‘Mr Winslow?’ Staszek looked up from his exercises.
‘Serene Highness?’
‘You can call me Willem or Staszek, you know.’
‘I wouldn’t be comfortable, sir.’
‘I understand. The thing is that you know a lot more than anyone else apart from my granny about what makes me … unusual. There’s not many people I can talk to who know about me and Jonas Niemand and the rest. So I’d like us to be friends.’
‘Me too, sir. Though you’ll understand there has to be a certain distance. So what’s the problem?’
‘It’s not so much a problem as an odd sort of thing I can’t explain. What’s an English word for it?’
‘Umm … maybe an “anomaly”.’
‘From the Greek. A thing without a name. Yes, that’ ll do. Anyway, I’ve met an anomaly. His name is Orestes Ortolan.’
‘Your anomaly actually has a name. He’s a person, sir?’
‘He’s a boy I met. He’s one of the orphans of the Royal Hospital, and I can’t read his mind.’
‘And how did you meet him, sir?’
‘I knew you’d ask that, and I can’t tell you ‘cos my granny would be upset if she ever found out. Just say I did. So?’
‘Difficult to offer an opinion to be honest, since I don’t have more than a general idea of how your abilities work. But one thing that occurs is that for anyone to be able to deflect your clear vision, he’d have to be a little magical himself.’
‘That’s what I thought too, but I can’t see that he is. Orestes is just plain nice, a good kid.’
‘Ah, “plain nice” … then that might be a clue.’
‘Really? How’s that?’
‘One thing that Jonas’s gang had in common back in the last century was just that, niceness. They were all nice kids, plain and simple. Did I tell you I met Karl Wollherz?’
Staszek was startled. ‘How’s that possible? He’s one of the Dead people Jonas is always complaining about.’
‘Possible or not, he came to meet me in Medeln abbey.’
‘He’s buried there. I saw his grave once when granny showed me round.’
‘That may have a lot to do with it. Anyway, having met him, I can tell you that niceness sums him up. He’s kind and very considerate. So were his friends back in the day. All of them had suffered a lot even though they were very young. And they had been given gifts in compensation.’
‘By the Dead?’
‘Indeed, sir. Does that help explain your friend Orestes?’
‘Yes … y’know I think maybe it might.’
‘Then I would say, sir, that you’ve observed what Jonas calls “the mark of greatness”.’
Staszek chewed the end of his pencil for some moments. Eventually he said, ‘That helps a lot, Mr Winslow. Thank you. Now. I read your little brother Charlie’s poems and they’re very good! I really think so! Have you got any more to show me? I especially like the long ones that tell stories.’
Freddie smiled. ‘That’s nice of you to say so, sir. There’s a whole book full of them he’s hoping to get published. He’s in Strelsau for a couple more days. Would you like to talk to him about them?’
Staszek grinned and nodded furiously. ‘I tell you what,’ he said. I’ve arranged to visit the Fenizenhaus tomorrow afternoon. You don’t live far from there. So I shall come along to your house afterwards for tea. How about that?’
***
Charlie Winslow accompanied his brother down Armengasse past the Palais du Bâtard, which he admired, and to the great gate of the Fenizenhaus.
‘So is that the prince’s coach?’
‘It brought him, but I think it’s his grandmother’s.’
‘What’s he doing in there?’
‘He’s a very inquisitive boy, and he likes to meet people. The Royal Hospital is quite a place, and it does amazing work in the city. He wanted to learn more about it’
‘So how old is Prince Willem Stanislas?’
‘He prefers to be called Staszek. It’s a Rothenian thing. He’ll be seven next week.’
‘He liked my poetry and he’s not yet seven? And he’s not even English? Astonishing child.’
‘You don’t know the half of it, Charlie.’
The pair joined the small crowd staring at the waiting princely coach, with its grooms, outriders and coachman in the royal and princely livery of olive green. They had only been there ten minutes when the little prince emerged to cheers. He was escorted by some gentlemen whom Freddie imagined to be the hospital authorities, but seemed otherwise unattended. The gate behind him was crowded with children of the hospital, waving Staszek off. Freddie noted one in particular, a boy who was clearly blind, as he was being led by a sighted girl. Was this the mysterious Orestes Ortolan? Though tall for his age he seemed a very ordinary child in other respects. He had mousy brown hair and a snub nose.
The prince caught Freddie’s eye and winked. He must have done something as the crowd simply dispersed as if they had all remembered something they had to do. The exception was the Ortolan boy whose hand was taken by the prince and he was led over to where Freddie and Charlie stood.
‘Thank you for coming down to meet me, Mr Winslow,’ he said politely, in his perfect English. ‘Oh! You must be Charlie! Freddie, this is Orestes, my good friend. I just wanted you two to meet.’ He switched to German, ‘Now then, Thomasina will take you back to the hospital, Orestes. I’ll see you again soon.’
The two boys unselfconsciously hugged and kissed goodbye. Staszek watched his friend disappear back through the arch, before suggesting they walk up to Westergasse. ‘What about your coach, sir?’ Freddie asked.
‘Oh, they’ll follow us up. Is there space outside your house for it to draw up, or do you have a big enough stable yard for it? That would be better. And maybe you can give my people something to drink.’
The three ambled up Armengasse, the state coach rumbling ponderously after them. The prince fizzed and sparkled with observations as they went along, most simply childish, but some startling. Freddie began to notice that the boy did not see the street as they did. It was as if he saw it through the eyes of the past generations who had lived in it.
‘This part of the city was a castle once, you see,’ he observed. ‘It was built by my family many hundreds of years ago, and the castle chapel is still there within the Fenizenhaus. The children of the hospital say on dark afternoons you can see an old nun praying in the chapel who isn’t really there.’
‘A ghost, sir?’ Charlie asked, very interested.
‘I’m not sure you can call her a ghost,’ the boy mused in reply. ‘Ghosts, I think, are shadows of dead people trapped in a place and endlessly stuck doing the same thing, careless about the people who see them. But everyone takes this spectral nun to be the Lady Fenice, who is a saint. If she’s there it’s because she’s concerned about the place and its children, and is watching over them. I’d so like to meet her, and Orestes says she comes and talks to him sometimes when he’s sitting in the chapel on his own, and that she’s very kind and wise. But she didn’t appear when we went in there to explore.’
Freddie was astonished. ‘So Orestes is as special as you thought, sir. And for the reason we discussed.’
The boy skipped along the pavement silently for a while before he replied. ‘The fact that the Lady Fenice talks to Orestes can only be important. But he won’t tell me what she says, which I think has to be about the future, as she’s famous for being a prophet.’
Then they were at the Alt Markt and Staszek got very interested in the arcaded market hall of the medieval Radhaus, where children were enjoying a noisy game of tag amongst the pillars. But he dragged himself away and they walked on past the beautiful Frauenkirche-zum-Stadt and up on to Westergasse. Freddie’s domestic staff were awaiting their arrival at the door of the Sign of the Rabbit and Herr Losman, in full livery, bowed them in. Young Paulus and Ludovic went to sort out the prince’s coach and the needs of his coachmen.
The party settled in the front drawing room, and the prince began his interrogation of Charlie. Freddie had never seen his brother so lively and considered on any subject. He and the boy were talking about a subject on which both were passionate, though Charlie was more able to articulate his views, and indeed he was being listened to carefully by the prince. Freddie disappeared to organise drinks and encountered a quizzical Bastian on the way to the kitchen.
‘So explain why we have His Serene Tinyness the Duke of Glottenburg on our sofa?’
Freddie shrugged. ‘Blame Charlie. The prince loves his poetry and wanted to talk about it.’
Bastian rolled his eyes. ‘No offence to my brother-in-law, and I’m sure his verse is very good, but so far as I’ve been able to pursue it the stuff seems as gloomy, elaborate and overwrought as a Gothic cathedral.’
‘Hmm? Nice image, which I’m sure Charlie will appreciate when I share it with him. When I left them, they were getting deep into the subject of the Quest as narrative. That small Rothenian child is talking in English at the level of a university professor, and strangely, our Charlie doesn’t seem to find it at all odd.’
‘Yes, well that’s the boy’s magic at work I’d guess. Romantic poetry is his enthusiasm and nothing is going to stop him indulging himself at your brother’s expense.’
***
James inclined his head to the elderly Prussian count who was King Frederick’s Foreign Minister. The Reichsgraf Finck von Finckenstein insisted on speaking English, for he had been his master’s ambassador in London for some years and professed to love the city.
‘Now, my dear Graf von Burlesdon,’ the old man croaked, ‘we may speak freely. Armies are in the field but no one really wants them to fire at each other. It would not suit the French to have a war of the Bavarian Succession dragging them into the Empire, when – and let us be frank – your royal master’s difficulties in North America are pulling their attention across the Atlantic Ocean. The same might be said for you British. European distractions can hardly help you at this time. That is why the parties concerned are willing that you be appointed informal arbiter for the Concert of Powers in the matter of the Electorate of Bavaria. There is also of course the matter of your … er … connection with the Rothenian royal family. King Frederick has listened to the Princess Osra Madeleine and the weight of the Rothenian Alliance has convinced him that your presidency over peace talks would suit all parties concerned.’
James sighed. ‘All well and good, your excellency,’ he replied. ‘but with much of Bavaria in Austrian hands and King Frederick’s armies poised to enter Bohemia, the potential for arbitration at the moment is limited.’
‘Then, my lord,’ the Prussian shrugged. ‘I would suggest that you place a solution to the Bavarian problem on the table that would be more attractive for the embattled parties than rolling the dice of battle.’
James brooded on his dilemma as he rode back to his lodgings in the city of Ernsthof, where his aunt was in residence at the ducal castle above the Itsch. Her quartered flag bearing the Elphberg lion and Glottenburg griffin was tugging at one of the staffs of the fortress. James sent up Frank Potts to the castle to seek an audience as soon as he entered the city.
He found the princess buoyant in mood and dismissive of his pessimism about the Austrians. ‘I have yet to meet Archduke Joseph, but I’m fully confident I can talk him round, James. Old Finck was right. No one wants to actually fight towards a solution. The Austrians will listen to your father in the end. A united Rothenian army of 120,000 men sits between the Prussians and Hapsburgs on the borders of Bohemia and should it commit to one side or other the war would be over before it began. The Archduke thinks he can talk your father around, because Ruritania has maintained an alliance with the Empire for generations. But if he can be brought to believe a change of side is a possibility he daren’t risk tipping the Elphbergs towards Prussia. The well-known fact that your brother Prince Ferdinand is friendly towards Potsdam gives your father just the leverage he needs to convince Joseph. That was the reason he appointed the Crown Prince to command the united Ruritanian and Glottenburger armies. This period of uncertainty will give you time to table a convincing deal.’
James’s mood was lightened with the arrival of Prince Henry at his lodgings on the Alt Markt of Ernsthof. ‘My dear,’ his brother said with a grin, ‘you are so much in demand these days. I feel flattered to know you, such a central character you are becoming in the diplomatic world.’
‘Thank you Heinz,’ James said, without much enthusiasm. ‘but I can’t believe it’s happened because of any virtues I possess. I’m just a convenient vehicle for other people to drive, notably our father, and don’t tell me otherwise.’
‘I wouldn’t put it like that, Jimmy. It’s true that the king wants no war breaking out between the Hapsburgs and Prussia, but then neither does your King George. Any settlement you suggest can be assumed to be the views of Strelsau or Whitehall, depending on whichever suits the observer. Everybody knows you were highly regarded by the late Elector and were a friend to Bavaria, which our family certainly never has otherwise been.
‘Now mein leiber bruder, Vater has sent me here to wheedle your proposals out of you, but I’m too lazy – and indeed honest – for subterfuge. So tell me how you propose to settle this annoying problem that has Europe by the ears. Then I’ll give you my opinion.’
***
Burlesdon House in Mayfair had been thoroughly renovated and redecorated after James’s marriage as a personal project of Countess Christina, who professed to love the London season. She had hosted receptions there in a month’s residence in the city in 1778 which became the rehearsal for a longer period of entertainment this next year. James had to confess that his wife had done wonders to the sad place: brightened it with new hangings and papers, and filled it with flowers. She had conjured up a brilliant reception within two days of their arrival in London, and was currently presiding over a salon in London quite as full of uniforms and statesmen as her Munich events. The new elector Karl Theodor had sealed her social domination of the Bavarian capital by himself attending one of her Thursday salons, which the late Max Josef never had.
Six trying months of negotiation had settled the Bavarian succession question, and the elector was duly grateful to James, as were the other concerned parties. James’s coat was adorned now with the stars of the electoral order of St Hubert, the orders of Maria Teresa and the Prussian eagle. There was even talk, which James discounted, that somehow his own king might be persuaded to contribute to his collection of orders. This had been a suggestion confided to him by Lord Hillsborough, the new Secretary of State. ‘My dear Burlesdon,’ the old man was saying, ‘His Majesty was remarking at the last privy council on his foresight and intelligence in appointing you to the Munich post. Really Burlesdon, at the moment you are one of the few bright spots in the British diplomatic world.’ He paused and scrutinised James. ‘My dear fellow, in the present crisis he is even considering moving you to be our man in the Hague.’
James expressed his delight at His Majesty’s good opinion but corrected the minister’s understanding of how he had ended up in Munich. ‘I’m afraid my lord, that my religion was an issue at the time. I’m pleased to find it’s not such an obstacle now. But I have no desire to leave Munich, and that for several reasons. But you were asking my opinion about a new minister for the Glottenburg mission. I think Carfax, my Second Secretary, may be just the man you’re looking for.’
James was by now very experienced in working a room, and in that November of 1779 he was finding London society brooding and uncertain on the subject of the American war, even though the British forces were at present holding their own. But the outbreak of war with the Spanish, in addition to the hostilities of the French, was destroying any optimism about final victory in North America.
Eventually, he gratefully found a corner of the room where Frank Potts and Freddie Winslow were enjoying a chat with their friend, Colonel the Baron Wollherz von Stock, on his first visit to England. James was greeted with friendly enthusiasm by them, and was soon deep in their news of Munich and Strelsau.
‘So your delightful sister is now a nun of the Anger convent? Remarkable.’
The colonel raised an eyebrow. ‘I think, my lord, it was principally done to annoy our mother, but she was educated for some years in the place and has friends there. She lived a wild life for several years, as you’ll know, and I think maybe it will give her the peace she presently needs.’ He sighed comically. ‘But I imagine she’ll soon be intriguing to replace the old prioress. Old habits, so to speak.’
‘When are you three off to Norfolk?’
‘Tomorrow, my lord,’ Freddie said, ‘It’s been nearly two years since I’ve been back home, and Sebastian has heard so much about the place.’
‘I and the lady countess will be back in the hall in a week and staying till after Christmas. You’ll have noticed that she is getting very pregnant, and we propose that the birth happens in England. So she will probably stay till the end of spring, though I will have to return to Munich as soon as she’s safely delivered and your father has baptised the child, Freddie.’
‘Oh sir? But I thought …’
‘That the child would be raised Catholic? Whatever the peril to their souls, I intend to give my children the choice to benefit from being of the established church, and of course, the countess is Protestant, so it is not just my opinion that needs to be consulted. This is the result of our joint thinking on the matter.’
***
Since Charlie had set up his own home when he had taken up the post of the vicarage of Ormesby St Winifred, several miles away on the coast, Freddie found his old home disconcertingly quiet on his return. As soon as he had recovered from his long journey he sent over a note to his brother, and followed it up the next day in person, riding through the light morning rain with Bastian.
Bastian, for once in civilian dress, complained most of the way about the quality of the road horse he had borrowed from the rectory stable at Burlesdon.
‘You Wollherzes ask too much of the ordinary run of the world’s horses,’ Freddie eventually snapped. Fortunately the next hill brought a salt tang in the air and a view down a gradual slope to a shingly Norfolk beach and the shining sea beyond, with the waves of a high tide rushing in between the lines of black groins.
Bastian pulled up his uncomplaining mount and contemplated the scene for some minutes with wide eyes. ‘Now that,’ he eventually said, ‘is a sight few Rothenians get to see. Unlike Shakespeare’s Bohemia, we have no coast to enjoy.’
Before they had left London, Bastian and Freddie had gone to a performance of The Winter’s Tale at Covent Garden, and the Ruritanian had for the first time seen a performance of a Shakespeare play on the stage by English actors. They trotted on towards the stubby tower of St Winifred’s church visible inland over the sea wall. The vicarage was a neat brick house next to the churchyard on the edge of what seemed to be a prosperous little village.
The Reverend Charlie Winslow greeted them over the garden hedge, where he had been chatting to passing parishioners.
‘So how’s business?’ Freddie asked.
‘Pretty good,’ was the reply. ‘It’s a small parish with a big glebe farm that gives me quite an income, and the tithe rents are paid on the nail. The lord of the manor’s a reasonable feller. Likes my verse too. He boasts about having a famous poet for his vicar, as if somehow he was responsible for my appointment, not the Burlesdon estate and the Lord Chancellor. Anyway, come on in you two. There’s a stable for your horses, and don’t you dare sneer at Mabel, my mare, Colonel Wollherz. She’s good enough for me and she’s an amiable and reliable companion on our travels.’
They were a little surprised to find young Martin Griffiths in shirtsleeves in the parlour, bare feet up on Charlie’s sofa. Bastian caught Freddie’s eye and winked.
They spent a good half hour catching up with the two younger men and reminiscing about their adventures in Bavaria and Ruritania, before Martin made his excuses and took his leave, cheerily promising to see Charlie at the New Year meeting of the East Norfolk Hunt at Walsham.
‘Marty’s been here for the past week. Problems at home, which I won’t go into. So putting him up’s been a work of grace befitting my profession.’ Charlie gave his inimitable cheeeky grin, just daring his brother to respond.
Freddie didn’t rise to the bait. ‘I’ve got the parcel from Prince Staszek you’ve been expecting. It’s quite thick.’
‘Ahah! The lad’s a quick worker. My word! It must be an entire volume of his poetry he’s sent.’
‘So you’d better get busy then Charlie. I have to take your comments on his own work when I go back to Strelsau next month. Also he’d like a copy of your new book. It’s selling well, as I understand from our proud mama.’
‘Happy to oblige. I dedicated it to him … poetically of course.’
***
The Norfolk sky was clear and pale above Burlesdon Covert on the cold Christmas Eve of 1779. Bastian was well wrapped up and thoroughly puzzled.
‘So this is the quaint English Christmas custom you brought me here to see?’
Freddie had shouldered an axe before they trudged into the woods. ‘Believe me,’ he said, ‘it’s a lot less objectionable than you and your Sternjungen.’
Bastian shrugged. ‘I’m no great advocate for lewd peasant songs and stinking goats shitting on the carpet. However, hacking a sizeable tree down, cutting a log from it and then dragging it into your house seems lacking in … I don’t know … jollity?’
‘They’re called Yule Logs. I suppose it’s an ancient pagan custom. The luckiest logs are cut from ash trees and wrapped in hazel twigs, and they’re both trees that have always been seen as magical.’
‘So it is good luck to drag a piece of wood into your homes?’
‘We make a thing of it, Bastian. If you want jollity, there’s always wassailing. Though that doesn’t happen till Twelfth Night. They used to do it in the village when I was a boy. I don’t know if they still do. A procession of youths in weird get-up sing carols and the wassail song and the lord of the manor fills their bowls with wine or ale when they come to his door, and offer servings of sticky and sweet figgy pudding.
‘Since Lord Burlesdon is in residence this Christmas, they might well go wassailing to the Hall this year. If so they’ll come to rectory afterwards. The wassailers used to do this thing where they would carry guns – unloaded of course – and threaten Dad with them so as to give up the church key to them. Then they’d break into the church and ring the bells. When I was twelve they kidnapped me and Charlie and gave us back in return for the key. Charlie found it a bit alarming, though none of our kidnappers were unkind, or unknown to us. He’s warned the wassailers of Ormesby that anyone bring guns to his door will face the magistrates on Boxing Day.’
‘And now this “Boxing Day”, what is that?’
‘It’s the day after Christmas. It’s the custom for employers to give their servants a gift of money that day, sometimes placed in a box, as a thank you for good service.’
‘Oh, I see, Stefansfest. We don’t do anything like that, just lie around feeling bloated after the Christmas feast. But why give your servants money for something you’ve already paid for?’
‘I dunno, Bastian. You’re too logical at times. Now this is the tree the woodward marked for us. Stand back, here goes.’
***
The great church of Burlesdon was more or less empty for the baptism of James’s first child. It was the first time he’d been under its stone-vaulted ceiling for a decade, and he found it oddly moving. The great spaces of the nave, aisles and choir were at once familiar and alien, used as he had long been now to the cluttered imagery and colour of baroque Bavarian churches. The baptismal party was small: a few local friends, Reginald Cubbitt the agent, and three members of the Winslow family. The rector was presiding, assisted by his son Charlie, while Freddie was there to act as proxy for Prince Henry of Ruritania, one of the godparents. Robert Henry James, the new Viscount Lowestoft, was of course present at the font, tightly wrapped in a white shawl in the arms of his nurse, Lady Christina being still confined in the Hall after her labour.
After the brief ceremony Freddie took Bastian on a tour of the old church, one of the few Protestant churches the Rothenian had ever been inside, as he said. Freddie recounted for him his first meeting with Jonas Niemand in the church, sitting up in the children’s gallery and apparently much enjoying his father’s sermon.
Bastian laughed. ‘I thought angelic spirits like him were bound to be Catholic, but apparently he did not feel out of place in an Anglican church listening to Calvinist heresy. It shakes my sense of religious certainty.’
‘Angelic spirit? I thought he was an elf?’
‘I’ve given it some thought and consulted my sister, who has privileged information of course. But it was the late Karl Wollherz who let slip to me that Jonas had a high place in the hierarchy of heaven. That makes his activities all the more alarming to me. What are we involved in?’
The next day, Freddie and Bastian began their long journey back to Strelsau. Freddie was carrying a thick packet of comments and poetry from his brother directed to Prince Staszek. ‘He’s remarkable for his age,’ was Charlie’s verdict. ‘The composition lacks an adult sensibility of course, but the narrative and imagery are astonishing. His techical mastery of verse form is as good as mine, better perhaps, and he’s not even English. I want to see more of it.’
***
Prince Staszek was delighted to receive the packet from Charlie Winslow, not least his new publication. It was a week before Freddie encountered the boy again at the Osraeum. He found him pensive, so much so he had to ask whether he felt Charlie had been harsh in his criticism.
‘No, not at all, Mr Winslow,’ the boy responded. ‘It’s something else. Maybe you can help me with it. You do have some experience after all.’ To Freddie’s raised eyebrow he responded. ‘I’ve been to Faërie, you see.’
‘Good heavens!’ Freddie cried. ‘How’s that possible?’
The boy heaved a sigh. ‘Apparently it is possible even without Jonas Niemand helping. It wasn’t his plan I should go there, but that of your friends, the Dead. You see, my friend Orestes has talked a lot to the Lady Fenice, who often visits the chapel of the Royal Hospital to watch over the children. So I asked him to take me there to meet her, and we’ve been there several times in hopes. For the first time yesterday it actually happened. We were sitting together in the choir stalls when suddenly she was there, sitting next to Orestes on the other side to me.
‘She greeted me kindly and said she was glad to meet me at last, for it was time that she and her people explained to me what Jonas was not telling me, and to do that she must take Orestes and me to Eden. And she did. Suddenly we were sitting on a green lawn high on a hill next to a tower. I stood and could see that the hill was the peak of an island in a great dark lake. I started to explain this to Orestes when he told me not to bother. He could see perfectly in this place.’
‘The Isles of the Blessed,’ Freddie commented, ‘a place on which Jonas cannot set foot.’
‘I was delighted for Orestes, of course,’ the boy continued. ‘He stared around him and then at me. “You’re so beautiful, Willem,” he said, “the most beautiful thing in this place. I’m so glad to finally see you are as wonderful on the outside as your spirit is inside”.’
Freddie noticed the blush in the boy’s face as he reported his friend’s words. ‘It’s good that the boy made such use of his new eyes,’ he commented, taking and squeezing the prience’s hand. ‘Could he still see when you both returned?’
Staszek shook his head sadly. ‘The Lady Fenice regretted that she and her people couldn’t do more than give him that temporary gift, but that he would have some time on the island to enjoy it after we had talked.’
‘She led us into the tower and seated us at a great stone table. It was empty of any but us, yet I somehow knew that the place was crowded with invisible and silent presences. Orestes told me that his new eyes let him see them move and flicker like rootless shadows around the place.’
‘So what did the Dead have to say?’ Freddie was on the edge of his seat.
‘That’s what I want to talk about,’ the prince said. ‘The Lady Fenice said that the Dead could not let Jonas and my granny place me on to the throne of Ruritania and unite the Rothenian people, as that would be a wrong and untimely deed, which would in the end be the doom of Rothenia and the destruction of humanity. As we talked she showed me visions of what was to come. There was, she said, to be One who would sit on the throne of Ruritania one day and He would do terrifying and wonderful things and prepare the salvation of the human race, but that was as yet far in the future and He would be an Elphberg in the visions the Dead had seen. Jonas and granny were too impatient and did not have the far and clear sight the Dead have, she said, and so it was down to me. I must step aside.’
A certain trepidation began to creep up Freddie’s spine at the ominous words of this young prince. ‘And how could that be done,’ he asked, almost in a whisper.
The boy gave a disconcerting grin. ‘Why, I must die, Mr Winslow.’