing, spoiled by a pockmarked face and greasy, matted hair.

"How are you both?" she trilled in a piercing whiny voice that set Letitia's teeth on edge. They both nodded and smiled at her. Godfrey looked from his sister's to his wife's face and wondered how Letitia would cope in Latrina's slovenly domain.

Latrina took her seat and they all began eating. The overlong table groaned under the weight of enormous quantities of food, most of it from the flesh of pigs. Lacking the succulent venison of Melloria or the robust wild boar of Bulimia, the Slobodians raised pigs and made thick coiled sausages, pork chops, pig's feet and hocks, which they draped over steaming mounds of cabbage and turnips. The custom of the Slovos was to eat as fast as possible, shoveling pieces of dead pig into their mouths at high speed. Even the eating noises they made sounded like the squeal of pigs.

Letitia ate frugally, but was dismayed that Godfrey, brandy-befuddled, was stuffing his face with vigor. She was appalled at his boorishness. Why does he have to be such a pig? She thought, annoyed. To correct his bad manners, she aimed a kick at him under the table, but succeeded only in chopping one of the table legs, which made her eyes water.

To cover her embarrassment, she ran her eyes over the enormous room. Its gloom was not diminished by having gilt splashed everywhere. Clouds and blue skies were painted on every ceiling panel and bronze chandeliers with swags and garlands glinted overhead like barbed wire. Marble columns stood like sentries guarding the double-axhead banners. Servants were hurrying to and fro, trays aloft, billowing steam from more pork and cabbage. They bumped into Letitia's chairback as they piled more food on the table. Forced to obey the rules of etiquette, she grimaced as she ate the glistening pink flesh, slathered in gravy gelatinous with islands of pork fat. She found that closing her eyes made it easier to eat. Once she looked down at her plate and almost gagged.

In the din and clatter of dishes and voices, Slobodan could be heard, laughing coarsely as he goaded Godfrey. "That was a good trick I played, eh? Telling the people of Shekels they'd have to give up their Mellorian citizenship or else I'd have them publicly flogged. Those who believed it and renounced their Mellorianness, were deported and those who had enough spunk to defy me I punished with heavy fines and loss of all welfare rights. I made 'em work extra hard! Good, eh? I wanted only the ones with balls to stay."

Letitia watched Latrina fill up her plate for the third time and was reminded of a horse at the trough. She quickly caught her gaze. "Don't you like our Slobodian cuisine?" Latrina asked.

"To be perfectly honest," she replied, feeling the words rasping the back of her scorched throat, "this food's so bad I'd rather be eating deep fried twinkies. Couldn't you give us caviar?"

Latrina put down her knife and fork and folded her calloused hands. "To us this is better than caviar!" she said with a quaver in her voice.

"I see," Letitia said, chewing a mouthful of pork chop. Godfrey leaned over and said out of the side of his mouth: "This roast pork is awful – a pig wouldn't eat it!"

The meal progressed to its indigestible conclusion. Thick slabs of meat were consumed by everybody and fell into their stomachs like fat corpses, and Letitia was relieved when the meal finally skidded to a greasy, slobbery end.

"Would you like to take coffee on the terrace?" Latrina asked.

"I'll take anything you've got," Godfrey said, his voice slurred. Slobodan roared with laughter and slapped Godfrey's shoulder.

"You're a man after my own heart," he said. "In that case, we'll have brandy instead!"

After the gargantuan meal they all staggered out to a glass-enclosed gallery with checkerboard tiles on the floor and heavy wooden chairs around a circular wrought-iron table. The table was adorned with ashtrays and Letitia feared a smoking party was about to begin. Slobodan called for brandy, and a servant standing against the wall with a tray of glasses and a decanter sprang forward and poured everyone a large glass. Letitia put her hand out to decline a drink, but Slobodan urged her to have one glass "as a token of our friendship." "Cigarette?" he then asked, holding out a pack of the smelliest local brand.

"Absolutely not," Letitia said, vigorously shaking her head.

Slobodan and Latrina lit up. The cigarette smoke rolled into Letitia's eyes and nostrils, making her blink and cough at once. They all drank, to the sound of wheezing indrawn breath and the smell of strong tobacco.

"Now then," Slobodan said, exhaling a blue cloud. "What's this I hear about Catheter and Dawna splitting up?"

Godfrey emptied his glass and shrugged. "Just a rumor," he said.

"Rumor, my arse! If that young filly's breaking free, there's a stallion here who'd be glad to serve her."

He gave Letitia a lewd wink and she returned it with a chilly look.

"You're not proposing that your son Royston would be a suitable match for Dawna, are you?" she asked, mildly startled.

"Royston? Hell, I was thinking about me!" He laughed coarsely, adding: "Though I do need a mare for him to cover and bring into foal, if the Slovo bloodline is to be maintained. Trouble is, he doesn't seem interested in normal sex."

Letitia began thinking about Catheter and Anton, and how best to find out if they were safe, and to let them know that she and Godfrey were still alive. She'd somehow have to find a telephone.

The clink of glass touching glass brought her back with a start. They were drinking a toast to the beauty of women. "Love is a habit-forming drug!" Slobodan said. "That's why I prefer sex."

He gave a deep belly laugh and Latrina yawned. She took a nailclipper from the pocket of her dressing gown and began clipping her toenails, hoisting one of her dirty feet onto the table beside the glasses. The sole of her foot was so black it looked as if it had been baked in an oven. I guess that's what they mean by dirt being caked in, Letitia thought, and stifled an involuntary snort. The next moment she winced as a nail clipping pinged against her glass. Soon clippings were all over the tiled floor.

"On the subject of sex," Slobodan was saying, "I like to choose my conquests with care." He leered at Letitia, who gave him her stoniest look. Suddenly she felt a probing foot rubbing her leg, and blushed with embarrassment. Slobodan was playing footsie with her under the table; he kept moving his leg until it touched hers. She wished she could tell him how mistaken he was, without delivering an undiplomatic kick.

Slobodan stubbed out his cigarette. "More brandy!" he yelled. With a flourish, the attentive servant refilled his and Godfrey's half-empty glasses. Letitia still had most of her drink left.

"To your successful return to Melloria!" Slobodan barked and raised his brimming glass. Godfrey looked surprised at the toast, but nodded his head in acknowledgment and they all drank, Letitia taking a tiny sip. Even so, the alcohol was so strong it burned a flare path down her throat.

"This is really strong stuff," Godfrey grunted. Slobodan had emptied most of his glass and was wiping his mouth. "It should be, I ordered the servant to mix some vintage Slobodian brandy with the slifka."

He gave another roar of laughter and Letitia suddenly felt the intense need to pee. Seizing her chance to leave for a while, she stood up and staggered slightly.

"I have to go to the loo," she said.

"Latrina can show you where the bog is – it's one of her favorite rooms!" Slobodan roared, but Letitia waved him and Latrina away.

"I'll find it," she said. She walked with exaggerated caution across the checkerboard tiles and went out, leaving the door open.

She stumbled down a long stone corridor toward the bathroom – she remembered where it was from her last visit. Nearby, a green-uniformed soldier sat in a small office writing a report. His desk had a telephone, and she was drawn to it. He looked up at her with interest.

"Is that a phone?" she asked.

"What does it look like?" was the soldier's mocking reply.

"Of course. Sorry."

He shrugged and went back to his writing

"Might I use it?"

He stared at her as if she'd just requested two flight tickets to New York.

"This telephone is for official use only," he said.

"Pity," she said. Then she dropped her voice.

"This ring has diamonds and sapphires, you know." She fingered her stone-encrusted ring and began rotating it. He gazed at the sparkling gems, his mouth working silently, his brain calculating. Finally, he said: "I'm going to be taking a short break in a few minutes. In the meantime..."

"Of course," she agreed. She slipped the ring off, placed it on the desk and went into the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet, her stomach made a strangling noise and she found she had to strain just to make herself pee. I must be seizing up, she told herself. I feel like I'm ready to faint after all that ghastly food and drink.

When she got back in the corridor the soldier had gone. She picked up the phone and dialed quickly. At the other end of the line, Catheter sounded sleepy.

"How are you, Mummy?" he said.

"As well as I can be with half a kilo of pork inside me. And how are you and Anton?"

A tiny but perceptible pause. "Okay. We got here with Lucinda's help and we all visited Cousin Ferdy."

"I hope you didn't sleep with that woman," Letitia suddenly heard herself say.

"Um, well, not sleeping exactly..."

"What?" she heard her voice rising. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing." Catheter's voice sounded flat and bored.

"All right. Put Anton on the line."

"He's out clubbing with Hernia. He won't be back till the early hours. Can you call back?"

She rolled her eyes. "No, I only have one diamond and sapphire ring."

"I see." Catheter sounded indifferent.

"Well, let him know Daddy and I are well, and we're keeping you both in our thoughts in these extremely difficult times." She heard the soldier returning.

"Give our best to Hector, Ada, and make sure Angus's nurse is looking after him well."

She heard a long, defeated exhalation. "Bye, Mummy."

She put the phone down and trudged back to the glass-walled gallery. Halfway down the corridor, she heard the heavy tread and padding trot of a man and a dog. Around the next corner, Slobodan came walking with his German Shepherd, and the dog bounded forward and began sniffing Letitia's crotch.

"Heel, boy, heel!" Slobodan called. He appeared to be taking the dog for a walk, an unlikely event in the middle of a drinking party, and Letitia suspected he was stalking her. To maintain her diplomacy, in spite of her revulsion, she waved the dog away.

"Not now, Ivan – I'm not a bitch in heat!"

Slobodan grunted at the pleasantry and fell in step with her. His earlier flirtatiousness had morphed into lust with all the slifka he had drunk, and he began telling her how beautiful she was. Not now, Slobbo, I'm not a bitch in heat, she felt like telling him. He started pushing her toward an alcove.

Breathing heavily, he said: "Let's have a quick one, before we go back to our spouses."

She shoved him away and took off down the corridor. With a guttural grunt of rage, he and the dog loped after her all the way back to the terrace.

Back in the glass-walled gallery she found Latrina and Godfrey huddled over some photos of Angus that Godfrey had brought with him from the home, Latrina cooing and poking a grubby finger at the pictures as if the baby were really there. She was feeling a mixture of curiosity at Catheter's strange indifference and anger at Slobodan's coarseness and lack of respect.

Moments later Slobodan entered, and sat simmering with anger and frustration. Godfrey was already looking slightly sick.

Letitia picked up her glass and sipped the slifka, restraining a grimace at its strong taste. She nursed her glass, refusing any more liquor when the servant approached her.

Slobodan had finished a third of the decanter by now, and his eyes were becoming red. He turned to Godfrey and began a political discussion.

"You know, we Slovos have no wish to see you and your family languishing in exile," he said.

"Why did you give money to the reds then?" Godfrey almost snarled. He was very much the worse for drink.

Slobodan gave a sly laugh. "Even if that rumor was true – and I'm denying it – you couldn't have stopped 'em... and you have to admit, they've certainly stirred the country up. With respect, old boy, You Mellorians needed a good kick up the arse. The people were lazy fuckers who just liked to sit around gossiping and smoking dope all day – and that's just the Royal Assembly!"

He roared at his own joke while Godfrey glowered. Slobodan motioned for the servant to refill Godfrey's glass.

"I don't think I should," Godfrey said, waving the servant away. Letitia was surprised he could still form a sentence.

Latrina gestured to her husband, after noticing Godfrey swaying in his chair.

"Godfrey's really tired. We shouldn't be keeping him up."

"Just one more thing," Slobodan said, "It's time for the last ritual of the evening. Bring in the pig's tail!" he bellowed to a servant.

"I don't know if I can manage this," Godfrey said, leaning toward Letitia. He looked tired and sick.

"You've got to," she said, her voice abrupt despite the alcohol. "Remember, you're a Gorm."

Godfrey emitted a loud belch.

"Are you ready?" Slobodan boomed. He threw a heavy, uniformed arm around Godfrey's shoulders, which were starting to slump.

The servant approached bearing a plate on which glistened a sliver of raw meat.

"Take it to King Godfrey!" Slobodan shouted, and the servant's broad face creased into a smile.

"Your Majesty!" he coaxed, and waved the plate under Godfrey's nose.

"All right!" Godfrey snarled, gesturing the man to stand back. "You don't have to shove it in my face."

"You should swallow it down in one gulp," Latrina whispered in his ear. "Don't stop to think about it – or where it's recently been."

"Au contraire!" Slobodan roared. "You should know that it was cut from the tail of a squealing pig that was dying of swine fever and had been laying in its own shit for three days. This is a test for the bravest of the brave, this is how we Slobodians distinguish a man from a wimp, a warrior from a nancy."

Unable to stop herself, Latrina poured more misery into her brother's ear.

"Just think of the diseases an unwashed piece of pig's flesh can harbor: cholera, diphtheria, typhoid, botulism, bubonic plague – "

Godfrey pushed her away. His face like thunder, he delicately picked up the slice of meat. With one quick swallow, he dropped it into his mouth and gulped it down.

Slobodan roared with approval. "You the man, Godfrey!" he bellowed. Latrina threw her arms around her brother until he pried her off. Then he climbed unsteadily to his feet and silently offered his arm to Letitia. Her eyes had grown heavier but her resolve remained firm. Only after she stood up did she realize how tired she was.

When they reached their bedroom, guided by a surly servant, Letitia bellyflopped onto the blue chenille bedspread. It seemed to fly up to meet her. The bed was hard and lumpy, and she groaned and turned over. She gazed at the room. She hadn't expected luxuries – no large fluffy towels and robes and an array of cosmetics. Nor did she expect any kind of maid service, no lemon tea to sip while lying on linen sheets flipping through _Country_ _Life_ , no maid to pass a plate of quince through the shower curtain while lolling in the warm caress of a bubble bath. She hadn't expected anything like that, but it would have been very nice.

The bed linen looked decent enough, if a little plain, and at least the bed was queen-sized. She propped her head on the pillow, aware that she was floating after eating so much pork and drinking that awful slifka. She felt she would soon be puking. Afterwards, she would be punished by her dreams.

Godfrey had gone straight into the bathroom and she could hear him retching. She slid off the bed, and went up to the bathroom door.

"Are you all right, dear?" she called.

Inside, Godfrey inserted his finger once more down his throat and leaned over the toilet. When the last wave of nausea had passed through him, he rinsed his mouth and brushed his teeth. Then he emerged from the bathroom, white and drawn, and began undressing.

"We'd better get some shuteye while we can," he said weakly. "God knows what horrors tomorrow will bring."

Letitia went into the bathroom, which she found surprisingly clean, struggled off her clothes and took a soak in the tub. Back in bed, she sank down gratefully, closed her eyes and drifted off. As she fell asleep, she heard the wind groaning outside, rattling the windows. A storm's brewing, was her last waking thought.

In the corridor outside their bedroom, an armed guard took up his position, his hands on an assault rifle, and chewed on a nugget of _Saint_ smuggled in from Melloria. The hall in front of him was dark and silent.

Chapter 45

### A Touch Of Evil

Godfrey and Letitia came down for breakfast and sat side by side. No one else was there except Slobodan, eating a bowl of pork and plum broth.

"Latrina not up yet?" Letitia asked, to break the silence.

Slobodan grunted something inaudible and piled salt onto his broth. As he had been serving himself, Letitia decided to do likewise and placed a croissant on her small plate. She started to eat, feeling uncomfortable. God, he's still scheming of a way to seduce me, she thought. He thinks he has territorial rights over me as well as my country. Godfrey, why the hell can't you see what's going on? She looked up at Godfrey, but he was filling his bowl with pork broth.

"Did you sleep well?" Slobodan asked.

"Passably," she said, maintaining her distance.

"You look perky this morning, Letitia." His voice had gone husky.

"Well, I don't feel it," she replied truthfully. When Godfrey looked up from his bowl, Slobodan's manner changed and his bearing became more controlled.

"Royston will be here shortly," he told Godfrey. "He wants to give you a chance to see what your Mellorian army will be up against when – "

"Can I come too?" Letitia asked suddenly. She had a sick feeling in her stomach.

Slobodan leered at her, tilting his head to one side and smiling.

"This is strictly for men," he said. "If you're at a loose end for something to do, may I suggest a little walk with me and my – "

Suddenly there was a stir of activity at the far end of the dining hall. Prets standing guard snapped to attention. Prince Royston, dressed in the uniform of High Commander of the Praetorian Guard, strode up to the table and bowed politely to Letitia. Then he saluted Godfrey, who was wearing his commander-in-chief's uniform. Godfrey returned the salute.

Royston began talking rapidly to his father in Slobodian while Letitia gave him an oblique glance. He was tall, like his mother, and in his mid-forties. His features were vigorous, with dark hair racing back from his bronze temples. His fists were clenched as he talked, and he had a knowing cynical look. At one point in the conversation he turned and stared at her with a hard, unblinking look and, in spite of herself, she lowered her eyes. When she looked up again, he was still watching her, his face like granite. She felt intensely uncomfortable, as if she were being sized up. She reddened and clutched her tea cup tightly.

Despite her discomfort, however, she couldn't stop stealing glances at him. All his features were sharp and definite: a set jaw, a straight precise nose, a lean but sturdy body. He wasn't what she would have called handsome, but he was impressive, and more than a little disturbing.

By comparison, Slobodan was almost reassuringly rough and tumble, with his sagging jowls and thick waistline. Royston did most of the talking during the conversation while Slobodan listened, his mouth opened in concentration. Letitia tried not to look at him, knowing it might elicit a smile and flirtatious words. In fact, once the conversation was over and he noticed she had finished breakfast, Slobodan lumbered over to her and stood behind her chair. "May I?" he said, and without waiting for consent, lifted her arm by the wrist and escorted her from the table. It felt weird to be given such gentlemanly attention by a man she considered a monster, but she let him take her by the arm to a couch by the window. He gave her arm a little squeeze before letting her sit down.

Latrina came into the hall, wearing the same dressing gown as the night before, and sat down at the table. She was ignored by the men and Letitia began to feel sympathetic toward her, seeing what she had to endure. She returned Latrina's sleepy greeting with a tight smile.

Royston, who had been talking quietly to Godfrey, turned his attention to Slobodan.

"Stop flirting, Father," he said. "It's high time we got down to business."

Slobodan smiled sheepishly. "Are you ready to give King Godfrey his eye-opener?"

A faint smile appeared on Royston's face. "I'm ready to show King Godfrey what the Slobodian armed forces can do – and you're coming with us. It's not safe to leave you alone with Queen Letitia."

Godfrey finished the last of his broth and stood up. Royston looked at Letitia from across the table.

"We must take our leave," he said. "Mother will keep you company and show you the palace and gardens. I wish you a pleasant morning."

Letitia watched the three men leave. Why do I have a feeling of the presence of evil? she wondered.

Queen Letitia, who had been enjoying an afternoon nap, awoke with a start. King Slobodan and his son, Prince Royston, after knocking roughly on the door, had entered the bedroom with two paramedics carrying her husband on a contrivance that looked a small sedan chair. Godfrey's expression had a sickly hue, and he grasped the sides of his chair. He was dumped unceremoniously on the bed and when Letitia asked how he had come to be in such a state, Royston glared at her as if blaming Godfrey for his unconsciousness and rapped: "We had just begun to show him our Slobodian Shock and Awe!" Slobodan mumbled something about a dizzy spell and a fall. She looked at them incredulously; then they trooped out of the room, Slobodan saying he hoped to see her and Godfrey at dinner. She mopped Godfrey's forehead with a handkerchief as he dozed for the next hour.

When Godfrey awoke she propped his head on the pillow and looked at him with extreme disquiet.

"You were out for a good long time, old thing," she said. "How are you feeling?"

He shot her a glance as if to say Don't ask! And pulled himself up with an effort. "I must have blacked out," he rasped, "I don't understand it. One minute I was being blasted with explosions and mock attacks on an enemy that's clearly meant to be us, Royston telling me as much, and the next...I was on my back, gasping for air. I don't remember much after that. How did I get here, on the bed?"

"Slobby and Royston brought you in here in a kind of wheelchair. They were both in a perfectly foul mood. They dumped you like a sack of potatoes!"

Godfrey scratched his head. "I've had a few dizzy spells before, but nothing like this...I suppose I'll have to see a medic at some point." "Is there any tea in that pot?" he asked.

There was a pot of tea and two cups on the dresser, and Letitia got up to pour.

"Actually, although I've said bad things about her, she's really quite a dear," she said, handing him his cup and saucer. "Latrina, I mean. She sent a servant up here a minute ago with some Earl Grey – she knows how much I like it."

Outside the wind was blowing hard. The early morning sunshine had given way to thundery showers and the threat of storms. The sound of marching feet could be heard, and suddenly a song burst out of the marchers:

" _Today we take Melloria, tomorrow the whole wide world!"_

"They definitely intend to attack us," Godfrey declared. "They're just waiting for the economy to hit rock bottom, and the way the People's Party are running the country into the ground that won't be long." Then he groaned and let his head sink. "I don't think I'm ever going to get us out of this mess," he said, half to himself. He saw their chances of escape floating away like a scrap of paper in the breeze. Letitia looked at her husband with softness in her eyes, realizing what a heavy burden of responsibility he carried as king of an occupied country.

"Drink your Earl Grey," she said. "It's an excellent pick-me-up."

He took the cup and sipped from it. He was soothed by the hot pungent liquid and, as he sipped, she placed both hands on his upper back and began gently massaging his back and shoulders. He felt the earlier dread and anguish drain out of his system, to be replaced by an insistent nagging sensation that he couldn't quite get a handle on.

He finished his cup and sat staring out the window at the blustery gray afternoon.

"How are we going to do it? That's what I can't figure out," he said, lost in his thoughts.

"Shouldn't we..." she searched her mind. "...shouldn't we offer Slobodan something?"

"Like what? Paul Slamil said I didn't have a pot to piss in!"

"And I gave up my diamond ring for a phone call to Cathy," she said. "And he sounded like he could care less whether we get out of here or not...I mean, shouldn't we offer him some means of releasing us without losing face? You know how important face is to these Slobodians,"

"I suppose I could always challenge him to an arm-wrestling contest," he said reflectively. "A safe passage for us out of here if I won..."

Letitia put her arm around him and held him in silence. He was desperate to get back to Melloria, to claim the sovereignty of his nation, the country he was born and raised to rule. He was dedicated to being king and she loved him for it, although she hoped this year of monarchy would be their last.

The gray afternoon darkened into a cold, rainy evening. Godfrey and Letitia, hand in hand, came down to dinner. Rain streaked the high narrow window panes in the gigantic dining hall, and the atmosphere was as damp and depressing as the weather. Slobodan and Latrina were the only ones sitting at the long table, and the absence of Prince Royston only served to deepen the gloom. When Godfrey and Letitia had taken their seats, Slobodan nodded to a waiting servant and the first covered dishes were brought in. Slobodan sat cracking each of his knuckles in turn, and when Letitia, who found his habit was setting her teeth on edge, gave him a rude look, he turned his weary eyes to Godfrey.

"I hope you're feeling better," he said.

"Yes, thank you, much better," Godfrey said. "Is Prince Royston joining us for dinner?"

"No, he's dining out tonight," Slobodan replied, somewhat flustered. "Fact is, we had a blistering row after you blacked out."

Godfrey allowed himself a moment of pleasure. He'd given Royston cause for anger, and he suddenly felt happier.

Latrina looked somewhat sedated, and turned her sleepy eyes to Godfrey.

"Oh, Godders, you blacked out? It must have been all that drinking last night. Tonight we'll treat you more tenderly."

"Thank you, Trina," Godfrey replied. "I intend to take things more quietly from now on."

The first dishes were uncovered and what looked like pink fleshy slabs of Spam in a murky broth was set before them.

"This is Slobodia's national dish,"Latrina said. "It's poached salt pork with vegetables in a plum brandy sauce."

Letitia grimaced. It had to be a pork dish, didn't it? She tasted one of the pink slabs on her plate. Yes, definitely Spam – and it tasted like they'd left it in the fridge too long.

"Delicious," she said diplomatically. Latrina gave her a wan smile.

"Have some more vegetables," she murmured, and handed Letitia a bowl which contained carrots with their roots attached, roughly chopped beets and slices of eggplant with holes in them. Is the Slobodian soil really that bad? She wondered, declining the vegetables.

The rest of the meal was memorably bad, especially the cheesy potato dumplings with edible toadstools.

"At least the marinated herring is agreeable," Letitia whispered to Godfrey.

"It should be," he whispered back, "it's from a jar and it's imported."

The pudding was the last dish to be served, and tasted like cacah that had been left out in the rain. After taking a few nibbles, Godfrey and Letitia pushed their plates aside and waited for Slobodan to finish. At the rate he's wolfing this muck down, he'll be too logy for slifka, Godfrey thought with some relief. I don't fancy having to match him drink for drink.

When he'd cleaned his plate, Slobodan looked up and wiped his mouth.

"Are we all ready for a glass or two?" he asked.

"We are," Godfrey said wearily, "but let's not drink more than two."

At the word 'two' there was a flash of lightning outside, followed by a roll of thunder.

They all got up and shuffled out to the gallery, where nuts and a nutcracker had been left on the wrought-iron table, and Latrina took a handful and began cracking. Soon nutshells were all over the carpet. Meanwhile Slobodan lit up a foul-smelling cigar and left it smoking in the ashtray, close to where Letitia was sitting.

This is psychological warfare, she thought, wincing as a piece of nutshell tinged against her glass. They're doing this to intimidate us, but we're made of sterner stuff!

Godfrey drank two glasses, then put his hand over the glass when Slobodan attempted to fill it again. He was growing tired of Slobodan's bonhomie.

"When can we leave your country?" he asked.

Slobodan picked up the cigar to find it had gone out and struck a match to relight it. The glow made his face look lurid. "What you have to realize," he said, "is that I must first have your kingdom."

"If you want Melloria you'll have to kill me first," Godfrey said.

"And me too," Letitia added.

"That's the trouble," Slobodan said. "If I kill you and little Angus too – "

"No!" Latrina shouted.

"Okay, we'll adopt him and bring him up as a Slobodian." He laughed harshly. "That's what Royston and I were arguing about. He wants to use you two as hostages to keep the People's Party under our thumb. I told him he was barking mad. Fact is, though, one way or another we're going to take your kingdom."

"Over my dead body," Godfrey said.

"Royston tried to scare you by showing you our military might, and he failed – as I knew he would," Slobodan went on. "He believes in fear and intimidation and I believe in charm and cunning. If you want to get the kingdom off a king, it's like getting the panties off a woman." He looked at Letitia and smiled. "You have to use guile."

"I hope you're not thinking of seducing me," Godfrey said.

Slobodan roared with laughter.

"You can rest easy, King Godfrey – I'm no bumboy!" he put down his cigar. "What I'm proposing is that we have a contest, a game to decide who gets Melloria, after the People's Party have run out of steam."

The others looked at him curiously.

"Let me offer you a deal," he said, "and if you win, you can both fly out to Bulimia tomorrow – I'll even loan you the use of my 'copter."

"What's the game?" Godfrey said casually. Outside the rain was coming down in torrents.

"I've thought long and hard about this," Slobodan said. "I've considered arm wrestling and coin tossing – the first would give me an advantage, but you're such a dark horse... the second is much too chancey, unless one of us cheats... finally I settled on five card poker – Slobodian style."

Godfrey frowned, trying to remember the Slobodian game. He'd played it in his army days and knew that it differed only from regular five-card in a few respects, the main one being the supremacy of the joker. It guaranteed instant victory. "

"What if I refuse?" he asked.

Slobodan gave him a malicious smile.

"Then all bets are off, and you and your family will remain, until... meanwhile you'll be eating our delicious Slobodian cuisine, attending military parades to admire our invincible Slobodian armed forces, and of course, I'll be doing my best to seduce your lovely wife."

Letitia looked at him with cold fury. The impudence to say this in front of her! But he wouldn't be sidetracked.

"I don't want you to think that I would leave you without a woman, King Godfrey. My son would be delighted to show you a selection of the choicest bordellos."

"That's enough!" Godfrey looked blazingly at Slobodan. "I'll play. But we'll have to agree on who shuffles first."

They all fell silent. Letitia blinked hard and suddenly had an idea.

"I'll do it blindfold!" she said. "I used to be good at cards."

Slobodan scratched his chin. "All of us here are biased. But a blindfold might give you the necessary impartiality. Let's do it!"

A servant was dispatched. After a long wait during which Latrina finished off the nuts in the bowl – carpeting the floor with shells – and Slobodan lit up another cigar, he reappeared with a piece of cloth. After being blindfolded, Letitia seized the deck and fanned out the cards. Then, to everyone's surprise, she gave them a competent shuffle and slapped them down on the table.

Slobodan drew the first card. The wind was whistling around the battlements and Godfrey heard rain running down the window panes. He glanced out one of the high-arched windows and saw clouds scurrying across the sky.

Godfrey drew a card and lost to Slobodan. The game began with Slobodan dealing the first hand. Godfrey won and dealt the second hand. The joker did not appear. Letitia, who had taken off the blindfold, was tired and had reached the end of her endurance. "I'm going to bed," she said. But before she could do so, Latrina's cat appeared. Its body flowed around everybody's ankles while Latrina refilled Slobodan's glass.

Godfrey refused another slifka, so Latrina sat down and picked up the cat, which glared malevolently at Letitia who was getting up from her chair. Latrina gave her a meaningful look . "Would you like to pet the kitty, Lettie?"

Letitia sighed and gave the cat a token pet. "I have to go to bed otherwise I'll collapse," she said. "Goodnight, dear," she said to Godfrey, kissing his forehead. "I won't wish you luck because I know you don't need it. Justice is on your side."

Latrina let the cat run off her lap, picked herself up and wished Slobodan goodnight. The cat, after giving a deep-throated yowl, humped its back at Letitia – its yellow eyes filled with loathing – and stalked off. Good bloody riddance, Letitia thought.

After the women had left, both men became more relaxed and Godfrey allowed Slobodan to pour him a drink. "Now we can get down and dirty," Slobodan said. The second hand had ended with Godfrey winning again.

Godfrey settled back in his chair and tried to keep his senses alert. He knew that the convention was that each player had to keep a straight face, only moving his eyebrows, although he was allowed to utter strange curses when looking at his cards.

"Great balls of shit!" Slobodan cursed. He looked at the hand he'd been dealt. Then he fanned the cards out and studied them.

"Twisted testicles!" Godfrey complained, trying to mask his glee at the hand he held. His head was banging with excitement. He was ahead by two hands, and

He knew if he won the third, he could exchange five cards in the fourth hand.

"I'm surprised the joker hasn't showed up," Slobodan said. "Of course when it does, one of us will be going to bed happy."

Godfrey leveled his gaze at Slobodan, who raised an eyebrow. With such high stakes, trickery was an immensely appealing option and Slobodan was known as a trickster.

"You know, I'm really sorry that I have to take your country," Slobodan said with a sigh. He laid down his hand. "More slifka?" He poured himself one after Godfrey shook his head.

Slobodan had a full house, tens high and Godfrey had a full house, jacks. He was delighted – he'd won the right to discard all five of his next cards.

"Barnacled breast implants – this is all I need!" he said when he saw the next cards.

"Barnacled breast implants? That must be a really bad hand," Slobodan muttered, then he looked at his own hand.

"Venomous vaginal secretions!" he gasped.

"Red hot rectums – not a good card to save my life!" Godfrey complained. He exchanged all five of his cards, to receive another poor hand. Then he dealt the next cards and they flicked across the table.

"Are you sure you wouldn't like another brandy?" Slobodan asked, picking up his cards and fanning them out. He had two pairs, tens and sixes.

"No thank you," Godfrey replied. "Cards?"

"One." Slobodan discarded and drew another ten.

"It's your turn to call," Godfrey said.

"Full house, tens."

That's funny, he had those cards a few hands ago, Godfrey thought. He folded with a pair of queens.

Slobodan dealt and won the next hand, with kings full on twos.

"About time my luck changed," he chortled. "I was afraid your winning streak would never come to an end."

Godfrey began to feel the hairs on the back of his neck tingle. At any moment the joker could make his fateful appearance; then it wouldn't matter who had the run of the cards. Joker took all.

The winner of the next hand got to shuffle the deck again, and Godfrey knew it was possible to work any card to the bottom during the shuffle. He wondered how good a card sharp Slobodan was.

"Here it comes!" Slobodan said as he dealt his cards. "This is where I clean you out, baby!"

Godfrey picked up his cards and examined them. Four queens and a seven. No joker. He looked at Slobodan whose wrinkled brow indicated that his hand was also jokerless.

Godfrey won the hand and let out a prolonged breath. It was getting like Russian roulette – in fact, it was worse. Instead of blowing his brains out, he would be left without a kingdom – a sad ex-king with a paper crown. It was Godfrey's turn to shuffle the cards. He mustered all his powers of concentration, urging the joker to flicker his way in the next hand.

Slobodan drank deeply from his glass. "I didn't realize what a Cool Hand Luke you are!" he said. "I guess my first gamble failed."

The rain was loud, but Godfrey had no difficulty making himself heard.

"The game's not over till the joker shows."

He dealt, and the cards scattered into place.

The lashing rain and howling wind reached a climax. Godfrey cocked his head to listen to the weather – there might be flooding tonight which could delay their departure tomorrow – then he picked up his first card. A two. His second was a nine. His third a jack and his fourth a king. The fifth card seemed to stick to the iron tabletop, and he had to squeeze its edges between thumb and forefinger. It was a queen. The suits didn't match, so he decided to exchange his two for a possible ten, to make a straight. Then he felt the impulse to swap four cards for the chance of snaring the joker and instant victory.

The straight was his best chance of winning without the elusive joker, but Godfrey ran through the permutations of taking four other cards. There were seven possible ways to win the hand: there was royal flush, four-of-a-kind, full house, flush, straight, three-of-kind, two pairs, or a pair. King high was the lowest possible win. Godfrey decided to discard four.

The first card he dealt himself was an ace. Then came a four, followed by a six. A pair of aces was the best he could hope for now, unless... the fourth card. It flopped on its face like a turtle and lay inert and anonymous. With his spine on fire he lifted its edge with a thumbnail. A plain white edge showed, then – as he pried it – he realized with a jolt that it was a picture. A mean-looking dwarf in a fool's pointed cap and checkered costume clutching an ax with a double head and trampling the prone body of a peasant. The Slobodian joker. Melloria would stay free!

He flipped the card face up with a sweep of his hand and let out a snort of triumph.

"Here's your confounded joker, King Slobodan – you're welcome to him. Melloria remains ours!"

The storm suddenly abated. Looking through the window, Godfrey noticed that the moon had reappeared. Slobodan wrinkled his brow into a concerned frown. He hesitated and his face clouded.

"Ten thousand stinking piles of puke!" he cried. "I'm back to square one."

He lurched to his feet, scattering his cards on the floor. He had an ace and four tens, but the joker had appeared and he was the loser. He stood and stared with undisguised anguish at Godfrey's all-conquering card.

"He pulped me, the bastard pulped me in my own palace!" he mumbled to a servant as he stumbled out of the gallery.

Back in the shared bedroom after taking a quick shower, Godfrey wriggled under the covers beside Letitia and sank into the bed as if it were made of angel feathers. Letitia was already asleep and dreaming of her winter wonderland in the Caribbean.

A sudden sharp noise jolted her awake and startled Godfrey. "There's something in the room!" she whispered to him. Godfrey strained his ears. There it was again a loud caterwauling and the sound of scratching.

"It's that cat of Latrina's," Letitia said. "I don't know why she keeps that bloody cat – it shreds everything in sight."

Godfrey, equally rattled by the cat and embarrassed by his fear of it, looked down at his gnarled feet and his hairy, blue-veined legs. He faced the prospect of tackling a ferocious cat barefoot and naked.

"We're guests here, you know, Dear," he said. "Perhaps we shouldn't make a fuss."

"I'm not sharing my bed with that beast!" Letitia snapped. "What if it gouges my eyes out in the night?"

"I'm sure we can come to some accommodation with it," he ventured.

"Even if it mauls our faces?"

More used to disciplining bumbling beagles than a howling cat, Godfrey aimed a kick at the cat's rump. It began to hiss and spit, its fur standing up, its back arched. When he tried to shoo it off the bed, it bared its fangs and lashed out at him.

"Down, boy, down, I say!" Godfrey ordered.

"Godfrey, it's a cat," Letitia said wearily. "It won't come to heel."

A knock on the door interrupted the cat's screaming, preceding the green-helmeted head of the soldier who had been detailed to guard them.

"Is everything all right, Your Majesties?"

"I'm afraid not," Letitia said. "There's a cat in our bed."

The soldier called the cat to him – its name was Druid – and it deftly bounded off the bed and out the half-open door. Having done his duty, the soldier saluted the royal couple and prepared to close the door. Godfrey quickly scooped a handful of coins from the dresser, that he'd left for the chambermaid, and pressed them into the soldier's hand.

The soldier pocketed the coins and inclined his head. "All the peasants would love to kill King Slob and his son," he said quietly, "but the people are powerless." He closed the door quickly behind him.

"Well, what do you make of that?" Godfrey said, surprised.

"Let's get some sleep – I'm too exhausted to think," was Letitia's tired reply.

Chapter 46

### Basking In Bulimia

The big white circle got bigger as they drooped toward it. The helicopter whipped about in a slow arcing turn and centered itself, bouncing once before coming to a halt. The rotors continued fanning the ground and Godfrey opened the door. He and Letitia tumbled out, then immediately slammed the door closed. The 'copter was up and away almost at once. With Godfrey in the lead, they hobbled across the tarmac clutching their luggage toward a waiting limousine. King Hector's Bentley Continental purred up to meet them like a large luxurious cat. Two hours later, the Bentley was whispering past the vineyards, meadows and classical temples of Porcellan Park. They approached the ornate arch supported by stone tiers and looked up at the engraving of the Lattis coat of arms. Letitia counted quarterings of griffins, lions and other heraldic beasts inside the shield.

"Impressive, if a little gaudy," she commented as they rolled serenely under it. They caught sight of some of the park's splendors: myrtle trees, rhododendrons, charming grottos and rows of lofty ash trees. Everything looked relaxed and gpeaceful. There were no guards or security men muttering into concealed walkie-talkies, merely a rolling landscape of lakes and hillocks where here and there fluttered the flag of Bulimia: a golden peacock strutting across a royal blue field.

King Hector and Queen Ada stood waiting at the top of the wide marble steps which fronted their resplendent palace. The October sun burnished its sweeping lawns where peacocks roamed, startling guests with their raucous cries. They waited as the Bentley glided to a halt below them, and Letitia, mightily glad to be able to relieve her bursting bladder, got out and rushed up toward them.

Her desperation lent wings to her feet and she raced up the steps, hurtled past Hector and Ada and screamed: "I've got to go the throne room – I'll be back later!"

When she returned, she found the rest of her family in the drawing room. Catheter and Dawna arrived, separately, and everyone talked furiously over Tanquerays and tonic. When Betty, Angus's nurse, came in and set Angus before his mother, Dawna tried incompetently to feed him with his bottle. Then she called for Betty to handle him, and Catheter immediately scooped him up and carried him on his back around the room. A golden retriever who had also wandered in, frisked in front of Catheter and sniffed the baby's feet. Hector listened open-mouthed to Godfrey's account of their adventures, while Letitia herself was tortured by Ada's jarring, high-pitched voice as she gossiped and complained about everyone, from Hernia and Anton to Catheter and his tangled relationships.

Detaching herself from Ada's whining, Letitia observed the goings-on and noted that it was a most peculiar, tense and untidy scene. Neither Catheter nor Dawna spoke a word to each other, tempting her to conclude that her worst fears were realized. Eventually Catheter whispered something to his wife, in tense, rasping tones, then left Angus with her and took the golden retriever out of the room. Through the mullioned window Letitia could see him running and roughhousing with the dog, the two of them chasing and wrestling with each other, the retriever tugging at Catheter's pant leg and ragging him, and Catheter uttering carefree whoops and yells. He's never like that with his wife, Letitia thought.

She went back to enduring Ada's chatter, and just as the lunch gong rang, Ada dropped her bombshell, almost as an aside: "And to top it all, that Lucinda girl is pregnant!"

Lunch was served in a large airy room, its walls coated in red and gilt fabric, with blue skies and cherub-infested, puffy white clouds painted on its soaring ceiling. Through the long windows, Letitia glimpsed a profuse, immaculately-tended courtyard with flowers and potted trees. The food they were served was a refreshing change from what they had endured in their months of incarceration in the home and at the ghastly court of King Slobodan. In Bulimia, the royal family ate on a suitably hearty scale, with roast venison, quail chasseur and boar bourguignon, served with style and panache. Catheter was still outside, although a servant had been dispatched to alert him that lunch was served. Anton and Hernia were also absent, but were expected back momentarily.

Hector and Godfrey began a discussion, increasingly incoherent as the brandy flowed, about the political system in Bulimia and what role the monarchy played in it.

"To begin with, I was as much against the introduction of the ballot box as you are," Hector told Godfrey, "but it's actually worked out well. We have no trouble getting international bank loans and trading agreements with the advanced nations, and we delegate all that messy legislative stuff to the elected politicians. No more dreary meetings with nagging chancellors that go on all morning – we're formally consulted, but the decisions are made by others. We then sign the laws in, and if things go wrong the politicos take the blame. It's a no-brainer."

"Mm, that sounds good," Godfrey said, as he attacked a chunk of wild boar. "Especially since bad budgetary decisions based on woefully inadequate advice is what got me in this mess in the first place."

"Another good thing about parliamentary democracy is that you only have to trot round to the House once a year, to unlock the door so to speak. Then you're done for the rest of the year, unless the political johnnies make some godawful cock-up and you have to dissolve the parliament and hold an election. But that's a piece of cake too – it just means letting a new lot of johnnies get voted in. All in all, it's a sweet deal."

"Mm, I think you may be right," Godfrey conceded. "With all my aches and pains – and they seem to be getting worse – I could do with a lighter round of duties." His face clouded. "But first I've got to get rid of those damn reds."

"I wish I could help you out, old chap," Hector murmured, "but I can't offer military help, obviously. My hands are tied, and I have to defer to those politicians we were talking about."

"Damn politicians!" Godfrey growled. "I'd like to shoot the bloody lot of 'em!"

Hector gave a breezy laugh and tore off a hunk of bread. "You have to allow them some say in what goes on – the poor dears are obsessed with retaining office – something we don't have to worry about!"

Godfrey nodded his agreement. "A monarchy is like a tough old plant. Once the roots have grown down, it merely has to lay seeds for its continuation."

"Well said," Letitia muttered, picking at a strip of wild boar, "but when the seeds have sprouted and borne fruit, it's time for the tough old plant to retire!"

The arrival of Anton and Hernia shattered the conviviality of the company. They clattered in, Anton wearing a hooded parka and Hernia a black mesh top, leather leggings, thick black combat boots and no bra.

"That girl's simply frightful!" Letitia whispered to Ada. "She looks like she's spent half the night soliciting and the other half in the cells."

"It's her latest thing," Ada whispered back. "She used to be a goth, now she's into being a superskank."

"You're late," Hector grumbled. "Lunch is half over."

Hernia flashed a gold-toothed smile and wriggled into her seat. "We'll just have to eat more quickly then," she said, and to prove her point she and Anton tore into the food.

"Hungry, Hernia?" Dawna asked sarcastically.

"Ravenous!" Hernia replied, her mouth crammed full.

Anton turned to an incoming servant bearing a steaming platter of venison.

"I'll have two of those," he said.

"My sister prefers the grime look," Dawna remarked, "or should I say the slept-in look." Dawna was wearing an off-the-shoulder black peasant top from Yves Saint-Laurent, under a puff-sleeved fitted denim jacket with matching skinny jeans.

"Call it whatever fucking look you like," Hernia said.

"Hernia, your language is getting atrocious," Ada protested weakly.

"How do you achieve your matted, mussed-up look, that's what I want to know?" Dawna said, with feigned curiosity.

"Easy – I sleep with tramps every night, and I leave all my nice clothes rotting in the washbag," Hernia replied.

"You have a washbag?" Dawna looked surprised.

"Nah, I was lying – I gave all my nice clothes to the Salvation Army."

Letitia and Godfrey exchanged disapproving looks.

Dawna reddened and was lost for a suitable reply. Meanwhile Anton and Hernia were demolishing a whole venison platter. At the same time, Angus started bellowing, sitting up in his high chair and flailing his tray with his spoon.

"Here, Angus,"Dawna said, leaning across his nurse. "Eat some peas."

She tried to spoon the green mush into his mouth.

"Perhaps he's coming down with something," Ada said anxiously.

"No, ma'am," Betty said. "Knows his dad's coming, that's what it is."

"Oh, nonsense, he doesn't know what's going on outside," Letitia said.

"He does, ma'am, really. He shows it in his eyes," Betty insisted.

Letitia took a morsel of venison from the nearest platter and tried to feed it to Angus.

"Eat this. Good, say 'good'"

Angus turned his face up to the painted ceiling and squealed like a stuck pig.

"Just taste it," Letitia insisted, pressing the morsel to his lips. He took it in his pudgy hands, sniffed it and pushed it in his mouth. "There!" Letitia said triumphantly.

Just then the twin doors parted and Catheter walked in. He raked his fingers through his thinning hair. Angus bawled with his mouth full, and began choking, his watery eyes bulging and veins standing out on his forehead. Catheter looked alarmed. "Who's been feeding him solids?" he said.

"Here, wash it down with some tea," Letitia said, forcing her cup to his lips.

"Wait!" Catheter said. "You're going to kill him."

He hurried over and beat Angus sharply on the back. A wad of soggy meat shot across the table.

"This is a fine way for a king to enjoy lunch," Godfrey said. "Watching one's son making one's grandson puke."

"I had to!" Catheter shouted. "He could have choked to death."

"Catheter!" Letitia scolded, a trace of guilt in her tone. "Remember we're guests here." Scrutinizing him as he took his place at table, she noticed the stubble of beard along his jaw.

"Haven't you shaved since last night?" she said.

Dawna picked at her food more quickly.

The presence of Catheter at the table had altered the dynamic, causing her to shut down. She observed the spat between him and his parents with bored indifference; she just wanted to leave.

Letitia noticed that Dawna's plate had different food than the rest of the table, and gave Ada a raised-eyebrow look. Ada whispered that she was on a Japanese food kick. As well as sushi and sashimi, she nourished herself on octopus and squid, and her breakfast was a bowl of ramen noodles topped with an almost-raw egg. Revolting, Letitia considered, though she had managed to remain slender after giving birth to Angus, so perhaps her diet was forgivable.

"Hernia likes to go to underground clubs where she can climb onto a table and show off – preferably her private parts," Dawna suddenly said.

Her quip aroused Anton who lifted his face from his feasting.

"Private parts – is that something I haven't seen?"

"Nah," Hernia said, "she's talking about my twat, you twat!"

She pushed Anton's face back into the plate.

"My sister," Hernia countered, "goes to all the posh clubs – she's on every celebrity list. In fact, her biggest trauma is having to decide between two society parties on the same night."

Dawna stuck out her tongue, but Hernia was getting into her stride: "She wears skin-tight scarlet pants, a purple bolero jacket and a pink corduroy cap and calls it chic. She won't even board a plane unless the seat covers match her clothes!"

"Everything Hernia wears has to be dirty, torn and very black!" Dawna retorted.

"Not everything," Hernia said. "My lipstick's dark chocolate brown, actually."

Godfrey grunted and tossed his napkin on the table.

"The turn of this conversation is getting on my nerves," he said.

"Yes, can we tone it down please?" Hector pleaded.

"You're very quiet, Catheter," Hernia said, prodding him. "How much does it cost to keep your wife in Givenchy?"

Catheter squirmed and clenched his jaw. He actually preferred the smell Lucinda gave off, which was like wet, clean laundry, to the cosmetic-counter fragrance of his wife.

Dawna was torn between commending her sister for upsetting Catheter and continuing the feud, so she babbled about a charity fashion show she'd attended. "There was a lot of champagne and it all got a bit hazy. When the time came for me to draw the raffle, I was in such a fluster all the tickets went flying."

"You mean you were too drunk to pull out raffle tickets," Hernia corrected.

"Look, I'm not a lush, all right?" Dawna said.

"Going out tonight then?" Hernia asked.

"I can't – I have an enormous red boil on my neck."

Hernia leaned over and scrutinized Dawna's neck. "Let me see...Huh, that looks more like a hickey from someone with a front tooth missing."

"At least I'm not a tramp like you!" Dawna shot back.

"The difference between you and me," Hernia said with deliberation, "is that you wear your gold chains round your wrist and I wear mine hanging from my – "

"Yes, I think that's quite enough!" Ada chastised.

Hector added hastily: "Now that we've all had lunch, I suggest those of us mature enough to be good-mannered retire to the drawing room – for coffee, port and brandy."

"I'm going to bed," Letitia said. She had reached the end of her patience.

Catheter was white-knuckled with suppressed rage. There was something of the puritan in him, and Hernia – so unlike the crisp, clean wholesome Lucinda – had offended him.

"I think you ought to apologize to your parents," he told Hernia. "Your behavior at table was disgraceful."

"Oh, why don't you give yourself a high colonic!" she retorted.

"What?"

"Stick it up your ass!"

The meal broke up awkwardly with everyone going in different directions. Nobody went to the drawing room except Godfrey and Hector. They settled in front of a roaring fire in the high-arched stone hearth with a decanter of brandy. Godfrey sat pondering. He was still shaken by Hernia's vulgar behavior at table and wondered what steps Hector would take to discipline her.

His eyes fell on the decanter. He decided the brandy would give him either a perverse lucidity or blessed oblivion – both of them extremely welcome.

"By Jove, that's good stuff by the look of it," he said. "You don't mind if I pour myself a stiff one?"

"Go ahead, old chap!" Hector replied. He was already working his way down the decanter.

"I believe the People's Party are staging their election in about six weeks' time," Hector said.

"Stage is right," Godfrey said bitterly. "The whole bloody thing's a farce. The reds are trying to appear to the world's media as a democracy-loving party – but look what they did to me!"

"But if they win, how will you get your throne back" Hector said.

"By hook or by crook!" Godfrey said despondently. He stared into his glass. "By the way, how are the opposition party doing? I'm completely out of the loop."

"Haven't you heard?" Hector said, his face animated. "Old Archbishop Lesot's dead. Bribe has been exposed by some newspaper woman as a People's Party stooge, and he's had to step down. There's been a leadership reshuffle. The Bishop of Mingella, who's just been appointed archbishop, has stepped in as temporary leader, but he wants to take a back seat. Seems he's more the advisory type."

"So they're looking for a new leader, I suppose?"

"Exactly, and – guess what? – people are starting to say it should be you!"

"Are they now..?" Godfrey pondered as he sipped his brandy. "What else is new"

"Well," Hector said, his face beaming, "the new archbishop, Larry Lepager, is coming to see me tomorrow, and now that you're here, I'm sure he'll want to talk to you too."

"What on earth for?"

Hector gave Godfrey a knowing look. "Before he died, Lesot made a pledge that the party's main platform would be the restoration of the monarchy. Lepager's view is that only a constitutional monarchy would be acceptable to the voters." Hector drank a copious draft and smacked his lips. "So if you're willing to be a constitutional king, the Church Party will back you – _and_ you can be its leader!"

"Constitution...?" Godfrey racked his brains. "We had a constitution once – for a few months. My ancestor, King Oswald the Optimist, tried to modernize the country in the nineteenth century. He drew up a constitution, but the aristocracy were so outraged, they launched a coup, deposed Oswald and installed his brother, Reginald the Restorer."

"So you _did_ have a constitution!" Hector roared.

"Yes, Oswald proclaimed it to the people, but the palace coup meant it was never implemented. Strangely, the place where it was publicly announced has been called Constitution Square ever since."

"I believe they call it Revolution Square nowadays."

Godfrey's face darkened. "We'll see how long that lasts."

"So, are you ready to consider becoming a constitutional monarch?"

"Well, I'm better disposed to the idea than I was – knowing what happens when one _doesn't_ make changes...!"

He looked at Hector questioningly.

"Tell me, how do you preserve your mystique, your remoteness, when every Tom, Dick and Harry can see what you're up to, and maybe decide you're not worth keeping?"

Hector guffawed and slapped his thigh. "You don't. Can't you see! It was your remoteness, my dear Godfrey, especially from the poorest of your subjects, that led to your present predicament. You and Letitia sheltered yourselves from what was going on by attending to court rituals, while the people were crying out for leadership – and in some cases food! That's what gave the reds the chance to knock you off your perch!"

"But how am I supposed to relate to the people?" Godfrey exclaimed, perplexed.

Hector threw back his head and laughed. "You're priceless, Godfrey, you really are! You relate to the people by going out and mingling with them. Dropping your aloofness and conversing with the man and woman in the street."

"In the street?" Godfrey said, and clutched his brandy glass.

"Of course – and invite a few of them for tea and scones at the palace once in a while. And make sure the media cameras are rolling when you do."

Godfrey looked unsettled. "But what about Letitia? She's even more aloof than I am. She doesn't like involving herself in court life – except to sound out the gossip – never mind chatting to ordinary people in the street!"

Hector struggled to contain his mirth. "You're right! God, she'll be a tough nut to crack. Isn't there any way she can be quietly sidelined?"

Godfrey tossed back the last of his brandy. "There is – and me too, if she has her way. She wants us to retire and live in the Caribbean. Of course, I have to get my throne back first. Then I'll be able to hand the reins to Catheter – let him deal with all the constitutional business."

Hector gave him a quizzical, sideways look.

"Won't you have to deal with his upcoming divorce first?" he said.

Godfrey's face became ashen. "Divorce? But I got a promise from Dawna that she wouldn't... they wouldn't...Oh my God, that alters everything!"

"I'm afraid my daughter won't settle for anything less now, old chap," Hector said. "Catheter's taken the bit between his teeth – he's made his mistress preggers!"

Chapter 47

### Godfrey for President

Letitia awoke to her second day at Porcellan palace with a childlike sense of wonder. A maid had come and gone, while she was asleep, and had left a thermally insulated cup of hot lemon tea and a sealed and folded message on her nightstand. She was feeling a strange tingle of expectation, for no reason that she could think of. There was something swimming through the air, but she couldn't quite catch it. Like a great silvery fish, it wriggled between the reeds of her thoughts.

Propping her head on the pillow, she looked at her image reflected in a gilt mirror. Her hair was in disarray, since she no longer used a hairnet, and she smoothed it absent-mindedly while making a mental note to ask Ada for the name of a good hairdresser. Then she swept her gaze over the room. Compared to the awful cell-like room at the mental home or the tasteless vulgarity of the room at Duodenum, it was a joy. The bed had fresh linen, there were flowers and bowls of fruit on the dresser, and fluffy white towels in the bathroom. French doors led out to a veranda and through its ornamental railings she glimpsed lawns and a pleasing grove of trees, almost bare, that threw their shade over the frosty grass. She watched the crisscross patterns rearrange themselves in the whim of the breeze.

She reached over and picked up the message. It was a copy of an email that had been sent to Godfrey from Lawrence Lepager, the newly-appointed Archbishop of Melloria and leader of the Church Party. He congratulated the king and queen on their safe arrival and hoped their stay would be pleasant and restorative, mentioning that he was flying to Bulimia on Thursday and was looking forward to meeting them both. Thursday, she thought. The first Thursday of the month. Godfrey had better get his admiral's uniform drycleaned! Then she remembered – she'd left it at Duodenum when she packed their luggage. Thank God! Realizing she had nothing to wear except her green plaid dress and the tweed skirt and beige sweater, she made a mental note to ask Ada for the name of a good dressmaker.

She cast the message aside and drifted into a pleasant slumber, The prospect of a meeting with the new archbishop faded from her thoughts, to be replaced by an appraisal of her new environment. Porcellan Palace was a phenomenon whose opulence lurked everywhere. She couldn't rememeber whether it had forty-three bedrooms or forty-four, but its ceiling paintings, ornate rooms, octagonal library, sunken marble bathtubs, sauna, tennis courts and swimming pool put her own former residence in the shade. From the domed conservatory to the vaulted chapel, every room was magnificent. The staircases, carved by Italian craftsmen, were superb. She thought of the circular atrium in the dining hall that produced powerful acoustic effects – you heard every word that people around you were whispering! Turning her thoughts away from plunging balustrades and soaring ceilings, she dozed off.

When she opened her eyes a half hour later, she had her second surprise of the day. The phone rang on her nightstand. She lifted the receiver drowsily and heard a rasping tone in Godfrey's voice that gave her goosebumps.

"It's about my health," he said. "Last night I had a nasty attack of what I thought was acid indigestion. Anyway, the doctor came and gave me a blood test. It appears my PSA reading –whatever that is – is seventeen. A PSA reading of zero is normal, so I'm seeing the urologist tomorrow. I'll probably need an operation."

"Oh my God, is it cancer?"

"Well, it's some sort of growth." Godfrey replied. "The doctor said nature hid the prostate gland, so it's hard to fathom what goes on down there without an op," he went on. "Anyway, the surgeon's a specialist in laser probes and that sort of thing – so I'll be in good hands."

"Thank God."

Letitia put the phone down, transfixed. A million worries went through her mind. If Godfrey had prostate cancer, it might mean... Of God, don't let it mean anything! She tried to place her faith in surgeons and laser probes.

She spent the morning choosing skirts, blouses, sweaters and dresses in several shades of beige, oatmeal and green (in the end she couldn't make up her mind about an evening gown and chose one in mauve), then decided to spend some time out of doors. She had an hour before lunch so went for a stroll in the palace gardens. She wandered about for a while, taking in views of sloping lawns with gravel paths leading to gazebos, bowers, grottos and other horticultural delights, before her legs grew tired and she found a bench to sit on. With her back to the lake, she began to daydream.

Her lovely fantasy about retiring to Mustique or Barbados and living her customary lifestyle – minus the bad weather and burdens of state – had been blown to smithereens by the ravaging People's Party. She shuddered at the thought of how much damage had been done to her country. Even worse was the thought of the state her beloved Calliper must be in, vandalized and stripped of all its finery. She knew it had been renamed the People's Palace, which meant anyone could have what they wanted from it. She imagined that the grounds were looking dreadful, the lawns covered with dry grass and weeds, goats browsing under the withered cypresses and her garden completely neglected, the few flowers and shrubs exhausted from lack of water.

The thought of water carried her mind back to her retirement plans. If Mustique or Barbados was out, there was always Tobago. She recalled reading in real estate brochures that villas were to be had there for people with limited means. With an effort, she imagined herself and Godfrey living in a villa with just two live-in servants, a maid and a cook. Failing that, an apartment might suffice, so long as it wasn't old and cramped and had a decent garden. Feeling old and cramped herself, she stretched her arms and yawned – and suddenly realized there was someone sitting beside her.

King Hector, looking hale and hearty, in a cashmere sweater, open-neck shirt and chinos, was looking at her and giving her one of his beaming smiles. There's something creepy about that man, she thought. Why didn't I hear him coming?

"What-ho, Lettie! Enjoying the last of the warm sunny days?"

His voice was rich and creamy, and he held her gaze a fraction longer than she deemed appropriate. His use of her intimate name rankled her slightly, and she sat up stiffly.

"I'm worried about Godfrey," she said. "It appears he has prostate cancer and needs to be operated on."

His red face burst into a laugh. "Absolutely nothing to worry about!" he boomed. "Our surgeons are the best in the world. Matter of fact, I had the op myself a few years back – an enlarged prostate gland's more common than you think. The chap who did mine is a specialist in keyhole surgery. Tell Godfrey there's no scar, the op takes an hour and you stay conscious throughout. I was able to watch mine on a TV monitor. It was so boring I fell asleep. He'll be riding to hounds within nine weeks."

Riding to hounds! She laughed to herself. We'll be lucky if we're riding the bus when we get back to Melloria.

"Are there any long-term side effects?" she asked.

Hector laughed again. "None at all – apart from sterility!"

She had felt a sense of unease while he rattled off the features of a prostatectomy. It derived from vague hints from Ada that all was not well in the House of Lattis. She couldn't be specific about what put her off him, but she felt she needed to be by herself and free from his probing eyes.

"Fortunately sterility won't be a problem for us," she said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I want to go for a walk."

"Splendid!" he said. "Let's walk over to the orangery and I'll show you my art collection."

She got up abruptly. She had no wish to see his orangery, his art collection or anything else of his. He stood up also, and began telling her about his art treasures.

"I don't go much for paintings, apart from erotic art." He gave her a meaningful glance, which she ignored. "But I have some fine Rodins. Why don't you let me show you – "

"No thank you," she said firmly. She tried to check her rising sense of unease. "I have to rush. I've an appointment with the hairdresser."

After lunch she and Ada went up to Ada's study where they sat and chatted over a glass of sherry. Ada was planning to drive to her afternoon bridge party, and spent most of the time complaining to Letitia about Anton's and Hernia's reluctance to make preparations for their wedding. Letitia shuddered when she thought of Hernia as a future daughter-in-law. The girl wore horrible clothes and either had her head shaved like a concentration camp inmate or let it grow wild like a witch. They can take as long as they like, she thought. It'll be a marriage made in hell.

"I met some really interesting young people this morning," Ada suddenly remarked. "I believe they're still in the palace somewhere or wandering around the park."

You let commoners go wandering around your palace and grounds! Letitia thought, alarmed. No wonder things are not entirely well in your family.

"What are they like?" she asked distractedly

They're young backpackers from England, about eighteen years old. Two boys and a girl. They said they've been inside the Magic Mountains."

Letitia pricked up her ears. "What are their names?"

"One of them's called Harry. He seems to be the leader. The other boy's name is Ron and the girl's called Hermione," Ada said.

A small bell of remembrance began ringing in Letitia's head. "Are you sure the first boy's name isn't Barry?" she asked.

"No, definitely Harry. Would you like to meet them?" Ada added. "I'm pretty sure we can get a servant to track them down."

"Yes, please do that, Ada," Letitia said eagerly, remembering Godfrey's enthusiasm for Barry Trotter and his tricks, "Godfrey and I will see them in the drawing room."

Letitia quietly let herself into the drawing room, having been alerted by a servant that King Godfrey was there. She found him at one of the mullioned windows, leaning on the sill. He was staring, cheeks on fists, out at the palace courtyard. She coughed and he turned around.

"Am I interrupting your thoughts?" she said softly.

He looked downcast. "I'm mentally preparing myself for tomorrow..."

She moved close to him to stroke his face. "It's going to be all right, Godders. You'll be in good hands – you said so yourself this morning!"

"I suppose you're right," he said reflectively. "It's better than letting this thing go on."

"I've got something to take your mind off all that," she said brightly. "You remember that strange young man who came to Calliper to buy one of our books – "

"Yes, Harry Potter, I've been thinking about him," Godfrey said, turning to her. "Why, is he at the front door?"

Letitia laughed. "Actually, he's on his way here – with two of his friends." Her brow wrinkled. "It seems they 're guests of the Lattises."

As she spoke, a servant opened the door and ushered in two young men and a young woman, all wearing North Face jackets, sweatshirts and jeans, and carrying rucksacks.

One of the young men, who wore owlish glasses, gave Letitia and Godfrey a warm nod. "I hadn't expected to see you, King Godfrey, Queen Letitia – but I'm glad you're here."

"We're glad _you're_ here, Harry," Godfrey said, smiling. "And greetings to your friends too." Harry's two companions were quickly introduced as Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, and the five people sat on a sofa and armchairs around the regency table.

"Did anyone tell you how much you look like the actress Emma Watson?" Letitia asked the girl, who was slim and had sparkling blue eyes and long sandy-blonde hair.

"Frequently," Hermione said, suppressing a giggle.

To the flame-haired boy, Letitia remarked "It must be tough for you, being ginger."

Ron's face went almost as red as his hair. Harry looked at Hermione and smirked good-naturedly.

"Now, Harry," Godfrey said, "I see you have your rucksack with you. Do you think you could show my wife your mirror trick?"

Harry looked unsure. "Are you requesting another prophecy?" he asked.

"Mr Trotter, will the king and I ever be able to retire?" Letitia blurted out.

Now it was Ron's turn to smirk. "I didn't know you were doubling as Del Boy, Harry!" he said. Harry rolled his eyes. "My name's Potter," he said resignedly.

"My Dear, we have to wait until the mirror's in place and the spell is cast," Godfrey chided his wife. "Then you can start asking questions."

"Oh yes, the mirror!" Harry said, and shifted in his chair. He pulled up his rucksack and reached right inside it until his arm was almost lost up to the armpit. Ron and Hermione watched, half-curious, as he slowly pulled out the large gilt-framed mirror.

"The enchanted mirror!" Hermione gasped.

Harry got up and rested the mirror on a bureau against the wall facing them, and they all watched as he took his wand from the rucksack and aimed it at the mirror: _"Startupio!"_

At once the billowing clouds appeared then disappeared, to be replaced by the smiling face of Professor Albus Dumbledore.

"Well, Harry, Ron, Hermione – and of course Your Majesties, it's wonderful to be with you again!" To Godfrey and Letitia the long-bearded face said: "You both have come a long way since our last meeting. What would you like to ask?"

Letitia, who was seeing the professor's long silver beard and piercing blue eyes for the first time, was speechless, so Godfrey repeated her question.

"Will we ever be able to retire?"

"Yes, anytime you like," Dumbledore said. "Right away, if you want to."

Godfrey looked startled, and Letitia giggled involuntarily. Then she regained her composure.

"But that's impossible! For one thing, we can't afford to – all our possessions are gone."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "Well, if you need money, you can always get an agent and sell your story to _People_ _Magazine_ , _Hello_ and any of the tabloid newspapers. Then you could appear on _Entertainment_ _Tonight_ , _Oprah_ ... You and your husband could become darlings of the celebrity media."

"Yes, er, well, that's ridiculous, of course. What I meant was, it's impossible for my husband and I to retire until we get our crowns back –"

" – in order to sell them?"

She could kick him if he wasn't disembodied. Yet the sound of his deep voice made her feel happy. "No, you exasperating man! I mean, um, get our thrones back – then we can abdicate and retire."

"I see." His mockery was very gentle.

"No, you don't see. The main obstacle to our retirement is securing the succession for our son and his son. Those vandals have stolen our heritage, and Godfrey won't rest until he's won..." She shook her head to clear her thoughts. Godfrey touched her arm lightly.

"Let _me_ try, My Dear," he said. "Professor Dumbledore, when we last spoke, you said the people were about to wind up the trust and distribute its assets among themselves – well, they've done that and they're no better off than before. The country's in a mess. Do you think the time is right for my wife and I to return...?"

"And pick up the threads again? Only if you agree to let the people have a say in the way the trust is held. Otherwise, that feeling of powerlessness that brought about the revolution will build up again."

Letitia listened, open-mouthed. The way the professor was looking at her, soft yet serious, as he talked, was having a mesmerizing effect on her.

"Let the people have sovereignty," Dumbledore said, "just as you have sovereignty."

Under her stupefaction, however, was an anxiety she was almost afraid to put into words.

"Will the people accept us?" she asked suddenly.

"I don't see why not – they're getting fed up with Paul Slamil and the People's Party."

Ron, Harry and Hermione, who'd been listening attentively, tittered and looked at Letitia.

"That's not what I meant!" She felt hurt at the frivolous way he was treating her and wanted him to apologize.

He did so with a nod. "The people are crying out for inspiration, for leadership of an inspiring kind. If you are willing to respect their desire for sovereignty, the people will not only accept you, they will welcome you."

The face of Professor Dumbledore smiled serenely at them all.

"And now it's nearly time for me to go," he said melodiously. "Those of us who've gone on, appreciate you and wrap our love around you. Harry, Ron and Hermione, godspeed on your journey of discovery. We will meet again before long." And with that, the beaming face was gone.

After Harry had taken the gilt-framed mirror and put it back in his rucksack, they all sat talking, while a servant came in and brought tea and hot buttered crumpets. The three young people looked happy that Professor Dumbledore had seen them again and was watching over them. Harry tried to explain to Letitia and Godfrey the significance of the Magic Mountains, to the others' amusement.

"Going into the Magic Mountains helps you reach the next level," he said. "What you Muggles call the fourth dimension."

"Blimey!" Ron said. "Shut up, Ron!" Hermione laughed.

"I still don't quite grasp it, Harry," Godfrey replied, "but we're glad to hear what Professor Dumbledore had to say, even though he was hard to understand at times."

Harry smiled. "He was just trying to open your minds a little."

Letitia, who was not sure how far she wanted her mind opened, shuffled her feet and rattled her teacup to draw Godfrey's attention.

"Shouldn't you be going upstairs to pack, Dear, for your appointment?"

"Right." Godfrey grimaced, then turned to bid the three young travelers farewell. "So nice to see you again, Harry, and to meet you, Ron and Hermione," he smiled. "And thanks for the prophecy!"

The three rose and bid adieu, then left to catch a train to Istanbul for the next leg of their magical tour, to meet with Whirling Dervishes.

The next day, while Godfrey was in the hospital, Archbishop Lepager flew in from Melloria and in due course, had dinner with the remaining Gorms and the Lattises under huge oil paintings showing King Hector's ancestors on horseback, brandishing swords, and staring out with plump belligerence. Over dinner there was a discussion about the economic and political situation in Melloria.

"The country's in a truly awful state," Archbishop Lepager said. "The people are more impoverished than they ever were, there's been a flight of capital out of the country, raging inflation and we all know the Slobodians are poised to invade. But the danger is that the people will be so apathetic on Voting Day that Slamil will win his election by default."

"Is the Church Party able to do anything to arrest this apathy?" Letitia asked. She had suddenly become interested in politics.

Lepager shrugged. "We've done our best to offer people spiritual solutions to their problems, Your Majesty, but we're up against some formidable and ruthless opponents who'll stop at nothing to maintain their rule. They have enough money in their coffers to dish out short-term bribes to the people. We can't match that – what we need is a new, charismatic leader who can wake the people up!"

Dawna, who had been munching crispy noodles during the dinner, said pithily:

"So unless you can find a leader the people will vote for, you haven't got a hope."

"Not a prayer, Your Highness," he said with a sad look.

"Would you like to be the new leader, Archbishop?" Ada asked.

Archbishop Lepager, or Larry as he asked everybody to call him, although a man of constant action whose whole demeanor left people feeling they were with a human dynamo, had no stomach for the political life. He shook his head. "I'm afraid, ma'am, that as a devout man of the cloth I would be at a distinct disadvantage."

"I suppose, as royalty, we Gorms would be at a distinct disadvantage also," Letitia quipped.

"As a matter of fact, you wouldn't be. None of the Gorms are considered royal according to the People's Party laws. You are ordinary citizens of the People's Republic of Melloria."

"But surely those laws aren't legitimate," Hector opined.

Lepager smiled. "The People's Party say they are, sir, and they're in power. Might is right."

Chapter 48

### Sharon Gets A Proposal

The bus to West City was very crowded. Sharon squeezed into a seat at the front, just behind the driver. The blue-shirted driver enjoyed driving furiously through this part of town with its broad, relatively uncrowded streets – unlike the cramped madness of East City, where there was just enough room for the bus to get through among the donkey-carts, trucks, cycles and pedestrians who thronged the pavement. They shared the road with barbers plying their trade out of doors, fortune-tellers, flimsy tea-stalls, vegetable-stands, ear-cleaners, pickpockets, stray goats, occasional prowl cars of the People's Police and bent-over men carrying huge loads of scrap metal, glass or bailed-up rags on their backs and yelling curses at anyone in their way.

Sharon watched the suburbs speeding past and thought about her situation. Since her run-in with Joe Steel, she had found it impossible to get a full-time job, just occasional cleaning hours here and there. Her father's condition was steadily deteriorating, his nursing-home costs had put her further into debt and the money Arabella had given her had all gone. She'd used the last of it to buy Craig a PlayStation to replace the one Simpkins had given him that he had broken. He no longer played any games except World War II ones like _Soldier of Fortune_ and _Escape From Castle Wolfenstein_ that she had got him from the market. When she caught him and his friend playing a game showing near-naked women called _Outlaw Volleyball_ , that Simpkins had brought to the house, she confiscated it and endured one of Craig's vicious tantrums.

Sometimes she wished she had a man in her life, just to exercise some control over Craig, although she had given up on Simpkins. He had disappeared after taking the king and queen to Bulimia, and she wondered if he was still over there. Probably with another woman. There had been a rumor that he had driven the king and queen to Slobodia, which would make him either treacherous or incredibly stupid. Anyway, rumors were always flying around. There was one that the king and queen were coming back to Melloria as plain Mr and Mrs Gorm! Stories... Thinking of stories, she thought about Arabella and her promise to publish her story in a Bulimian newspaper of magazine. Nothing had come of it yet, except one phone call from Arabella saying she was hustling as hard as she could to get it printed. She said she was being rushed off her feet because of the upcoming election. Election! What good was an election going to do?

It was dark by the time Sharon finished her cleaning stint in West City. She decided to get off the bus at Paul Slamil Avenue and walk back to East City. She went into a video game store that was in an arcade of shops just off the avenue. It was full of bustle, light and noise. She found a warlike game she thought Craig would like in the used section, and counted her change. There was nothing in the house for supper, so she wandered about the open market where vegetables were still available, moving from stall to stall to see what was left.

Tomatoes were plentiful, and at a reasonable price. Their scarlet exuberance made the market look cheerful. The dark contrast of spinach was almost absent, however, while carrots and cauliflowers had vanished. Cabbages held their prominence, though they looked sad and shriveled, and there was an abundance of turnips.

She picked up two or three tomatoes from a stall and asked their price. It was while she was waiting for the stallholder to find some newspaper to wrap them in, that she heard a familiar voice.

"Wotcha, Shaz!"

She turned to see Simpkins. A single glance at him was enough to tell her how far he'd sunk.

"What the hell happened to you?"

"Banged up by the fucking Slobodians. It's a long story. Anyway, that's in the past. I'm a changed man – I've joined the Church Party!"

"Gone religious, have you?"

"Not really. It's just that they gave me a job, chauffeuring their big-wigs about. I'll be driving their new presidential candidate soon. It's all hush-hush at the moment."

"Oh yeah?"

Sharon, who'd been examining some cabbages, turned toward him. She looked at his face, noticing the bluish tinged skin and the red-veined puffiness of the chronic alcoholic.

"You'll never guess who it's gonna be."

"No, I won't."

"It's King Godfrey!"

"You're shitting me!" She dropped the cabbage she'd been squeezing and stared open-mouthed. King Godfrey, the father of her child, as a candidate for the presidency of Melloria!

Simpkins hunched his threadbare shoulders and shuffled his feet. "Look, Shaz, whatever you think about the way I fucked you around, can't we let bygones be bygones? I've turned over a new leaf – this job's gonna be the making of me, you'll see!"

Without committing herself to a reply, she bought a cabbage and a kilo of turnips from the stallholder and winced at the price. After throwing a handful of hundred-moon bills near the stallholder's scales, she hefted her bag of vegetables.

"Here," Simpkins said. "Let me carry that."

She gave him the bag to carry, watching that his shaking hands didn't let go of the strings. They walked in silence.

"I got a place near here," he said. "We could have a coffee."

She nodded miserably. I must be desperate, she thought. She let him lead the way.

The room was full of cheap knick-knacks and shabby, tasteless furniture. It was the classic Simpkins pad – only worse. As soon as he was in the room he struck a match and lit a cigarette, and she saw from the glow how his face had aged since the last time she'd seen him.

"You look really awful, Sim, " she said candidly. "Tell me what happened?"

He went to the cabinet where the liquor was kept and took out a bottle of brandy.

"A fucking Slobodian prison!" he said. "I told 'em I wasn't gonna do no more drug runs and they let me have it." He spoke in a rasping whisper.

She watched him go into the tiny kitchen and put a saucepan on the stove. He was going to make coffee the Bedouin way, and also lace it with brandy. At his prompting she went to the sofa and sat in front of the TV.

Soon he joined her, bringing two mugs of coffee. He also brought the brandy.

"What exactly happened in the prison?" she asked.

He took a pair of nailclippers from his pocket and tossed it on the coffee table.

"You can have that," he said. "I won't need it any more. They tore my toenails and fingernails off with pliers. Wanna take a look?"

He thrust his hands under her eyes and she glimpsed the raw tender skin where the nails had been. She closed her eyes, wishing she could tell him to put his hands away.

She started telling him about Craig, who'd begun taking singing lessons from his home tutor.

He laughed. "No good asking me to sing – I got a voice like a frog!"

They fell silent. The only sound in the room was the ticking of a cheap clock on the mantel. Simpkins looked at it, then turned his gaze toward Sharon.

"Will you have me back, Sharon?" was all he said.

"What if I say no, what you gonna do – follow me all the way home?"

When they got back, Simpkins went straight to the sofa and began rolling a joint.

"Oh God," she said. "I don't believe it!"

Let's get it over with, he thought. Let's have a song and dance.

She looked at him in disgust. "Oh God!" she cried. "How could you?"

For a moment he was tempted to try and explain it all. He carried on building the joint.

"I thought you were gonna be a changed man." She shook her head in denial and sat down heavily. Leaning her forehead on her palm, she began crying.

He looked up and caught a glimpse of his reflection in the glass china cabinet. He looked like hell. He started to speak.

"I don't want to hear any more bullshit!" she said.

Simpkins, who had pictured coming back to a warm welcome after his harrowing experience in Slobodia, watched the picture blown sky-high.

He looked at her and waited for her to stop crying. "Just gimme a chance to explain."

Her face was rigid and lined with tears. "I've done that already - this'll be the millionth time."

He began to speak.

"Stop it now!" she said. "I want you to go straight."

"Sorry," he said. "I can't." He lit the joint and took a deep pull. He was aware of her eyes on him. As he smoked, she began to harangue him, slowly at first, then building up to a crescendo. "You're gonna get busted, sure as eggs are eggs. How can you keep doing this?" she demanded. "You'll lose that new jobs of yours!"

"I'm doing it to keep the bad memories at bay," he said lamely. "What can I say?" he puffed on the joint and played with the ashtray.

"You want me to just put up with it? Well, I won't." She was standing by the front door.

"Listen, I'm really fried," he said. "The last thing I want right now is a fucking argument." He stubbed out the joint and got up to go to the bathroom.

"How long are you staying?" she said flatly.

"Go fuck yourself!" he said. He got up and walked with exaggerated caution across the carpet and went into the bathroom, leaving the door open. When he came out, Sharon had gone.

Sharon woke up and looked around her new abode. It was less spacious and more cluttered than she had imagined. You would've thought a royal correspondent of a big paper like the _Bugle_ would've been earning good money before the revolution, she said to herself. Perhaps she pissed it all away. Anyway, you'd never know it from the look of her place. It had just one tall living room with a spiral staircase and two small bedrooms and looked like an overgrown greenhouse, with plants spilling out of pots to meet vines twisting round the stems of small trees in even larger pots. On every surface where there weren't plants there were things, an unbelievable number of them. Where she had expected to find sofas and salon chairs, silk tassels and chandeliers, there were knickers and bras, tops and denim pants, dresses hanging on door knobs and shoes scattered across the floor. Didn't the woman believe in closets? Sharon asked herself as she picked her way to the bathroom.

She looked at herself in the bathroom mirror and didn't feel any better. An image from the night before came vividly back to her. Simpkins telling her to "go fuck herself" in her own house! She'd walked out on him and after wandering the streets for an hour, called up Arabella on impulse. Together they'd gone back and woken up Craig – Simpkins was lying dead drunk on the couch, reminding her of her father – and now here she was, splashing water on her face in a stranger's bathroom. Not that Arabella was a stranger... In fact they'd become quite cozy, snuggled up on cushions on Arabella's Afghan rug. She closed her eyes to recapture some of the conversation they had, but it was mostly a blur – what with her tiredness and the bottle of wine they finished off. Arabella had assured her that she was trying really hard to find a publication for her story, but it was hard going, since an ex-king's love child was not as interesting to editors as a reigning king's love child. She did hold out the hope, however, that if Godfrey agreed to be the leader of the Church Party, the story would become newsworthy again. Sharon could tell that she was torn between pushing to get the story published and helping the campaign to bring Godfrey back to Melloria as presidential candidate.

She showered and shampooed her hair and came back into the living room. Craig was diddling with Arabella's computer. She looked over his shoulder at what looked like a frenzied chat room, though she didn't know what they were all chatting about.

"What's that all about?" she asked.

"Combat gaming," Craig said, dragging the words out.

Feeling rebuffed, she took note that Arabella's desk was covered with papers and writing materials, and unopened packages sat on the tiny speakers beside the computer. Typical journalist, she thought. She remembered mentioning to Arabella her strange seduction by Stella Mastoid, and how Arabella had laughed out loud. "She may dress like she's a hippy sea nymph," she said, "but Stella's the biggest dyke bike in the People's Party"

Sharon wasn't sure how she now felt about her tussle with Stella. At the time she'd quite liked it. She enjoyed Stella taking the time to pleasure her, rather than just using her the way Simpkins always did. But did that make her a lesbian? She wondered whether to write about it to the _Bugle's_ advice column, _Ask Bella_.

She went upstairs to begin packing – she didn't want to outstay her welcome. It was time to go back to her own home, even if she'd have to kick Simpkins out. A sharp knock at the front door made her almost jump out of her skin. Who the hell could that be? She wondered.

Downstairs, Craig opened the door to Simpkins, who was having a one-sided conversation with him.

"How are you and your mother getting along these days?" he asked.

"Okay."

"Good."

He swallowed hard, trying to appear nonchalant. He'd lost the rapport he used to have with Craig, and felt awkward. He knew Craig was capable of pretending their conversation had never taken place, just as he could pretend Simpkins had never existed in his life.

"Well, remember me to Sharon then," he mumbled, and was about to leave when Sharon came down the stairs and asked "What do you want?" in a sharp voice.

"Craig and me just been having a chat," he said.

Craig remained silent and Simpkins fidgeted unhappily. He looked like he was about to break out into a sweat.

"I got a favor to ask you, Shaz," he went on.

"Haven't you always?"

"Don't be like that," he said desperately.

"Well, what d'you want this time?" she said harshly. "And another thing, how did you know I was here?"

"I got my ways," he said. He lowered his voice, as if worried that Craig might overhear him.

"I'm just thinking that...Oh God, sometimes I just want to top myself!"

He struggled to articulate his feelings, and Craig began to smirk.

"I don't want you to go away thinking I'm just some shitbag who doesn't care about you," he said finally.

"Okay, I won't," she said. She'd reached the bottom step and looked at him. He looked different. He'd shaved and spruced himself up, using her father's old razor and cologne. Craig had recently been shoveling cheesy nachos into his mouth and the smell from Craig's nachos mingled with Simpkins's cologne, which was starting to overpower her.

He put a hand on Craig's shoulder and the boy took a step back.

He didn't like being touched by adults in general, and Simpkins in particular.

Simpkins noticed his reflex and let his hand drop.

"I got something to ask you...," he began.

The smell made her want to gag.

"I want to marry you!" he blurted out.

Chapter 49

### A Firm Decision

Godfrey, who had stayed alert during his operation and afterwards collapsed into exhausted sleep, woke up to find a slew of visitors in his bedroom. Letitia, Anton, Dawna, Hernia, Hector and Ada were gathered around his bed. Only Catheter – who'd gone to play polo – was missing.

"To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?" he said groggily.

Letitia's eyebrows began to quiver. After two hours of anxious waiting and worrying, she was almost ready to explode. Unable to rein in her emotions, her words came tumbling out in a rush.

"Last night we had a talk over dinner with the new archbishop – frightfully vulgar man, insisted on being called Larry, but very go-ahead - and he made it clear that the Church Party have absolutely no chance of winning the election against Slamil and his brigands unless they have a new leader –"

"Someone the people can relate to," Dawna said. She glanced at Letitia who nodded, then she turned her lovely eyes back to Godfrey. "The people want you to be their president, Daddy. Mellorians love tradition, and they're dying for a return to the stability they knew before the revolution."

"Only without the poverty!" Anton chipped in.

Godfrey furrowed his forehead in thought. Under the filmy mist that had engulfed him, the germ of an idea was forming in his brain. Hector's contentment with his constitutional monarchy had made him yearn to be back in the seat of power again. The memory of pomp and ceremony came back with a sweet vividness. Maybe, just maybe, if he did get elected president he could bring about a restitution of the monarchy, hand over the reins to Catheter, and then... the tug of responsibility to his country had never left him and it grieved him that its health, like his own, had suffered. Here at last was the opportunity to restore it – and everyone was saying that he was the man for the job.

"One question," he said at last. "How can a monarch, even without his crown, become an elected president?"

Letitia stroked his head and held his hand. His forehead was damp and his hands were clammy.

"It's politics, Dear, politics. The archbishop will explain it when you meet with him tomorrow."

Everyone began speaking at once, and Godfrey decided to speed up the process.

"The doctors say I must stay in bed for a few days, but to hell with that. I'm as fit as a fiddle," he said briskly. "In any case, I have my meds – I've got three sets of tablets to take three times a day – so I'm discharging myself tomorrow. Now as for my running for president in this damn election, I promise you I'll give it my consideration. I need to sleep on it, so if you'll all excuse me..."

He closed his eyes and they all tiptoed out of the room, Letitia leaving behind some grapes and a packet of ginger snaps. Before closing the door, she took one last look. Beneath the urine bag attached to the bedrail he looked weak and tired, but that was to be expected. Despite all he had been through, he was as strong as an ox. Just as well, she thought. He's going to need all his strength in the days to come.

The next day, after discharging himself from the hospital, Godfrey met with Archbishop Lepager and King Hector in the latter's study. Letitia, Dawna, Anton and Hernia sat in the drawing room, eagerly awaiting the outcome of the meeting.

Seated around a circular table surrounded by oil portraits of more of his ancestors, Hector began the meeting by sharing his ironic view of a constitution. "A necessary evil, in my humble view," he said, pouring himself a large brandy from the decanter. "Its purpose is to promise the people unlimited freedom in ambiguous language at great length. There should be over five thousand pages of legalese in fine print, with coherence minimized by having a roomful of lawyers write it. That way it will appear in half a dozen styles, all of them obscure, and with repetitions galore. It will have plenty of secondary references to sub-clauses in appendices – that sort of thing.

Lepager smiled thinly. "But no one will ever be able to read it," he said.

"Exactly!" Hector took a long swig from the decanter.

Godfrey looked at the decanter longingly; he had been advised by the doctor to lay off alcohol for a few days. "All right, I'm willing to go along with it," he said.

Hector regarded him with a benign air. "There's a lot more to it than that, old chap," he said. "You'll have to change the way you present yourself."

Godfrey's face clouded. "What do you mean?"

"You must replace those courtiers who can't or won't change, and appoint people who are not fans of tradition for tradition's sake."

"But tradition is the foundation of our country!" Godfrey protested. "It would be suicide to give up one's heritage."

Hector finished off his glass. "I said it was about presentation," he said. "It's not so much giving up as repackaging your way of life. The old upper class lifestyle – hunting, shooting and fishing – will have to be carried on more discretely, and you must also broaden your interests: start patronizing a few charities, let people know you care."

Godfrey's face tightened. The old upper class lifestyle Hector referred to was, in his opinion what made being a king worthwhile.

"You need to get out and press the flesh a bit more," Hector puffed on, getting into his stride. "Take it from me, the more people meet you, the more they'll be loyal to you. Meeting a king in the flesh gives people a strange tingling excitement. They're seeing a face they've glimpsed many times, when handling money or sticking on stamps."

Godfrey's mind was reeling at the prospect of becoming a constitutional monarch. He watched Hector pour his second glass as Lepager outlined the procedure for his presidential campaign.

"You and your family must return to Melloria tomorrow," he said. "We only have five more weeks before Election Day and the government has allowed us hardly any campaign funds. Most of our money comes from rattling the collection box, so our campaign will have to be lean and mean. Remember also, that once you step onto Mellorian soil you become an ordinary citizen – without titles – and that goes for your wife too!"

"Must I bring all the family?" Godfrey asked. He could not envisage baby Angus and his nurse traipsing around the campaign hustings.

"Your wife should come, as Mrs Letitia Gorm she would make an excellent First Lady, just as you will make an excellent President Godfrey Gorm. And your sons and daughter-in-law... You know, I think Dawna is going to be our ace-in-the-hole!"

He sat back and beamed, while Godfrey boggled at the task of putting Catheter and Dawna together on an election platform. They were barely on speaking terms and both wanted a divorce. It felt like the recipe for a disaster.

Up in his room, calling Lucinda's number on his cell, Catheter was seized by a frenzy of sexual desire. He wanted Lucinda to come to Bulimia and spend every night with him. He lay on his bed and stared at the November rain, filled with a happiness as mysterious as the view through the dribbling window panes. If she could just come and be with him, here where he felt safe, his happiness would be complete. She could set up a new horse-training school and let her staff manage the old one, which was probably struggling in crappy old Melloria.

The call was answered. Lucinda's voice, reaching into his ear like jets of warm water, was telling him "He seems to have lots of energy."

"Oh..." he mumbled, half drunk on the sweet sound.

"Do you think he's like Angus?" she asked.

"He?"

"I know he's a boy," Lucinda said confidently.

"In what way like Angus?" he asked, suddenly remembering that Angus was already exhibiting the signs of Attention Deficit Disorder – the curse of the Gorms.

"Handsome of course."

"Maybe," he said, his mind still dwelling on the ADD which male members of his family were prone to.

"Or an intellectual like his father?"

"Ha! I hope not," he replied, drawn back to the present. "He could do worse, I suppose..."

"Maybe he'll be like Anton?"

"Good God!" he said. "If he turns out like my brother, I'll disown him!"

"Anyway, he might take after the women in our families," Lucinda went on. "He might turn out to be like your mother or mine – "

Catheter groaned and begged her to stop. The latest flight of Lucinda's fancy was too taxing.

He started blowing kisses. "Let's go to sleep," he mumbled.

"All right, Poopsy, goodnight." And she was gone.

He switched off his lamp and lay in the dark, his eyes open. I never expected to be as happy as this, he told himself. But how long will it last? I'm the one who'll be expected to take over when Dad conks out. Saddled with the cares of his future role, he dropped off.

He was awakened in the early hours by the sound of his wife retching. He got out of bed, put on his dressing gown and went to the bathroom door. He listened until the sound of puking was replaced by that of a toilet flushing. All at once he felt a strange rage bubbling up, making him flush like a strawberry, and when Dawna emerged he confronted her, his arms folded and his manner hot and quarrelsome.

"So this is how you keep so slim!" he spluttered. "The times you've made me look a fool at the dinner table, begging you not to eat so much – and all the time you had this sneaky letout!"

Dawna flinched under his withering onslaught, but felt her own irritation mounting. "And you never suspected? My oh my, the heir to the throne of Melloria doesn't know his wife brings up her dinner every night! Wait till that gets in the papers."

"You're sick, you know that? You need hospital treatment!"

"You're just a pathetic creep!"

"You're a painted trollop flaunting yourself at every passing gigolo!"

Outside, two servants in the corridor listened to the voices climbing higher in fury.

"What about your mistress? She should start going to church now she's got a baby on the way!"

"You're overwrought. Mummy was right about that."

"Oh, mummy's always right!"

"You don't seem to know what you want, that' what's so annoying."

"Do you know what you want?"

"Yes, I do. I want a woman who loves me."

"This marriage is such a joke – I'm not a moron, you know. You go on calling her every night, yet you don't make any effort to get a divorce."

"Why don't you just go off to Hollywood?"

"I don't see why I should be the one to go – she's the intruder."

"Your mood swings are driving me crazy!" was what the servants heard just before the clunk of something heavy hitting something solid made them spring back from the door.

The door burst open and Catheter stalked out, a livid bruise around his left eye and cheek.

Dawna followed a few seconds later, in a white silk wrap, her lips quivering. She glanced at Catheter's injured face, then she fled down the corridor.

"Your eye looks black, Your Highness – you should slap a steak on it!" one of the servants said.

Catheter felt his jaw.

"I think I should see Mummy," he gasped, and took off down the corridor toward his mother's room.

The servants followed at a discrete distance and were able to catch snatches of the conversation between Catheter and his mother behind the door.

"She's so inaccessible."

"She certainly frustrates one beyond endurance."

"Her tofu-eating, smoothie-drinking, I-Ching throwing drives me up the wall!"

Chapter 50

### Return To Melloria

His spat with Dawna was the last straw for Catheter, who decided that if his wife was going to accompany his parents and younger brother to Melloria to fight the election, then he was going to stay in Bulimia with his son. Consequently, the plane extruding its complement of people at Karl Marx Airport contained only four members of the Gorm family. Wearing only plain apparel as befitting the common citizens that they now were, Godfrey emerged in a chalk pinstripe suit, Letitia in a long tweed coat and a brown bandanna, Anton, looking vaguely military in a mottled camouflage jacket and jeans, and Dawna in a tailored worsted suit and flat shoes.

The four returning ex-royals slowly left the terminal, lugging heavy suitcases and found themselves on an unfamiliar street. The once sleepy boulevard was bustling with people in shabby clothes trying to sell things. Carts pulled by donkeys rattled past, their contents mostly onions or turnips, and itinerant peddlers lined the sidewalk, their paltry wares spread out on dirty blankets.

My God, Letitia thought, this part of West City used to be so refined.

They walked along the curb, staring in wonder at kitchenware carved from wood and bundles of donkeyhair stuffing for mattresses. A man making metal bowls squatted on the pavement and pounded away, his pinging hammer searing their ears. An old peasant woman with a weathered face sat beside a dozen moldy apples crying piteously to anyone who gave her the briefest of glances.

"Welcome to the People's Republic of Melloria!" Archbishop Lepager said, catching up with them and flagging down a cab. He had been sorting out their visas and slipping bribes to uniformed officials. "To the cathedral!" he said, after they'd all piled in. The driver looked bemused.

"The big stone building in Revolution Square," Lepager prompted. "The one with towers and a cross on top." Godfrey looked at Letitia in dismay.

"My God, so this is what the country has come to!"

When they got out in front of the cathedral, they all gaped at its dilapidation. The medieval pile with its flying buttresses, its richly-decorated windows, and soaring façade, now looked scarred and pockmarked like an old prizefighter. They climbed the steps to the triple-arched doorway and saw a small metal plaque beside the entrance. It said RELIGION IS THE OPIUM OF THE MASSES.

The archbishop turned and gave the others a painful smile. "More of the People's Party handiwork," he said.

He pushed the handle on the heavy oak door and they stepped through into a dark, gritty-floored nave that was almost unrecognizable. It had been stripped bare and was very dusty. Staring up at the high-vaulted ceiling, Letitia saw sparrows twittering about. Many of the stained-glass windows were broken and pigeons cooed from the ledges. The bleak emptiness of the nave and transept startled her: no pews, altar panels or curtains remained. The only stick of furniture that had not been removed, she noted with irony, was the damned eagle lectern! She cursed it afresh, as well as the stupid People's Party workers who had left it behind. Its dusty eyes still glared insolently at her, tracking her and the others as they walked toward the transept.

"Is your campaign HQ in here, archbishop?"

Godfrey's voice bounced unpleasantly around the nave.

"Call me Larry, please – actually it's upstairs."

The archbishop took them up a narrow stone stairway at the side of the transept to a small office, its desk cluttered with papers, a phone and a fax machine. A laptop and printer stood on a side table.

""Why don't you ladies sit down," Lepager said. He indicated two chairs.

Letitia and Dawna sat while the men stood, and they all watched Lepager leaf through his pile of faxes and computer printouts.

"I'm just checking to see how we're doing in the opinion polls," he said. "Then I'll call up the campaignmobile."

The campaignmobile?" they all said.

"It's the vehicle you'll all be riding in during your election cavalcades," Lepager replied to their bafflement.

"I thought we were only doing one election rally per night," Letitia said. "What's all this cavalcade business?"

"A cavalcade is a necessary warm-up for a rally," Lepager said, still immersed in his pile of faxes. He looked up. "It whets the appetites of the voters to see the candidate and his family parading along their streets, handing out goodies and election leaflets."

An hour later, just as the day was slipping into the haziness of dusk with the November afternoon closing in, the presidential candidate and his family stood on the curb outside the cathedral staring at their vehicle. The campaignmobile was a yellow-and-black striped stretch convertible, with the emblem of the Church Party on its side panels and a banner proclaiming GODFREY GORM FOR PRESIDENT across its hood. An overpowering PA system played syrupy Mellorian folk music and Simpkins, the driver, stood proudly beside it.

Archbishop Lepager had come out to see them off, and was brandishing a map in Godfrey's face.

"This is the route of your cavalcade," he said, "though strictly speaking it's only a mini-cavalcade because we can only afford one vehicle. The campaignmobile is equipped with an elevated platform, where the rear seat has been taken out, and two or three people can stand up and wave to the crowd. Bombproof glass, that will also deflect bullets, has been fitted to each side of the back, so you won't be exposed to danger – "

"Are we really in that much danger?" Letitia said, alarmed.

"Only if we take a wrong turn and end up in Slobodia!" Anton joked, winking at Simpkins.

Simpkins ignored the dig. "It'll be an honor to convey Your Maj – er, your good selves," he said.

Looking doubtfully at him and each other, the four campaigners climbed into the campaignmobile and waved to the archbishop as they rolled away. As they passed through streets of residential dwellings, people began peering at them from open doors and windows. Children cheered and ran along beside them while Dawna, getting into the swing of the parade, started leaning out and passing bags of candy tied to sticks with little Church Party flags. Once they had eaten the candy, the children shouted and waved the flags in the hope of getting more.

Thy swung into a major thoroughfare, and a large black police car blocked their way. The campaignmobile stopped, and Letitia smiled fixedly at the unsmiling officer who stood beside his car.

"I'm sorry, citizen, you'll have to turn back," he said. "You're not allowed to pass."

"Pray tell me why not?" Letitia replied.

Dawna got out of the vehicle and began passing out more candy and flags to the crowd of children.

"You don't have a parade permit," the policeman said.

Dawna paused from her distribution and turned her elegant face toward the officer. "Don't you know me?" she said.

Stiff with embarrassment, the officer wilted in front of his smirking fellow officers in the car. He bowed and clicked his heels.

Indeed I do, Your Highness."

Dawna smiled. "Oh dear, I don't want to get you into trouble," she said, "using a title that's been abolished."

The officer reddened, and several of his colleagues laughed out loud.

"You can call me Dawna," she added, "and I have some treats for you."

She handed him a few bags of candy. "Now will you please allow us to pass?"

The officer wavered. He went back to the car to consult with the others, and Dawna looked inside her tote bag for some signed photographs.

"These are for your families." She gave the photos to the officer and his colleagues. With a shrug, he waved the campaignmobile on. As the car drove away, there were muffled cheers from the surrounding buildings.

At each new street the children rushed forward, shouting and waving. A few adults approached he vehicle, just to touch Dawna, and were given campaign leaflets. Letitia, Godfrey and Dawna stood in the back of the car waving, while the old sentimental folksongs rolled out in earsplitting waves.

Anton sat in the middle of the car, supposedly navigating, their ultimate destination being the rally venue, which was a large church hall in South City. As the crowds grew larger, and the shouts louder, Godfrey decided to address the throng with a bullhorn and his amplified voice rang out:

"Ladies and gentlemen of Melloria," he boomed, "it is a great pleasure to come here and meet you. I sincerely hope I'll see you at tonight's big rally! There will be talks, entertainment, refreshments, a blessing from your archbishop and dozens of door prizes. The first hundred people through the door will receive a signed photo of my daughter-in-law!"

The crowd roared and surged forward, and Godfrey signaled to Simpkins to start moving a little faster. As soon as they were clear of the milling masses they picked up speed and continued at a good clip until they reached the hall where the rally was to be held.

They made an impressive sight as thy swept into the large room which had been set up for the speech. They'd all changed out of their traveling clothes, Godfrey and Anton in dark-suited elegance and Letitia in a surprising diamante dress. Dawna wore a blue dress of watered silk and was looking, Letitia thought, inexcusably enchanting. Cameras whirred and flashed, and the crowd of newshounds chattered and squirmed. International newspaper and TV reporters packed the first three rows.

Godfrey proceeded down the aisle through the cheering crowds, waving vigorously, smiling for the cameras and touching Letitia's arm every time they passed a baby in the crowd, to remind her to give one of her dazzling smiles. Climbing onto the platform he and the others joined the archbishop, who waited for the whistles and shouts to die down. There was a splendid fanfare of bugles from a troop of boy scouts behind the podium, and then the archbishop stepped forward.

"I am Archbishop Larry Lepager, as I expect you know," he told the audience. "It is my pleasure to introduce a man who has braved detention, exile and terrible humiliation to come here to rescue his beloved country. Without further ado, let me present to you your future president, Godfrey Gorm!"

Screams, whistles and boos met this introduction, signaling that there were some People's Party members in the audience. Godfrey waved until his arms were tired, and then the boy scouts were instructed to blare out their bugles again.

"My fellow Mellorians, I bring you news of great joy!" Godfrey began. "For the first time ever, you will have the chance to vote for a crowned monarch as your first president. As you know, I never abdicated the crown – it was forcibly taken from me, without legality or proper consultation. The thugs who removed the people's king from his throne and locked him, his wife and two sons in a mental home now hope you'll vote for them in December and let them stay in power forever!"

He paused to allow the crowd to digest his words. There were murmurs of agreement as well as a few shouts of derision.

"Mr Slamil wants you to elect him as your first president. So that he can inflict more months, nay years, of unremitting poverty, toil and misery on you and your families. Excessive government bureaucracy, mass unemployment, high taxes and rampant inflation– that's what you have to look forward to under the People's Party rule! And, as I know from painful personal experience, the Slobodians are just waiting for this dreadful regime to collapse before they attack us! My fellow Mellorians, I beg you to restore the Mellorian crown to its rightful head – my own – on behalf of you, my loyal subjects, once you elect me as your president!"

Letitia looked at the audience, many of whom were exchanging puzzled frowns, and felt a shiver of unease. She leaned toward Godfrey.

"I think your speech has a few too many mixed messages, Dear," she whispered.

Godfrey grunted and turned back to the audience.

"However, my first task is to show Mr Slamil and his gang that the real party of the people is this one, and that is why I am asking you to choose me as your democratically-elected president."

This improved statement produced prolonged applause, and Godfrey took the opportunity to pour out some water from a carafe on the podium, wishing it were brandy. He took a few swallows before continuing.

"I would now like to offer the platform to the person I'm sure you're all dying to see – my sweet daughter-in-law, Dawna Gorm!"

As the crowd erupted into excited cheers, whistles and yells, Godfrey stepped aside to allow Dawna to mount the podium. Nervous and trembling, she adjusted the height of the microphone. The she took a few sips of water and, pushing down her anxiety, spoke in a low, apprehensive voice.

"I've been asked to say a few words to support my wonderful father-in-law, Godfrey Gorm," she said, her words huskily scraping the microphone. "He is a man of high integrity, charm and dedication to his calling. Those who meet and get to know him are impressed by his warmheartedness and know that behind the dignified exterior he is a caring and devoted family man. In short, he will provide an able constitutional monarch, er, president. Sorry."

Her last flustered words were drowned out by enthusiastic cheering that continued until the presidential party had all stepped down from the platform and disappeared backstage.

Chapter 51

### Slamil Seeks Relief

Paul Slamil stood up to take a break in the middle of a cabinet meeting and found himself looking at a squally, gusty November morning. He stared out one of the tall elegant windows of the cabinet room, struck a match and lit a cigarette, the glow from which reflected in the window. He saw how tired and drawn he looked. He was getting sick of arguing about the best way to deal with the 'new' Church Party. What he needed was a good fuck. He thought briefly of going out and buying one, but reined in the impulse. He was in a relationship now, and didn't want to go back to his old ways. He had grown sick of the sleaziness of paying for sex in Melloria: the sneaking out for the furtive deal in some back street dive in East City, knowing the secret service were waiting across the street.

The last time he'd done it he'd walked kilometers, making unnecessary turns, twisting and changing his route, entering and leaving large buildings by different doors, and generally doing his best to confuse whoever was following him. He knew somebody was, even when you were the Party leader.

He'd achieved his goal, after knocking softly and slipping inside an unmarked door. The three youths lounging in an upstairs bar, drinking beer and smoking Saint, barely gave him a glance. He picked one: slim, touslehaired, acne around his chin. Lust had billowed up inside him, along with the usual paranoia. They went into one of the grubby little rooms and on a grimy bed the boy gave him a blowjob. After he'd counted out the money they'd agreed on, the youth had mumbled: "May your goolies never dry up."

"Hey, Paul, what d'you think about us giving the Church Party some heat?" he heard Joe Steel say. He grimaced and went back to his place at the cabinet table. Joe Steel had been urging him and the other ministers to show some muscle and start bouncing Church Party volunteers off the streets. He was pissed off that they had begun handing out leaflets and rattling collection tins, formerly the prerogative of the People's Party.

"When are we gonna get back to our roots and kick some ass?" he growled. It was a question Slamil had asked himself. When they had first come to power the People's Party had presented a united front, and now factions and disagreements dominated every discussion. Money for the government's spending needs and the Party's election campaign had to be fought for, and every meeting he presided over felt like he was restraining dogs from tearing each other apart over an emaciated carcass.

Since the Slobodians had turned off the tap and the Party's financial drought had begun, the call from Joe Steel and his supporters to get back to their roots and kick ass had grown stronger and couldn't be ignored. Bullying and intimidation, street brawls and gerrymandering were what the Party had grown up with and many were hankering to get back to the old ways.

"All right," he said, turning his gaze on Steel and the other ministers grouped around the table, "We'll do whatever we have to do. Starting today. In six days' time we go to the polls, and if we don't do anything to stop the rot, our lead will slip away, that's clear. If we can't rely on the will of the people, we'll have to use our own."

He hoisted himself to his feet and walked to the door. "I'm leaving the rough stuff to you," he called out to Steel. "Meeting closed."

Slamil went back to his office and put his denim work jacket on. It was chilly and damp outside, and he didn't want to take the hard edge off his lust. He went back into the cabinet room, past the table and the chattering, departing ministers, and into the outer office where the secretaries worked. One of them sat staring listlessly at the screen of her monitor. She was divorced, and four kids between ten and seventeen live with her in a cramped government-built apartment.

He smiled at her discretely.

"I'll be gone for a few hours, Norma," he declared. "I have to get a haircut." It seemed awkward to be leaving early without a reason.

"Have a nice trim, Paul."

He looked at her blankly, then the penny dropped. He began to say something but for a moment no reply occurred to him. He shrugged. "I'll try..." he finally stammered.

He walked through an open doorway. "I'll see you later."

"Have a nice one," the secretary said. She and her junior assistant looked after him indulgently as he walked toward the elevator hall.

"Is he going out for a screw? I thought he and Trane were an item," the junior assistant said.

"Cut him some slack – he's got to get some relief from all the madness going on," the secretary replied, gesturing at the clutter of figures on her screen. "He spends every waking hour in meetings and conferences or locked up in his goddam office. Wouldn't you want to go out on the razzle once in a while?"

The assistant savored her thoughts. "What do you think Trane does while Paul's working?" she said teasingly. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Shame on you if that's what's on your mind," the secretary said, smiling. "I'm thinking I'm glad I'm not Paul, that's what I'm thinking."

They both giggled.

Slamil went out through the grand marble entrance of Government house and the damp cold air wrapped around him. He walked across the street with his eyes on the pavement and his hands in his jeans pockets, missing the donkey carts and cyclists by centimeters. There was a keen wind and it stung his face around the metal frames of his glasses.

He got into the government car he shared with Joe Steel and felt he was leaving a madhouse. He couldn't concentrate on election surveys any longer. Unless everything was fixed, which would bring down the wrath of the international media, elections were always a crap shoot. With Godfrey and his circus in town, the present one was getting dangerously unpredictable – so something would have to be fixed. It was the only way they could get a clear run and then start building a socialist Melloria. With or without the fucking Slobodians! He heard himself explaining this to an imaginary audience. His argument was convincing and the audience applauded.

He turned the key in the ignition and immediately Beethoven's _Eroica_ filled the interior. It was a CD of Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. So that's what Joe pumps himself up with in the morning! Too heavy for me. He snapped it off and drove toward East City. As an economy measure, it was government policy that cabinet ministers share one car between two on alternate days, the other days using the cabinet shuttle bus. Slamil didn't mind riding the bus, it gave him the chance to keep in touch with what his colleagues were gossiping about.

Halted at the next stoplight, he felt the first trickle of relief. He was clear of the madhouse, he was free. He His thoughts swung from his lover to the neediness of his cock. His visits to sleazy hangouts, which had become addictive after the long hours of arguing and strategizing, decreased after he moved in with Coltrane. But with the increased pressure of a suddenly two-sided election, having quick sex to ease the biting tension was overwhelmingly tempting.

Much as he enjoyed knowing he could go home happy, nestle beside his lover and allow peace to caress him, he still craved something more exciting. It astounded him how little the nastiness of the crass world of politics impinged on this crude lust. Sleeping with his cheek against Trane's chest was all right at night, but by day he needed to take a walk on the wild side.

His heart was beginning to re-experience the elation it had known six years ago after his last love had ended, a love that had been hard sealed with bitterness, partly due to his repeated infidelity. Hey, he thought, Trane isn't made of fine porcelain: we live in tough times, you just have to make the best of it.

The lights changed and he drove on, past the Food Stamp Office and the Palace of Justice and under the commemorative arch to the Fallen of the People's Revolution – all two of them, blown up by the bomb they'd been trying to detonate. At the far end of Paul Slamil Avenue, he swung into the parking lot of a pub, _The Gay Hussar_. Hope it lives up to the promise of its name, he said to himself.

He turned off the engine and walked in. His heart, for no discernible reason, was leaping up and down in childlike expectation. He had run from the gloom of dwindling poll support and toward the beckoning lights. He looked warmly at the neon sign in the pub window and raindrops started plopping onto his head like excited thoughts.

He paused with his hand on the doorknob. There was a red-headed man serving behind the bar he vaguely remembered hitting on the last time he went cruising. The memory was a pleasant one. He pushed the door open. The place was crowded, even at this time of the morning, swelled by groups of unemployed men, looking to sell what they had or to find some relief from the dullness of inactivity.

Although his face was the most instantly recognizable in the country, nobody turned to look at him. That's one thing I love about Melloria, he thought, nobody gives a stuff how famous you are – they just want to see the color of your money. There was a single stool vacant at the bar and he took it. Marc Almond groaned _Tainted Love_ on the jukebox, and his heart jumped faster.

The bartender did a doubletake, then greeted him like a returning lover. "Hey, sweetheart, how's it hanging?"

"Hey," Slamil said.

A couple of men at the bar eyed his faded denim jacket and yellow boots. Only People's Party members wore workmen's clothes, the absence of work saw to that. Confronted with the bartender, he felt impelled to explain his presence.

"Just thought I'd drop by for a quick one," he said.

"Good move," the bartender replied. "Vodka?"

"Double, with a splash of Coke."

When he shoved a bundle of hundred-moon bills toward the bartender, the barman pushed half of them back.

"Happy hour," he explained.

"Ah," Slamil said. He watched the barman's pecs flexing under his black T-shirt as he poured the vodka. "Not a moment too soon!" Slamil said as he drank.

Several hours later, when the lunchtime crowd poured in and the barman was finishing his shift, Slamil leaned across and whispered that he'd like to offer him a ride. Then he left and sat in the car with the engine running and the Beethoven CD on full volume. The redhead swung in beside him and they drove off.

Chapter 52

### The Campaigners Return

The twinkling lights of downtown Melloria City stretched out of sight to right and left. The campaignmobile was rolling away from them, its passengers looking forward to getting some rest. They had been on the road for ten grueling hours, and Godfrey wished they could select a bottle of champagne from the cooler instead of a bottle of tap water. There were five more days of campaigning before Election Day and everyone was thoroughly exhausted. Larry Lepager was urging them to make one more big push to secure the key battleground wards of Crapula and Polyp, and he, Letitia and Anton were setting out early to canvas the outlying wards.

The vehicle slowed and stopped before the modest gray cottage where Lepager had billeted the Gorms, and they all climbed out and stumbled into the living room. Godfrey decided he'd go off to bed. Dawna had been given a free morning to call her parents and Betty respectively, and she and Anton stayed up late, talking in the living room. Letitia had already gone straight to bed.

Next morning Dawna spent a few minutes cooing to Angus and getting a report on his latest doings from Betty, while the others prepared to leave. After her phone call, Dawna decided to see a lawyer and speed up the divorce. Confiding in Godfrey about what she intended to do, she called for a cab to the attorney, who quickly drafted a letter which he faxed to Catheter's attorney. She drove back to the cottage for lunch and sat through a meal that was tense and spartan. Food shortages in the country meant they ate a casserole of cabbage and turnip, with cacah for dessert. Godfrey and his party had had a rough morning. The roads leading out of town were cratered with holes, and Godfrey had felt he was in danger of castration with each jolt of the campaignmobile's wheels. They had also been stopped by a police roadblock outside the village of Crapula and, without Dawna to charm the police, they had been turned back.

Godfrey's indignation against the People's Party simmered below the surface as they ate. He conversed in a low, muttering tone, with the others, most of whom maintained a sullen silence. Letitia found both the food and conversation unsatisfactory, though she was mollified by the young man who cooked for them and served them. He had a square-set jaw and hair combed aggressively back, and he bent at the waist when introduced to the Gorms, in the old Mellorian manner.

Halfway through the meal, the young cook/waiter brought a faxed message for Dawna. She read it, white-knuckled with rage, and stuffed it beside her plate. Sensing it was time to leave, Godfrey wound up the meal by coughing uncomfortably. Dawna stared at him, a desperate incomprehension in her glance. She felt like she was slowly coming out of a trance.

"Catheter wants custody of Angus!" she blurted out. "He says I'm not a fit mother."

Godfrey's face took on a dark hue, and he coughed harder. Letitia whispered to him: "Looks like Cathy's come out of his shell!"

When lunchtime came to an end, Dawna headed straight for her bedroom. She flung herself on the bed and lay staring up, her arms folded. Anton knocked on the half-open door and poked his head round.

"Anything I can do?" he said.

"Yes, tell your brother he's a cunt!" she yelled.

Turning his iPod up, he left and closed the door. Yes, I should, he thought moodily.

Following her shock at the lunch table, Dawna refused to contact Catheter or answer the message he sent her. She spent most of the afternoon phoning her therapist, Dr Phil McPain, whose method of treatment was to have his client sit completely still and rack her memory for painful incidents and then free associate. While waiting for him to answer his phone, she kept herself still on a chair, even though she was dying to squirm. She found the body position she had to maintain highly uncomfortable, but knew the process demanded it. It was like having to endure intense heat doing bikram yoga – you did it because you knew it would slow your monkey mind and you would reap spiritual benefits.

Eventually McPain came on the line and began his snarling session. She was still reeling from the last bruising encounter with him, and couldn't understand why he was so nasty to her, even though she had revealed all her lies and self-deceptions. Sometimes she thought his only improvement over her last therapist, Spencer Drool, was that he was less creepy.

"Okay," McPain said. "I want you to open your mind and really let go."

With a small nod of assent, she released the first jostling memories in a very soft voice. "We were fighting all the time when I lived at the palace with him. We don't share the same tastes – actually we don't share anything except the same air. We were supposed to take lunch and dinner together with the rest of the family – breakfast was the only optional meal – but I couldn't bear to be in the same room with him, so I usually stayed upstairs."

"What did you eat?" he asked.

She gave a hollow laugh, and the diamond earrings shook on her ears.

"I went back to my old ways," she said. "The only difference between then and now is now I can eat Milky Ways in the bathroom without fear of being interrupted or spied on. It was strange, looking back, to be standing there eating in the dark. Now I can keep the light on. I looked at myself in the mirror, while I was chewing. I looked gross. Then I stood on the scales and weighed myself. I was back to 51 kg, so maybe I'm not doing so bad."

"How does _he_ eat?" he asked suddenly.

She replied without missing a beat. " – like a starving man at a lunch counter. Works his knife and fork like a pair of pistons. Glares at his plate."

"What are you trying to do to him?" he asked tonelessly.

She paused. "Actually, I'm trying to make him happy. I'm trying to remain the slender girl he married, the daughter of a king and queen – his bride."

She smiled at the thought of him now, squirming with impotent rage and longing for Lucinda.

"What's been happening lately?"

"This past week's been hell," she said. "I can't seem to get a grip on anything. I told him I wanted a quick, clean divorce, and now he wants to cut me out of Angus's life." She pouted listlessly. "But then every week's hell, so what the hell?"

"What does he want?"

"He told me he wanted her. He doesn't have a gram of doubt."

"And you have oodles – of doubt, uncertainty and anxiety."

"Yes."

"So where do you go from here?"

She shrugged her shoulders, making the earrings shake again.

"He has his life and I have mine. We're through. It's over. I don't want to moan about how unfair life is. It'll hurt less with time."

"Okay, now give me some opinions as to why he wasn't able to love you."

McPain's voice was beginning to sound bored.

She swallowed hard. "Perhaps this coldness of his comes from a childhood empty of love... He's not vicious or uncaring or unkind. He's generous...it's just that at times he shuts off completely."

Then, with an effort, she added: "I'm immature, I know that. Silly and insecure."

He yawned, as if he'd heard this a hundred times.

"He's as self-divided as I am – he keeps his emotions under lock and key. Just like his parents..." She pulled back her thoughts with a start. "I don't know if I should be doing this – dissecting his character behind his back."

"Okay, let's talk about something else." He had a cutting edge to his voice, and she shuddered, knowing he was about to insult her.

"You hop on and off the scales like a demented kangaroo," he said sourly. "You're always obsessing about your weight."

She winced. It was true, and she did it because she wanted to bring back the past. Her memory of the days when she was a young and slender student was fond and amusing. She made a mental note to push the scales behind the lavatory when she got back and never stand on them again.

"You enjoy bathing in people's admiration," he was saying. "In public you like to milk the adulation of the crowd. Yet there's your secret ritual – while your stomach growls in the daytime, you look forward to cramming your belly with candy and chucking up in the bathroom at night. Meanwhile, the man you married is cheating on you at every possible chance with the woman he really wanted to marry. It's about time you got your own back by taking a lover, don't you think?"

As he carried on talking, she suddenly felt cut off from him by a hysterical resistance to the anger she felt he was holding against her. It soaked through her like a bad period. She started to say goodbye.

"We're not finished yet," he said.

"Why are you so mean to me?" she retorted, gnawing her lip.

"All right, session over!" he grunted. "Same time next week."

The abrupt way he always dismissed her still left her gasping. She hurtled out of the living room, and in a few minutes was lying on her bed, sobbing her heart out.

Dawna had composed herself and was sitting in the living room when the campaigners returned with Lepager, who'd arrived for a campaign meeting. They sat watching People's Party commercials on a small TV set. The screen was filled with a Party ad in which a grim-looking woman in wire glasses lambasted the former monarchy for its opulence and corruption. "The royal family drank champagne from Lalique crystal and ate caviar while their poorest subjects drank rancid water and caught rats to keep themselves alive!" she declared.

"Well, these days we drink rancid water as well – it's perfectly disgusting!" Godfrey said. Lepager laughed. "And out of paper cups too!"

"Thank God the average Mellorian doesn't know about Lalique crystal, or he'd be really ticked!" Dawna quipped.

Godfrey groaned at the next ad, a Church Party broadcast showing scenes of his coronation, with dark-plumed horses pulling a golden coach, and a commentary from a plummy-voiced matron in a twin set and pearls. "The anger of the Mellorian people is justified," she brayed, "since their traditional way of life has been taken away from them." It couldn't get any worse if it was a People's Party spoof, Godfrey thought. The woman prattled on.

"Their country is in the hands of godless materialists, but – fear not – the good old days will return, days of real jobs for sensible wages, regular church attendance and a healthy respect for their elders on the part of the young, and sooner than you think! Just cast your vote for the Mellorian People's Christian Democratic Party!"

There followed a flourish of trumpets and a quick glimpse of the Mellorian royal family, while the date of the election poll flashed on the screen.

"Saints preserve us if that's the best we can do!" Godfrey said. "That was worse than something that Cathy might have produced – no wonder it got past the government censor."

"That's because it was made by the government," Lepager said, his voice filled with frustration. "They won't allow us to make our own party broadcasts –we were told it would be too expensive and take up vital studio space, which they need for their public information broadcasts!"

"What a lot of tommyrot!" Godfrey said quietly. "Is there anything we can do to have these wretched things stopped?"

"It's better not to complain," Lepager said. "The last time we did so, the government increased the number of their Church Party ads per hour and made them ten times worse. Even our supporters were saying we looked like a bunch of complete tossers!"

Godfrey wondered if this was the right time to ask Dawna to step outside with him for a walk in the garden. That way he could give her a little pep talk. Suddenly the archbishop's cellphone chirped out _Adeste Fideles_ and he pulled it off his belt and answered it. Godfrey smiled at Dawna, as they sat listening to Lepager's excited voice, and let his mind drift. He realized that even if he won the election and was able to use his position to restore the monarchy, he wouldn't be fit enough to keep going for long and would have to retire, which would delight Letitia but would mean that Catheter would become Melloria's first constitutional king - something clearly beyond his ability. So he was really fighting this election on behalf of his son, the miserable, whining, ungrateful bugger!

"There was an incident at one of the campaign offices," Lepager said after switching off his phone. "Two of our pollsters came in with ugly bruises on their faces. It looks like the People's Party has reverted to is old ways."

Godfrey's face radiated consternation. "Should we provide our people with weapons?"

Lepager looked alarmed. "Oh dear Lord, I hope not," he said. "The matter's

been reported to the police, of course, and the foreign news media's been alerted that the government's party are resorting to violence and intimidation tactics. Perhaps you could mention it in your speech tonight."

Godfrey was about to protest that he didn't think he could manage another speech so soon after a day's hard campaigning, when he caught Dawna's glance. Her face was a picture of hope and optimism, mingled with concern.

"I guess we might have known this would happen," she said. "Thank God you're here to lead us to victory, Daddy."

Godfrey gave a tired smile. "I'll do my best, my Dear," he said tightly. "I'll do my best."

"Splendid!" Lepager exclaimed. "Well, we can't sit here all afternoon – it's time we hit the streets and pressed some flesh from our trusty campaigncar!"

For the rest of the afternoon, Godfrey, Letitia, Dawna and Anton hit the campaign trail. The campaignmobile rolled through North City, defying the gusts of squally weather that kept people off the streets and visited lots of small businesses, shaking hands with everyone they met. Shopkeepers, counterstaff, dishwashers and floor moppers, all received warm greetings, a leaflet and a recommendation to vote for Godfrey Gorm. A gallant florist presented Dawna with a large bouquet of roses, and she later flung roses at the people they passed, who scrambled for them where they fell. They arrived at the venue for that's night's rally with rose petals scattered all over the vehicle.

The rally had been organized by the People's Party and mainly consisted of a debate between speakers from both contending parties. Godfrey and his family had been invited as guests, and a large crowd had already gathered outside when the campaigners arrived. The presence of foreign TV crews and reporters was expected to reduce the likelihood of violence or rowdiness from the People's Party, but they all felt apprehensive as they cruised up to the hall through densely-packed crowds. Because of Dawna's incredible crowd appeal, they were all being pushed forward continuously by the pressure of the people behind them, and Godfrey held Dawna's hand to lessen her nervousness. He was steeling himself, both for his speech and the eventual necessity of a talk with Dawna.

The hall was filled to overflowing and Godfrey was reminded of his first speech as presidential candidate, and giant viewing screens and loudspeakers behind the podium beamed and blared People's Party propaganda. Most of the audience were ignoring them and clamoring to get a view of Dawna as she proceeded with the rest of the Gorms through the cheering crowd.

The TV cameras closed in and reporters chattered into their microphones as the Gorms made their way down the aisle to the speaker's podium. Paul Slamil was already on the stage, his craggy features lined and sweating, and midway into a long harangue he glared at the Gorms as they trooped to the back of the podium.

"Vote for me and end this miserable charade once and for all!" he ranted. "Vote for me and end the memory of a corrupt and self-serving monarchy forever! Vote for me and help me create a society that cares for its members, where all except bloodsuckers and parasites are welcome. I promise you that with your votes, you will obtain jobs, houses, hospitals and a decent education for all. Give me the tools – your votes – and I'll finish the job!" he paused and smiled ironically. "Incidentally your money would also be welcome and volunteers will pass among you with collection tins. Please give generously."

Then he stood off to one side and waited while Godfrey stepped up to the microphone, During Slamil's speech Godfrey had studied the man he was up against, and a glimmer of amusement played around his eyes.

"I would just like to turn the words of Mr Slamil around to echo my own position," he began. "It goes like this: Vote for me, Godfrey Gorm, and end this miserable excuse for a government. Vote for me and end corruption in high places. Vote for me and begin to live free again, no longer dictated to and controlled by your government, but served by the people you've voted for."

He turned and looked meaningfully at Slamil before adding: "and put an end once and for all to violence and intimidation toward one's political opponents! I promise hope for the unemployed, ten per cent income tax, six weeks annual vacation with pay, a thirty-hour week and retirement with a generous income for all who sign up for the Church Party People's Retirement Plan. Volunteers will pass among you with application forms!"

Godfrey stepped away from the microphone and the crowd applauded vigorously, people hugging and embracing each other and waving banners reading GODFREY GORM FOR PRESIDENT. Letitia warbled in his ear: "Well, that was an unexpected twist!" He smiled and pulled her forward to stand beside him as cameras flashed and flared. The picture in the _Bugle_ next day, with Godfrey smiling and Slamil looking bemused, became a favorite pin-up for windows all over Melloria.

"Didn't you promise an awful lot of things in that speech, Godfrey?" Letitia asked him on the drive back.

"No one believes election promises," he replied. "Their purpose is to enthuse the people – nothing more."

"Well, now you've got them enthused, and they're going to vote for you," she said, "What are you going to do after you've won?"

He smiled enigmatically, and turned to Lepager.

"We've got to get more publicity. We need to cover the whole country and we won't manage that in four days in the campaigncar. How are we going to reach the rest of the country?"

"We'll have to rely on foreign news coverage," Lepager said. "All the major news items on Mellorian TV, radio and the press are issued by the Ministry of Information to the various media. Censors monitor each piece of copy and all the local TV and radio news is censored. All mention of the Church Party is banned, except to denigrate us. However, people can pick up foreign news and comments via satellite and cable TV – that's our only chance."

Chapter 53

### The Dawna Factor

Back at the cottage after his second rally, Godfrey sat in the bathtub, bathing in tepid water and scrubbing himself until his skin throbbed. Then he shaved and brushed his teeth and took his tablets. Since his prostatectomy he no longer felt the warm flow of pain when he peed, although lately he'd begun experiencing respiratory problems. He put it down to the effort of making a speech every night. He was reasonably satisfied with his speeches, however. He knew he was no Winston Churchill, no John F Kennedy or Martin Luther King. But he could hold a crowd's attention, and that was what mattered. He was now preparing for his talk with Dawna, about which he felt more apprehensive than any of his speeches.

When he knocked on the door of her room his nerves were steadier, helped by generous libations of brandy. He walked in with a bottle in his hand. "Do you mind?" he said, "I hate to drink alone."

"No, that's fine," she answered. Shea had just eaten a candy bar without tasting it, hating herself for her craving for sweets. Her face was streaked with tears and she was wondering whether it would be better to kill herself or run back to Bulimia. The sight of Godfrey's clean but tired face was a relief of sorts. I need a friend, she thought. "Come in."

"Thanks." He strolled past the bed where she was now sitting up, dropped into the armchair and twisted the cap off the bottle.

"How are you feeling?" he said.

"A bit fragile," she conceded. "I know I'm giving everybody a frightfully hard time."

He snorted, then pulled two mugs off the nightstand and splashed brandy into them. "Here."

He handed her one. "This'll make you feel better."

"Cheers."

They clicked mugs and drank.

"Look, you mustn't feel bad about wanting to divorce Catheter," he heard himself saying. "Speaking for myself, I'll back you up to the hilt if it'll make you happy again. It's just this bloody election we're all worried about."

"I know. I promise you, Daddy, I've no intention of spoiling your chances. My Attorney merely told Catheter's attorney I was ready to start proceedings as soon as victory for the Church Party was assured."

"Yes. Thank you. That's my girl." He smiled while thinking: Of course, the next problem is Catheter's succession. Oh well, perhaps we can skip a generation and appoint a regent.

He suddenly cheered up. "You know, I think your divorce from Catheter will turn out to be a blessing for you. You'll probably marry someone extraordinary."

"Marry?" She let out a short, empty laugh. "Who'd want to marry me?"

"Oh, come on – don't be so damn modest."

He gave a hollow chuckle, while looking somewhat discomfited. "You're the world's most beautiful woman."

She took a sip of the brandy and closed her eyes. "Sometimes that can be a burden," she said.

"Yes, I'm sure," he agreed. Then, more lightly: "Let's drink to victory."

"Victory."

He held out his mug and she tapped hers against it.

He studied her. God, you're beautiful, he thought. No wonder they're all after you. Under his searching gaze she lowered her eyes, delicately blushing.

"You have an important speech to make tomorrow night," he told her, "to the Mother's Union."

"I know, and I'm awfully scared I'll mess up," she confided. She drained her mug and held it out for a refill.

He poured the mugs full.

"Speaking in public was a trial for me too, before I got used to it," he said to reassure her. "I'd get the jitters so badly sometimes I'd throw up beforehand in the men's room."

I can't believe he ever got that nervous, she thought, sipping her brandy. Not that throwing up is such a bad thing.

Catheter walked across the room and propped Angus's picture on top of his nightstand. He found the innocent, blue-eyed chubbiness strangely comforting, and wondered what his son was doing in the nursery. Probably tormenting Betty, splashing her as she bathed him or bawling at her as she put him to bed.

His cell began to warble and he switched it on. His mother's voice lambasted him, cutting through his tender thoughts like a blowtorch.

"You must try to understand, Catheter," she was saying, "this election is absolutely crucial, not just for Godfrey and the Mellorian people, but for you – if you're ever going to be king."

Do I even want to be king? Catheter thought. That's a bloody good question. He sat down in the chair and looked at his son's photo. He imagined him growing into a sturdy toddler, his blond hair ruffled and his piping voice demanding to ride his tricycle all over the palace. He'd be climbing up his father's leg when he was at his desk, pestering him to play hide-and-seek, and later falling asleep in his arms the way Lucinda did after sex.

"Our chances of winning absolutely depend on you holding off this divorce of yours," Letitia was saying, not very convincingly.

But what if we lose? He thought, gazing at Angus's simple smile.

The rest of the conversation with his mother was a nagging blur, as his mind wandered to thoughts of Lucinda, reminiscing about the times they had been together before their enforced separation. They had found a private love nest to kiss, fondle and copulate, secreting themselves away from the lewd stares of courtiers and servants, from the public and the paparazzi.

Catheter ended the conversation by promising to hold off the divorce until after the election.

On the evening of Dawna's speech to the Mothers Union the street outside the hall, a modest building in South City, was busy with cars, crowds and media long before the former princess arrived. Volunteer monitors maintained a cordon across the front of the building, and only those with the correct badges were allowed through. Dawna's arrival disrupted the barrier for a few minutes as people surged over it just to get close to her. She stopped to smile and wave before being swept inside, while monitors and police struggled to reestablish the blockade.

Watching the event on a foreign news station, Letitia felt pinpricks of excitement despite her reservations about her daughter-in-law. She watched shots of crowds flowing down the street like gusts of wind, and wished fervently that Godfrey had that kind of pulling power. Sitting beside her on the couch, Godfrey silently wished the same thing. Behind them, Lepager was bent over his laptop, examining the latest election polls.

"If this momentum keeps up," he said excitedly, "We stand a real chance of winning, by a handsome majority. Pollsters outside the Mothers Union building this evening were inundated with people wishing to proclaim their support for the Church Party, for you as their future president and for Dawna as the most beautiful woman they'd ever seen!"

Letitia had a sudden spasm of noisy coughing, to the point where Godfrey asked if she'd like a glass of water. Choking back the comments about Dawna she would have liked to make, she shook her head vigorously. "No, I'm all right," she gasped. "I'm just a little concerned about the reason for our sudden rise in popularity.

Chapter 54

### The People's Party Shows Its Hand

Paul Slamil, having read the latest polls, wondered how the election would go. He knew how easy it was to falsify results in the interests of the greater good, but the received wisdom stated that to win the hearts and minds of the people took time and patience, skill and finesse, yet a pretty ex-princess was sweeping all that away.

Or was she? How could he – or anyone else – be sure whether her popularity in the polls signified a win for the Church Party or was merely a symptom of the people's addiction to glamour. He would have to do some research. He took off his glasses and folded his arms, letting his mind range over the possibilities for action. There was the extreme possibility of a final solution of the Dawna problem, which he knew Joe Steel would jump at, but he pushed that idea to the back of the queue. At its head stood the possibility of a dialog with the people, one on one. He got up and put on his denim work jacket, then he went into the outer office, nodding to the secretary as he passed her.

"Just going out for a breath of fresh air and a bite to eat, Norma," he said. "I need the exercise, so I won't be using the car."

From the stately edifice of Government House he walked toward East City, along the avenue named after himself (against his modest protests) by unanimous cabinet approval, and into his party's heartland. He passed the remnants of grand and elegant stores, mostly empty or boarded up, and entered a world where beggars attempted to avoid the police as they preyed on passing traffic, crows picked among the garbage in the gutters, small boys in rags rushed around, old women shuffled along in anonymous black , mangy dogs snapped and were kicked, skinny cats mewed and were ignored, and everything stank – from the heaps of fetid, rotting garbage and the uncovered candies the sweetsellers were offering to the worn-out donkeys nodding their blindered heads.

Life went noisily on in these narrow streets, lined with cheap apartment houses, and packed close with small stores, barbershops and cafes. It was into one of these counterrooms that Slamil stepped.

"Onion stew," he told the man behind the counter and sat at one of the three tiny tables. A dumpy peasant woman in a headscarf slurped from a bowl of stew at the next table.

Slamil thought about onion stew for a while, and what it symbolized for him personally and for his country. It was one of the two staple winter foods of the poor, the other being turnip stew, and thinking of it brought back vivid memories: of days spent moving from safe house to safe house, always one step ahead of the secret police, and of the whole pre-revolution period. Many a time he had turned up, famished and tired, at the home of a trusted party member, to be offered a steaming bowl of the nourishing broth. He smiled and nodded when the bowl of stew was brought to him by the counterman.

"Good grub, eh?" he said to the woman at the next table, who looked to be in her sixties, as he started spooning it down

"Huh?" She looked up. "Oh, yeah."

They both ate for a few minutes

"You're not from here," she observed.

"You're right."

"You've got a coastal accent. From Shekels?"

"'Smatter of fact, that's where I grew up."

She laughed and slurped her last spoonful.

He cleared his throat and put down his spoon. "What d'you think of this election then?"

"Oh, I don't pay it no mind. Things'll go on just as before, whoever wins," she said.

He grunted non-committally. Then he looked away from her, as if being careful of who might be watching them.

"Honestly, though, d'you think old King God has any chance of getting in?"

"Not sure I ought to say," she said. "Walls have ears, you know."

"Yeah, I know. But you must have some idea – you're smart enough to know where I come from!"

The woman sucked in her cheeks. "Well, if you ask me I think it's Princess Dawna who's winning it for him. She's an absolute star, isn't she? It's a shame it's not her who's running for prez."

"You think so?"

"I know so. Most of the people I know would queue up in the rain to vote for her, if they had the chance."

"Oh," he said softly, and finished his stew. He didn't speak or look at her again. He got up and left a hundred moon bill beside his bowl.

Fucking hell, he thought, Steel is right – she is the Phantom Menace,

As he left the café a man standing in a doorway on the other side of the street observed him. He lifted the lapel of his coat and spoke into a transmitter. Then he went into the cafe and ordered turnip stew, and was soon talking to the woman in the headscarf. When Slamil turned the corner to walk back to Government House, a man standing in a shop doorway discretely followed.

On the last morning before polling day, the young man who cooked for the Gorms was interrupted in the kitchen by a knock at the front door. When he opened it, four men in black People's Party uniforms stood before him. He tried to close the door, but a powerful hand clamped his wrist and another shoved him down the hallway.

"Don't mess with us, big boy!" one of them said pushing him against a wall.

"This is your first warning," he added, his face close to the cook's. "Tell that tall blonde in your house to take a plane back to Bulimia today. Her exit visa's been approved."

He released the cook and turned to leave, leading the others to the door.

"Remember, there won't be a second warning," he said over his shoulder.

When the archbishop was told about the threat, he immediately called a meeting with the Gorms.

"These guys aren't bullshitting," he said, unusually blunt. "They'll carry out their threat if we don't take extra security measures."

"What do you propose?" Godfrey asked.

"I propose we keep Dawna under constant guard until voting begins tomorrow. We have rugby-playing priests, tough scoutmasters and tae-kwon-do blackbelt nuns who can accompany her wherever she goes, although I recommend she stays indoors until you all go to cast your votes."

"That's a splendid idea!" Letitia cried, her enthusiasm based more on a desire to keep her daughter-in-law out of the public eye than to ensure her safety. "I will personally keep guard, by always standing in front of her at public events."

"Oh I don't think you need go that far," Lepager said, before he caught the weary look in Godfrey's eye.

"Yeah man, leave it to the ninja nuns," Anton piped up. "They'll also make sure she doesn't eat too many Snickers bars."

The day passed uneventfully with another Church Party cavalcade to Mellinda, the second largest town in Melloria, producing the by now routine streams of cars, crowds and cameras. TV crews shooting newsreels moved among the crowds and Church Party volunteers handed out pamphlets as fast as they could. Mothers steered infants, strapped in their strollers, toward Dawna, who greeted them with smiles and told them how much she missed Angus. Letitia did her best to keep up with her daughter-in-law, but felt delicate shudders of horror when she saw how people were flocking to her in droves, and realized no one could prevent her from outshining Godfrey.

Chapter 55

### The First Election

When she came down for breakfast next morning, Dawna could barely sit still on her chair, she was so tense and nervous. By evening she and the other Gorms would know whether they would be able to stay in Melloria. It didn't matter to her whether the divorce was granted here or in Bulimia, though she wondered what the position would be, in the event of Godfrey winning. If the present liberal divorce laws were replace by Church Party laws, she might have problems. She picked at her food.

She heard two sets of footsteps, the measured tread of Godfrey and the trotting walk of Letitia. The door was flung open by Godfrey and banged shut by Leitita. They still aren't quite used to opening their own doors, she thought, quietly amused.

"Morning," Godfrey said, eyeing the modestly laden breakfast table.

"Morning," she returned, and smiled at them both. Letitia smiled formally back, and Godfrey sat down and immediately tucked into the granola, washed down with cups of black coffee.

Anton and Archbishop Lepager entered. "Wassup," was Anton's greeting.

"Good morning, everybody I hope you're all looking forward to casting your vote!" Lepager said.

"How do you rate our chances today, Larry" Godfrey said.

Lepager gave a resigned sigh. "I'd like to say they're good – but we know the People's Party aren't going to play fair."

"Face it, Pops," Anton said, sitting at the breakfast table and grabbing the box of cereal, "you've lost the election." He shook it into his bowl.

Godfrey scratched his head and poured some more coffee. The he rubbed his stubby cheeks pensively. "Well, if the reds do try to cheat us out of our victory, let's see how the foreign media reacts," he said.

The first order of official business was registering the Gorm family's votes. The polling station they were to use was at the school Craig used to attend. They drove there in the campaignmobile, Church Party flags flapping in the breeze.

The polling booth opened at nine on a cold but dry morning and the limo circled Revolution Square just as the cathedral clock was clanging out the hour. A line of prospective voters already stretched across the square.

"A good turnout," Godfrey said.

"They've got nothing better to do, they're unemployed," Anton muttered.

"It's a good turnout of intimidators as well," Lepager added, pointing out the large gang of black-uniformed People's Party stewards gathered near the school entrance. They looked menacing, and Lepager reminded the Gorms that there would be no foreign media present – they had been banned until after the polls closed by a recent ordinance.

"Never mind – we'll record this ourselves," Godfrey said as they stepped down from the limousine. With his family lined up behind him, Godfrey stood in his drycleaned commander-in-chief's uniform, his chest a galaxy of shining medals. He nodded to Anton who carried one of Catheter's digital camcorders. "This is it. Roll the camera. Acton!"

With a heavy tread they all marched across the square, to face a line of police in front of the school, fronted by the mayor of Melloria City and the chief of police.

"Mr Mayor, please open the voting," Godfrey said in a firm, commanding voice. "I want to cast my vote as soon as possible."

The mayor gave a signal and the school door opened. Godfrey strode toward the entrance, turning at the door.

"And now," he announced to the waiting voters and the camera Anton held, "the voting will begin!"

There were cheers and cries of "Godfrey for Prez!" as he marched into the school hall, followed by his family. The voting clerk at the desk beside the polling booth found Godfrey's name on the register with little trouble, and with a flourish Godfrey signed and entered the booth. He reached up and closed the privacy curtain, aware that many eyes were on him. This isn't the time or place to screw up, he told himself.

Inside the booth was a gray plastic box with a keypad that had two lit red squares on it. One said MPRP and the other MPCDP. Cursing the modern obsession with acronyms, Godfrey pressed the square marked MPCDP. The gray box beeped and a panel lit up with the words VOTE RECORDED on it. He slid the curtain open and a burst of applause greeted his reappearance.

"How does this apparatus work?" he asked the clerk in charge of registration.

"It's all electronic," the official said. "Your vote goes into the gizmo's memory bank and when the voting is over for the day the central computer captures all the votes from all the machines and enters them into its data base. When all the voting stations have been inputted, the final vote is computed."

"Is there any possibility of cheating?" Godfrey inquired.

"Cheating, sir? You mean manipulating the figures?" the man said with a smirk. "Absolutely not, that would be illegal."

Godfrey turned his back on the man's smirking face and went outside to wait, while the rest of his family voted. To his surprise, he recognized the woman standing at the head of the queue of voters. It was his wife's former maid, Sharon, whom he remembered with a slightly uncomfortable feeling.

"Well, well, " he said, shifting his feet "and how are you these days?"

"As well as can be expected, sir," she said, in a tone that managed to be both sour and deferential.

"Good, good." He nodded and smiled stiffly.

"And how is your, er, family?"

She shrugged. "Dad's in a nursing home and Craig's getting home tuition."

She suddenly brightened. "And I'm getting married in the spring to your driver, Simpkins - and we're thinking of moving to Bulimia."

"Splendid!" he said. "Melloria's loss is Bulimia's gain." He spoke almost automatically, as though he were addressing an anonymous voter, although a vague sense of unease stirred him as he moved away.

Sharon went into the hall and took her place on the voting line.

He could at least have asked how Craig was coming along with his lessons, the bastard! she thought as she entered the polling booth.

"That's it then," Godfrey announced, when they were all back in the limo. "Nothing more to do until the polls close at six."

"No more canvassing? No more geeing up the loyal voters? We'd better hope we've done enough to defeat Mr Slamil," Letitia warned.

They drove back to the cottage, where Godfrey spent the rest of the day watching election broadcasts on TV.

"Why don't you take some interest in what's going on in the world?" He called to Anton who was playing Angry Birds on his smartphone.

"Nobody watches Mellorian TV – it's dead boring, and the news is pants," Anton replied.

"You're right," Godfrey growled. "I'm off to bed. Wake me up at six." He got up and left the room. The news announcement on the TV that he'd been watching ended with martial music and a rippling of red-star flags.

"Time for you to wake up. The polls are just closing!" Letitia's sharp voice penetrated Godfrey's sleeping consciousness.

"All right," he said thickly, yawning and stretching. "Let's listen to the results."

The preliminary results were already coming in when Godfrey stumbled into the living room. Archbishop Lepager was giving vent to his agitation, shaking his fist at the TV.

"After all the work we put in!" he raged. "They're predicting a landslide for the People's Party. Truly, the forces of darkness are ranged against us!"

"Perhaps Slamil's thugs have cowed the voters into submission, and they're afraid to vote for us," Letitia ventured.

"I think it's simpler than that," Anton offered. "The government controls the computer that records the votes, and they can bring in any final result they like. It's a waste of time campaigning against a setup like that. Let's face it, we're smoked!"

"I think Slamil may have overplayed his hand – " Godfrey began, but Letitia shushed him.

"Shush! The results are being announced."

The announcer, a pumped-up woman whose head was shaved and a red star painted on her scalp, was beaming into the camera as an off-key fanfare of trumpets blared out.

"The final results are coming in now. They show a clear majority for Paul Slamil and the People's Party. The voters in Wards One and Two have spoken with one voice and firmly rejected the tired old policies of the Church Party in favor of a bright new future for our country. Wait – just a moment – yes, the first results have just been handed to me."

She waved a sheet of paper at the camera.

"The results just in from City Wards One and Two: MPRP 4060, MPCDP 2120, and from Melinda, Melloria's second city: MPRP 1080, MPCDP 740. This last location is the seat of the former Bishop of Mellinda, now the Archbishop of Melloria, Lawrence Lepager, a man who had continued to belittle our government and its achievements. He'll now have to eat his words!"

"They're really sticking it to you, blud," Anton said to Lepager.

"We can only hope the foreign media all realize this election has been rigged and report it to the world," Lepager said.

The announcer gloated with smug satisfaction as she continued reading results that were favorable to the People's Party. Suddenly, she craned her neck as a message came onto her monitor, and she pointed off-camera.

"We're taking you over to Government House where the man who will soon be announced as our first president, a man we acknowledge for the work he has already done... He is stepping forward now... the crowd is going wild... He is raising his hand for silence... Silence has fallen on the crowd, waiting, filled with expectation, beneath the balcony where he is standing... He is about to speak, our newly-elected president, Paul Slamil!"

The screen filled with Slamil's craggy features. His mouth worked silently before the first syllables were heard.

"My fellow Mellorians, the election is now coming to an end. The end that we always knew in our hearts would come. You have given us your trust to serve as the people's government during the transition from absolute monarchy to popular democracy. And soon you will give us the mandate to continue as your government. As your soon-to-be-elected president I thank you all, humbly and sincerely, and pledge to do my best to – "

Anton pressed the channel button on the remote and Slamil's face was replaced by that of a foreign woman reporter standing on the steps of City Hall. Anton pressed another button and brought up the Mellorian voiceover.

"The polls are now closed and the citizens of this tiny country are tuning to hear the results. Those without access to radio or television are standing here in Revolution Square where huge video screens have been erected. They are showing the face of Paul Slamil as he addresses the people on the eve of tonight's results. I'm going to ask a member of the People's Party, the party of the government, for his reaction to this election."

A People's Party hack was ushered forward, looking decidedly uneasy as he faced the camera.

"Tell us if you will," the reporter said, "what you think the result will be when the final polls are announced."

"Yes, of course," the party hack replied. "We're going to win by a landslide." He looked at the reporter and frowned.

The reporter continued to hold up her microphone.

"Are you happy with the way the election has been conducted by your party?"

He looked around nervously. "Yes, the campaign has been excellent."

"Okay," the voiceover cut in, "we are now about to hear the final count – the election returns are coming in. The big screens are showing the very latest figures."

When the outcome was announced, the party worker lurking behind the news reporter seemed to shrink inside his black uniform. Behind him, the crowd roared in protest.

"This result is amazing," the voiceover said. "Just twenty-seven of the wards for the MPCDP and every one of the remaining 270 for the MPRP. Let's hear what some of the crowd here have to say about it."

The microphone was passed to an annoyed young blonde in a suede coat and jeans. "No way can the vote in Ward One be that low. Everybody I know voted for the Church Party. I think someone's been flushing our votes down the toilet."

"So you're saying you think the votes have been tampered with?"

"Of course, the People's Party are a load of criminals. It's a stitch-up!"

Other voices echoed the protest. "We've been cheated! Cheated of our democratic rights!"

"Falsification without representation!"

The voiceover picked up the crowd's excitement. "Let's find out what the rest of the crowd thinks," the reporter held her microphone over the heads of the crowd that was milling around the camera.

"Will every person here who has voted for the Church Party and for Godfrey Gorm as president please raise your hand!"

A hubbub of voices rose along with a growing number of hands. Slowly, firmly, defiantly, a forest of waving hands emerged from the crowd.

"Thank you. Will you please lower your hands. Now raise your hands if you voted for the People's Party and Paul Slamil for prez."

The number of raised hands dropped dramatically. Just a scattering of hands were hesitantly raised. The voiceover became ecstatic.

"This is the most amazing scene! The people of Melloria, this tiny country on the eastern edge of Central Europe, are showing their true preference. The vast majority of voters in this crowd clearly feel they've been deprived of their franchise. This result seems to raise an embarrassing question mark over the government's integrity. Clearly, if the votes were fixed, the winner of this election is Godfrey Gorm and the Church Party."

The reporter waved her hand to indicate the extent of the seething discontent building up in the crowd. The camera passed over a mass of angry faces.

The voiceover continued in a more somber, serious voice. "If the official results of this election are allowed to stand, a massive crime of disenfranchisement will have been committed. The government must reconsider its position – "

"Oh boy," Lepager said, and gave Anton a high five.

"You're going to be elected, Dear, "Letitia said, and kissed Godfrey's unshaven cheek. "Congratulations."

Chapter 56

### The Die Is Cast

The furore from the international media's exposure of its vote-rigging forced the government to call a second ballot. At a stormy cabinet meeting Penny Slam the Finance Minister told the others: "If we don't do something to show we're honest, the world will treat us as a corrupt dictatorship and we won't qualify for any World Bank loans. Our development program will grind to a halt and disappear. Without foreign money this country will go bankrupt."

Paul Slamil endorsed the view of his finance minister:

"We intend to conduct an honest campaign. If our new world starts corrupt, it'll go on being corrupt We want the Mellorian people to have confidence in us as the only true party of the people – and they won't if they think we're a bunch of crooks who can only win by fiddling the books."

"That's all fine and noble, Paul," Joe Steel replied, "but if we're squeaky clean and the other lot are squeaky clean, it'll all be down to personalities!"

At the cottage campaign HQ, the arguments aired were similar. Archbishop Lepager offered the following observation during a strategy meeting with the Gorms: "We want the Mellorian people to know that democracy works – and it will work, once we expose the People's Party's dishonesty. During the second ballot, we'll need to keep track of every ballot box that's been rigged, stuffed or falsified in any way, but we must not interfere with the boxes ourselves."

"Then we'll lose," Anton joked.

"No, we'll win," Lepager replied. "Because in spite of all the boxes that have been interfered with, we have our very own ace in the hole."

At this mention of the Dawna Factor, as it was beginning to be called, Letitia groaned and Godfrey reached for the brandy decanter.

"This is said to help the mental process," he said and poured himself a glass.

"Well' you can help mine too, if you wouldn't mind," Letitia said, holding out her glass.

"Well," Lepager said, "you have to admit – right now – Princess Dawna is our ace in the hole!"

"I'd like a drop more brandy before I comment on that," Letitia replied.

The next six days proved to be the busiest of the campaign. To ensure a free and fair second ballot, electronic voting was abandoned in favor of old-fashioned ballot boxes inspected by an international team of overseers appointed by the United Nations. They flew in to supervise the entire electoral process, from the reprinting of the ballots, by an independent non-government press, to the vote-recording system, now monitored by independent auditors.

Archbishop Lepager organized flying squads of church stalwarts, vergers and boy scout leaders to form campaign committees and produce campaign literature. Brochures were distributed by monks and nuns in the street and on their social rounds. The committees issued news bulletins that were broadcast on radio and TV every night. First came the People' Party broadcast, then the Church Party broadcast followed immediately afterwards. The Church Party ads were kept factual and accurate, and that alone was a breath of fresh air after the stultifying bias and stridency of government propaganda. There was a feeling that if the ballot could be kept reasonably honest, the People's Party regime was surely doomed.

On Election Day morning, the residents of the cottage raised their coffee cups and drank a toast to victory. They then prepared for their second trip to the polling station. By the time the polls were opened at nine they were already on the road.

There were a number of government-inspired ugly incidents during the day. Church Party workers conducting exit polls were beaten up and some fake voting registers were discovered by the international team of monitors. Church Party volunteers did what they could to alert the auditors to irregularities, but their forces were small and thinly spread. The decision had been taken to concentrate the party's strength in Melloria City and Mellinda, the largest centers of population. The international media were, as always, important allies. When news of the earlier fraudulent election reached the outside world, the big global networks all sent reporters and TV crews. There were also hordes of freelancers.

"It's working," Lepager said to Godfrey as they rode to the polling station. "Another precinct was busted in the city. People's Party workers were caught packing the ballot box. One of the freelance news teams got it all on camera and there's going to be a recount. We're really lucky so many freelancers are here."

"Luck has nothing to do with it," Godfrey replied. "I opened a secret bank account when we were in Bulimia, with a loan from Hector. All the freelancers' expenses have been paid and anything they make by selling their material is theirs."

"Pops, you're almost as slippery as Slamil," Anton said.

"I'm merely a person who doesn't believe in leaving things to chance," Godfrey amended.

By mid-afternoon, the situation was getting critical. The Church Party was fighting a rearguard action and barely holding its own. In some of the outlying areas People's Party bullies had simply closed the polls at gunpoint and substituted their own stuffed boxes. "We have to let them get away with it," Lepager told Godfrey by phone. "It's the big population centers that count and we're still managing to hold our own there. With any luck it might be a fairly honest ballot, with a final vote that represents the will of the people."

As the results came in Godfrey began to grow more and more depressed. He cracked his knuckles pensively and shook his head in anger.

"We're behaving like a lot of nellies!" he snarled. "What's the use of just sitting here waiting for the illegal acts to be committed. We'll never win unless we hit 'em first and hit 'em hard. We should go out and shoot a few."

Oh, don't be silly!" Letitia cried. "We have to do it this way – otherwise it wouldn't be a proper democratic election."

"I never did like democracy," Godfrey grumbled. "It's too much work. It's much easier to tell people what to do. They like it that way. However, we have to win, so I'll go along with the democracy, dammit!"

She sighed at his attitude. It was one of the things that would have to change once he was elected president.

"I just wish we could do something about the other lot's violence and intimidation!" Godfrey cried.

"Godfrey, there's nothing else for it – we'll have to wheel her out," Letitia said decisively. "Drastic situations call for drastic remedies."

A phone call to Lepager procured a car and driver for Dawna and her bodyguard of martial-arts nuns, and her introduction into the campaign as a stabilizing influence proved effective. Keeping in touch by cellphone with Lepager, she appeared wherever hostilities were threatened, charming and calming voters at polling stations, remonstrating with People's Party workers and undermining the government's campaign of brutality.

Late in the afternoon, Paul Slamil looked up from the acceptance speech he was drafting and watched Joe Steel and Caspar, his Special Operations Assistant, walk into his office. Both sat, Caspar straddling his chair and Steel pulling his up close to Slamil's desk, his face strained. Slamil dropped his guarded smile and looked as grim as the other two. He picked up a pencil and doodled across the paragraph he'd just been reading. Then he gazed at Steel's heavy features.

"I know what you're going to say and the answer's no."

Steel looked prepared for Slamil's resistance, and he smiled cynically.

"Let's face it, Paul – we're fucked. We might as well start packing our bags now,"

"We'll be like the salesmen trying to sell ice creams to Eskimos," Caspar added.

"All right, I've got the picture!" Slamil snapped.

Caspar leaned forward and spoke in a heavily-accented whisper. "But there's still time to do something about it, a small window that's half open."

Slamil looked dismissive. "You think I haven't thought about that? I know what the consequences will be. Our names will stink to high heaven."

"So you're gonna let a woman beat you," Caspar said mockingly. "Okay, Paul, we'll let you get on with your speech – maybe you'll get another crack in ten years' time." He made as if to get up from his chair.

"I'm trying to run a fucking election campaign," Slamil said, thoroughly rattled. "This isn't some kind of fling - "

"Yes it is," Caspar broke in. "If this maneuver comes off, we'll be in like fling!"

"You and your fucking puns!"

Steel brought his face close to Slamil's. He looked left and right like a dog planning to steal a steak.

"Just say the word – " he started to say, but Slamil choked him off.

"No, I'm saying no!"

"Have it your way, boss – you're the prez-in-waiting."

Slamil was unmoved. "I want to keep our campaign as clean as possible," he said. "There is such a thing as the high moral ground. Of course we want to win, by all sensible means. We're not social democrats – the inevitability of gradualism, and all that crap. I have an agenda for this country, and I don't intend to spend the next ten years in the wilderness. It's just that some means are not sensible – and unleashing a popular backlash is one of 'em."

""Never thought I'd hear you poop out, Paul," Caspar said, goading Slamil into a brief but intense spasm of rage.

"I'm not pooping out, you cunt – I'm being realistic. I've considered it and rejected it. It's too risky, the damage to the party is incalculable – end of story."

His voice had an odd tremble, which Steel, who knew the signs of hidden fear, recognized. He smiled and leaned against the chair back, making it crack.

"Don't worry, Paul. Just leave it to me. You didn't tell us to do anything – this conversation didn't take place. You can wipe the tape clean. You can even turn us over if you like – see if we're wired up."

Yeah?" Slamil said sarcastically. "You're out of date, Joe. We don't have a tape running nowadays. It's all digital."

He fixed his eyes on the distance. "I won't say another word," he said at last. "Only don't screw up. Now fuck off!"

He had raised his voice so loudly the secretary outside his door paused at her computer.

The two men prepared to leave. Steel stopped, his hand resting on the doorknob. "You're the man. I'm just doing what I have to do, so we don't lose this fucking election."

When they had gone, Slamil leafed through the pages of his speech. "Crap!" he said bitterly, and pushed them away. Then he went out to the main office.

"Can you get me a coffee and a curried beef sandwich?" he asked.

He went back into his office and threw the papers in the trash bin. After a while he succeeded in calming himself, but the bitter taste remained. Maybe I'm in the wrong business, he thought. I'm not a killer. What the fuck am I doing even thinking about it?

On the other side of the reinforced glass windows the day was darkening as a storm gathered. The sky was gray, black and indigo blue with great storm clouds seething up. Later, when he had finished his sandwich and coffee he sat staring out at the bleak afternoon. His anger had given way to an insistent anxiety. The latest opinion polls stated that most Mellorians would prefer to see Dawna elected president than either Godfrey or himself. Now he was trying to imagine the people's reaction to a world without her.

Chapter 57

### The Shot Heard Round The World

The results of the final ballot were to be declared in the People's Opera House, a giant auditorium in West City. The People's Party had packed the hall with their supporters who had been coached to greet the expected result, favorable to Paul Slamil, with wild applause. With both presidential candidates and their closest associates on the platform when the results were declared, the atmosphere was expected to be tense and potentially explosive. Consequently the Gorms hung around the cottage, putting off their journey for as long as possible, until Lepager had to practically drag them out to the waiting car.

Letitia was the only family member not attending the ceremony. She had received an incoherent call from Catheter in Bulimia saying how sorry he was that he had caused so much grief to the family, and especially to his wife, and that, to make amends, he was flying over to be with his flesh and blood in their hour of greatest need.

"Cathy, you're drunk!" his mother had accused, "and what's more, you're lying! I know you only want to see that bitch you've been – "

Catheter had ended the call. And now Letitia felt so let down by her older son that she told Godfrey she would pass on her ticket to Catheter, since he was flying in from Bulimia, and watch the ceremony on TV.

That evening it began to rain in torrents, battering anyone foolish enough to be on the street against the sides of buildings and running in tapestries of brown water over walls and rooftops. Canals gushed where streets once ambled, and the few vehicles venturing forth created waves that engulfed cyclists and donkeycarts. One of these vehicles was the campaignmobile, its ragtop firmly on, which took the Gorms, including the newly-arrived Catheter, to the opera house through the stream.

In due course the rain subsided. Traffic appeared and donkeycart drivers, waist-deep in the flood, urged their beasts to plod through the torrents. From their windows, householders wearily surveyed the watery brown world beneath them and gazed in surprise at crowds battling to reach the opera house. There were a number of perplexed-looking foreign journalists in the crowd. Through the streaked windows of the limousine, Godfrey wondered what they were making of it all.

Slamil was already on the platform when the Gorm contingent entered the auditorium, and he glared at them with undisguised venom.

"Not very cheerful tonight, is he?" Anton said.

"Aren't you a little overdressed, Dad?" Catheter teased Godfrey, pointing to the gold braid and rows of glittering medals on his uniform, as they marched into the hall.

"Not in the slightest," he said proudly. "People appreciate a good rig. They like their president to look like the commander-in-chief."

The audience was buzzing with excitement. Some of the People's Party hacks were passing around brandy flasks and wine bottles and the aroma of booze hung in the air. Between swigs all eyes were on the great screen overhead where the results would be displayed. It read zero as the Gorm party wound their way to the podium.

There was a sudden hush as a bell loudly rang and the Chair of the balloting committee took her position before the microphone.

"The polls are closing all over Melloria and counting will now begin," she said, and a smattering of cheers issued from the tipsy audience.

"Here is the first count, just in, from Ward One in the City. Are you there, Ward One?"

The screen cleared and a man's bearded face appeared, looming over the audience.

"Here is the count from Ward One," the bearded man said, then lowered his eyes to consult his paper. "For Paul Slamil 1,010 votes. For Godfrey Gorm 2,030 votes! Long live the king!" he shouted the oath spontaneously, and immediately the screen went blank.

Archbishop Lepager leaned over to Godfrey and whispered behind his hand: "We're on our way, Mr President. They can't stop us now."

"Let's hope they all come in like that," Godfrey murmured.

The next six counts were all for Slamil. The People's Party intimidators had done their work well.

Station by station, the results mounted, as did the tension. Soon Godfrey and Slamil were neck and neck.

"This election is most fraying on the nerves!" Godfrey groaned. "It's driving me to drink." He pulled out his pocket flask and, after several hearty swigs of brandy, he was his old self again.

There were now only four polling stations to go. "Are any of those ours?" Godfrey whispered to Lepager.

"I don't know," he said. "I've completely lost track."

First Slamil led, then the votes favored Godfrey, then on the next to last result Slamil pulled ahead by seventy-five votes.

"You should have done a better job of trashing Slamil," Catheter said.

"Or shot the bastard," Anton added.

"This is why I hate democracy," Godfrey said. "One never knows the final result until the very last vote."

"Here it is, voters of Melloria," the chairwoman said, "the result from Crapula in the Northern Region, the very last result!"

A new face filled the screen overhead, and everyone looked up in anticipation. A man, mustached and lantern-jawed, was clearing his throat.

"It is my solemn duty to bring you the final ballot from the village of Crapula," he said in a slow, lugubrious northern accent. The audience murmured – this was the moment of truth, and both Godfrey and Slamil were bursting with tension.

"...the final count is...just a moment, I have the figures here."

"That man should be shot!" Slamil muttered, and Godfrey nodded his agreement.

"Yes, here it is. It is my, uh, pleasure to report that for Paul Slamil, Crapula has awarded eight hundred and nineteen votes."

"That puts us eight hundred and ninety-four votes behind," Lepager whispered, staring at his calculator.

"It's still not too late to shoot Slamil," Anton said.

"...and for the other candidate, Godfrey Gorm, there are a total of... My goodness!"

His eyes bulged and he looked as if he'd died and was in purgatory. "I must report that he has...eight hundred and ninety-four votes."

The crowd erupted in pandemonium.

Slamil looked hatefully in Godfrey's direction and mouthed a silent curse. Godfrey stood firm on the platform in his showy uniform, waving at the TV cameras, clenching his fist, bending and kissing Dawna and hugging his sons. He shook hands with Lepager, gave a tentative glance toward Slamil who was shaking his head in despair, then stepped forward to the microphone. He had to stand there for five minutes with his hands raised before the audience exhausted its turmoil. The cameras were all trained on him as he spoke.

"Thank you, my friends and fellow Mellorians," his voice echoed round the hall. "By voting for me and my party in sufficient numbers, in spite of obstruction and intimidation, you have thrown us a lifeline. We must now go to final victory in the elimination poll to be taken a week from today, under Mellorian election law. I urge all Mellorians eligible to vote to turn out for the forces of honor, faith and dignity, and bring us a resounding victory!"

Everybody heard the shot. It came from high in the building, from one of the small windows at the rear of the auditorium used by technicians. The impact of the bullet hurled Dawna backwards, so that she was lost to view by the audience, and a crash was heard on stage.

There was a moment of absolute silence, then all hell broke loose. In the confusion of shouts and screams, two more shots were heard, but Godfrey, his army training kicking in, instinctively flung himself to the floor, dragging Catheter and Anton – both of whom he'd been hugging – down with him. As fate would have it, Letitia was resting, fittingly, in bed at the time of her daughter-in-law's shooting. The other people on stage were reeling about, their faces ashen.

Catheter was the first of the fallen to get up, and he rushed over to kneel beside his wife, cradling her in his lap. He took hold of her hand, feeling for her pulse, and squeezed the feeble grasp she offered.

"I'm here, don't worry," he said, his voice faint with shock. Her eyes were closed, but her hand gave one last tremor as it tightened on his. An instant later it went limp.

The paramedics were quickly on stage, jostling him aside and rolling Dawna's body onto a stretcher. They were soon bearing it through the churning crowd in the auditorium.

"It can't be!" Catheter cried, and many hearts went out to him when his anguished face appeared on a million TV screens. "Not dead – not now! Oh my God, this is a catastrophe!"

The paramedics slowly struggled out of the auditorium while police guarding the hall hurled themselves through the crowd, fighting to reach the stage and seal the building's exits.

"He's up in that window, high up in the back!" Anton said to Godfrey, pointing. Godfrey saw a flash of movement that vanished as he looked.

"I'll kill the swine responsible for this!" he said, glancing at Slamil who visibly shrank.

"You have to admit, it was a damn good shot," Slamil's bodyguard, a thickly bespectacled man whose muscles bulged inside his black uniform, muttered to him. Slamil shoved him away.

At the front of the building, police were running up the stairs, trying to locate the room where the shot had come from. A mob of people from the audience joined in the chase. Eventually the police found a high-velocity rifle and some cartridges in an empty room. They emerged from the building, one of them holding the long-barreled rifle, as the huge crowd in the street pressed around them and tried to see what was happening. TV reporters were gabbing into their microphones and cameras were held up to catch a glimpse of the assassin's rifle. Police car doors were flung open and the officers from the search piled in.

On stage, officials rushed about, and Catheter was helped into his chair. He looked down in horror at his wife's blood on his hand. Reverently he took his handkerchief from his breast pocket and pressed it to the stains. Then he carefully refolded the linen to preserve them. The handkerchief was later displayed at the restored Calliper Palace, inside a glass case filled with formaldehyde to preserve the fabric. It stood beside the case holding the crown jewels.

Leaving the building by a rear exit, Catheter, Godfrey and Anton were driven by Simpkins to the hospital where Dawna was lying. Trembling and dazed with grief, Catheter sat beside his wife, while the others waited outside the room, surrounded by starched and startled nurses and their incoherent tears and curses. Everyone waited, numb with sorrow, until the doctor pronounced her dead.

Catheter sat in the back of the campaignmobile, between his father and brother, lost in the thought that if she'd lived another few weeks, she would have divorced him. As it was, he was an unblemished widower, free to marry the woman of his choice. With a dim, unsteady but increasing intensity, the realization of his good fortune filled his heart with a savage guilt. The nagging notion that he and his family had played a part in her death, by exposing her to danger, and were now benefitting from it, grew like a tumor in his despair-drenched brain, and he was helpless to stem or restrain the tears that coursed down his face.

Godfrey and Anton shifted awkwardly in their seats. Godfrey, abandoning his disapproval of male tears, sat stiffly and upheld a sympathetic silence as his form of consolation. Anton, less inhibited, hugged his brother warmly.

Chapter 58

### The Aftermath

When Godfrey, Catheter and Anton got back to the cottage, they found Letitia sitting in the living room with the TV off. She had dozed off during the election broadcast and missed the dramatic shot and its aftermath, but had been informed by phone from Archbishop Lepager of Dawna's death.

When she first heard the news Letitia had been brutally shocked, but she soon froze into a doom-laden fatalism, grimly aware of the onrushing tsunami of grief that must be devastating her husband and her sons and would soon engulf the whole of Melloria. Although she had never been close to her daughter-in-law or spoken to her one-on-one (that was Godfrey's domain), indeed she had bristled at her wayward antics and neurotic moods, she took no satisfaction now in knowing Dawna was no more.

The young man who cooked for them and who had arrived as soon as he heard the news, brought the four Gorms a tray of tea and biscuits from the kitchen and they sat in silence for a while.

'What are the police doing to find the culprits?" Letitia finally said.

Catheter shook his head. "Too soon to know," he whispered.

She clicked her tongue impatiently. "Well, someone had better be doing something or the trail will go cold."

The others looked horror-stricken. Only Catheter relaxed his posture, relieved to see his mother behaving character.

Anton picked up the remote and switched the TV on. It showed a program about Dawna on a foreign channel. The sight of her soft white throat exposed, and her sudden, slightly husky laughter was too much for Godfrey. Having been so utter besotted with her, he was smitten by grief. His cheeks burned and he swore a vicious oath against Paul Slamil and any member of the People's Party he could lay his hands on.

"Have a biscuit, Dear," Letitia said to console him.

"I don't need a biscuit, I need a shotgun!" he said.

"Cool it, Pops –they won't let you be president if any of the bolshies get smoked!" Anton said.

The government clumsily attempted to divert the public's mood of grief by declaring a national holiday on the day of Dawna's funeral and setting off fireworks the night before. They misread the public's anger toward the People's Party, who were widely seen as responsible for Dawna's death. On the day of her funeral in Bulimia, a mood of contrition settled over the country. Thousands poured over the border to attend the funeral, and in churches and temples packed congregations prayed, not only for the soul of the dead woman, but for their own redemption. Even the massed Slobodian troops, waiting for the order to invade, paused to observe the day of mourning.

On the day of the elimination poll, held a week after the assassination, immense crowds streamed into every polling station, forming long lines and being entertained by demonstrators, some in fantastic costumes, who paraded through the streets carrying placards and banners proclaiming: SHE DIDN'T DIE IN VAIN. Women wearing Dawna masks had bullet holes in their jackets and a coffin bearing the name of the People's Party: MPRP, followed by RIP, was shouldered above the seething melee outside the People's Party HQ and left on the steps as the polls were closing.

There were speeches by Godfrey, Archbishop Lepager and many people from public life who had known Dawna, a band playing traditional Mellorian music, and even a rap artist wearing a gigantic canary-yellow cowboy hat over an abundance of dreadlocks rapped about her and went about calling everybody "muthafucka." He wore a 32-carat diamond pinky ring and was one of a marching, chanting throng who gathered from dawn to dusk outside the People's Party Headquarters and who easily brushed aside the quarreling, wrangling party hacks who tried to disrupt them.

TV crews shooting newsreel moved among the crowds, and an inflatable Bouncy Castle was clambered over by children whose parents were voting in droves for the Church Party.

At the end of the day's polling, Paul Slamil went under police escort through the immense crowd outside the opera house that had gathered to celebrate Godfrey Gorm's victory' As the TV cameras closed in, the People's Party, thoroughly rattled by the upsurge of popular condemnation, quickly conceded defeat. Godfrey was declared the first president of the Democratic Republic of Melloria, and the first thing he did after thanking the Mellorian people was to declare Calliper Palace as his new presidential home.

The next day, he and Letitia drove up to the empty and abandoned palace, and a smile crinkled Godfrey's face when, looking up, he saw above the ancient battlements the royal Mellorian standard with its crested coat of arms. Simpkins opened the door of the campaignmobile and they got out in the palace courtyard. The January day was cold and snow had dusted the flagstones as they walked to the front entrance with its Corinthian pillars. The smile on Godfrey's face vanished when they saw the interior. It looked as though it had been devastated by a ravaging tribe of vandals. Every room had been stripped, leaving only the Palladian façade with its handsome stone porticos and the Gorm family crest – all of it chipped and scared by bullets. Every room had holes in its walls and floors where switches and lights had been removed, radiators had been taken out and wiring stripped. The faucets in the bathrooms were also missing and even the doorhandles were gone.

"My God, now I know how people feel when they move into a house the previous owners have stripped!" Letitia exclaimed.

The challenge was to restore the rooms to something like their 18th Century splendor. Also, the palace had last been rewired in 1927 and much of the plumbing was asbestos-lagged.

When they came to the queen's bedchamber, Letitia uttered an exclamation of surprise and stopped. The room was as bare and vandalized as the others at the palace. All the tapestries had gone, including that of beagles worrying a great elk in the Forest of Gorm. Oh well, she thought philosophically, I never did like that wallhanging.

They looked around the other rooms as if in a dream. Their faces expressed disbelief; it was as if they'd died and gone to hell. Letitia broke the mood of despair by gesturing around the drawing room with a maternal sweep.

"Well, it's structurally sound," she said brightly. "All we need is furniture and a few servants!" The Gorms were obliged to vacate the cottage which Archbishop Lepager retained for the use of visiting church dignitaries, and move into the shell of a palace. Every day Godfrey went out very early to his presidential meetings, yawning and cursing his new office, and leaving Letitia to run the household and manage the staff. She was quickly able to rehire Simpkins, who brought his fiancée Sharon back as the queen's maid, and through their connections they soon had an underbutler, maid, cook, part-time gardener and occasional driver. She supervised them all and did the accounts, a necessary task since everything had to be fitted within a tight budget. This she found especially difficult – she had been accustomed to some luxury during her years as queen, and found it impossible to curb her taste for imported caviar and champagne that she considered intrinsic to the fabric of a civilized life.

After the first night in her old bedchamber, she woke up in the bonecold room sweating, having dreamed an unusual dream: she was standing by the seashore. It seemed a woman with white hair was standing with her back to Letitia, in front of a grave. A wave of pity and incomprehension swept over her. Looking closer, she saw the woman's knotted fingers, pale with age, her body stooped and frail, her head bent, as if she were weeping. She couldn't see the woman's face or tell whose grave it was, but she had a sneaking suspicion as she surfaced into the waking state that the old woman was her future self, if she had to serve any more years as queen. Or as First Lady, she thought sourly as she caught sight of the familiar objects – few in number – in her room.

She looked around the room, and her eyes fell on the framed picture of her mother clutching a cocker spaniel. If only Mummy could see this, she thought. She'd be turning in her grave. Then her thoughts turned to the improvement she dreamed of making to the palace as she waited out the months and years of Godfrey's presidency.

The first project would be her garden. Before the revolution she had looked on her garden with a quiet pride. She had been saddened the day before when, in the company of her new part-time gardener Berryman, she had inspected bushes and shrubs that looked burnt and shriveled. By the early summer, she hoped, it would be a different story: the grass rich, the gardenias creamy and fragrant, and a prolific blossoming of chrysanthemums. The rose walk would be scented in summer with the perfume of a thousand roses, there would be a swimming pool, lots of nooks and crannies and a lovely summer house where tea and cakes would be served at 4 p.m. By autumn, those burnt and shriveled bushes would be a blaze of gold and crimson, and her joy as a garden owner would be complete.

As for the rest of the palace, she let her imagination run riot. There would be lots of porcelain, fine wood, beautiful tables, large sewing boxes and lovely pictures. The dining table would be covered with big silver bowls and candlesticks. Her bedchamber would be decorated in pink Jane Churchill with matching curtains, duvet and wallpaper, and Godfrey's would be striped and peppermint green. They would be able to see the garden from their window, even Catheter, whose bedroom would be flowery and primrose yellow. She imagined Catheter sitting at his desk, looking serious, with Angus racketing around the room. The thought of Angus made her stop. Who was going to be a mother to Angus, now that...?

A sharp knock at the door and Sharon's voice: "Breakfast will be served in half an hour, ma'am!" made her start. She didn't answer, just turned over and continued to speculate. What if that awful Lucinda woman were to be Angus's step-mother, as she was sure to be since Catheter would have to marry her? How would that sit? To Letitia it was a dreadful thought that a commoner would now have claims on the House of Gorm, but the shameless hussy was three months pregnant, and she supposed that was what democracy was all about.

She got up quickly and went into the bathroom. How she missed not being waited on in bed, but Sharon was too busy serving at the breakfast table. She reminded herself to put an ad in the personal column of the _Bugle_ , pleading for Mary Sedeekly and Agatha Armstrong-Pitt to get in touch with her. After showering, she dressed and went downstairs. Glancing around the drawing room she noted that no one else had entered. Breakfast had become an erratic affair since Godfrey's election.

She tasted the oatmeal in her bowl and grimaced. It was lukewarm, having had to traverse the vast distance between the kitchen and the west wing drawing room without the benefit of the heated serving carts that the servants had used before the revolution. She looked at it for a while, then gingerly bit a slice of buttered toast. Her hunger had disappeared and she swallowed the piece of toast more from abhorrence of waste than genuine desire to eat.

Godfrey entered wearing a blue presidential blazer with the Church Party logo on his breast pocket and a copy of the _Bugle_ tucked under his arm, and sat down. He opened the newspaper, greeted Letitia and began reading.

Letitia noticed the envelope on the salver beside her plate. Sharon had brought the mail in, just before breakfast and laid it on the table. When she saw where the letter came from she breathed in sharply. She glanced at Godfrey who was deep in his _Bugle_. The letter was from a Barbadian realter, whom she'd written to about a suitable retirement home for herself and Godfrey, and she had not expected to receive a reply so soon. There was a paper-knife on the salver. Letitia picked it up and sliced the envelope open. The she gasped with joy as her eyes took in the letter.

Godfrey looked up from his reading and grabbed a slice of toast. "Don't you want to see the post?" she asked.

"Why, is there something important?"

She reached across the table and gave him the letter. He frowned at its contents, then tossed it aside and returned to the paper.

'We can't afford it" was all he said while Letitia stared in disbelief and Sharon brought them both a fried egg and two slivers of bacon.

Catheter came in, with Anton a few steps behind. Catheter wore a suit and tie and carried his briefcase in his hand, while Anton entered scratching his head. He was wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants that he'd obviously been sleeping in. The sweatshirt bore the message: RESPECT ALL AND FEAR NONE. That clearly doesn't include self-respect, Letitia thought testily. "Morning all," he said sleepily. Then he sat down heavily. When Sharon came in with more fried egg and bacon, he asked for scrambled egg. Meanwhile he took a piece of toast from the rack and buttered it with his fork.

"You might think of using a knife," Godfrey grumbled from the head of the table.

"Knives are for nerds," Anton mumbled. Godfrey glared and Letitia glanced sympathetically at him.

"You're getting on your father's nerves," she said to Anton, then in an aside to Godfrey: "He'd get on them less if we were in Barbados."

Godfrey lowered his paper and gave a slight smirk of disdain.

"Very true," he said. Turning to Catheter he added: "And what are you up to today?"

Catheter reached out for a piece of toast and buttered it. "I'm off to a meeting with Fatsi and Pest at ten," he said airily. "Then I thought I might do some research in the legal library at Government House,"

Godfrey nodded and went back to his bacon and eggs. As part of his presidential remit, he had pledged himself to encourage his sons to involve themselves in the process of government. Catheter had taken to sitting in the Legislative Assembly and listening to the debates, just as he'd done before the revolution. Lately, he'd begun spending more of his time examining Mellorian traditional laws, which Godfrey saw as slightly odd.

"What are you going to do about your girlfriend?" he suddenly asked. Letitia pricked her ears to take in Catheter's reply, which was halting.

"Well, of course I'll introduce her to members of the government and we'll have talks with Archbishop Larry about our, um, marriage."

"You know you won't be able to marry until the year of mourning is over," Godfrey said.

Catheter flushed. Godfrey had referred to the obligatory waiting period, according to Mellorian traditional law, that a widowed Crown Prince must undergo before remarriage.

"We know what we're doing," Catheter said, stung to retaliation, "or at least Lucinda does."

At his utterance of the name Lucinda his face brightened. He floated off into a state of intoxication. The sight of her face, the sound of her voice, and the scent of her perfume – intertwined in his happiness – swam into his consciousness.

"Just as long as she realizes," Letitia said, bringing him down to earth, "that she's not marrying the crown, she's marrying the man underneath."

Chapter 59

### Fighting the Fundamentalists

Leaving the palace in his chauffeured limousine, Godfrey had two pressing problems on his mind. The most immediate was what to do about the remnants of the People's Party. Paul Slamil, currently under house arrest on suspicion of involvement in Dawna's assassination, had asked for immunity from prosecution and security guarantees in return for giving evidence against Joe Steel and Caspar. The People's Party was badly split – some of its members were under investigation for human rights atrocities and others were reeling from reports in the newly-reorganized _Melloria City Bugle_ with headlines like _Paul Slamil's Reign of Terror_ and _Hundreds of People Tortured and Killed_ which many people considered more than just examples of customary Mellorian hyperbole.

Godfrey was undecided whether to allow Slamil to seek political asylum in Slobodia (Slamil's preferred choice) or put him on trial along with Steel and Caspar for political murder. He was not indisposed towards a reorganized People's Party as long as it embraced the democratic process, and he visualized it evolving into the Mellorian People's Social Democratic Party, a worthy opposition party to his own. By the time the limo swung into the precincts of Government House, Godfrey had decided that Slamil should be kept under house arrest, protected by a special guard with guns always drawn, until his departure for Slobodia. If he should meet with a grisly fate at the hands of King Slobodan and his gang, that was no concern of Godfrey's.

His other pressing problem concerned the Church Party. He had managed to gather his former cabinet of advisers around him, but while Amis, Sir Michael Pest, Clive Fatsi and even Bunty, the Duke of Mellinda, were ready enough to take up their former posts, other contenders within the Church Party were clamoring for ministerial appointments. The strongest of these, and a rapidly growing thorn in Godfrey's flesh, was the formerly-disgraced, newly reinstated Bishop of Mellinda, Martin Bribe. He was a pale, oily specimen, political and manipulative to the very depths of his soul. He had worked his way up through the many committees that met on dark, murky January days to deal with Melloria's social problems.

Godfrey found himself detesting Bribe so heartily that it was giving him headaches. Unlike his episcopal predecessor, Larry Lepager, Bribe loved power for its own sake, and his enjoyment went beyond the pleasure of actualizing his ideas. He quickly outflanked Pest and Fatsi and became Revenue Minister, and it was clear he would like to take over Amis's job as Prime Minister in Godfrey's cabinet. The headaches, the responsibility, the lack of time for a life outside work, the complete absence of opportunity to broaden his outlook: none of these mattered to him. He had been close to the People's Party during the revolution and had suffered for it, and, after his fall from grace, seemed to have made up his mind to acquire as much leverage as he could in the power process.

"That's why I loathe the fellow so much," Godfrey had once told Lepager, "the bounder's a damn workaholic!"

Godfrey opened the door of the limo just as the February sky, black with clouds, disgorged a torrential downpour. The rain swept across the façade of Government House and added a deep pool to the hole in the middle of the sidewalk.

"Bloody weather!" he grumbled.

He got out of the car, his briefcase covering his head. The doorman who had been lounging in the porch of the building, opened an umbrella and stepped out – but was a few seconds late.

"Bloody fool," he muttered, and trod heavily into the pool, the doorman's umbrella bobbing futilely over his head,

Stumbling through the glass doors, he squelched toward the elevators and nodded in a preoccupied manner at a security guard.

His suite of offices occupied most of the top floor. On the ride up he recalled his first frightful encounter with the militant wing of his party. He had gone with Archbishop Lepager to the Central Committee to plead for non-churchgoers like Fatsi, Pest and Amis to be allowed their places in his cabinet of advisers. While there, he listened to speeches by two of his bishops who made up the bulk of the committee. The first was a short, plump man with shortness of breath, and his words tumbled out in jerky crescendos. His breathlessness gave the impression that he was choking with emotion.

He gave the audience the most stirring, inflammatory speech Godfrey had ever heard, far removed from the anodyne sermons old Lesot used to give. His anxiety and frustration called for strong measures against the forces of materialism. Their religion was in danger, and the barbarians were at the gates: the materialists who worshipped money and sex, the pederasts who pleasured themselves with those of their gender in ignorance and sin. "Let them do what they want to in their dens of filth!" the bishop had cried. "But God can see what is happening. They have brought their beastliness to the very precincts of the House of God, and will soon be smitten asunder!"

The other bishop was a placid, good-natured, bland-featured man whose speech nevertheless excoriated those who turned their backs on the House of the Lord. Bloody hell! Godfrey had thought, I'm a member of a party of extremists and fundamentalists. His request for Amis and the others to be accepted in his cabinet had almost been defeated and only the persuasive arguments of moderates like Lepager had allowed it to carry the day.

One of his strongest opponents that evening, Godfrey recalled, was that damned Bribe. He seemed to carry a chip on his shoulder, a grudge and a desire to settle scores all at the same time.

Godfrey, by contrast, was neither a politician nor a theologian: he was a family man at heart, and even enjoyed basking in the dour routine that Letitia loved. He looked forward to the day when Catheter ascended the throne, albeit with Lucinda as his queen, and sealed the succession with another son. He was determined not to remain in office a moment longer than was necessary to achieve that end. His presidential salary was modest, as befitted the head of state of an economically depressed nation, but he intended to save enough money by the end of his term to afford the small villa in Barbados or Tobago that Letitia hankered for. He no longer cared about title or prestige – the experience of imprisonment and exile had knocked all that out of him – but he wanted to see certain things done to bring his country back to health, and he believed his job was to help get them done.

Apart from upstarts like Bribe, Godfrey had to contend with health problems. He continued to have respiratory difficulties that forced him to reduce his workload, and he began delegating more and more of it. Lepager, Fatsi, Pest and, increasingly, Catheter were his mainstays. As well as chronic headaches, the pressures of his job were disturbing Godfrey's breathing and causing him pain and incapacity. At Letitia's insistence, he cut down his brandy intake to two glasses a day and dispensed with as much strenuous activity as he could.

That still left him chairing committees where Martin Bribe was an insidious presence, sliding his proposals to the top of every agenda, shaking off all opposition with the force of his arguments and sinuously achieving his goals. Godfrey found himself recoiling at the man's sickly pallor and his snakelike persistence. Bribe really was getting under his skin in a way that guaranteed a confrontation.

The confrontation drew nearer after Bribe worked to kill the Restoration of the Monarchy Bill, which had passed the inquiry stage and the first reading and was now winding its way through the committee stage at the Assembly. The bill was close to Godfrey's heart, as it involved the peaceful transition of Melloria from a republic to a constitutional monarchy, and Bribe's proposed amendments would set it back another year at least.

Godfrey was so furious with Bribe's actions, which he interpreted as being fuelled by malice – as most of the Church Party hierarchy were in favor of the bill – that he almost had an apoplectic fit when he received word of the bill's latest setback. Bribe and other fundamentalist bishops had argued that the bill in its present form would encourage future Heirs Apparent to abandon their marriage vows and seek divorce (the bill had been drafted with Catheter and Dawna's situation in mind). A doctor was called to attend to Godfrey, and he was advised to leave early and return to Calliper Palace for rest and relaxation.

Chapter 60

### Lucinda Gains Acceptance

Lucinda rode her splotchy gray mare through the Forest of Gorm on her way to Calliper palace. She had received an invitation from the palace and was looking forward to meeting President Godfrey Gorm and his family, especially Catheter, whom she had rarely seen since he had left the mansion of Ferdinand, Duke of Melacholia, in King Hector's royal Bentley. The early March day was frosty, but although she was four months pregnant she did not find the ride arduous and indeed enjoyed the slow canter through the silvery forest. As she rode she contemplated her situation. Although saddened, like most of the world, by the death of Catheter's wife, part of her realized the new situation Dawna's death presented was nothing less than a godsend. The fact that Catheter was free to marry her – once the year of mourning had passed – and was a widower, not a divorced man (an unexpected bonus), filled her heart with joyful expectation. Her own status as a mother-to-be might prove to be a problem, but they would cross that bridge later. For now, she hoped that her arrival at Calliper would enable her to prepare the ground for her acceptance by Catheter's family and the Mellorian people.

She knew how much ground she had to cover. The _Bugle_ , now restored to its liberal rambunctiousness, had begun printing articles about the late Princess Dawna which, although surprising in the tenderness, delicacy and compassion with which they treated her memory, implied that Lucinda had been a marriage breaker and a source of misery to the princess. Other more vicious tabloids, which had panned the princess as an image-obsessed airhead during her lifetime, now grovelingly made amends. Editorials that were appalling in lickspittle adulation that made their previous condemnation of her grotesque, reviled Lucinda as Melloria's most unpopular woman and portrayed her as a scheming gold-digger. During her long phone conversations with Catheter she lamented that she had been made to look evil in the Mellorian press, and he had gallantly responded by obtaining his father's permission for her to visit with him at the palace and even to have dinner with the Gorms.

She had joyfully accepted the opportunity to meet his parents and appear openly at his side, after years of tiptoeing around and meeting clandestinely. Her contact with him since his return to Melloria had been confined to long phone calls and webcams, which had undoubtedly helped him cope with his grief following the assassination. They had managed one clandestine meeting in Bulimia shortly after Dawna's funeral, when he had invited her to join him and Angus on a visit to her grave, and she had watched him lay flowers while Angus crawled among the headstones and monumental masonry.

Her long calls to Catheter as well as enabling him to exorcise much of the pain of his guilt and grief, had allowed him to tell her how much he longed to throw himself into her arms with an even greater ardor than he threw himself into his public duties. The dual embrace – one public, the other ardently imagined and private – blurred the edge of his pain until the passage of time brought permanent solace.

On the canter toward the palace, Lucinda dwelt on her difficulty in winning public acceptance as Catheter's bride-to-be. The _Bugle's_ articles, depicting her as a thorn in Dawna's side, were not the only barrier in her path. Her unwed pregnancy was sure to be flung in her face the first time she and Catheter attended a premiere together in a blaze of flashbulbs.

Back at the palace there was work to be done. Letitia had been thrown into consternation by the sudden resignation of Sharon, her maid. Rescue came in the form of a phone call from Agatha Armstrong-Pitt, who along with Mary Sedeekly, had been waiting until the moment they thought it safe to contact their former queen, following Godfrey's election. They were eager to resume their posts, now as ladies of the First Lady's Bedchamber, and within a matter of hours they had arrived at the palace and been assimilated into the presidential household.

Letitia was in her bedchamber and about to trickle some perfume onto her wrist when Agatha burst in.

"Oh, Agatha, it's so good to see you!" she said. "Would you find out what's growing in the kitchen garden? We'll need some winter veggies - that frightful Lucinda woman is coming to dinner."

A half hour later, Agatha bounded back into the room.

"I've done an inventory of what's in the garden!" she said enthusiastically.

" – And?" Letitia asked.

"We have turnips, a few carrots – and lots and lots of nettles!"

"Then tell the cook to make nettle fondue with carrot puree. We'll have turnip stew for hors d'oeuvre, and call it _ragout de navet_ on the menu."

Agatha made a slight grimace, which was not lost on Letitia.

"If you find nettles not to your taste, you don't have to have them," she said. "There'll be more for the rest of us."

Agatha nodded, deflated.

"Oh, and let's have cacah for dessert."

Agatha's grimace intensified. Then her face brightened.

"But we don't have any sugar left from our ration, ma'am," she said triumphantly.

"Get it on the black market," Letitia said "I know for a fact that Lucinda will enjoy cacah!"

Before she left, Letitia gave Agatha instructions that she was to be woken at seven. She had decided to take a nap before dinner and soon – while the evening light from streetlamps outside the palace were streaking patterns onto her bare walls – she was sleeping diagonally under the silk sheets, her head at the extreme edge of the pillow. Her discretely aging face was covered with dried mud which she used to preserve her complexion.

As he walked up the stairs at the end of the hall, Simpkins paused to admire himself in the mirror, and, greeting himself with a sotto voce "Looking good, Sim. Looking good," he raised his cupped hand to smooth back his heavily-dressed hair.

When he got to the upstairs corridor he marched across to the First Lady's bedchamber and knocked on the door.

"Your six o'clock gin and tonic, ma'am!" he called.

Letitia a continued to sleep soundly.

"Are you sure you don't want it, ma'am?" he said more loudly.

She stirred slightly, then burbled a sound of complaint.

"Very good, ma'am," he said and tossed back the contents of the glass.

The Gorms were all assembled when Lucinda arrived for dinner at the palace. Catheter had been looking forward to introducing her to his family, but lately his mood had been troubled. He had gone to his room to do some sound mixing, and when Simpkins knocked on the door to announce dinner, he frowned and went back to his tape decks. He asked the butler if Lucinda had arrived, and heard that she was expected at any minute. He wasn't interested in dinner, and if it wasn't for Lucinda's arrival, would have gone on working all evening. He selected a tape of whale moos, slipped it into his recorder, and went to the bathroom to freshen up.

Downstairs the other Gorms waited in the dining room and fiddled with their napkins. Dinner was served on Limoges china of a design much inferior to the pieces that had been sold off by the People's Party, but the silverware was good and some of the pictures that had been looted during the revolution had been returned from abroad and rehung. Oil portraits on the walls showed King Reginald the Restorer, Godfrey's dashing great-grandfather, complete with horse, sword and black-and-yellow plumes. He had died fighting against the Slobodians at the Battle of Mellinda. The portrait next to it was of his son, the tragic King Cuthbert. He was not on horseback, merely standing, in full Mellorian national dress. There was a sense of calm resignation in his eyes, as opposed to the attractive arrogance of his father.

On the opposite wall hung a portrait of King Oswald the Optimist seated, his queen beside him, staring out of the painting with an air of sad wistfulness, as if he knew that, being an optimist, he was up against it. Godfrey's father, King Egbert, was positioned next to Oswald. He wore a red tunic, which bristled with braid and tassels, a dark blue sash – richly bemedalled – and an ermine cloak and velvet gown.

His mind in disarray after a day spent in grueling debates with Bribe, Godfrey looked up at his father's portrait and slowly pulled himself together. He thought of what a tough old bugger his father had been and the exacting standards he set for his son. When faced with the gravest of crises during World War II, as the Nazis threatened to invade as a prelude to their attack on Russia, King Egbert's diplomatic maneuvers, playing off von Ribbentrop against Molotov, had saved Melloria from being dragged into the conflict. Drawing inspiration from his father's stiff resolve, he prepared himself for a potentially grueling dinner.

Eventually Catheter came down and entered the room, followed – as protocol demanded – by Lucinda. She looked, if not stunning, then extremely presentable, and glanced appreciatively round the room, smiling at everyone. Seating herself near Catheter, she moved her chair closer to the table and spread her napkin on her knees. She was soon chatting with Godfrey and Anton.

Letitia looked across at her with mild exasperation, and mentally dissected her dress, jewelry, face, manner, antecedents and voice: Nice dress but nothing special. She's wearing red with a green floral print and an orange bag – like a set of traffic lights. Look at that heavy gold necklace and those chunky bangles. Flashy isn't the word. But I suppose it's necessary to overdress when you're in business. And Catheter must have spent a fortune on that ring – diamonds and sapphires mainly, though I can't see clearly from here. Why did she decide to wear a glass bangle next to a gold one? It looks awfully vulgar. And those earrings! Every time she shakes her head they flash like car headlights. She's such a commoner, but these days we all are, I suppose! Oh God, is she making eyes at Godfrey? Shameless hussy!"

Conversation at dinner was light and desultory. Catheter steered the discussion toward the progress of the Restoration Bill, partly to avoid the kind of social chit-chat that might evoke witheringly sarcastic remarks by his mother against Lucinda.

"Let's hope it gets to the third reading," he said cheerily. "And if it does, let's hope that the president doesn't withhold his assent!"

Catheter's quip set Lucinda off, and her laughter could be heard tinkling above the hubbub of chatter.

The reason for Sharon's resignation and sudden departure from her job at the palace lay in the newsroom of the _Sunday Bugle_. A story was being put to bed with the rest of the paper late Saturday evening which had first been submitted to the editor when Arabella Scott-Natterson had been reinstated to her old post, renamed Political Correspondent. She told him she had been holding on to it for complex reasons since before the revolution, and as soon as he read it he immediately assigned it to the front and center pages of the Sunday paper.

Arabella went back to her office to write the final draft of the biggest story of her career, pausing only to send Sharon the check that had prompted her resignation. Her final act before finishing the piece had been to call the president's press office for comments and, finding no one there, typing a "Not available for comment" line at the end of her story.

The story that the _Bugle's_ night editor laid out on the pages of the Sunday edition told of Godfrey Gorm's night of naked naughtiness, the scathing expose of his boogie night with a nobleman's maid, which had resulted in a lovechild, and the amazing cover-up of a king's bastard son. It was to have consequences that even the hardboiled editor of the _Bugle_ could not have foreseen.

Chapter 61

### A Mortal Blow To The President

Sunday breakfast at the presidential palace was usually a bit later than during the week. The _Bugle_ had not yet been brought to him and Godfrey had his nose fixed in the legislative papers stacked beside his plate. Letitia sat next to him, eating her toast and buttering his.

"I had a frantic phone call from Ada last night," she said, continuing to butter toast as she talked, "and she wanted us to have Angus back right away. She said it's high time Cathy took some responsibility for his son in his native land, instead of leaving Betty to raise him. She and Hector are so frazzled by his constant bawling, they are going to fly him and Betty first class to Melloria, so we'd better be ready to pick them up today."

Godfrey grunted, barely stirring, but her words percolating through his mind set off a train of thought about the virulent form of Attention Deficit Disorder that periodically appeared in males of the Gorm line. His grandfather, King Cuthbert, had been a sufferer and had ended his short reign by flinging himself from the roof of Calliper Palace.

"The other thing she wanted to do," Letitia continued, "was to send that frightful creature Hernia to us. She thinks it would help to settle Anton down."

His wife's words set off another train of thought in Godfrey's mind, this time about Anton who was, in his opinion, in danger of going to the dogs. Anton had tried his hand at sitting in the Assembly, but found it too irksome and preferred to hang out with his LARP buddies, whom Godfrey considered a bunch of wastrels. They spent their time dressing up in costumes and prancing about the country playing games that were completely beyond him. Anton kept his room crammed full of helmets, swords and costumes for his role plays, and Godfrey was getting seriously concerned that Anton would end up lost in a world of fantasy.

"Maybe that isn't a bad idea..." he began to say when Mary Sedeekly came into the room and asked, in a worried tone, "Have you seen the _Bugle_?"

Godfrey shook his head behind his legislative papers, and Letitia gave her a puzzled look.

"You'd better bring it to me at once," she said, spreading Cooper's Oxford marmalade on her toast in an anxious manner.

Mary left the room and quickly returned. "I hope it turns out all right," she said, handing Letitia the _Sunday Bugle_ and immediately leaving.

Godfrey continued browsing and chewing toast until, with a sharp exclamatory shriek, Letitia threw the paper down.

"It's unspeakable...!" was all she could say.

Godfrey glanced worriedly at her and scanned the front page. "Christ!" he said, and began reading avidly.

""It's worse than you think," Letitia said, seeing his shocked face. "They're saying you should resign forthwith!"

"I can't believe it," Godfrey stuttered." After all this time... how could she?"

"Very easily," Letitia replied. "All it takes is a pushy journalist and a lot of money."

"Why did the editor put this out without my permission?" Godfrey croaked, still holding a piece of toast. "The man should be stripped and whipped!"

For a few seconds there was a stunned silence. "Heads will roll!" Godfrey continued, finding his voice at last. "Why didn't the press office warn me this was coming out?"

"Because they didn't know, Dear," Letitia whispered. "I'll bet the _Bugle_ didn't even bother to tell them."

The door opened, and Catheter walked in. "What's going on?" He looked at his parents' shocked faces in surprise, and went to take his place at the table.

When Letitia had told him about the damning article in the _Bugle_ , Catheter looked at his father in angry astonishment.

"How will this affect the restitution?" he asked.

Godfrey ignored the question. "Those who are responsible for this," he said, throwing the paper across the table, "should be castrated with boiling oil!"

Letitia looked at Godfrey in dismay. "This is going to have a terrible effect on the country," she said, "and God knows what it's going to do to the future of the monarchy."

A sudden thought struck Catheter, "Maybe it was meant to be," he said.

"Maybe I was never meant to be king – at least Lucinda and I can live our lives in peace... "

"Shut up!" Godfrey growled. "I'll have you on the throne of Melloria if it's the last thing I do!"

Chapter 62

### Another Servants' Discussion

In the palace laundry room a discussion was taking place among the small group of servants. Seated on his favorite upturned basket, Simpkins was holding a copy of the _Sunday Bugle_ while Wilson, the young male cook held forth:

"Look, the only reason the people elected Goddy as prez was because he was Dawna's father-in-law. Everybody knows that. All he knows how to do is make bloody speeches and play billiards. He doesn't have an intelligent idea in his head – he just wants to bring back the monarchy. And what's more, he's letting the bloody bishops jerk him around! And we're the ones who pick up the tab – "

"What can he do though, he's not a dictator?" Godfrey's driver, the appropriately named Motion, cut in.

"Please don't interrupt! Can I make a point? You can say what you like when I'm finished!" Wilson snarled. "So what's he gonna do about this poxy sinners' tax? I mean I don't go to church - I'm an atheist, Does that mean I have to pay for the bloody bishops' palaces?"

Simpkins added a note of compassion for Godfrey. "I take your point, Colin, but it's a shame he has to get booted out like this, with his tail between his legs."

Motion laughed coarsely. "It's his tail that got him into this pickle in the first place!"

Turning to Simpkins, he added: "Here, Sim, isn't Sharon Whoresipoop – the one who had the king's bastard – your fiancee?"

Simpkins's face darkened. "I'll thank you to keep her name out of this discussion, Andy – if you know what's good for you."

Berryman, who'd just come in from the garden to pick up some laundry, chipped in: "Anyway, what's wrong with restoring the monarchy? We were better off when we had a king."

"Were we bollocks!" Wilson said. "The ordinary people didn't have no say in how the country was run – and they run it down!"

"Well, it might not be so bad next time," Berryman maintained. "After all, we've never had a constitutional king before."

Wilson snorted derisively. "We've never had a bloody constitution!"

The ten per cent tax imposed on non-churchgoers, the so-called 'sinners' tax', which a caucus of bishops in the Assembly had forced through as a condition of not opposing the Restitution Bill, and which would, over the years, finance the bulk of church expenses, met with much popular opposition. As Easter approached, a large number of people gathered outside the presidential palace. Some of them had climbed the railings and were milling around in the courtyard. A few had wandered into the gardens, and had been chased out by Berryman wielding a rake. Godfrey's driver and Simpkins were doing what they could to control the crowd and shoo away the trespassers, but people continued to surge forward.

A deputation was assembled, which after much negotiation was invited into Godfrey's old study, now his office, and two narrow benches were brought in. Both were soon filled with chattering delegates. The leader of the deputation, a dour-looking teacher, sat on a chair in front of Godfrey's desk. He looked like a man who had been bitterly disappointed by life, and complained that he and his fellow citizens were being twice bled by the government since the new tax had been introduced.

"When are you going to curb these damn bishops, Mr President?" he asked loudly.

Godfrey gave a tired smile. "I'm doing my best to contain Their Lordships' zeal," he said tightly. "Their efforts to turn this country into a religious state are being stoutly resisted."

"We might have known this would happen when we let a bunch of priests and bishops take over!" a man in a woolly hat said, half to his fellow deputies. "We should have let the People's Party stay in!"

Godfrey was stung into a sharp reply. "If you'd done that, the country would be a dictatorship by now – or it would be a province of Slobodia, which amounts to the same thing! At least we've kept the country free. All you people should be grateful," he went on, embracing the whole deputation with a sweep of his arm. "If Slamil and his lot had been allowed to remain a month longer, you'd all be living on turnips and your children would starve."

"We know you're doing your best, sir," an old man who looked like a farmer said. "It's just that these damn bishops are bleeding us white!"

"That's right," the leader of the deputation added, "and people are saying you're losing your grip!"

Godfrey's expression took on a purplish hue, and he grasped the beveled edges of his desk.

"Now look here," he said, slowly and deliberately. "I served this country as its king for over thirty years and I'm not going to turn my back on it – "

A blank white screen suddenly filled Godfrey's vision, and he marveled at its clinical, almost antiseptic whiteness. Meanwhile, his body made a half turn away from the desk and crashed like a felled tree on the carpeted floor.

After the shock of learning he had _angina pectoris_ had worn off, Godfrey went into mourning for his old life. He stayed at the hospital undergoing tests, for three days, and came out on Easter Sunday. The mild April weather made him wistful for his hunting days, and he spent most of his first day of convalescence watching _The Deer Hunter_ and other hunting DVDs in the drawing room, having his meals brought to him and reading the _Bugle_.

Hernia and Angus, with his nurse Betty, flew in from Bulimia and, in their different ways, caused a stir. Hernia, in her 'shock frock' outfit of short leather miniskirt, Doc Martens, SATAN'S SEX SLAVE T-shirt and numerous body piercings, caused Letitia to have frequent paroxysms of exasperation. She shared her irritation during her evening dinner with Godfrey.

"She's driving me into an early grave, and Agatha and Mary too," she said indignantly. "She hid sex toys in the baskets during the Easter egg hunt, and to top it all, after lunch when Agatha put _The Sound of Music_ into the DVD player, we discovered the little minx had switched the labels and we were watching pornography – involving lesbians and German Shepherd dogs – in front of the archbishop!"

Godfrey hid behind his napkin. He was laughing silently to himself. Lesbians and German Shepherd dogs in front of the archbishop! Letitia was looking daggers at him, and meanwhile Betty and Agatha were struggling to contain little Angus.

He gave everyone the runaround: cats and dogs scattered from his assaults, and the family beagles kept out of his way, fearing a tussle. Servants sought refuge in closets and pantries, and Simpkins narrowly avoided being butted in the stomach by Angus's head as he careered joyfully around the palace. At one point during the afternoon party games, Catheter carried Angus on his back to give him a better view, Angus squirmed so vigorously he almost toppled off his father, but Betty managed to get hold of the boy and hoisted him back onto Catheter's shoulders.

Letitia found him, after she came back from the garden, resting on an improvised crib of Easter basket straw, fast asleep. Betty too was exhausted and had dozed off. Letitia looked at them both and closed her eyes as well.

Next morning Godfrey came down for breakfast and told those present he was going to retire on health grounds. His deputy, Archbishop Lepager, would take over as interim president until the Restitution of the Monarchy Act came into force in the New Year. Then it would be up to the Mellorian people to decide, through a referendum, whether they wanted a constitutional monarchy, with Catheter as king, or a continuation of the republic. Godfrey was confident from the soundings of various parties that the people would choose the former, but things still hung in the balance.

Listening to Godfrey's decision, Letitia realized with a surge of joy that her dream had come true at last. What's more, she had received a notification from the realter of a two bedroom villa in Barbados that she hoped they could afford. All she could think of was when and where, in this household of bustling people, she would find time to lobby Godfrey about the Barbados house.

After Godfrey had made his announcement, he and the others tucked into egg, bacon and toast, and other delicacies. Catheter came in late, with Lucinda a few steps behind. Anton, who had been guided to his room by a servant the night before and had slept on his bed without taking his clothes off, sat casually in his chair looking very disheveled. Lucinda beamed a good morning to everyone around the table, but when she saw Anton picking his nose while deciding between marmalade and blackcurrant jam, the smile died on her lips. She glanced pleadingly to Catheter.

"Stop that nose mining – you're grossing everybody out!" Catheter exclaimed. Then he sat down, draping his jacket across the back of his chair.

Anton finished chewing his bacon and said: "Raasclaat!"

A car horn sounded loudly outside the window. "That's my ride," Catheter said. reaching for his tea. Then he laughed and added: "I'm sharing it with two cabinet ministers. Bye, Darling." He swallowed a gulp of tea and kissed Lucinda. "I'll see you at the Assembly, Father. Bye, Mother. Bye Booger Boy!"

He glanced at Anton, who nonchalantly raised a finger, and strode out, carrying his jacket over one arm and his briefcase in the other.

With Catheter gone the atmosphere became more relaxed, and Lucinda became the focus of attention. Anton flicked glances at her cleavage and her expanse of stomach, and Godfrey read pieces of news from the _Bugle_ to her as if she were a child. She listened with a careful pretense of interest.

Eventually, after almost all the food had gone, Hernia came in looking even more disheveled than Anton.

Chapter 63

### Catheter Hits Back

When Catheter returned home he was in a foul temper.

With scarcely more than a nod to his father, mother and brother, he marched straight to his seat at the dinner table and aggressively slapped his briefcase down.

"Damn swine, the lot of them!" he announced.

Letitia surveyed him from the other side of the table and gave Godfrey a sidelong glance. Godfrey's features were strongly set.

"Those damn moronic bishops ought to be shot!" he shouted, picking up his knife and fork as the first dishes appeared.

"What happened, Darling?" Lucinda murmured, leaning over and loosening his tie with her red-nailed fingers.

He grunted his appreciation of her attentions and shoveled in a mouthful of turnip stew. To keep his shirt and tie from spotting, she began tucking his napkin under his collar. "Tell me," she breathed.

Catheter sighed. "The bloody Bishop of Mellinda has ordained that, according to traditional Mellorian law, I won't be allowed to become king after the referendum if I marry you, because we had a child out of wedlock!"

Lucinda's fingers stopped. "No!" she exclaimed, genuinely shocked. "That's ridiculous!"

"Martin Bribe's a prick!" Catheter growled around the tureen of stew. "Excuse me, Mother, but it's true. He said we wouldn't even be allowed to bring up Angus. We'd have to leave him in the care of church-appointed caregivers, 'lest the son be tainted with the sin of the father' – or in this case, the stepmother."

"You'll have to go over their heads," Godfrey stated. "Go directly to the people. No sane Mellorian will allow it!"

"I just can't believe it," Lucinda whispered in astonishment, her nose had gone red and tears were starting down her cheeks.

"We won't let them get away with it – " Letitia began indignantly.

"I think I'm going to have to leave this room," Lucinda cried, just before she broke down and wept.

Catheter put an arm around her and held her while she shook with tears.

A sudden thought struck Catheter. "Next Friday is Melloria's National Day. I'll go on TV and ask the people to support me as their king."

Lucinda had stopped weeping, and now looked hopeful. "Oh Darling, do you think it will work?"

Godfrey and Letitia maintained a diplomatic silence.

Catheter spent the next three days fretting about his TV appearance and how he should phrase his appeal for support against the bishops. He went to see Clive Fatsi. Fatsi was embarrassed, but, conscious of his role as a presidential adviser, he advised Catheter to go the whole hog and wear the national costume on Melloria's National Day. Catheter left the meeting feeling slightly uneasy.

Catheter stood outside the studio door for a second, and looked at Lucinda. He was smiling with pleasure and she couldn't help smiling back at him. He was dressed simply and immaculately in the Mellorian national costume of an embroidered white cotton shirt worn almost to the knee and well-starched baggy white pants. He wore a white cotton cap whose embroidery matched his shirt, and slip-on shoes of soft leather with curly toes, like Turkish slippers.

"I see you're wearing your own style of goatherd's cap," she said, after popping a ginger snap into her mouth from the hospitality tray.

Catheter touched the side of his embroidered cap nervously, unsure of himself. "Perhaps I should have changed into a suit," he said.

After the broadcast Catheter went to Calliper Palace for lunch and to brag about the UN ambassador he was going to meet. He's from one of the South American countries – Peru or Chile or somewhere."

"He's from Bolivia," Hernia commented tartly.

"Sorry, my mistake," Catheter said. "I hadn't realized Hernia is sleeping with him." Letitia looked appalled.

To Hernia he said: "Are you dating him? That sounds better, doesn't it?"

Letitia glanced at him, unsoothed.

"Yah, sort of," Hernia said.

"Well, you mustn't," Catheter said stuffily. "He's elderly – must be at least fifty-five."

Letitia glanced in annoyance at her son. Fifty-five was hardly elderly.

"Where did you get such an awful son?" Letitia asked her husband.

"I don't know," Godfrey replied.

"If you'd spent more time with him when he was young, instead of going to the officer's club every day - " she began to rebuke him, then Simpkins approached Godfrey.

"Sir, His Majesty the King of Bulimia is on the telephone," he intoned.

"Ten to one it's about Hernia," Godfrey said. He snatched the cell from Simpkins's silver salver.

"Tell His Majesty we're sending her home!" Catheter commented.

"Fuck off!" Hernia retorted, and poked her tongue out at him. The sight of the skewered stud, livid as an eyeball, made him blanch.

Letitia was shocked into exclaiming: "Language! And put that awful ornament back in your mouth."

Oh, bollocks!" Hernia muttered, looking sullen.

"I'd better get ready for His Excellency. Excuse me, I've an ambassador to meet," Catheter said.

"You're the biggest wanker alive!" Hernia cried, stung to fierceness.

Catheter got up to go, then froze as Hernia hurtled from the room.

The day after Catheter's broadcast, the opinion polls showed his rating as having fallen dramatically, and his spirits fell also. He now felt he was completely at the mercy of the caucus of bishops controlled by Martin Bribe.

"They've given me an ultimatum," he complained to Lucinda as they rode the gelding and the splotchy gray mare along a bridle path toward her cottage. "Either I sign a declaration restraining myself from marrying you, or they'll take Angus away from us after the referendum."

"It's outrageous," Lucinda said, riding well for all her six months of pregnancy. "And all because of that dreadful Martin Bribe."

"He's a shitbag," Catheter said, lapsing into vulgarity, "But unfortunately he's got us by the balls."

Veering off to the left to avoid a marshy bog, they came out onto a clearing.

"You know, I think I can do something about the Very Reverend Dr Bribe," Lucinda said thoughtfully.

"How so?" Catheter was curious.

Lucinda reined in her mare. "My friend, Arabella Scott-Natterson of the _Bugle,_ knows a thing or two about digging up dirt on people. I'll ask her to do some research," she said.

They stopped and rested.

"Do you think she could find something to discredit Bribe?" Catheter said. "I'd pay gold to see his name dragged through the mud."

"I'm pretty sure she can find something," Lucinda said.

Geeing up the gelding, Catheter cantered back to the path. "Well, we'll see if your scheme works. Race you back to the cottage!"

Godfrey sat up in bed, turning the pages of his _Bugle_ in a leisurely fashion and occasionally reaching for his coffee cup. He had just rung for Simpkins, and he idly scanned the travel section, thinking of his flight to Barbados with Letitia. He knew it was time to leave. Although no longer president and with an abundance of free time for his own pursuits, he accepted that his favorite ones, deer hunting and riding his chestnut cob were gone forever. Catheter and Anton had told him that they would never go hunting again, Catheter saying he preferred polo and Anton simply refusing. As for his chestnut cob, its fate was unknown. Godfrey could only hope it had survived the revolutionary period and had not been killed for horsemeat.

He no longer had any qualms about retiring to a villa in Barbados or Tobago. In fact, he had two good reasons to go: the desire to make his wife happy and the preservation of his health. The latter had taken a severe dent during the months of imprisonment, electioneering and political infighting. He had grown weary of battling against the onslaught of the fundamentalist bishops, and was more than happy to hand over the reins to others. He was also curious to see if Catheter, who had proved a lackluster politician so far, could effectively curb the extremists and become an able head of state. He was impressed by what he'd observed of Lucinda, and he felt she would provide excellent support for Catheter during the trials that lay ahead.

The recent resignation of Martin Bribe from the government, following his expose in the _Bugle_ of having sexually abused boys in his days as a priest, gave Godfrey a certain satisfaction. He gave credit to the newspaper woman who had discovered Bribe's murky past and hoped she would continue to investigate the fundamentalist bishops. They were now left without their most powerful strategist, but he suspected they would soon regroup around another leader. However, they were becoming anathema to the majority of Mellorians because of their divisive 'sinners' tax', and he hoped that, when the next election came, many of them would be voted out of office.

Godfrey knew his days of political office were numbered and had no regrets. Dawna's vast popularity had helped him win the presidency, but his conflict with the fundamentalists had left him feeling stranded and impotent, and his final act as president had been to authorize today's referendum. Its result was expected to be a resounding endorsement for the restoration of the monarchy, something he fervently longed for. From tomorrow onwards, it would be up to Catheter aided by Lucinda and the moderates in the government, to keep the country going.

One big problem that they would have to face was the country's dire financial straits. Slobodia's threat to cut off Melloria's electricity supply because of a massive unpaid bill would soon be carried out, now that it was clear the defeat of the People's Party had not plunged the country into the chaos the Slobodians had hoped for. Unless an alternative supply could be quickly established, they would all be groping around in the dark and Godfrey made a mental note to warn Catheter of the imminence of the power losses.

Chapter 64

### The Disinheritance

Catheter rode hard for an hour until he realized what he was doing to Lucinda's gelding. Then he stopped and rested. His first blind rage was gone, and the windy night air helped to clear his head of fury. He began to mull over the events that had led up to his hell-for-leather ride. They had begun with the long talk he'd had with his father after the result of the referendum had been announced. The overwhelming Yes vote for a constitutional monarchy had prompted Godfrey to spell out to him the nature of his duties. Thus fortified, he had gone to Septimus Dripe, the Bishop of Polyp, the new leader of the fundamentalists, and asked for support for his accession to the throne. He had been taken aback when Dripe told him the caucus would continue to endorse the law that compelled an heir married to a "fallen woman" to give up the care of his successor heir to "unblemished" advisers and take no further part in his upbringing. He had left Dripe's office, livid at the harsh sanctimonious judgment and at Mellorian traditional law, bicycled straight to Lucinda's cottage, saddled up the gelding and galloped off, determined he would marry Lucinda and keep Angus come hell or high water.

Catheter spent the next two hours riding slowly back to Lucinda's spread. He returned just before midnight and, after unsaddling and stabling the horse, was making his way toward the cottage when Lucinda came out to meet him. She gave him a quizzical look and he threw up his hands in a gesture that implied that the whole of life was a fiasco.

"I went to see that piece of work Dripe, and he said his bunch will never allow a change in the law: either I marry you and give up the care of Angus to God-knows-who or I stay a widower. I suppose the third alternative would be to marry a virgin princess and let our kid become a bastard!"

He gave her a pleading look. She rushed up to him and flung her arms around him.

"Oh Darling, let's leave this God-forsaken country!" she said, close to his chest. "I've always thought the place was weird."

They disengaged and went inside the cottage, where a saucepan of gluhwein simmered on the range.

"I had a meet today with father," Catheter said as they snuggled on the couch and supped mulled wine, "and he swore he read in one of the old lawbooks he used to keep in his study that Mellorian traditional law allows the Heir Apparent to succeed upon the successful overthrow of an unlawful dissolution, such as an insurrection. That actually happened, after he won the presidential election and introduced the Restitution Law. The trouble is, he didn't turn the page and read the subclause dealing with the marriage of an heir apparent to a fallen woman – such as yourself. Probably because the pages were moldy."

They finished their glasses. "Then why don't we just go...?" she urged sleepily.

He stroked the side of her face and neck, let his hand wander down and brushed her heavily-pregnant belly.

"It's time to put my plan into action," he said.

"What's the plan, Darling?"

He took her glass, then got up and poured more wine. "I'm going to disinherit Angus," he called. "Let Anton have the crown."

When Catheter went to see Septimus Dripe the following day he was in an upbeat mood. He decided he would wear Mellorian dress, as a mocking sally to the fundamentalists' love of Mellorian traditional law, and his white goatherd's cap was askew on his head as he was ushered into Dripe's office. Bookshelves formed a second wall behind Dripe's desk, and they were crammed with the moldering tomes of law that had formerly rotted silently in Godfrey's study before the revolution. How Dripe and his caucus had acquired them was a mystery, but their presence as a formidable third force gradually diminished the ebullience of Catheter's mood.

"Please sit down," Dripe told Catheter. When they were alone, he offered Catheter a thin glass of sherry.

"No thanks, my Lord. I'll just come straight to the point."

"Please."

Dripe was approximately the same age as Godfrey, but he looked older. Tall and spindly, he looked as though he'd spent his entire life mellowing in booklined rooms like the one he was presently in.

Catheter, looking almost dashing in his national costume, leaned forward. "I've decided to come clean about the location of my son's conception," he said.

"Ah," Dripe replied. His forehead twitched momentarily.

"Everyone assumes that my late wife and I conceived Prince Angus on our wedding night at Calliper, the proper time for such an event. But I hereby confess that Her Highness Princess Dawna was still a virgin when we left for Barbados, which is where we consummated the marriage, not on Melorian soil."

"If this is true, and can be proved to be true," Dripe said, a little anxiously, "it means your son will lose his right to the crown and the succession will pass to – "

"– my brother, Anton, which is okay by me."

"No!" Dripe's voice rang out, setting Catheter's teeth on edge. "The second son rule, you're forgetting the second rule!"

Catheter's face darkened, then he exploded. "Oh my God, you mean that stupid business...! So it'll skip Anton and pass to... Father's brother-in-law?"

"Not necessarily!" Dripe said fiercely. "You're running ahead of yourself! The succession will pass first to any male child of the last reigning monarch, lawful or unlawful, and be prohibited to the brother-in-law if such a child be presented to an officer of the law within five days of a national proclamation."

Catheter began blinking furiously. As Dripe droned on, he was thinking of the article in the Sunday paper about one of the maids who claimed her bastard son was the king's. He started to imagine the boy as the next King of Melloria. The alternative, other than admitting that he had just told a lie, was totally unthinkable – letting King Slobodan take the crown and Slobodia take the country.

"There is such a child," he told Dripe, who suspected as much. But Dripe had no intention of letting Catheter escape the full rigors of the law.

"First you must furnish proof to substantiate your claim. Are there any witnesses or documentary evidence of your, um, overseas consummation?"

Catheter winced at the thought of peeping tom servants who had eavesdropped on his marital thrashings being called to give evidence.

"None, my Lord, except a tape recording I made of our first sexual encounter."

Dripe's forehead wrinkled alarmingly. "You made a tape recording of your marital consummation...?"

"Well, yes, it's my hobby," Catheter said, getting up. "I'll have a copy of the tape, on which you can hear tropical noises in the background, fedexed to your office. I'm also prepared to swear on the Holy Bible that I'm speaking the truth. Now, if you'll excuse me, my Lord, I have several urgent phone calls to make."

"We'll see, we'll see," Dripe said, somewhat bemused. He did not get up from his chair. Turning at the door, Catheter gave the bewildered bishop a happy smile, his cheerful mood returned. Dripe did not smile back.

Chapter 65

### The Boy King

Realizing that there was not much time to spare, and fearing that news of the extraordinary turn of events would reach them in a garbled form from some other source, Catheter phoned his parents in a taxi on his way to the palace.

As luck would have it, Godfrey and Letitia were breakfasting late when the call came through. The phone rang on Godfrey's side of the breakfast room and Agatha Armstrong-Pitt, who was standing in for an absent maid, brought it to him. He lifted the receiver casually. Letitia was buttering toast and Agatha was bustling around them.

A loud gasp from Godfrey made them both pause. Godfrey looked shocked, and glanced worriedly at Letitia.

"It's Catheter," he said, but could say nothing more. He passed the phone to Letitia, who muttered briefly into the receiver. Catheter's voice was loud enough for Agatha to hear. "Oh my God!" Letitia and Agatha both said almost simultaneously. For a few seconds there was no sound but the chirpy voice from the phone, then Godfrey snatched the receiver and roared.

"Why didn't you tell me you were going to destroy the House of Gorm, you little turd!"

"Godfrey, your language...!" Letitia whispered in astonishment.

Her nose had gone red and tears were starting down her cheeks.

"I think His Royal Highness has been most indiscrete – " Agatha began indignantly.

"I think you'd better go now," Letitia told her, just before she broke down and wept.

Agatha bustled out just as Catheter's cab drew up at the palace. He walked in and looked at his parents' devastated faces, and went over to comfort his mother. Her face streaked with tears, she looked at him angrily. She was outraged that he had lied about Angus's conception to save his adulterous liaison with Lucinda.

"We'll just have to go along with this," Godfrey said suddenly and deliberately. Turning to Catheter, kneeling beside his mother's chair, he said: "I want to thrash you for compromising your son's rightful inheritance, but I'd infinitely rather the crown passed to a Mellorian, however low-born, than that cur Slobodan."

Letitia had stopped weeping, and now looked at Godfrey in surprise. "Godfrey, that low-born Mellorian is your son!" she said.

"I'm sorry, you're quite right," Godfrey conceded. "I should welcome the boy with open arms."

"Oh well," Letitia sighed. "What's done is done. As your father said, we'll just have to go along with it."

"Of course, Mummy," Catheter said. Though he was not happy with himself for having reduced his mother to tears, he was relieved at the way things were going.

"Forgive me, Mummy," he said with some genuine contrition. "What can I do to make it up to you?"

"Ditch Lucinda!" Letitia said at once. "No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that," she amended. "You can make it up by making an honest woman of her and looking after your family."

"You can also apologize to you father for upsetting him," Letitia said, applying Cooper's Oxford marmalade to her toast.

Oh all right," Catheter said. "I'm sorry, Father, I shouldn't have upset you."

Godfrey grunted and picked up the _Bugle_. He turned to the travel page. "How about this?" he said. "Business class to Barbados, with a layover at Heathrow: Fifty thousand moons."

"That may do quite nicely," Letitia said, somewhat appeased.

"Tell you what," Catheter said, after some hesitation. "I'll pay for the flight."

"Done!" Letitia said happily, her tears forgotten.

Calliper Palace operated as an efficient rumor mill. Whatever any of the Gorms said was passed from one wing to the other and down to the servants' quarters. The servants were interlinked through ancestry, marriage, sexual liaisons, friendships and enmity and formed a single intersecting web of gossip with many strands connected to the outside world. Arabella Scott-Natterson was keyed into this web through her relationship with Mary and Agatha, and, to a lesser extent, with the recently-estranged Sharon. It was through Agatha's breathless phone call that she was able to pass the news of her son's elevation to Sharon, just before she opened her iMac and wrote a splashy article for the Bugle entitled _The Prince and the Pauper_.

Sharon had been trying to get her life back together on the day her life changed forever. As she explained to Arabella when the phone suddenly rang as she was on her way out.

"I'm trying not to think too far ahead, living each day as it comes."

She had experienced mixed fortune since her big payout for the story of her brief encounter with King Godfrey and its consequence. Her relationship with Simpkins had finally come to a shuddering end. As she told Arabella: "He was having it off with the new maid at Calliper every chance he got, in the butler's room, the linen closet, the conservatory..." in a way that was horribly reminiscent of her own workplace romance. Also, he had dropped out of his twelve-step program and had gone back to drinking a bottle of brandy a day.

Craig had been allowed back in school on condition that he attend a therapeutic program involving counseling and daily doses of Ritalin. In fact, she had been about to leave to pick Craig from school when Arabella had called.

"That's fortunate," Arabella said, "because you're going to have to tell him something mindblowing."

"What's that then?"

"For reasons that are too complicated to go into now, Craig must be the next king of Melloria."

"You...! He's...?" Sharon stopped in shock.

"Hello, are you still there?"

"Yeah."

"Did you understand what I just said?"

"That Craig must be the next king of Melloria."

"That's right, Sharon, this isn't a wind-up, and it's very important that you listen carefully to what I'm going to tell you."

"Okay."

"Tomorrow morning a proclamation will be posted in every government office open to the public, like post offices, police stations, welfare offices and clinics. It will invite any male Mellorian related to King Godfrey by paternity to present himself within five business days to a panel of examiners, and if he passes their scrutiny he will become the next king."

"Oh dear God!" Sharon exclaimed. She faltered, not knowing what to say next.

"I realize what a terrific shock this must be to you, Sharon," Arabella said, "but I think you ought to prepare Craig as soon as possible for what lies ahead for him. Do you want me to come with you, when you go to pick him up?"

"No thanks, Arabella, I can manage it," Sharon said quickly. "I better be on my way now."

She put the phone down thinking, We look after our own in this family – don't need no snoopy journalists hanging out with us.

She steeled herself for the journey to the school. Not since her abortive attempt to tell Arabella about her brief encounter with King Godfrey had she felt so apprehensive. She decided to take the subway, and strode toward the station with fierce determination, grateful for the warm summer weather – it made the going easier. As she traveled slowly down the escalator, with people bobbing all around her, she sifted Arabella's words in her mind like a gold prospector panning silt in a stream, searching for glints of insight.

He must be king. He must be king. That's what she said. But why must he? Damn, I forgot to ask her. What if he didn't want to? Still, the law is the law, I suppose. Craig as king. It seems too fantastic for words. Never in my wildest dreams did I think... that Craig would one day be king. I never expected Godfrey... I just wanted him to pay for what he done, saddling me with a kid and all...although sometimes I wished he'd make me his queen, instead of that old bitch... After all, she was born a commoner, and a foreigner at that, so my being crowned queen wasn't so far-fetched. But Craig...? It's gonna change his life! The poor bastard, getting the shit kicked out of him every day at school. No friends except a couple of runts just like him!

Hey, it's gonna change my life and all, and I'm certainly tired of straining to make ends meet. Maybe this'll give Craig the means to do something for himself, though God knows whether he gets more of his character from Dad's bad genes or from his father's side. Oh-oh, this is my stop.

Walking into the school's dusty building, Sharon's knees began to turn rubbery. In the corridor outside Craig's home room, which was beginning to fill with jostling children, she slumped against the wall. She looked through the half-open door at the classroom. Among the scuffed plastic-backed chairs she saw Craig's backpack. He'd left it where it could be stolen, the stupid little...

Suddenly Craig appeared, solemn-faced among his classmates, and stood in front of her.

"What?" he said.

"I got something important to tell you – we'll have to go outside."

Why?"

"'Cause I don't want nobody to hear us, that's why."

He stood his ground, though the stream of bodies going past pushed and buffeted him.

"Class'll be starting in a minute. I don't want to get into no trouble for being late."

She felt a shiver of compassion for him. He was trying to make a go of his new school, and she didn't want to blow it for him. What was she thinking of? This was going to blow it sky-high!

"Look," she said, lowering her voice. "You gotta come home now, You're gonna be the next king!"

His face clouded over.

"I don't wanna be king."

He met her eye for the first time, causing a shiver to hurtle down her spine.

"Well, you go to, 'cause that's the law."

She didn't feel like mollycoddling him any longer. She was angry at his stubborn refusal to face reality.

"Fuck the law."

Without thinking, she let fly. Her hand caught him on the side of his face and made a smack like wood on leather. He stood looking at her, in a state of violent shock, a red strawberry mark spreading up his face. The he took off down the corridor, leaving her horror-stricken and wishing she could turn back the clock.

At a quarter to midnight, Craig stood in the doorway with a thunderous look on his face. He also had an ugly purple bruise. Having finished off the cigarettes and brandy, Sharon was sitting in front of the TV eating her way through a packet of chocolate chip cookies.

"All right, I know I'm late," he said, striding over to plonk himself on the couch. He snatched the packet of cookies with barely a murmur. Sharon looked into his hard brown eyes as he munched furiously.

"I've decided I want to be king," he said at last.

"That's good," she said, feigning nonchalance.

When the packet was almost finished, she retrieved it and took a cookie for herself. Craig grabbed the remote and began switching channels.

"Whatcha been doing with yourself for the last ten hours?"

She kept her tone light, trying not to interrogate him.

"Gaming," was all he said. The word was firm and adamant.

"That's interesting," she said and took a small bite from her cookie.

Sharon thought for a moment. "Were you playing WWII games like _Day of_ _Defeat_ , or did you play an RTS game like _Civilization_?

He looked at her curiously. "My friend's got the _Rise of Nations_ and we were playing _Conquer the World_. I picked the French civilization and I really got into making the economy work, buying and selling things, producing enough food and clothing for the people, and enough work for people to do, so the country had a big enough army... I had to defeat lots of different enemies. It made me realize what a king's job is like – and I wanna do it."

With Craig talking so candidly, she pressed her advantage.

"It's a big step, though – being the king."

"Yeah, I know."

He ducked his head. He was finding it awkward to open up, though he'd made a good start.

"But you wanna do it anyway."

"Yeah."

Hope sprang within her, but she didn't let her anticipation show.

"Well, it's getting late. We'll talk about it a bit more in the morning."

She pushed the packet of cookies toward him, encouraging him to take another, which he did.

When they'd finished the last of the cookies, she brushed the crumbs from her fingers, reached across and gave his shoulder a squeeze.

"Night, Craig."

"Night, Mum."

Chapter 66

### The Departure

In the drawing room, Lucinda hoisted herself up from the sofa with great difficulty. Although she was only seven months pregnant, she could pass for nine, with her bulging stomach and plump limbs.

"I'll go see what's keeping Letitia," she said, waving Catheter back in his chair as he made to get up. "You stay and keep your Dad company."

She climbed the stairs, huffing and puffing. Her mind, lately focused on childbirth, labor, chocolate ice cream with green olives and shrimp, began to dwell on her growing fondness for Catheter's cantankerous mother. She had at first found Letitia's sharp, acerbic manner almost as bad as her beloved's nervous stuffiness – which she was sure he had inherited from his parents – but time and the familiarity of seeing her every day had softened her heart. She hoped that she would be able to stay in touch with her and Godfrey, whom she found charming, after they had settled into their new life.

She knocked on Letitia's door, and when Letitia saw her she pushed down her jealous spasms.

"How do you manage to get about with all that weight you're carrying?" she said.

"I don't. I stay put most of the time," Lucinda said with a chuckle. "Also, I have these really disgusting cravings, so I send Catheter out to get me seafood pizza and chocolate ice cream."

Letitia smiled thinly. Her thoughts rolled on. With all that chocolate, she's really starting to put on weight. Unlike Dawna, she seems almost devoid of self-doubt. She loves herself as much as she loves Catheter. She never seems anxious about her looks. Probably because they're nothing to brag about. She clearly loves the fact that she's voluptuous in her pregnancy. Now let's get the hell out of here before she starts talking about her hemorrhoids.

Catheter and Lucinda waved goodbye as Godfrey and Letitia left in a taxi for the airport. After toing and froing about the merits and demerits of Barbados, Letitia and Godfrey had finally decided to live on Tobago, especially after Catheter had detailed his ghastly honeymoon experience. As the island was only thirty-two kilometers long by twelve wide, they considered it the perfect downsize. They were going to live in one of the villas that had caught Letitia's eye in a brochure. The time was right for Godfrey and Letitia to make a new life.

They were also vacating the palace to allow the new occupants, the future King Craig and his mother, whom the government had ennobled and given the (to Letitia) absurd title of the Mother Queen. Catheter and Lucinda were also moving out, something Lucinda made light of, saying Calliper was much too big and drafty, to their love nest of a cottage, where little Angus could receive daily visits from Betty. Hernia took Anton back to Bulimia, where they went clubbing and to trendy bars and wild parties, until Anton declared himself too old for high jinks and introduced her to LARPing.

Chapter 67

### Island Life

Godfrey and Letitia soon experienced the culture shock of living on a tiny island in the Caribbean whose largest town, Scarborough, was even smaller than Mellinda. It began for Letitia the first time she and Godfrey went down to the ocean on a breezy day in June. They set out from Castara, a lazy fishing village, and along Englishman's Bay Road which rose into mountains and on to the Atlantic Coast. At the highest point, they stopped and gazed out across the bay. A band of fog was streaking the green hills into a white haze, and the glittering vastness of the ocean gleamed with white flecks, which turned into rolling breakers that hurtled toward the shore. The noonday sun glinted off the wake of a yacht, jetskiers with sinuous aplomb steered their craft across the inpouring rollers and fishing boats dotted the whitecapped sea.

Godfrey, one arm around Letitia's shoulders, lifted a hand to shield his eyes.

"My God, it's a different world!" he exclaimed.

She looked at his face – the whole ocean was clearly a revelation to him.

"It's our world now," she said firmly.

They strolled down to the beach, past gnarled and whitened driftwood and watched the rolling breakers coating the sand with a white sheen, then retreating into a messy brown wash, hissing and sighing before dying away.

"What a place – I can't believe it!" Godfrey yelled.

Lost in reflection, they stopped and stood looking at the ocean. Lunging waves lifted up and crashed down, spilling out their whitecaps, in a splashing, thrashing extravagance.

"I don't think I could live in a land-locked country again," Letitia said.

"But Melloria isn't...Oh well, I suppose it is now," Godfrey mumbled.

Godfrey was so taken by the sea that he tried swimming in the surf, but the white walls of ocean hit him like rows of brandy barrels and sent him tumbling on his backside, his mouth filled with gritty salt water.

Letitia stubbornly refused to soak her ankles, never mind the rest of her. She preferred to watch the waves rise, gather into crests and topple haphazardly into grumbling curls that stopped well short of her sandaled feet. Unlike Godfrey, she craved no involvement with the water. Strolling lazily along the white sandy beach in her red swimsuit, she was satisfied.

After his bruising encounter with the waves, Godfrey was at a loose end. The long stretch of sand, so white it reminded him of snow trails, held no more interest for him, and he walked to the far end of the beach to watch the fishermen haul in their nets. As the sun sailed higher into the sky, a few local families ambled onto the beach and a group of boys played soccer. There was a wooden shack of a bar selling grilled fish and _Carib_ beer. Godfrey gravitated toward it, and was soon talking to a couple of big game fishermen. Letitia stayed where she was. She had come to Tobago to relax, after long months of oppressive struggle, and she wasn't about to give up her hard-won repose.

As a result of their day at the beach, Godfrey was invited on big game fishing trips, which he took to like a duck to water, while Letitia, who thought that they had paid an exorbitant amount of money for their villa, decided to use it to the full and rarely went out, except to the garden. The garden was like a calm green cave, full of ferns, palms, bamboo, lilies and coconut shells carved with the Gorm family crest. A wrought-iron round table and five green chairs were somehow squeezed in under the plantain trees. For Letitia, after all the upheavals of the last year, it was a more than adequate oasis.

Coming from an island nation, Letitia soon grew tired of the sea. Apart from yachts and fishing boats, there wasn't much of a view, and it left her garden windburned and in need of constant maintenance. Their handyman was a white-haired, ebony-skinned islander who everybody knew as Daylight Jones. Daylight slept for most of the daylight hours, appearing unpredictably in the late afternoon, so Letitia didn't find him particularly handy.

In the evening they visited the local grandees or, on rare occasions, went to a calypso concert where louche, loud and suggestive music formed a background to jerk chicken served by black girls in tight tops and skintight white pants. They appealed much more to Godfrey than to Letitia. With almost no other white people present and having to stay till midnight when the taxi came, Letitia was not favorably disposed.

They once took a trip to a small fishing town which became a party town at night, and where the streets were hot and crowded, with every sort of loud music throbbing wherever they went, perfumed with the smoke of barbequed fish from a hundred stalls. Long lines crowded each stall: people queued for tuna steaks, flying fish and dolphin.

"Are we supposed to eat dolphin?" Letitia asked Godfrey.

"Well, I'm eating this one – it's dead and it's cooked."

For solace, Letitia began writing letters to Agatha and Mary. Describing her and Godfrey's first visit to the ocean, she told Agatha: 'it was a bracing, but thoroughly exhausting morning,' and to Mary she declared, regarding their alfresco dolphin snack: 'Our only complaint was that the only places to sit on while one ate were rickety wooden planks or concrete slabs, unless one squeezed onto a corner of scrubby beach and let the sea wash one's toes.'

Mary and Agatha, in turn, wrote back to Letitia. Mary wrote a long missive telling her how things were slowly improving in the country. Inflation had started to come down, and an alliance between Melloria and Bulimia had stemmed the threat of a Slobodian invasion. Catheter, who had joined the Church Party and was rapidly rising through its ranks, led a caucus of moderate bishops which had brought about an end to the infighting for the time being. Agatha informed her in a chatty note of Anton and Hernia's upcoming wedding in Bulimia and of Catheter and Lucinda's joy at the birth of their daughter, Rhiannon.

Chapter 68

### Morning Glory

Godfrey was the first to wake up. He turned to look at the clock. It said 6.45 a.m. This is ridiculous, he thought. I'm a retiree, I should be sleeping in. He looked in the next bedroom. Letitia was still dead to the world, mouth open, hairnet askew, hands clenched tightly into fists, the duvet pulled up around her ears. He wanted to creep up to her and kiss her softly on the cheek.

Instead, he went downstairs and put the kettle on. Placing the _Tobago_ _News_ on the kitchen table, he pulled two slices of bread from the plastic wrapper and stuck them in the toaster.

The noise of the post tumbling through the letterbox and landing on the doormat startled him. He groaned as he bent down to pick up the junk mail, mostly bills and fliers, and shuffled through them, looking for something as interesting as a letter. He found one. It was in a long, cream-colored envelope with the new crest of the Kingdom of Melloria. He opened it and read quickly, stopping to go back and read it again.

He went back in the kitchen and tipped some fresh coffee into the coffee maker. Then he looked around the kitchen and cursed. Mugs, glasses and plates were jammed in the sink, greasy splotches stained the stove and dust had settled over everything like a coating of soil, as if Letitia's beloved garden were moving in with them.

Letitia's going to be horrified, he thought. That's the third time this week the daily help hasn't shown up. These people are worse than Mellorians! He set about cleaning some of the clutter from the kitchen counter and making breakfast.

Letitia, very much awake, sat propped up on her pillows, and began awkwardly scrawling her reply to Mary's last letter. She heard Godfrey stamping outside the door. A quick knock and he entered, the newly-arrived letter lying on the breakfast tray.

Letitia put down her pen and writing pad and stretched, while Godfrey placed the try carefully on the bed. She eyed the tea and toast and – more doubtfully – the pot of guava jelly. Finally she dipped a finger into the jam and licked it.

"How old is the preserve?" she asked. Godfrey shrugged. "I found it in the fridge – it didn't look too moldy."

He had clustered marmite, honey, peanut butter and blackcurrant jam alongside the guava jelly.

"We've been invited to the coronation," he said. He indicated the letter on the tray.

"The coronation? Of whom?" Letitia was thunderstruck. She read the invitation.

"Well, I suppose we must go, _royaute oblige_ and all that."

She sighed.

He leaned over and planted a kiss on the side of her neck.

"Godfrey, mind you don't knock that tray off the bed!"

She lifted the tray from the bed and placed it carefully on the nightstand. Only then did she allow him to continue with his affections. The tropical scents blowing through her window were seducing her as much as Godfrey's touch.

She wriggled down into the bed until she was lying down. Picking up his cue, Godfrey lowered himself on top of her, smelling her hair and neck, touching her skin. Finally he unbuttoned his pyjama bottoms. The he whispered in her ear.

"It's safer now that I'm firing blanks."

She giggled before moaning at the stroke of his fingers on her nipples, all the while parting her thighs to make room for him.

"Gangway! I'm coming in to land!" His voice had deepened into a rough growl.

He pulled off the blankets and knelt between her legs. Hooking his fingers beneath her knees, he dragged her toward him until her thighs were approximately in line with his ribs. Then' panting with the effort, he lunged onto her body until she was pushed back toward the pillows and felt her head knocking against the headboard.

"Godfrey, you'll have to show a bit more finesse," she said, wincing.

He replied by pushing into her a few centimeters. His nostrils flared and she began to be afraid he would start sniffing her. His forearms were near her face, and she had to keep turning her head to avoid being smacked. Then his face brushed hers and she felt prickled by the stubble along his jaw.

His eyes were like hard brown marbles, shiny, unyielding, that could only be cracked with extreme force. His hips began driving like pistons now that he was well inside her and tremors radiated through her. She sucked in a startled breath as her inner muscles clamped tight around his burrowing organ. They were joined so intimately there was no going back, so she tentatively clutched his shoulders and locked her legs around his lower back to pull him closer and deeper.

"Brace yourself!" he hissed between clenched teeth. His body convulsed with the force of his explosion.

When the shuddering had subsided, they rested. His heart racing, his ragged breath moist and loud, he felt her trail her fingers along his shoulders to the damp hair at the nape of his neck.

"Well, that was a lovely surprise."

Letitia smiled and curled up in the crook of Godfrey's arm, lazily brushing a hand across his chest. She had forgotten how wonderful it had been to make love to her husband. The original passion, as stunning as electricity, had seared her until she was speechless. She thought it had disappeared, that she had only imagined it happening. Now she remembered, and rejoiced that it had returned.

After breakfast they went outside and watched the garden display its wild extravagance from the comfort of the verandah.

"Interesting how a verandah differs from a balcony, isn't it?" Godfrey said, thinking of the balconies at Calliper, which they would soon be seeing again. He felt light-headed, almost spellbound. The fragrance of gardenias wafted across the lawn.

Letitia, moving alongside him, looked out into the garden where iridescent birds skimmed to and fro. "What's that bird over there? The one singing like a lunatic. It isn't a cuckoo, is it?"

"Damned if I know," Godfrey said, looking into the distance.

Chapter 69

### The Crowning

The coronation of King Craig the First of Melloria took place on a windy but sunny day in April. The boy king, all of eleven years old, was crowned in the transept of the cathedral by Archbishop Lepager, the Archbishop of Melloria. TV cameras zoomed in on the small figure, draped in ermine robes over his military uniform. His epaulettes of gold braid sparkled and his red tunic gleamed, and even Letitia felt her eyes prickle as the archbishop placed the crown on his head. She looked across at Sharon, who watched Craig being anointed and crowned, surrounded by a posse of bishops and an archbishop, and marveled that she didn't cry, except once when she took a silk handkerchief from her Gucci bag and dabbed discretely. Letitia approved of Sharon's demure apparel: a modest pink suit with a mass of pink and black organza atop a gigantic hat. A pair of opaque black sunglasses hid her face almost entirely, but Letitia did not begrudge her the desire for anonymity, even though she sat in the royal pew that she had once occupied.

Driving to the ceremony had been quite like old times. Letitia had enjoyed waving to the crowds milling around outside the cathedral, and part of her began to yearn for some aspects of her old life. In a country where the blazing sun didn't frazzle her brain and she saw more locals than just gardeners raking leaves and maids making beds, where Godfrey wasn't bewitched by dark-skinned girls who flitted across his vision by day and into his imagination by night.

After the ceremony the invited guests, royal and non-royal, were assembled on the forecourt of the cathedral, while a fleet of limousines cruised around Constitution Square like sharks, each awaiting the signal to scoop up its prey from the shoal of VIPs.

King Hector and Queen Ada stood at the opposite end of the group from King Slobodan and Queen Latrina. Melloria had recently signed a peace treaty with Slobodia, conceding no more territory but allowing the Slobodians to keep Shekels and its surrounding coast as a gesture of good will. As his coronation present for the new King, and in reluctant acknowledgment of the powerful Melloria-Bulimia economic alliance, King Slobodan had written off Melloria's outstanding electricity bill, and he stood beaming with self-satisfaction, Queen Latrina in slovenly attire by his side. Godfrey and Letitia glowered periodically in their direction as they waited for their limousine.

Letitia noticed Sharon offering Lucinda a cigarette, then lighting it and hers with an elegant silver lighter. The cigarettes seemed to bond the two women together, and Letitia felt excluded. They clearly need nicotine to see them through the day, she thought dismissively.

They continued to wait, and Lucinda, holding onto her vast hat in a gust of wind, glanced at Letitia and smiled.

Letitia smiled back and, while Godfrey chatted to Catheter, they exchanged snippets of gossip. Lucinda told Letitia about the long, thoughtful article on the new king by Arabella Scott-Natterson, entitled _Born in Bastardy, Raised to_ _Splendor_ , and they giggled over the headline THE ROYAL BASTARD in _The Sun,_ a British tabloid newspaper that Letitia regarded as unspeakable. She complimented Lucinda on her amazing hat and how she'd managed to get her figure back so soon after the birth of her daughter, and Lucinda confessed she'd rather be on horseback wearing jodhpurs than in her white coronation dress.

After inquiring about life on Tobago, and offering up a compliment about Letitia's tan, Lucinda started talking about Catheter's new political role. Letitia's pedestrian mind struggled to grasp the complexities, and she became bored.

Her attention wandering, Letitia cast a critical glance at Queen Ada. It's obvious she loves being the center of attention, she thought, with her low-cut, elaborately beaded dress, glitzy diamond necklace and obligatory huge hat. Letitia had decided to go hatless, but wore an extremely expensive Hermes headscarf.

There was a moment of awkwardness when Letitia's eye caught Sharon's. She tried not to show her awareness of the woman's former circumstances, nor the lingering resentment at what she saw as Sharon's betrayal of her secret affair with Godfrey.

"Are you still single?" she asked Sharon.

Sharon reddened and stumbled out: "My fiancé and I were planning to get spliced, but he blew it after I heard he was seeing a maid at Calliper every chance he got." "Also, he checked out of his twelve-step program and started drinking again," she said ruefully.

"Well, I hope you and your son will be very happy," Letitia said. Then she smiled and moved on, as though she were going down the line at a premiere.

Lucinda patted Sharon's shoulder and offered her another cigarette.

"She's like that with everybody," Lucinda consoled.

"Don't I know it!" Sharon said. They both giggled as they lit up.

Looking back at them, Letitia caught a glimpse of Lucinda's sparkling pearl and gold earrings. She's acquired some taste at last! was her somewhat uncharitable thought.

When her limo arrived, Sharon dropped her cigarette and rubbed it out with the sole of her strappy high-heeled shoe. Letitia shuddered. Inexpressibly vulgar! She noted with approval that Lucinda had handed _her_ cigarette to a servant to be extinguished – the proper form of etiquette.

The former King and Queen of Melloria continued having to wait, and Letitia wondered how long it would be before King Craig emerged from the robing room. She marveled that an illegitimate commoner could succeed to the throne, without marriage, and all perfectly legally. It was such an amazing feat that it seemed nothing short of a miracle. Thinking of miracles, she wondered if that Barry Trotter boy and his friends might be lurking somewhere in the crowd. She hoped she would see him before flying back and perhaps persuade him to get out his magic mirror for a prediction. But first she would have to drive back to the palace, and it seemed the limo would never come. At last, it did – a long black Mercedes rolled up to receive them.

Letitia, surprised, realized that the gray-suited chauffeur who opened the door was Simpkins. She remembered hearing from Lucinda that he'd been downgraded from palace butler to driver, after being caught once too often tipping the royal spirits. The former chauffeur, Andrew Motion (who wrote poetry in his spare time), was the new palace butler.

With the stately decorum of a cavalier, Godfrey gave Letitia his arm and they climbed inside the limo. A discrete cough from the engine and the vehicle glided forward. Godfrey settled down in the plush leather seat and turned to Letitia.

"Well, that all went off without a hitch – much smoother than mine was. And in half an hour we'll be tucking in to the venison and truffles."

She cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Not another bloody banquet!"

####

About The Author

I began writing stories when I was eight years old. I started working on the Letitia sequence after having a dream in which I saw a fifty-something woman in a red swimsuit running along a sandy beach wearing a crown and an expression of indescribable joy. _Letitia Unbound_ is part of a trilogy. _Letitia Uncrowned_ is available on <https://smashwords.com/books/view/276790> _Letitia_ _Undead_ will be available in 2013. I live in South California.

Connect with me online:

Twitter: <https://twitter.com/TrevVeale>

Facebook: <https://facebook.com/trevorgeorgehenry.veale>

Smashwords: <https://smashwords.com/profile/view/lightninrod>

