In The Service Of Princes

III

James looked over the rim of his coffee cup at three of his young staff, who were looking very much the worse for wear that Wednesday morning. He was not entirely on his usual equilibrium himself, but he had not overindulged to the extent Carfax, Potts and Winslow clearly had.

‘Now, Mr Carfax,’ he addressed himself to his second secretary, ‘I did some thinking last night as I was conversing with the elector’s guests, though situated as I was at the right hand of the lady electress I was limited as to my opportunities. However, the most interesting strangely was the minister of police, the Ritter von Tolz.’

‘Er ... strangely, sir?’

‘You’d think the fellow would be tight-lipped and austere, but he was quite the jolly soul, at least in his cups. He keeps a register of foreign residents in the city and the surrounding province, and was perfectly happy to communicate its contents so far as it concerns King George’s subjects. He confided that he could not get my predecessor to take much interest in the Britons abroad in Bavaria, especially the troublesome ones.’

‘Lord Windlesham doesn’t see that as part of his job either, my lord.’

‘Indeed? It seems to me that King George’s good name abroad shouldn’t be tainted by the misdoings of his criminal subjects.’

‘I wasn’t disagreeing, my lord. It’s just that there’s not much we can do about them.’

‘Well, Carfax, the first step is to find out who the Britons are, at least. It’s all about information, so I’ve been told by any number of people now. Which brings me on to the second point. Munich isn’t London or Paris, but it does publish a twice-weekly gazette which lists all sorts of information: births, deaths, investitures, church services and so on, but also foreign and domestic arrivals of notable folk in the city’s inns, and attendance at the electoral court. So I’d like every issue scrutinised from now on to get a picture of what foreigners of importance are passing through the city and who exactly are the characters of the elector’s court. That’s between you and Freddie, Frank.’

James turned back to Carfax. ‘Now sir, you can help our two clerks identify the people they list. Which reminds me, we need an office copy of the Almanach de Gotha. Perhaps one of you young fellows can run out and locate one. There have to be bookshops in this town.’

So Freddie was sent out to come to grips with city life in Munich. ‘You should be able to manage a bookshop conversation, child,’ said Frank, ‘the owner is going to know French for sure. Other than that, just wave the book around and look beseeching. Bring back a receipt for the purchase. What, no money? You must have overdone it last night. Take my purse.’

Somehow Freddie found himself unable to tell his friends about the night’s misadventures, other than apologising for stumbling off drunk into the dark. It appeared that the other three had come to a profitable arrangement with last night’s ladies and concluded it in the dark under the trees along the mill race.

Frank accompanied him through the Alt Markt, still being cleared after the night’s excesses, and along the Neuhauserstrasse as far as the great church of St Michael, into which the morning’s more sober citizens were filing for the solemn liturgy of Ash Wednesday. Frank joined them, remarking he had a lot to repent of this Lent. Freddie was sent on his way to the shops south of the Tor.

As he walked, his mind could not disengage from his encounter with the linkboy. Why had the boy remained behind and assisted the man his colleagues had assaulted and robbed? What did he mean by his offhand remarks in German, which Freddie could not interpret. And then there was the sexual encounter, which despite the circumstances Freddie remembered as exciting, as did his cock, which once more thickened in his breeches. Nothing like that had happened to him before, other than an awkward incident with Roger Aitchens hiding in Burlesdon Coverts when they were twelve, which still caused Freddie to blush whenever he remembered it.

So he wandered the streets, nominally in search of a bookshop, but more often scanning the crowds for any figure resembling his last night’s seducer.

***

Wednesdays and Saturdays became ‘list days’ for Freddie, whose job it was to compile and annotate the returns of arrivals from the city gazette. The second ‘list’ Saturday produced an interesting new entry for his files.

He called over to Frank, with whom he shared office space in a loft room under the embassy leads. ‘Here’s a name I recognise: the marshal prince of Tarlenheim. He’s in town next week.’

‘Ahah!’ came the response. ‘You’ll need to notify His Excellency.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Well child, you should have noticed by now that our lord and master is quite as interested in what goes on across the border in Ruritania as he is in Bavaria. Check your Almanach.’

Freddie did, and found the following entry in the current edition:

Freddie puzzled over this. ‘So he’s an imperial prince and field marshal, but he’s from Ruritania. How’d that happen? Ruritania’s not in the Empire.’

Frank applauded him. ‘There see, you can learn. But the Empire sucks in all sorts of runaways and adventurers: Poles, Transylvanians, Savoyards, you name them. Marshal Franz was a protégé of old King Henry the Lion and was brought up at his court. There was some gossip linking him with the king’s famous daughter, Princess Osra Madeleine, in his younger days.

‘However that may be, young Franz left Ruritania after the old king died to take service with the Hapsburgs and was general of cavalry by his thirtieth birthday. In ’43 during the War of the Austrian Succession he saved the face of Maria Theresa after the Pragmatic Army was driven back from Mainz. He led a chevauchée deep into Lorraine, smashing a French army hurrying to unite with the Bavarians, and then turned and smashed them too. The Emperor Charles lost all his baggage to him. He took and sacked Metz. So he got to be very rich and an imperial prince too. There’re quite a few stories about him.’

‘So what’s he doing in Munich?’

‘Very good question. And it’ll be one which interests His Excellency you can be sure.’

***

James got into the habit of taking a ride out towards the Nymphenburg Palace, if the weather cooperated. It was a good road with a wide verge for riders, and he usually ended it in the Hirschgarten, the electoral deer park where many of the court officers and nobility customarily took their exercise.

It was a fine fresh morning and the second Saturday in March. James ventured a quick gallop across one of the park’s lawns as the ground was not too soft, his groom following at a more sedate pace. He drew up his mount as he reached one of the oak-bordered rides to give his servant time to catch him up. As he admired the prospect and the first fresh green appearing on the trees arching over the ride, two riders cantered briskly towards him, a man and a small woman riding sidesaddle, or rather a girl he decided at second glance. James removed his hat as they approached and slowed. ‘Grüss Gott, Fräulein, mein Herr!’ he called politely.

‘Hello Jimmy!’ the man hailed him back. ‘Fancy meeting you.’

‘Heinz! Verdammt! What brings you to Munich?’

‘Well my dear, I at least know why you are here. I was going to bring my card round to the embassy today, but you’ve saved me the effort. Let me introduce my friend, the Fräulein Sebastienne Wollherz von Stock. I don’t believe she’ll confess to having any English. Wait while I introduce my distinguished friend, the British ambassador to Bavaria.’

The girl flashed her white teeth in an engaging smile. She was strikingly pretty, with clear brown skin which had been unfashionably exposed to the sun, full crimson lips and dark hair gathered under a small, laced tricorn. Her coat was frogged and cut like a man’s tight to her narrow waist and her small feet peeped out from under her full skirt. If this was the sort of woman his brother could attract these days, James was rather impressed.

‘I am delighted to meet the Graf von Burlesdon,’ she responded in German in a throaty alto. ‘I have heard much of you, both around the city and from our mutual friend ...’ she shot a delightfully mischievous and boyish grin at her companion, ‘the Graf von Elphberg.’

‘And how did you both meet?’ James asked, as he imagined he was supposed to.

‘Oh, Sebastienne’s family are pretty well connected with friends of mine. But needless to say flora and fauna had something to do with it.’

‘Fräulein, an honour. I’m afraid I must leave you both. But you can come and explain yourself to me later, Heinz. There’s no company for dinner tonight, if you’d like to join me and my staff? Auf Wiedersehen.’ James touched his crop to his hat and kicked his horse off along the ride. He spent a large part of his ride back to the city wondering what on earth Henry Elphberg was up to in Munich. It was when he found Freddie Winslow’s notes from that day’s gazette that he began to get an inkling. The Marshal Prince of Tarlenheim had quite a history with the Elphberg family and to find him and Henry in Munich in the same week could not be a coincidence.

***

Freddie Winslow was agog, as Teddie Carfax broke the news. ‘So he’s a royal highness!’ he breathed.

‘Yes and no,’ was the reply.

‘What?’

‘Freddie, he’s incognito, and you have enough Latin to know what that means. He chooses to travel under an alias, and his family usually takes the title of Count of Elphberg when they do that. So you must behave towards him as if he were a count not a royal prince.’

‘He’s not in the gazette.’

‘No he’s not. The ministry of police knows he’s in town and makes sure that no one else does, officially at least.’

‘What do you know about him, Teddie? Did you ever meet him in Strelsau?’ asked Frank.

‘Once or twice at the diplomatic levées, but not to talk to. He’s tall, with the bright red Elphberg hair of his father and grandfather. Quite good looking in the pale sort of way that redheads have. He’s also very much the scholar, they say, and spends most of his time in libraries.’

‘But why’s he coming here?’ Freddie demanded.

George Dunbar and Teddie Carfax exchanged glances, and George answered. ‘This may not be on the level of state secrets, you two youngsters, but it’s still not to be generally talked of. Still, you should know about it, just don’t treat it as common gossip. The fact is you may have noticed the colour of his hair when his lordship takes off his wig.’

‘Bright red,’ responded Frank.

‘And that’s for a reason,’ George continued. ‘I made friends with the earl at Oxford, and at the time he was sharing rooms in college with a foreign visitor of his own age, who had hair the same bright red as he did. It was Henry Elphberg. The story soon came out among their circle of friends.

‘When he was Crown Prince and Regent of Ruritania, the present King Rudolf was at the court of George II for an extended stay during the year ’39 and he became besotted with a lady called Frances Wharton, who was all the rage that season: beautiful, witty and wealthy, but unfortunately promised to the fourth earl of Burlesdon. The passion was returned and after he became king Rudolf found ways to be in London, usually as Count of Elphberg. In the year ’43 their assignations produced an inconvenient fruit. The earl knew the child was not his and his wife confessed. He challenged the Count of Elphberg, who had the decency to waive his royal dignity and the two met on Hounslow Heath. The fight was inconclusive though both received slight wounds. The earl took a chill however and died before his wife brought the child to term, and indeed he spared his wife scandal by claiming the boy as his own true heir.’

‘So Lord Burlesdon and Prince Henry are brothers?’ Frank gasped. ‘Oh ... is that why his lordship became a Catholic?’

‘I imagine it has something to do with it,’ George Dunbar said. ‘Now, although King Rudolf does not acknowledge Lord Burlesdon as his son, he does maintain contact through his younger boy, who was born the same year as his lordship. The two are very good friends, as friendly as any full brothers, I’d say. And if not exactly twins, there’s little doubt of their relationship when you see them together. So now you know, and you will know not to stare.’

***

Despite George’s warning, the entrance hall of the embassy was unusually crowded as the Count of Elphberg entered and handed over his hat and cloak to Herr Abentauer, which he received with a profound bow to a man he knew perfectly well to be a prince of his native country. Henry paused and whispered something in the major domo’s ear which caused the man to chuckle appreciatively. It made a good impression on Freddie, as he gawped at his first exposure to royalty, if only incognito royalty.

The embassy staff formed a line and each was introduced by James, and made their own bows. They all then passed into the ground floor reception room where James had set up some new acquisitions to his collection on easels, for the prince’s examination.

‘Ah, I see Jimmy! You did more than just chat with Prince Charles when you were in Brussels. What is this? Three panels of an altar piece, I believe. A Bruges workshop of the early fifteenth century. Am I right? This is new territory for you.’

‘The galleries of the Palais de Nassau opened my eyes to Netherlandish art, Heinz. There’s a lot on the market these days, and I left my card with a dealer in Brussels. He’s taking options on religious works of that century. I’ve decided on building a chapel in Burlesdon Hall and works like these will add to its distinction. Cubbit sent over the plans, so we can look at them later.’

‘Very good. I do hope you’ve not brought your cook from Burlesdon with you, for chef I will not call him.’

‘Got a new fellow for Munich, Heinz. I’m here to win friends for my king, not lose them. So let’s all go up to the dining room, shall we? No meat in Lent except on Sundays, but he can do quite wonderful things with fish.’

The prince and Lord Burlesdon occupied opposite ends of the table, with the staff ranged on either side. Freddie found himself at the prince’s right hand opposite Frank, which surprised him as he would have thought that the senior secretaries would have been placed there by the earl.

Henry Elphberg had a good humoured and inconsequential air which relaxed the two clerks. Freddie felt able to ask him how he had liked Oxford.

‘I spent a year there. The Ashmolean collections are quite unique. Have you ever heard of a dodo, Mr Winslow? They once had there the only preserved example of a dodo bird from Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, a flightless creature like a giant chicken with an extraordinary beak. The specimen they used to have at Oxford fell apart some years ago, but I was able to sketch the skeletal remains. The species in its thousands was hunted to extinction by European sailors over a century.

‘The creature was so tame it would wander up to their shotguns and stare up into the barrel as it was slaughtered. Extraordinary. It is a lesson on how heedless our own species is to the natural world, that we can casually and thoughtlessly eliminate one of God’s creatures just like that. The impact our human race is having on the world is I think little understood.

‘I wanted to study this dodo’s remains and work out where it stood in the family of birds and animals. It seems to me that it most closely resembled the family of Columbidae, how you would say, pigeons or doves. Though my critics dispute that.’

‘Do you publish, sir?’ asked Frank.

‘My first paper, on the tree fungus of the Wenzlerwald forest in Ruritania, was presented to the Philosophical Society of Strelsau in 1758 and was published the next year in its Proceedings. I was fourteen at the time. It was listened to with some bemusement I recall. I could barely see over the lectern. I’m sure I was rather pompous, but the old gentlemen were very kind. And now I am the Society’s patron.’

James called down the table. ‘I see the Marshal Prince of Tarlenheim is in Munich, Heinz. What’s up?’

The prince laughed out loud. ‘Is this an example of your delicate technique of collecting information, Jimmy! The subtlety takes my breath away. Your dispatches to London must be a marvel.’

‘So?’

‘Old Franz has his reasons I don’t doubt, and it’s no great secret that he will be joined in the city by another person of interest to you next week, the Dowager Duchess of Glottenburg.’

‘Who’s that, sir?’ Freddie blurted.

The prince smiled indulgently. ‘I see you’re taking lessons from His Excellency in intelligence gathering, young fellow. Well, perhaps you’d all best settle into your seats as there’s a very long answer. Herr Abentauer, perhaps you’d be so good as to circulate some wine? The lady in question is the Princess Osra Madeleine, my aunt, and by common consent the most dazzling beauty in Europe in her day, as Herr Mossinger may perhaps confirm.’

The Hanoverian smiled down the table, a most unusual occurrence. ‘Yes excellency. I was at the regent’s court at Halle at the age of seventeen over thirty years ago when she passed through on her way to visit her friend, the Princess of Orange. A finer woman I never saw, a beauty that was more than human. No man was unmoved. They say several have taken their own lives in despair at the emotions she inspired in them.’

‘An exaggeration I hope. My dear aunt would be quite distressed were there any truth in that. Though certainly there have been duels fought amongst rivals for her attention, and indeed a war.’

‘A war!’ Frank cried. ‘Sir, she sounds like a Helen of Troy!’

‘Hmm, indeed. She definitely burnt the topless towers of Fürstenberg. It all happened in 1739, several years before I was born. Old Henry my grandfather was still king, but incapacitated, and my father was Prince Regent. It was a most dangerous time for my land, and my father was out of the country seeking friends abroad as problems had erupted again with the Bavarians over our province of Mittenheim. He left his sister as Vicegerent of Ruritania. He had no closer adult relative at the time, my elder brother Ferdinand being just six and our sister Clementine half that age.

‘It was at that point of weakness that a daring conspiracy was laid, for the then count of Fürstenberg, whose name was Nikolas, was a cunning and ambitious man and, like many, smitten with my aunt’s beauty, which could inspire the best and worst in men as subsequent events proved.

‘Now the counts of Fürstenberg had a history with the house of Elphberg. They were very powerful lords in the south of the land, with a great and ancient castle not far from the royal demesne of Zenda. To assure their loyalty, an earlier count had been married to a princess of my family in the time of Rudolf II. It did not work, for he was an ape of a man and treated her abominably. The marriage was annulled with quite dramatic consequences, but that’s a story for another time.

‘Old Henry the Lion had a mistress, the Duchess Ulrica of Zenda, by whom he had many children, the Vesterborgs. The eldest of them was Leopold Jakob, the count in Vesterborg, whom my grandfather had favoured more than his abilities justified, but he was major general in the army in 1739 and colonel of three regiments. Fearing a decline in his fortunes now his father was evidently not long for the world, and with a long history of antagonism to my own father, Vesterborg took a dangerous path.

‘He was all too ready to listen to Fürstenberg’s idea of seizing Princess Osra, raising an insurrection and claiming the throne on Vesterborg’s behalf. Proclaimed legitimate, Vesterborg would take the crown as the king’s eldest son, while in return for his support Fürstenberg would receive my aunt’s hand, will she or nill she, and be the second man in the land after the new king Leopold.

‘So an aristocratic party formed behind the count of Fürstenberg including several senior army officers. His first move would be to capture my aunt, who at the time the plot matured was in residence at the royal castle of Zenda, no great distance from Fürstenberg. However, neither he nor Vesterborg had calculated on the vigilance of Duchess Ulrica, who was then tending my grandfather the king in the Marmorpalast, where he lay paralysed and ailing. She detected the conspiracy and confronted her son with his treason, but when her words could do little to move him she called for the only man in the capital whose loyalty she could be assured of, the young count of Tarlenheim, Franz, then Colonel of the Guard Cuirassiers, and warned him of what was in the air.’

‘And how, sir, could she be sure he was loyal?’ asked Frank Potts, quite mesmerised by the prince’s way with a story.

‘She was a wise woman, the old duchess, and knew the count of Tarlenheim was a fervent admirer of my aunt. So she called the count to the Marmorpalast and told him of the plot and of the danger Princess Osra was in. He moved at once to call out his regiment from the Arsenal barracks, and without informing his superiors he rode hard for Zenda, leaving a city in turmoil behind him as Vesterborg and his confederates were panicked into beginning the insurrection before time. The rebel troops threw off the black and white Elphberg cockades and placed red ones in their hats. The loyal corps of Guards did not join in however, and fought the rebels valiantly to protect the Residenz and to keep possession of the Neustadt.

‘In the meantime, the count of Fürstenberg had seized the castle of Zenda and taken my aunt prisoner, unaware that the rebellion had gone off ... as you English say ... half cock. An interesting phrase. She defied him of course, brave young woman. But that did not concern him. Once Vesterborg had control of the capital Fürstenberg intended to present marriage to himself as the only way she could save her family from death. My poor mother and young Ferdinand and Clementine were at that point besieged in the Great Citadel where they had taken refuge with the remnant of the foot guards.

‘But now Tarlenheim arrived at Zenda, and saw how things were. So fashioning red cockades such as the rebels wore, he put them in the hats of a troop of his life company and rode up to the gates of Zenda castle. He convinced the anxious rebel garrison that he had dispatches from Count Vesterborg in the capital. Once the drawbridge to the island castle was down he rode in and seized the gatehouse, and there was a desperate battle to reach the princess.

‘It was all very dangerous, but as luck would have it Franz had an unsuspected ally. The princess’s young Jesuit chaplain, Friedrich von Hentzau, armed himself with pistols and a sword, and being a man of the highest nobility determined to put himself between her and her captors. He shot and disabled the guards outside her cell and then stood off the villain Fürstenberg outside her door with his sword until the cuirassiers approached. Then, as he said, he resigned the privilege of despatching the traitor to Franz von Tarlenheim, who duelled Fürstenberg in the courtyard and ran him through.

‘When it was all over young Hentzau was given the see of Modenheim, a strange reward for sin, as he told me. A remarkable man, and also a natural philosopher. I got to know him later and I had all this from his lips.

‘Well, the rest is public history. Vesterborg was a month in control of the capital, but as soon as she was free Princess Osra sent urgently to Duke Willem Stanislas of Glottenburg, her uncle. For love of her, if not for her father the dying king, he marched an army into Ruritania and seized the eastern cities, while loyal regiments rallied to my father and the princess. A battle at the town of Bielefurt sent Vesterborg running to the frontier and liberated my mother from the Citadel of Strelsau. King Henry died at the Marmorpalast the very hour my father entered Strelsau, riding alongside his sister and Franz von Tarlenheim, who had saved his throne. So bells tolled for the king’s death, and did not ring out for liberation and the entry of Rudolf III to his capital.’

‘And what of Franz von Tarlenheim, sir?’ asked Freddie, who was moved by the tale of the young soldier’s devotion to the princess.

‘He had a reward but not the one he wanted. The castle and estate of Fürstenberg was awarded to him by the new king, but what Franz really wanted was the hand of his beloved Osra. Yet that was denied him, for to consolidate the alliance between the two Rothenian states she was promised to her cousin, Prince John Casimir of Glottenburg. So Franz left the service of King Rudolf and found glory and high rank in the Imperial forces, while Osra went on to marriage and eventually to widowhood, for after succeeding to the duchy John Casimir died last year. Now their son of the same name rules there.’

‘Oh sir!’ exclaimed Freddie. ‘Then she is free now as a dowager. Is that why she’s come seeking Prince Franz?’

‘Alas if so, young Mr Winslow. For the marshal prince long since married another and had his own family. If they meet now, it is only in friendship.’

***

James well knew when his brother was having fun, and he had certainly been enjoying himself that Saturday night, and at his expense too. There was nothing Henry liked so much as teasing him, and he had learned not to rise to it. He was being told that something important was happening in Munich, but not what it was. He supposed Henry was in the know and bound not to reveal it, but James was being given a hint to follow nonetheless. Unfortunately, he had not yet been in Munich long enough to have the sources to find out more.

So he had to make do with what his staff could tell him, and only his two senior secretaries could offer much. He got little from Albrecht Mossinger other than a general lecture on relations between the Bavarians and Rothenians, usually poor it seemed, going back to the time of Duke Tassilo. Having had three years in Strelsau, Teddie Carfax was more informative.

‘It’s as the prince was saying at dinner on Saturday, my lord. The province of Mittenheim has for years been a source of tension between king and elector, though there’s not been an outbreak of violence since the war between Rudolf II and Max Emmanuel, some eighty years back. That was supposed to have settled the problem, but the Mittenheimers just don’t like the Elphbergs, and the Wittelsbachs haven’t renounced their dynastic claim on the duchy. So it’s one area our mission should be alert to. Just as well too. Lord Windlesham does not collect intelligence either in Mittenheim or Glottenburg. But I don’t see that this meeting of Ruritanians in Munich can have much to do with Mittenheim. It seems to me that if they’re here for a purpose, it’s to meet on neutral ground.’

‘But to meet whom, eh Teddie? You think there’s another party involved?’

‘Most likely, my lord.’

James slumped in his seat and pondered a while. Eventually he said, ‘Teddie, see what you can find out about a young lady called Sebastienne Wollherz von Stock. I don’t know anything else about her, but I rather suspect she’s one of Prince Henry’s mistresses, of which believe me there have been many and various.’

***

Freddie Winslow was finding his first major bout of erotic fixation very difficult. Freddie had gone through adolescence and university without losing his virginity, and as the rector’s son at Burlesdon he had felt it difficult to exploit the limited possibilities village life gave him. The squalid whore-houses of Cambridge had disgusted him, and he had fled the only one he ever entered. But his night encounter with the linkboy had set off an explosion in his erotic life.

He admitted to himself it was not so much the act of fellatio which had set him alight, but the encounter with the boy who did it, his lithe grace, confidence and facial beauty, so incongruous in a street urchin. All he could think of was those large eyes staring up at him as the boy’s mouth swallowed his length easily and it seemed with undisguised enthusiasm.

For a week afterwards he had invented excuses to walk the streets of Munich at night and scan the knots of linkboys to be found outside the Residenz and those mansions which were lit up for an entertainment. He stopped doing it when some of the boys began to recognise him and sidle over to offer their services to the Englischer milord. He was pretty sure one or two of them had been among the gang who robbed him.

Since then he had been wrestling with the insanity that had taken possession of his mind and the fact that he was sexually fixated on another male. Thankfully at least the boy seemed to have disappeared into Munich’s underworld and maybe they would never cross each other’s paths again. He was even beginning to claw himself back to some sort of equilibrium the third week after the night in the beer garden, when he came up to his office to find Teddie Carfax and Frank Potts in conversation, Teddie perched on his desk. ‘You don’t mind do you, youngster?’

‘Don’t tip my papers over please, Teddie. What’s brought you up into our eyrie?’

‘His lordship’s curious about Prince Henry’s lady friend and suspects she’s involved in whatever’s going on this week with the Elphbergs in Munich. He’s told me to find out about her, but there’s nothing to find about the lady Sebastienne Wollherz von Stock. She’s not a Bavarian, or at least no one I know in Munich recognises the name. So I’m stymied. Does the name come up in your gazette lists, Freddie?’

‘It’s not one I recognise. Had you thought it may be an alias, if she’s got something to hide?’

‘I have one last desperate idea, before his lordship discovers I’m useless at this sort of thing. Do you two both ride? Yes? Hire yourself a pair of hacks for tomorrow. The prince and the lady apparently take the air in the Hirschgarten around nine in the morning. So go and take a ride tomorrow and if they turn up, tail her discreetly back to where she lives, or where they live, and see what you can find out. Don’t get yourselves recognised, for God’s sake.’

Frank was delighted at the idea, declaring this was exactly his idea of what diplomacy in a foreign state ought to be. So the next morning, the pair rode out on two hired geldings and by eight were sheltering under the trees of the deer park, for a light rain had begun to fall from the grey sky.

‘Curse the weather,’ snarled a disgruntled Frank, as drops pattered down from the trees on to his hat. ‘They probably won’t be out today.’ His mount snorted as if in agreement.

But at nine they had a distant sight of a pair of riders trotting out across the lawn. Though well cloaked there was no mistaking the tall figure of Henry Elphberg, and the small companion riding sidesaddle alongside him had to be the mysterious lady, a hood over her head.

‘Ha ha! That’s our quarry, Freddie,’ said Frank. ‘Walk your beast slowly down this lane, just keep the pair in view. Pull your hat low over your eyes.’

So they tailed the prince and his companion in their circuit of the park, almost losing them when a large herd of fallow deer drifted across their path for a while, but picking them up again at the park lodges as the pair headed back to the city. They ambled down the verge towards the city, as the brick double towers of the Frauenkirche slowly approached over the turrets, glacis and walls of the fortifications. The prince and his lady friend were in no hurry and appeared to be in deep conversation.

They entered the city by the Schwäbinger Tor and found it more difficult to keep the prince and his companion in view in the busy streets alongside the Residenz. They nevertheless managed to keep on the track of the pair, until they unexpectedly paused at the arch into the courtyard of a large house opposite the nunnery of the Jakobskloster am Anger in the south of the city. Freddie and Frank had no choice but to carry on past, Frank at least studiously avoiding looking at their quarry. But Freddie could not avoid glancing to his side when the girl abruptly lowered her hood revealing an unmistakable profile, one that was branded deep into his memory, that of the linkboy who had fellated him in a dark alley on the night of Karneval.

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