Bastian and Freddie reined in their mounts where the post road from Landshut to Vorplatzenberg crested the ridge above the River Ebrendt. Freddie looked down into the valley below him across the river and his first sight of the kingdom of Ruritania. Vorplatzenberg was a garrison town surrounded by its star of fortifications and was the westernmost Ruritanian settlement.
‘So here we are,’ Bastian declared. ‘Down there’s home.’
Freddie stared. Vorplatzenberg looked no different from any Bavarian town they had passed, especially its double-towered church with onion domes, brick but the walls rendered and painted white. Freddie pulled out his notebook and made a rapid sketch of the prospect of the town from the hilltop, while Bastian told him what he knew of the place.
‘Being on the main road west out of Mittenheim, it’s a busy little place and it has a notable three-day fair around Michaelmas. I know that because I’m a Wollherz and the fair specialises in livestock, horses in particular. In fact there’s rather more of a horse trade here than in the city of Mittenheim, which is the capital of this province and twenty-five miles further along the road. The church is dedicated to the commander of the hosts of heaven, obviously.’
‘Why obviously?’
‘St Michael is the patron of Mittenheim, Freddie, a province which has quite a cult of the archangel. Not only that but the Mittenheimers even have an affection for the dragon he slays. The chivalric order of the duchy is the Order of the Dragon. Crown Prince Ferdinand is duke of Mittenheim, and gives out stars of the order a little indiscriminately. Father has one, and he confessed to me that he was expected to make a discreet but not insignificant donation to His Royal Highness’s exchequer for the privilege. Prince Ferdinand is always short of money. Better tell that to your ambassador, as I doubt Lord Windlesham will have troubled to learn of it. Rumour has it Prussia subsidises the prince considerably. His behaviour has rather devalued the distinction of the Dragon, which is a shame, as it had a high reputation in the time of Henry the Lion.’
‘I’ve heard of him,’ Freddie observed. ‘He was as much of a soldier as Frederick of Prussia is, yes?’
‘Some would say more so, as he never lost a battle and was more interested in fighting Ottomans than his fellow Christians. So we Ruritanians honour his memory. There’s a huge equestrian statue of him in front of the Strelsau Residenz we can look at when we get there.’
They ambled down to the wide bridge across the Ebrendt, on the central arch of which was erected a stone toll booth guarded by soldiers in an unfamiliar uniform of mid blue. Bastian had put on his regimentals that morning, so he was saluted and allowed across toll free. Freddie on the other hand had to dismount and hand over a half thaler, while his laissez-passer was scrutinised by the lieutenant of the guard. But with Bastian at his side the lieutenant was pleasant enough to Freddie, and with little inconvenience they crossed into Ruritania, an act which for some reason Freddie felt was strangely portentous.
***
Freddie was very nervous on his first visit to a royal residence, even if, as Bastian said, ‘It’s only the Marmorpalast.’ The old palace was not in fact an intimidating building, though the numbers of pacing guardsmen and scurrying servants made Freddie uncomfortable. It was a low brown brick structure in three ranges with white freestone facings and architraves. There was a very large and elaborate limestone baroque central porch at which Freddie had presented his credentials to some sort of vice-chamberlain in Elphberg green. Then he was left cooling his heels for quite some time at the outer door, passing the time with speculation as to the age of the building and concluding that it was of a similar vintage to Burlesdon Hall, his previous benchmark for intimidating buildings. He had noticed that flapping over the porch was a great banner of a red lion on yellow, differenced by a blue crescent in one corner, a token that the man he sought was in residence.
Eventually a servant hurried up and beckoned Freddie to follow. He had expected to be met by a functionary, but when he was led through a second floor door into a small library no less than Prince Henry Elphberg himself rose from behind a desk stacked with books and offered his hand which, having made a profound bow, Freddie took.
‘Mr Winslow, do take a seat,’ the prince said in English. ‘Is that the letter from Lord Burlesdon I was expecting? Very good of you to bring it with you. How was your journey from Munich?’
Freddie and the prince chatted amiably about the places his journey had taken him through, and he was very ready to answer questions. He confirmed for Freddie that the Marmorpalast had been built in the 1580s, the same decade as Burlesdon Hall. ‘It was before then a hunting lodge for the park and as far as I know its origins are medieval, from the time when the park was just part of the southern arm of the Strelsenerwald. I do believe the bank and ditch still to be seen to the east of the palace were part of the original enclosure. It was Duke Rudolf IV who built this present residence, and it will be King Rudolf III who pulls it down.’
‘How’s that, your royal highness?’
‘You’re lucky to have seen it as it is, because the Marmorpalast is to be demolished this summer to make way for a modern and severely Classical pile that my father thinks more appropriate to the dignity of the present House of Elphberg. As a result I’m to be made homeless.’ The prince looked genuinely despondent at the thought. ‘It had to happen, I suppose,’ he continued. ‘I’ve long known that sooner or later I’d have to leave this place. But I still think it’s a bit extreme of my father to have the damned house demolished just so as to winkle me out of it!’
The comical look he gave encouraged Freddie to give a quiet laugh. ‘Where will you move, sir?’ he had to ask.
‘Ah! Now that’s the good thing. I have no desire to migrate to a suite in the Strelsau Residenz, or to one in the palace my father has had built on Gartengasse for my aunt, much though I do love her. The Crown estate includes a modest house on the hill of the Altstadt called the Palais du Bâtard, which was built in the French style by a rather irregular member of the House of Elphberg at the end of the last century. It’s to be renovated at my direction, and I can move into it this September if all goes well. My very first home of my own. You must go up there to view it. It’s not far from the Fenizenhaus, which is another one of the sights of Strelsau that you must not miss.
‘You see, Mr Winslow, there are ever so many buildings and monuments in this city which the world ought to know better. I commend your project as a work of grace.’
‘In that case, your royal highness, may I have the privilege of dedicating it to you if it ever comes to press?’
‘My dear fellow!’ Prince Henry exclaimed, ‘I’m genuinely touched. I’d be delighted to receive a copy. Now I must regretfully let you go. Do send my regards to your father and mother when you write home to Burlesdon rectory. Myself and the good rector had a delightful afternoon the year before last exploring the belfry and its inhabitants of the genus Vespertilio. You were still in Cambridge at the time I do believe.’
‘I beg your pardon sir?’
The prince laughed. ‘Vespertilio? Bats, dear boy, bats! And I tell you what, do make sure your book has a proper introduction to the flora and geology of the Rothenian lands.’
***
Freddie had been offered accommodation in the Wollherz house on Engelngasse, high on the western slopes of the hill of the Altstadt, or the ‘Domshorja’ as he meticulously entered in his draft of a planned topographical introduction to the Two Cities of Strelsau. The house was something over fifty years old and built commodiously. Bastian’s father the Baron Wollherz von Stock, whom Freddie found very amiable, told him that Karl Wollherz had rebuilt an earlier house and taken in two neighbouring sites to provide space for coach houses, a large stable range and a delightful enclosed garden.
‘And there’s the very fellow!’ the baron exclaimed, speaking in excellent English, on which the older man clearly prided himself. He was pointing up to a large and very fine portrait over the chimney piece of the grand wainscotted reception room. It was of a boyishly handsome man standing beside a fine chestnut mare, cradling her head.
‘That has to be the famous Brunhild surely, my lord,’ Freddie commented.
‘Well done, young man! Quite the eye you have for horses. Now what’s your eye like for humans? Tell me how old you think Wollherz is there, eh!’
‘I don’t know exactly, sir. But surely he must be in his early twenties.’
‘That was him in his thirty-fifth year, sir. No, not a word of a lie. It’s dated on the back of the picture. Remarkable, eh? I only met him the once, when I was a child and my father was taking on the full management of the business. In his last years Karl retired to an estate he had bought out in Ober Husbrau. My memory is of a man who actually looked younger than my father did, though there had to have been thirty years between them. He died in his late sixties and is buried out at Medeln Abbey, of which he was a great benefactor. The nuns allowed him the privilege of burial in the north aisle of the choir. He was deeply loved there, as much as he was here in the Altstadt, where he was elected Staroman on three occasions.’
‘Staroman, sir?’
‘It’s what they call a burgomeister in Rothenian towns. Now then, Sebastian tells me you want to explore the Altstadt now you’ve done your chores at the British Embassy and the Marmorpalast. That should keep you occupied till dinner, which is at seven, sir. Take note, my dear wife insists on meals being served promptly and tends to resent any delays. Be warned, sir. “Unquiet meals make ill digestions”, eh?’
‘Would that be Shakespeare, my lord?’
‘Hah! Very good, young man. The words of the greatest of Englishmen. The Comedy of Errors, Act 5, Scene 1!’
***
Freddie allowed himself a stay of three days in Strelsau. He was not offered an interview at the embassy when he delivered his dispatch from Munich, not even with the third secretary, just issued a stamped receipt as if he were a common messenger. He left with a low opinion of the unfriendly place and concluded that Teddie Carfax had been wise to get out of it.
He spent the three days industriously filling his notebooks with details and sketches of the principal buildings and institutions of the city. When he was not doing that, he frequented its coffee houses on the great Platz and took every opportunity he could for vigorous sex with Bastian. It was usually in his quarters at the Leibgarde barracks, but on one occasion in Bastian’s bedroom at the Engelngasse house, which very much excited them both, but also saddened them. The two knew they would not be seeing each other with any regularity for the foreseeable future.
Freddie’s last visit in Strelsau was to the famous children’s home on the Altstadt, the Royal Hospital, more usually called the Fenizenhaus. The hospital was open to visitors on the Friday, which was his last day in the city, and he joined the waiting tour group of ladies and gentlemen at the impressive gate on to Armengasse. The tour was conducted in German by a hospital under-master, who deeply impressed Freddie with his enthusiasm for the place and knowledge of its mission. The children’s cheery respect for the visitors and courtesy when questioned gave a similarly good impression. Boys and girls were well-dressed in practical hospital work clothes in the Elphberg colours. The wards were airy and clean, the bedrooms snug and the children obviously happy and well-tended. He tipped their guide heavily, as did the others in his tour group.
He and his guide chatted a while under the lime trees in the hospital garden after the party left, as Freddie conscientiously checked his notes and asked some further questions about the dates and personalities involved in the foundation. The man informed him at parting that the hospital chapel of St Fenice offered a choral meditation on the Passion of Christ every Friday and it would happen in about an hour. So Freddie wandered into his second Catholic place of worship.
He found the chapel rather different from the Jakobskloster of Munich and of course smaller, though with the same mingled scent of incense and hot candle wax. The altar was flanked by ranked stalls for a choir, as the music at each seat indicated, and facing the altar was a formidable organ gallery.
There were no seats or pews for a congregation, so Freddie perched on a stone bench that ran around the chapel walls as he made his notes. There were a couple of monuments, and he headed over to the largest, pencil in hand. It was opposite the entrance door and quite substantial, constructed almost like a stage with a full-length statuary group set between drapes and under a canopy, a shattered column behind it. The main figure was military and hatless in a senior officer’s uniform of some thirty years before, wearing a tall periwig. Its blank eyes looked towards the altar, and a boy in the livery of the hospital stood at its side, the general’s hand protectively set on his shoulder.
The tablet at eye level was in Latin, fortunately for Freddie. It informed him that he was looking at the last resting place of General Field Marshal Andreas Wittig von Bernenstein, first Governor of the Royal Hospital for the Poor Children of Strelsau. It extolled his virtues and charity with not that much to say about his military achievements, which judging from the several stars of chivalry on his coat and medals on ribbons round his neck must have been considerable. He must remember to ask Bastian about the man. He began a rough sketch.
Freddie nearly jumped out of his skin when a voice behind him commented in French ‘The statue flatters the man somewhat, but then, statues generally do.’ He spun around. A well-dressed middle-aged gentleman was leaning on a stick with an amused expression on his face.
‘You knew the field marshal, monsieur?’
The man bowed. ‘I did, and really he became considerably more stout in his old age than that statue admits. The face however is a fair likeness. Andreas was a handsome fellow, and appealing to the fairer sex even in his later days.’
‘Are you a relative of his, monsieur?’
The man gave a rather infectious laugh. ‘Not I, though we were the best of friends. Permit me to introduce myself, I am Guillaume, comte de St-Germain.’
The two men exchanged bows, and after Freddie had introduced himself he asked the count whether he was resident in the city.
‘Not really, though I do have a number of relatives who live here. I tend to travel a lot and not settle. So what brings an Englishman to this remote part of Europe?’
Freddie explained his situation and his plan to write a journal of travels in, and guide to, the Rothenian lands. The count commended him for his enterprise. It seemed he knew England very well, though not East Anglia. At this point a small procession entered the chapel to begin preparation for the choral liturgy, a dozen boys in royal livery carrying gold-laced tricorn hats under their arms, led by a kapellmeister and organist. Freddie noted that the last two pairs in the procession of boys were plainly blind, walking hand-in-hand unseeing.
The boys occupied the front stalls, to be followed in less orderly fashion by eight adult singers, also in livery. The musical investment represented by such a turnout encouraged Freddie to take a seat and wait for the office to begin. The Frenchman settled next to him. By the time the chapel bell rang and a clergyman appeared to begin the service the building was quite full, including a party of older boys and girls from the hospital.
‘So young man,’ said the count as they left together after all was concluded, ‘how did you like that?’
Freddie found it easy to enthuse about the music and the performance, especially the purity and control of the boys’ voices.
‘It’s a monument to Andreas’s generosity and his love of this place. Boys here can get a superb musical training. Andreas provided most of the funding for the hospital you know, though admittedly it was old King Rudolf who endowed the music establishment. Because of that the Fenizenkapelle of the hospital is rated as one of the royal chapels, as you’ll have observed from the livery the choristers wear. The standards here and in the Hofkapelle down in the Neustadt put the cathedral establishment to shame. Now here we must part, young man. Thank you for your company.’
‘Thank you for all that information, your excellency. It was a happy chance meeting you.’
The count laughed. ‘Chance, my dear boy? There is no such thing, believe me.’
***
The journey from Strelsau to Glottenburg was nowhere near as enjoyable as the one from Munich to Strelsau. Freddie made it alone, without Bastian’s delightful company. He was not therefore disposed to be immediately enthusiastic about the city of Glottenburg, which was rather unfair. The city was more gothic and timber than baroque and limestone, but it had its own architectural treasures.
After his unpleasant Strelsau experience Freddie approached the British legation without any hopes, but this time he was pleasantly surprised. The legation was housed in a narrow lane to the north east of the cathedral, as were several other diplomatic missions. The Union flag hung alongside those of Prussia, Saxony and Bavaria.
‘We call it Electoral Row,’ laughed the minister, the Honourable Arthur Egremont, in the course of the cheerful conversation he had with Freddie over tea in his own study. He was in his late thirties and had been to Freddie’s own college in Cambridge. He was delighted to have Lord Burlesdon’s briefing over the negotiations concerning Princess Osra Madeleine in Munich.
‘It’s been noticeable since the old duke died how tense this place is getting,’ he mused. ‘The way the new fellow’s dealing with his mother has dispersed whatever good feeling a new sovereign can count on as his reign begins. People always hope against hope you know. But the new minister of police is heavy-handed. In response to his master’s paranoia about his mother he’s been setting spies on her particular friends amongst the nobility. The man’s inept and a thug. The nobility here is used to the rational and enlightened government instituted under the two Olmusch chancellors in the days of the third and fourth Willem Stanislas and the first John Casimir. I half expect that the minister will find himself at the sword’s point of one of the discontented nobles. In looking for conspiracies, the fool may well have created one.’
‘She’s a lovely person, the princess,’ Freddie commented.
‘Indeed she is,’ Mr Egremont agreed. ‘Her husband wasn’t any great shakes as a ruler or a person, in my opinion, but he had the saving grace of recognising his wife’s abilities and listening to her. And Princess Osra knew how to advise without seeming to direct. Her son however is a stubborn contrarian, brighter than his father no doubt but too arrogant to take any counsel. But that’s monarchy for you. It’s a lottery, Freddie. The odds on the next one being as good as the one you’ve just had are no more than one in four, by my calculation. John Casimir II is as likely as not to bring the whole place down around his ears. It’ll just take one rebellion and the Elphbergs will march in with every excuse to annex the duchy.’
‘Will that be so bad for us?’ Freddie wondered.
‘What, a kingdom of Ruritania nearly half again its present size? Who can say? But if it suits the government of King George III I can tell you for sure it won’t suit Frederick of Prussia, Max Joseph of Bavaria and the Empress. The Empire at the moment is in a state of precarious balance, after the carve up of the Polish commonwealth between the Empress Maria Theresa, Catherine of Russia and Frederick of Prussia. It will leave Prussia bigger and more dangerous. How would a bigger and possibly more aggressive Ruritania make things any safer? We could be on the edge of chaos. Rudolf III is well aware of it too. So his official stance is the traditional one of favouring the Habsburgs, yet you’ll notice he does nothing to stop the crown prince cosying up to Prussia. It’s to keep the balance.’
Freddie had nothing to add to these reflections, and so they passed on to discussing his book project, in which Mr Egremont was interested, and had some tips as to places Freddie should visit and research. He parted from the British minister with a friendly handshake and headed off in the direction of the Radvoveske, the ducal palace in the city, which was where Mr Egremont recommended he start his work.
His happiness did not last long. He became aware when he got to the Domplatz, the cathedral square, that he had picked up a tail. The man wasn’t much of a spy, in Freddie’s opinion. He was tall and wore an outsize broad-brimmed hat, and so stood out in ways Freddie believed were against the spirit of being undercover. His constant presence in the background whenever Freddie turned was all too obvious. So Freddie dodged into the cathedral and decided to shake the man off by boring him. He settled with his notebook in a seat in the nave and spent the best part of two hours inspecting monuments and scribbling notes and sketches. At some point the spy gave up. But his attentions left Freddie disconcerted and with some questions. It seemed the new duke and his agents kept the legations and their visitors under surveillance. Why would that be?
After that incident Freddie could not relax during the time he spent in the duchy. He wondered if he should go back to Mr Egremont and ask if he knew of the government spies haunting his doors. He thought better of it. Why go looking for trouble? So Freddie spent three days cataloguing the churches and principal buildings of the city, before taking the road north up the broad valley of the river Radeln to the duchy’s second city of Ranstadt. From there he passed west over the hills to the parallel valley of the Arndt and made his slow way south to the great river Starel and back to Strelsau. He rode into the yard of the Wollherz house on Engelngasse on Sunday the 24th of May. He could spare only two days to enjoy a brief reunion with Bastian before he made his regretful departure, on the latest possible date for return to Munich before the month’s end.
***
‘The Count of St-Germain! Seriously? You met him? But he’s a legend in all the capitals of Europe!’ Bastian and Freddie had been naked in the narrow bed of Bastian’s quarters in the Leibgarde barracks, Freddie toying with Bastian’s perfect little cock as they kissed, until Freddie mentioned his encounter in the Fenizenkapelle, at which Bastian sat up, astonished.
‘He’s not a legend in Norfolk, I can tell you,’ Freddie laughed, pulling Bastian down and working to get him rigid again. When erect, his lover’s member achieved more length and girth than might be expected from its flaccid state. It fascinated Freddie.
Bastian resigned himself to Freddie’s needs, and after doing his duty they slumped into a pleasant doze. Eventually, they washed each other from a basin of cold water, dressed and headed out on to the Exerciser Platz, where the foot guards were drilling. As they paused to watch the troops go through their evolutions Freddie brought up the strange count again. Bastian suggested they take a table at the Turk’s Head coffee house on the Platz, one of Strelsau’s oldest, opposite Queen Margaret’s Springbrünnen, the great fountain in the centre of the square, a mass of Italian marble statuary through which water spouted and tumbled. It occupied the site of the old Neustadt Conduit.
So in a corner of the busy public room, as around them Strelsaueners debated the latest newssheets and gossip of the court, Bastian told him what he knew. ‘He first turned up in the court of Saxony in 1719 but since then has appeared irregularly all across Europe, even in Russia in the reign of the Empress Elizabeth. He’s rumoured to have been one of the early lovers of the present Empress Catherine in St Petersburg in the later 1740s, where he went after evading arrest as a Jacobite agent in England in 1745. The last time he appeared was in Italy two years ago.’
‘That’s not right!’ Freddie objected. ‘He’d be in his seventies at least, but the man I met was no more than forty!’
‘I said he was strange. He has claimed to be 500 years old, so work that out. But the Count of St-Germain is an imposture, and the fact is that a number of men must have laid claim to the identity. They get away with it because people are desperate to believe in marvels. Your count is not the man who claimed to be him in 1719, obviously.’
‘He told me he knew Field Marshal von Bernenstein when he was a young man. Wouldn’t that have been around 1719?’
‘No doubt, but of course he would have claimed that. If you believe all his claims, he is a prophet, a wizard, talks to spirits and can turn lead to gold. It’s all an act, Freddie, and the count you met is one of the several imposters who’ve taken the name. He’s just done his research better than most. I wonder what he wants in Strelsau? One other odd thing is that the count, or someone claiming to be him, often turns up at times of crisis, like a storm bird.’
***
For all he missed Bastian, Freddie was glad to be back in Munich after his travels and was welcomed heartily by his colleagues, who dragged him down to the beergardens of the Isar to celebrate his return. Even Herr Mossinger joined them, and surprisingly for such a taciturn man had quite a lot to say when Freddie brought up the subject of the Count of St-Germain.
‘He was very active in the time of the Seven Years’ War,’ remarked the Hanoverian. ‘I encountered him at the Hague, where I was senior clerk in General Yorke’s mission in 1760. I have to say, the man claiming to be him then fit your description of the Strelsau fellow rather well, Mr Winslow. So it may be that he and the present imposter are the same man. He was suspected of being a French agent, but he carried a laissez-passer from no less than the Duke of Brunswick, the Regent of the Netherlands, so he could go anywhere. We were required by London to enable his passage to England and I suspect he was indeed what rumour said he was, a private agent of Louis XV to open covert negotiations with the British government behind the back of his foreign minister Choiseul, whom he distrusted. Of such incongruities, you young fellows, is composed the very odd world of international diplomacy, as by now you must be learning.
‘Still, there were many things about the man that were fascinating and indeed alarming. I was at a reception in the Stadtholder’s palace of the Binnenhof when the subject of conjuring the dead came up. The count maintained that it was not only possible but that he had on occasion accomplished it, though he said that the dead could not just be commanded to appear. They must wish it. The court was still in mourning for the Princess Regent at the time, and someone unwisely and insolently asked him if the Princess Anne was still hovering about that place and whether she would deign to appear. He frowned and said that she was. He muttered a few words and made passes. There came a shriek from among the ladies, and a woman in hysterics screamed that she had seen the late princess passing across the door to the gallery, pale and distraught. There was quite an outcry, as you can imagine. The palace was haunted for a week afterwards by sightings.’
‘What did you make of that, Herr Mossinger?’ asked Frank Potts.
‘I would say no more than hysteria, Mr Potts. But I had known the princess, who as a daughter of King George II very much favoured the English mission. And I too saw her in the palace that evening, pacing the gallery nervously, as I had seen her in life.’
The conversation passed on to discussions about ghostly manifestations generally, and it seemed everyone apart from Freddie had a story to offer. It was quite a memorable evening as the sky turned dark above them and the stars appeared through the overarching boughs of the trees. They returned to the embassy in a group, and Freddie slept uneasily, prey to alarm at the creaking of the building and distant steps on the stairs.
***
Freddie left his card at the Wollherz house on his return to Munich, and was admitted promptly. He found Sebastienne pleased to see him. He handed over the letters from Strelsau that her family had confided to Freddie, and gave her a kiss on the lips from Bastian.
‘What’re you planning on now, Bessie?’ he asked. He had little reticence with the girl, with whom he had, after all, shared the most intimate of acts. Usually he was hesitant with women, but with Sebastienne, for all her wildness, he was strangely not nervous at all.
She gave a little grin. ‘With Bastian gone, things will be pretty boring for us both I fear. But I’m sure we can find amusement. We must go out one night together. I can promise you some excitement. But that’s not what it was you wanted to know was it.’
‘Not really. I was thinking more long term. You seemed very happy when Princess Osra was around. Wouldn’t you think of rejoining her court now it’s in Ruritania? I saw her new house on Gartengasse, it’s very grand. They’re calling it the Osraeum.’
Sebastienne shook her head. ‘But my behaviour has to be so demure there. Here I can sneak out and create merry hell, day or night, though with Bastian known to be away it has to be in a different disguise. There’re one or two boys I know who’re very happy to take my backside at any time, and don’t care very much what’s round the front. And now you’re back, I can even do it in a bed if you’re willing, Freddie.’
Freddie didn’t commit himself to that possibility, though he was aware that it would not trouble Bastian in the least if he chose to continue having sex with his sister. ‘Better you than the boys she picks off the street,’ he had said, ‘though they’re usually clean. But be formal and discreet when you visit. She’s a single lady and though in Rothenian law she’s an adult, nonetheless she has no male or female protector living with her. The world may not know that of all its females she’s the one that least needs any protector other than herself, but reputation is easily lost. I don’t want to come back to Munich and find a scorecard of men I have to challenge and despatch in the Hirschgarten at dawn.’
‘Have you had to do that yet, Bastian?’ he had asked.
The boy laughed. ‘I’m a captain in the most aristocratic regiment in the Ruritanian army, you guess.’
‘Have you?’
‘Yes, on two occasions if you must know ... well, technically. Once was in Strelsau, to a drunken buffoon of a young graf who called me a damned ostler. Our family trades in horses, but I didn’t think he was intending to be complimentary. The other happened here last year – and please keep this to yourself – the man thought he was meeting me in the Hirschgarten, in fact he met Bessie, who ran him through his right shoulder. Considering what he had implied about her and me, I think he got off lightly. I had him expelled from the König von Bohmen, where the offence was committed.’
‘What happened to the graf?’
‘I gave him an interesting facial scar and broke his nose with the hilt of my sabre.’
‘So you’ve both been blooded. I hope you’re not in a competition?’
‘We’re equal in score at the moment I suppose. But I do hope it does not go up any further, Freddie. I’m not sure that Bessie would mind that much if it did, however.’
So it was a couple of days before Freddie again went to the Anger with the intention of sending in his card. But as he was dawdling around the gate of the Jakobskloster the front door of the Wollherz house opened and a gentleman emerged. Intrigued, Freddie crossed the street, and when the man headed in the direction of Sendlingerstrasse he gave pursuit. His quarry weaved through the crowded streets as he took a turn that led to the Frauenkirche.
It was as the man reached the west doors of the great church that he paused to drop some coins in the hands of the beggars clustered there. Straightening, he looked around. The face was unmistakable. It was the count of St-Germain.