by Simon Brett
A few of the crowd couldn’t help reacting with boos to this, but they were quickly shushed up by their neighbours.
‘But now, after discussions with my cousin Prince Rudolph, it has been agreed that his forces will march straight back into their own country, overthrow the weak and corrupt regime of King Anatol and put Prince Rudolph on the throne as rightful King of Transcarpathia!’
There was a long silence until Usurping King Vlatislav remembered to raise his arms and was rewarded with a massive ovation and shouts of ‘King Rudolph! King Rudolph!’
This Vlatislav milked for a full five minutes, before once again silencing his supporters and announcing, ‘Two of the plotters who face justice this morning you will recognize. Ex-Princess Ethelinde and Crown Prince Fritz-Ludwig of Transcarpathia have both plotted to betray their own countries. Their deaths will end all opposition to my continuing as rightful King of Mitteleuropia and my cousin Rudolph becoming rightful King of Transcarpathia.’ (Scattered instinctive shouts of ‘King Vlatislav!’ and ‘King Rudolph’ were quickly stopped.) ‘Both of these duplicitous young people deserve much worse than the sentences which have been given by a due process of law! But this morning they will pay for their treason!’ The crowd was silent. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘You can applaud that.’ They went wild until switched off again.
‘And the other two plotters are foreign spies! Spies from one of the most corrupt and evil countries in the world!’ Now steady on, thought Blotto. ‘Yes, they are English!’
The crowd was allowed to express its xenophobic loathing for only a moment, before Usurping King Vlatislav once again raised his hand and announced, ‘How appropriate then that they are to meet their ends at the hands of another Englishman – one who has seen the error of his ways and is now a strong supporter of my regime in Mitteleuropia. How appropriate also that these four traitors are to lose their lives by means of the latest advance in British technology – the Accrington-Murphy machine gun!’
Nothing could have stopped the crowd cheering at that. Now they were really being given what they wanted.
‘Sorry again, Twinks me old pineapple,’ murmured Blotto. ‘The Mater will be really vingared off with me.’
Like all good showmen, Usurping King Vlatislav knew that there was a finite time that an audience could be kept waiting for its treats.
‘Right, people of Zling! People of Mitteleuropia! I – your rightful King – I, King Vlatislav of Mitteleuropia . . .’
Twinks recognized that he was using the rhetorical device known as ‘the emphatic nomenclature’, but Blotto had forgotten all about it. Corky Froggett turned his impassive face towards the viewing platform, so that he would not miss his signal.
‘I, King Vlatislav, give the order for these traitors to be killed. When I lower my hand, let justice take its course! So die all enemies of Mitteleuropia!’
Usurping King Vlatislav brought his hand down in a single fierce chopping motion.
25
Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man
Events then happened so quickly that it was only some months later that Blotto worked out their precise sequence.
At the moment he was aware of Corky Froggett turning from the royal platform to face his victims down the sights of his Accrington-Murphy, he also felt his chains being released by his sister.
‘Toad-in-the-hole, Twinks!’ he remembered saying. ‘How on earth did you manage that?’
‘I had skeleton keys sewn into the seam of my jerkin,’ she replied.
Of course. He should have known.
Just after that – or maybe at the same moment – Blotto saw Corky Froggett suddenly turn round a hundred and eighty degrees and start pumping lead from the Accrington-Murphy into the royal viewing stand. Guards standing in front of it tottered and scattered. But the chauffeur wasn’t aiming at the usurping royals themselves; only at the platform on which they stood. As the stream of spraying bullets perforated the front supports, the whole structure tottered forward, depositing the Usurping King of Mitteleuropia, the would-be Usurping King of Transcarpathia, Svetlana Lubachev and Zoltan Grittelhoff unceremoniously on to the cobbles of the Square of the Butcher. At that moment Corky Froggett stopped firing.
Also at that moment – or maybe a moment before or a moment after – the horseshoe of audience seating was suddenly surrounded by soldiers in the distinct purple uniforms of Transcarpathia. Some of them filtered down the aisles into the square and seized Usurping King Vlatislav and his cronies.
The spectators weren’t entirely clear what was happening, but they were loving every minute of it. If there was one thing they liked more than a public execution, it was a good coup.
But someone of high intelligence and political skill was needed to capitalize on the moment. Fortunately, there was one such person in the Square of the Butcher. Twinks, having freed the other two prisoners, stepped forward and raised her arms for silence.
It was instantly granted. Every eye in the square was focused on the small figure standing in front of Blotto, Princess Ethelinde and the Crown Prince. They might not have been so respectful had they realized she was a woman, but Twinks was of course still dressed as Klaus Schiffleich, and so they waited rapt for what she had to say. The oratory was one of the things the audience liked best about coups. Twinks addressed the crowd in their own language.
‘People of Mitteleuropia,’ she cried, ‘today is a great day in your history! Today sees the toppling of an illegal regime which has threatened the well-being and security of your country! As from today, the throne of Mitteleuropia will be claimed by its rightful owner. Today will be the first day of peace, prosperity and freedom for the people of Mitteleuropia!’
While the crowd cheered ecstatically, Blotto stepped forward and whispered to his sister, ‘I think this could be a good moment to tell them about the virtues of cricket.’
‘I don’t really think –’
But her brother had already stepped in front of her to quell the cheering. ‘I just want to say to you,’ bellowed Blotto, ‘that you’d have less of these coups and all that rombooley, if you all learned to play cricket.’
The crowd was puzzled. None of them spoke English. But Twinks quickly stepped into the breach and spoke, as if translating her brother’s words.
‘Under the new regime,’ she said, ‘the royal hunting forests will be open to every member of the population!’
The people roared their approbation.
‘If you just got eleven chaps from each side in any dispute,’ Blotto went on, ‘and thrashed it out over a five-day match, you’d soon learn to get on with each other!’
‘Free beer,’ Twinks translated, ‘will be on tap in every house in the country!’
The people liked that even better and shouted their approval.
Blotto liked the reaction he was getting, and pressed home his advantage. ‘Because, you know, life is like cricket and cricket’s like life. If a man plays cricket, you absolutely know he’s going to be a good greengage! And if you lot all played cricket, you wouldn’t feel so foreign!’
‘And,’ Twinks translated, ‘there will be extensive tax-cuts for the middle classes!’
No music could have been sweeter to the ears of the Mitteleuropians. They stood up, cheered and threw their hats in the air.
Blotto opened his mouth to speak further, but this time Twinks went straight on, ‘And all this will happen under the benign rule of King –’
But before she could get out the word ‘Sigismund’, she felt a sharp tap on her shoulder and turned to face her brother, who was a bit vinegared off at having his oratory cut short.
‘Blotto,’ said Twinks dismissively
‘King Blotto! King Blotto!’ roared the ecstatic crowd in the Square of the Butcher.
26
A Matter of Honour
Blotto was jolly pleased about the way the Mitteleuropians had embraced the idea of taking up cricket. Bit of a candle-snuffer them making him King, though.
&nb
sp; The big disadvantage was that he couldn’t do the only thing he wanted to do, which was to get straight back into the Lagonda and not stop driving until he was back at Tawcester Towers.
But noblesse oblige and all that kind of stuff . . . Or in his case, at least temporarily, royauté oblige . . . Wouldn’t do to leave the Mitteleuropians in another gluepot. No, he’d just have to stick it out in Zling until ex-King Sigismund and his entourage got back, then arrange an orderly handover of power.
Still, at least he’d achieved what he’d set out to do. Ex-Princess Ethelinde was free, and the Dowager Duchess was no longer under any obligation to extend the hospitality of Tawcester Towers to the girl’s father. At the first opportunity, Blotto sent a cablegram to his mother to tell her the glad news.
The reply he received was not over-lavish with praise, but then that had never been the Dowager Duchess’s way. She had high expectations of her children, but was not so spineless as to congratulate them when they achieved something. Praise never did children any good, it could only make them feel relaxed. And that was the last thing a parent wanted in her offspring.
His mother’s cable did, however, have an unpleasant sting in the tail for Blotto. It concluded: ‘OF COURSE, NOW YOU’VE RESCUED HER, YOU WILL HAVE TO MARRY THE GIRL. HER FATHER AND I HAVE DISCUSSED THIS AND COME TO A VERY AGREEABLE FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENT. THE WEDDING WILL TAKE PLACE IN ST ALOYSIUS CATHEDRAL IN ZLING NEXT MONTH.’
Oh, broken biscuits, thought Blotto. That really is a bit of a chock in the cogwheel. If the wedding plans were to go ahead – and anything the Dowager Duchess planned generally did go ahead – then before it happened he would also have to negotiate a duel with Crown Prince Fritz-Ludwig of Transcarpathia.
As he prowled discontentedly round Korpzenschloss he did his best to avoid ex-Princess Ethelinde – or was she back to Princess Ethelinde now? But he did inadvertently bump into her from time to time, and on each occasion she looked more amorous. Oh, biscuits smashed to smithereeens, thought Blotto.
Another earwig in the cream was that all the royal advisers in Korpzenschloss (who at the deposition of King Vlatislav had instantly transferred their allegiance to King Blotto) were keen to get him crowned as soon as possible. It was their view that, until a Coronation put the official seal on the regime change, there was a real danger that Vlatislav’s partisans might rescue the usurped usurper from the dungeons of Korpzenschloss and reinstate him on the throne.
The royal advisers also advised that all such anxieties could be alleviated by the simple expedient of executing the Usurping King Vlatislav. Since the early Middle Ages that had been the traditional Mitteleuropian way of dealing with such problems. But King Blotto had to sign the death warrant, and he was very resistant to the idea.
As a result of all this, he spent the next few days skulking round the corridors of Korpzenschloss, trying to avoid people who wanted to marry him, crown him, or make him sign a death warrant.
His only escape was the occasional secret hunting trip with Twinks and Corky Froggett. The chauffeur, incidentally, treated them to graphic descriptions of the means that had been used to make him turn traitor. It hadn’t been mesmerism at all, but Corky assured Blotto that it’d take ‘more than a few white-hot pincers and boiled members’ to change his natural loyalties. His actions in the Square of the Butcher had been carefully planned. With some regret he’d resisted the temptation to kill Usurping King Vlatislav, and his only annoyance about what had happened that morning was that, in the confusion, Zoltan Grittelhoff had escaped and was still on the run.
The three of them weren’t that impressed with the hunting on offer, even though they tried the much-vaunted estate of Berkenziepenkatzenschloss. As Blotto had suspected at the time, ex-King Sigismund had been overselling the quality of sport in Mitteleuropia. It was much better at Tawcester Towers. Oh, how Blotto longed to be back there!
Twinks was homesick too, but she bore it – as she bore most things – better than her brother. The evening before ex-King Sigismund and his entourage were due back in Zling, she listened patiently as Blotto catalogued his woes. ‘. . . all of which,’ he concluded, ‘leaves me up to my armpits in a gluepot, and I can’t see any way out.’
Twinks was thoughtful for a moment. Then she said, ‘Ethelinde’s madly in love with you.’
‘I know,’ moaned Blotto miserably.
‘And you don’t love her at all?’
He looked surprised at the question. ‘Of course not. Nice enough little thimble to pass the time of day with, but no, not love . . .’ He thought fondly of his cricket bat.
‘Well, I think you’re going to have to pretend you love her, Blotto . . .’
‘Mm.’ He was puzzled, but he trusted his sister implicitly. If she said he had to do something, there would be a good reason for it. ‘Come on, uncage the ferrets, Twinks me old biscuit barrel . . .’
There was still some light in the sky above Korpzenschloss. The sinking sun touched the edges of the clouds with purple. From the ramparts the lights of Zling could be seen, spread out in a twinkling carpet below. There could not have been a more romantic trysting place for two young lovers than those time-honoured battlements.
Princess Ethelinde had agreed readily to the meeting. Indeed, she had leapt at his suggestion. After three days of watching Blotto flinch from her presence, his change of attitude was very welcome.
Meticulously remembering Twinks’s instructions, Blotto announced, ‘Oh, Ethelinde, I love you so much!’
He should probably have anticipated the way she flung herself into his arms, but Twinks hadn’t mentioned that as a possible side-effect of his declaration. It was not a situation in which he had found himself before, and he wasn’t sure that he liked this proximity of flesh. When he thought of the Princess as a woman, there was something odd about it. But, enterprising as ever, he found a way round. When he thought of her as a horse, it felt a lot more natural.
‘Oh, Blotto,’ she murmured into his shoulder. ‘I have always known that you have felt the same about me as I have about you. Why did you have to hide your feelings?’
‘Well, um . . .’ Twinks hadn’t provided him with an answer to that question, so he fell back on the line she’d insisted he keep saying. ‘Oh, I do love you so much!’
‘Ours is the most wonderful love there ever was,’ she sighed into his armpit.
His instinct was to query this, but he curbed it. Following Twinks’s blueprint, he went on, ‘Yes, our love is so wonderful . . . so rare . . . so beautiful . . .’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ murmured the enchanted Princess.
‘. . . and so tragic,’ concluded Blotto, according to instructions.
‘Tragic?’ echoed the Princess. ‘Why, are you suffering from some wasting disease that will cut short your young life?’
She actually sounded quite attracted by the idea, and so was Blotto. Maybe the threat of an early death would be the route to go down? Maybe he’d get rid of the girl quicker that way . . .? But no, better stick with Twinks’s scenario.
‘No, I am healthy,’ he replied. ‘But of what value will health be to me as I spend the rest of my life without the only woman I can ever love?’
‘You do not need to spend it without me. I will always be there for you. We can spend our lives together!’
Blotto stroked her black hair and let out a world-weary sigh. ‘Oh, how young you are, sweet Ethelinde,’ he said. ‘How young and innocent in the ways of the world.’
‘I have seen more of the world than many girls my age.’
‘Perhaps,’ Blotto went on, still following his sister’s script, ‘but there is much you have not seen. In many ways you are as innocent as a new-faun born.’ The Princess looked at him with some puzzlement. Blotto thought about it. ‘Sorry, a new-born faun. You know of love, yes, but you do not yet know of duty.’
‘I have always been dutiful to my parents.’
‘Yes, but I speak of a greater duty – the duty that is owed to one’s country.’
‘I have always been loyal to Mitteleuropia.’
‘I do not doubt it, Ethelinde. You are like a dog.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘As faithful as a dog.’
‘Oh. Right. And I will be as faithful as a dog in my love for you.’
‘Yes, Ethelinde.’ Blotto paused, before coming out with the really good line Twinks had given him. ‘But sometimes love is not enough.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘There is love and there is duty. We love each other more than words can say.’ Certainly more than my words can say, thought Blotto, glad to be using Twinks’s. ‘But our love is a small thing, set against the fate of nations. We are players in a greater game. Our love cannot heal the rifts in the Kingdom of Mitteleuropia, or quell the growing conflict with Transcarpathia. The only thing that can do that is a union between the two states. There can only be harmony between Mitteleuropia and Transcarpathia when King Sigismund is back on the throne here . . . and when you are married to Crown Prince Fritz-Ludwig . . .’
The Princess let out a little gasp, and for the first time Blotto doubted the efficacy of Twinks’s plan as he ploughed on, ‘It is terrible. It will pain me more than I can say. Throughout the rest of my life I will know that the only woman I can ever love is in the arms of another. But to those of royal birth comes a burden of great responsibilities. For the sake of Mitteleuropia, Ethelinde, for the sake of your country, we must stifle the love that is between us.’
She was silent and once again he wondered whether it would work. But he should have trusted Twinks. After a moment, Princess Ethelinde drew herself up to her full height (not very high) and said, in the manner of Mary Queen of Scots facing the scaffold, ‘You are right, Blotto. For a Princess of the Blood Royal to think of marrying for love is mere selfishness. I have only to look around my relatives to know that it never happens. So yes, I must give up the man I love and, for the sake of Mitteleuropia, I must give myself into the arms of the man I loathe – Crown Prince Fritz-Ludwig of Transcarpathia.’