

### Letitia Uncrowned

### Trevor Veale

Published by Trevor Veale at Smashwords  
Copyright 2013 Trevor Veale   
All Rights Reserved

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The Shock In The Night

Chapter 2 The Dash To The Border

Chapter 3 The Horror Begins

Chapter 4 A Long Day's Nightmare

Chapter 5 The Hermeticon

Chapter 6 A New Order For Melloria

Chapter 7 A Simple Twist Of Fate

Chapter 8 Orchestral Maneuvers In The Dark

Chapter 9 Sons Of Nordik

Chapter 10 The Long March

Chapter 11 Man And Superman

Chapter 12 The Scourge Of The Slovos

Chapter 13 A Dog's Life

Chapter 14 An Inauspicious Start

Chapter 15 Pockets Of Resistance

Chapter 16 The Mellorian Defense

Chapter 17 The Slobodian Response

Chapter 18 Godfrey's Dilemma

Chapter 19 Weltmacht Durch Untergang

Chapter 20 Gamers To The Rescue

Chapter 21 A Massacre Averted

Chapter 22 Power Without Responsibility

Chapter 23 The Rovers' Return

Chapter 24 The Raw Recruits

Chapter 25 A Happy Couple

Chapter 26 The Fairy Tale Wedding

Chapter 27 Letitia Unwound

Chapter 28 A Bore Too Far

Chapter 29 The Mellorian Assassination

Chapter 30 A Word To The Wise

Chapter 31 It's All In The Game

Chapter 32 Run For The Shadows

Chapter 33 Walk Don't Run

Chapter 34 The Well Of Loneliness

Chapter 35 Twilight Of The Gods

Chapter 36 The Flight

Life is a cosmic joke with an incredible punchline.

Trevor Veale

We are not amused.

Queen Letitia

Chapter 1

### The Shock In The Night

Letitia Gorm lay gazing at a thin blade of sunlight yellowing the edges of her curtains, She had spent a night of anxious worrying and fretting and didn't sleep until close to dawn, and then only for what seemed like a few minutes. The sunlight was growing painfully bright, so she decided to break the habit of a lifetime and get up early.

She slipped out of bed and went over to the window to pull the curtains together. Outside, through a gap in the bourgainvillea, mimosa and vines, she caught sight of a woman in shorts and a suntop walking a pair of beagles. Beagles in Tobago! She was sharply reminded of the cool misty mornings she had looked out her bedchamber window and spied Sharon the maid vainly struggling to bring a brace of beagles to heel in the courtyard of Calliper Palace.

Letitia felt a premonition pass through her. What was that awful dream about? All she could recall was being outdoors and noticing Dawna buying a yellow rose and a spray of babies' breath from a street vendor. Her back was turned and when Letitia accosted her, she was confronted by Lucinda. It was all very odd and a little disturbing, and she was reassured by the fragrant tropical scents her bedroom window admitted.

I must get a grip, she told herself. Then she shuffled to the bathroom, dropping bedclothes along the way, and broke another lifelong habit by running the bath for a long soak instead of showering.

Godfrey Gorm awoke from a restless night's sleep filled with disquieting thoughts. He got out of bed, put on his dressing-gown and walked into Letitia's bedroom. He noticed the rumpled sheets and the trail of scattered night attire leading to the bathroom door, then he heard the sound of water gushing.

He knocked on the bathroom door.

"Can I come in?" he ventured.

"What?" Letitia's voice called sharply.

"May I come in!" he said, a little more firmly.

"I can't hear you!" she cried.

"Please may I come in!" he shouted.

"I'm in the bath!" she screamed.

Exasperated, he opened the door a fraction. Embarrassed by what he saw, he shut it quickly. The red mark of her bra strap just below her shoulder blades and the long notch of her spine flowing down to the swell of her buttocks, as she knelt in the slowly filling tub, blazed in his mind.

Mortified and ashamed at the thought of walking in on his wife in a state of nature, he moved away from the bathroom door and ran a hand through his thinning hair. He noticed an open box of chocolates on her nightstand. It had been a gift from Sir Michael and Lady Caine, whom the Gorms had dined with the night before. Godfrey took an Irish cream truffle from the second layer after verifying that the chocolates in the top layer, mostly raspberry creams and caramels, weren't the kind he liked. His plundering, and the risk of incurring his wife's displeasure, didn't faze him. He was too distracted by the disturbing thoughts that had carried over from the night. His choice made, he turned on his heel and went to the kitchen to make breakfast.

When he returned, Letitia was back in bed propped up on her three pillows. He set the brimming breakfast tray down and perched himself at the foot of the bed, the tray between them.

"Before I went to sleep last night, I watched a bit of CNN on the cable TV..." he began.

She raised her eyebrows. He's ruining his sleep with pointless news programs, she thought.

"Anyway," he continued, selecting three slices of toast from the rack, "there was a news flash about Slobodia. It seems old Slobbo's been assassinated."

She drank a third of her first cup of lemon tea before replying.

"Good riddance!"

"Well, yes, but it means Royston is now King of Slobodia."

"That's not good news," she admitted, taking the remaining slice of toast. "He's evil."

They carried on eating in silence. Godfrey was on his third cup of coffee when his cell vibrated. He pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at it to see who was calling.

"It's Cathy," he said. "I wonder what he wants at this hour?"

"It's not this hour to him. There's a six hour time lag," she commented.

Godfrey got up and walked toward the door, speaking in anxious bursts. Then he looked at Letitia, his face grim.

"What's up, dear?" she asked.

"The Slobodians launched an invasion in the dead of night," he said. "I'll have to go back to defend my country."

Her eyes first widened, then became slitlike.

"Don't be ridiculous, you're retired!" she blurted.

"A king never retires," he said abruptly. "It's an emergency."

Her eyes began to fill with tears and she groped under her pillows for a tissue. She felt chills up and down her back.

"Godfrey, you can't – you're too old. You'll get killed!"

His face tightened.

"Can I come with you?" she asked, timid in the sight of his implacable face.

"Why would you want to do that? You might get killed, too."

It came out in a rush. "Well, if a king never retires, neither does a queen. I can help defend our country..."

Her voice trailed off. What the hell was she thinking? She couldn't fire a cap gun. She knew, because she'd tried shooting one of Anton's air soft pistols and had lost the pellet.

Godfrey merely nodded. "We'd better start packing our bags."

He went on talking on the cell. "Cathy, your mother and I are coming home. We'll fly into Angina and see if we can get across the Bulimian border. If the army can hold the City one more day – "

The phone went dead.

Chapter 2

### The Dash To The Border

Letitia and Godfrey dashed through the airport concourse as papparazzi zoomed into action, flashbulbs popping continuously.

"What the devil!" Godfrey growled, shielding them with his arm from the cameras that were flashing in their faces.

Letitia wheezed irritably. She was wired out after their twelve hours in the air and four hours of layovers. Having to run the gauntlet of papparazzi was the last straw.

"Hi, Pops, hi Ma," Prince Anton said. He was lounging with the driver of a white Bentley Continental on the pavement outside the entrance. "Have a nice flight?" He was wearing a T-shirt with BULIMIA THE BEAUTIFUL on it, faded jeans and scuffed black sneakers. His bleached blond hair was mussed and he looked as if he'd just got out of bed.

"You look appalling!"Letitia gasped, trying to get her breath back. "Who dressed you – a homeless meth addict?"

The prince grinned. "Close – it was Hernia." Then he straightened when he saw how uptight Godfrey looked.

"Can you get us all assault rifles and drive us over the border?" Godfrey asked. He thrust the two suitcases he had retrieved from the baggage claim into the driver's hands.

"Uh...well, that's a tall order," Anton stammered. "I'd have to get permission from pops-in-law. He wants to see you first, anyway..."

"All right, let's go to Porcellan," Godfrey said, stony-faced. "We'd better give our regards to Hector and Ada before we set off."

"Right," Anton said sheepishly.

By the time they rolled up to Porcellan Palace, Letitia was feeling invigorated. She always enjoyed the luxury and comfort of a sumptuous forty-four-room palace where everything was organized. There was a lot to be said for good food, good wine and sheets with a high thread count, although she knew the seriousness of the situation they were in. Still, sitting in the back of the Bentley next to Godfrey she felt completely comfortable.

"I'll be looking forward to a long hot soak in the tub," she murmured, glancing at him.

"We're not staying long." His face was still stern. "The army may not be able to hold out much longer."

"Maybe Cathy, Lucinda and the kids have crossed the border and are safe and sound," she suggested, trying to lighten his mood.

"Cathy's a Gorm, and Gorms never cut and run," he said sharply.

"We'll be with them soon, don't worry," was all she could say. She felt ashamed in the face of his resolve to fight to the bitter end, although she knew how doomed it was.

"Oh my!" Letitia exclaimed, taking in her surroundings. "This is quite a palace!"

"Isn't it just!" King Hector said, reining in the golden retriever that had just bounded up to sniff under Letitia's tailored skirt.

She brushed the dog off and smiled diplomatically.

"I'll have to hand him over to Ada," he puffed. "You know, Twinkle used to be Dawna's dog."

Twinkle! She thought, tempted to make a rude remark. Then she admonished herself. Think well of the dead or not at all.

They were strolling through the atrium that led to the rows of lofty ash trees, charming grottos and classical temples of Porsellan Park, and after handing the dog off to a servant Hector steered her out to the pool. Beside it was a cocktail bar with a brushed aluminum counter and stainless steel and black leather barstools. He quickly skipped behind the bar.

"How about a drink?" he suggested, watching Letitia slide onto a stool. "What can I get you?"

"I'd love a gin and tonic," she said, wondering how long it would take before he made a move.

It was the perfect place on a perfect evening. Behind the swimming-pool and its ritzy bar, the sweeping wooded hills of Porcellan Park were bathed in all the sweetness of an early August evening. Beyond them, a slender view of twinkling lights on the skyline hid the dazzling carpet of city that was Angina, Bulimia's capital.

As she sat on her leather stool, sipping her G and T, she waited for Hector to slide in beside her, and dreaded the prospect. He was mixing himself a Napoleon brandy with grenadine and lime juice over ice, and imagining the thrill of easing off her jacket, her blouse, and then unhooking her front-clasp bra. The thought of those jouncing, matronly breasts out in clear view was almost too much for his pants to bear. Groaning quietly, he mentally unbuttoned the waistband of her skirt and watched her wriggling out of it. Then he slid the panties quickly down to her ankles and bade her step out of them. Finally, at long last, he unzipped his straining pants, and then...

His eyes were closed and the hand gripping the cocktail shaker trembled slightly. Rudely, shockingly, his fantasy was interrupted by the wet snout of a golden retriever, nosing up against his crotch. Then by his wife's loud voice.

"Hector, you're dreaming! Mix me a Mint Julep, will you?"

"Thank you, Twinkle," Letitia said softly to herself.

Godfrey was closeted in Hector's study, along with the Bulimian defense minister and the chief of staff of the joint staff council, discussing what form of assistance he could get from the Bulimian armed forces. The problem was, the Bulimian armed force was strictly a self-defense force and by constitutional decree was not permitted to be used abroad. As Slobodia had not declared war on Bulimia or invaded any of its territory, Bulimia's hands – as the defense minister patiently pointed out – were tied.

"Can't you launch a damn drone strike and take out that bugger, Royston?" Godfrey said gruffly, wishing he could plunder the decanter of brandy he saw in a glass-fronted cabinet.

"I'm afraid that would be considered a warlike act," the minister said. "Our constitution absolutely forbids it."

He was near the end of his tether. He shook his head and made a final plea.

"All right, then, dammit, we'll take an armored car. Anton can drive, Letitia can navigate and I'll man the cannon."

The minister and the chief of staff laughed in unison.

"That kind of military vehicle is out of date, sir," the chief of staff said. "You'd only find one in a museum – "

"Well, what have you got then?" he responded wearily.

"Our armored personnel carriers are attack vehicles that can't be deployed abroad..." The chief of staff pondered. "Let me see...well, we do have an old staff car, without armor but painted in olive drab."

"Fine, we'll take it," he said. "Now let's call in Hector and have a drink."

King Hector, who had excluded himself from the meeting so as not to influence his minister and commander in chief into showing bias toward his friend, ex-King Godfrey of Melloria, stood outside the door of his study. At a call from within, he entered and immediately brought out the brandy decanter and four glasses.

"Drinks, everybody?" he asked brightly. Godfrey sighed with relief.

"Are you sure there's nothing more we can offer to make your journey more comfortable?" Hector said as the first round of brandies went down.

Godfrey shrugged. He felt drained and exhausted. He'd talked himself out, arguing for military assistance, and just wanted some grub and a good night's sleep. Tomorrow, when he was fresh, when he could get his head together, he would know what to ask for.

Queen Ada turned to Letitia at the dinner table as the first platters were being served.

"Hector and I simply adore Tobago," she gushed. "We flew there for a wedding anniversary, oh, ten years ago. Marvellous beaches!"

"I don't do beaches any more," Letitia replied, scooping a spoonful of lobster ceviche. "There are too many commoners, er, tourists about."

"– and the Caribbean food!" Ada gushed on, unabated. "D'you remember that time you had red snapper and fried plantain on the sunset cruise, Hector, and I had freshly-caught tuna in a spicy jerk sauce?"

Hector burped a reply. He and Godfrey ate ravenously, tearing into each enticing platter. They ate so fast the greasy plates piled up faster than the servants could remove them, much to Letitia's disgust. Not feeling it was her place to chastise the servants, she changed the subject of the conversation.

"One thing about living in the tropics," she said, "is it's lovely to have people round for dinner outdoors by candlelight with a bottle of Dom Perignon." "Last night the Caines came round," she added. "Godfrey and I love Michael's films, but I've no idea what his wife does."

Under a soaring ceiling painted with blue skies and cherub-infested, puffy white clouds, the meal continued in the gleam of a dozen gilt chandeliers. The minister and the chief of staff had left for their respective homes and Anton and Hernia had yet to arrive, so Hector, Ada, Godfrey and Letitia dined in well-serviced splendor

"What's the latest news about Catheter, Lucinda and the kids?" Hector asked. "I tried to call Cathy on his cell, but all I got was his voice mail."

"Haven't got a clue," Godfrey replied. "I've been trying to get through since early this morning, but my luck's been no better than yours."

"Oh, I do hope our grandson is safe and well – and the others too, of course!" Ada trilled.

"Well, I've instructed our ambassador in Melloria City to tell the Slobodian Military Command in no uncertain terms that Catheter and his family must be given a safe passage to Bulimia," Hector added sternly.

This worrying turn in the conversation prompted Letitia to change the subject yet again.

"Lucinda started writing to me a few weeks ago," she said brightly. "She's been telling me about her wedding plans – but I suppose they'll have to be put on hold now..."

Her voice trailed off as Prince Anton and Princess Hernia clattered in. Anton was wearing the same T-shirt and jeans he wore at the airport, and Hernia's clothes consisted of her torn, black SATAN'S SEX SLAVE T-shirt, skinny jeans and black unpolished nails. Her tattooed arms showed a vulture eating the carcass of a deer on one arm and lurid scenes involving wild boar on the other. Letitia gagged on her boar bourguignon.

"Hey, wassup!" Anton said breezily, barging through the dining-hall doors and slamming them before the servant could shut them properly. Hernia had earphones on and Letitia could hear the rumbling chords of Screenager leaking out.

"I wish you'd both come to dinner on time," Hector said, in a mild voice that was meant to sound stern. "You know we have guests this evening."

"We're so sorry," Hernia told him with a surly pout, talking loudly through the music in her ears. "Fact is, Anton got pulled over by the law for speeding, and I had to use all my princessly charms to get him off the hook."

Anton shrugged. "And how were we to know there were four cops in the second patrol car that showed up – and she had to do them all!"

"That's quite enough of that sort of talk!" Ada commanded, almost as mildly as Hector. "Let's have some decorum at the dinner table."

"Hear, hear!" Letitia agreed.

While Anton and Hernia fought over who would have the first steaming platter of venison borne by an incoming servant, Letitia ate with little enthusiasm. She was as much concerned about the fate of Cathy and his family as the others, and wished she could extract something hopeful from the situation.

Meanwhile she bridled at the sight of Hernia and the three males swinishly stuffing their faces with roast venison, quail chasseur and boar bourguignon and tossing back glasses of claret without a care in the world.

"You should eat more slowly – you'll give yourselves heart attacks!" she admonished.

"Nonsense!" Godfrey shouted, looking up from his plate. "My father lived to be ninety and he ate like an elephant."

"Just remember what your doctor said about overeating," she persisited. "Your stomach's an ulcerbed as it is."

"Don't you mean an oysterbed?" he quipped. Hector smiled and Anton and Hernia both snickered.

The army staff car, painted in olive drab with blue tinted windows, stood in the wide gravel driveway outside the palace. Godfrey had slept fitfully, not dropping off until three in the morning, and was still feeling somewhat jaded. Assisted by a servant, he stowed three suitcases, bulging with extra supplies given by Hector and Ada, inside the trunk. Then he went back into the entrance hall to join the little knot of people saying their goodbyes. Ada, Hector and Letitia hugged each other in turn, dropping kisses on faces and murmuring farewells, while Anton stood moodily apart, dressed in combat fatigues and texting on his phone to Hernia who was still in bed.

"Are we ready?" Godfrey mumbled, after shaking Hector warmly by the hand and kissing Ada lightly on the cheek.

"Ready as we'll ever be, Pops," Anton said, stifling a yawn.

The three Gorms eased themselves into the staff car's black interior and a servant closed the doors. Then they set off.

Later, after a long uncomfortable drive during which Letitia, who kept dozing off, had a distinct feeling of déjà vu, they came within sight of the Mellorian border. The frontier post was deserted, as if long abandoned, and the surrounding forest was eerily quiet. Godfrey, who was at the wheel, slowed to a crawl.

They rolled through the border check point without incident, and Godfrey put on a little more speed. Then, round a bend in the road, they suddenly saw a platoon of military vehicles and green-helmeted Slobodian troops milling about. Several of them, seeing the staff car, shouted warnings to stop. Godfrey braked, and an officer approached the car. His face looks awfully familiar, Letitia thought. Then she groaned deeply. Drawing near, the officer's face broke into a smile.

"King Godfrey, Queen Letitia! Long time no see – welcome to Greater Slobodia!"

Chapter 3

### The Horror Begins

Prince Catheter and Lucinda Limehouse-Blewit, together with three-year-old Angus, their baby daughter Rhiannon and her nurse Betty, had hurried into the cellar when Slobodian troops arrived to search the cottage. For two long hours they had been forced to listen to tramping boots, curses, thuds, bangs and occasional loud crashes while they tried to keep down the noise of Angus's chattering and Rhiannon's squawks. In spite of Betty's efforts, Rhi-Rhi whimpered and snorted like a pig, which then set Angus off, giggling and laughing. Betty tried tying the pacifier to the baby's mouth, but her teeth split the rubber and her babbling burst out anew, so she unzipped her parka and slipped the baby inside, close to her breasts.

Eventually, the soldiers left without having stumbled on the concealed entrance to the cellar and the three adults cautiously emerged, carrying their young charges. The first room they saw, the kitchen, had been completely overturned. The floor looked like a garbage can had been strewn all over it, and tables and chairs had been knocked over and then kicked to pieces. Broken crockery covered the floor, mixed with damaged food.

Lucinda looked down, horrified, and gasped.

"I don't want to see what they've done to the rest of the cottage!" She began shedding tears.

"We'll take a quick look, then go see if the horses are safe," Catheter said.

They stumbled from room to room, seeing destruction wherever they looked. Rhiannon kept whimpering, while Betty held her close to her chest. Angus gave loud squeals whenever he found piles of smashed toys, and rooted in them happily like a dog without a leash.

Having seen enough devastation, Catheter led them outside. They made their way cautiously to the stables where, to their immense relief, none of the horses looked harmed. Indeed, the barn-like building, where sunlight filtered through cracks in the wide board walls and laid golden straws of light across the haybales, looked exceptionally peaceful. The smothering air floated with an updraft of neighs and leathery creaks as they checked out each stall. Lucinda made straight for her mare, whom she found in her stall, chomping hay and oblivious to any rude intrusion her mistress may have suffered.

"Hey, you old nag," she called, smiling away the tears that had lately streaked her face. The mare snorted and lifted her head, her jellied eyes brimming with recognition.

She ran to her and buried her face in the mare's furry neck, smelling the sweat on the warm hair. A confetti of dust specks tickled her nostrils. She breathed it all in with deep relish. This was where horses lived – this was her home. And she shared it with the man in her life, who now came over to squeeze her shoulders.

"We'd better go back to the cottage and clear up the mess," he said softly. "And then we can decide what to do next."

There wasn't a stick of furniture that hadn't been broken. Catheter shoveled all the smashed houseware into piles and made enough space for them to sit down. Rhiannon had fallen asleep and Betty laid her, burbling gently, in the remains of her crib that she had brought down from the bedroom. Lucinda found an unbroken bottle of Chardonney which they opened and passed around. Later, she got up, brushed shards of crockery from the kitchen counter and began making sandwiches from the undamaged food.

Catheter was looking at text messages on his phone. "I'm afraid the news from Melloria City isn't good," he said. "Larry Lepager sent me a text saying the Slobodians are at the outskirts of the City. They're heading for Government House and Calliper Palace. Fortunately, the king's with Larry in that little village we once went to, Lucy. The one with the Church of Our Lady – "

"Mania," Lucinda said, looking round. "Where miracles are supposed to take place."

"It's a miracle the boy was in such a remote place when the Slobs came to town," Catheter said. "Now all Larry has to do is figure out a way for them both to escape."

"What about Sharon, the king's mother?" Betty asked. "I do hope she's safe and sound."

She knew Sharon from the days when they were both royal servants.

"No news, I'm afraid," Catheter said gloomily. "We can only hope that – " he took a sandwich from the plate Lucinda handed him " – she manages to get away, perhaps to Bulimia."

"And what about us, Darling?" Lucinda gave Betty a sandwich and sat on the floor. "Shall we run away to Bulimia?"

"It does seem the logical thing to do," he replied. "Now that it's getting dark would be the perfect time to make our getaway."

"Thank God we don't need a car." Betty smiled as she took the bottle of wine from Catheter. "We've got horses!"

"And Lucy and I know the way because we've done this before!" he said.

As luck would have it, the day before the Slobodians launched their invasion eleven-year-old King Craig of Melloria began a royal visit to outlying areas of his kingdom. It was his first since his coronation four months before, and he was accompanied by Clive Fatsi, his special adviser, and Larry Lepager, the Archbishop of Melloria. Both were senior government ministers. Because of the remoteness of the location they were visiting, they were using the royal helicopter and their first stop was the church of Our Lady of Mania where the king would perform a ritual.

Under the pilot's coaxing, the old Sikorsky rose jerkily into the sky over Calliper Palace. The craft was rusty and much abused by earlier clumsy handling, principally by Prince Anton, and Archbishop Lepager prayed silently that they would make it to Mania in one piece.

The three VIPs sat in their cramped rear seats for half an hour, then began squinting down through the banks of low cloud drifting by. The clouds meant they were flying blindly toward the thickly-wooded gorge where the church of Our Lady nestled on a high ledge.

Another half hour passed of flying around the mountains and they were still no nearer their goal. "I'd go a little lower," the pilot said, twisting his head around, "but I'm afraid of the locals. It's been know for peasants to take potshots at this 'copter."

"I wish I'd remembered to bring my binoculars!" Fatsi said.

"We'd better get there soon or we'll run out of fuel," Lepager added.

King Craig had been craning his neck and made a fresh suggestion. "Let's follow that river down there – it looks like it's boiling!"

He pointed to a flash of silver twisting among a tangle of trees.

"That's it – that's the Lupus. We're nearly there!" Lepager shouted.

Ten minutes later they were touching down in the middle of a dusty village square. After jumping down from the craft, Fatsi cast his eyes over the row of lumpy ramshackle dwellings on the far side of the square.

"If I'm not mistaken, there's a little café over there," he said. "Anybody feeling peckish?"

Craig grimaced. "We went there once on a school outing," he said. "It's crap!"

Lepager hid his embarrassment. He had arranged for the royal party to have refeshments at the café and meet some of the locals, and now he felt honor bound to go through with it.

When they arrived at the café, where two tables had been set out in the sun under colorful bunting, a woman who had been watching them cross the square emerged from inside with a tray of the local red wine, sweet and potent. Plates of local delicacies lay on the tables.

Word of the king's visit had brought a small group of people to the café. A few older men stood against a whitewashed wall and the rest crowded onto a wooden bench the café owner had left outside. There were also four raggedly-dressed men with straggly beards and matted hair, distinguishable by their fetid odor.

One old villager, his face varnished and wrinkled, a mustache hanging from his upper lip, bowed stiffly when the king arrived.

Craig inclined his head, as he'd been taught. "I'm grateful to you all for coming here," he said gravely. He stepped forward and shook everyone's hand, then he lowered himself onto one of the seats and lifted the glass poured for him.

"To the well-being and prosperity of our country!" he said slowly.

The old villager with the mustache smiled a crinkly smile and wiped his eyes. Then he raised his glass and everyone drank and began eating sweetmeats.

Craig thanked everyone again, and drained his glass. Villagers laughed uproariously and one of the four fetid ones, clad in goatskins, stepped forward.

"Your Majesty beware, dark clouds are looming!" he declared in a rough-edged voice.

The crowd of villagers shuffled uneasily.

"He's one of the Wise Ones," Fatsi whispered to Craig.

"I know, we called them the Wize Guyz at school!" he whispered back.

"You must find sanctuary this very night," the Wise One continued. Then he and the other three shuffled slowly away to the other side of the square.

The meeting broke up with muttered conversations and shaking heads. The royal visitors left for the church .The king was to meet various dignitaries at the church while the archbishop was being vested. Then Lepager would lead Craig up to the high altar to perform the blessing. After the ceremony they would rejoin the helicopter for the flight to their next stop.

Although he had been taught the various stages of the ritual, Craig was still very nervous about his final performance. He had rehearsed and rehearsed and thought he knew all the stages by heart, but there was always the possibility that he might forget something important and end up looking a dork. Accordingly, he went through them all again in his head while he was being introduced to various people by Fatsi.

There was the striking of the new fire, to symbolize God's creation of Heaven and earth, the blessing of the new fire, the blessing of Our Lady's candle, and the solemn procession up to the altar. He knew the singing would be hard, because he had a weak voice. He continued checking off the stages: the blessing of the holy water for the annointment, the litany and finally the kneeling in front of Our Lord and striking his head three times on the flagstones. Then it was all over. Phew!

"Get down on your knees, sir!" Lepager whispered to Craig as they reached the final stage.

He fell to his knees with a dull thump. He leaned forward and knocked his forehead against the flagstones. No other church of Christianity expects a king to go down on his knees and crouch like an animal, Lepager thought, quietly amused, while reciting the blessing. Only in Melloria. It must be some Eastern influence.

Craig thumped his head twice more on the stone floor. Three times, in honor of Our Lord and the two thieves who were crucified with him, the unrepentant one being, in liberal, tolerant Melloria, always forgiven.

The archbishop chanted in a flowery cadence. "You may rise now," he said. "We've got fifteen minutes to get to Crapula."

The helicopter rattled up from the village square and took the royal visitors to the small town of Crapula. Cider and Custard, two remote villages, were also on the agenda. Lepager was disappointed, however, that no foreign media cameras would be present to film the king meeting the photogenic villagers in their picturesque settings. The locations were too far off the beaten track for the crews. Only a lone reporter and a cameraman from Mellorian State TV was expected to show up.

Afterwards, when all the ceremonies were over and the king and Fatsi had been lodged in a local inn, Larry Lepager sat in his small room, with its freshly-made bed and polished brass crucifix on the mantle, and poured himself a glass of sherry. Then he stood in front of the mirror examining the evidence of a little too much food and juice of the ascended grape. He would cut down, he promised himself, it was worth the effort – but not just yet. He drained the glass, put on his blue pyjamas and set the clock. He had six hours before their early morning start, so he stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes. He was ready for sleep and quickly dozed off.

Hours later, during a long and complex dream, he was awakened by a loud pummeling on the door. His eyes snapped open. A medley of voices could be heard, with one clear message:

"The Slobodians are coming!"

Chapter 4

### A Long Day's Nightmare

Unwelcome memories flooded Letitia's brain. The last time she and Godfrey had been in the clutches of this impudent officer and his oafish men, they had been induced to drink several bottles of vodkas over a two hour period, on the pretext that it was "little water." This time, she assured herself, there would be no such shenanigans.

This time the soldiers seemed to be on their best behavior. Probably because they think they own our country, Letitia thought sourly.

After the smiling officer had politely opened the doors for them, and stepped back as the three Gorms emerged into the pale morning light, every soldier they passed on their way to the Command HQ greeted them with a cheery "Good morning, honored guests!"

You putrifying piles of parrot droppings! Letitia thought, mimicking a typical Slobodian curse.

"Good morning," Godfrey replied stiffly to the first of these unlikely greetings. He couldn't reconcile being a prisoner of the Slobodians yet again, less than two years after the last time.

Passing the clutter of soldiers and military vehicles, the trio found themselves escorted through a tented corridor to an area where big blue screens on metal frames flashed ever-changing sequences of figures and geometric patterns. Below the screens, a more senior officer than their parking valet sat in front of a table on a canvas-backed chair.

"Sit!" their escorting soldier screeched.

This is more like it, Letitia thought, as they were made to unfold three folded chairs to sit on. This is the way I expect these low-born curs to behave.

"Well, well, Mr and Mrs Gorm...and son. What an honor!" the senior officer said and stood to greet them, lapsing into the exaggerated courtesy. Letitia groaned.

"Can I get you anything to drink, Mrs Gorm?"

"No, thank you," she replied politely. When in Rome..., she thought.

"Perhaps the men would like to join me in a little something," the officer said, edging toward a small fridge in the corner of the tent.

I wonder what he keeps in there – severed heads? Letitia thought, as both Godfrey and Anton mumbled "No thanks."

"That's a pity, I have an excellent bottle of the very best Dom Perignon." He opened the fridge and pulled out a magnum with a very fancy label. "It's 1985 vintage – a very good year."

As the officer popped the cork and stood the hefty bottle on the table, next to a tray with glasses a soldier had brought, Godfrey smacked his dry lips and Letitia's jaw tightened. I know exactly what he's up to, she thought. It's imperative that Godfrey keeps his grip and doesn't let himself be lured into falling foul of the demon drink.

The officer poured champagne for himself and for the soldier who had brought the tray.

"Pity to waste such a really good vintage," the officer said. He gulped down his glass and poured another. The soldier did the same.

Godfrey was behaving like a man mesmerized. He followed the officer's every move like a cobra watching a snake charmer. When the officer drained his second glass, Godfrey stood up.

"Godfrey, no!" Letitia commanded. Anton tried to restrain his father, but he brushed him off. The officer stepped back as he slowly approached the table.

Unable to stop himself, he seized the bottle and began pouring himself a drink with a shaking hand, but spilled so much the soldier took the bottle and filled his glass for him.

He glugged it down and smacked his lips, then held out his empty glass.

"I've got a feeling this is going to be a long day," he said.

Sharon the Mother Queen awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of her phone buzzing. Since moving into a royal bedchamber at Calliper Palace, she had slept intermittently, usually between the hours of one and four. Sleeping in a high, sturdy mahogany four-poster bed with bedclothes of Shanghai silk took some getting used to after a single divan in a row house.

She shook herself and reached over to the mahogany nightstand, snatching her BlackBerry off the top.

"Yes, who is it?" she said.

"It's Archbishop Larry Lepager, ma'am. I have very grave news. The Slobodian army has crossed the border and will be in Melloria City in another hour. It's imperative that you get out of the City!"

"What? The Slobodians? I can't believe it..." she mumbled. "All right, I'll get dressed and call Simpkins, the driver. He'll know where to go." She stumbled out of bed, clutching the phone.

"Where's Craig, Larry?" she asked anxiously.

"His Majesty's safe and sound with me," his voice reassured. "I've put him in a mini bus with some choirboys – all in robes – and with me at the wheel, in my vestments, I'm going to drive us to Bulimia. We'll be over the border in half an hour, and if we get stopped, I'll say that we're on our way to a requiem."

"Thank God," Sharon said. "I'll pray for you all."

"Thank you, ma'am. And make sure you leave without delay!"

Catheter led his heavily-laden palomino along the creosote-board fence that marked the paddock boundary and looked up at the night sky. Clouds were sprinting across the moon, but it would soon be clear. He looked back at the cottage one last time and saw the lighted windows wink out. Then he tethered the palomino to the fence and waited for the others. Lucinda came slowly, holding Angus by the hand and leading her splotchy gray mare by the bridle, with Betty a few paces behind. Betty carried Rhiannon in her papoose and led a dappled gelding.

When they were all together, Catheter knelt down and Angus climbed on his back. Lucinda strapped Angus in place and mounted her horse. When Betty mounted, Rhi-Rhi awoke and gave a tiny squeal before being petted gently asleep. Then, with all three riders and their charges in the stirrups, they set off for the Forest of Gorm.

Clinging to her horse's mane for fear of tumbling off, Betty closed her eyes and instantly, without intending to, fell asleep. She awoke with a start and a rapidly beating heart. Clouds had crossed the face of the moon, it was chilly and dark and her clamped hands, reins wrapped around her wrists and holding tufts of mane, felt very numb. She could hear the steady plodding of the three horses and was achingly aware of the weight of the sleeping baby against her chest. She checked and found Rhi-Rhi snoring gently. Relieved, she went back to dozing and soothing herself with the sound of the clopping hooves, the clink of stirrups and the occasional sounds of the forest.

When she awoke again, a gray morning light had appeared, birds were singing and the forest had given way to agricultural land. Ahead of them she could see a dull black smudge that looked like a building. Her lips were dry and there was an angry rumbling in her belly.

"Are we nearly there yet?" she called.

"Not quite, but I think it's time for a rest!" Catheter replied.

He pulled up his chestnut and cream steed and let go of the reins. They all dismounted and the horses gave snorts of delight, pleased to be free of their load. Stiff and tired, the two women squatted on the grass and Betty laid down her papoose. She smiled down at the snoring Rhi-Rhi, while Catheter unstrapped Angus and hoisted him off his back. Then they ate sandwiches and drank warm coffee from a thermos.

Catheter got up and walked away from the others, checking his cell for messages. There was a text from Lepager, telling him the good news that he, Craig and finally Sharon, the Mother Queen, had all made it safely over the border and were in Bulimia. Then he listened to his voice mail and realized there were frantic messages from his father still unanswered. He snapped the phone shut and put it in his pocket. He didn't want to jeopardize his family's safety, so he resolved to call Godfrey as soon as they arrived at Porcellan Palace, their final destination.

"Damn and blast!" Godfrey said as he came awake from his drunken stupor. He was thinking he would like to throttle the Slobodian soldiers who were hauling him to his feet. Their smirking faces were far too close to his own and he could smell the cheap tobacco on their breath.

He was being bundled into a troop transporter horribly reminiscent of the ghastly vehicle he and Letitia had endured the last time they were prisoners, and his rapid drinking was beginning to irritate his bladder.

"Can I have a Jimmy Riddle first?" he asked weakly of the soldier stuffing him into the vehicle.

"No, hold it till you get to the prison!" the soldier said harshly.

Godfrey groaned and looked inside the troop carrier. He saw Letitia and Anton, huddled in the back behind rows of empty seats. The soldier pushing him aboard climbed into the front of the vehicle with two others.

"My God, they're taking us to prison!" Letitia muttered to a shell-shocked Anton. Her thoughts were wildly oscillating. She felt like she had just woken from a nightmare and found that the terrible dream was true. Now that the fake courtesy with which the Slobodian troops had treated them was over, she wondered what horrors awaited them. She was hoping that Royston, for all his evil ways, would recognize that she and her family were still important enough to merit decency and respect, perhaps because of the Slobodians' need to legitimize their invasion in the eyes of the world. She also wondered if Latrina had any restraining influence over her sadistic son. After all, Godfrey was her brother.

The cloud looming over their heads was not something she wanted to think about, as the doors slammed shut and the vehicle moved off with rattling slowness. Her stomach rumbled with hunger and her dry mouth ached with thirst. Godfrey sat down groggily between her and Anton and began mumbling about how he'd love some strong black coffee.

Wouldn't we all! she thought testily. Oh God, what's next on the agenda? She was thinking that only yesterday she had been luxuriating in a hot bubble bath with the radio on and a gin and tonic within reach.

Suddenly the cellphone in Godfrey's coat pocket began to vibrate. The noise of the engine kept the three laughing, smoking soldiers in the front from hearing the sound, so he slowly extracted the phone and listened. After a few minutes he whispered something, the cell close to his mouth, and listened for the reply. Then he snapped it shut as one of the soldiers swung round in his seat.

"We'll be at the Gray Bar Hotel soon," he said mockingly. "That's where you'll all be staying for the rest of your lives!"

When he had turned around to joke with his comrades and smoke a foul-smelling cigarette, Letitia asked Godfrey: "Who was that?"

"It was Cathy," he said quietly. "He, Lucy and the kids are safe, and so is the king and his mother. Larry Lepager is with them. Cathy, Lucy and the kids are on their way to Porcellan – "

"Did you tell him what's happened to us?" she whispered urgently.

"Of course I did," he whispered back. "Cathy's going to tell Hector, and see if something can be done to get us out. We'll have to hang on for now."

Well, thank God it's only the three of us that need rescuing! Letitia thought.

Chapter 5

### The Hermeticon

Throughout the three hour car journey to Porcellan Palace Catheter and Lucinda sat in the back of the Bentley, silently basking in mutual admiration. Betty sat in the front, Rhiannon in her papoose, and chatted to the driver. Angus lay asleep across his father's lap. The three refugees, their bottoms saddlesore and aching vibrantly, had stayed briefly at the decaying mansion of Catheter's second cousin, Duke Ferdinand of Melancholia, where they left the horses. Cousin Ferdy had instructed his ostler to take good care of the horses until further notice. Then he made a quavery-voiced phone call to his cousin, King Hector, alerting him to the travelers' arrival. A Bentley had been sent to transport them to Porcellan Palace.

Now they were approaching the vista of trees, shrubberies and vineyards that preceded the elegant palace of the House of Lattis, the Buliminian royal family. Catheter and Lucinda quietly commended the view to Betty and the driver, eliciting the comments "awesome" and "I see it every day" respectively. Soon they had passed under the heavily-engraved stone arch bearing the elaborate crest of the Lattises, blazoned with a golden peacock on a royal blue field.

They passed through hectares of gardens next, including twisty paths leading to hidden grottos and down to the bowl of an island-studded lake, where shady groves and quaint bridges led to various classical temples reflected in the shimmering water. These included an elegant Pantheon, adorned with sculptures, and a circular Temple of Apollo which sat high on a knoll overlooking the lake. They were part of an allegorical landscape based on Virgil's stories of the visit of Aeneas to the Underworld. As Letitia had once remarked to Godfrey, it made their own palace gardens look dull and suburban.

Porcellan Palace soon rose up, a miracle of white stone. Even those who marveled at the superior landscaping within its park and thought it wonderful, after touring the magnificent temples, to come finally to the Temple of Apollo, gasped in admiration at its splendor. Porcellan outshone Calliper Palace, even down to its ornate railings and wrought-iron gates, and if it could be compared to a sumptuous, many-layered fruit cake, then it made Calliper look like an apple tart – and a plain one at that.

King Hector stood beside Queen Ada at the top of a wide flight of marble steps and watched the Bentley disgorge its passengers. A bluff, hearty, cherry-nosed man, Hector liked to dress in white summer suits and wear a silk bow tie. His wife was a silver blonde with taut lines around her mouth. Slender as a rail, she wore a cream silk dress and red high heel court shoes. They waited to greet their late daughter's husband, his partner and child, their grandson and his nurse.

Catheter, in his eagerness to introduce Lucinda to his late wife's parents, hurried up the steps and tripped over at the top. Climbing to his feet, he gave an embarrassed smile and dusted off his pants.

"Your Majesties, I'd like to present Miss Lucinda Limehouse-Blewit," he said grandly. Lucinda, panting after dashing up the steps behind Catheter, curtseyed energetically. Then she darted forward to Hector and Ada, as they each offered her a handshake.

"A great pleasure," Hector said, eyeing her up for possible flirting and finding nothing to allure him. "You're clearly a remarkable woman, and we're very pleased you are here."

Ada looked anxiously down the steps as Betty, carrying Rhiannon in her papoose while holding Angus by the hand, stumbled up to greet them. At the top she curtseyed awkwardly, and Ada scooped up Angus in her arms. She smiled at Betty.

"I'm sure you must be tired after all your traveling," she said to her. "We've prepared a nice room for you and little Rhi-Rhi. It's got a lovely view."

"We don't need anything fancy, ma'am," she said, blushing. "Though I am a bit pooped."

A servant took Betty and her charge inside the palace. When they had gone, Hector and Ada began fussing over Angus, their grandson. Eventually, Hector took Catheter aside.

"Have you heard anything from your parents?" he asked. "Ada and I are worried that they may have been – you know."

"They have," Catheter replied, somewhat nonchalantly. "The Slobodians have got them." He stifled a yawn. "Father asked me to give you his regards."

The Central Prison, an ancient fortress, was built over the ruins of a temple devoted to the god Hermes. The Hermeticon, as it was known locally, consisted of a labyrinth of corridors, each connecting a warren of caves that had formally been used for spiritual initiation, but more recently converted into cells housing Melloria's most dangerous prisoners. To reach it from the sentencing courts, prison vans were obliged to be driven at crawling speed through the noisy, congested streets of South City. The district was the oldest part of Melloria City, and was full of slow-moving intersections and narrow streets lined with pushcarts where merchants and artisans peddled and shouted their wares.

Now the streets were unusually quiet. Normally busy with pedestrians, plodding donkey carts and creaking bicycles, they were deserted, courtesy of the Slobodian military. Watching each thoroughfare roll by and noting the eerie absence of jostling, wheedling, arguing people, Letitia gradually worked out where they were heading.

"We'll all have to keep our grip," she said darkly. "They're taking us to the Hermeticon!"

"Not the best of places to spend the night," Godfrey replied, frowning. He glanced at Anton.

Anton had been unusually taciturn ever since the Slobodians had captured them. Now he was dozing fitfully through the bumpy ride.

A column of green-helmeted soldiers was clumping along, assault rifles in hand, each leaning forward under the weight of his combat gear. The soldiers in the front of the vehicle jeered noisily as the marching troops passed by, eliciting smiles and shouts. A ragged chorus of Today We Take Melloria broke out, which led to more shouts and curses.

It depressed Godfrey to think that companies, even battalions, of Slobodian soldiers were marching through the streets of his beloved Melloria. He simmered in his cramped seat and was about to comment angrily to the three soldiers in the front, when Letitia gave him a nudge.

"Better not say anything, dear, it'll only make them worse."

Outside the main gates of the Hermeticon the vehicle lurched to a halt. The driver shouted to a sentry and drove forward at a crawl. The doors swung open and the smell of a thousand unwashed bodies and their effluvia met their nostrils. "Clearly, not shower day today," Godfrey said, while Letitia gagged. Anton was still dozing.

Inside the gates a large compound surrounded the massive, rocklike fortress. The vehicle rolled up to a single door cut into the granite and an armed guard stepped out.

"All right, you lot – out, now!"

The rear doors were yanked open and Letitia stepped down, sighing tremulously, followed by Godfrey and a groggy Anton. Looking up, all she could see were vast blank walls and slitlike windows. The guard pushed them toward the thickly-studded oak door. Inside the Hermeticon the world seemed abruptly different. An oppressive silence reigned, now and then split by the slam of an iron door. Uniformed prison guards milled about, pushing Letitia and hauling Anton, who was protesting feebly, and shoving Godfrey toward a processing area. Godfrey and Anton quickly had their cellphones taken from them and the three Gorms were issued with striped prison uniforms.

This is like being in a concentration camp, Letitia thought. Worse was to come. They were forced to change into their prison garb in front of each other, to their deep humiliation. Then their clothes and other possessions were shoved into plastic bags.

"It's time to show you to your room, madam," a sarcastic female guard said to Letitia. "Say goodbye to the gentlemen."

Godfrey and Anton, who had lowered their eyes while Letitia undressed, smiled bravely at her and murmured parting words. Then she was led away by the female guard.

The guard opened a door to one of the seemingly endless corridors, and, stepping through it from the processing area, Letitia felt she was exchanging a small confinement for an even smaller one. She found the numbing silence extremely depressing, and even disturbing, as she became aware of flickering eyes that watched their progress through the bars of many of the cells they passed.

"My apologies for these bleeding scum, madam," the guard said. "We can keep them locked up but we can't stop them looking."

"How much farther?" Letitia asked, her voice reduced to a croak.

"Just a few hundred meters, madam."

The walls of the passage were damp and irregular, carved from the rock, and a slightly sulphurous smell hung in the air. Just ahead of them the corridor ended and she caught a glimpse of burnished metal. As they drew closer she could see it was a steel door like that of a bank vault, with a wheel-lock at its center.

"This is like going to see Hannibal Lector!" she exclaimed.

"Tough luck, madam," the guard said. "He's over in the men's wing."

The guard turned the wheel-lock before tugging open the door. As it swung back, Letitia saw what looked like a dimly-lit boxlike cave. She made out a bunk bed attached to the wall and strung with wire netting covered with a sheeted mattress, a bedroll on top, a table, a small chair, a toilet and washbasin. On a wall facing the chair was a large blue LED screen, switched off.

The guard stepped aside with mock-deference and she entered the cell. The air was distinctly chilly, and she wished her striped canvas uniform was thicker. And included a cardigan. Looking around, she realized that the table and chair were fixed to the floor. She sat on the bed.

"I'll be leaving you now, madam," the guard said, and before clanging the door shut she added: "Breakfast is at six o'clock sharp, followed by work detail."

The bed was hard and, lifting the canvas bedcover, she did a dry heave. The smell of fetid unwashed sheets on the stinking straw matress was overpowering. However, her fatigue ran it a close second, so she unrolled the bedroll to reveal a tubelike canvas pillow and a scratchy blanket. Then she collapsed onto the stained pillow and rested her head, letting the rest of her body stretch out.

There was a grating thud as corridor doors were locked and the lights went out. Letitia stared into the inky gloom. From somewhere she heard a muffled moan of agony. I mustn't worry about Godfrey and Anton, she thought. We're so isolated that it's every man for himself. I've got to focus on keeping myself sane. She felt like saying a prayer, even though – like many English people – she wasn't a bit religious. Instead, she merely hoped to feel better in the morning.

But for now, she had no idea how she was going to handle this, the worst situation she had ever been in. If the worst comes to the worst I'll kill myself, she thought. Swallow a bottle of Jeyes Fluid if need be. I'm never going to let them turn me into a nutter.

Then she fell into an exhausted sleep and only awoke when a yellow shaft of light filtered through the window-slit. Down the corridor she could hear bars rattling and voices crying out. The impatient voice of a guard cut through the din.

"Here's your breakfast, bitches!"

Chapter 6

### A New Order For Melloria

Princess Hernia was lying on her bed with earphones and a lot of deadwhite make-up on. She wore a torn, high-necked satin blouse with blood stains, that had once belonged to her dead sister, her sister's last pair of skinny jeans, and morbidly phosphorescent green nails. Although Halloween was two months away, she had decided to adopt a zombie deadgirl look in advance and felt a sense of quiet pride that in addition to sunken black eye wells on a corpselike face, bluish cheekbones and an artfully-applied, suppurating wound, she wore some of the clothes Dawna had been assassinated in. It just added icing to the cake. The only thing she drew the line at was following Anton's suggestion and wearing Dawna's underwear. That was just too gross, even for her.

She was gazing at her Android, wondering why none of her texts to Anton had been answered. He hadn't posted any tweets to his LARPing friends, either, not since his dad took him and his mum away to fight the freaking Slobodians. The obvious conclusion was that he was now dead or in lockdown. Bummer! Oh well, she thought, life goes on. And nice guys really do finish last. Maybe he should've been more of an asshole. Then perhaps he wouldn't have gone.

Her musings were interrupted by a soft rapping on her door.

"Hello!" King Hector called. "May I come in, please?"

"Walk right in, why doncha!"she said, sliding her earphones back.

Hector peered into the room, then cautiously entered.

"Oh my God, you look like one of the walking dead!"

Oh, go get hit by a bus, Hernia thought. Then, brightly: "Thanks, Dad!"

"What's up?" she asked, confused by the unexpected intrusion.

"Hernia, there's no easy way of putting this," he began, flushing at the sight of his zombified daughter.

She gave him a puzzled look.

"Are you trying to tell me Anton's dead?"

Hector was taken aback. "No. Oh God, no!" he tumbled out the words. "Let's not jump to that conclusion, shall we? No, he and Letitia and Godfrey have..."

"Gone missing?"

"Well, yes, in a way. They're prisoners of the Slobodians."

"That's a curse," she said thoughtfully. "I was just thinking about the Slobs the other day. That Royston...he's such a fascist. I used to think I'd like to shag him, but then I realized – he'd probably prefer to beat the shit out of me, then rape me with his whip handle."

Hector's face became ashen.

"Hernia, please...Um, well, we really must think of some way – "

"But he's got the kind of body I like – tall, bronze and hard. Bet his pecs are gorgeous, too. All that exercise he gets, whipping people...Sorry, Dad, you were saying?"

"I was saying, we really must find a way of helping your husband and his parents to obtain their release."

He started looking for somewhere to sit. On her bed cluttered with cosmetic paints and brushes, a half-eaten pizza in its box and cigarette papers, she had sprawled herself and several costume changes.

"Yah, I get that." She watched his indecision for a few minutes, then she pulled up her legs and swung them over the bedside, creating a space. "Sit here, Dad."

He felt intimidated by her aggressive punkness and sat himself down with plenty of space between them.

"So what's the plan?" she asked.

He started telling her about the diplomatic efforts he was making through his ambassador in Melloria City, emphasizing that a cautious persistence was the best approach in such a delicate situation - slow but sure wins the race. He knew he was rambling.

"I'll definitely miss him," she cut in. "He could be such a dweeb, but he was faithful. Not that I'm the jealous type. He can go with any freaking whore he wants – "

Hector looked down at his hands. "The thing is, we really don't have any diplomatic clout with the Slobodians. As you say, Royston is, well, fanatical."

"Calm your tits, Dad!" she soothed. "I'll talk to some of Anton's mates, the Live Action Role Players. They probably know people in Melloria who can figure out an escape plan, lead 'em out through tunnels, that kind of stuff..."

"All right, then, I'll leave it to you," he said, relieved. "Just one more thing and then I'll go."

"Yes?"

"I wonder if you wouldn't mind helping Betty out." He paused, letting his words sink in. "She has two small children to cope with, and one of them's your nephew."

Now he thinks I do child care, she thought. Oh, well.

"Which is it to be then, dad – Angus or the smelly baby?"

"I think we'll start with Angus," he said.

Betty was most reluctant to let Hernia help with the care of Angus, if it meant leaving her alone with him. However, Hector and Ada prevailed on Catheter and Lucinda and, with many misgivings, Betty abandoned her duties to Angus for an afternoon and took a walk with Rhiannon in the stroller.

Hernia began by dipping her freshly-painted nails under Angus's nose while he was in his playpen and letting him get high on the nail polish. Angus tugged at her hand – his fingers had a strong, coiling grasp – and that made her nervous. An hour later Betty returned from her walk to find her bent over Angus in the playpen, screaming and red-faced, and about to slam her fist down on his head. The nurse rushed forward and snatched the child away just as the fist came down, barely missing his ear.

When Hector asked her why she had done it, she said that Angus's continual shouting and kicking his feet had got on her nerves. Shaken but a wiser man, he banned her from contact with any children in the palace until further notice.

Melloria City was now firmly under Slobodian military control. In every part of the city soldiers marched back and forth in small groups, sometimes splitting up to pound on doors and drag out people suspected of being "uncooperative" with the ruling military command. They hauled them off to anonymous cellars where they were first interrogated by the newly-arrived Praetorian Guard and then usually disappeared. The Praetorian Guard, the prets, Royston's elite security squad, wore dark gray uniforms with a silver axhead embedded in black tabs on their collars. Their motto Feared By All, Loved by None was stamped onto their belt buckles, and they soon made themselves loathed and feared in equal measure by the local population.

Calliper Palace had become the permanent Slobodian Command HQ and above its ramparts flags showing the Slobodian double axhead had replaced the royal standard of Melloria. In the palace courtyard the bronze statue of King Egbert had been removed from its plinth and an iron-gray double-headed ax stood in its place. Beside it, military bags and weapons were being heaved over the tailgates of trucks and soldiers were clambering out. One of the trucks was backed against the stone pillars of the palace entrance and soldiers were unloading boxes of equipment and taking them into the palace.

The palace banqueting hall was being made ready for an announcement by the Operations Commander and officers in combat gear were crowded in between the long dining table and the tapestry-hung walls. Only the senior officers sat on chairs at the table. At the head of the table the five-bar general stood and conversed with a commander of the Praetorian Guard. Finally the general addressed the packed assembly.

"Officers of the army of Slobodia, today our mission is accomplished – the whole of Melloria is ours!" His first words brought a great cheer that ricocheted around the hall.

"Melloria's sorry excuse for an army was quickly defeated and surrendered on the first day of our operation. We can now liberate this poor but potentially lucrative country, rich in certain natural resources. It is now in the safe hands of the Slobodian armed forces. The enormous untapped reserves of energy, including the River Lupus with its hydroelectric potential and the unexplored Mellorian Fissure, can now be developed for our benefit."

This brought more cheering from the audience, and the general gave vent to his feelings.

"The only thing that stands in our way is the primitive, lazy, good-for-nothing, scumbag Mellorians!"

The combat officers roared with laughter and the general held up his hand.

"We will nevertheless make these miserable wretches useful, either by offering them education in the ways of our civilized people or by kicking their sorry asses until they bend to our will!"

Laughter burst out again, mixed with coarse jokes about assholes and bending Mellorians.

The general shouted for silence. "Gentlemen, you have your orders. Each company is to take over four city blocks. Keep the locals indoors – they are to stay under curfew until further instructions. We are in the process of flushing out and eliminating certain high-profile enemies of Slobodia. This cleansing is being carried out by the prets, with your cooperation. You will receive further orders at tomorrow's meeting. Now go out and own those streets!"

The general finished his address. "God save the King!" he bellowed.

Cheers erupted as the whole room roared out the loyal oath. The hubbub rose to a pitch that made the crystal chandeliers tremble, and all the seated officers rose to their feet. They all began talking, and the room buzzed with activity as officers left to return to their units or stood around in small groups.

Only the pret commander looked somber. He took the general aside.

"In future meetings, Commander," he said, "we will end by swearing allegiance as follows: 'Hail to the Leader!'"

Chapter 7

### A Simple Twist Of Fate

Letitia just kept wishing that someone would rescue her from this hell. Her world seemed to have collapsed in on her. Never in her life had she been so depressed. She felt that if she had to stay in this damn prison any longer, her soul would be irreparably damaged.

On her first morning the sarcastic female guard who had locked her in the night before had flung open her cell door with the cheery greeting:

"Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life!"

In her hands was a tray she had lifted from a heated aluminum cart in the corridor. It contained a steaming concoction in a covered metal dish, a spoon and a plastic cup of cold water.

"Here – bon appetit!"

Then the guard slammed the door shut and turned the wheel-lock.

Letitia opened the hot cover with her sleeve cuffs over her fingers. It revealed a mess of gruel that looked about as appetizing as half-baked clay. And tasted about as flavorsome. She took a spoonful, chewed, gagged, swallowed and managed to choke it down with the water from the plastic cup. She refilled the cup with water from the washbasin, tried to chew another sponful of gruel, gave up and flushed the rest down the toilet.

The work detail that followed consisted of light housekeeping in the female guards' lounge. Two hours of vacuuming, dusting, picking up discarded coffee cups and washing them, and emptying ashtrays. Then she was walked back to her cell, locked up for the remainder of the day and fed an unappetizing supper before lights out. As soon as the cell door clanged shut, the blue LED screen on her wall was switched on remotely and became a TV screen. For the next eight hours it fed her an almost continuous diet of Mellorian daytime TV.

Letitia had never watched such stuff before and found it an eye-opener. Show after show of dysfunctional families in shabby homes who fought and screamed at one another – they were rarely happy – rolled past her wondering eyes, and usually ended with someone being beaten up or fatally wounded. Occasionally the slew of soaps was replaced by a sitcom or a quiz show. In the latter, plump couples were tempted with cars and power boats, then asked impossibly hard questions, and walked away with electric coffee makers or toasters.

She soon found herself addicted. Staring at the TV all day became her way of keeping depression at bay, and she knew she couldn't stop herself. Scenes of marital violence especially fascinated her. Sobbing women with bruises flew at their tormenting husbands who either beat them down or ran, after grabbing their purse. Sometimes a wife would be rescued by her father or brother, after an angry confrontation with the husband in a room filled with overturned furniture.

She could scarcely believe that trivial arguments or jealous accusations could lead to men going berserk, screaming like lunatics and wrecking their own living rooms, not to mention attacking their wives. She heartily condemned them all, judging that striking a woman was an act of inexcusable cowardice, and wished the wives would fight back harder.

So her days were spent. Lights came on, bad food was served, cleaning up other people's messy rooms, then hours of watching screen actors arguing back and forth and inflicting violence on each other. More bad food, then the TV shut off and the lights went out. Letitia was left blinking in the sudden darkness, wondering how many more such days and nights she would have to endure.

One afternoon a week the female prisoners were led out of their cells to shuffle around a small cement yard and peer through a chain-link fence that surrounded the prison. During the third such exercise period, by which time Letitia was on nodding terms with several arsonists and murderers, a group of newly-arrived prisoners and their guards passed by on the other side of the fence. Accompanying them were two women in civilian clothes, who looked like prison visitors.

While the other prisoners in the exercise yard yelled coarse insults at the newly-arrived cons and received similar cries and rude gesticulations in return, Letitia's attention was drawn to the two civilians. They were not fazed by the hoarse shouts and gestures and maintained an aloof dignity. They looked familiar. She pushed closer to the fence, using her elbows to clear a way through the yelling throng, and craned her neck.

Two very familiar faces were passing by only a meter away. Letitia gasped. It was Mary Sedeekly and Agatha Armstrong-Pitt, her former Ladies of the Queen's Bedchamber. Instinctively she called out: "Mary, Agatha – it's me!" The two women gave her a startled glance, then she felt a hand grasping her collar and was yanked away from the fence.

A scowling guard pulled her around and bellowed at her.

"Right, exercise over for you! Break the rules again and you'll get no TV for a week!"

She was led back to her cell. So it's within the rules to shout vulgar curses and make obscene gestures, she thought, but not to greet old acquaintances. Curious!

She lay awake a long time that night, staring into the darkness and turning over in her mind the delicious thought that she had been seen by the erstwhile Ladies of the Queen's Bedchamber. What might that lead to? If it leads to my getting out of here, she thought, I'd give each of those ladies a medal.

"We should throw a party on Friday evening," Queen Ada suggested, after entering King Hector's leather-bound book-lined study. He was sitting at his desk finishing his correspondence.

"What's the occasion?" he inquired and shut down his iMac.

"Just that we haven't had one for ages, and with King Craig and his mother in town and Catheter and Lucinda staying with us, I think it would be a nice thing to do."

Hector casually shrugged. He was always up for a boozy bash on the palace lawns. Outdoor parties were perfect in the summer - that way if you got lucky you could sneak away with your paramour and find a dark bower in one of the classical temples of Porcellan Park.

Ada seemed to read her husband's mind. She regarded him with a jaundiced eye, putting up with his infidelities because, on balance, the pluses in their marriage outweighed the minuses.

"How many people shall we invite?" she asked. "Shall we put a cap on two hundred?"

"Two hundred, three hundred..." He spread his arms. "We have the space, we have the lucre. It's your call."

"Two hundred," she said firmly. "Any more and it'll feel like an invasion."

He chuckled. "And we don't want one of those!"

Ada nodded in agreement. Every day she thanked her lucky stars that, unlike Melloria, Bulimia was safe from the marauding Slobodians.

"That's settled, then," she said. "I'll go ahead and arrange it."

Ada was delighted with the way things were turning out. While Hector poured himself a brandy from his decanter and settled down to read Cloud Atlas, she sat at the desk and began drawing up a list of possible invitees. A half hour later, she set off for a chat with Hamilton, the head gardener, about the preparation for a large lawn party with lots of Chinese lanterns and tiki lights.

Next she phoned the names on her list, including the newly-arrived King Craig and his mother, Sharon the Mother Queen. They were staying at the residence of Jesse Joplin, the Archbishop of Bulimia, until permanent accommodation could be found for an exiled monarch of slender finances. His mentor, Larry Lepager, the Archbishop of Melloria, was fund-raising among ex-pat Mellorians for this purpose.

Finally, Ada approached Hernia, who was lying beside the pool.

"Yes?" Hernia said, languidly raising herself up on one elbow. Her bathing costume consisted of a skimpy top that revealed almost everything about her breasts except their taste, and a tightly-drawn thong that cut into her crack like cheese wire.

The tightness of her daughter's tiny garments made Ada's eyes water.

"We're going to have a Friday night lawn party this weekend – " she began, trying to avoid looking at Hernia's slender body, which completely defied the huge amounts of food she ate.

"Okay," Hernia said, sinking back down. "I'll invite half the dossers in Angina."

Oh no you won't! Ada thought to herself. And I don't want to see any of your zombie friends, either!

"– and there's a maximum of two hundred people coming," she concluded. "Most of them are on my invite list."

Oh my God, she's done a list! Hernia thought, shading her red-lensed eyes from the sun. It'll be like a girl guides' meet!

"So you may bring no more than six friends, Hernia," she said. "The party will start at seven-thirty."

Hernia sat up and farted.

"Oo, I needed that!" she sighed.

"And please don't invite any Saint smokers," Ada went on. "There'll be people like the King of Melloria and his mother there, plus a couple of archbishops."

"Whatever you say, Mama," Hernia mocked. "By the way, Dad asked me to put a plan together to rescue Anton and his ma and pa. I want to bring some mates along to talk to him about it. That okay?"

"Of course, Dear – that's very good of you," Ada said. "As long as there aren't more than six of them."

After putting a wrap over her skimpies, Hernia got up.

"I think I'll see Dad now," she said. "There's something I need to ask him."

The lines on Ada's face tightened. There was only one thing she ever needed to ask him for – money. But what was the money for? She watched Hernia padding under the atrium in her flip-flops on her way to Hector's study, and wished she could follow her and find out.

Lucinda sat cross-legged on the floor of the playroom, surrounded by Angus's toys. Angus, convinced he was Thomas the Tank Engine, was running around her in ever-decreasing circles. Eventually he collapsed in front of her, a heap of tangled limbs and panting, squirming energy.

"I'm back, Lucy!" Betty called. She wheeled Rhiannon, sleeping in her stroller, into the room.

"Thank God!" she gasped. "I don't know how long I could've lasted with Angus running riot. How was Rhi-Rhi?"

"Oh, pretty quiet. She likes to sleep in the daytime and wakes up at night. And what a bawler!"

Lucinda surveyed the wreckage around her.

"Well, they've both done pretty well considering they were uprooted from their home."

"That's true," Betty said. She sank down on a cushion.

"Are you going somewhere tonight?"

"Yes," she said, easing off her sneakers. "King Craig's driver, Simpkins, is picking me up. He's invited me for a meal at his flat."

"He's got a flat already?"

Lucinda was surprised. She'd heard that neither Craig nor his mother had any money when they arrived in Angina. So how could their penniless driver afford to rent a flat?

"Well, he says he has," Betty said. She was suddenly overcome with mixed emotion. Had her new boyfriend been exaggerating?

"Anyway, I hope you have a nice time."

Before she met Cather, Lucinda had had a brief affair with Simpkins and had broken it off. Warning bells rang in her head.

"You never know with people, do you?" Betty suddenly said. "I mean, Simpkins met me one day last week when I was in the park with the kids. He seemed charming, and had Angus in stitches with his antics – and we know what a handful Angus can be! He bought us all drinks and ice pops at a little food stand. So when he asked me out tonight, I said yes. But I don't really know him..."

Lucinda blinked and struggled to say something helpful.

Don't go, Betty, don't go! He's a pothead who can't keep it in his pants! The words screamed in her head.

To steady her mind, she picked Angus up and rocked him gently on her lap.

"Well, if you're having second thoughts, that's all right – just call it off," she said firmly.

Chapter 8

### Orchestral Maneuvers In The Dark

In spite of their general's proud boast that the whole of Melloria had been taken, a knot of field officers whose base was far from the Command HQ at Calliper Palace, knew different.

Unable to attend any of the meetings and briefings held in the Mellorian capital, Colonel Papp and the men of the Mountain Lion Brigade under his command were hunkered down on top of a gorge overlooking the River Lupus which, in sheeting rain, was galloping like a herd of wild horses. The rain which had begun on the second day of the invasion showed no sign of letting up.

Major Kronski pushed open the tent flap as rain blew in from the darkness and saluted the colonel.

"There's an awful lot of water out there, sir," he said.

Papp had been studying a map on his field table. He looked up and gave a shrug.

"We have to move on, major, rain or no rain. By now we should've taken this whole area, both sides of the gorge and the village of Mania."

"We won't be able to take any vehicles with us, they're all bogged down," the major said. "If you let me have two companies, sir, Captain Krimen and I can yomp the men down the slope and up the other side to secure the village. Then we'll radio back."

"Sounds a plan, major. Do it," Papp replied.

The two companies lined up on a ridge at the top of the sodden gorge and faced the officers. The rain made the darkness darker althought the first light of dawn was coming. Major Kronski moved his glowing flashlight along the line of troops.

"We don't have very long before daylight, so shift ass," he said. "While I'm not expecting any armed resistance, with these scumbag Mellorians you can't take any chances. Anything that moves that's bigger than a rabbit – take it out. Understood?"

The men nodded, their blackened faces smeary in the fierce rain.

The descent down the gorge was a long struggle. Using the sagebrush for slippery handholds the two companies spread out. Captain Krimen led his men down the clearest section of the gorge and was grateful for the sparseness of vegetation. About halfway down, he noticed an opening in the tangle of sagebrush.

He pointed it out to his sergeant who looked in the direction of his soaking arm.

"What do you make of that?"

"Looks like the entrance to a cave, sir. I'll send some scouts in."

"You'll send yourself in, too," the captain said testily. "Make sure it's empty, then radio in. Remember, any activity – give 'em hell!"

The sergeant, whose name was Zinoviev, picked six men, and they all clambered inside the opening.

"At least it's dry in here," a talkative private whispered.

"Shut up and keep moving!" Zinoviev rasped. "I don't want to get my fucking head shot off!"

Rifles in hand, they shuffled down a long dirt passage that had been hewed from the cliff. After about twenty minutes they arrived at a solid wall of rock. The sergeant swished his flashlight around, then began radioing in. Objective reached. Dead end. No opposition.

"What's that sound?" the gabby private hissed.

Someone's singing or chanting behind that rock," another private said.

"Shut the fuck up!" Zinoviev said. He leaned on the rock wall and pressed his ear against the granite.

"Well, I'll be damned."

He noticed a small red button set into the rock and scratched his head. Then, stepping back, he signaled to the others to take cover farther up the passage. He removed a grenade from his webbing, primed it and let it roll toward the rock face, before hurrying to join his troops.

An explosion of unbearable sound shook the crouching troops until their teeth rattled, and filled the passage with a dust cloud. Not waiting for the cloud to disperse, the sergeant rushed his men forward and found that the rock face now had an opening. Coughing and gagging, the soldiers struggled through the gap.

Inside, a large cavern opened up, lit by paper lanterns. The troops blinked, bleary-eyed, at the sight of a group of men and women in shining white robes who were singing chords of unsurpassable beauty. When the singing ended, the leader of the group turned toward the soldiers and gestured at the jagged hole their grenade had caused.

"You could have rung the bell, you know," he said.

Zinoviev and his men looked dumbfounded. Their orders and their training commanded them to seize all civilians they came across, clubbing them to the ground if necessary, and shoot any resisters. Yet these white-robed chanters were holding them spellbound. What was going on?

"We have food and drink," the group leader said, "and we will be happy to sing for you, and with you. Please help yourselves."

Unable to stop themselves, the soldiers stumbled forward, slung their rifles over their shoulders and began feasting from a long table laid out with sweetmeats, fruits and juices. Then they slid their rifles and packs to the ground and dropped into chairs in front of the singers.

With a great shout of joy for an opening chord, the singers launched into a complex, overlapping repetition of gorgeous melodies. Their voices soared upwards, speeding to the roof of the cavern, then radiating downwards in great spirals of echoing sound, over and over again.

The soldiers slumped in their chairs gradually began adding their voices to the coruscating choruses, at first raggedly, then more and more in harmony with the singers. As great blasts of singing gusted across the cavern, some of the troops – including Sergeant Zinoviev – began to shed tears. Still singing, they wept uncontrollably, their bodies shaking with emotion. This went on until every soldier's face was wet with tears.

After the very last note had died away, the group leader turned to the soldiers and raised his arms. The troops were moist-eyed and attentive, some of them smiling.

"We warmly welcome you to our company," he said. "Now that you are in harmony with us, we cordially invite you to partner with our group, one on one, and allow us to bathe you and prepare you for rest. Those of you who wish to make love, feel free to do so."

While the group leader repaired the jagged hole with rocks, laughing and smiling singers moved close to the soldiers and encouraged them to get on their feet and partner with a male or female. Each newly-formed couple chatted briefly, then made their way to a bathing area at the back of the cavern. From a rocky crevice a waterfall gushed into a sparkling pool.

Gentle hands relieved the soldiers of their clothes and each singer shrugged off his or her robe. Then they all bathed under the waterfall, chatted some more and dried off, using towels that were folded on a rock near the pool. The group leader put the lanterns out, while couples found resting places on blankets laid out on the cavern floor. Soon most of the couples were beginning their amorous labors. When everyone was satisfied, they all settled down to sleep.

Sergeant Zinoviev lay in the arms of an energetic, fair-skinned woman called Vanilla. While the others snored contentedly he had too much on his mind to drift off, even though he was weak from love making. He felt wonderful, and just wanted to stay awake, savoring every moment of his passion with her. His only puzzling thought was: "How did they know which ones of us were gay?"

Dawn crept over the horizon as Captain Krimen and his reduced company dragged themselves to the top ridge on the other side of the gorge. They had forded the raging river with great difficulty, holding their rifles above their heads as they clambered over huge rocks in the fast-flowing current. It was still not quite daylight, but at least the rain had eased off. They came to the ruins of an old building almost hidden in the long grass.

"All right," Krimen said, stopping. "Packs off. We'll wait here until Major Kronski's boys show up. Keep your cigarettes out of sight."

Placing guards at front and rear of the ruin, he sat down and called to the radio operator.

"Get a connection to Colonel Papp's staff. Tell them we made contact with the enemy and a sergeant and six men are missing. God, what a mess!"

"Got the colonel himself, sir," the operator said after relaying the message.

"Captain Krimen, sir. Over."

" _What the devil happened, Krimen? Did you engage with the enemy?"_

"I don't know, sir. I sent Sergeant Zinoviev and six men to investigate a cave in the side of the gorge. We heard a grenade go off, and when I sent a scout inside, he said the cave was deserted and there was a patched-up hole in one of the walls. Over."

The colonel made noises of disgust.

" _The scumbags! They must've dragged our men's bodies through the damn hole. All right, captain, carry on – we'll send a Special Ops team to investigate the cave. Out."_

Chapter 9

### Sons Of Nordik

Preparations for the Friday night garden party were coming on apace. Lit candles in tall silver holders cast romantic shadows on long elegant tables. Arrangements of narcissus and fuchsia, Bulimia's national flowers, rested in delicate glass bowls. Gold-and-blue tablecloths with matching napkins complemented the Sevres tableware and Waterford crystal wine glasses.

Queen Ada surveyed her planning handiwork with a sense of rare perfection. She stood watching the band set up, a quartet of Brazilian musicians who played soft Bossa Nova, and servants busily laying platters of food and chilled bottles of champagne in ice buckets on the tables. Then she swept her eyes across the dark velvety landscape all the way down to the lake that glistened under a spangled sky.

Perfect, absolutely perfect. Now all we need are guests. Where are the guests?

From behind her, on a hill overlooking the lake, she heard a sound, like the clink of something metallic. She turned around and peered into the wooded gloom.

A man stood on the crest of the hill, having emerged from a grove of ash trees. Then more men appeared, standing along the skyline. One of them pointed his arm toward her outdoor banquet and uttered a guttural cry.

What on earth? She thought, then she gave a start. They were soldiers, but of an ancient, perhaps Viking, army. She could just make out the outlines of spears and the glint of winged helmets. She groped in her jeans pocket for her cell. I'd better call the palace security was her first thought. But something about their appearance made her pause. Could they be? Oh no, they were!

She realized with a sigh of relief that these were LARPers from Anton's group, and had probably been invited by Hernia. She watched the curiously-dressed warriors tramp across the lawns toward her. They seemed to be keeping in character, with their thickly-accented voices and their eyes fixed on the massive array of food and wine. The helmeted faces, many of them bearded, were unfamiliar to her and the weapons, broadswords and spears, looked all too real. Her features stiffened and she prepared to make her stand.

The warriors suddenly halted and one of them, a young man of about twenty-five, stepped forward. He stood with his face less than a meter from hers. He didn't look dangerous, just boyish, but was clearly trying to maintain his role.

"Where are the vittles, wench?" he roared.

"I am Queen Ada of Bulimia, and I object to being called 'wench' and being roared at," Ada said, with as much sternness as she could muster. "If you'd like to take your places at table, a servant will attend to your needs."

The young warrior made an elaborate gesture of apology.

"A thousand pardons, Your Majesty," he said. "We will do as you say."

Then he called to his comrades standing behind him.

"Forward, you Sons of Nordik - tonight we feast in Valhalla!"

Catheter and Lucinda were among the last of the invited guests to arrive. Leaving Angus and Rhiannon with Betty in their suite of rooms in the palace, they sauntered down to the lawn party in black sweatshirts, black jeans and sneakers.

They wandered over to the tables and were taken aback at the sight of hefty young men in studded metal helmets and heavy leather trappings chomping their way through the food and tossing back flutes of champagne. Turning away from the clanking metal and lusty roars of the warriors, Catheter steered Lucinda to a quieter section of the lawns.

"Let's sit over here," he said, taking her hand and leading her to a couple of lawn chairs set up to take advantage of the spectacular view of the lake.

"Lovely, isn't it?" she said.

"I think it's a little excessive."

"Who are those strange-looking Vikings?" Lucinda asked. "Have they come to rape and pillage?"

"Probably friends of Hernia's," Catheter said. "She likes to inflict weirdos on her parents. Last year it was zombies."

Behind them guests were standing around in small groups, holding drinks and nodding and smiling with fixed grins.

King Hector was holding court with a trio of Mellorian refugees, comprising Clive Fatsi, Archbishop Larry Lepager and Sharon, the Mother Queen.

"So much for the alliance between our countries," Fatsi was saying. "We all thought it was a bulwark against the Solobodians, but as it turned out – "

"My dear Clive, an economic alliance was never going to do the job of sound military defenses," Hector said. "Your army just wasn't up to it."

Embarrassed, Fatsi protested. "Come on, sir, no one could've foreseen King Slobodan's murder and Royston's bloody blitzkrieg!"

Hector smiled. "I think everyone's known for some time what a psychopath Royston is, and how much the Slobodians have wanted your energy reserves. It was only a matter of time."

"How safe are your defenses, King Hector?" Sharon suddenly asked.

Hector's smile vanished and he stared at the others grimly. "To be brutally honest, I doubt if we'd last out more than a week."

At nine-thirty a firework display began. Distant pops and bangs preceded corruscating clouds of sparking light, towers and wheels that rose, hung in the sky and fell back in a slow, shimmering collapse, while the watching guests ooed and ahed.

Catheter looked up, his face flooded with light. He was in no mood for fireworks, now that he could see that Hernia's bloody Viking friends had scoffed most of the food and glugged most of the wine. He looked at the long tables. Most of the platters of cold meats and seafood had been cleaned. Fruit and breadsticks were about all that remained. He had left Lucinda and come looking for something to eat and drink, and now this – it just wasn't good enough.

He stood, nervously squeezing his knuckles until they cracked. Then one of the seated warriors, noticing his discomfort, wiped his lips with the back of his hand and stood up.

"What ails you, churl?" he rumbled.

Catheter scowled. "Firstly, I am Catheter, Prince of Melloria, not some churl. Secondly, I'm bloody pissed that all the nosh and booze has vanished."

The warrior gave a start. Bloody hell, it's wall to wall royalty tonight!

"I jest with you, sir. I and my fellow Sons of Nordik will be happy to share our vittals with you!" he finally said.

Soon Catheter was sitting with the warriors, raising and clashing his glass with theirs and drinking deeply. After finishing his third glass of wine he realized he was beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol. He was also aware that he had left Lucinda on her lawn chair, and hastened to fill a glass with fruit juice. Then he strolled over with the juice and handed it to her.

"There's only vegetarian food left," he said. "The Vikings are hard-core carnivores."

The fireworks were dying down.When the last shimmering light hissed into darkness, Hernia appeared, fetchingly dressed in graveyard black with a deadgirl face.

"Those are my Role-Playing friends," she said to Catheter and Lucinda, nodding at the leather-clad warriors. "They're going to smuggle Cathy's parents and Anton out of prison."

"That's nice," Catheter said.

Hernia grabbed a bottle of champagne from a passing servant, took a long pull and belched.

Locked into her chattering group, Sharon sipped her wine delicately and waved her hand at Lucinda.

Lucinda, sipping her fruit juice, waved back.

Sharon lifted her glass and sipped some more wine.

"Craig's probably getting tired in the games room," she said to the men. "We'll have to finish this discussion another time."

She emptied her wineglass.

The party was slowly breaking up. Goodbyes were being said, and yawning servants were clearing the tables. The band was now playing sleepy romantic ballads.

Hernia had joined the Vikings and was sharing her bottle of champagne with a tall bearded warrior who wore a helmet with a nose-visor.

"Ada must have put a lot of work into this do," Lucinda said to Catheter.

"Not that much. She merely has to issue orders, people carry them out and Hector picks up the tab."

She frowned. "Why are you being such an asshole tonight?"

"Moi?" he said, arching his eyebrows. "I'm just expressing an opinion, that's all."

She laughed softly. "I think you're pissed because Hector and Hernia have put together a plan to rescue your parents – though God knows why you want them to rot in jail."

"What can I say?" he said. "I'm not a good son."

"Apparently not." She was puzzled by Catheter's attitude. Yet he could be so warm and tender with her and the kids.

Having exhausted all the champagne and wine, the Vikings stumbled to their feet.

"Sons of Nordik," the one with the nose-visor said, pointing away to the hills, "our longship awaits us. On to victory!"

The others roared a reply, shaking their weapons over their heads. They raised their spears in a last salute and marched off across the lawn. One of their number, who had been throwing up in an ornamental fountain, rushed to join the others.

Chapter 10

### The Long March

Godfrey smacked his dry lips and ignored the angry rumbling in his belly. Even after four weeks in his cold dank cell, he had scarcely begun to adjust to the days and days of hunger, hard work and hopelessness that was his life. He could see no way out, and perhaps only by embracing the fatalism of a musulman could he ever hope to save his sanity.

He peered out the slitlike window to ease the boredom of the early morning. In the courtyard green helmeted soldiers marched by. It was rare to see Slobodian troops inside the prison compound and it usually meant someone was being transferred, either into or out of the Hermeticon.

Who the hell are they dragging out this time? He wondered. Let's hope it isn't Letitia or Anton or... Oh my God, could it be?

It was almost time for breakfast and the light in his cell had just snapped on. Blinking in the sudden illumination, he went over to the washbasin and began his ablutions. He had an old rusty razor, a brush and a bar of hard soap for a shaving kit and the water was cold, but he set about lathering his face with grim determination. Other male prisoners he met in work gangs and in the exercise yard had given up on personal care and let their whiskers grow. But Godfrey did not want to lose his will to look presentable, in his mind akin to the will to live, and letting himself go would begin the slide down to a gray miserable hellhole that he would never climb out of.

With the stubble scratched off his face, Godfrey used his index finger for a toothbrush, rubbing it around inside his mouth and spitting into the basin. Then he cupped his hands under the running faucet, scrubbed his face clean and dried it on the front of his striped tunic.

He had just finished combing his hair when he heard the heavy thud of boots outside the cell door. Someone was turning the wheel-lock, and he braced himself for the verbal lashing he usually got from the bad-tempered guard. The only thing he was looking forward to was the mess tin of hot breakfast slop from the aluminum cart. As the cell door slowly opened, Godfrey heard his stomach rumble in protest. Yesterday, in place of gruel, he got a lump of red sausage that had smelled pungent and meaty. He had immediately bitten off a chunk and chewed it before swallowing.

Repulsive but adequate was his verdict.

As the guard entered Godfrey snapped to attention, as the rules demanded, under the single glaring light. Then he gave a start.

"The prisoner will fall out!" the guard roared, before stepping aside. Soldiers in green uniforms and green steel helmets stood in the corridor behind him. His worst suspicion was now confirmed. He was led out of his cell and prodded by the rifle-carrying Slobodian soldiers into walking the long corridor between rows of cells.

The floor and walls of this cement-block wing of the prison were smooth and hard. He was used to them, as he marched this way to work and back every day. Strangely, no sounds of curses or moans assailed him from any of the cells, only the thud of marching boots. Perhaps they're all keeping out of sight until the squaddies have gone, he thought.

They walked in silence until they came to a studded oak door. In the dimly-lit chamber, one of the soldiers stepped forward and entered numbers into a small keypad on the wall. The door opened and they all stepped outside.

Godfrey was led out to the compound where a familiar-looking vanlike troop carrier waited to transport him. He was quickly herded aboard the vehicle and it rolled out of the Hermeticon.

The three soldiers sitting in the front of the vehicle and smoking cigarettes were unusually silent, so he risked asking a question.

"Are we off to Duodenum Palace, the royal residence of the Slovos?" he called.

One of the soldiers swung around. He leaned toward him and breathed out a blast of foul, tobacco-laden air. He felt he was being polluted.

"We're going to the heliport," was all he said.

Godfrey sat on his hard metal seat and glumly gazed out the window. Armored combat vehicles lumbered through the streets alongside columns of marching soldiers. His beloved Melloria now seemed to be firmly in enemy control.

They left the center of Melloria City and passed through a dull industrial sector before stopping in front of a guarded double gate. A toot from the driver's horn drew a salute from the guard and the gates swung open.

Inside the gates, the vehicle lurched to a halt and Godfrey was ordered out. An officer approached, squinting against the glare of the rising sun, and checked his face. He had a holstered handgun on his hip. Godfrey was marched toward a large white circle painted on a concrete landing slab. He stood there waiting next to the officer until his head started to droop. Then a distant overhead drone brought him back into focus. There was a growing clatter from the sky and a shadow drifted across the two men. They looked up to see a helicopter dropping toward them.

With some reluctance, since he still didn't know where they were taking him, Godfrey approached the door the officer was holding open. He shivered in the downdraft from the rotor blades as he climbed inside, and sank down into another metal seat. The officer climbed in beside him and, when they were airborne, leaned back and pulled out a hipflask.

"Here, take a drink," he said to Godfrey as he handed him the flask.

He gulped down the brandy, coughed, then gulped again, before giving the flask back. The alcohol burned like fire in his empty belly.

The officer took a slug himself and relaxed into his seat. Godfrey felt like a sheep going to the slaughter.

He decided to ask the inevitable question.

"Are you taking me to Duodenum Palace?"

The officer gave a faint smile. "Yes, we should be there in about two hours."

In the days following her sighting of Mary and Agatha and their almost certain recognition of her in spite of the dreadful prison uniform she wore, Leitita grew more and more optimistic. So what if the daily round of bad food, work detail, and awful telly was slowly driving her loopy. Right now she didn't give a damn. She turned over in her mind the delicious thought of rescue, like a mint lozenge in her mouth, until every fiber of her body tingled.

She no longer felt trapped. Now she knew it was only a matter of time before somebody raised the alarm and she, Anton and Godfrey were released. After all, they had committed no crime. She felt certain that somehow Mary and Agatha would arrange it. Sitting on the hard wooden chair watching some dreadful soap opera she tensed herself, expecting at any moment the cell door would burst open and her rescuers would march in.

In actual fact, what happened was just as dramatic. One morning during a particularly dull quiz show, the frame holding the TV screen hanging from her wall began to judder. It shook so hard that Letitia got up, startled, and thought about calling a guard. She was about to hammer on the cell door with her plastic cup when the frame gave way completely and the screen crashed down, showering the table and chair with sparks. It circuits fused, the picture disappeared and the screen lay battered on the table.

The brackets that had held the frame to the wall popped out and, to Letitia's amazement, the wall grew a large crack and then a gaping hole, as rocks and dust fell in and the sound of drilling filled the narrow cell. An arm in a gray-uniformed sleeve holding a drill pushed through the gap and a black-gloved hand cleared more rocks from the hole. From inside the hole a man's gray helmeted head emerged.

"Don't touch the edges," the man said. "The rocks are very jagged."

Letitia tottered forward. "Who are you?" she said, scared and excited in equal measure.

"Just follow me," he said, speaking in Slobodian. "There's enough room for you to wriggle through."

Thoroughly alarmed, Letitia made herself push through the narrow opening, and found herself in a dark tunnel. The man in the gray helmet switched off the drill and slid it into his side holster like a handgun. He looked about twenty-five and, she was shocked to notice, wore the uniform of a Praetorian Guard.

Trust me to be landed with one of the prets, she thought sourly.

The pret lifted his gray-clad arm and pointed to the end of the tunnel. She badly wanted to ask where they were going, but realized it would be best to keep quiet. They walked in silence until they came to a cross tunnel. Letitia heard the heavy thud of boots on the rock floor and the sound of dragging footsteps. Then she gave a sharp intake of breath. Walking, stiff-legged, toward them and guarded by a pret commander and three of his men was Anton, with a bandage around his head.

The five men stopped, and the pret commander gave a curious smile. Anton's bandage appeared to have been torn off the sleeve of his shirt to staunch the flow of blood from an ugly head wound. Letitia looked at him with a horrified expression.

"What happened?" she whispered.

Anton winced and touched his bandaged head.

"Convincing – eh, Ma?" he said with the hint of a smile.

The smile on his face and that of the pret commander made her realize that all was not as it seemed. Although one side of his face was covered in blood from under his bandage and he appeared hardly able to walk, she knew it must be fake.

"You're all acting, aren't you?" she said quietly.

The pret who had broken into her cell nodded his helmeted head. Then he hissed in fluent Slobodian: "From now on, we stay in character," and pushed her roughly toward the far end of the tunnel. She turned to kiss Anton's forehead below the bandage to show how pleased she was to see him, and the pret commander drew his gun.

"No kissing!" he said in badly-accented Slobodian.

There was just the trace of a humorless smile on his face, but she didn't argue. She looked at the wide leather belt at his waist with its flat metal buckle inscribed Feared By All, Loved By None. He put the gun back in its holster and they pressed on.

When they came to the end of the tunnel, Letitia was pushed forward, bumping against Anton, through a small opening concealed by a black curtain. Daylight flooded her eyes and they were marched out, prisoners and guards, into the compound.

The pret commander surprised her by putting a finger to his lips. The he put two fingers inside his mouth and emitted a piercing whistle. Clearly they've all rehearsed their roles and the operation seems well planned, Letitia thought. But where the hell are we going? Then her jaw dropped.

A Slobodian troop carrier drew up on the other side of the compound, where it was shady. The driver got out and walked over to where they were standing in the harsh sunlight. He wore the uniform of a pret sergeant but looked too old and pudgy for a serving soldier. She realized it was Simpkins, once her head butler and now the Mother Queen's driver. She shook her head. No matter how well planned the operation was, this was definitely a faux-pas!

Simpkins silently acknowledged her and remained silent when they climbed into the vehicle. Apparently, for reasons of his own, he preferred not to speak Slobodian. They drove out of the compound and toward the main gate of the Hermeticon. The guard on duty took one look at the unsmiling Praetorian Guards and saluted them through. Outside, the vehicle put on speed and they were soon leaving Melloria City. Letitia had a horrible metallic taste in her mouth and was dying for something to drink, but did not dare ask when they were going to stop for refreshments. The other burning question on her mind was Where the hell was Godfrey? If these well-trained actors were able to spring her and Anton from prison, why didn't they spring Godfrey? She worried that something awful had happened to him.

As they drove along the West Mellorian Highway, soldiers in camouflaged uniforms and green steel helmets marched past, giving the vehicle a wide berth. Nobody wanted to mess with the prets. Letitia was very impressed.

Peasants, refugees from the invasion, struggled along the road with their bundles of possessions and watched them in silence as they sped past. Their coarsely-woven clothes and vacant look, gaping and slack-jawed, reminded Letitia of just what an impoverished lot the Mellorians were. The disruption of the Slobodian invasion only added to their wretchedness.

Anton had dozed off, slumped in his seat beside her. Oh, for the bliss of sleep, Letitia thought, but for once she didn't feel tired. It was very hot, a sweltering early September day, and the sky was brutally blue. More peasants, their faces baked brown, stumbled along the road toward them. When they saw the prets and their two prisoners in the vehicle, some of them fell to their knees and made four taps of the cross. Their faces looked pained. God knows what they'd think if they knew we were only acting, she thought.

The troop carrier turned off the main highway and onto a dirt road. A kilometer down the road it lurched to a halt and Letitia and Anton were pulled out. They certainly believe in realism, she thought, nursing a bruised elbow. The prets then got out, leaving Simpkins at the wheel, and the vehicle drove off. The prets had unloaded army packs for themselves and two extra packs were dumped onto the road for Anton and Letitia.

"Are you sure this isn't all a trick?" she managed to whisper to Anton, as they were shouldering their packs. For all she knew they were about to be taken into the next field and shot.

Anton hesitated. "Trust us," he finally whispered.

The pret commander shouted some orders in Slobodian and they all set off across the fields. On the far side of a meadow, the commander called a halt and they all sat under the shade of an oak tree. Anton pulled a water bottle from his pack and gave it to his mother. She drank gratefully and passed the bottle back. He drank until the bottle was empty and then the commander held up his hand.

"We march to the border, two days," he said in his halting Slobodian. "Too dangerous in van."

Then without another word they all stood, shouldered their packs and began marching, Anton affecting a limp. God, I hate all this bad acting, Letitia thought.

By nightfall they had reached a tall ridge where the trees provided some shelter. Letitia was about ready to drop. They had taken an uphill path that rose steeply until it mounted the ridge. Now they stopped to rest. A thin sliver of moon had come up in the velvety sky. Silhouetted against it, the pret commander looked through a pair of field glasses down at the plain below. When he was satisfied they would not be disturbed, he motioned for the packs to be opened. She found a blanket in hers and stretched out on it. Then, like the others, she dozed under the trees through the warm night.

At the first glimmer of light on the horizon, the commander woke his sleeping soldiers and their prisoners. They all stumbled to their feet and drank from their water bottles, Letitia sharing hers with Anton, Then they sat on the grassy ridge, eating army tack biscuits and watching the sun rise. Another day's marching was about to begin.

The following night they stopped at the top of a bluff that marked the last hill before the Bulimian border. Letitia's aching feet shuffled to a halt of their own accord. Two days of forced marches and realistic ill-treatment were taking their toll. She was exhausted. When they were allowed to spread their blankets, she stretched out on hers, yawned, rolled over and immediately conked out.

The next thing she knew someone was shaking her arm.

"Please...," she said hoarsely, her mouth dry. "Any chance of some water?"

"Here," Anton said, passing the water bottle.

The thin light of dawn made his face almost invisible.

"We're nearly at the border," he whispered.

"I had the most awful dream," she whispered back. "Oh Anton, what on earth's happened to Godfrey?"

He shook his head in despair.

"I don't know, Ma. When the prets came for him, his cell was empty."

Chapter 11

### Man And Superman

Godfrey slept through most of the helicopter ride. Lulled by the army officer's brandy, he barely noticed that they had lifted over red-roofed Melloria City and were hurtling up to cruising speed, barreling off toward the east.

Only the officer looked down at the flat yellow plains of Slobodia and the shining skin of blue-gray water to the far west that was the Sea of Slobodia. Godfrey merely snored, and was only awakened when the pilot's voice cut through his restless dreams.

"Landing in about five minutes."

His eyes flicked open and he gave a loud yawn. They were whirring over the outskirts of a good-sized city and he groaned when he recognized the grim city of Slovograd.

They began dropping toward the center of a complex of buildings. A gray rectangle with a white circle in the middle flew up toward them.

"This must be the worst day of my life," he murmured.

The big white circle got bigger as they dropped 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 soldiers waiting on the flat rectangle hurried forward, bending their heads, to open the door. The officer got out first and assisted Godfrey to climb out, then slammed the door closed.

He was led by the soldiers across the tarmac to a familiar-looking troop transporter. This must be their regular visitors' taxi, he thought.

He was bundled in and the truck rumbled off. He gazed out the window at the vast expanse of yellow lawns surrounded by bare plum trees and orchards dotted with toiling workers. In the distance he could make out the spiky turrets and jagged battlements of Duodenum Palace, by common consent the ugliest palace in the world.

First they lurched over the humped-backed bridge with its axhead stone columns. Despite the discomfort of the journey, Godfrey was glad he would soon be indoors. He was getting tired of strutting soldiers and snapping flags with double-sided axes.

The truck passed through a huge pair of brass-studied oak gates before pulling to a halt in the palace courtyard. When he stumbled groggily out of the van, he was met by a solid line of Praetorian Guards who stood in front of the palace entrance as he shuffled inside. The prets kept their hands on their pistol butts, he noticed. He was also painfully aware that he was still wearing his striped prison uniform.

Prets stood in rows on either side as Godfrey stumbled through the gigantic front hall feeling thoroughly intimidated. It seemed they were herding him through the hall and into a huge reception room. He looked up and saw Royston, the new King of Slobodia, in the uniform of High Commander of the Praetorian Guard, waiting to meet him. He now felt the worst day of his life was about to take a nightmarish turn.

Royston Slovo was tall, bronzed and in his late forties. His features were vigorous, with dark hair springing back from his temples. He had a knowing, patronizing manner, as if he knew the answer to every question, and he stared at everyone he talked to with a hard, unblinking look as if willing them to be his slave. He watched Godfrey's approach, his face like granite, which made the former king feel intensely uncomfortable.

"Good morning, Your Majesty," Godfrey grunted, his throat painfully dry. "My condolences on your late father's passing."

"You sound like you could use a drink, King Godfrey," Royston said, ignoring the offer of sympathy. "Come with me to my study. I have a well-stocked cabinet."

"I'm not a king any more, but thank you," Godfrey said humbly.

"Neither am I," Royston said, surprising him. "Now, come with me and we'll have some liquid refreshment."

The study, which had formerly been King Slobodan's favorite retreat, and which had boasted a gigantic oil of The Rape of the Sabine Women by Pussynski, the Slobodian painter of high-end porn, above the mahogany desk, now looked quite stark and austere. Other than the enormous mahogany cabinet full of drinks of all kinds and the desk, the room possessed no furniture other than two chairs and a bookcase. In place of the Sabine painting, Godfrey noticed, were two gilt-framed portraits, one of Adolf Hitler and the other of a woman in a severe black dress glaring down at him with hard brown eyes.

Royston produced a cut-glass decanter of Hors d'age cognac, dusty with age, and poured glasses for Godfrey and himself.

"Can you explain what you meant, sir, when you said you're no longer a king?" Godfrey asked, seating himself in front of the desk.

Royston smiled and raised his glass. "I will indeed, my dear ex-king," he said. "But first a toast. Long life!"

He mumbled the words of the toast and drank. The flavors of the cognac, a cornucopia of violets, irises and jasmines in a pot of rose water shot with pure alcohol, were so complex that he became lost in reveries. Meanwhile, Royston drank and positioned himself behind the desk.

"About my status," he said, while Godfrey took another gulp to make sure he wasn't dreaming. "I am not a king because my country is no longer a kingdom."

He looked bemused. "That's the best cognac I've ever had." He said.

"I have conferred on it the title of The New World Empire," Royston continued. "And on myself I have conferred the title of The Leader."

"Hail caesar!" Godfrey muttered and took another swig.

"As the Leader, which I have willed forever to be called, I have one overriding aim: the possession of the world and its conversion to my domain."

"I see you've had a drop of the hard stuff, too," Godfrey said, and closed his eyes in silent adoration of the spirit.

"In pursuance of this aim, I have begun with the conquest of Melloria, and will continue, country by country, until the whole planet is united under one banner – mine."

Godfrey had drained his glass and was hoping for another. "Hear, hear!" he slurred.

Royston gave him an impatient look.

"I think you may have taken too much on an empty stomach," he rasped. "Come, let us eat."

He rang the servant bell.

"Just one thing," Godfrey said, casting a bleary eye at the pictures on the wall. "Who's that ugly-faced woman next to old Adolf?"

Royston's face flinched. "Those portraits are of my two most cherished mentors. Hitler, who of course you recognized, for his drive and will to power. I consider him the perfect Man of Action, marred only by the character flaws of impetuousness and lack of judgment. A wonderful force of nature, but too much of a wild card with a gigantic chip on his shoulder, who couldn't foresee the consequences of his actions and learn from his mistakes."

Bloody hell, if I'd know he was going to make a speech I wouldn't have asked, Godfrey thought. And I still don't know who the woman is.

As if reading his mind, Royston went on: "And the other picture is of Ayn Rand, whom I consider the Einstein of power politics, having devised the perfect formula for world domination. However, being a visionary and not an actionary, she never possessed the drive to put her ideas into practice, leaving that to others, to a coming Superman. Of course, I am that Superman."

You've said a mouthful there, Godfrey's befuddled brain considered. He struggled to give some reply to Royston's declaration, but could only think of: "Isn't Rand the one who's all for free-market capitalism and small government?"

"'That government is best that governs least.' I think you're mixing her up with Thomas Paine," Royston muttered, beginning to feel the effects of the brandy, in spite of himself. "I prefer his statement: 'We have it in our power to begin the world over again.' That's what I aim to do."

He poured himself and Godfrey another glass. They drank, then slowly but surely slumped in their chairs and began to doze.

Letitia was getting beyond exhausted.

When she finally crossed the border into Bulimia with the others, via a clandestine route that involved hacking through gorse and brambles that scratched her arms and legs, she sank to the ground in gratitude. Anton paused and pulled his bandage off. Then he dug into his kitbag and began texting Hernia from his cell.

Her reply was to invite the group to meet her at a cottage that she and Anton used when they were LARPing in the border country. It was a rambling wooden structure with white-framed windows and flowering window-boxes, and when they got there Hernia's black SUV was already parked clumsily on the lawn.

They clumped inside and found Hernia with a bottle of wine stretched out on the couch in tight denim shorts and a white T-shirt.

"Mother's coming soon," she said. "We'll just hang till she arrives."

Letitia envied her comfortable resting-place, and slumped into an armchair. The others draped themselves around the couch, and uniforms began to peel off.

"Is there any more booze?" the former pret commander said.

"Kitchen's full of wine, Jack," Hernia replied, "and the fridge is full of beer."

Letitia licked her lips and swallowed hard. She was awfully thirsty, but didn't approve of drinking at such an early hour. The clock on the wall showed it was ten a.m.

Jack returned carrying a twelve-pack and a bag of wineglasses, plus two bottles of wine under each arm.

Bottles were quickly opened and drinks passed around. Letitia just wanted to sleep, but forced herself to take a sip of wine.

"Ace rescue, lads," Anton said, downing a bottle of beer at one glug. He had become his usual perky self and looked incongruous in his striped prison garb, with blood and a fake wound on his face.

"Yes, your make-up and outfits were perfect," Letitia said.

"You're lucky you didn't get made up, too, lady," a young man with a beard replied, who had removed his pret uniform jacket. "Jack wanted you to look like an old peasant woman."

She smiled, but quietly fumed at his rudeness. Having to act the role of prisoner was humiliating enough, without having to wear a silly costume.

"And Anton was lucky he just had a bandage to wear," the bearded youth went on. "We were going to put him on crutches."

They all laughed, and Letitia found herself light-headed. She finished her wine and held out her glass for a refill.

"What I can't understand is how you managed to find a tunnel for us to escape through," she said.

Jack, who had just drained his second bottle of beer, laughed heartily.

"The Hermeticon is a rabbit warren of tunnels," he said. "It was built like a honeycomb, for religious meditation – each hermit and anchorite had their own cell. But they're all linked and interconnected."

"How cool is that!" Hernia yelled. She was on her second bottle of wine.

Letitia shrugged. The others were getting drunker by the minute. She kept a steady eye on the clock, sensing trouble if Ada didn't come quickly.

"How did you get into this role-playing business?" she asked, to pass the time.

Hernia giggled a burping laugh.

"Marcus was into whips and chains and being dragged around on all fours on a leash, before his girlfriend made him get into LARPing," she jeered.

The man she had referred to, a redhead with a mustache, quickly retaliated.

"And Hernia was my dominatrix!" he bawled. "She wore tight black leathers and a mask and she walked all over me in high heels."

God, they're getting so obnoxious, Letitia thought.

"When is lunch being served?" she asked to change the subject.

"Whenever you bloody want it," Hernia babbled. "There's half a pig's ass in the fridge if you're interested."

Letitia flushed. Why was it always at times like this that Ada was never there?

The doorbell rang. The others were too much into their drunken revels to pay attention, so she got up and opened the front door.

Queen Ada stood in a green satin Yves St Laurent suit with a beige leather handbag. Her chauffered Bentley purred in the driveway.

Always the fashion plate, never the mother, Letitia mentally pronounced, especially when it comes to discipline. Nevertheless, she greeted her with undisguised relief and kissed her on the cheek. Ada embraced her in automatic response.

"What on earth's going on?" Ada said. She flinched as the crash of breaking glass shattered her aplomb.

"Come in and see," Letitia said.

She stepped inside. The LARPers were now completely plastered and Hernia, who had knocked back almost three bottles of wine, was becoming outrageous.

She had peeled off her T-shirt and was fingering her nipples.

"Wanna give me a rub?" she said to Anton, while the others roared their approval.

The blood drained from Ada's face.

"I don't think he needs any coaxing," she said in a surprisingly loud voice. "Come along, everybody. We have transport and a sober driver to take you to the palace."

Chapter 12

### The Scourge Of The Slovos

Lunch was served in the large airy dining room, its walls coated with red and gilt fabric, its ceiling painted with blue skies and cherub-festooned, puffy white clouds, that Letitia, wearing a borrowed dress of Ada's, so admired. Twelve noisy, mostly inebriated people chomped on large quantities of wild boar baked with truffles, tortellini with wild mushrooms and mascarpone tart steeped in marsala sauce. By Queen Ada's instructions, no alcoholic drinks were served, which made the drunken diners' appetites all the keener. King Hector and Catheter, no mean trenchermen themselves, struggled to keep up.

Queen Ada and Lucinda kept each other company by eating sparingly, their conversation a light and desultory counterpoint to the bristling, lusty arguments of the inebriated LARPers. The others mainly talked among themselves with occasional cross-currents.

Letitia picked at her food distractedly. She kept thinking about what Anton had said, that Godfrey's cell had been empty when the rescuers came, and what that might mean. She wished it merely signified that he had been out on work detail or even a medical examination, but the awful thought that he was now in some obscure confinement that was untraceable kept coming back to her.

"Are you all right, Letitia?" Ada looked at her quizzically.

"Oh fine, I'm just worried about Godfrey's whereabouts."

"Ten to one he's in Slobodia again," Catheter suggested, as he attacked a chunk of wild boar. "Somehow you and Daddy always seem to find your way there."

"We've been there once in the last year," Letitia said firmly, alarmed at his pessimism.

"If he is in Slobodia, his sister Queen Latrina will speak up for him – she's Royston's mother, after all," Hector said, before shoveling down some boar bourguignon.

Their conversation attracted the attention of Jack, the Game Master of the Role-Playing group, who interrupted a conversation about looting the corpse of a dead comrade for power weapons to intervene.

"Noble lady, do you wish us to free your husband, the King?" he asked Letitia.

"Oh, if only you could!" she said.

"Fear not, noble lady, we shall free him," he said gallantly. "He will sup the sweet air of freedom!"

"Dude, are you serious?" the ginger-haired Marcus said. "We may be the Sons of Nordik, but we can't beat the whole fucking Slobodian army."

A tall, thinly- bearded gamer called Justin added his piece. "You don't need to defeat the whole army. To rescue the king you must only beat the evil dark lord – Royston."

"Royston?" the other LARPers stammered as one.

Anton, who had changed into a clean T-shirt, added his two cents: "We'll be hiking for weeks through Slobodia to reach the evil cursed Duodenum Castle."

"And then we'll get our asses kicked!" Prentiss, another gamer, added.

"Don't forget we have the element of surprise," Jack said.

"We'll backstab him. There's nothing against it in the rules. 264 points of damage!" Anton said, lost in the idea.

"We'll storm the castle – 380 points!" Justin said.

"If we sneak in, we can look for an underground corridor that leads to a trap door behind the dark lord's throne," Marcus suggested.

"Then what?" Jack said.

"Ambush him, next time he sits on the damn throne!" Marcus said triumphantly.

"What if he has Detect Ambush skills? Prentiss said. "If we choose to fight and lose, we pay with our lives - incalculable damage points."

"And if you kill the dark lord, we'll all be partying through the night," Hernia said.

"Perhaps you could seduce him in his bedchamber, Princess," Jack said to Hernia. "Then at the word of command, we'll send in an assassin."

"You can't send Anton – his Intelligence skill is only four," Marcus said.

"Hey, leave me out of your sickass fantasy!" Hernia screamed.

At this point, Catheter's tolerance of the gamers and their schemes reached its limit. With a quick "By your leave," to Hernia and Ada, he took Lucinda's hand and they left the room.

Hector and Ada exchanged apprehensive looks.

"Seriously, you're not thinking of risking your lives, are you?" Hector said.

Jack rose to his feet and addressed the other gamers: "Well, Sons of Nordik, do we slink away like cowards or rise to the challenge – and a thousand bravery points?"

Anton stood up and bellowed out the battlecry:

"All Hail the Sons of Nordik!"

"Hail! Hail! Hail!" the others shouted.

"I think you have your answer," Letitia said to Hector.

Royston knew he had to get started. After all, the Romans didn't create an empire by sitting around on their asses. Which is exactly what he and Godfrey had been doing, dozing in their chairs while a servant came and went leaving a plate of sandwiches. Now he was awake, and tapping Godfrey's shoulder.

"Would you care for a sandwich, before I show you what a magnificent force is selfishness – coupled with the power of fear."

Godfrey suddenly woke up and glanced around the room. He felt thoroughly confused. This morning, like every other morning for the past month, he had awoken in a prison cell. Now he was in an oak-panelled study being invited to eat a ham sandwich.

After wolfing down four of the six sandwiches, Godfrey stumbled groggily to his feet.

"Where are you taking me now?" he said.

Royston, who unlike Godfrey, had eaten his two sandwiches slowly and deliberately, paused at the door of his study.

"I'm going to show you how the gifted, and I consider you a gifted man, must deal with the masses. Please follow me."

Godfrey began walking. Royston was leading him down a long corridor toward an elevator lobby. There he waited while Royston summoned the elevator.

He suddenly felt a surge of terror. What if all the stories he'd heard about Royston – that he was a psychopath and a sadistic monster – were true. Was he about to be brutally killed?

Godfrey felt his stomach lurch as the elevator dropped deep into the bowels of the palace. Stepping out, he and Royston crossed the lobby toward a room with a cast-iron door. He saw a woman stumble as two prets pushed her out through the door. She was young, had torn clothing and was staggering as if wounded.

He looked at her, horrified, and turned to Royston.

"Is this what gifted men do?"

Royston, as Godfrey had started to learn, often replied to unsettling questions with a slogan.

"If the strong man shows weakness toward one who is weak, he does him no favors."

Godfrey looked incredulous, although a dull rage was rising within him.

"Your next experience will be more challenging," Royston said, and entered the room.

The room looked like a living room. It had a sofa and two armchairs, a coffee table, a TV set and a bookcase.

"This room is just a front," Royston said, crossing over to the bookcase. "The real stuff goes on behind this wall."

He pulled the bookcase away from the wall and revealed a keypad. After he entered the code the wall slid back and an inner room appeared. Godfrey looked at Royston in alarm.

"It's a torture chamber, isn't it?"

This time Royston gave a short speech.

"I am not a ruler, because rulers are dependent on their subjects for their power. A ruler rules the mob only as long as he says what the mob wants him to say, does what the mob wants him to do. I need no power other than my own dynamic drive to create and build. I am not an altruist. I don't exist to serve the masses. They exist to serve me."

Godfrey looked at Royston in disgust.

"Whatever you're about to do, those words justify nothing," he said.

A faint smile appeared on Royston's face.

"Action speaks louder than words – you're quite right, ex-King Godfrey."

They stepped inside the inner room where two female pret guards gripped the arms of a slightly-built woman of about thirty-five dressed in a prison smock.

"This is Dr Marika Strechnik," Royston said. "She is a most intelligent woman. Unfortunately, she is also a collectivist who distributes pamphlets in the street urging the people to rise up against me. She claims to care for others, which makes her an altruist. She and her kind are second-handers. Collectivism and altruism are the second handers' best tools to yoke the creator to their own aims, which they need to do because they can't create anything new or worthwhile themselves."

The woman looked nervous and Godfrey noticed that her eyes were a light hazel brown.

"Second-handers can only learn second-handedly," he went on. "I am a first-hander. I learn at first hand. I need no living examples to live up to, unlike Dr Strechnik and her friends who look up to Marx and Lenin. I am the example – others live up to me."

He gave an order and the two prets began to remove the woman's clothing.

Godfrey closed his eyes, determined not to ogle. He felt outrage flush his face.

Royston looked at the woman, as if calculating. The woman looked at him and shuddered. There was something in his face that Godfrey couldn't see, that made her body go taut.

"You're just a despot – nothing more!" the woman said.

Royston smiled. "Never before has a despot confessed to seeking power for himself – they always claimed to be serving some nobler purpose. I am the first to break that mold."

"You're just a cruel, arrogant bastard," the woman said as the prets forced her to stand facing the men. "The people would kill you if they could."

Royston walked up to her and looked her over.

"That's because they don't know me yet," he said. "Through me they will find themselves, because I am the real, passionate, active self that they lack."

The woman had a spare, narrow-hipped frame that rose from trim, wiry legs. Royston gave her a thorough scrutiny.

"Well-shaped, if a little boyish for my taste – you often find academic women are like that, don't you think?" he said to Godfrey, suddenly sounding coarse."No boobs to speak of."

He walked behind her to look at her rear. "Not much of an ass, either. Must be that skimpy diet she's on. Needless to say, she doesn't eat meat."

He placed his hands on her body and turned it so that her breasts and buttocks were in profile.

"What do you think, Godfrey?"

Godfrey felt pinpricks of shame and disgust. The stirrings of sexual arrousal that he couldn't stop himself feeling billowed out from his brain and caused his penis to stiffen.

"I can see by looking at your pants that you're more than a little interested in Dr Strechnik, whom I'll call Marika from now on," Royston said. "When I've finished giving Marika her lesson in learning to love her master, you can have some quality time together."

"So you're a pimp as well as a sadist," Godfrey said.

Royston gave him a mock-offended look, then he took off his jacket and draped it over a chair.

"It's time we started," he said."Please be seated, Godfrey." He indicated the chair.

The prets pushed the woman onto the nearest rail of a set of platform-mounted parallel bars, the kind gymnasts used. Then they put steel cuffs on her wrists and fastened them to the furthermost rail by pulling her arms tight. They next shackled her ankles, so that she was folded over the rail in a painful stretch. Her back, buttocks and thighs looked vulnerable and exposed and her breathing was labored and strained.

"Are you ready for your shot of pain enhancer?" Royston asked her, almost solicitously.

One of the pret guards unrolled a hypodermic needle kit and began swabbing the woman's inner forearm.

"What the devil are you shooting her with?" Godfrey growled.

"Only the purest amphetamine," Royston said. "Make sure you find a good vein, Dolores."

From a selection of whips, belts, riding crops and paddles hanging from hooks above the parallel bars, he chose a narrow, whiplike cane and walked to a spot about a meter from the woman's back. Like an archer sizing up a target, he took a stance, legs apart, slightly to the side of dead center and flexed the cane. Then with an intake of breath he drew it back and slashed it across her rear. She yelled lustily but her body scarcely moved. The restraints holding her kept her body taut.

He slashed her again, and Godfrey groaned. On the stretched skin of her buttocks a flare path, an angry rash of red fire, was etched. His cane thrashed the backs of her thighs and she let out a prolonged shriek. In spite of the violence of each blow her body held still, absorbing the full force of the lashing. Her buttocks were soon criss-crossed with bloody welts, a lurid carmine of lacerations, a crimson cheese-grater of blood.

"You're just a cruel bastard – nobody wants you!" the woman suddenly yelled.

"But they do," Royston said, taking a pause from his labors. "People want me because I am detached and cruel. If I were less so, they wouldn't want me. I am even crueler and colder than people think. When I thrash a woman, I do so as an act of scorn." He breathed deeply a few times. "The act of a master taking possession – shameful, contemptuous possession is the kind of rapture women want. Women long for a man with a whip."

He brought the cane down savagely on the flesh of her thighs. The blow sent shock waves through her that made the cuffs clink and she screamed uninhibitedly. Beads of sweat were popping out all over her body.

Godfrey's nerves were shot to pieces. He felt faint in his chair, as if his loathing for Royston had eaten into his bones. He'd seen his share of punishment and had dished it out himself on occasion, especially to his sons, but he had never seen such brutality inflicted on a woman, and it was turning his stomach.

With sudden rage and a violent plea in his voice he shouted: "You must stop all this madness now –I'm going to have a heart attack!"

Royston stopped and inspected his handiwork. The woman's back, buttocks and thighs were a bleeding junction of vivid weals and slash marks, and she was glistening with sweat.

"All right," Royston said to the prets, "you can let Marika out of her chains. We'll let her rest while I look after Godfrey."

"Now my dear Godfrey," Royston said, putting a hand on his shoulder, "you mustn't let your desire for Marika's welfare get the better of you. Not a single great genius has ever been motivated by a desire to help others or by anything other than a perfectly natural selfish commitment to his own ideas and vision."

Godfrey wished he could throttle Royston slowly and painfully to death, but he just didn't have the strength. He felt completely devitalized.

His face white with strain, Godfrey allowed himself to be lifted from the chair by the two female prets, after they had released the woman, and he was helped back to the faux living room. His mind was in turmoil. Although he loathed Royston with a passion for his brutality and hypocrisy, he knew he had to maintain his composure as a man, his sanity as a human being.

He flopped down on one of the armchairs in hideous recoil of the images in his mind of the chained, naked woman striated with ugly welts. He hid his head in his hands.

As if to add to his torment, Royston was making another bloody speech.

"I don't depend on my people, my people depend on me, for the same reason the fly depends on the spider, the mouse depends on the cat – to make sure their miserable little lives don't go on forever."

Chapter 13

### A Dog's Life

"It's a dog's life, innit?"

"Oh hello!" Betty grappled with Twinkle's leash, twisting round to acknowledge the owner of a familiar voice. She had been assigned dog walking duty after escorting Angus to his first day at preschool, and was finding a golden retriever even more of a handful than her terrible three-year-old.

"You should let him run about a bit," the familiar voice said. "Give him a chance to chase some rabbits."

"Haven't seen you in a while, Simpkins," she greeted him. She was dimly aware that she had blown him off by canceling a date several weeks ago.

"Well, I get around," Simpkins said. "Fancy a cup of coffee?"

He looked slightly worse than the last time she'd seen him. Then he was almost dapper and now he wore a shabby black leather jacket over a dingy white T-shirt that had LIVE FAST OR YOU'LL DIE SLOW on it, faded jeans and scuffed sneakers. His face was pale and pudgy, like someone who spent too much time indoors, and his portliness indicated he lived on fast food. He wore dark glasses as if he didn't want to be identified.

They were just inside the main gates of a little park, and next to the gatekeeper's hut stood a hot food concession. The walked up to it together and stopped while Simpkins bought two plastic cups of coffee. "Let's go over to that bench," he said in a low voice.

Betty unclipped Twinkle's leash and let the dog loose. He bounded off to the far side of the park, and she took one of the proffered cups. "Oo, it's hot!" she said, rolling her eyes. Simpkins cackled.

They sat and sipped their coffee.

"This place is a bloody dump!" he exclaimed. "There's nothing here but a couple of benches and a scrubby old bit of turf. Makes me ashamed to be here."

"Shush!" Betty admonished him, blushing. A woman passing them smiled and nodded. She was with a girl of about eight with speckly pants and a My Little Pony T-shirt. Betty looked at her blue Little Playmate lunchbox, which she held possessively. The girl kept staring at Simpkins who was slurping his coffee and reaching inside the pocket of his jacket. He stared back at her somewhat suspiciously.

"Bleeding kids, they give you the creeps sometimes!" he growled. He fished out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. "Smoke?" he said.

"Never," she replied firmly.

He lit up a cigarette with a bent match and blew out a cloud of smoke. "Please yourself."

She felt dizzy. His smoking fitted right in with the rest of his personality. Yet she couldn't help staring at the cigarette in his mouth. She had never smoked in her life, and certainly didn't want to start now. And yet...

"Sure you wouldn't like a puff?"

"You're very persistent, aren't you?" She felt the smoke in her lungs, even though they were half a meter apart. She was looking at the smoldering cigarette in his hand. It wasn't the cigarette she craved, it wasn't even him, it was something stirring within her she couldn't put a name to.

"I got to be persistent in my trade," he said.

"And what trade is that?"

He took another pull and smoke billowed out. She could feel his eyes behind the shades he wore giving her the once-over. It made her want to smooth down her dress and keep her legs primly together.

"I'm a recreational substance rep."

She stifled a giggle. "Is that something to do with drugs?"

"Not drugs, not any drugs, the one drug that everybody's after."

Do you mean love she wanted to say, but bit her tongue.

After a pause, he dropped the cigarette and stubbed it out with the heel of his sneaker.

"I'm talking about Saint," he said finally. "The only worthwhile thing Melloria ever produces." He gave a snort of derision. "Saint's Breath. Fucking cannabis!"

"Spectacular cannabis!" a male passer-by said, so suddenly it made them jump. "It's the most superior weed there is. If I had some now I'd be over in them bushes, giving the old woman a dogging."

His female companion grimaced and pulled him away. "Sorry about the boyfriend," she said. "Can't take him anywhere."

Simpkins laughed and took a couple of long swigs of his coffee.

"True, though," the man being pulled away interjected. "How does that wretched country manage to produce such great shit?"

"And that is the question," Simpkins said, when the couple had disappeared out of sight. "I mean, the soil's pretty awful and the growing season's short..."

"So what's the secret?" Betty said, goading him on.

"Iron."

"Pardon?"

He finished his coffee and crumpled up the cup.

"The plots where the Saint's Breath is planted get extra iron – d'you know where from?"

"Where?"

"The village women. When it's their time of the month they go out into the fields at night and squat over the soil."

Betty's face contorted, and she put her cup of coffee on the ground. Yet she was intrigued, if only by his brazen manner. She fought for something nonchalant to say.

"Tell me, if Saint is the drug everybody wants, why isn't Melloria richer?"

"That's a good question, my girl," he said, irritating her with his offhand familiarity.

"Is it because Saint's illegal?" she asked.

"You're right on the money," he said. "Because it's an illegal substance, we dealers only get paid in cash. As a result, our credit rating with the banks is lousy. Also, we suppliers get stopped and strip-searched every time we cross a border. I remember once getting pulled to one side and turned over by customs at King Egbert Airport. There was another guy getting the same treatment who smiled at me. He was Colombian – he understood."

Betty picked up her cup and sipped her coffee.

"I wonder what's happened to Twinkle?" she said.

"Anyway, like I said, the reason Saint is so potent is down to women's menstrual blood. It's got a lot of iron in it."

To her relief, Twinkle came bounding back to her, frothing and yelping, pawing at her legs and leaping up to Simpkins's crotch, his tongue lolling.

"I'd better be getting back," she said to him. "Lucy 'll be getting worried. I got to pick up Angus from preschool."

"My last girlfriend had a son who was always at school," he said."You might know her."

"Do you mean Sharon, King Craig's mother?" She laughed at his forgetfulness. Of course she knew her – she knew him as well. They'd all worked at Calliper Palace.

"Want me to come with you? – Only as far as the school, I mean."

They sat for a moment, looking at each other.

Something inside her made her want to sit closer to him and start stroking his arm. The bushes were beckoning, they could go behind them into the tall grass sizzling with cicadas, and let their bodies sink into an ocean of sweet-smelling fescue. They could hold each other and she could keep his pain in check, for his unhappiness was turning her emotions into lust.

"No, honestly, I'll be all right," she said. "I really have to dash."

Simpkins nodded slowly. They stood up and she finished her coffee, crumpling the cup and throwing it in a trash bin. She snapped on Twinkle's leash.

"I might see you again," she said, knowing she wouldn't.

"Yeah," he said.

The next morning when Godfrey stood at the toilet and urinated, a strange dribble zigzagged out of him and he periodically winced with pain. He grunted noncommittally, his face pinched. I've got my old trouble back, he thought. Doesn't matter how many ops I have or doctors I see, it keeps coming back. He shook his penis, turned and went to the washbasin to continue his ablutions. He didn't want to dwell on his health problems, not when he needed to keep his wits about him.

"What horrors await me today?" he asked himself while shaving with long, slow slashes.

"I mustn't get morbid," he said to himself firmly, combing his hair. "God, now I'm talking to myself as well."

When he returned to the bedroom, he noticed that he had a scratch on the back of his hand. He examined it, observing that the skin was already puffing up along its edges.

Then he remembered Royston bringing him back upstairs in the elevator, and that while they were having a miserable supper of the Slobodian national cereal of toasted eggplant flakes in milk, sprinkled with sunflower seeds, Latrina had sauntered in wearing one of her long, shapeless dresses. After offering his condolences to his sister, he had inadvertently trodden on the tail of her wretched cat, which had promptly turned and scratched him when he tried to push it away. He chuckled. It was the only bit of relief he'd had all day.

Coming down to breakfast in his borrowed brown suit, Godfrey steeled himself for whatever craziness Royston might throw at him. In fact, breakfast was quite subdued and there was even granola and croissants on the table. Queen Latrina, who was up way earlier than usual, looked impatient and fidgety, and Royston had a murderous look on his face.

The three of them ate in stony silence, until Latrina blurted out her awful truth to Godfrey.

"Royston wants to kill you, and me too, if he doesn't get his way. Please don't piss him off today."

Godfrey nodded grimly. Then he turned to Royston to ask him the burning question on his mind.

"Royston, if you don't want to kill me – as your mother says you might – why are you keeping me here? What earthly use to you am I, a broken-down ex-king with no political power whatsoever?"

Royston shifted awkwardly in his chair.

"I was hoping to show you a little more of my re-education program, before I revealed to you the role I would like you to take in my New World Empire," he said. "However, between you, you and Mama have forced my hand – which I, as a selfish individual who does not bend to the will of others, commend you both for."

"Please, not another speech...," Godfrey felt his head begin to throb.

"I'll make it brief then," Royston said with a slight smile. "What I want you to do is resume your role as King of Melloria. There never was a better king of your country, and there never will be. I want you to return to Calliper Palace with all the panoply and splendor as befits a monarch of your caliber. You will resume your beloved round of hunting, shooting and fishing, riding a chestnut cob, just like the one you had before, and drinking lots of brandy. In between, there will be court duties: meeting ambassadors and heads of state, banquets and balls, and the annual opening of the Royal Assembly. Your Queen, Letitia, may choose to join you if she wishes. If not, I see no reason why you may not spend six months of the year in retirement in Tobago. Your son, Catheter, can act as regent in your absence."

"A sort of deputy monarch," Godfrey said.

"Exactly."

"Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful?" Latrina enthused. "Having you as King of our beloved Melloria again! I think our father would be enormously proud of you."

Godfrey sat silently for a few moments, gathering his thoughts. Then he rose to his feet and addressed Royston and Latrina.

"I realize the offer you have just made is one you both would like me to accept, and I'm flattered to be praised for my kingliness. However, I must decline, for the following reason. I gave up my throne to allow my son to be my successor, in accordance with the laws of my country and the will of its people. I have no interest in usurping my son King Craig's right to reign over me and my fellow Mellorians for the rest of his natural life. Finally, whatever kind of a miserable wretch I am, I am not and never will be a Slobodian puppet! Thank you and good day."

Godfrey's desire to leave the breakfast hall in grand style, marching out as if leading a parade, was thwarted by Latrina's gray cat, Druid, which appeared from under the table and tangled itself in his legs. It began to purr loudly and studied Godfrey with feline interest, as if it knew he was about to be put through the wringer again.

Shaking off the cat, Godfrey noticed that Latrina was biting back tears. Feelings she had been holding down surged up and welled in her eyes. It made his own eyes sad and watery.

"Oh Godders, I'm going to miss you so much, after..." She sighed and wiped her nose with the sleeve of her dress. He pitied her.

Godfrey turned to face Royston and put on his public face, smoothed of all signs of anxiety.

"Do with me as you will," he said.

A cunning, indulgent smile played about Royston's mouth.

"I knew I shouldn't have let myself be swayed by you and Mama," he said. "Another lesson for the selfish individual to learn. Now, we have people waiting for us downstairs. Shall we go?"

Chapter 14

### An Inauspicious Start

"There's something strange going on."

Commander Leon Kossli, the five-bar general in charge of the Slobodian Army of Occupation, tapped his index finger repeatedly on the top page of the document on his table. It showed the population centers of Melloria in descending order of size. From the capital, Melloria City, the second city Mellinda, the towns of Mingella, Polyp and Crapula, to the villages of Mania, Cider and Custard.

He turned and pointed at the large chart behind him.

"Melloria's a very small country. Just eight centers of population. The rest is farmland and open country. The Forest of Gorm is the biggest area of woodland, then we have the Mellorian Mountains and the Lupus valley. There's a gorge on both sides of the River Lupus and caves leading back to the mountains and the Mellorian Fissure. And for some reason..."

He stopped speaking and looked around the room.

Kossli was addressing a room full of officers in combat fatigues, green helmets on heads, full kit bags at their feet and ready for immediate deployment. Among them were sappers, officers of the Royal Slobodian Engineers, with their special detonating equipment.

"For some reason, on ten separate occasions men of the armed forces have gone into one of these caves and not come out again. That's why I think there's something strange going on."

He studied the chart and thought for a moment.

"Now, we don't know what the enemy is up to. It may be that they're playing mouse to our cat, luring our chaps in and then scuttling away to some recess we can't yet reach. In which case, we need to seal the mouth of every cave we can find."

There was a note of anger in his voice.

"That's why I'm sending in all available units now – to seek, find and seal. We'll keep those bastards in their holes."

"A question, Commander," a colonel called out.

Kossli nodded.

"What kind of opposition can we expect, if any?"

"We must be prepared for anything, any kind of attack, ambush, booby traps, any kind of surprise. These people are wily, crafty and treacherous. They're hiding from us, and if we can't flush the damn rats out, then we'll just seal 'em in and let 'em rot."

"Remember," he added, "we have to get this mess cleared up now, or else..."

He stopped again and looked anxiously at the group.

"Something big's coming down. The Leader is flying in by helicopter tomorrow."

"The Leader?" several voices gasped. The room hummed with agitation.

"Yes, the Leader. He's bringing some bigwig here for a meeting and an inspection of the whole area. So now you know just how important this operation is. Don't. Fuck. Up."

When the meeting broke up, the officers stamped out of the room and emerged into the long corridor. The colonel who had asked the question turned to his companion.

"Did you ever read that book: The House of Leaves?"

"Is that the one where the house got bigger on the inside than on the outside, new rooms and passages kept opening up, and then it started swallowing people up?"

"Yes. I think Melloria's like that house."

"It's certainly a spooky country."

Sergeant Zinoviev had to hold the moon-faced private erect against the rocky entrance to the cave they had just emerged from. Otherwise he would have slumped to the ground.

"Oh God, I'm so in love," the private said dimly, and his eyes shut in ecstatic bliss.

"Shut the fuck up, I feel the same way myself," Zinoviev groaned, "but we've got to get back."

He shook the private's eyes open, and he blinked dully in the daylight.

"Make an effort, Morsky – when we hit the base you can go straight to the enlisted men's bar, spend your beer money, eat, drink and relax." Zinoviev gave him a minute. "Ready to haul ass now?"

"No, I'm in dream land. I just wanna shag that bitch. You go on, sarge, I'll stay behind."

"Then I'll have to turn you over to the prets, Morsky," Zinoviev growled. "It's your choice."

The private grimaced and picked himself up to join the others. Zinoviev led his squad through a jungle of fig and honeysuckle trees to the top of the gorge. Then they marched back to their base and resumed normal life. They occupied their quarters, ate their army rations, and drew their pay. Yet it was as if they had begun new lives: every one of them was longing for a lover he had left behind in the cavern.

After dismissing the men, Sergeant Zinoviev went to Staff HQ for his debrief. When he entered the debriefing room, the major sitting there looked up and scowled.

"What the devil happened to your patrol?" he said.

Zinoviev snapped to attention. He couldn't think what else to do since his mind kept turning to mushy peas every time he thought of Vanilla.

"We got lost, sir. It was a long dark cave and one of the men slipped on a rock in the dark and dropped a grenade. We all took cover and when it went off, it started a rockslide. Took us about eight hours to dig our way out, sir. Couldn't radio in – too much damage, sir."

He could hear the false sincerity in his voice, and hoped that the major couldn't. He's got to think we didn't have a choice, he thought, otherwise we'll be in jankers."

"What are you gazing at, sergeant? What's wrong?"

The major's voice rang out.

"Nothing wrong, sir. Just a bit disoriented – getting blasted by that grenade, and all the hours of digging in the dark."

Oh God, I must look like I'm moonstruck, he thought.

To reinforce his suspicion, the major said: "You look like a bloody mooncalf. Pull yourself together, man."

"Yes, sir."

The major shook his head, puzzled.

"All right, that'll do for now. You can go and get drunk. Dismiss."

Afterwards, Zinoviev strolled into the noncom's bar.

Food and drink helped ease the flood of aching memories. While corporals and sergeants all around him were tearing into their rations Slobodian style, Zinoviev ate slowly, letting his mind go skittering and tumbling down a bottomless tunnel of pleasure where his only need was more and more Vanilla. He sipped lightly at his glass of slifka. He wanted only the stimulation of the alcohol, not the oblivion he usually sought when he was off duty.

The club was almost empty, and the only other occupied table boasted a crew of two sergeants and three corporals of the Mountain Lion Brigade.

"You look a bit wasted, Zinny," one of the sergeants bawled. "Did the scumbag Mellorians stuff some Saint's Breath down your throat?"

"Fuck off!" Zinoviev growled. "I've had a rough night."

He gulped the rest of the liquor in a single swallow.

"If I didn't know you better, I'd say you were in love," the second sergeant cooed. "Did you meet a girl out on patrol?"

Zinoviev's eyes glazed over. Yes, he thought, and it'll take me a long time to get over her.

Chapter 15

### Pockets Of Resistance

"What I can't understand is why you want me to be King of Melloria, Royston, when your armed forces are occupying the country."

Godfrey and Royston were inside the elevator, hurtling down to the most forbidding part of Duodenum Palace.

"I want Melloria to be stable: socially, politically and economically," Royston said. "With you as king, the world will know Melloria is at peace again and all is well."

"But you know my duty is to my people. Don't you think I might start a resistance movement?"

"Against what?" Royston said, smiling. "When you are installed as king, my troops will leave, and the country will be back in your hands again."

Godfrey looked confused, as the elevator lurched to a halt. "But how will you stay in control with no army of occupation?"

"I don't need occupying forces to stay in control," Royston said as they stepped out. "Not when I've got what I want."

"And what's that?" Godfrey said. They were about to enter another room with a cast-iron door. "Power," Royston said.

A thick glass panel was fitted into one of the walls and Godfrey saw another, smaller room behind the glass. He realized the glass was one-way when he saw a gaunt-looking man in a prison uniform being manhandled, without hearing a sound.

Two jacketless pret guards dragged the man toward a chair and put cuffs on his ankles and wrists. He was then subjected to a beating by a third pret with a baseball bat.

"Do I have to watch this?" Godfrey asked.

"Of course not," Royston said. "Just say the word and I'll put an end to it."

"I can't be king – I'm not entitled. Give the job to Craig."

Royston shook his head. "A boy king won't do. A leader must be someone the masses respect and look up to."

The man in prison garb was lifted and propped back in the chair by the prets and the one wielding the bat struck him again. The man was held in the chair while his body writhed under the force of the blows. Large areas of his body became bruised and bloody. He said something to his assailant who hit him harder. The thug was almost frothing at the mouth, and he raised his bat over his head like a club. He seemed to be lusting to bring it down with enough force to split open the man's head. At that moment, an officer entered and spoke to the pret with the bat. He stood, bat raised, his face filled with rage and consternation. After a few moments, he lowered the bat. The officer spoke to him again, and he left the room glowering.

Godfrey was overcome with revulsion. "You people are sadists," he said. "You should never beat a man in that condition – he looks half-starved."

"We'll feed him till he's plump again once you say the word," Royston persisted.

Godfrey gave him a look like thunder, to which Royston replied: "The masses are mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned, for the sake of those who are gifted. I'm doing this for your sake, Godfrey."

Godfrey looked incredulous, although a dull rage was filling him.

"Now, Godfrey," Royston said, leading him into the room that looked like a living room, "we are going to meet Marika again, I hope for the last time."

Godfrey's rage broke through the surface. "I've no wish to see any more," he said. "You might as well get it over with and kill me now."

"Why should I want to kill you, Godfrey, when I know within a short time from now I will be proclaiming to the world that you are once again King of Melloria?"

Godfrey shook his head, his jaw clenched. "No good threatening me – the answer's still no."

"Let's wait and see, shall we?"

In the room with the living room furniture, Royston pulled aside the bookcase and opened the wall to the inner room. Inside, Marika Strechnik, the woman Royston had beaten the previous day, stood in her smock and waited silently with the two female pret guards.

"Hello, Marika," Royston said and smiled at the woman. "Before we begin, you should know that Godfrey has it within his power to end your suffering and pain. He just has to say one word and you will be released and escorted back to your own home, where you'll be kept under house arrest. So much nicer than living in prison."

Godfrey hesitated, and the prets seized the woman's arms and began dragging her to the metal-framed parallel bars. She suddenly shouted to Godfrey: "Don't let these cowards bully you!"

Her clothes were torn off and she was pushed against the near rail until the small of her back was arched over it. Then her wrists were cuffed and the cuffs fastened to the far rail. The prets strained to pull her ankles back, spreading her legs, and their cuffs were attached to the frame supporting the far rail. Her head and neck were yanked back and her spine arched over the rail.Now it was her naked belly, shaved pubic area and the tops of her thighs that were exposed.

Royston removed his jacket and draped it over a chair. Then he selected his cane from the whips, belts and paddles hanging above the parallel bars.

"Please be seated," he said to Godfrey. "Are you comfortable? Then we'll begin." To Marika, he said. "Until Godfrey calls a halt, you will receive striations of welts in the region of your loins. Think of it as a kind of vajazzling."

Godfrey felt waves of shame and disgust. He experienced no stirrings of sexual arousal. The shock and horror of what he had already witnessed had left him completely stunned.

Royston took up his position. His first slash ripped across the top of her labia and she shrieked in agony. Her whole body jolted as it strained against the cuffs.

Royston turned to address Godfrey. "When the human body receives a terrible series of blows, it naturally recoils or flinches. But when the body is so tightly stretched that it can't recoil, it must absorb the pain it wants to cast off. Its central nervous system is flooded and the pain becomes exquisite. I'm telling you this so that you realize just what you are doing to this woman, and all because of your stubborn pride. Who's the sadist now?"

"You are!" Godfrey shouted.

"If I were really that much of a sadist, I would've given Marika an amphetamine shot like I did yesterday. Then her pain would've been beyond exquisite – it would be unimaginable."

He slashed her again and again, until lurid red marks flared across her upper thighs and pubic mound. Each blow sent shocks waves through her that made the cuffs on her wrists and ankles jangle. She screamed like a soul in torment, and Godfrey felt his stomach about to erupt.

With sudden rage and murderous violence in his voice he shouted: "All right, damn you – I'll be your bloody puppet! Stop this vicious cruelty and let her be!"

Royston glanced up from his labors. "Are you saying you will be the next King of Melloria? Unless you are, I must continue."

"Yes!" Godfrey cried, then muttered "Go fuck yourself," his face blazing with vibrant rage. Marika reacted to his cry with unexpected anguish.

"Don't give in to tyranny!" she screamed at him.

"It's too late," he groaned.

Royston ordered the two prets to release the woman from her fetters, and led Godfrey back into the living room. Godfrey's mind was in turmoil. He loathed Royston with deeper passion than before, and the brutality he'd been forced to witness nauseated him, but he had given his word – albeit under duress – and a king's word was his bond under all circumstances.

He flopped down on one of the armchairs in hideous recoil of all that he'd seen: the man, bruised and limp, being battered by the bat-wielding thug, and the trussed-up naked woman sliced again and again across her genitals. Royston was saying something to him, but he couldn't understand what. He hid his head in his hands.

After a while, the fog inside his head cleared and he told himself to get a grip. He looked up, trying to remain impassive, making efforts to hide his shock and despair. Royston was talking on his cellphone. A written proclamation Royston clearly wanted him to sign lay on the desk. He looked at it, bitter regret in his mouth like the taste of acid, dreading the obligation he had put himself under. He had given in to thuggery.

Shortly afterwards Queen Latrina arrived, dressed in a long velvet gown that looked surprisingly clean, accompanied by two men in dark suits. She had a spring in her step, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet as she strode in. It was clear she was ebullient.

"Oh Godders, I'm so glad you saw reason!" she trilled. "This definitely calls for a little celebration."

"Not for me," Godfrey said wearily. "Now, where do I sign?"

One of the dark-suited men stepped forward and deferentially pointed to a place on the proclamation. Godfrey put his glasses on and perused the document. It proclaimed that 'all remaining Mellorian territory now be declared the Kingdom of Melloria in perpetuity.' The word 'remaining' stuck in his craw, and the image of a lake, vast and shimmering, filled his mind as it lapped against a beach, crowded in summertime and skirting a bustling resort where all the fluttering flags were Mellorian. His jaw tightened. The humiliating loss of Shekels and its close bond with the motherland – the so-called Mellorian corridor – still rankled, and now he was going to make it a permanent loss to his country by his cowardly signing of this damn proclamation. He suspected it was all a sham, anyway. There was a clause appointing him 'King of the Kingdom of Melloria for the rest of his natural life.' This jarred him to the bone. There was no mention of any successor, so presumably Catheter, Anton and Angus would be excluded, as would his natural son Craig. He suspected that once he was dead, which might be soon – he remembered the mysterious assassination of Royston's father, King Slobodan – the Slobodians would quickly reabsorb Melloria into the Greater Slobodia that they always boasted about.

"I can't do it!" he cried. "I've changed my mind. I'd rather die than sign away my country."

Royston marched quickly up to him and looked him full in the face.

"King Godfrey, you agreed to sign this proclamation, in front of witnesses, and you know you can't break your word. Now, be a good king and scribble your moniker next to mine."

"I won't!" Godfrey said.

"You will!" Royston retorted.

Leaning forward in her chair, Latrina made a suggestion: "Why don't we all adjorn for a drink? After all, the proc doesn't have to be signed this red hot minute. So why bust our chops? Perhaps we just need to alter the wording a little."

Royston looked at his mother coldly. "If we don't get this done now, we never will. Place the pen in King Godfrey's hand, Mother, and guide him to the page. He is a man of integrity – he won't welsh on his word."

Latrina hoisted herself up and went over to where Godfrey was sitting. She took his arm by the wrist and placed the pen in his limp hand, closing the fingers over it.

He stared at the object in his fist as if it were an alien growth. Latrina moved the document in front of his eyes and tried to make him scrape ink marks on it. He suddenly swore and shook his sister off, then he gripped the pen tightly.

"I know how to write my own fucking name!"

His face white with strain, knowing he had a sacred obligation to abide by his word, he tried to make his hand obey the promise he had made in the torture room against its instinct to reject the agony of signing such a perfidious document and approving the unbearable sacrifice of his country. The impossibility of his dilemma ripped through him like a lightning bolt and he suddenly collapsed onto the floor.

Chapter 16

### The Mellorian Defense

For a whole slew of reasons Letitia was looking forward to the weekend. For one thing, it was the quietest part of the week and she valued quietude more and more as she got older. For another thing, she was looking forward to spending some time with the Sons of Nordik Live- Action Role Playing group who were meeting at a married couple's house in one of the suburbs of Angina, and they had invited her to stay the night.

She also wanted to get away from the torpid atmosphere of Porcellan Palace and take a break. To her delight, Jack, the Game Master of the group, had offered to pick her up and drive her to the meet. She wanted to find out more about the LARPers' rescue plan for Godfrey.

Lucinda was also happily anticipating the weekend. She had been putting together plans for her long-delayed wedding to Catheter and had been consorting with Queen Ada about a 'royal wedding-light' at Ghastlinger Abbey in Angina. The last royal wedding held at the abbey had been Hernia's nightmare nuptials with Anton, and Ada had much advice for Lucinda on the major pitfalls to avoid in averting a similar wedding disaster.

Now Lucinda was getting ready for a visit to a designer of bridal gowns and was taking Betty and the children with her. Catheter was happy to have the suite of rooms to himself for a morning, without screaming children. He couldn't wait to spend some time fiddling with his sound decks, followed by some polo practice with Anton in the afternoon. What could be better?

Well, Letitia thought, as she watched a maid pack her weekend bag, at least something's going to be done to bring Godfrey back.

Jack arrived in his customized army jeep to pick her up. He wore khaki chinos, a black T-shirt and a GO BULIMIA ball cap. She thought he looked acceptable.

"Hey, Letitia," he said, giving her a quick handshake. She handed him her overnight bag and followed him out to the car. All the way to the house he bantered about LARPing. She did not understand many of the rules of play, but learned that Rule Number One of role-playing games is: If a comrade dies, loot the corpse.

When they reached the house, Jack glanced down the street before parking. He noticed a suspicious-looking man hovering a few doors away from the house. "That man could be a harmless visitor, a paparazzo or a Slobodian secret agent," he said. Letitia nodded. She knew they would have to be super careful now they were committed to the rescue plan, always on the lookout for anything unusual.

The man in the street suddenly approached them.

"I'm looking for Basil Street... is it near here?"

Jack felt slightly relieved. He gave the man directions and they walked up the front path to the house. When they had made it through the front door, they shut it firmly behind them.

Captain Krimen returned to his company with his commander's orders ringing in his ears. His lieutenant looked up when he entered the field tent.

"You look worried, captain," he said. "What's the plan?"

"The brigade has to find and guard the entrance to every bloody cave and bolt-hole in that whole fucking gorge," the captain flopped down on a canvas chair. "Then the sappers can come and seal them up."

"Sounds a bit drastic, but it shouldn't be too much hard work," the lieutenant said.

"Well, Kossli wants a bang up job done, because the Leader's coming here tomorrow for a meet with some top banana."

The lieutenant gave an anxious whistle.

"The main thing is to look smart, so make sure the men put their backs into it," Krimen said. The tent flap twitched and Sergeant Zinoviev's head pushed in.

"Anything I can do for you, captain?" he asked.

They all want to know about the bloody plan, the captain thought. Oh well, might as well get started.

"Get the men fell in, sergeant," Krimen said. "We've got work to do."

A short while later, he went outside with the lieutenant and stood in front of the line of troops.

"Listen up, men, here's the plan," he said in a somewhat sarcastic tone, "we're all marching down to the beautiful Lupus valley and spending the rest of the day climbing all over that bushy gorge looking for caves. Won't that be nice?"

There were groans from the men and the sergeants shuffled their feet.

"Your sergeants will assign every one of you to an area which you will comb with a toothbrush until it's too dark to see. During your search, you will notify your sergeants or the nearest officer immediately every time you find a gap, opening or hole in the rock face big enough to squeeze a midget's bum through. Understood?"

There were murmurs of assent.

"Do not go into the caves. There are sappers coming up behind us with explosives to detonate and seal up these caves, so any man who disobeys this order will either be blown to buggery or shot. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir!" the men called out.

"If you meet any resistance whatsoever, put 'em on their asses. Any questions?"

The silence was palpable.

"All right, now fall out and get cracking."

The men scurried to their tents to collect their kit and rifles, and Krimen turned to the lieutenant.

"Like I said, the thing is to look efficient. In this army it's all about looking like you're in control."

Sergeant Zinoviev and his squad dispersed themselves and began attacking the gorge, slashing the sagebrush with their rifles to uncover any apertures. Zinoviev, in accordance with the plan, assigned target areas to every soldier and saved an area of thinly-vegetated rockface for himself.

Almost immediately, he stumbled on an opening in the rock and called Private Morsky over.

"Here's a gap big enough to squeeze your ass through," he said.

Morsky had not lost the besotted mooncalf look he had when he had last emerged from a cave.

"Fair enough, sarge, wanna come with me?" He beamed a huge, goofy smile.

"I know what you're thinking," Zinoviev said,"but the chances are she won't be there. Anyway, you're not supposed to go in the holes, remember? Not if you don't wanna get shot."

"But what if she is there, sarge – and yours as well? Wouldn't that be worth the risk?"

"In this life nothing is worth the risk of getting shot," Zinoviev said wearily.

Morsky sighed. "I don't give a shit. She's worth it."

He threw down his rifle and began burrowing through the gap. Soon only his boots were sticking out.

Unable to suppress the feelings that flared up at seeing and hearing Morsky's ardor, Zinoviev dropped his rifle and followed the private through the hole. On the inner side of the rockface was a three meter fall and the sergeant dropped down, hitting Morsky and rolling over onto the dusty floor of a long passage. Then he jumped to his feet. Morsky looked dazed, and Zinoviev had to pull his arm to get him to stand. The two soldiers staggered down the passage for a few hundred meters to reach a wall of rock that blocked their way.

On an impulse, Zinoviev pressed himself against the wall and listened. Then it was his turn to wear a goofy grin. There was no doubt – he could hear a faint chanting of celestial chords pulsing from inside the slab.

"They're in there!" he yelled to Morsky. "Yours and mine."

He then scoured the slab until he saw a little red button sunk into the rockwall. By pressing it he was able to cause the slab to slide away to the sound of a clanging bell, letting them enter a large cavern, before it slid back to seal the cavern from the outside.

Inside the cavern both men's faces lit up with joy. The familiar group of men and women in white shining robes sang their chords of magnificent splendor. The soldiers felt their eyes prickle with tears as they walked toward the smiling group and were enveloped in the soaring, swelling chords.

Godfrey was aware of the pain spreading from the back of his head down through his body. He had woken up and now felt it acutely as he shifted his prone position. He was lying on a thin straw mattress resting on a grimy stone floor. He opened his eyes and saw the bleak wall and barred windows of a prison cell.

He then noticed he was dressed in his striped prison clothes.

I'm right back where I started two days ago, he thought. It's just like old times.

The pain in his body pulsed and throbbed and began to dwindle into a dull ache. He sighed drearily, remembering the kerfuffle he had caused by refusing to sign the proclamation and then conking out. Thank God I didn't sign that damn proc, he thought. I would never have forgiven myself. He had a lot to think and worry about. He worried about Dr Marika Strechnik, the woman he had seen beaten on two occasions. Would Royston still let her be put under house arrest, even though he had reneged on his promise, or would she be subject to further brutality? He also worried about his wife and son Anton, whom he hadn't seen for weeks. He could only hope they were still in the Hermeticon and not in some torture chamber, suffering atrocities inflicted by Royston in revenge for his non-cooperation.

He rubbed the sore places on his body where he'd lain on the mattress too long. Then he stretched his aching muscles and struggled to sit up. Painfully he hauled himself to his feet and looked around. A table, a chair, a toilet and a washbasin. He went over to the basin and turned on the faucet, swallowing water and throwing some on his face.

Then he heard a key rattling the door lock.

A burly pret guard came in with a food tray. He watched Godfrey, his brow furrowed, as he placed the contents of the tray on the table.

"Here, scumbag – eat!" he said before departing and locking the door.

Yes, just like old times.

Chapter 17

### The Slobodian Response

"Cheers!" Letitia raised her glass to Jack and to Ben, her co-host for the weekend. They were sipping chilled Chardonney and sitting on a well-worn black-leather couch, letting sunlight splash them through the open French doors. Ben's wife, Lizzie, walked in and sat in the armchair beside them. She raised her glass, and took a sip.

"So, how's the Slobodian invasion going?" Jack asked Ben.

Ben, who was a defense correspondent for a Bulimian news agency, took another sip of his wine.

"Not well. The army's losing troops in droves to the Mellorian defense, and it's driving the top brass crazy."

"What's the Mellorian defense?" Letitia asked, genuinely puzzled.

Both men laughed, and Lizzie gave Letitia a knowing look.

"The Korals," Jack said.

"Pardon?"

"Underground choral groups – men and women who wear white shining robes and sing celestial choral music. They're called Korals and live in caverns deep inside the Mellorian mountains, accessible only by caves that honeycomb the Lupus valley."

"I still don't see the connection," Letitia said.

Jack drained his glass. "When the Slobodian army sends routine patrols into the caves, and they hear the incredible music these groups produce – and they sing with such heart and soul that the cave walls shake – the squaddies are drawn like a magnet to the caverns. "

"– and once the squaddies are in range," Ben added, smiling, "and hear the chords these groups sing repeated over and over at higher registers, they feel compelled to join in."

"Then they're really hooked," Jack said. "They feel an overwhelming emotional charge, no matter how hard-bitten they are, which increases when they're accepted into the group and enjoy all the benefits – "

"And what are the benefits?" Letitia gave the men a world-weary look.

"All the food, drink and pampering you could ever want, plus unlimited sex with the partner of your choice," Ben said.

"And men are deserting because of that!" Letitia said. "Don't any of these troops have wives?"

"It doesn't matter," Lizzie chimed in. "Apparently the females in these groups give themselves so gladly and willingly, the men just fall head over heels in love!"

"Well, that sounds more like a honey trap to me," Letitia declared, "than anything I'd call love."

Lizzie and the two men laughed. "The best kind of honey trap," Ben said. "Being with these women is like pure honey after months of army life. The men just melt!"

"Yes, it sounds like a men's thing," Letitia said, frowning at Lizzie.

Shortly afterwards, the other Sons of Nordik began arriving. First Anton, who said he'd have to leave early for polo practice, then Prentiss, Justin and Marcus. They were all given glasses of wine and quickly informed of the subject of the conversation.

"So now you know what the Mellorian defense is," Ben said to Letitia. "The interesting thing is how the Slobodian army has responded to this worrying loss of personnel. "

"It's only worrying to the officers, who – of course – don't get sent into the caves," Marcus said. "If they did, they'd get smitten, too."

"Yes." Ben continued: "The army's response has been to try to seal off all the cave entrances they can find, which is logical, but also to send patrols to all the surrounding towns and villages, setting up road blocks and starting house-to-house searches – which won't get them anywhere. Meanwhile, soldiers are changing out of their uniforms, joining their new girlfriends or boyfriends and becoming part of the Korals."

"You know, I think the Mellorian defense is kind of sweet," Lizzie said, her eyes glowing."It's like the hippy ethos: make love not war."

"So how do these moonstruck soldiers manage to live with themselves, after breaking their oath of loyalty and deserting?" Letitia asked, genuinely incredulous. "Love's young dream has to fade after a while, doesn't it?" Mine certainly did, she thought to herself.

Justin, who had a long face fringed with the wispiest of beards, began to explain what happened to the lovestruck troops.

"The Korals take in their new recruits, provide them with robes and destroy their uniforms. Once they have reached that stage, there's no turning back."

Letitia shook her head. She had never heard any mention of these weird goings-on in all the years she'd been in Melloria.

The wine was now flowing and the six gamers launched into a discussion about Godfrey's rescue plan. At first Letitia listened intently, but as the details of the strategy got more and more abstruse, she took up an offer from Lizzie and they went off to look at the house and garden.

Jack took the floor and began pacing the room as he outlined his own scheme.

"The way I see it, the best way into Slobodia is through Melloria. The Slobodian army has lifted the curfew and people are allowed on the streets again, so we could drive into Melloria City in civvies and change into our uniforms at the safe house... "

"No house is safe with the prets around," Marcus said firmly. Justin nodded his head in agreement.

"Why don't we find a safe place to stay outside the pret-infested area, in the outermost part of the city, and after dark leave the city completely?" he said.

Anton poured himself a glass of wine and gulped it down.

"We'll have to avoid all the checkpoints and barricades when we're in our unis," he said.

"Sounds like we'd be better off hiking through the Forest of Gorm till we get to Slobodia, then letting Simpkins drive us as close to Duodenum as we dare," Prentiss said and finished off his glass of wine.

"We can only drive as far as the outskirts of Slovograd," Jack warned. "We'll have to walk the rest of the way. The Slobodians have heat detectors around Duodenum Palace to spot vehicles on the move."

"If we stay in the deer forest, the heat detectors won't be able to tell us apart from a herd of animals on a deer path," Ben offered.

"How are we going to get into the palace from the deer park?" Anton said.

Jack began speaking, then froze in mid-sentence. An idea was glimmering in the recesses of his wine-lubricated mind.

"What if we use the waste pipes going under the palace to sneak in?" He smiled at his own genius. "We'll approach the palace through a drainage tunnel."

"Get down and dirty, you mean," Anton quipped.

"Well, they must have some dirty big drainpipes – tunnels more like – for a palace as big as Duodenum," Marcus said, and poured another glass of wine.

"Yeah, gotta have somewhere for the big shits to go!" Anton laughed, and ducked as the others threw cushions at him.

Ben stood up and waved for silence, a sparkle of enthusiasm in his eyes. He went to one of the shelves of his bookcase and pulled out a thick volume.

"It's all here, dudes," he said. "The complete drainage system of Duodenum Palace – all mapped out for us." He showed the page to Jack.

"You supernerd!" Anton yelled, and chuckled as another cushion hit him.

Ben passed the book to Jack and raised a finger. "There's only one thing we have to be careful of. The drainage tunnels are usually very dry at this time of year, but it only takes a few hours of rain to turn them into flood traps."

"The forecast is for fine weather in Slobodia next weekend," Jack said, "so let's not worry about floods." He scanned the page. " God, the tunnels lead right into the palace, under the basement floor, and the basement is where the prisoners are kept. It's likely Godfrey will be there."

With two more bottles of Chardonney finished off, the LARPers' enthusiasm gave way to torpor, and it was agreed that the planning session would continue after lunch.

"How's the plan going?" Lizzie asked after she and Letitia had emerged from the garden.

"We've put together the rudiments," Justin said ponderously, "though we still have a few more details to discuss."

"We've got to try it out in the field next – possibly on Wednesday," Jack said. "Then, if it works and we get our kit together on time, Saturday will be Rescue Day."

The SNAAFI, the enlisted men's bar, was located in a sagging tent decorated with low-wattage light bulbs. Sitting at rough tables of drink-sodden wood and slurping warm beer, the men of the Mountain Lion Brigade bemoaned their lot.

"The Mellorians are a spineless bunch of wankers," one of them said, his voice slurred, as he regaled a splintery benchful of sozzled comrades. "They let us walk in and take their country without firing a shot. Now the ones in the towns are refusing to do any work until we leave! What do they think we are - free agents?"

"Yeah, like we chose to come here!" another said, his face flushed and sweaty.

"It's time we started rounding up the leaders of this strike and killing them," a blond-haired trooper said.

"What if they find more leaders, though?" a brown-faced, intelligent-looking soldier said.

"Then we'll keep taking hostages and shooting them until they learn to cooperate," the blond squaddy replied. "It's a no-brainer."

"It won't matter either way," the slurry-voiced soldier added. "If the scumbags walk out on their jobs, the cities'll soon grind to a halt, and if we shoot 'em all, the towns'll all be ghost towns."

"And all the time the numbers of our troops have been diminishing at an alarming rate," the brown-skinned soldier said. "Have you noticed? If this attrition goes on much longer, we'll be down to a skeleton force."

"That's the first I've heard," a fresh-looking soldier said. "But I've only just been drafted in."

"Our soldiers are literally walking away from their units and vanishing into caves," the brown-faced squaddy said.

"Caves? What for – Napoleon brandy?" the new recruit said. The others laughed and pounded the table.

"We don't know for sure," the blond one said, swirling the suds in his glass, "but a few of 'em have come back, burbling about being in love!"

A fresh burst of laughter shook the benches.

"These guys are so immature," the brown one said. "They get schoolboy crushes on local girls. They act like a boy with the prettiest cheerleader in school who's made it to fourth base."

The new recruit looked thoughtful.

"So they get hooked on some local tramps, who live in caves, can't stop thinking about 'em, can't wipe the smile off their faces – and then they desert, just to be with 'em again."

"Something like that," the blond one confirmed.

"– and nothing but good times ahead!" the slurry-voiced soldier said.

"Hey man, most of these guys are in their twenties," the blond trooper replied. "The way they're feeling, they just don't care."

"Most of the local girls are ditzes," the brown one said.

"Well, our guys are mostly bozos, so it's a perfect fit," the blond one said.

The whole table laughed heartily.

A similar conversation was taking place at Command HQ, between the Leader, seated behind a mahogany desk, and Commander Kossli, who stood before him, bare-headed.

"Our soldiers are literally walking away from the army, and disappearing into caves in the Lupus valley gorge," Kossli summarized. "And the gorge is like a honeycomb – the more caves we seal up, the more we find."

"Why are these men disappearing?" Royston said, frowning slightly.

"We don't know – yet, sir." Kossli looked embarrassed.

"Our officers and the career NCOs don't seem to be affected, so far," he went on, "but most of the squaddies are draftees, since ours is mainly a conscript army, and they're buggering off like draft dodgers."

"Someone must be feeding and sheltering them – they can't all be living like cave men."

"Yes, my Leader. But we can't get the locals to cooperate," Kossli said.

"You must take more hostages," Royston said coldly. "For every deserter who is not handed over, fifty locals must be shot – men, women and children. I think that will concentrate their minds nicely."

Well, Hitler would certainly approve of that, Kossli thought, and snapped his heels together.

Chapter 18

### Godfrey's Dilemma

After he'd finished his meager meal, Godfrey sat at the little table in his cell and began reviewing his recent actions and their consequences, including his present predicament. In particular, he wanted to convince himself that by not caving in to Royston's demands he would not be responsible for the continuing torture, and possible death, of the man he'd seen beaten with the baseball bat and of Dr Marika Strechnik.

If he understood Royston's beliefs correctly, and he even agreed with some of them, then each individual was a separate and distinct entity, responsible for his own decisions but not for other people's. Therefore, he reasoned, what Royston did to others, however terrible, did not reflect on himself, as a discrete individual.

What's wrong about that? Godfrey asked himself. If I'd signed that blasted proc to please Royston, as well as Latrina, in the face of all the intimidation and moral blackmail, then I would have let him be my master. He paused, satisfied with his logic.

So I choose passive resistance – fuck, it's the only resistance I've got!

I could still be killed. There's no knowing what Royston's going to do now that I've shot my bolt. I could be murdered and Letitia would never know...

Too disturbed to sit, he stood up and paced the floor of his cell.

If there's a way out of this, he thought, I wish I knew what it was.

As Godfrey was pondering his fate, Catheter was bicycling to the polo field for some practice. Although looking forward to his game, he was slightly preoccupied with his mother's involvement in the plan to rescue his father.

The day had started off rainy and dark, and although it was only early afternoon there was a coldness in the air. On both sides of the avenue, the tall beech trees had almost completely shed their leaves. The peculiar scent of autumn, as compelling as that of a stable, was heavy in the air. Yellow leaves were strewn across the road and Catheter steered his bike between them. He decided he would talk to his mother about not getting her hopes up too much when he got back, and this resolution eased his mind.

He cycled past the polo field on his way to the clubhouse to change, and smelled the evocative odor of horse dung. A pang of nostalga went through him. He recalled his first meeting with Lucinda and remembered the sudden and disturbing attraction he'd felt for her – a sense that he'd met her before, a rare reaction to a commoner. As he glided into the driveway, he remembered he'd promised to teach Anton some polo and when he reached the clubhouse he looked round for him. It was closer to the truth to say he'd nagged Anton into coming. "It's the best game in the world," he said. "You'll be addicted before you know it – and you need to start learning some kingly pursuits in case Craig and Dad and I drop dead and you're called to the throne."

Anton was nowhere to be seen, and Catheter remembered he'd said he would be late. He went off to change and saddle his mount. When, about an hour later, Anton approached him on horseback in the practice field and doffed his riding helmet in a gesture of mock deference, he clenched his teeth.

"What kept you?" Catheter said testily, watching him dismount. "They're strict about timing here. You'll have to begin on the wooden horse while I show you a few moves."

"That's exactly what some girl said to me the other night!" Anton quipped, but the look on Catheter's face cut him short.

"You know you shouldn't have taken that bay out without a member going with you," he said.

"Raasclaat! The groom was so obliging when I asked him, I couldn't say no."

Catheter glared at him.

"You shouldn't have done it anyway," he said stiffly. "The groom probably thought you were entitled to the horse, even though you're not a fully-fledged member."

"Well, fully fledge me then!" Anton rejoindered.

Instead, he dismounted and, after tethering the horses, he told Anton to take up his position astride the wooden horse in the training field. Catheter pressed a light bamboo polo stick into Anton's hand, and told him to point and swing it a few times.

"This is as much fun as having one's face blooded," Anton complained, after two minutes of aimless swinging.

"It's not meant to be fun, you pillock," Catheter said. "It's what princes do. No, don't hold the stick like that – keep your arm straight. No, completely straight – that's right. Now swing it."

"I can think of better things to do with my right arm!" Anton said with an idiot's grin. He heaved the stick around till his shoulder joint clicked.

Catheter surveyed his posture. "This is something that requires skill and much practice," he said.

"So does what I'm thinking about," Anton replied. He began shaking with silent laughter and almost lost his balance.

"Don't be an ass," Catheter said. He took his polo seriously, especially now that Lucinda was a lover of the game.

"Now stay right where you are and look at me. Notice that the line between my shoulders runs parallel to the horse's spine. Aim for that position."

Anton tried, but his heart wasn't in it. "Do you really think I need to learn all this shit?" he said. "After all, what are the chances of my getting to wear the crown?"

"If I were to fall to an assassin's bullet, you'd be directly in line after Angus and Craig."

"A three-year-old and an eleven-year-old," Anton jibed.

He rested his stick and its mallethead against the horse's wooden rump and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

"Come on, you can't be tired after only five minutes," Catheter coaxed. "Let's see you try hitting the ball. "I'm really knackered," Anton said. "I had a long session with the gaming group this morning."

Catheter glared at him and placed a small white ball on the ground.

"This is the chukka," he said. "Now whack it like hell up the field."

Anton swung his stick toward it and missed. He tried again and missed again.

"Oh fuck, you know what?" he mumbled. "I'm not in the mood for this. Let's go get some take-out."

Ignoring him, Catheter said: "Don't look at anything but the ball – just at the ball. Nothing else. Before you swing, your whole world is nothing but the ball."

"Sounds like a lot of balls," Anton muttered, but under Catheter's stern gaze he made another attempt and his mallet skimmed the top of the ball. It dribbled forward a few centimeters.

"Well, I kept my eyes on the ball," Anton protested, as Catheter shook his head wearily. "In any case, I got things on my mind."

"Hernia?" Catheter sighed. "Or that bloody rescue plot."

"It's not a plot, it's a plan – and a damn good one, though I say so myself."

"Let's face it, it's doomed to failure - and the chances are, you'll never come back alive," Catheter said.

"You're a cheery bugger, aren't you?" Anton said. "As a matter of fact, it's very well thought out. I give the GM credit for that."

"That's my point – you're just a bunch of bloody role-players, and you're hoping to circumvent the whole Slobodian army."

"Fuck this for a lark," Anton said, lashing the ball one last unsuccessful time. He had expended a lot of energy to little effect, and his arm was beginning to sag.

Catheter was perversely pleased. "How does your arm feel?" he asked.

"Like a prick that's been fucking knotholes," Anton replied. "How much longer do you want me to go on?"

Till your arm drops off, you dumbass, Catheter thought maliciously.

"Oh, till you feel you've got the hang of it," he said. "You're making all the usual beginner's mistakes – I was like that when I started."

"So, do you have any hot tips, Obi-Wan Kenobi?"

"You keep topping the ball – that's why it doesn't lift up. You need to aim at a point near the bottom of the ball."

"Well, one more shot then," Anton said dispiritedly. "Then I'm chucking in the chukka."

"You'll finish when I damn well say so," Catheter snapped.

Anton took a swipe at him with his stick.

"Since when were you put in charge, you raas?" he grumbled.

The fading light was making it harder to see the practice net, and Catheter decided to cut short the lesson.

"One last shot then," he said.

Anton positioned the mallet at the base of the ball, delighted to be ending the torture, and made a light half-swing. With one smooth movement of his arm and wrist, he hit the ball squarely. With an ear-tickling smack, it shot off and skimmed over the net.

"Shot!" Anton shouted and wiggled on his wooden horse, brandishing the stick above his head.

"Beginner's luck," Catheter mumbled. After the irritation of grappling with Anton's ineptitude, his mood of annoyance intensified.

When Hernia arrived in her silver Porsche Carrera, he gave her a look of pure malice.

"I see the Death Star's in the air tonight," she said to Anton as they drove off.

Chapter 19

### Weltmacht Durch Untergang

The Leader, had not flown to Melloria solely to inspect the troops and learn about their losses. When Royston had told Godfrey that all he needed to have control was power, he had not been joking. The power he craved was that which every country in the world relied on to keep its living standard above donkey-cart level. The power that came from deep in the mantle of the earth, the limitless power of oil.

The Mellorian Fissure was a geological phenomenon that had created a means of obtaining incalculable amounts of oil from levels far below the earth's surface. It allowed access to oil reserves so gigantic that, by comparison, the oil and gas fields of Saudi Arabia were to the Mellorian potential as a puddle to a lake.

The people who had made this discovery, Dr Jincus Majnun and Dr Layla Fricker, two geologists at the University of Melloria, stood tensely waiting in their office on the top floor of Melloria City's tallest building. Beside them on a small metal table rested a laptop computer that contained all the data for their presentation to the Leader. It was connected by USB cord to a large screen that had been set up on the other side of the room in front of a row of chairs.

From the helipad on the roof of the building, they could hear the churning of rotor blades as the Leader and his entourage alighted. The clatter of booted feet inside the building preceded the entrance of Royston, in his uniform of High Commander of the Praetorian Guard, accompanied by two Commanders of the Royal Slobodian Engineers and a businessman with tanned features and silver-streaked brown hair, wearing a well-tailored blue suit. A security detail of four prets pounded in after them.

Royston nodded to the two scientists, then positioned himself in the center of the row of seats, with the businessman on his right. One of the prets pulled venetian blinds over the vast panel of glass covering one wall and the view of Melloria City's rooftops that it afforded. The other three ranged themselves around the edges of the room. One of the commanders seated himself next to Royston, and the other addressed Majnun and Fricker.

"Before you begin, let me stress the importance of this presentation," he said. "Our Leader and Mr Grant Barstow, who is the CEO of the Norne Energy Consortium, have flown over the Mellorian Fissure and seen for themselves the incredible depth of this fracture in the earth's crust. Now we want you to inform us about the limitless supply of oil which you both claim lies underneath it." Then he sat down.

Majnun licked his dry lips. He nodded to Fricker, who double-checked that her remote control was working, and went over to the screen to begin his presentation.

"Good morning, my Leader, good morning, gentlemen," he said. "The Mellorian Fissure has always been one of the wonders of the natural world, but until the study by my colleague, Dr Fricker, and myself, the existence of gigantic oil field structures produced by oil seeping up from the mantle of the earth through its bedrock fracture was unknown."

As he spoke, Fricker clicked her remote, paused and clicked again, to illustrate the seepage, the bedrock fracture and the evidence of extensional block faulting in the Precambrian rock basement. He's clearly on a roll, Royston thought, but he'd better cut to the chase quick or heads will roll.

Majnun was telling his audience that the Precambrian period dates back geologically some 4.6 billion years, to the origin of the earth. Feet were shuffling and bodies were shifting in chairs until he suddenly caught Royston's attention by introducing a scientific predecessor.

"Helmut Pichler, who was a researcher at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute during the Nazi regime, claimed to US military intelligence that he was the co-inventor of the benzene-synthesis process from which synthetic gasoline was produced. His co-developer was Franz Fischer, who defined a methodology for producing synthetic gasoline and diesel fuel from coal. Synthetic oil production kept the Nazi war machine going far longer than its natural petroleum reserves would allow."

"So why don't I build synthetic fuel plants," Royston interrupted, "and produce enough fuel to hold the oil-rich nations to ransom?"

"You don't need to develop a synthetic fuel industry, my Leader," Majnun exclaimed. "The fact that the Nazis were able to produce synthetic oil in the laboratory proves that oil is abiotic in nature, not organic."

"But oil is a fossil fuel, surely," one of the commanders said.

"Not so," Majnun persisted. "All the evidence shows that hydrocarbon fuels are renewable fuels naturally produced by the earth, like air or water."

Royston twisted around in his chair and looked straight at Majnun.

"Are you saying that oil is like one of the four elements?"

"Essentially, yes," Majnun said, smiling. "The fifth element – the product of a string of chemical equations."

"Then why don't the major world powers and the oil companies develop this abiotic fuel, instead of wasting time on inefficient green energy?" the other commander said.

"It's partly ideological. Liberal governments like the Obama regime have openly displayed an ideological preference for green energy despite the evidence that green technologies, like wind and solar, only produce meager amounts of energy for their size and cost. The other major problem is technological. To reach the levels where abiotic hydrocarbon fuels are produced in the mantle of the earth requires advanced drilling technology. Not much of that around at the moment."

"What about drilling under water?" the first commander said. "There's plenty of that around."

"Oh sure," Mahjnun conceded. "Deep-water drilling and deep-earth natural gas and shale oil extraction, using horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, are paying dividends, but to reach the unlimited stuff," and he paused to let his words sink in, "that is abundant as the oceans, means penetrating the bedrock, well below the sedimentary layers that fossil fuels are supposed to come from."

"How far down are you talking about?" Royston asked.

"Approximately nine thousand meters."

"And how far down does the Fissure go?"

"9.6 thousand and counting," Majnun replied.

"Then it's a no-brainer," Royston declared. "We don't need advanced drilling technology, all we need is a bloody long drill pipe!"

After the presentation had ended and the scientists were gathering up their equipment, they overheard Royston muttering to Grant Barstow, the CEO of Norne.

"Hitler boasted that his aim was 'Weltmacht oder Untergang.' Mine is 'Weltmacht durch Untergang' – world power through going underground."

Chapter 20

### Gamers To The Rescue

Letitia found herself tucked away in a small room with a soft bed. It was perfectly adequate, and after finishing her last glass of wine she crashed.

The next thing she knew, she was dreaming. She silently approached a room whose door was ajar. It slowly opened. Behind it, all was dark and under a faint wash of light she could see a still, huddled form in bed. She walked in softly and knelt beside the form, who she knew was her husband. "Godders, it's time for the gathering," she said.

Godfrey drew a hand from the bed and touched his wife's cheek, exploring it. Then the hand fell away.

"All right," he mouthed in the tiniest whisper. "You can go outside. I will see you there."

Then she was standing on a carpet of lawn, flooded in a dazzling light. Around her, as if preparing for a picnic on the grass, stood a group of people whom she knew but scarcely recognized. As well as Godfrey and her mother, both looking extremely young, she picked out her father, Arnold, and Godfrey's parents, King Egbert and Queen Eloise. They all looked at her with an expression of indescribable joy, and she moved toward them, smiling.

When she awoke, the memory of the dream was already fading. All that remained was a sense of reassurance and contentment. So that's what it's like to be dead, she thought.

"This road doesn't look right, you cack-bottomed crud!" Jack, as pret commander, said in halting Slobodian.

Simpkins, at the wheel of the truck that bounced through the Slobodian countryside, gave a non-committal grunt.

Throughout the long journey, Jack had been practicing his Slobodian curses in order to sound as normal as possible when greeting peasants. When a flint-faced peasant, staggering under a bulging load of kindling wood, yelled at the occupants of the truck the standard greeting of "you great stinking piles of pig shit!" Jack was able to reply with a nuanced: "You pongy porridge fart in a bucket of barf!"

Now he sat fuming in his metal seat, jolting with the movement of the vehicle, and cast an alarmed glance at the fast-darkening landscape rushing past.

The six prets and their driver bounced and rolled from side to side as the vehicle gained traction. The road in front of them rose and mounted a flat ridge with wind-twisted oaks. Flicking his eyes at the rearview mirror, Simpkins glimpsed the shallow river valley with its rows of beech trees on his right when it should have been on his left.

"Fucking hell, we're going the wrong way," he muttered in Mellorian. The prets remained silent until he brought the vehicle to a screeching halt.

"Which of you fart-fleeing turds is responsible for this cock-up?" the pret commander bellowed, glaring at the sleepy Justin.

"Anton, you were supposed to read the map, dude," Justin bleated.

"I was relying on you to keep watch," Anton lied.

"Then you must both pay a price," Jack said. "Half rations until this rescue is over. Damn, we're going to miss an hour's darkness!"

When they reached the banks of the River Donyev, the truck halted and the prets and their kitbags tumbled out. Leaving Simpkins to find a safe place to wait, they walked through the long grass and slid down the muddy bank. In the shadows at the edge of the river they were safe to continue their march.

The marchers reached a gully and followed it until they came to the mouth of a cement tunnel. As they were expecting, it was smelly and very dark. They stumbled along the tunnel with their flashlights on, splashing their boots in puddles, their uniformed arms occasionally scraping the rough walls.

By the time they reached the end, their eyes were better adjusted to the darkness and in the wavering beams of flashlights they saw a hatch in the roof of the tunnel.

They halted while each member of the group tried to reach up and open the hatch. Prentiss, the tallest, pushed the lid back with trembling fingers as he stood on tiptoe. Then Jack motioned him to make a step with his two hands and crouch. Positioning himself on Prentiss's hands and shoulder, Jack hauled himself through the hatch just as a gush of water, discharging from a flushed toilet somewhere in the palace, flowed over Prentiss's feet.

Jack called for Anton to join him inside the bare room above the hatch and afterwards told the others to leave the tunnel and wait beside the river bank. Then he and Anton swept their flashlights around the room and discovered a door, leading to a corridor with barred doors on either side.

"I'll cover you while you check out the corridor," Jack whispered.

"You'll cover me? Thanks!" Anton said.

"Listen, I'm the GM, and more important to the group," Jack replied with impeccable logic.

Anton grimaced and moved slowly along the corridor. He heard muttered groans from behind several of the barred doors and surmised that they were prisoners.

Poor bastards banged up in their cells, he thought. That used to be me.

Above the muttered grumbles, he heard the clatter of boots from the other end of the corridor and felt a great spasm of fear. He pressed himself against the metal door of a cell and waited, his heart thudding.

The boots belonged to a scowling pret guard holding a food tray who was walking in Anton's direction. Anton pressed himself as flat as he could. The loud hammering in his heart was making his eardrums ache.

Shaking from head to toe and practically sunk into the metal door frame, Anton waited for his inevitable discovery.

It never came. The guard stopped and opened one of the cell doors just before Anton's, too busy gripping his tray with one hand to notice anything in the long dark corridor. As he walked into the cell, Anton heard a very familiar voice and knew he would have to act.

"Not another bloody pig's trotter," Godfrey groaned as the scowling pret guard moved with his food tray toward the small table. "I'll be honking like a pig soon!"

"Be grateful you still have teeth to eat with!" the guard snarled. "If I had my way, they'd all be knocked out of your scumbag mouth – "

There was a quick movement from the door behind him, a solid clunk at the back of the guard's neck and he suddenly pitched forward, the tray dropping from his limp fingers, and fell to the ground.

Godfrey looked, startled, and saw a young pret soldier with a very familiar face, who pointed at him the pistol he had just used to deck the guard.

"Come with me – no talking," he said in bad Slobodian.

"My God, it is you!" Godfrey exclaimed. "What the hell's going on?"

Anton's face broke into a smile and he slipped the pistol back into his holster.

"Get moving, Pops. We're going down the hatch."

Anton spun on his heel and led Godfrey back to the bare room. Shuffling past the cell doors, Godfrey heard the voice of his old adversary, Paul Slamil, uttering a groan of despair.

"Bastard!" he rasped through the barred window.

When they reached the room where Jack was waiting, he gave Godfrey the briefest of nods and bundled Anton down the open manhole. Then he jumped through the hole, leaving Godfrey to wriggle awkwardly through.

He dropped and fell sideways, cursing as he picked himself up from the slimey tunnel floor. He staggered blindly after the two prets, the splashing of boots and the winking of flashlights his only guide. They led him out of the tunnel and into the gully. Soon they were climbing the muddy river bank and heading toward the woods.

Godfrey's heart was thudding and his breath came in labored puffs. More pret soldiers stood waiting for them where the long grass met the forest. Smelling of sewage from the tunnel floor, he marched with the prets who were all in their twenties and moved quickly along. He found himself struggling to keep up.

Eventually they stopped and he leaned gratefully against a tree. Anton passed him a water bottle and he drank deeply, wishing it was brandy.

"I can see lights – they're after us," one of the prets said in heavily-accented Slobodian. "We must go quickly."

Anton took Godfrey's arm, since he was short-winded, and they all pressed on. In a few minutes they had reached the edge of the woods. They looked out from the trees at the rolling plains stretching to the horizon and the narrow snail trail of road.

"Where's the fucking truck?" Anton gasped.

Jack fished in his kitbag for his cell and began texting.

"He'll be here in ten," he rapped shortly afterwards, ever the pret commander. Then he look back the way they had come. "We'll have to climb these trees," he said.

They could see the lights from the approaching search party twinkling in the darkness of the forest.

The pret soldiers and their commander began delving into their kitbags for tree climbing gear, and unrolled throw lines and weights, climbing ropes and harnesses and laid them out on the layer of pine needles that covered the forest floor.

"Don't worry, Pops, I've got a Tree Fox harness and some rope for you," Anton said to Godfrey. "You just have to strap it round your waist and legs."

"Everybody stay nice and quiet. You won't be seen if you keep silent," Jack the pret commander said. "Now go!"

Godfrey rolled the black fabric of the harness around himself and by mimicking what Anton and the others were doing lobbed his throw weight, attached to its snaking line of rope, into the dark tangle of branches at the top of his tree. It was a sturdy pine, and he hoped there would be a fork that he could wedge himself into. When he was sure his rope was securely fastened, he began his ascent. He was amazed at how quickly the others scaled their trees and how high up they were able to nestle.

He hauled himself up, hand over hand, till he found a good enough forking branch to rest in. Now it was just a matter of making himself comfortable while he waited out the minutes. He allowed his body to relax, knowing the cold would stop him falling asleep. In his thin prison uniform he was icy and shivered uncontrollably, shaking the branch he rested on. He hoped it wouldn't be noticeable from the ground. Periodically he heard the hooting of an owl.

Below him, the sound of the search party grew louder. They were heading toward the clump of trees where his group was hiding. Thank God it's so dark, he thought, his teeth chattering.

The search party stopped almost directly under their trees. Flashlight beams swept the branches lower down, and Godfrey could hear the Slobodian curses. Clinging to his fork and resting in his harness, he pressed his feet against the trunk. There was nothing else to do but wait.

Wait and listen for the searchers to tramp away. After five minutes the woods were silent apart from the cries of night creatures. The searchers had gone. One by one the prets and Godfrey slid to the ground and packed away their tackle. Then they set off toward the road. Trundling toward them as they reached it was the truck, with Simpkins at the wheel.

Godfrey smiled and thought of the last time he'd been with Simpkins in Slobodia. This time there were no green helmeted soldiers to blow foul tobacco smoke at them and force vodka down their throats.

It was still dark and there were no more signs of pursuit, so the prets and Godfrey casually climbed aboard the truck, while Simpkins kept the engine on idle. Shifting into gear, he drove the growling vehicle away from the forest and they all settled down for the long ride home.

Chapter 21

### A Massacre Averted

Commander Kossli walked to the door of the café, now commandeered by the army, and stepped outside. It was a crisp autumn day and villagers from the surrounding hovels had been driven by his armed troops into the large dusty square, where they stood crowded together. Brown faces blinked in the freshening wind and the black headscarfs of old women fluttered. Kossli waited until the last of the hovels had been emptied of its occupants, then he stood with a group of his fellow officers, an interpreter by his side.

"You have been told to give up all renegades hiding from their units," he announced. The interpreter shouted out the translation.

"However, no deserters have yet been handed over. Therefore, fifty of you will now be selected for execution."

When the last words had been interpreted, there was a prolonged moan, as if every villager was now expecting to die. Many of them fell to their knees, blessing themselves and wringing their hands in supplication.

"I will make you an offer," Kossli suddenly said, catching the interpreter by surprise. His words were hurriedly translated. "If one scumbag deserter is handed over or hands himself in by ten o'clock, I will delay execution until tomorrow. Then the fifty hostages will be shot at dawn, unless the rest of the miserable curs are returned. This is my final offer."

He looked at his watch. "You have ten minutes to decide."

Troops with assault rifles started pulling out hostages. Men, women, children and two babies in arms were pushed against the wall of the café. The troops lined themselves up about five meters from the hostages and raised their rifles, waiting for the order to fire. Watched by armed guards, the remaining villagers talked frantically among themselves. One of them let out a great cry that echoed across the square.

Kossli and the other officers stood watching and waiting. Minutes passed, then Kossli looked at his watch. He slowly raised his arm, ready to drop it when the minute hand moved.

There was a sudden uproar from the far side of the square. The heroic sound of tenors, high tenors, contraltos and sopranos, their voices ringing out like the flourish of a hundred human trumpets, created a crashing sonic roar. A group of men and women strode onto the square wearing long white gowns that shone like celestial snow. Their loose-sleeved arms stretched out in a welcoming gesture and they sang chords of unsurpassable beauty.

A loose cordon of villagers stepped out from the crowd, linked arms and added their voices to the others in a stinging blast of sound. Villagers, troops and hostages fell back as coruscating waves of music washed over them. Kossli, alarmed, unholstered his pistol and pointed it at the group of singers, who faced him fully and sang out chords of huge volume and passionate joy.

Kossli's eyes bulged. He suddenly thrust the barrel of his pistol into his mouth and, before anyone could act, he fired.

Chapter 22

### Power Without Responsibility

In retaliation for Kossli's death, the Leader of the New World Empire ordered the complete evacuation of the villages of Mania, Cider and Custard and the transfer of their inhabitants to labor camps in Eastern Slobodia. The empty villages were then used to house the construction workers building the Mellorian Fissure Oil Rig, the deepest land oil rig ever constructed.

Cider and Custard lay more or less athwart the Mellorian Fissure at its narrowest point and the way was now open for the construction of the rig, whose derrick would be the strongest ever made, built to turn a drill 9,000 meters underground.

Grant Barstow, the CEO of the Norne Energy Consortium, leaned back in his chair and glowered across the shiny mahogany desk at the image on the giant LED screen. A complete chart had been made of the Mellorian Fissure field. It showed subterranean formations that had never been explored before and the deepest-lying oil ever brought to the surface. By clicking a remote he moved to a plan of the rig. The Fissure well was a new field wildcat, with less rock to drill through but a much deeper pay zone and had the advantage of a free passage until the deep-earth drilling began, allowing deeper penetration into the earth with less difficulty and expense.

The latter was important to Barstow, whose financial backers included, as well as the Leader of the New World Empire, a scion of the Rothschild banking dynasty, a former dealmaker at Goldman Sachs and two Turkish tycoons with an interest in deep-earth oil fields. From offices in Mayfair, London, he had put together the Norne Consortium to exploit this untested field with an explosively lucrative potential, and on the London stock market the company was already worth three billion dollars.

For Barstow, Norne was more than a business opportunity. It was his ticket of salvation, a venture that – if it succeeded – would finally plug the divorce drain. His divorce discussions with his estranged wife, Silwa Yarch, conducted through their attorneys, had reached boiling point. After a year of wrangling, she was at last ready to discuss the terms of a settlement. She basically wanted everything he had – for herself and her twelve-year-old daughter, Anesthesia. She asked for the obvious things – those he had been prepared to concede – like the beach house in Malibu. But she was also asking for things like the BP stock he had acquired during the marriage, and even his twenty-meter long Princess yacht, moored in St Tropez. He felt he was being raped.

He also knew he would have to cut her a deal. Months of negotiations between the lawyers had already racked up expensive bills, but a fight to the finish in court would be infinitely more expensive and would happen at the worst possible time, now that he was heavily invested in the Fissure Well. If he signed the proposed agreement, all he would have to do was pay and walk away. With Norne stock riding high and prospects for the Fissure so good, he could afford it. His relationship with Silwa was in the toilet, with all hope of reconciliation destroyed, so all he wanted was to find the door and leave.

The question was whether she would sign. Weeks of hammering out details seemed to consume so much of his waking time. If she didn't agree this time, they'd have to take it to court. Worse than being gouged by legal fees, a trial would mean another year of fighting at the minimum. A trial would determine whether he was out on the rig, sleeves rolled up, with his well manager or pleading for justice in some courtroom basement.

Every day he contacted his lawyer and was told things were moving along. Yes, fees are moving along, he thought, but where the fuck is the deal? The apprehension he felt was like that of an oilman waiting for the borehole to blow, signifying that oil could now be tapped. Waves of anger periodically barreled through him and he lived on the antidepressants that his lightly-regulated Slobodian doctor prescribed.

In the middle of his turmoil, Barstow was preparing for a lightning visit from the Leader, who would want to see everything in fine detail: the estimation of boring required before oil gushed, and how long it would take. He had to steel himself to stay calm and focus on the presentation.

He already had his words rehearsed: The amount of boring is small. Here you have all the benefits of an offshore well with none of the logistical costs. Diamond core drilling, with thinner rods and casing than was normally used, will permit the hole to continue past the usual parameters. The layer of bedrock to be drilled is, according to Dr Majnun, quite thin, so the hole won't have to be reamed too often.

The 'free air' bonus of the Fissure means you have a borehole with a large constant diameter. There are less deviations of the hole because of less refraction and fewer rock layers. Only one well needs to be drilled from the surface location – in all, a simple, though very large, operation. He hoped the Leader would be impressed.

The Leader was fighting for his honor. Filled with anger at Godfrey's escape and Kossli's needless death, he had allowed himself to be pinned to the wall of his fencing lodge by the long, sharp-pointed epee of Yorgen Bueller, the newly-appointed Supreme Commander of the Slobodian Forces in Melloria. He held up his sword hand and conceded defeat. It marked the end of the first bout of a three-bout fencing match that Royston had challenged Bueller to fight. The challenge had been accepted. Bueller was a bullet-headed man, big and stocky and in his early fifties. Generally acknowledged to be a bully and a hothead, he had bludgeoned out his rivals to reach the top position in the Slobodian army, and now he held the late Commander Kossli's post.

Bueller's initial tactic was to stand his ground, tensely waiting for his opponent to make a move, then use his bulk and sheer force, plus the experience of fighting he had gleaned during his life, to win the bout. It had worked the first time.

As always, Royston began his game with a minute of quiet thoughtfulness. During this time of pure reflection he cleared his mind of anger and thought like a chess master of moves he would make, weaknesses he would exploit and errors he would take advantage of. He planned to outwit the lumbering Bueller and with extreme speed and agility, go in for the point.

Under his sleek white body suit, Royston's heart beat with a steady, even measure. His mind insisted on it. His philosophy of the Superior Man dictated that he embody the acquired giftedness of the best, relative to ordinary men, within himself as well as without. Heroes like himself, the creators and producers of useful new products and ideas, were to be judged by what they made or did, not by their station or native rank, however elevated.

Both men were in the en garde position: one foot forward facing the opponent, one foot behind and perpendicular to the other, hands in soft leather gloves gripping the large hand guards of their epees, staring through black face screens at each other's helmeted head. The weapons they were using were sharp enough to slice hands from wrists, heads from necks.

Royston knew that, being the slimmer and fitter of the two men, he offered the narrowest target. He knew that when Bueller lumbered forward, he would jump back; when he darted forward, Bueller would lurch back. It was brute force versus speed and agility, but more – it was the blundering belligerence of a bull versus the surging aggressiveness of a tiger.

They charged and poked at each other, testing each other for weakness. Bueller rolled his wrist to the left, blocking his opponent's sword and stabbing into Royston's chest with a straight punching movement like a boxer's. Thwarted by the thick padding of the other's chest guard,

he then backed off, allowing Royston to recover and lunge, scraping the side of Bueller's bucket-sized helmet. Afterwards they four parried and six parried, to left and right. Royston was vicious as well as energized, his sword a constant presence in Bueller's face.

The bout had already lasted five minutes and Bueller was tiring rapidly, flailing his sword at Royston's. The older man, stocky and well-rounded, was a natural epee fighter, a heavyweight boxer to Royston's bantam, but by now his movements were labored, whereas Royston still possessed the jump-lunge-recover of a freshly-girded athlete.

Parrying Bueller's thrust against his padded vest, he rolled the other's sword away, as if he had wrapped a whip around the man's wrist and pulled it aside, taking the sword hand with it. Then he deftly flicked his blade and brought it to rest against Bueller's throat. Second bout to Royston.

Royston's energetic surges had come with a price. His thighs were burning and his arm holding the epee ached royally. He knew he would have to finish this bout off quickly if his honor as a swordsman were to stay intact. Once more the two men took up the en garde stance. One foot forward, one foot behind, the sword pointed outward and the other arm held in the air for balance.

Bueller advanced, lunged and recovered. Royston jumped, parried and lunged. Suddenly Bueller tried to club Royston's weapon aside with a clumsy sweep. Royston recovered, catching the burly commander off-guard and, as before, deftly flicking his blade against Bueller's throat.

"My game, I think, Commander," he said.

Chapter 23

### The Rovers' Return

Godfrey arrived at Porcellan Palace dressed in stinking prison garb and singing beer-drinking songs with six role-players in the back of a truck. As it was the middle of the night, there was no welcome party other than the palace security guards and a butler who had been detailed to stay up and show Godfrey to his bedchamber. When he had gone and the six LARPers had dismissed Simpkins and the truck, they trooped into the drawing room for late-night coffee and stayed until the early hours discussing the rescue operation and how many points each member would have collected, had it been a role-play. Then they climbed into cars waiting in the forecourt and drove off.

The next morning Letitia woke up in her splendidly outfitted bedchamber and had a burst of inspiration. After sending thank you letters to Mary and Agatha, the two former courtiers who had alerted her rescuers to her whereabouts, she had begun to hatch a plan to deal with the sad,

neglected state of her villa and its beloved garden, left untended since she and Godfrey had hared off to fight the Slobodian invaders. Before their departure, she had left notes for Charlene, her daily help, and for Daylight, her highly unreliable handyman, hoping that they would at least keep the place locked and clean. Now she realized exactly what she must do – allow Cathy and Lucy to stay at the villa with the kids and Betty until she and Godfrey were able to return. It was the perfect solution to her worries, though God knew how long it would take for Godfrey to make up his mind that resisting the Slobodians was a lost cause.

She was so pleased with herself that she turned her thoughts away from the villa in Tobago and dozed off. She opened her eyes an hour later, just as the phone on her nightstand began to ring. She lifted the receiver drowsily and heard Godfrey's welcome mellow tones informing her that he was in a bedchamber just down the corridor from hers.

"Oh my God, you're back!" was all she could say. "Thank God, you're back!"

Making light of his recent ordeals, he replied: "Now that I am, we'll have to think of something we can give Cathy and Lucy for their wedding."

"I already have!" Letitia trilled. "They're having the villa for as long as we're away."

While Letitia and Godfrey were catching up on each other's news, below the French doors of their bedchambers Queen Ada jogged across the Porcellan Palace forecourt. Wearing shorts and a sports bra, she pummeled her designer Nikes on the gravel, trying to inure herself to the chilly October morning. Her longish silver-blond hair streamed in the early breeze and her river-blue eyes streamed in the cold. As her feet hit the dirt, she felt her leg muscles twitch and her heart pump in a wholly satisfactory manner. Her nose may have been dribbling mucus, but at least she was keeping trim. One of the maids, out walking a brace of frisky springers, waved at her as she jogged past. Automatically she waved back. God, what a joy to live in a democratic monarchy like Bulimia and not a stuffy one, she thought. In Melloria before the invasion that maid would have had to pull up the dogs and curtsey.

Chapter 24

### The Raw Recruits

Owing to the continuing disappearance of young private soldiers and NCOs into the caves of the Lupus Valley gorge, coupled with the need for laborers to build and roughnecks to work the Mellorian Fissure oil rig, raw recruits were being pulled off the streets of Slobodian towns and cities and put to work.

A group of unwilling conscripts stood in ragged formation outside a concrete bunkhouse in the deserted village of Custard. Chilly, dusty blasts of air tugged at their sweatshirts and jeans as an overseer with a clipboard rattled out their first instructions.

"When I call the roll, you will remember your new work names – or else. Your work name is your given name followed by your serial number. When your name is called, you will go into the building behind you and claim your bunk. Further instructions will be given when you are all inside. Lev 2867, Andre 7709..."

Lev looked at the man standing next to him and then down at his dogtag hanging from his neck. The other man looked at his, shrugged, and they both shuffled into the bunkhouse. Lev noticed above the door through which they passed a small brass plate bearing an old Mellorian proverb:

When you think you can't go on,   
From somewhere a little light is shone.

The cold stone floor echoed to the sound of more boots as recruits trooped in after Lev and Andre. Lev swept his pessimistic eyes over the concrete walls, striated with carved grafitti, the concrete ceiling with its single light bulb and the bunks, arranged in tiers of three. His bunk was on the top tier, Andre's one bunk below.

"What a fucking dump!" Andre said, slinging his kitbag onto his bunk.

Lev agreed. His bunk was a standard army bunk, strung with wire netting, with a bulky bedroll containing the promise of a thin foam mattress, blanket and stone-hard pillow.

"Welcome to your new abode," the overseer said, after the last recruit had stumbled inside.

"Notice how your bedroll is stowed before you unroll it. It will be left in that position every morning when you get up and remain there at all times, except for the few hours you will be asleep. Your lockers are at the far end of the dorm, each has your serial number. Claim yours and use it to keep your pitiful possessions in, and nowhere else. Lights out in twenty minutes. Getting up time is five a.m. Okay, that's it."

He turned on his heel and slammed the door behind him.

"Christ, what a place!" Andre said.

The gray, barely-lit dorm resounded to similar utterances as recruits opened their bedrolls and spread thin blankets over their mattresses.

"You got any smokes?" Lev asked Andre while they were stowing their kitbags in their lockers.

"Hope springs eternal, don't it?" Andre replied. "Nah, I had mine taken off me when a bunch of prets rolled me in a back alley in Slovograd."

"You from Slovograd, then? I'm from Slovonka."

"I used to live there, before they turned our street into a billet for them fucking Mellorian scumbags."

"Don't I know it! Our house was the only one not turned into a smelly slum."

"Fucking piles of pigshit!"

A dreary chill settled on the dorm after the single light bulb dimmed and went out.

"Oh well, better get some shut-eye, I suppose," Lev said, after Andre's last curse. "God knows what tomorrow will bring."

Chapter 25

### A Happy Couple

Princess Hernia was lying on her side of the bed with earbuds and a weepy scowl. She was still in the throes of her zombie deadgirl look and wore see-thru black lingerie over black tights and a black mini, while her forearms were bound in dark gray bandages as if she'd been caught slitting her wrists in a coal mine. Her hair was wild and mussed and her lips bled a fetching shade of putrefaction puce.

"Hey Hern, wassup?" Anton said, breezing in and slamming the door. She pulled out the earbuds and he heard something like the insistent thumping of Uprising before she switched off the player.

"Back already?" she yawned. "I thought it would take all day for Cathy to pick out his morning suit."

He shrugged. "It didn't take long. Cathy was okay with the standard rig, and now the ushers are all suited up as well. What you doing?"

"I'm freaking crying, can't you see?" she said, upturning her face so he could see the long black streaks from her eyes to the corners of her mouth. "

"I didn't know you were that affected by weddings," he said stupidly.

"It's not the wedding, you dumbass – Robert Pattinson is still with that skank, K-Stew! When's he gonna leave her?"

"When she kicks him to the curb," Anton replied flatly. He was in the grip of a vicious Kristen Stewart crush and had slathered the wall on his side of the master bedchamber with posters of Kristen in various stages of undress, as well as high-fashion shots from Vogue.

He sat on his side of the king and began glaring at his BlackBerry, incredulously reading tweets that disparaged his beloved. He suddenly blurted out:

"I'd like to say to those trolls that slag off Kristen Stewart: 'Hey, any of you driving down Sunset in a Lamborghini open-top with your agent on speaker telling you you've just landed the lead in the next remake of Anna Karenina (called Anna, Don't Take The Train)?' I don't think so, bitches! Why don't you all crawl back in your sad little bedrooms and lambast Li-Lo?"

Hernia, who had been directing her mopy eyes at the poster of a near-naked Robert Pattinson on her wall, wheeled around and bawled: "Shut the fuck up!"

"Listen," Anton spluttered, his face flushed, "Kristen Stewart's got more acting talent in one of her split ends than Pattinson has in the whole of his pumped-up body."

"She'd be nothing without Pattiz," Hernia snorted.

"Bollocks! Pattinson's just arm candy – Kristen needs him like a homeless person needs fresh air!"

As quickly as the spat between them had flared up, it petered out. Anton switched off his smart phone and sat gazing at the watch on his wrist. To the point where he attracted Hernia's attention.

"What's that weird shit?" she said, and made a grab for his wrist. He feebly allowed her to unclasp the watch.

"Dunno, I nicked it off of Cathy years ago when he was a big baby. He's got better since he's been with Lucinda." He looked at her scrutinizing the watch. "Anyway, you're welcome to it."

"All right," she said, tossing it on her cluttered nightstand. "I like to collect weird stuff."

Anton looked up at Hernia's wall. Next to the Pattinson poster a large map was festooned with miniature flags.

"Are those all the countries you've been to?" he asked.

She flicked a glance at the map. "Nah, they're countries where all the guys I've shagged come from. One day I'll have shagged someone from every country – then I'll start on older guys and work my way down to their sons."

Anton was beginning to wish he hadn't asked about the flags.

"It's better to shag older men when you're young and younger men when you're older," she said philosophically.

"But you're gonna make an exception for me, though, right?" He felt he should at least test his luck.

"Yuck, I'm never gonna shag you again, zitboy! You can have your watch back if that's what you're thinking."

Anton touched his face with concern.

"You keep it," he said, preoccupied now with his acne. "Never could tell the time with it."

"Don't take it personal," she soothed.

She indicated her image in the dressing-table mirror.

"Look at my face! It's pockmarked, pitted, ravaged. It's got more holes than Swiss cheese, more craters than the moon. I've got a mole there," she showed him, "and zits worse than yours. I'm as ugly as a dog's ass. I need better make-up and a boob job."

Anton looked at her warily and tried to change the subject.

"Want to go for a walk?" he said. "Get some air."

"I can open a window if I want some air," she sneered.

"Exercise then."

"Exercise? You must be kidding. Shaving my legs is all the exercise I want."

Anton sighed. He'd run out of things to say.

"You can take a walk to the kennels if you want a stroll," she said. "Say hello to the family pooches. There's Dad's springers, Mum's King Charles spaniels and of course poor old Twinkle."

"What about your dog?"

"You mean my pit bull, Anthrax? He died of a broken heart – just like I will if Pattiz doesn't break with K-Stew."

"Yeah, I agree," he said. "She can do way better for herself."

"Fancy some popcorn?" she said suddenly. "I got salted, buttered, white cheddar, caramel, pink candy, worm-flavored..?"

He shook his head, but she got up and went to the microwave anyway. She filled a dish with popping corn.

"My parents should get divorced," she said, and powered the microwave. "They're so incompatible. Mum's such a snide and Dad's a complete asshole."

She came back and sat down on her side of the bed.

"Mum's been coming in here since you were away. She just sits on the bed, jabbering. She brings a plate of peanut butter cookies with her, as if that's what I want. Oh yah, Mum, make me fat and bore my clit off!"

He winced at the thought of his wife clitless.

"How do you get her to go when she gets too boring?"

"I usually offer to show her my vajazzle."

He winced again, and she smiled.

"Hey, you gotta use what you got."

"So basically you gross her out."

"Yah. Why do I gross you out?"

He looked at her, wondering whether to say what was on his mind and not worry about her reponse.

"No, I quite fancy you."

From the microwave came the exposive burst of popcorn, and its urgent smell. She took out the bowl in her black lace gloves, doused it in fake butter and set it on the bed. Taking a handful, she motioned for him to do likewise.

They crunched hearty mouthfuls.

"How did you nick the watch off your brother?" she said.

"Well, I asked him nicely for it, cuz I wanted it. You know what a spaz he is... Well the mong started mouthing off about personal possessions, so I decked him and liberated it. I had a couple of mates with me, and one sat on his head while the other kicked him in the goolies. After that, he was glad to give me the watch."

"You're tough," she said with heavy sarcasm.

"Don't be a bitch – it was for his own good. He needed toughening up. Like I said, since Lucy walked into his life he's improved."

"So you and your mates beat up your brother just to get his watch. Did you do him more than once?"

"Did we ever!" Anton was now in reminiscing mode. "Once in the middle of Constipation Square we caught him recording bird noises, and we took off his pants, shoes and socks. We tied the pant legs together in a big knot and tossed 'em over a lamppost. Then we tied the laces of his brothel creepers together and chucked 'em over a telephone pole, really high up. They were dangling from the cable for weeks."

"What did you do with his socks?"

"Stuffed 'em in his mouth."

She giggled and filled her mouth with popcorn.

"Did you make him cry?"

"Cry? He was bawling his eyes out. He had snot all over his face. He was such a wuss we didn't even bother to do him over. We just let him crawl back to the palace in his underpants."

"You're evil. Didn't your dad ever spank you?"

"Yeah, loads of times. He used to take me to his study, pull my pants down and make me bend over his desk. Then he'd whip me with his great thick bullhide belt. I wouldn't have minded so much, but he always hit me with the buckle end."

"God, you Gorms are such sadists."

She finished off the popcorn with one huge gulp and went off to make some more.

"Dad's all right, just an old fart. He used to take Cathy and me out hunting and shooting. In late August we'd use beagles to flush out the pheasants so we could bag 'em with our Remingtons, and later in the fall we'd go deer hunting in the forest. Dad knew a clearing where the deer came to feed, and he'd drop little piles of salt on the ground. Then we'd wait for some unsuspecting buck or doe to start licking."

"Did you kill them?"

He slumped his body onto the bed and laughed.

"No, we took 'em home and fed 'em cornflakes! Of course we fucking killed 'em. That's what men do in royal families. Women , too – if they're not too dainty."

"Is your mum dainty?"

"Is she hell. She's as tough as old boots. She doesn't hunt or shoot, though. Her favorite hobbies are laying in bed reading the gossip columns and sitting in her garden."

"God, that's so typical. It's like my mum – she wants Dad to take her to Vegas."

He propped himself up on one elbow and looked at the wall map.

"Let's see...so far you've shagged someone from most of the European countries, Nigeria, Malaysia, Chile..." He stopped at a flag he didn't recognize.

"I get around," she said. "I get to meet guys from lots of countries. Every time a new ambassador is presented at court, I check him out to see if it's worth giving him a seeing-to. Then there were the dudes I met when I was at finishing school in Switzerland. It all adds up."

She went to the microwave to retrieve the fresh batch of popcorn. Soon they were both dipping their hands in the bowl.

"What flavor's this popcorn?" he asked. He tried to identify the pulp he was chewing.

"Toe jam."

Wishing he hadn't asked, he leaned over while she was eating and dropped the ball of pulp under the bed.

"We had a weird Nigerian ambassador once," he said, reminiscing again. "He was creepy and kept showing up at the palace with strange gifts. Once he brought Cathy a monkey."

"I'd like to have had a monkey," she said. "I'd have dressed it up in a tux and let it loose at the next state banquet."

"This one was an ugly little runt," Anton persisted. "Even Cathy didn't like it and he's an animal nut. When a servant took it out of its box, it looked more dead than alive. Didn't blink or move a muscle. It was all shriveled and quivery and smelled like an old snotrag. The servants kept it alive on seeds and dried fruit mixed with yoghurt on a spoon."

"I'd have fed it bugs and worms and dead mice. Did you keep it in a cage?"

He laughed again and rolled over on his side, facing her.

"We're not like you Bulimians, we're not animal lovers – apart from Cathy. It was kept in the servants' quarters, on Mum's orders. Whenever Mum and Dad were away though, Cathy would walk around the palace with the brute on his shoulder, pretending to be a pirate. One day it escaped and got run over by a lawnmower. The head gardener never did like animals."

"It's a wonder any animals survived at Calliper."

"Well, the beagles are pretty hardy – they'd take some getting rid of."

"What about horses? Do you like riding?"

"A bit. Cathy's the naglover. Even when he was little you couldn't drag him away from the stables. That's how he came to meet Lucy."

Hernia gave him a provocative nudge.

"She's gonna be you sister-in-law soon."

He rose to the bait.

"I preferred it when Candyass was my sister-in-law."

"Don't call my dead sister that!"

She began hitting him with her fists. He turned his back to her as the blows rained down.

"She was so pretty," he cooed. "So pretty you could use her shit for toothpaste."

She struck his back, again and again, till he began to wheeze.

"So pretty you could use her pubic hairs for dental floss!"

He yelped and twisted his body to avoid the hammering blows.

Finally he turned to face her and grappled with her, holding her wrists. They writhed briefly on the bed.

Exhausted, Hernia relaxed into his arms and looked him in the face.

"Wanna do it now?" she said, out of breath.

"Yeah, I'm panting with desire for you," he lied, though he was feeling horny.

"Okay," she said. "Stand up and take your kit off. It's been a while since I've seen your bits."

He rolled off the bed and fumbled with his belt. He was suddenly aware of his chubby, soft hips and thighs. His belly had bloated since he had become a LARPer - too many brews, he thought. And he was pigeon-toed, a family trait he wasn't proud of. He pulled off his shoes and socks, hoping she wouldn't notice his splayed feet.

She watched him struggling with his clothes, grew bored, and pulled him back on the bed beside her. She unbuckled his belt and undid his pants. She worked them over his thighs, knees and ankles and let them fall. Next she pried a finger under the elastic of his Y-fronts.

"Just checking to make sure you haven't come in your drawers."

"Cheeky cow! I can hold it longer than that."

Feeling vulnerable now that he was naked, he crawled under the bedcovers while she did a striptease for him, easing off her lacy black top and unwinding layers of black lace netting from around her mini. She slowly unrolled meters of gray cloth from her wrists, shucked off the tiny skirt and peeled off her tights. She hooked her thong in her thumbs and wriggled out of it.

"Nice vajazzle," he said.

"Thanks. And now it's time for Mr Rubber." She took a peek under the bedcovers, went to the nightstand and brought back a condom. She peeled off the bedcover, and he began stroking her while she went to work. She allowed him to cup her tiny breasts.

"At least my nipples are erect," she said.

"Want me to rub baby oil on 'em?"

"What's the point? Won't make 'em any bigger, will it? You just keep still while I skin you up."

She positioned the rubber and stretched it above his erection. Then she eased it slowly on.

"Let me know if this hurts," she said and suddenly let go of the rim. There was a loud twang and Anton let out a yell that would have curdled milk.

"Sorry," she said.

"My fucking manhood!"

"I said I was sorry."

"Oh well, guess I'll never sing baritone again."

"You Gorms are so weird."

He got himself into position and they pushed against each other hard. He was convinced he was there, but she shook her head.

"I think you better let me help you or we'll be here all day," she said and guided him securely in. At first he was hesitant, having been out of practice for so long, but she encouraged him to loosen up and get rougher, more the way she liked it.

The bed rattled and bounced, and several loose objects fell off the nightstand.

In the room directly below, King Hector and Queen Ada were having a cream tea. As the rhythmic bumping from the ceiling reached its climax, they exchanged satisfied glances.

"The children seem to be getting along nicely, don't they?" Ada said, biting into a scone beneath the clinking chandelier.

"Uh-huh," Hector replied, his mouth filled with clotted cream.

"Yes. I always think they're such a happy couple," she said.

Chapter 26

### The Fairy Tale Wedding

When it took place one fine April day, the ceremony between Prince Catheter, the former Crown Prince of Melloria, and Miss Lucinda Limehouse-Blewit was a decidedly low-key affair. There was no euphoria in the air on the day they were twinned, no cheering crowds packing the pavements, frenetically waving flags and screaming adoration. The sun shone, the abbey was made ready, the guests attended, the ceremony was held, and that was it.

Despite her nervousness at the solemn occasion, Lucinda was reassured by Catheter's constant fussing over every detail and his presence, steady and dependable if a little stuffy, at every stage of the lead-up. The officiating clergyman, Archbishop Larry Lepager, was an absolute rock: inclining his head to offer words of encouragement when she stumbled over the recitation of the vows and after the ceremony steering one of the pageboys, four-year-old Angus, away from a collision with one of the horses in the horse-drawn carriage outside the abbey.

The day passed in a kind of delirium for the bride and groom, in spite of the lack of fanfare. After their return to Porcellan Palace past a ragged line of onlookers, they joined King Hector and Queen Ada, King Godfrey and Queen Letitia (their titles restored for the day), King Craig and Sharon the Mother Queen, Prince Anton and Princess Hernia on one of the balconies for a waving session at the lackluster crowd below. Group photographs followed, and at the going away, in an open carriage trailing plastic bones and skulls courtesy of Anton and Hernia, people lining the route were encouraged to wave their little Mellorian and Bulimian flags and throw confetti from the little boxes they had been given by overenthusiastic stewards.

Catheter and Lucinda spent the first night of their honeymoon at the Lattis's lakeside retreat on the Sea of Slobodia, sleeping in the same bed that Hector and Ada had used on their honeymoon. Then they flew to Tobago to stay at Godfrey and Letitia's villa, along with Betty and the two children. Honeymooning with one's kids in a borrowed villa belonging to one's in-laws is not a romantic experience, Lucinda thought on her first night in the villa, but the harsh economic conditions justify it.

Their intimate dinners by candlelight were held indoors, in the cramped kitchen with dirty dishes in the sink, as Lucinda was allergic to mosquitos. Their occasional forays to the beach were blighted by extremely windy weather. By day Catheter dallied with his recorder, more in love with the taping and editing of bird calls than with the company of his new wife. For her part, Lucinda found the only viable riding stable on the island, and spent many hours trekking through old plantations, down quiet country lanes and across sandy beaches with other horsey tourists. Betty was left to cope with the two infants, and did so with gusto.

After two weeks they returned to Bulimia. The imbalance between living the empty life of a tourist and plunging back into projects, Catheter's being sound engineering and politics and Lucinda's managing her newly-established riding stable, tipped the scale. Added to which, Lucinda missed her splotchy gray mare and Angus was missing his preschool. Rhiannon and Betty were simply glad to be back in a spacious playroom.

Lucinda was able to report to Letitia that her villa and garden were in fine shape and were being adequately looked after by Charlene, the daily help, and Daylight Jones, the unhandy handyman.

Letitia was reassured, up to a point, and reconciled herself to waiting out her time in Bulimia until Godfrey came to his senses. Godfrey, who quickly regained his physical stamina on the diet of quail chasseur, truffles and boar bourguignon offered at Porcellan Palace, continued to be haunted by images of the brutality he had witnessed, especially Royston's savage thrashing of Marika Strechnik. He burned with the desire to topple Royston's New World Empire, or at least drive the Slobodians out of his beloved Melloria.

He began to consort with Catheter's political friends and sit in on their meetings. These were held at Catheter and Lucinda's new home. Before their wedding, they had lived in a suite of rooms at Porcellan Palace, but now they resided in a lakeside house located just inside the Bulimian border with Slobodia. The house, a wedding gift from King Hector and Queen Ada, had a lawn sloping down to the shore where a wharf and a boathouse allowed Catheter to take visitors waterskiing in the summer, and stables at the rear of the house catered to Lucinda's passion for horses.

Inside its cozy living room, furnished in browns and creams with a pitch-pine floor, Godfrey sat in a chocolate faux-leather armchair and listened to an army high-up from the joint staff council and a junior defense minister discussing the 'Mellorian situation'.

"Well, the Mellorian defense seems to have swung into its second phase," the five-spar general said.

"Yes, the 'disappearing locals' effect is beginning to bite," the defense minister agreed.

"You bet. Downtown Melloria City is like a graveyard at night, with virtually every club and bar closed. Wandering groups of Slobodian soldiers are like zombies – all dressed down and nowhere to go."

"Where the hell have all the locals gone?" Godfrey said, his brows furrowed.

"A mass exodus into the countryside, I believe," the general said. "Passive resistance is the essence of this strategy. All people who are able-bodied withdraw themselves and their labor from areas where the occupying forces need them, forcing the Slobodian army to take over their functions, just to keep the country and their own military machine running."

The living room door opened and Catheter strolled in from the kitchen, followed by Lucinda carrying a tray of wine glasses and nibbles. Catheter slid into a walnut recliner and Lucy placed a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon on the coffee table before each of the seated men. She left a bowl of nachos and a salsa dip on the table before departing back to the kitchen.

"Is old General Polk telling you about our people's noncompliance, Dad?"

The question was casually directed at Godfrey, and Catheter sipped a glass of wine while his father replied.

"I'm still not sure what the general and the minister are talking about," Godfrey said. He seized his glass and drank a large mouthful. "In all my years as King, I never came across any mention of people deserting their posts during an invasion, even a Slobodian one."

"It's something the government decided on after you and Mummy left us for Tobago," Catheter said. "Lucy may have mentioned it in one of her letters."

"Well, your mother never told me!" Godfrey thundered. "If she had, I would have said the government had gone stark raving mad."

"I think it's a rather neat solution, actually," the defense minister said after sampling his Sauvignon. "The invaders will seize food and other necessities at first, but as the supply chain peters out and electricity plants shut down because of lack of demand, the soldiers will be left to do all the work themselves, including supplying electricity. They'll be too busy doing civilian work to keep up with their military skills – and that'll be bad for morale."

"But what if the army – led by the prets, of course – simply round up all the locals they can find and force them to work at gunpoint – like the Nazis did in World War II with their slave labor force?"

General Polk and the defense minister laughed spontaneously.

"Those slave laborers were culturally trained to obey authority, especially when it was backed up by guns," the general said. "As you know, Godfrey, your blessed Mellorians are such ornery cusses that it would take one armed trooper for each Mellorian to force them to work."

"Therefore any slave labor operation would need to have as many guards as workers. It would be a one-on-one work camp – and it just wouldn't work!" the minister added.

Godfrey drank more wine and began to chuckle.

"I don't think Royston – sorry, the Leader – is happy about his beloved army being turned into a civilian workforce by our own dear scumbags!"

The general and the minister roared with laughter. Catheter frowned.

"If the civilians are all going on strike and moving into the country, who's going to feed them?"

Catheter's question put a stop to the laughter.

"I suppose the country people will," the minister said hesitantly. "But you're right, it does mean extra mouths to feed."

" And if the civilians starve, because there aren't enough resources to go around, then they'll be doing the work of the Leader anyway – it's Malthusian. After all, he wants to kill off all the Mellorians, so he can repopulate Greater Slobodia with his own people."

Catheter's somber words lowered the mood almost as effectively as a dimmer switch darkening a brightly-lit room.

Godfrey swirled the last of his wine around in his glass. He was thinking pretty much the same as the other guests: Why is Catheter such a downer?

Chapter 27

### Letitia Unwound

Letitia was thinking that Catheter's mood was becoming increasingly somber. Ever since the assassination of Dawna, his first wife, he had suffered periodic mood swings and his early euphoria at being reunited with Lucinda had dissipated into a carping crabbiness that nobody wanted to be around.

She decided to broach the subject while sitting in Ada's bedchamber, chatting over a glass of sherry. Ada, seated at her dressing-table and preparing for her afternoon bridge party, allowed the former queen to bend her ear while she dabbed on foundation cream.

"He's always been a bit of a wet blanket. Even as a child he was the family Eeyore, forever predicting when things would go wrong and looking forward to having a miserable time of it whenever we went out somewhere."

"You ought to send him along to the bridge club, Lettie," Ada suddenly remarked. "There's a marvellous man who does psychotherapy with depressive people – he's also a Buddhist who plays bridge."

Letitia wrinkled her brow, trying to recollect what little she knew of Buddhists.

"Aren't Buddhists the gloomy ones who are always going on about pain and suffering? As if there wasn't enough in the world already!"

Ada laughed.

"What I really want to know is where Cathy's misery comes from," she persisted. "It couldn't have been his upbringing, because that was exemplary."

"Why not look in the palace archive?" Ada said. "You could take a peek this afternoon – I guarantee you'll find a file on Catheter that tells you all you want to know."

Jesus, they've even got an archive here, Letitia thought. I wonder what it says in my file?

"Yes, that would be very helpful," she said.

In the cool of the archive room, Letitia gazed at the rows of shelves crammed with manilla folders. The archivist, a thin, pinched-faced woman in beige and oatmeal, had offered to set her up at one of the banks of computers to peruse Catheter's file digitally, but had been firmly told that the former queen didn't do computers and preferred to see a paper file. Now she was reaching for one of the folders on a high shelf, while Letitia watched from beside the woman's short ladder.

Letitia took the file to a nearby desk and sat with her son's report in front of her. She knew it would be painful to read, remembering Catheter's difficult birth and troubled early childhood. His love of sound recording was his only source of comfort, ever since his father decided he was incapable of coping with the child's emotional needs and took little part in his upbringing, except to chastise and impose strict discipline. He deemed it was necessary for the heir apparent, and set harsh tasks which Catheter struggled to perform.

When she turned the first page, Letitia read about the first of these. Godfrey had insisted, when Catheter was learning to use the high-diving board at the palace pool, that he climb to the highest board at his first attempt and jump from it. The boy was traumatized.

I don't recall that incident, Letitia thought, although it's strange that Cathy has always had a fear of heights. She plunged into the report.

'Catheter was sent to kindergarten, and then to grade school for a year to learn basic literacy and numeracy before being dispatched to a tutor. Tradition dictated that the heir to the throne receive private tuition. After a few months, Catheter's tutor left in disgrace. The reason for his dismissal was not made public. It occurred when Catheter, bent over his grammer exercises, looked up to see the tutor standing in front of him. Their eyes met and the tutor grasped Catheter's free hand. He pulled it between his own trousered legs and pressed tightly until the boy felt the bulge under the man's flies. He had no idea how to react, other than with shocked acquiescence. He was made to fondle the erection until the tutor ejaculated. After a few moments, the tutor zipped up his fly and continued teaching the irregular past participle.

'After the incident, Catheter became extremely nervous. He didn't tell anyone what had happened, fearing that it would arouse his mother's agitation and his father's accusation that he must have done something to encourage the abuse. He was also scared his parents would use the incident to have him packed off to boarding school.'

Oh how silly, Letitia thought. Catheter knew we were sending him to boarding school anyway, regardless of the business with the tutor. She read on.

'The turor was caught fondling another of his pupils by a servant and the truth came out. He was dismissed, and Catheter was sent to a preparatory school in Surrey, England, an education deemed necessary for his upbringing.

'Catheter confided to a servant: "They just want to send me there to get me out of the way," and was sullen all the way to the airport. He hated having to live so far from home, but what hurt him the most was that neither parent came to see him off.'

Oh, what nonsense, he was seven years old – quite big enough to travel on his own, Letitia silently commented.

'After a year of misery and bullying at school, Catheter received his first communication from his mother – a letter telling him some of his toys had been given away for charity. His father wrote him at irregular intervals and in every letter harped on the theme of doing his duty and remembering his role as future king. Deeply hurt by his parents' neglect, Catheter kept a stiff upper lip, wrote formal replies and secretly stewed in hatred and misery.

"I'll show them," he swore, and applied himself to his studies so that he won a place at Malborough.

'What followed was five years of unmitigated hell. He hated the public boarding school even more than the prep school, and continued to be bullied unmercifully. The holidays brought little relief: the family summered in Bulimia where his second cousins, later joined by his brother Anton, ganged up on him. They tormented him until he had a tantrum. He preferred to play by himself with his tape recorder, than to be the butt of the other children's rough games.

'After graduating from Malborough, he went back home to wait for the Oxford University term to begin. He read mathematics at university where he didn't shine, made no lasting friends and barely scraped a third.'

Letitia sniffed back a tear. Oh, I remember the shame of it! A second would have been so much more honorable.

'In his final year at Oxford, he informed his father in a brief note that he intended to become a sound engineer. His father's reply, by express delivery, told him that if he did any such thing he'd earn himself a sound thrashing. The same day the reply came, a gravel-voiced phone conversation with his grandmother left him in no doubt that he'd be a laughing-stock if he gave up the throne to live like a commoner.'

Letitia chuckled at the memory of her mother's insistence on calling Catheter and "telling him what's what." She flicked through the report until she reached the part dealing with Catheter's affair with Lucinda. Their first meeting was lengthily described.

Letitia took off her glasses, feeling a queasiness she hadn't experienced until now. This is making my stomach churn, she told herself. Nevertheless I must press on.

'After their first sexual encounter, Catheter and Lucinda began to meet at her apartment in East City. The bed was narrow but to them it was sumptuous. Alone, safe and undisturbed, they explored each other's bodies. Catheter did most of the exploring – he was trying to memorize the feel of her skin, the tiny network of pores and freckles, the down on her arms and legs, her dry, dusky scent – in case he never got to see her again. She lay in his arms, wide open to him, her legs entwined with his – a creature more fascinating than he ever could have dreamed of.'

"Oh dear God," Letitia groaned. "If there's any more of this stuff I'll have to bolt to the bathroom!"

She turned with relief to a potted bio of Lucinda inserted after a few more pages of romantic ramblings.

'Lucinda had always been a tomboy. Sixteen years old when her parents divorced, she had attended the business school at the University of Melloria (the sole center of higher education in the country), where she was one of the small handful of girls among the fifty or so boys. Notorious for her outspoken pro-democracy views and her love affairs (one of which was with Simpkins, the royal butler), she announced at the age of twenty-six that she would never marry. Then she met Catheter, and was as smitten by him and his ardor as he was by her and her directness. His own parents had not divorced – much to his regert – and he felt that in comparison to her he was lagging.

'Catheter's sexual abuse by his tutor at the age of seven had a somewhat sleazy counterpart in Lucinda's experience with an English teacher when she was fifteen. Her mother wanted her to learn English, and had thoughtlessly sent her to a bachelor who taught from his home. The man sexually provoked her beyond endurance and she had slapped his face hard before walking out. When her mother tried to persuade her to continue her lessons, she had refused point-blank.

'Before Catheter, most men had struck her as being immature, and she considered marriage a distraction from the career as a professional horsewoman she had set her sights on. She hoped to open a stable that would give disadvantaged young people an opportunity to work with horses.

'Until her fateful meeting with Catheter she had abandoned the dream, for she could see no way of financing such a scheme in a country as poor as Melloria. But with a generous payment from a newspaper that printed the story of her affair with Catheter, she was able to realize her goal.'

And a more scheming slut I've yet to hear about, Letitia thought bitterly. She milked Cathy for all she could get before Princess Perfect got bumped off and the way was open for her to marry him. Thank God she'll never be crowned Queen.

The last few pages of the report dealt with Catheter's obsession for tape recording, which she read with diminishing interest. The last paragraph, however, caught her eye.

'At night he always placed his recorder on the dresser beside an open window, to record night sounds. The machine he used was black and silver and shone in the moonlight. He loved it so much that he stashed it under the bed on his wedding night and recorded the nuptial noises.'

Just as I feared, Letitia thought with a shudder. I gave birth to a weirdo!

'Out of concern for her feelings, he never recorded his lovemaking with Lucinda, but he regarded his wife as fair game. His obsessive recording of Dawna, even of her breathing while she slept, led her to blurt out her worst fears about the marriage to anyone who would listen. She had hoped it would be a normal marriage, if not a happy one, but his relentless recording of all the sounds she made caused her to give up in despair.'

Letitia removed her glasses and pushed the file away. She felt like she had been peering into a murky hole and it gave her the shivers. She blamed herself to some extent, but felt that Godfrey, whose own father had kept him in his place by hammering his ego, and done the most harm. He believed in pummeling his sons' spirits as well as their backsides, as a good way to prepare them for their future roles. Anton, who could defy his father more successfully, had largely resisted, but Catheter had developed a kind of nervous aloofness under the onslaught of Godfrey's bullying, and Letitia wondered if the damage could ever be repaired.

Chapter 28

### A Bore Too Far

Grant Barstow had done just about every job going in the oil industry. He had worked on a pipeline crew, and roughnecked – one of the toughest jobs in the oil patch – and progressed from oil rig supervisor to chief exec, acquiring a geology degree along the way. Now he was hoping that the Fissure Well would turn out to be a gusher, like the eighty-odd wells he had already completed. All his oil interests were now consolidated into the Norne Consortium, and if Norne failed, he failed – big time.

Dr Jincus Majnun and Dr Layla Fricker had been taken onto the company payroll as exploration geologists to pore over data provided by the well workers. The workers had cored the prospective pay zone and run logs, and when Majnun looked at the latest figures he became convinced that the incalculable amounts of oil that lay beneath the bedrock of the Fissure were within their ability to produce. The cost of completion would be negligible compared to the payoff. He sent a zipfile to Barstow showing the data, and within minutes Barstow had come to the same conclusion.

"Okay, run pipe," Barstow said to his well manager, who passed the message to the production superintendent. The order went out to complete the well. Barstow expected his decision to cost the company around three million dollars.

Lev and Andre shivered in their coveralls over thin sweatshirts and jeans as they walked away from the bunkhouse toward the well. They were cold, dusty and tired, and about to start another back-breaking day on the rig. They were part of the weevil team of newly inducted roughnecks who had been on the job a week. Before that, they had labored for months to install the derrick along with a hundred others. Hunger and tiredness kept them docile.

The wind that stung them as they walked blew almost constantly in the basin of land on either side of the Fissure. It was part of the landscape, and the gangs of indentured workers learned to work around it or through it, cursing the icy blasts that blew in from Slobodia. During the winter almost every man had developed sinus infections, and streaming nostrils became icicle-hung whenever the men stood idle. As spring settled in, the dull bitterness gave way to the exhilarating feeling of being in a high, dry climate and the men's spirits slowly started to lift.

"How much you got in your wallet?" Lev asked.

"Forty slugs till payday."

Lev cursed. "750 slugs a week for living worse than dogs – and now I've run out. We must be crazy."

"Not crazy," Andre said, "just...coerced."

The site superintendent came up fast behind them, eager to put the crews to work.

"You worms didn't come into the oil business to chatter!" he rasped.

"We didn't come into the oil business to make money either," Lev grumbled.

"Hey, super," Andre said, "when we gonna see some oil?"

The superintendent gave a hollow laugh. They were descending a slope toward the concrete platform on which the derrick was anchored.

"You're gonna have to put your backs into it if you wanna see a gusher. Even then, it could be years away."

"Years?" Both men looked downcast.

"If it's any consolation," the super said as they mounted the platform, "we've just been told to run pipe. Chances are, we'll find salt water, sand and just a teeny weeny drop of oil!"

"What if it turns out to be a dry hole, supe?" Andre said.

"Then perhaps the bosses will let you all go home to your mummies and daddies."

The superintendent's smile was almost benign.

In a teleconference with the Leader, Grant Barstow was wrapping up his summary of the progress they had made.

"Dr Majnun, Dr Fricker and their team have completed all the preliminary studies – the sand studies – and the well has been started."

The Leader listened with interest from behind his desk, cutting in from time to time.

"The initial rate is good, and we're expecting production to step up," Barstow went on, "as soon as we've drilled into the bedrock."

"How long will that take?"

"Three days maximum." Barstow paused, unable to contain his enthusiasm. "You can put this one in the win column, my Leader. It's just win-win."

The Leader perused some papers on his desk. "I see we're spending more on the casing than is usual."

"We're drilling a very deep well, even though most of it is air," Barstow replied. "The casing costs more because there's a lot more of it."

The Leader looked at him sharply. "How much more?"

"We've reached a depth of 9,000 meters and the bit is drilling through a series of porous granite wash formations."

"Is the drilling rate steady?"

"Every time the bit reaches one of the porous zones, the drilling rate increases, so we run a drill-stem test to see if we've penetrated a productive zone – "

"– and how much time does that take?" The Leader's question was pointed, and Barstow was aware he would have to tread carefully.

"A matter of hours at the most. With the technology we have, the testing equipment can been operated very quickly."

"And what will happen when you strike... the motherload?" The Leader gave a thin smile."It's a lot of pressure, isn't it?"

"The technology built into the drilling procedure will prevent the oil from flowing uncontrollably to the surface." Barstow smiled back.

"In theory, at least," he said under his breath.

Drilling at that level in a deep-earth well had never been done before.

Chapter 29

### The Mellorian Assassination

With the disappearance of local citizens from the towns and city of Melloria, the sight of groups of Slobodian soldiers strolling disconsolately, their uniform jackets unbuttoned, their caps askew, looking with unfulfilled longing into the windows and doorways of shuttered bars and clubs became commonplace.

The lack of places to eat, drink and relax while off-duty was corroding the morale of the Slobodian army. Soldiers who, for the most part, had been drafted unwillingly into an army that bullied and harrassed them – during and after their basic training – and deprived them of decent food, sanitary living conditions and the comfort of women, were slowly becoming aware of a country with no barbed wire, no prets or military police watching them and ready to shoot them if they stepped out of line, and plenty of places to find sanctuary if they wanted to quit. Many of them had discovered the pleasures of smoking or ingesting Saint's Breath, the local strain of cannabis, while others had ventured into caves and joined polyamorous choirs.

Local people, utilizing the Mellorian defense, were actively encouraging soldiers to desert their units by approaching them in the street and offering refuge in farms and houses dotted about the countryside. Deserters were given civilian clothes, jobs and – most important of all – girlfriends.

The response to the growing defection of Slobodian troops by Commander Yorgen Bueller, the Supreme Military Commander, was to crack down on the whole civilian population. He declared martial law and sealed all roads to the towns and city. Meanwhile prets and military police searched every street, block by block and building by building. Any deserters found were taken prisoner and where no deserters were discovered, hostages were seized. Soon there were more than three hundred Mellorian prisoners held at the Hermeticon. Bueller gave the rest of the population to understand that if no more deserters returned, the prisoners were as good as dead. He also sent helicopters to scour the countryside for defectors.

Three men in shabby clothes with matted hair and straggly beards stood on the porch of the Archbishop of Bulimia's house in Angina. They had come to meet with King Craig and his mother Sharon, the Mother Queen, and make an important request.

In spite of the stench of many days unwashed clothing and sweat that hung around the three Wise Ones, they were cordially invited inside by Archbishop Jesse Joplin and ushered into the living room.

Craig and Sharon were sitting on a black leather couch in the dimly-lit room watching a news program from Melloria on a big screen. Blasts of martial music blared out and troops marched past, interspersed with rumbling tanks. Sharon took the remote from Craig's hand and turned down the sound.

"What can we do for you, gentlemen?" she asked.

The dirtiest and scruffiest of the men took a step toward the couch.

"Ma'am, as you and His Majesty know, our country and its people are being grievously abused," he said. "The Slobodians have taken hundreds of Mellorians prisoner and accused them of harboring traitors and deserters from their army. They are to be tried and found guilty of treason, and then they will be killed."

"What can we do, Wize Guy, we don't have an army?" Craig piped up. Sharon looked worried.

"We have ascertained, Your Majesty, that the Slobodian Military Commander and his chief, the Leader, will be meeting next Thursday in the Leader's study." The Wise One paused. "We propose a Mellorian solution to bring these two men to God's justice."

"How you gonna do that?" Sharon asked. "Aren't you Wise Ones supposed to be non-violent?"

All three Wise Ones smiled. The scruffier one continued.

"We are totally committed to peaceful action, ma'am. One of our number will infiltrate Duodenum Palace and a non-violent self-assassination will take place."

"A Mellorian assassination!" Craig yelled out. He turned to his mother. "They'll use the Shadow Master."

Sharon's face looked grim. "I realize we've got to stop the Slobodians from shooting our people, but can you guarantee innocent lives won't be lost?"

"I guarantee it, ma'am," the Wise One said calmly, "because with Royston and Bueller gone, the Slobodian leadership falls to Queen Latrina who, being Mellorian herself, will never allow our people to be killed."

"You've got a point there," Sharon said, smiling warily. "I only hope the Shadow Master knows what he's doing."

Craig gave his mother a disapproving look.

"Mum, of course he does – he's the Shadow Master!"

Then he turned to face the three Wise Ones.

"Wize Guyz, you have my full permission to do a Mellorian assassination."

Chapter 30

### A Word To The Wise

Letitia awoke to a sunny May morning made even sunnier by the memory of a snippet of gossip she had heard from Godfrey the night before. Godfrey had heard it from Catheter who had told him that Lucinda had said to him that she had been confidentially informed by Betty that, in her weekly conflab with Sharon, the Mother Queen had mentioned that something big was going down soon that would radically alter the situation in Melloria, to the Mellorians' benefit. Letitia had twirled the idea around in her mind, savoring it from time to time like a candy cane, and had come to the conclusion that the 'big thing' must involve the Slobodians deciding that enough was enough and Melloria wasn't worth invading any more. Glorious! Now she and Godfrey could fly back to Tobago with their heads held high.

Earlier, while she had been pleasantly dozing, a maid had entered her bedchamber, parted her drapes and left a tray with her lemon tea in a thermally-sealed cup and a plate of ginger snaps on her nightstand. She opened the lid of the cup and took a sip. Through the parted curtains she saw a flight of starlings swirling across the deep blue frames of glass. Her delirious laziness was so pleasant that that she resented having to get up. She felt she could lie gazing at the sky forever. It was amazing how it never stayed the same: clouds bumbled across it, flocks of birds peppered its cerulean canvas and even the framed squares of pure blue would eventually retint themselves.

Reluctantly she mustered the will to sit up and prop up her pillows to allow herself to eat and drink. She remembered that Godfrey was going to the doctor's office early for a check-up. He'd been complaining about his waterworks again and continual pains in his lower stomach. Thank God they've got some really good doctors here, she thought. In Melloria it would have been a different story. She ate slowly, determined to let her delicious drowsiness linger on, and decided that she would go to the archive room again after breakfast. She wanted to see if the Bulimians had opened a file on Godfrey and herself.

Her lemon tea drunk and her biscuits reduced to a plate of crumbs, she rang for the maid, gave a weary sigh and started to crawl out of bed.

In the cool library-like archive room, Letitia stood and gazed again at the rows and rows of shelves crammed with manilla folders. She had felt relieved when the archivist, the thin, pinch- faced womn who always wore beige, had told her that there were no files in the archive on either herself or Godfrey. She presumed that they only kept a file on Catheter because his son was third in line to the Bulimian throne, and for no other reason. Now she had one further question.

"Who wrote the report on my son, Catheter?" she asked.

The archivist, sitting at her computer keyboard, played a pizzicato of plocking sounds and frowned at the monitor. "It was someone called R. Crow, ma'am," she said. "I believe he or she works on contract to the Secret Service."

"Thank you – you've been most helpful," Letitia said, and thought: Who the devil's R. Crow? Oh well, perhaps Ada will know – she knows everybody in Bulimia.

In the corridor she smiled to herself. A couple of maids curtseyed as they trotted past. Must be Mellorian immigrants, she thought. Bulimian staff barely curtsey to their own royalty. She started walking, feeling a strange mix of exaltation and apprehension. The exaltation was from her still sparkling recall of the snippet of gossip she'd been cultivating, and the apprehension came from imagining what Catheter would say when she invited him to meet a Buddhist therapist at the bridge club.

She gave a delighted shiver when she reached the end of the corridor and stepped into the atrium that opened onto the gardens. A breeze flowed through the open portal, awakening in her a sense of spring freshness, and she decided to take a stroll in the grounds. She had been out only two or three times since the end of a winter which she didn't find picturesque – more like deadening, its icicles and snow blocking the view from her bedchamber window.

Spring's precocious warmth, mild and fragrant, enticed her into the rose garden, and she nodded to Hamilton, Ada's head gardener, bent over a prickly shrub of damasks.

"I think these flowerbeds need raking, don't you?" she called. He smiled diffidently.

"I'm just about to do that, ma'am," he said, "soon as I finish pruning these roses."

"Looks to me like the roses all need deadheading," she said, trying to sound authoritative. "Doesn't that come first?"

"Doesn't matter, ma'am, - might as well kill two birds with one stone."

Letitia frowned, not quite following him. "What's in that pile of rubble over there?" she asked.

"It's going to be a rock garden."

"Are you intending to plant anything between the rocks?"

Hamilton shrugged and shuffled his feet.

"I'm planting some cactus, but it takes years for 'em to flower."

She dismissed him with a wave and found a rustic bench where she plumped herself down. Feeling it was time for a short nap, she let her head tilt back and closed her eyes. Soon she was flowing with the tide of sleep to misty visions of dreams. The breeze caressing her face and the twittering of birds above her head mingled in her mind with the fragrant tropical scents that she'd grown to love. She really hoped that Godfrey would give up his stubborn notion that he had to remain here, constantly alert for a chance to liberate his beloved Melloria. She loved Melloria too, but was realistic enough to keep her hopes in check. Pray God that Sharon was right about the upcoming change of fortune. It was about time the country had some luck!

She began to imagine being back in Tobago and sitting in the garden under a vine-green lattice with ylang-ylang trees all around her. An air of quiet opulence prevailed, mingled with the extravagant fragrances of a Caribbean island. The hot, dry high season there was already two months old and the air was heavy with the scent of bourgainvillea, mimosa and vines. I must call Lucinda soon and ask about the kids, was the last thought on her drowsy mind before she dropped off.

When Godfrey returned from the doctor's office he went straight to the study he shared with King Hector and poured himself a stiff brandy. Letitia heard him going upstairs and left the drawing room to tell him about her plan for Catheter to see a therapist, but when she opened the study door and saw his face, she became flushed with anxiety.

"What did the doctor say, Dear?" she asked. Her heart was beginning to flutter.

"Nothing much," Godfrey mumbled, and sipped his brandy doggedly.

"Tell me – what did he say?" she persisted.

"Oh, just a blip on my blood test."

"A blip?" Her stomach sank.

He sipped more of the brandy, looking pensive.

"The doc thinks I've got a growth where my prostate used to be."

He was trying to keep his voice casual.

"But how can you when they took it out – last time we were in Bulimia?"

"Well, something's taken root down there and it looks like I'll need to see the specialist."

Her eyebrows began to quiver. They'd been through all this before – the days of anxious worrying and waiting for the op and then hours of suspense wondering if the surgeon's knife had done its job. She felt like she was about to faint.

"So when will they operate?" she asked.

"I don't know. I'm seeing the specialist tomorrow."

"I'm going to bed," Letitia said. She had reached the point where the only relief to be found was beneath the bedcovers. The urge to tell Godfrey about her therapy for Cathy faded from her thoughts. The latest news was just too overwhelming.

In her bed, safe beneath the comforting covers, she reflected on the day's events. There was the strange business about the mysterious R. Crow who had written such an amazingly detailed report on Catheter, almost as if he'd been in Cathy's skin, and she still had to ask Cathy if he would agree to see a shrink to sort out his weirdness. She had managed to phone Lucy, however, who promised to badger him into meeting her tomorrow. Finally there was Godfrey's awful bombshell – the most worrying of all.

She was flummoxed. How could a growth appear where there was no organ to support it? Perhaps it was down to the mysteriousness of men's bodies, which she didn't pretend to understand. She couldn't get a handle on the male business, so she dismissed it. The prospect of slumber was far too delicious to be caught up in mysteries.

She fell into a torpid sleep and soon became embroiled in a dream in which the Slobodian invaders of her adopted country were being trampled on by hairy-footed peasants.

Predictably, when asked if he would care to be introduced to a psychotherapist – even one highly recommended by Queen Ada – Catheter told his mother to take a running jump. He was desperately afraid of exposing any of his traumatic childhood memories even to his wife, let alone a stranger. So Letitia regretfully decided to accompany Ada to the bridge club without Catheter in the car, hoping that by talking to the Buddhist shrink herself she would glean enough to be able to point Catheter toward catharsis – or whatever it took to make him behave normally.

Ada and Letitia set off in Ada's Bentley for the town of Diaphragm, a few kilometers from Angina. Letitia sat beside Ada feeling a slew of conflicting emotions. She really didn't know what she was going to say to the man she had been told about, whose name was Rahula Crow, and she was glad that Godfrey was at the hospital meeting the urologist. She didn't want his skepticism interfering with what might turn out to be a convoluted conversation.

Ada interrupted her thoughts with her own mental rambling.

"Therapy's such a hit-or-miss business. I remember the hell we all went through when Dawna was going from therapist to therapist, looking for someone to help her overcome her eating problem. Some of the people she saw were worse than useless."

"Well, Cathy's a different kettle of fish," Letitia said sharply. "It won't take much to straighten him out – a good kick up the backside would probably do it."

The sharpness of her voice subdued Ada's talkativeness. They arrived at the club building and Ada led the way to a spacious upstairs room. Four green baize tables were busy with players making bids, passing, taking tricks and losing hands. Ada joined a party of three other players at one of the tables and introduced Letitia to the man she was going to partner with, Rahula Crow.

He looked to be in his mid-forties, small of stature, with soft features and graying black hair. She sat near the table and watched the run of the play. Not being a bridge player herself, she focused on Crow, noticing that he smiled a lot, laughed and chatted, and settled down easily to win the tricks he'd bid.

She found she had a thousand questions jostling in her mind that she wanted to ask him, as well as a growing suspicion. She was pretty sure that he was the R.Crow who had written Catheter's report in the archive. She also wanted to ask him his opinion on the current situation in Melloria and whether he thought the Slobodians would ever leave.

Her musings were interrupted when the rubber finished and Ada and Crow came over to where she was sitting.

"Who won?" Letitia asked.

"We did, of course," Ada said. "Now, I'm going to get a gin and tonic at the bar so I'll see you two later."

Crow, standing beside her, gave Letitia a warm nod.

"Would you like to sit out on the terrace?" he said. "There's waitress service and we can have a drink – if you'd like."

"That would be lovely," she said. "Tell me, Mr Crow, did you ever do work for the Secret Service?"

Crow laughed and escorted her outside. "Yes, I guess my secret's out! How did you know? And by the way, call me Ral."

They sat at one of the patio tables and smiled at each other as they waited for a waitress.

"I wanted to ask – " she said, at the same moment he uttered: "Well, I – ", and they both stopped. Both started again with "I'm sorry – " and each stopped dead. He chuckled and she laughed, feeling very embarrassed.

"After you," he said.

She smiled at his gallantry. "I was going to ask if you would be willing to talk to my son," she said. "He's thirty-nine and his life seems to be in a kind of funk."

"And I was going to say that my work is with the Melchior Agency, and they are contractors for the Secret Service, among other organizations," he said. "And to answer your question, I would be pleased to speak with your son if he will phone or text me to make an appointment."

"Ah, that's the rub," she said resignedly. "He just refuses to see that he has a problem."

"What do you see as his problem?" he asked, smiling.

His question made her feel uncomfortable, even though his smile made her feel happy.

"Oh, well, he's such a miseryguts for one thing..."

She shook her head to clear her thoughts.

"Perhaps you just need to find something to cheer him up."

His words irritated her, yet the sound of his voice made her feel happy again. It reminded her of wide, rolling meadows, of crackling campfires in the forest... She pulled herself short. What was that feeling, that strange abdominal lurch. My God, she hadn't felt that way since –

"Ah, here's our waitress."

Crow ordered a white wine spritzer and Letitia fell back on her usual gin and IT over ice.

"Well, as for cheering him up," she continued, as they waited for their drinks, "my husband and I, not to mention his wife, are always available for him. He's the one who doesn't want to reach out. "

"Some people don't," he said. "Not everybody wants to be a party hearty, either. It would be an exhausting world if everybody was upbeat."

He smiled again. She felt he was mocking her, but very gently.

"No, you don't see it, uh, Ral. My son is second in line to the Mellorian throne, and if the present king dies – God forbid – then he'll have to take over, and he's just not cut out for the job."

"Do you know anyone else who is cut out for it?"

The way he was looking at her, soft yet serious, as he talked, was having a mesmerizing effect on her.

"Um, er, no, not exactly...Well, I suppose my husband, but he's retired."

Under her stupefaction, was an anxiety she was almost afraid to put into words.

"What's going to become of my country, Ral?" she asked suddenly. "What's going to happen to Melloria?"

The waitress arrived with their drinks before he could reply, and he chuckled deep in his throat, a sound that reminded her of honey slurping out of a jar.

"Saved by the drinks!" he said, and took a sip of his spritzer. "I don't know if I'm qualified to give an opinion, since I'm a Bulimian," he added, "but my intuition tells me that Melloria's going to be all right, in fact better than all right, in the very near future."

"Do you know about the rumor going around?" she asked. She sipped her gin and tonic.

"I've heard a whisper," he said, "and knowing the Mellorians as I do, I believe the proposed action is very likely to succeed. If it does, then – like I said – Melloria is going to be all right."

She sat perfectly still, moving only to take another sip of her gin, and appraised him slowly as he drank. If my contact lenses don't deceive me, he's quite handsome, she thought. He looks rather dapper in that suit – if only Cathy looked half as good.

"Do you think the Melchior Agency could be of help to us Mellorians in our efforts to be free again?" she asked.

"Definitely," Crow said with a laugh.

"What is the Melchior Agency?" she said, smiling and frowning at the same time.

After Crow had told her, Letitia felt she ought to go and look for Ada, otherwise the lurch in her abdomen would develop into something more embarrassing – like infatuation.

Chapter 31

### It's All In The Game

King Craig and his mother Sharon sat in the conservatory waiting for Clive Fatsi to show up and give Craig his weekly briefing on the Mellorian situation. Iced sweet tea in tall glasses shimmered on a wrought-iron table in front of their wicker porch swing. They were having a chat about girls.

Since he turned twelve, Craig had started to notice that the world was full of girls, some of them beautiful, and was having a hard time thinking about anything else. It was making his mother nervous.

"I don't know what it is about Bulimia," Sharon remarked, "but there's something in the air that makes men go soft in the head – and I don't want you getting like that."

"I won't," Craig said, defensively.

"Oh no?" Sharon gave him a quizzical look. "How come when we're on the bus to your team's soccer matches, you and your gang're always huddled up in the back talking about girls?"

"We're not!" Craig's face flushed a hot shade of pink. "We're pumping ourselves up so that we'll play our best game."

"Well, I may be in the front with the other parents, but I do know the difference between talking about football and giggling over pictures of girls on your cellphones."

Craig smirked and dipped his head.

"You can't say I haven't told you about how girls are, either," Sharon added. "Hopefully, when you get round to chatting up a girl, you won't end up hurting her feelings."

"No, Mum." He held his head up stoically. She had drummed into his head the difference between confident and cocky so many times, he could almost recite it backwards.

"Well, you're basically a nice boy, so I guess you'll be all right. Just don't be a jerk and pretend you care about a girl's feelings when you don't."

"Most of the girls in my class are taller than me," he suddenly said, veering away from his mother's moralizing.

"Well, you've got some more growing to do, so don't worry about that," Sharon said. "In the meantime, just be patient and see what comes along." She lifted her glass and drank slowly while thinking. "How are you getting along in middle school?" she said.

"Okay."

"What about that fight the Principal wrote me about?"

Craig shifted uneasily on the swing.

"We didn't start it," he said. "We were jumped by some kids from another school and one of our brainless idiots took some video shots of us scrapping on his cell. Then he posted it on YouTube, the dork."

"Anyway, I don't want to hear of you getting into any more scrapes. You're the King of Melloria, for God's sake, not a street brawler."

"It helps if a king can fight," he said weakly, then wished he hadn't said anything.

"Not if he ends up on YouTube," Sharon admonished. "You can either take up martial arts training or stick to Mortal Kombat."

Craig gave a dismissive snort.

"I haven't played that game for yonks," he said. "I'm on to District 187."

Much as he was skeptical about the benefits and concerned about the detrimental side-effects of taking antidepressants, Grant Barstow was in the mood to drop a Xanax on his tongue before drinking his morning coffee, with a Wellbutrin added for good measure. The weeks of waiting to hear from his attorney about the signing of the final divorce papers were shredding his nerves and giving his stomach a pounding. The last thing he needed now that the well was being drilled was to have Silwa running him ragged with her darling daughter urging her on.

He'd had an early frantic call from Silwa on his BlackBerry and knew he was going to be hit up for money. How he looked forward to having her out of his life! She promised him she would badger him in his office, if necessary, and he was expecting her to come barging in at any moment.

It was bad enough to ruin a marriage, to mess things up with his wife, but to be bullied into a final settlement that would leave him potless when he was on the verge of what every oilman dreamed of – finding the big one – was un-bloody-bearable.

This morning he was trying to get his act together with Doctors Majnun and Fricker. Majnun had been doing some seismic work and had brought in a geophysicist to interpret the data. While this was being done, the drilling had had to be halted. Majnun was convinced that without careful management, the well would blow, spilling oil over a wide area and causing an environmental disaster, and Fricker had basically told him he was nuts.

She was usually the more cautious of the duo and he the more gung-ho, which made it surprising that she was acting like she had a bug up her ass, showering Majnun and himself with emailed bleats about time-wasting and belt-and-suspenders safety measures. Barstow speculated that she might be having a woman's problem, and girded himself up for fireworks during their midday meeting.

When Silwa Yarch and her daughter Anesthesia reached the outer portals of Barstow's office at a quarter to twelve, he was already packing his laptop case. His flustered secretary buzzed him and told him there was a tall blond redfaced woman in the lobby making life hell for the receptionist. He didn't bother asking if a pouty twelve-year-old girl was with the woman – he merely groaned and mumbled that he'd be right out.

Silwa was pacing the reception area, dressed to kill in a Versace leopard-skin summer dress, her pink freckled arms flapping like the wings of a flamingo, while her daughter, demure in a black hoodie, gray leggings and black boots, sat in one of the leather armchairs, lazily skimming through her iPhone.

Barstow stamped in from the corridor to be met with:

"I need you to take care of this – now." Silwa was brandishing what looked like a final demand for payment.

Barstow snatched it from her and gave it a quick glance.

"I really don't have time for this," he said. "Why can't you add it to your lawyer's list?"

He attempted to thrust the paper back at her.

Ignoring his gesture, she brought her swinging hands together in an angry clap.

"That's so typical of you, isn't it?" she snarled. "Your head's so far up your ass with this fucking well – !"

"Don't swear, mummy – he isn't worth it," Anesthesia said from her deep armchair.

"Yes, this fucking well that's going to pay for all your fucking demands!"

Barstow knew he was losing it, and from the corner of his eye caught the receptionist's anxious look. He made an effort to compose himself.

"Look," he said, "I've got a meeting in ten – and in fact I'm late. Here's my gold card – there's still a few bucks left, I hope. You can mail it back to me when you're done."

As soon as he had offered her his plastic card, her mood softened. She grabbed his credit card, along with the overdue bill, and shoved them in her Vanitas bag.

"Look, Grant, I'm not trying to be unreasonable," she said in a less whiney voice. "It's just that everything's taking so long and Anni and I can't live on thin air."

You could try wearing less expensive shoes, he thought. "All right," he said. "Now I've got to dash. Bye, Anni."

Anesthesia looked up from her scrolling and stuck out her tongue.

Why do I always think of Veruca Salt when I see you? he thought, and pushed through the swing doors.

In the parking lot Barstow narrowed his eyes against the wind and hurried to his BMW. In this neck of the woods, the wind was always loaded with dust even on a a warm day. He had a twenty-minute drive to the well manager's office where Majnun and Fricker were waiting, and he didn't want to arrive looking dust-blown.

Dust was also one of the problems Lev and Andre faced working on the well. Today they both wore face-cloths over their mouths so that they looked like bandits. The dust they were up against was the kind that worked its way into your mouth and nose.

From the bitter coughing over their first cigarette of the day to the last windy minute of their twelve-hour shift, they ate, breathed and sweated dust. The only relief was when the drills were being hosed down and the dust turned to mud. Shaving at one of the filthy sinks in the bunkhouse with its cold-water faucet barely removed the grit from their faces, and in the few hours before lights-out, shooting dice in a corner of the latrine, they wheezed and hacked more dust as they squatted on their haunches.

"This is a fucking pig's arse, no?" one of the other well workers complained to Andre. He, Lev and Andre were pouring powder from thirty-five kilo bags into the driller to make mud, the liquid that lubricated the drilling pipe. They had a pallet full of bags to empty.

"I mean, beating ourselves up for less than eight hundred slugs a week – that's criminal."

"Yeah," Andre said with rhetorical snarkiness. "Who knew finding oil would be such hard work?"

Chapter 32

### Run For The Shadows

Royston Gorm, the Leader of the New World Empire, sat behind his desk and watched his image dominating a large, pedestal-mounted TV screen. Commander Yorgen Bueller sat at the side of his desk. Both were in full uniform. He was addressing the Slobodian people in a playback of a recent celebration of Slobodian achievement and triumph. Bueller, newly-arrived from Melloria and now Royston's right-hand man, was hearing the speech for the first time.

"My people," the image proclaimed, "and what pleasure it gives me to say 'My people'! You have shown me and the world that you are worthy of that – worthy to be mine. You have shown that you are the nation of the Active Man, the creator, the egoist, the life-giver. By ruthlessly crushing your antithesis, the Mellorians, the parasites, the collectivists, the death-carriers, you and I – we – are now one entity, whole and indivisible.

"By our action in crushing the scumbags, we have shown that we believe in God." Bueller gave a gasp as the image paused. "Well, God is an Omniscient Being, right?" The image paused again; Royston smiled and Bueller chuckled. "Therefore He is a totalitarian dictator. That means He is – me. And since you and I are whole and indivisible, we are God. QED."

Now Royston chuckled and Bueller roared.

"The difference between God and us is that God isn't prepared to use His power and we are prepared to use ours. The recent Mellorian campaign, and now the drilling of the mightiest, most lucrative oil well the world has ever seen, proves that fact conclusively.

"Professional humanitarians will, of course, decry us, but – remember – professional humanitarians want to maintain a world full of needy people dependent on them, in order to increase their sense of power. How grotesque! Isn't it cleaner, fairer, more...humanitarian to rid the world of needy people once and for all?"

Bueller turned toward his Leader and nodded vigorously, then continued watching the screen.

"The weak will never be able to create an equivalent level of progress or prosperity on their own. Therefore they benefit from the progress and prosperity created by those more competent and motivated than themselves. If they acknowledge this, they will be allowed to become the slaves of the strong, and if they deny it, they will be eliminated as parasites. Fair, is it not?"

"Genius, pure genius, my Leader," Bueller muttered.

"Unlike other political leaders, I have the courage to tell the masses what no politician has the guts to tell them: 'You are inferior and all the improvements in your living conditions that you take for granted you owe to the efforts of those who are better than you.'

"As the ideal Leader I have no doubts or conflicts. Mixed emotions are a sign of faulty thinking. My values, emotions and actions flow in a unified stream from the fountainhead of my being. And as you and I are one – whole and indivisible – we are mighty, we are invincible, we are Slobodians!"

As the sound of thunderous applause greeted the Leader's last words and a flourish of trumpets pealed out, noisily audible in the corridor outside the study door, an elevator stopped at the end of the corridor. The elevator doors slid open and a man stepped into the lobby. He was dressed in black from head to foot, wore a black beret and had his face blacked out. Only his eyes showed as he moved darkly along the corridor toward the sound of the TV. The elevator doors closed, and the noise of the TV became the only sound in the dead silent corridor.

Almost as quietly as a shadow, the man opened the study door. He knew that guards who routinely patrolled the corridor would soon be in sight. The creak of the opening door was lost in the noise from the TV screen and, with practiced caution, the man slipped inside.

The two men at the other end of the study remained intent on watching the broadcast and didn't notice the figure that flitted into the room through the door which quickly closed.

Pressing himself against a bookcase, the man ran fingers down the pockets on one side of his pants and extracted a Diffuser flashlight. Noiselessly he lifted the flashlight to eye level and shoved it between two books on the bookcase. Then he switched it on. A pale light cast by the Diffuser on the wall behind the TV screen faintly appeared, unnoticed by the Leader and Commander Bueller.

The Shadow Master prepared his hands and raised them in order to block out light from the Diffuser. On the wall behind the screen a gigantic shadow of a man suddenly pointed a pistol directly at Commander Bueller's head.

Both men watching the screen gave a start and Bueller practically leapt out of his chair. He fumbled for the pistol in his holster.

"What the fuck?" Royston said in a voice that sounded panicky and weak.

"Christ, he's coming for us!" Bueller exclaimed. The Shadow Master was making the silhouette grow bigger. It loomed over the two men.

Royston was faster than Bueller. He pulled his revolver out of his holster and fired quickly. The bullet hit the wall and ricocheted back toward the men. It lodged in Bueller's chest and he slumped in his chair. The noise from the explosion racketed around the study.

The shadow on the wall changed to that of a cobra rearing up and flicking its tongue. The Shadow Master had done his research – Royston had been afraid of snakes ever since his father had flung him into a snake pit as a child. Royston fired again and again. The snake appeared to be hit. It sank from view, to be replaced by a gigantic spider that scuttled across the wall.

Royston gave a scream.

The sound of gunfire drew in the prets who had begun to patrol the corridor outside the study, and the door burst open. More shots were fired. One of the bullets caught Royston full in the face and he fell onto the desk, the back of his head a messy blood patch.

The pret who had fired the fatal shot stood gaping in the doorway, then was pushed into the room by three more prets rushing into his back. In the thudding of running boots, the Shadow Master pulled the Diffuser flashlight out of the bookcase, switched it off and slid it down the pocket of his pants. Then he pressed himself flat against the bookcase, his eyes closed, while the prets surged in.

They ran to the bodies and one of them tried to revive Bueller. Meanwhile the Shadow Master gave a brief nod to acknowledge that his work was done and slipped out the door. He retraced his earlier route, slinking along the walls of the corridor, and pushed the elevator button. He was on his way home.

Chapter 33

### Walk Don't Run

When the news of Royston's death reached Bulimia, the mood was one of general relief. It was as if a wall had been torn down between the people and safety, sanity and lack of fear. Ex-pat Mellorians were especially jubilant, and the feeling was that now it would only be a short time before their country was free again.

Yorgen Bueller had been seriously injured by the bullet that tore into his chest, puncturing a lung and causing severe trauma, but he did not die. His disablement meant the likelihood of a military coup seizing power in Slobodia was almost zero.The prets were also out of favor, and Queen Latrina, widow of the late King Slobodan and mother of the deceased Leader, was proclaimed the new ruler by a majority of the Slobodian National Assembly.

In the midst of this glad rejoicing, Catheter and Lucinda decided to throw a belated house-warming party and make it an outdoor barbecue. Lucinda got busy deciding whom to invite, wrote out a list and mailed off invitations.

Queen Ada dropped in to see her a few days later and offered her advice as an avid party-giver.

"How many are you expecting?" she asked over chilled Chardonnay spritzers on the patio.

Lucy frowned. "About a hundred, I think. It seems all the Mellorian ex-pats have got wind of it and want to come...I had forty on my list."

"Then stick to forty," Ada said, in full advice-giving mode. "Never invite more guests than you can handle."

Lucy shrugged. "I'll try. But what do we do if people party crash?"

"Security will take care of that," Ada said briskly. "You need at least two security guards at the front gate and one patrolling the driveway, in case there are car thieves."

"Oh God, that's way too many!" Lucy exclaimed. "I doubt if we can afford a food server, let alone a driveway guard."

"Well, the driveway guard can double as a parking valet –"

Lucy looked blank.

"You are going to have valet parking, aren't you?" Ada said, her eyebrows raised.

"Um, yes. Catheter's going to look after that."

"Okay then," Ada went on. "Just two security guards, a barbecue chef, three waiters and a barman. There – now you're all set."

Lucy shook her head.

"It's impossible, Queen Ada. We don't have that much money, and Catheter's such a tightwad."

She gaped. Ada suddenly drew out a checkbook and a gold ballpoint from her Vuitton bag.

"No, Queen Ada, we couldn't –"

"Just accept this as Hector's and my donation to the Mellorian cause," Ada said, scribbling out a check.

When the car containing King Craig and Sharon, the Mother Queen, and driven by Archbishop Larry Lepager arrived at the party venue on a hot July afternoon it was trailed by three paparazzi on light motor cycles. They were immediately barred entry by the two security guards and ordered to wait ourtside the front gates, where they positioned themselves for the next arrivals.

Craig greeted Lucinda quickly and bounded into the house, where one of his cousins, a thirteen-year-old boy who was into District 187 and other apocalypse games, was waiting. Sharon, who looked stressed, embraced Lucy and shook Catheter's hand. Larry Lepager did likewise.

Lucy, wearing baggy sweat pants and a loose top, stared at Sharon's clothes.

"I love your DKNY skirt and that silk blouse looks gorgeous," she said. "I only wish I had time to shop for nice clothes."

Sharon, whose eyes were hidden behind a pair of Dolce & Gabbana shades, smiled wearily.

"Thanks, Lucy. I'm not at my best today. We were up all night planning Craig's eventual motorcade through the City – his triumphal return. It'll be quite a to-do, when it happens."

"Wow!" was all Lucy could say. She led her guests to the barbecue zone and introduced Sharon and Lepager to several of her horse-riding friends, and they all ended up in one chattering group.

Afterwards, she watched the hired chef barbecue burgers, shrimp and corn cobs. Skewered chicken and veggie shish kebobs were being prepared by his assistant, a waiter.

It wasn't until after twenty carloads had arrived that Catheter was relieved by Lucy of his valet parking duty. Dressed casually, in jeans and a plain white T-shirt, he strolled across the lawn to mingle with the guests, grab a plate and pull a can of cold beer from a cooler full of twelve-packs.

"How many rides have you dumped in the lot, bro?" Anton said to him, dipping a shrimp in chilli sauce.

"Your speech is getting more and more incomprehensible," Catheter remarked and looked around for some food to load onto his plate.

Anton stuffed the chillied shrimp in his mouth, gagged, then poured cold beer down the fiery cavity.

"Only because you're a dweeb," he finally said.

The first thing Queen Ada noticed when she and King Hector arrived was the terrible job Catheter had made of parking the cars. In some places vehicles were tightly packed and in others left at awkward angles across the lawn, almost blocking the driveway. The second thing she realized was that she and Hector were almost comically outmoded in their dress. They both wore blue T-shirts embroidered with a sequinned message. His read: KINGS DO IT WITH MAJESTY and hers: QUEENS DO IT IN THE REIGN. She felt like they were holding last year's newspapers.

Where was the help she had told Lucy to hire? Only one waiter could be seen and he was clearly overworked. Perhaps she spent the money on food and booze.

"Where are are the other waiters?" she asked Lucy.

Lucy blushed. "I'm afraid Catheter pissed them off by dickering over their wages and they left."

"Oh, Lucy," Ada said, feeling slight aggravation. "You'll have to do something about him."

"I know, I know," Lucy said. "Anyway, Your Majesties, we've got a celebrity guest!" She sounded both surprised and thrilled.

"Oh, who? Pray tell," Hector said, flashing her a smile.

"John Galliano, the fashion designer!" Now she sounded excited. "He happened to be in town visiting Princess Dawna's grave, and when he heard King Craig and his mother were going to be here he came up to give them some fashion tips." Ada looked like she was about to faint. "Come, I'll introduce you," Lucy said.

With champagne glasses in hand, provided by the hard-working waiter, they ambled over to where Galliano, in a counterintuitive gray houndstooth flannel suit and black leather boots, was holding forth to an audience of King Craig, Sharon, Larry Lepager and Clive Fatsi, the king's adviser.

"Okay, here's the rundown for the celebration party after the open-top motorcade. Tailored clothes that conjure up the classic refinement of 19th Century Romanticism with luxe velvet, faux fur and lace. Sophisticated color – red and black, translated into an updated wardrobe. Sharon, I want you in an oxblood gown, love, with fur embellishments. Yeah, I know it's the middle of summer, but the Anna Karenina look is so you."

Sharon burst out laughing. "What about Craig, John?" she said.

"His Majesty should wear a flannel suit in dove gray with a black old-world topcoat – and preferably a shiny top hat," he said without missing a beat.

Ada was soon engaging Galliano in animated conversation, so Hector wandered over to where Letitia and Godfrey stood on their own.

"You really must phone your sister and congratulate her – she's a ruling monarch now," Letitia was telling Godfrey in a bossy tone of voice.

"Come off it, Lettie," Godfrey said, pausing to sip his champagne, "you only want me to call Trina to ask her to get her damned army out of Melloria, so we can both go home."

He was on his third glass and was becoming expansive.

"Well, why don't you? She'll listen to you – you're her closest relative, after all."

Godfrey took a long swig from his glass.

"She may not – she hardly considers mine the Voice of Reason after my disastrous run-in with her late unlamented son."

Oh, you probably impressed her by standing up to him. You know she was scared stiff of him, don't you?"

"Yes, I gathered that."

Godfrey's look turned vague and he barely acknowledged Hector's greeting. He was recalling Latrina's warning to not piss off Royston, or he and she would both be killed.

"Call Latrina – why not?" Hector was saying. "Do it today. There's no time like the present."

"No, there isn't..." Still looking vague, Godfrey gave Hector and his wife a perfunctory nod and walked toward the house.

Inside the living room, Godfrey looked around for a telephone. He knew that many modern homes no longer possessed a land line, their occupants relying on cellphones, but he hoped that Catheter, if not Lucinda, was sufficiently old-school to have retained an instrument for making phone calls.

Finding nothing, he went from room to room. In one room, which looked like a box room, Craig and his cousin were gaming on Xboxes in front of a TV screen. In another, a play room, Betty was reading Angus a story while Rhiannon crawled around in her playpen.

"Do you happen to have a cellphone I can borrow?" Godfrey asked Betty. "I need to make a call."

Betty nodded and put the book down. She fished around in her TopShop tote bag and handed him her cell. "Here." "Thanks, Betty." Angus's wondering eyes watched him leave.

He found a comfortable chair in the living room and placed the call.

"Who shall I say is calling?" the voice from Duodenum Palace sounded haughty.

"Tell Her Majesty it's her brother, Godfrey," he said.

There was a long pause, then Latrina's fluting tones.

"Godders, how are you? It's been ages." She sounded hyped up.

"I'm not well," he said, girding himself for the spin he was about to put on the truth. "But, anyway, congratulations, Your Majesty! May your reign be a long and happy one."

" _Thank you, Godders – but, oh, what do you mean, you're not well?"_

Godfrey grimaced at what he was about to say.

"The doctor thinks I've got cancer. Oh, I should offer condolences for your son's passing – but I can't."

"No." Latrina's voice paused. "Oh my God, cancer! When did you get the news?"

"Just the other day. Look, this is hard for me to ask, but you would make a sick brother very happy if – "

" _Yes? What can I do for you, my darling?"_

Godfrey paused before launching his plea. "The one thing I want in all the world – to see my country free again."

There was a long pause at the other end.

" _I see. You want me to give my new Commander in Melloria, who incidentally is a lovely general called Fyodor Fiska, the order to withdraw."_

"Oh, Trina, would you?" Godfrey felt his heart bound with delight.

There was another long pause.

"Only if King Craig and his government will let us keep the well," she said.

"Oh, that." Godfrey knew enough about the new Fissure Oil Well to be extremely suspicious about the Slobodian motive to keep it in their domain, even though it was in Melloria.

"Well, you'll have to talk to him about that – incidentally, I'm at Cathy and Lucy's house and they're having a barbecue. King Craig and his mother are here – "

"It all sounds lovely, darling," Latrina's voice was beginning to sound bored. "Listen, Godders, I'm on a viciously tight schedule today and I have to go. But please keep me informed about your treatments."

"Yes, I will. Thank you, Trina, for giving me your time."

He switched off the cell. Well, at least I gave it a shot, he thought, and trudged back to Betty to return the phone.

Chapter 34

### The Well Of Loneliness

Negotiations between the government of Slobodia and the government-in-exile of Melloria over oil rights to the Fissure Well were held in a former tax office in neutral Bulimia. Clive Fatsi chaired the first of a series of exploratory talks, sitting alongside his fellow-adviser Sir Michael Pest and Archbishop Larry Lepager. Across from them, the Slobodian delegation included Boris Livski, an ugly bear of a man, overweight, bearded, with spiky red hair and an extremely grating laugh, and Olga Vayashevska, a woman who looked distractingly beautiful with a sweep of waist-length black hair. The third Slobodian member was Caspar, a man with one name and an unsavory past, who suffered from a form of Tourettes which involved the compulsive urge to utter bad puns and quips.

It was quickly agreed that humanitarian measures, such as the release of all Mellorian civilians held captive by the Slobodian forces and the return with full compensation of all villagers forcibly relocated to Slobodia, be carried out, and that compensation should be paid by the government of Slobodia to Mellorians who suffered injury or loss of property during the recent invasion. The current occupation of Melloria, it was agreed, would come to an end. But first the Slobodians wanted a guarantee of their exclusive right to the Fissure Well.

The Slobodian position was that as the discoverers, developers and drillers of the well they were entitled to its profits while the Mellorians maintained that they deserved a share of the revenue, and, since the well was on Mellorian territory, the mineral rights belonged to them. The Slobodians offered to withdraw their troops immediately, in return for exclusive rights to the well and ownership of the pipeline that would be laid from the well to a refinery in Slobodia. The Mellorians said no, and the meeting had reached a deadlock.

Sir Michael Pest made a passionate plea for Melloria to have a fifty-fifty share of the oil from the Fissure, based mainly on the injustices suffered by the Mellorians at the Slobodians' hands and the dire poverty the country had endured for centuries. He ended his plea with: "Please consider us favorably."

"You won't get any more out of us," Olga Vayashevska scoffed. Our deal is: Troops stay until you agree that the well is ours, then troops leave. Take it or leave it."

"Love it or shove it," Caspar echoed and Livski laughed coarsely.

Pest was somewhat fascinated by Vayashevska, but Fatsi just wanted to slap her in the face. He began to lose his fiery irritation as the negotiations dragged wearily on.

"What's for lunch in the cafeteria?" he asked Pest.

"It's Friday so it has to be fish," Pest said smoothly. "The Bulimians are thinking of us Mellorians, the people who prostrate themselves before religious icons."

"Thought so." Fatsi yawned. "Oh well, fish and cabbage again."

Pest was beginning to feel as bored as Fatsi from trying to negotiate with no power chips to play. He pursed his lips and gazed out the window.

His eyes were drawn to the three flags snapping in the breeze on long white flagpoles in the forecourt. The Bulimian flag was a white band above a royal blue band with a golden peacock as its central motif. The Slobodian flag showed a grim-looking double axhead encircled by a wreath of oak leaves in the middle of green-white-green vertical stripes. Melloria's flag consisted of six horizontal black-and-yellow stripes at the center of which was a white disk with the national coat of arms: a green donkey bearing a bundle of cabbages being blessed by a Grecian figure in white robes holding a leaf of what looked suspiciously like Saint's Breath.

Pest's attention was drawn back to the meeting by the sound of Fatsi drumming his fingers on the table in front of him. Vayashevska, clearly in a pissy mood, was practically screaming at Lepager that there was nothing left to negotiate, since Slobodia had the upper hand. Although by now Pest and Fatsi had tuned her shrieking voice out, Lepager looked horrified.

"For God's sake, call for a recess!" Pest whispered to Fatsi. Fatsi nodded.

"Now then, everybody," Fatsi exclaimed, relieved. "Time for lunch!"

After a full day of being mauled by Olga Vayashevska, Archbishop Larry Lepager felt glad to be sitting on an armchair in Archbishop Jesse Joplin's living room, across from King Craig and Sharon, who were seated on the couch.

"We're getting nowhere with the Slobodians, Your Majesty," he said, glancing at the ceiling. "This whole thing is becoming a farce."

Craig frowned. What could he do to break the deadlock he so desperately wanted to get past? Now that the plan for his triumphant homecoming had been finalized, it seemed crazy that they were being held up because of an oil well, even one that might be worth lots of money.

"Isn't there any kind of deal we can do with the Slobodians to get our share of the well?" Sharon asked.

"The only deal they're interested in is one in which they'll leave us alone if we'll leave them alone," Lepager said.

Sharon gave a frustrated sigh. "Maybe we should just let them have the well and be done with it."

"I'd agree with you if we knew what the revenue from the well is likely to be," Lepager replied, "but apart from a gung-ho geologist's report it's still an unknown quantity."

"Should we wait and see, while reserving the right to renegotiate," Sharon said, "and find out more about the well's potential from an independent source?"

Lepager shook his head.

"If only we knew someone with authority who we could ask."

"I think I know who to ask," Craig said, a satisfied smirk crossing his boyish face.

On a high and windy hill overlooking the Mellorian border, King Craig stood waiting beside a thicket of sagebrush. He was wearing a North Face jacket and jeans and his legs ached from the long climb. Larry Lepager had pulled up the car at the foot of the hill and sat behind the wheel. As the wait lengthened, Craig's patience began to wear thin. He cleared his throat.

"Are you there, Wize Guyz?"

"We are, Your Majesty."

The voice was rough and strong, and the words rang out in the silence.

"Oh, good – I have a question to ask," Craig said.

There was a rustling of branches behind him and he gave a start and turned around. A man in ragged clothes and a long straggly beard stepped out from the bushes and bowed.

"Ask away, sir," he said.

"It's about the Fissure Oil Well, Wize Guy. Should I let the Slobodians have all the money from it or should I fight for Melloria to have a fair share?"

The man's voice was deep and resonant, belying his appearance.

"You would be very wise to let the Slobodians keep the well, sir. Within a short time from now, many Mellorians will be glad they are not responsible for its existence."

Craig smiled a wry smile. "Thank you, Wize Guy. I'll do as you say."

He stepped briskly down the path leading to the bottom of the hill, feeling light-headed. When he reached the car and told Lepager what the Wise One had said, Lepager chuckled with appreciative laughter.

"Well, that settles it," he said. "The Wise Ones have spoken."

Chapter 35

### Twilight Of The Gods

When the news got out that the Mellorians had relinquished all rights to the Fissure Well and yielded it to the Slobodians, celebrations erupted in Slovograd. Shortly afterwards, Queen Latrina ordered General Fyodor Fiska, the Supreme Commander of Slobodian Forces in Melloria, to oversee the complete evacuation of his troops. Celebrations among the ex-pat Mellorians in Bulimia were more subdued, but there was general thanksgiving that Melloria would be free once more and relief that the well was now the Slobodians' sole responsibility and if anything should go wrong, it was down to them.

When Letitia came down to breakfast on the morning of the announcement, she could sense tension in the air. Godfrey was looking dour as he poured his third cup of coffee and Hector was chatting to Ada about King Craig's return to Calliper palace.

"Craig and his mama will get a right royal shock when they see what the Slobodians have done to the palace," he said, between mouthfuls of toast and marmalade. "They've been using it as their Military Command HQ. I bet there isn't a stick of furniture that isn't damaged."

Ada swallowed a bite of banana and said: "Yes, it's a pity he signed away his country's rights to that oil well – then he'd have something to pay for the repairs."

"Do you think they'll find anything other than water at the bottom of that Fissure, old chap?" Hector said to Godfrey who had been inhaling the steam from his cup.

"Hard to say.They've carried out umpteen tests so far and haven't found a bean. Still, it's one of the deepest fissures in the world..." He sipped his coffee with a nonchalant air.

"Godfrey has to see the urologist tomorrow, by the way," Letitia said to enter the conversation. "Apparently, he's got another growth in his you-know-where, and they're going to have to operate."

"Not necessarily," Godfrey sighed. He gave her a disapproving look. "They may be able to treat it with chemo."

Ada looked at Letitia sympathetically and Hector harrumphed as he reached toward a salver of bacon rashers in the middle of the table and impaled a few on his fork.

"Tricky little buggers, cancer cells," he said, before attacking the crunchy slices. After a while he added: "They have a habit of wandering all over the body."

"The doctors call it metatasis," Ada said, pausing from her jasmine tea. "The cancer cells have to be zapped wherever they can be found, otherwise they can form a tumor."

"Anyway, the doc will see you all right," Hector said to Godfrey. "Then you and Letitia will be ready to fly back to your Caribbean paradise."

"I want to see the Slobodian army out of my country first," Godfrey said with a gruff edge to his voice. "Then I'll be glad to go."

Letitia looked at him warily. Let's hope you mean it this time, she thought.

Slobodian troops cleaning and recleaning their weaponry and sharpening their knives sat under the Palladian façade of Calliper Palace with its handsome stone porticos. The withdrawal was underway. Their officers were inside in the banqueting hall, crammed between the long oak table and the walls. A knot of senior officers around Commander Fyodor Fiska was buzzing with talk and much consultation of maps.

As soon as the field officers were all assembled, Commander Fiska stood at the head of the table and drew their attention by hammering his fist on the wood.

"All right, gentlemen, it's time to pat ourselves on the back. Our mission is accomplished. We've secured for our country the biggest and richest oil field in the world, which will no doubt bring prosperity for our people for decades to come."

The room erupted, and he waited until the cheering died down before he continued.

"The Mellorians have agreed that the well is ours to develop and benefit from, so we've got no more business here. We pull out in two hours. It's time to haul ass out of here and go home. God save the Queen!"

More cheering followed and he strode out of the room.

Two hours later in the palace forecourt, as troops adjusted the straps on their packs and climbed aboard their vehicles, a honking siren sounded. Ammunition boxes and rations were stowed away and the duty captain looked at his watch. "This is it. Let's go."

The vehicles roared out through the palace gates, to join the convoy of tanks and troop carriers, led by their command cars, that rumbled through the streets of Melloria City. A ragged cheer from the watching crowd greeted the departing troops as columns of men and machines poured through the streets. Civilians wheeling bicycles stopped to yell cries and insults, and girls waved and smiled. The army was rolling toward the Slobodian border.

The feud between the warring geologists, Jincus Majnun and Layla Fricker, had reached the point where each was ordering drill-stem tests at the well to spite the other. Even though neither had done well-site work before, they competed with each other to see who could bring up the most salt water. The workers would drill for half a day, get a break and another test would be ordered. More salt water. Six hours after that, there would be another break and another test. It was a real morale buster. A drill-stem test took twenty-four hours to complete and a day's drilling was lost; the summer months were being squandered. The crew felt they were being put through an ordeal just to satisfy the inflated egos of two people who couldn't work together, and Grant Barstow's nerves were getting shredded.

Barstow didn't have the geologist temperament. Geologists generally had a tendency to be overly optimistic because of the nature of their calling. They may have had a string of dry holes, but they all thought the next one was going to be a big field. He was usually leery of optimists but Majnun's enthusiasm about the presence of incalculable amounts of deep-lying abiotic oil had fired his own dream, the dream of every oilman: an off-shore deep-water well that was actually on-shore. That perfectly described the Fissure Well. He stretched out in his office recliner and closed his eyes. In a few minutes he would be making a video call to Queen Latrina of Slobodia. He fell into an exhausted sleep.

"Are you awake, Mr Barstow?"

The chiming voice rolling over the memory of an insistent electronic burbling from his computer monitor snapped Barstow's eyes open.

On the screen in front of him he saw a woman who might have been an actress or a model. She had bronzed skin and plump cherry lips and her sandy-brown hair was swept up in a fetching chignon.

"Hello," Barstow mumbled, his eyes inspecting the woman's face. "I must've dropped off."

The woman smiled. "We understand. We know you and the other workers at the Fissure Well are working hard."

"We're trying," he said, feeling slightly awkward at his continuing lack of success.

"I'm Barbara Brandovska, Queen Latrina's Personal Assistant," the woman went on. "Her Majesty will be with you momentarily for the video call."

Barstow nodded, adjusted the web cam on top of his monitor and put the woman's face on Full Screen. She was prettier than he'd first thought, smiled engagingly, and suddenly stepped aside. She was replaced by Queen Latrina, her complexion clear, her hair braided and her whole body sparkling in a silver sequined Valentino dress and diamond jewelry.

"Your Majesty!" Barstow gasped. He wasn't expecting quite such a glamorous image. He'd heard rumors that Royston's mother, widow of the assassinated King Slobodan, was slovenly and somewhat unhygienic in her personal habits, preferring her fingers to a tissue when blowing her nose. He'd mentally told himself not to offer her a handshake the next time they met, but the sight of her looking so elegant and regal knocked his preconceptions away. He struggled to regain his composure.

"We hear the Fissure Well is nearing completion," he heard her saying. "Does that mean you have now found oil, Mr Barstow?"

Her question caught him slightly off-guard, in spite of hours of preparing what he would say. To keep himself on the front foot, he rattled out some stock phrases.

"We haven't reached total depth yet, your Majesty – not by a long way." He took a breath. "We won't know how big the pay zone is until we've finished all our tests, and then the production casing has to be cemented in place before we start the completion..."

He paused, momentarily running out of cliches.

"It sounds like you're doing a lot of tests, Mr Barstow," Queen Latrina said, with a slight frown. "But we know you are doing all you can to make this a success. We at Duodenum Palace are having to contain our excitement."

Feeling his awkwardness come back, Barstow stumbled on.

"Every time they're ready to retest the well, ma'am, the manager on site calls me and asks if I'm coming over to see if our investments have paid off."

He felt better having introduced an optimistic note.

"Next time can I come with you?" Latrina suddenly asked.

Barstow felt a moment's agitation, but realized that the queen's request was actually a golden opportunity to showcase the well. Nevertheless, he knew he must be careful.

"Well, ma'am, it's a superstition among oil men that a woman on an oil rig is unlucky – but in your case, I don't see how anyone could say no."

Latrina laughed, and her diamond earrings tinkled. "Who knows, perhaps a queen's visit might even bring good luck."

"That's what I'll be telling the crew, ma'am," Barstow said and became more relaxed.

"What can you tell us about the future prospects for the well?"

"If I may, ma'am," he said, attempting to sound authoritative, "I'd like to give you some background knowledge. Normally, oil men look for Jurassic sands – because they are the best oil producers. But two Mellorian geologists have claimed that oil is not a fossel fuel and that unlimited amounts of it can be reached much deeper inside the earth's crust. We believe they're right and that the Fissure field is going to be a gigantic oil producer." A note of excitement had crept into his voice. "In fact, early indications are that we have a class A prospect on our hands –and that's as good as it gets."

"It sounds thrilling, Mr Barstow."

"Oh, ma'am, it's an oil man's dream. It's the deepest land rig ever built. In my opinion, it's an off-shore deep oil field that's actually on-shore. So no need to worry about weather conditions that the off-shore boys have to deal with. No gales or hurricanes, no powerful currents or huge waves. We don't need to hire boats and sailors to ferry the crew to the rig – it's a ten minute stroll from the men's bunkhouse. Servicing the operation is a dream. We didn't have to build rec rooms on the oil platform. When the men have done their twelve hours, they just walk back to the bunkhouse, have a shower, catch a movie, shoot dice or whatever. It's so easy, it makes me want to cry – and, most important, there are no king-sized costs."

"You almost make it sound cozy," Latrina said, suppressing a giggle.

Oh, ma'am," Barstow said, getting in stride. "I've worked on rigs where the workers had to be brought in by helicopter to the drilling rig. Then they'd work twelve hours a day for three weeks straight, followed by two weeks off. The Fissure is way better, because the guys don't get two weeks off in five – it's more like two weeks a year. That really keeps things moving"

Latrina had been listening attentively to his words and was slowly forming the opinion that this was a man she'd like to know better. He wasn't bad looking, either.

"Now that your government has cut the Mellorians out, the cost of development will be even lower," he was saying. "We don't have to worry about their damn government regulations." He smiled again. "I've learned, ma'am, that if a country isn't sharing the expense of drilling a well – as your country is – then it has no incentive to hold down costs. That makes well drilling a very expensive business."

"Yes, I can see that," she said.

"The Mellorians, for example, are risk-averse," he said. "Their system punishes risk and strips away the incentives to grow the economy.

"Yet only growth provides the real jobs that no government-directed economy can ever create. A true entrepreneurial spirit is rooted in the desire to make money. The monarchist government of Melloria considers money to be undignified – so nobody makes any."

He talks just like Royston used to at his best, she thought, only he's not nearly so scary. I like him.

"The Fissure Well is going to be a truly giant find," he continued, preparing to sum up, "and if I may compare this field with another land field – the Bakken Formation that covers three US states and part of Southern Canada. There the estimate is four billion barrels of recoverable oil, and our well has reserves that could easily top fifty billion barrels, possibly much more."

"Wow."

Oh yes, he was definitely a man she'd like to know better.

Barstow felt he was on top of his game. He hadn't taken any antidepressants either – apart from a Zoloft with his morning coffee.

"Once we come on production, we'll be pumping oil into storage tanks near the producing platform. These tanks are joined by pipeline to a refinery twenty k's away in Slobodia. This way we're saving 300 million dollars a year on transportation."

What was happening to her? She was getting turned on by a total stranger, a man with blue eyes who was mesmerizing her. She hadn't felt like this since – she didn't know when. Now she had to say something mundane to break the spell.

"I find it hard to think in dollars, Mr Barstow," she said firmly. "My mind wants to convert them into Slobodian slugs."

There. Now she was back on track.

"I have a currency converter app on my phone that will give you the amount in slugs, ma'am," he said eagerly. "It's right here on my desk."

Oh God, he has an app, she thought. If only I had an app to control my feelings!

The next day Barstow contacted the superintendent at the well to organize a welcoming committee for Queen Latrina's visit. In a matter of hours the men had fixed up a luxury trailer with its own bathroom for the queen to use when resting. The next item to be dealt with was a present for the queen. The well manager suggested she be presented with a bottle of perfume, which Barstow thought insufficient. Meanwhile, another test had been ordered at daybreak, but as often happened on oil fields, there were delays. Barstow was getting tired of delays and ordered a final drill-stem test that would penetrate deeper into the Fissure than any other. When he heard about it, Dr Jincus Majnun practically hit the roof. As an explorationist, he spent most of his time poring over charts in his office or bickering with his partner, Dr Layla Fricker. Now he and Fricker were united in opposition to Barstow's test on safety grounds and paid him a visit to talk him out of it. He refused to back down and sent them packing.

Queen Latrina's visit to the Fissure Well took place two days later. While the queen, with a small entourage, toured the rig and spoke to the men in the operations room and on the rig floor, as well as to the crane operator, Barstow's deepest-ever drill-stem test took place.

After the test had proved positive, a hose attached to tubing that reached to the bottom of the Fissure was placed in a bucket of water to allow the operators to monitor what came out of the well. The drill was sent down and workers gathered around the bucket.

Barstow was leading the queen back to the rig platform when the superintendent yelled that something was coming in. Barstow had warned the queen not to expect oil to come gushing out immediately and didn't hurry his pace. When they joined the crew members peering into the bucket all they saw were water bubbles popping out of the hose.

"It could be another hour yet, ma'am," Barstow said, trying to conceal his disappointment.

"That's all right, Mr Barstow. It'll be worth the wait, I'm sure."

She was hanging on his every word and still mesmerized by him. She could care less how long the test took.

Water started shooting out of the hose after less than twenty minutes. Barstow suddenly knew that they had made a discovery that would justify the millions of dollars already spent, and he clutched the queen's arm. She smiled and quietly rested her head on his shoulder, unnoticed by everyone except her two security guards standing a meter away.

Somebody finally shouted "It's oil!"

The bucket filled up quickly and Latrina surprised everybody by bending over it and dipping her index finger in the black sludge. The hose was disconnected and Barstow gently moved the queen away from the bucket. He couldn't get over the sight of her dipping one of her fingers into a barrel of newfound crude oil. She had a look of such childlike delight as she held up the oil-coated finger that he almost expected her to lick off the sludge like cookie dough.

The pressure from the tubing started to rise. Suddenly the oil surged up at full force and flowed up the vent line. Someone hit the ignition switch so that the oil would burn and not spill over the platform, and a thirty-meter-high flame roared up.

Barstow and Latrina stepped back half a meter and stood close together, his hand still holding her arm, watching the proof of their success, feeling the heat of a flame that was beginning to scorch the paint of the derrick.

"How long will you let the flame burn?" she asked him.

"For a while...to be sure of the well's capability."

"Isn't it risky?" She locked eyes with him.

"Yes, ma'am," he responded. "But it's worth the risk – we're now flowing at the rate of thousands of barrels a day and your country's money is looking pretty good."

At the end of her visit, Queen Latrina was given a silver platter to commemorate the occasion. Barstow was glad he had insisted that the company buy the plate, as it now served to remind the queen of the discovery of oil. In the operations room, where the presentation was made, he and the senior workers on the well raised their champagne glasses in a laudatory toast.

"Thank you for bringing us the gift of oil, Your Majesty," he gushed. "Long life!"

Amid the cries of "Long life!", Latrina savored Grant Barstow's words. They had massaged her eardrums the way she would like his hands to massage her body.

Chapter 36

### The Flight

The night before King Craig's return to Melloria in a motorcade of cars containing himself and his mother, Archbishop Larry Lepager, Cive Fatsi, Sir Michael Pest, an assortment of notable ex-pats plus former monarchs, Godfrey and Letitia, everybody in Archbishop Jesse Joplin's house slept soundly, except for Sharon the Mother Queen.

Sharon could barely keep her eyes closed. She was thinking about the next day's program of events: the motorcade, the celebration service at the cathedral in Constitution Square, the reentry into Calliper Palace – which had barely been refurbished after the Slobodian army's departure – followed by the inevitable banquet and ball to mark the liberation of her country. It was making her exhausted just thinking about it all. Her naked body twisted around in the sheets, her mind preoccupied.

At three in the morning she decided she would have to get up. It was not just that she badly needed to pee, her thoughts were drumming too loudly to allow for the quiet of sleep. During the day she had received a call from Queen Ada, recommending a new royal adviser: Rahula Crow of the Melchior Agency that provided certain psychological services to the Bulimian government. King Hector had been given red-hot advice on how best to run their country, she said, and added that Crow could give guidance to Craig and make him a very wise king. Sharon had agreed for Crow to meet with her son for a half-hour before the motorcade's departure, and now she was wondering if she had done the right thing.

Fatsi and Pest would probably feel miffed, she was sure, that she had authorized a new adviser, who wasn't even a Mellorian, to consult with the king. She herself couldn't see any problem in Crow's being Bulimian. It certainly wasn't a language problem. She and Craig, like the rest of their family, were fluent in Bulimian.

She slid out of bed and went to the bathroom. On her way back, she noticed through the parted curtains of her bedroom window that the night was clear and incredibly starry. Hearing the sound of someone riding a bicycle down the empty street, she looked out. The sad creak of the wheels carried her back to the days when she, her dad and Craig lived in East City, in a tiny house hardly big enough for three. She thought tenderly of her poor old dad, slowly drinking himself to death. For some reason her deadbeat boyfriend, Simpkins, came to mind and how he used to drop in on her uannounced after one of his drug runs. She had recently taken Simpkins back on as a driver after he had fallen off the wagon and had to go into rehab. God, she hoped he would be fit to drive her and Craig in the limo tomorrow.

Guided by the sound of the bicycle, she peered hard between the curtains. She recognized the cyclist as Simpkins, the man she'd just been thinking about, and watched as he stopped directly under her window. He stood in his scruffy leather jacket and jeans, staring down the deserted street. He must have been out selling dope down the clubs, she thought.

On an impulse, she dressed in the dark and slipped out of her room. Downstairs everything was silent, and she tiptoed outside where a stone path led from the porch through a patch of grizzled trees and hollyhocks swaying in the windy night air. Simpkins was leaning against a tree, smoking a cigarette.

Weaving through the plots of trembling hollyhocks, her long white leather coat glimmered in the moonlight. Only when she was almost on him did Simpkins notice her and he gave a sudden start, the cigarette almost falling from his mouth. She giggled and touched his arm.

"What you up to then, at this time in the morning?" she said, adding: "Can I have a drag of your ciggie?"

"Christ, you nearly gave me a heart attack, Shaz – sorry, Your Royal Highness."

He cackled and relaxed his posture. She batted her arm at him to indicate he didn't have to be formal.

"Here y'are. It's lucky I didn't swallow it – you scared the wits out of me."

He plucked the cigarette out of his mouth and handed it delicately to her.

She smiled, then sucked in deeply.

"Wow, this is making my head spin," she gasped. Lifting her chin, she exhaled a blue cloud toward the sky.

"It's a strong brand – I think they're Slobodian," he said.

"What you smoking Slobodian cigarettes for? We've only just made peace with them bastards."

She handed back the cigarette and he took a long pull. Then he flicked it away.

"I know, it's fucking unpatriotic of me. But they were the only ones I could get down the club."

"Oh, so you been out clubbing again, have you? Aren't you getting a bit too old for it?"

She propped her back against the tree, slid all the way down and sat where she landed.

"Well, you know me, Shaz – I have to make a bit on the side..."

He squatted beside her as she folded her arms over her knees.

"You don't have to deal in drugs, you know." She gave him a disapproving look. Then, because he started looking downcast, she changed the subject.

"It's a beautiful night."

"It is that," he agreed.

They both sat in silence for a while, so close their legs were almost touching. Her thoughts returned to the upcoming motorcade. The incredibly starry sky, like dark velvet sprinkled with silver, had prompted her to feel lovey-dovey toward Simpkins, but the taste of the cigarette jolted her back to harsh reality.

"Do you think you'll be all right to drive us tomorrow, Sim?"

"Course I will, I haven't been doing drugs – only dealing"

He sounded defiant, which wasn't a good sign. She began to suspect he was returning to his old ways, so she decided to be open with him.

"Look, Sim, I took you back on the payroll cuz I wanted to give you another chance. You ain't gonna let me down now, are you?"

He gave a chuckle, but it was hollow.

"I give you my word, Shaz – I'm as clean as a whistle."

"You got a girlfriend these days?" she suddenly asked.

"No," he said defensively, and then added, "not yet."

He looked briefly into her face. I wonder if I'll ever let a man like him into my life again? she thought, and smiled.

"What about you?" he said, noticing her smile.

"When have I got time for boyfriends, Sim? God, looking after my son's education and training is a full-time job in itself."

He looked away, then back at her quickly.

"Yeah, I s'pose you have got your hands full," he said in a soft voice, almost respectful.

She nodded. She was aware that he saw her differently, nowadays – not as she was, his 'bit of stuff,' but as an icon, a royal personage. If he ever got back with her again – which she now decided would be never – he would see that she was just the same Sharon as before, but with the added responsibility of bringing up a son who was the king of their country. But to him she was a person he would never try to hit on again – she was excluded from his date book.

"A penny for your thoughts, Shaz."

His dull cliché brought her back to the present. It was bloody cold, and although she didn't really want to go back to bed, she knew they both needed to catch some sleep. Still, he was not so bad looking that she didn't want to give herself up to the night and enjoy his presence.

"It's such an incredible night," she said. She wished she could lean over, just a few centimeters, and rest her shoulder against his. But she knew she shouldn't.

"Oh well, it's a big day tomorrow," she murmured.

She stood up sadly.

Simpkins got to his feet in a quick stumble.

"Night then, Shaz."

Night. See you tomorrow."

He was already wheeling his bicycle away.

The next morning, straight after breakfast, while Sharon was showering and shampooing her hair, Rahula Crow arrived to give Craig his first consult. They sat in the living room and she could hear them talking about the recent Slobodian invasion and the Mellorian response while she was looking at herself in the bathroom mirror and dabbing make-up on.

"The Slobodians were behaving like Nazis," Craig was saying, "and they started threatening to shoot people who wouldn't do what they wanted them to do."

"How did the Mellorians respond to that?" Crow asked.

"Some people from the village of Mania – near the caves where the Wize Guyz live – called on the Wize Guyz to help the people, and four of them went to the City and tried to speak to the general in charge of the Slobodian soldiers."

"Did he agree to meet them?"

"No, he wouldn't even let them inside Calliper Palace, so they stood outside the palace and at night they slept in front of the gates. They stayed there four days and nights, with no food or water, cuz the soldiers wouldn't let the people give 'em any."

"What happened then?"

"On the fifth day two of the Wize Guyz gave a speech to a big crowd of people that had come to hear 'em, and even though they were weak with hunger and thirst they told the people to unite and refuse to work for the Slobs – and not to have any fear of being killed because there were too many of 'em."

"What did the soldiers do?"

"They shot the four Wize Guyz and threatened to shoot the people in the crowd if they didn't go away. They did go – cuz they were scared, but after a while thousands of people just stopped working. The whole country came to a standstill."

"What do you mean?"

"Everything shut down – power stations, buses, factories...Shops closed. Nobody was working, although I think farmers were smuggling food to the townspeople. But they didn't give nothing to the Slobodians."

"What did the Slobodians do?"

"Wasn't nothing they could do. There were so many people not working, they had to put their own soldiers to work running the factories and power stations. So they didn't have no men left to round up the strikers."

"Wasn't that a brilliant plan?" Crow said, beaming a broad smile.

Sharon was now dressed in her finery for the motorcade, and she came downstairs to the living room.

"What are you men talking about?" she asked.

"The Mellorian defense," Craig said simply.

"Craig's been telling me that, apart from killing four brave men, the Slobodians were defeated without a shot being fired," Crow added.

"Is it time to get ready for the parade yet?" Craig said to Sharon.

Sharon smiled at Crow. "Not unless you and Mr Crow have finished talking," she said.

"We've finished," Craig said, more quickly than she would have liked.

Craig went upstairs to begin his preparation and Sharon sat next to Crow on the couch.

"So what do you think of my little boy then, Mr Crow?"

"He's an impressive young man," Crow said, smiling, "and he's going to make a remarkable king."

"Yeah, I figured that." Since he had been crowned king, she'd lost some of the rapport she used to have with Craig, and wondered if Crow could make up for the lack of a male role model in his life. Apart from anything else, Crow wasn't bad looking.

"Would you be able to advise my son after we return to Melloria?" she asked.

"It would be my pleasure, ma'am," he said.

She swallowed hard, trying to appear nonchalant. What was it about these Bulimian men – was it because they were so slim? Whatever it was, they were just like Italian men – drop-dead gorgeous.

"Good," she said.

Letitia was halfway through packing a suitcase when she glanced up and noticed Godfrey looked different. It wasn't just that he was walking around with a spring in his step because the urologist at the hospital had given him a clean bill of health, except for daily medications he had to take. It wasn't just that he had shaved and spruced himself up for the big parade they were taking part in. No, he looked different. He wore a cream sports jacket, green shirt and cotton twill slacks.

"Why don't you wear one of your suits for the grand parade?" she asked.

"I'm getting tired of wearing suits," he said.

Letitia looked nonplussed. She had laid out on the bed the clothes that she would change into later. She looked at the exquisite silk ballgown, the high-necked satin blouse and the tweed jacket and skirt. They were her treasures and she fondled them with her eyes. Why couldn't Godfrey take a similar pride in his clothes?

She put the question to him and received a defensive reply.

"My needs are simple," he said. "If I had two suits, a dark one and a light one, a couple of beagles and a shotgun I'd be happy. I don't need fifteen suits and a set of golf clubs."

"That's because you don't play golf," she said.

"You're right. I can't stand golf, truth be told. It drives me crazy whenever I lose the ball. Hunting and fishing are my sports."

Godfrey had come into her room to see if she had any Mellorian currency. After the ball at Calliper Palace, they were taking a taxi to the airport to catch a late flight that would eventually drop them in Tobago, and after inspecting his wallet he found he only had Bulimian bling.

"I need about five hundred moons," he said. "What've you got?"

"All I've got are those coins on the dresser," she said, and continued folding clothes into a large suitcase.

He quickly scooped up the coins and headed for the door.

"I'll see if Hector has any use for these damn bling," he said. "I only wish we had time to stop at a bureau de change for some moons."

An hour later, in the middle of a late summer morning, Godfrey and Letitia stood with their suitcases in the forecourt of Porcellan Palace and stared at their vehicle. The limousine was a white stretch convertible decorated fore and aft with yellow-and-black striped Mellorian flags. The royal crest of the House of Gorm had been painted on its side panels and an over-amplified PA system played martial music. King Craig in a light gray houndstooth suit and his mother in a green silk dress were seated on an elevated seat which allowed them to wave to the crowd, and Simpkins, their driver, stood proudly beside the car.

Letitia gave the vehicle a withering look that suggested she was about to die with embarrassment.

"I only hope they turn the noise down once we're on the road," she said to Godfrey.

King Hector had come out to see them off, and he clattered down the palace steps brandishing a wad of banknotes, which he thrust in Godfrey's face.

"Here you are, old chap – I managed to get your damn Mellorian moons," he said. "Now, where are those bling?"

Godfrey stuffed the wad in his pocketbook, and gave Hector a wad in return.

Queen Ada, who had sauntered down the steps behind her husband, planted a kiss on Letitia's cheek and shook Godfrey's hand.

"Well, bon voyage and all that, and don't forget to call us when you're back in your tropical paradise," she said.

Looking doubtfully at Simpkins, Letitia climbed into the limo while Godfrey, aided by a servant, stowed the luggage in the trunk. With Godfrey on board, the four passengers waved to Ada and Hector as they rolled away. After they had cleared Porcellan Park and the residential streets of Angina, where people peered at them through open doors and windows, the vehicle picked up speed and joined a convoy of flag-fluttering cars and SUVs heading for the Mellorian border. Unheedful of Letitia's wish, the sound system played military and Mellorian folk music at full volume throughout the length of their journey.

In Melloria City, people cheered and ran alongside the convoy while Craig and Sharon, getting into the swing of the parade, started leaning over and shaking people's hands. They made crawling progress along the major thoroughfares, preceded by large black police cars. People continued to rush forward, shouting and waving, and some approached the vehicle, just to touch the King. Even Letitia, waving vigorously alongside her smiling husband, was moved by the display of affection and was almost ready to forgive the blasts of sentimental folksongs rolling out in earsplitting waves.

Waves of a different sort were troubling Queen Latrina: emotional waves that rocked her back and forth as she wrestled with her desire to start a full-on love affair with Grant Barstow. As she sat at the desk in her late son's study playing an anxious game of solitaire, she wondered why any woman wouldn't be madly, passionately, sexually in love with him. She knew he was going through the throes of a long and messy divorce, and she'd heard that his ex-wife was a money-grubbing bitch, but that didn't mean he wouldn't make a scrumptious lover – once the dust had settled.

She finished her game and looked down at Druid who sat at her feet. All her life she had been forced to yield to the will of men: first her father, then her husband and finally her psychopathic son, but never had she wanted to submit to a man as much as she did now. Her man worship had become acute, and Barstow fitted the bill in every particular. She felt no anxiety about a relationship with him. Wherever it led her, she knew she would gladly go.

The long wait for a lover had at times been excruciating, but that meant nothing to her now. A delicious sexual affair was what she wanted. Since her son's untimely death, so soon after her husband had been killed, she had been at a low ebb, feeling downcast and yearning for an ideal lover – and suddenly, this marvellous man was in her life.

"I am in love with you," she said out loud, reaching down to ruffle Druid's fur.

She was acting impulsively, but she just didn't care. Her need for caution went out the window. The fact that she was a widow and he was almost-divorced seemed to make it all right, although she knew that he being a businessman and she the Queen of Slobodia definitely didn't.

She knew at some point that an affair with him would become the subject of a scandal, but she felt it was worth the price. At her age – she was sixty-seven – she was entitled to the pleasure of a passionate sexual affair, particularly after her years of deprivation as Slobodan's wife and Royston's mother. She didn't want to appear ludicrous, and was glad that Barstow already seemed to regard her with warm affection. Perhaps that could be tweaked.

She was looking for another opportunity to visit the Fissure Well again, and eagerly scanned the reports that Barstow was now sending her on a daily basis. From them she was learning the twofold process of drilling and pumping oil. The first stage, which was also the most expensive, was the building and running of a production rig whose purpose was to drill the well. That stage was now almost complete, with the finding of large reserves of oil, and a less expensive rig was being put in place to pump the oil to the storage facilities. Nevertheless the clock was ticking, and it seemed from Barstow's reports that the crew were under pressure to complete the production well quickly. She knew that, in addition to her own huge stake in the well, he had persuaded some very rich people to trade their cash for stock in a new company and he clearly needed to impress them with the speed of the operation.

Once a week he called her to let her know that the rush to complete the production well and change to the pumping well was going fine, and that vast reservoirs awaited them with terrific flow rates.

"So when can I see for myself how well things are going, Mr Barstow?" she asked. "After all, I am your biggest investor."

Barstow seemed to stall, then recovered.

" _We're working flat out right now, ma'am, on account of this rush job for the investors. We're running cement logs – pressure tests for the integrity of the cement we're using. But that's during the daytime... How about next Saturday evening, around seven?"_

Latrina smirked. "Perfect. I'll see you then."

Following the motorcade through Melloria City and the celebration at the cathedral to mark King Craig's return after a year of Slobodian occupation, a banquet was held at Calliper Palace, which consisting of a mixture of Mellorian and Bulimian delicacies to honor the part that Bulimia had played in sheltering refugee Mellorians. The feast, under cut glass chandeliers and huge oils in the gilt banqueting hall, was as lavish as could be expected under the circumstances, and Letitia pronounced herself satisfied with the arrangements.

She was less satisfied with the behavior of Godfrey and other Mellorian men at the banquet who loaded their plates with goatmeat in plum sauce and took great gulps of the cheap red wine on offer. When a platter of tender chunks of venison on a bed of fragrant pilaf rice was laid before them, Godfrey and his greedy crew were shoveling half of the mound on their plates before anyone else could get a look in. She wanted to give him a sharp tap with her foot.

The gala ball that followed the banquet was hardly any better. This time it was the behavior of the girls that annoyed her. Many of them seemed incapable of wearing a ball gown. One girl kept hitching hers up and another got hers tangled around her shoes. A third was wobbling around on her high heels as if she had never worn shoes before. Then there were the ones who preened and posed and acted as if they were on a catwalk. One had a disgusting see-through gown and several danced provocatively, spinning around and letting their skirts fly out, no doubt to the delight of the men.

She sat on the edge of the ballroom floor feeling thoroughly irritated and looking morose, until Godfrey, who had been liberally partaking of brandy and wine, wrapped a consoling arm around her shoulder.

"What-ho, Lettie, fancy a dance?"

She gave a sharp intake of breath.

"You've been drinking – you're going to make a fool of yourself on the flight."

"That's hours away, I'll be sober by then." He began tugging her good-naturedly onto the dance floor. "Come on, they're playing our tune."

The band had struck up a traditional Mellorian melody and they danced Mellorian-style, clinging very close together. The smell of wine on his breath was making her sick. Letitia fought the urge to shove his hands off her. Instead, they twirled round the room. She was aware that people were hooting, and she hoped it was at something else, not at her and Godfrey. Still they kept twirling. It was as if Godfrey had lost all his inhibitions. He was pawing her, up and down her body as they danced. She started to feel a little brazen herself and twisted herself around him, teasing him. He grabbed her arm and spun her and they slammed together.

"This dance makes the tango look quite sedate," was the last thing she said before he grabbed hold of her bottom and lifted her up onto him. Now they were both supported by his legs, but he didn't stagger or miss a beat. She couldn't believe how strong he was.

He can certainly hold his liquor, she thought, and clung to him as he bent his knees and thrust up with his thighs. Either that, or he's out of his face. Her body was pressed against his, her legs wrapped around his hips, ankles crossed – fingers crossed, too – hooked in, keeping the two of them tightly entwined. He looked enraptured, rolling his eyes, his mouth wide open.

When the music stopped, the other dancers gave them a round of applause. Godfrey led her back to the edge of the dance floor, but didn't allow her to sit.

"Why don't we go upstairs?" he said. "My old study will be empty and there's a comfy couch."

She laughed and looked into his eyes – they were wild, like those of a drunk or a libertine.

"If someone walks in, Godders, I'll never forgive you..."

"Don't worry – noone will."

He led her up the stairs to his former study at the end of the corridor. She paused to look at herself in the mirror at the top of the stairs and noticed that her gown was wrinkled. God, I look like an old tart, she thought. When they reached the room he knocked on the door. Hearing nothing, he hustled her inside.

She stopped and moved closer to stroke his face, and they kissed. In the dark silence, while the clock ticked on the mantle, the kiss developed into a full-blown grope. Their many months of celibacy, the turmoil of unfilled desire, the mutual craving of their bodies to touch, feel, smell the musky odor of each other, their dreams of remembered sex and the urge to recreate it – it was all building up to an urgency that swept away their tiredness and inhibition.

Godfrey pulled off her gown quite quickly and stripped her of her underwear. Then he violently removed his own clothes, throwing them onto the floor. Although tingling with nervousness, she let him lay her on the couch. He dropped onto her with a bump.

"Careful, Godders, I'm not made of wood you know."

"Careful? I'll show you who's careful," he said roughly and began to massage the insides of her thighs.

Grant Barstow cleared his desk, switched off his computer and watched Queen Latrina enter his office. She was wearing a purple shawl over a simple white blouse and a checkered skirt. Looking a little nervous but still regal, she smiled warmly as he came over to greet her.

All day he'd been obsessing over the cement job. Pouring cement down the casing in the well bore locks the casing in place and fills the annulus, the space between the casing and the bore.It seals off the reservoir of oil while the drilling rig is replaced by the pumping rig, but if the cement doesn't set right – you have a potential blowout. Now, looking up at this woman, he put that worry aside.

There was no denying she had something. It wasn't just her status, she had a freshness, even an eagerness, that was engaging. He felt there was also something more, not just an eagerness to see the well, but an eagerness to see him.

The greeting turned into a warm hand clench, and he let his lips brush against hers in a quick kiss.

"Where's your security detail?" he asked.

"Over by the helicopter in the lot. I told them to smoke as many cigarettes as they liked, that I would be quite safe here – with you." She gave him a quick smile. " What about your crew?"

"Around this time the night crew takes over from the day crew," he said. "I told the night crew to take a break – a long break, that I'd look after the place for 'em."

She gave him a quirky smile.

"Maybe your men and mine can share cigarettes?"

"That would be a good idea," he said huskily.

"So, we have the place to ourselves."

"We do."

For an instant he couldn't help comparing her to his ex-wife. Apart from being twenty years older, Latrina couldn't have been more different. With her he felt relaxed and open and knew that the sex, when it came, would be a terrific relief for both of them.

"Would you like a soda?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"It gets me wired if I'm not careful. How about you?"

He laughed. "I'm good. I've had four cans already – today's been a busy day."

"Any problems, Mr Barstow?"

"Funny you should say that – by the way, please call me Grant – as a matter of fact there have been a few."

"And you can call me Trina. Well, I'm sure you're able to handle anything that comes up...Grant."

He had no doubt what he wanted to do now. Putting his hand around her waist, he led her outside and down the steps.

They walked across the drill floor, past the massive derrick, to the operations room on the other side of the platform. Barstow took the stairs while Latrina waited in the shadow of the derrick. He wanted to make absolutely sure the room was empty. Other than a security guard, whom he had paid off, Litzak and his assistant, the two men in the operations room, were the only men on site and they had both been sent on a long break.

As he entered the room, he took in the control panel at the far end with its bank of computer screens. In front of it were two stools where the well manager and his assistant sat staring at gauges and occasionally entering commands on their keyboards. Working quickly, he pulled out a sleeping bag from a cupboard and rolled it out on the floor. Then he went outside and brought her in.

Taking her by the hand, he ushered her to where the sleeping bag was, a part of the room that was completely in shadow. The operations room was sparsely furnished: three stools on casters and a soft-drink machine. Shelves attached to the wall were used as desks for keyboards, and computer monitors were fitted into the wall.

She raised her eyebrows.

"So we're going to be on the floor."

He shrugged. "I've made it as comfortable as I could. Come – "

She sank to her knees and sat on the sleeping bag. She began to unbutton her blouse, but he stopped her.

"May I?" he said.

She nodded and lay down unmoving while he slowly unbuttoned and unzipped her clothes. Then he removed his own clothes, tucked the clothes under a nearby shelf and lay beside her.

From the uncovered window the moonlight threw stripes across her naked body and his. He turned and looked at her.

"You're beautiful."

She simpered. "In this light, who isn't? Come here."

The first kiss, when it came, was deep and easy. He experienced a moment of elation. This was the first time he'd made love in over a year, and he sensed that for her the wait had been even longer. She's fascinating, he thought. She's a queen and I'm having sex with her. She's also my biggest investor. It felt like making out with his boss, and that was exciting.

As they sank into each other's bodies, the gentle vibration of machinery hummed in the background. Barstow felt no concern for their safety. The drill was running deep underground and was being monitored by the bank of computers. The computers were running the show. They monitored the rig every second. By day all Litzak, the manager, and his assistant had to do was sit on their asses and watch the screens.

Barstow lifted his ass and began pumping Latrina's soft well, at first gently then increasingly harder, tightening and tensing every muscle in his body and feeling her do the same. Beneath him, on the hard floor, Latrina moaned and writhed, sharing her pleasure by nibbling his ear, kising his mouth and biting his neck.

Suddenly every computer in the room blinked twice.

Barstow looked up, a concerned expression on his face, and listened.

The sound of moving parts, each performing their special function and producing a familiar background hum, was changing.

"What's happening, Grant?" Latrina whispered.

"The drill's speeding up," Barstow said, almost to himself. "Either that, or the pressure's too high. I'd better take a look."

He lifted himself, reluctantly, off the floor and went over to look at the gauges. A flashing red light reflected on his face.

"What the hell?"

The instruments were showing a problem. They had picked up that mud and spacer and fluid had started to spew out of the riser. If the pipe wasn't sealed off right away, a freighttrain-long fountain of gas would spew out and ignite. And then you had a blowout.

Latrina had hauled herself up and was putting her clothes on.

"Is everything all right?" she asked.

"Pressure's going up," he said. "It's going up fast."

He anxiously scanned the gauges. Above the bank of computers, red lights were blinking.

His thoughts were racing. Blowout preventer – emergency switch – where is it?

He remembered that the blowout preventer, the BOP, with its sheer rams that sealed the pipe off, was activated remotely by acoustic switches these days. There was no big red handle to pull, like in the old days. He would have to call Litzak, the night manager.

"I need to call the manager to shut the drill down," he said, realizing with embarrassment that he was still naked while she was now fully clothed. He began searching frantically for his BlackBerry in his pants pockets. When he found it, he spent precious seconds fiddling with the phone for the manager's number.

They both heard a high-pitched whistle coming from the drilling platform.

"What's that?" she said, her face tense.

"Fucking hell, we're venting coolant! The water's turned to steam."

He clamped the phone to his ear, willing the manager to answer.

"Can you switch it off, Grant?"

"Unfortunately, Trina, I don't know the command. It's not my field any more." He pressed the phone tighter. "Where the hell is Litzak?"

In addition to the high-pitched whine, they heard an angry rattle coming from the drill pipe itself.

Barstow began quickly dressing, intermittently holding the phone to his ear. Latrina glanced nervously toward the door. "Maybe we should just get out – now."

He nodded and moved toward the door. Shepherding her outside, he turned and looked back at the control panel.

"I wonder if –"

His words were eclipsed by a gigantic whoomp that lit up the room in a lurid glare. The rig was on fire.

Stumbling down the steps, they walked as quickly as they could away from the rig. His arm was gripping her waist. Looking back once, he blinked his eyes in the glaring light, trying to take in what was happening. The sight of a gigantic wall of flame enveloping the derrick stunned him. What had once been a working rig, with the prospect of unlimited oil, had become a fiery nightmare.

They hurried away from the drilling platform and up the slope of the basin, but neither could ignore that the ground beneath them was rippling. They turned automatically to look at the rig. The moon was full and illuminated the drilling platform like a film set. The derrick itself was beginning to shake. They could hear a dull rumbling coming from deep underground.

"We'll have to make a dash for your helicopter," Barstow said. "Is the pilot there?"

"He's with the security men. Look, they're coming."

Figures were running toward them. Barstow shouted to them.

"Get the Queen to the 'copter – and get out!"

Then he ran to his car. He didn't want to wait for the ground to split open. Tremors raked the whole basin like the ripples of a giant wind.

The helicopter was already taking off when a deafening sound rose from the Fissure, a strange, continuous sound like thunder. Suddenly the conflagration sprayed out, becoming twice its size as if the flames from a massive gas ring had been turned up high. The derrick balanced for a moment on the edge of the crevasse it had been spanning. Then, with a violent shudder, it was swallowed into the flames.

The helicopter, struggling to rise in the intense heat, caught fire and exploded. Sitting in his car, the engine on, his face a lurid glow, Barstow watched it fall. He was overwhelmed with shock and stricken with extreme terror, but he had to get out – self-survival was his main concern. All the buildings on the drilling platform, weakened and twisted by the inferno, were toppling into the crevasse and the platform itself was breaking into fragments and sending smashed portions of itself into the hole. Numb yet fired by fear, he gunned the engine and pulled out of the lot.

Deafening explosions, from deep below the surface of the earth, rolled across the basin. In their bunkhouse, Lev and Andre were flung out of their bunks by the violent shaking and scrambled about on the floor, trying to collect their wits and figure out what was happening. They could hear a roar from outside as well as screams all around them.

"It must be an earthquake," Andre said. "Christ, it won't stop!"

The floor of the bunkhouse seemed to undulate like a carpet being shaken and men struggled to reach the door, screaming and shoving. Those who weren't trampled underfoot made a dash for the parking lot, though none of them owned cars.

"Let's try to get in the bus!" Lev shouted.

The workers' bus, which brought new arrivals to the workforce and transported workers leaving on furlough, stood at the far end of the lot. It was soon surrounded by men trying to board it. The ground continued to shake and rumble and began peeling back as the crevasse widened all along the basin. The bunkhouse and some empty buildings that had once made up the villages of Cider and Custard and had stood for centuries near the Fissure, plunged into the newly-widened crevasse in a few shuddering swallows. Screams of terror from workers left in the bunkhouse as it disappeared into the flames spurred the efforts of the men trying to get into the bus, and eventually the driver appeared with a key.

Inside the bus, the driver pulled on the steering wheel, his face covered in sweat. The vehicle rumbled out of the lot, urged on by a full load of shouting, swearing men.

"Come on, you bastard, come on," the driver muttered, as the racketing explosions from deep in the earth grew louder.

'Shit, I think we're gonna make it!" Andre said to Lev. "I just wish I'd brought my smokes."

Never taking his eyes off the road, the driver brought the bus up to the highway, and some of the men began to sing. Behind them, an immense chasm had been reamed out of the Fissure by the explosions and the entire basin was dropping several meters like a foundering ship.

The taxi driver taking her and Godfrey to the airport was the most irritating man Letitia had come across in a long while. Firstly, he had clearly not shaved in at least three days. Secondly, he was trying to interest Godfrey in a diversionary trip to a brothel.

"Would you like to meet some nice ladies, sir?" he had said to Godfrey as soon as they had left Calliper Palace. "Nice college-educated girls, looking to meet a handsome older gentleman. You can leave the lady in the car."

"No, he most certainly would not!" Letitia had almost screeched at the driver. The sheer impudence of the man – leave her in the car indeed!

"Now drive us to our destination, and be quick about it. We've got a plane to catch."

She sat fuming, while Godfrey quietly smirked and the driver tuned the radio to a folk music station, which he played deafeningly loud.

At the airport perimeter, the driver flashed an ID badge to the security guard and they were waved to the terminus. Shuffling slowly along in the security line, Letitia could see, outside on the asphalt, their aircraft gleaming in the lights from the terminal building.

Letitia looked out her window as the plane left the runway. Pinpoints of light from the airstrip were lighting their way. As they lifted, she began to think about Catheter and his bouts of depression. If Cathy falters, she thought, Lucy will be able to cope, and she's got Betty to look after the kids. Reassured, she closed her eyes. With Godfrey beside her beginning to snooze, she imagined they were on a luxury flight with a chilled-drinks cabinet at their disposal. Glossy magazines of the highest quality would be scattered about like roses, a bottle of Bollinger and wicker hampers filled with beluga caviar and foie gras, blinis and rye bread to spread it on, and exquisite canapes fashioned from lobster, crab and tiny asparagus tips.

Then she opened her eyes as the stewards were giving their safety instructions. In Mellorian. Of course, they were flying Mellorian Airlines, with its cheap and tawdry accoutrements: drab green seats with itchy upholstery that couldn't be shifted or reclined, even though there was scarcely any leg room; awkward-to-open and cramped overhead storage, whose doors looked as though they were about to pop open at any moment, spilling their contents on passengers' heads; inattentive stewardesses who congregated in a gang at the far end of the cabin, talking, laughing and gossiping, their drab green uniforms matching the upholstery. She knew the flight would be almost unendurable all the way to Heathrow, where they would change to a Virgin flight.

After take-off, the plane looped over the wooded gorge of the Lupus Valley and rose sluggishly through the clear night sky. In spite of her discomfort, Letitia settled down to make the best of it. They were going home after all, and with Godfrey slumbering beside her, she felt for the first time in over a year that at long last there was something to look forward to. She had really missed her villa and its tropical garden, not to mention the pleasure of entertaining guests in the moonlight with Caribbean fare and a bottle of Dom Perignon.

She closed her eyes again and daydreamed once more of the perfect airline, its first-class cabin fitted with alligator-skin seats that were fully reclinable, monogrammed pillows, a widescreen cinema, jacuzzi, gym and an etched-glass lavatory bowl in the elegant rest room that contained a real marble sinktop, not a fake.

The far-from-perfect Mellorian plane, an ex-Aeroflot Ilyushin Il-62 bought cheaply from the Russians when Western jets were replacing their aging fleet, was scrambling to perform its service. In the hands of Captain Lucas Movsy it juddered and complained all the way to a height of eleven thousand meters above the Mellorian Fissure. Beside Movsy, copilot Silas Crust sat in a motionless pose like a man silently composing his last will and testament.

"It's always this way for the first twelve thousand," Movsy said. "It'll be a walk in the park once we get up to cruising speed and put her on auto."

Crust mumbled something incoherent. He had only recently returned to copiloting duties after six weeks medical leave and would have preferred a short haul. He was blanching at the prospect of sitting inside the clunky craft all the way to Heathrow.

The twin engines well behind the cockpit were making an irritated hissing noise, but that was not unusual. Movsy had heard far worse coming in to land at King Egbert Airport, and he stroked the throttle as if trying to soothe the moody mechanism.

"Fancy some coffee?" he asked Crust. "They've finished the safety drill. Sarah should be along in a minute."

Crust, who had been resting his eyelids, suddenly opened them. He stared at the Primary Flight Display, the row of dials that showed them what was what. "Aren't we taking it a bit slow?"

"Let's see, we're at twelve thousand..." Movsy scanned the dials. "Jesus, airspeed is only 485 k's – we're struggling."

He seized the yoke and pulled the stick back. "Thanks for the heads-up."

Crust began to wonder why the pilot hadn't noticed their slack speed earlier. It was clear that Movsy was the one who needed a stimulant.

"Have a coffee yourself," he said.

The door opened behind them and Sarah Schuhmann, the Senior Flight Attendant, squeezed through. She was plumper than the average stewardess, but – being the lover of the company chairman – always passed her fitness test.

"How are we doing, boys?" She plopped into the jump seat and pulled the buckle over her girth. "Seems like it's been an age since take-off."

"PFD said we were doing less than 500 k's – That's why," Movsy said. "Could you get us both a coffee, love?"

Grumbling at having to unbuckle and get up again, Sarah hoisted herself to her feet and left the cockpit, shutting the door hard.

"Oops, I think you've upset her," Crust said. "She must have been hoping for a little rest, to take the weight off."

Under his breath Movsy said: "Yeah, and she could use some gym time – if only the bloody chairman would let her."

"Careful," Crust remarked, "the cockpit voice recorder's still on."

The two men fell silent. Far below, the Mellorian Fissure was now at the point where the chasm had suddenly opened out and from which, out of the darkness, a roaring sheet of flame was bellowing hot air far enough to affect the atmospheric pressure at higher altitudes.

"Shit, now we're climbing fast!" Movsy's eyes were on the dials again. "What the hell is wrong with this crate?"

He eased back on the stick, which began to rattle. The plane slowly started to level out.

"Are you nosing down?" Crust asked, looking across to see which way Movsy had moved the yoke.

"Just a tad," Movsy said. "Christ, look at the air pressure!"

Crust stared at the controls and frowned. 847 millibars did not look right at 12,000 meters. The temperature gauge was also up.

"It must be hot out there for some reason," he said. "You're right, Luc, we're safer flying lower – at least until the pressure drops."

"I'm usually right – I'm giving it a bit more downward," Movsy said and pushed the stick again.

The plane responded at once and dipped its nose. The sudden tilt caught Sarah by surprise as she padded through first class holding the two coffees. She pitched forward and a cupful of hot coffee spilled over the slumbering Godfrey's lap.

Jerked awake by the plane's movement, compounded with searing pain, he contemplated his soggy trousers and stinging thighs with muttered disbelief. Sarah handed him the remaining cup of coffee and began vigorously wadding the hot wet places with a napkin.

"Oh my God, sir, I'm so sorry. Please take this complimentary coffee with my apologies."

Godfrey's stern features brightened at the feel of the napkin-clad fingers rubbing so close to his crotch.

"Wasn't your fault, My Dear, it's that damn pilot – what the devil's he up to!"

Letitia twisted around and blinked. "What the devil is she up to!" she said.

Reddening, Sarah backed away, squeezing the napkin and rolling it in a ball.

"I'll see what's happening," she mumbled and pushed through to the cockpit.

"It's gonna be a bumpy ride, love, so get strapped in," Movsy said. "And what happened to the coffees?"

"Don't ask – I'll fetch 'em later." Sarah, belted and buckled, stared moodily out the window.

Movsy pulled hard on the yoke, there was a grinding noise and the plane continued dropping. "There's something off. I'm not getting any joy."

You're not getting any joy from the joystick, was Crust's whimsical thought. He wondered why he was being so frivolous, given the situation.

"Put her on auto," he said.

Movsy reached forward and engaged the autopilot. It was received wisdom in the industry that the autopilot would find a solution when human hands were fumbling. The plane was now in a steep dive and all three people in the cockpit could feel it rushing toward the Sea of Slobodia.

In first and coach class, the passengers were in uproar. Through cabin windows people could see the night sky vanish, to be replaced by the wide glittering lake. Some were shouting or moaning as the dodgy overhead compartment doors popped and items of luggage flew out, striking anyone in their path. Letitia gave Godfrey an alarmed glance. A laptop from three rows behind them came skidding down the aisle.

"Do you think we're going to crash?" she asked. Godfrey's face stiffened. "Let's hope the damn crew know what they're doing."

"Okay, you bastard, now it's your turn," Movsy muttered to himself. The autopilot had taken control of the plane and was shutting off power to the engines.

"Altitude is 8,900 and falling," Crust said.

"Give it time, give it bloody time," Movsy said as if to himself. He was feeling an embarrassing loss of status by letting the autopilot take control. The auto was letting the plane fall to increase airspeed. Soon it would lower the flaps to slow the descent, before leveling out once the controls were responding again.

At that point, Movsy promised himself he would switch off auto and increase throttle to show who was in charge. They could continue their climb on manual.

"Airspeed 975, increasing; altitude seven thousand, falling," Crust said as if to annoy him.

"Are we going to be all right?" Sarah asked in a small, worried voice.

"Piece of cake, love, piece of cake," Movsy said loudly, before Crust could reply. His sweating hand closed around the yoke.

Sarah began quietly muttering a prayer and Movsy's face tightened. They all waited for the aircraft to pull itself out of the dive.

In spite of the autopilot's efforts, the space before them through the cockpit windows still showed no horizon – nothing but dark water.

"All right, that's it – I've given you bastard long enough." Movsy had had enough of waiting; he overrode the auto and pulled hard on the yoke.

"Airspeed 1011, altitude six thousand – easy, Luc, don't overdo it." Crust was worried that in pulling out too quickly, Movsy would bleed off speed rapidly enough to cause a stall.

"Come on, you fucker!" Movsy pulled the yoke right back and felt the G force giving his lungs a workout.

"Airspeed 1100, altitude four thousand – oh, shit!" Crust felt his G force as a rush of blood to his head, making his eyeballs tingle.

The three crew members sat clamped in place, willing the aircraft out of the dive.

"Airspeed 1200, altitude three thousand," Crust said in a high, tight voice. Sarah wheezed out a scream. They all had difficulty breathing.

Suddenly the G force shifted. Movsy smiled, Sarah sighed and Crust panted with relief. They were climbing. But, in Crust's worried estimation, with the speed of a rocket.

During the plane's descent, Letitia – like many of the passengers – had begun to wonder if they would pull out of the dive. The yellow oxygen masks were already dangling, but she wasn't inclined to pluck hers – she never did like plastic. She and Godfrey twisted round and observed others stretched forward, their arms wrapped under their thighs and their heads bent low, following the safety instructions, and decided to sit tight. In Letitia's case, folding her arms loosely around her knees was tantamount to giving way to despair, and she was most reluctant to bow her head. The atmosphere of panic and fear in the passenger cabin reminded her of her days at the Hermeticon, and that was a storm she had ridden out. While Godfrey remained sitting stiffly upright, she let her head rest on the back of her seat and closed her eyes.

She felt and heard the plane plunge, screaming like a dive bomber, so it was reasonable to assume that now was the time to take stock, to sum up all that she'd achieved, which didn't seem very much, all that she'd experienced, which was too gigantic a cloud to contemplate in the short time they appeared to have left. What was important was that she was here, in a plane that hadn't crashed yet, sitting next to Godfrey, and that they were both still alive.

Behind them, she could hear people crying and invoking deities. In her prayer-like attitude, she began to consider her position in relation to things temporal. She and Godfrey had not had a bad life, all told, and she had no regrets about the past. What she had done or not done was gone. There was no going back. All that mattered now was what was going to happen in the next few minutes. If they crashed into Lake Melloria (she hated calling it the Sea of Slobodia), there was no hope of survival. She would just have to let go of her whole life, the way she had discarded her old life as Queen of Melloria when she went into retirement. She didn't own it any more.

Retirement thoughts led to musings about her garden. She cherished and tended it as assiduously as Candide had advised, so perhaps for her the afterlife would consist of an endless array of gardens, stretching into eternity. She closed her eyes and began to think of gardens she would have liked to cultivate, given more time, and felt soothed. She had always hankered after a formal Italianate garden in the hectares of land behind Calliper Palace that had remained unpastured. She had thought about designing a large-scale modern water garden as well as a potager or ornamental kitchen garden, such as she'd seen on broadcasts of the Chelsea Flower Show. The former would include a computer-controlled fountain system whose dozens of jets would produce an ever-changing display of water choreography. The water in the cascade would be softened by climbing plants, and would knock spots off anything that Ada had dreamed up for the Porcellan gardens.

Other gardens on her heavenly wish list would be a poison garden, a labyrinth garden and a rose garden planted with old-fashioned shrub roses. She envisaged that, behind the sturdy wrought-iron gates of Calliper Palace she would browse contentedly among hydrangeas, anemones, decorative fruits, such as blackcurrants and whitecurrants, red and yellow raspberries, fruit trees, of the nature of medlars, mulberries and crab apples, and floral extravagances of hollyhocks and delphiniums, with Virginia creepers covering the old stone walls. A medieval stew pond, where fish could be kept for the table in winter, would be available to the palace kitchens and a sunken croquet garden would occupy the remainder of the space behind the palace.

It was a project she would have loved to have thrown her heart into, and she now felt a pang of regret. Still, it would never have met with Godfrey's approval. He considered the area behind the palace to be good hunting land, never to be touched. She opened her eyes to look at him, sitting as solemn as an Easter Island statue, his eyes closed. It made her want to wrap her arms around him and lean her head on the side of his neck.

She quickly unbuckled her seatbelt. Putting her hand briefly on his face, she kissed him and let her hand slide behind his back and over his arm. She nestled her head on his shoulder, her features composed. This is how I want to die.

A moment later, Captain Movsy lost patience with the autopilot, wrenched the plummeting aircraft out of its downward flight and sent it shooting upwards. Unbuckled, Letitia was pressed against Godfrey by the sudden change in G forces as the centrifugal pushed them both back. The balance of speed and gravity changed again, and she lurched violently into the seatback ahead of her. Her forehead slammed into lightly-upholstered metal and plastic, and she immediately saw a blank white screen and marveled at its clinical, almost antiseptic hue.

The searing pain of splitting skin and rupturing blood vessels did not call her attention as much as the sound of her husband's sweet voice addressing her: "Darling, you're bleeding." Now he was calling out to someone else: "For God's sake, my wife's been injured!" The call was answered by interrogative voices that seemed to plead with Godfrey: "Was it a whiplash?" "Is she concussed?" "She isn't buckled in," a female voice accused. A short while later: "I'll have to tell the pilot. We'll be making an emergency at King Egbert." The female voice sounded contrite. Satisfied by the woman's contrition, Letitia closed her eyes and fell into a deep sleep.

####

About The Author

I began writing stories when I was eight years old. Before that, I just fooled around. I was inspired to continue the Letitia sequence when I remembered how my mother coped with my father's retirement – by putting him to work again. Letitia Uncrowned is the second in the Letitia trilogy. The first, Letitia Unbound, is available on: https://smashwords.com/books/view/256028 The third, Leitita Undead is still a work in progress, but nearing completion. I still live in South California.

Find Me Online

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TrevVeale

Facebook: https://facebook.com/trevorgeorgehenry.veale

Smashwords: https://smashwords.com/profile/view/lightninrod

My blog: https://www.trevorveale.com

