Oliver VII (2 page)

At that point the Finance Minister, Pritanez, in an attempt to head off the discontent that was reaching
revolutionary
fervour, accepted a plan to reorganise the entire economy.

The Alturian people’s almost exclusive sources of
revenue
were wine and the sardine—the famous red wine of Alturia, preserving in drinkable form the memory of southern days and southern summers; and the famous Alturian sardine, a small but congenial creature, the
comfort
of travellers and elderly bachelors alike, when served in oil, or with a little fresh tomato. For centuries the
principal
market for Alturian wine and sardines had been the
affluent citizens of Norlandia, under whose gloomy skies the grape never grew, and whose chilly shores the sardine took care to avoid.

When, in the early years of Oliver’s reign, the national purse began to show alarming signs of atrophy, Finance Minister Pritanez received a visit one fine day from the renowned Coltor. This Coltor was the greatest business tycoon in Norlandia. Legends abounded of his unbelievable wealth, and of his astonishing talent for buying and selling. He did not deal in mines, factories, land or newspapers, as did other great financiers. Instead he marketed innovations. For example, throughout Norlandia and all the neighbouring states, he retailed a half-pair of shoes, to be purchased in case of inadvertent loss of the other half. By some remarkable feat of technical ingenuity the left shoe would also fit the right foot and the right shoe the left. It was he who introduced the practice of building house walls with onions, developed the textile cigarette and the ant-powered spirit lamp; and he who found a way to convert the famous fogs of his homeland into edible oil. There was no counting the number of discoveries he had harnessed for economic exploitation.

And then, after all that buying and selling, it occurred to him that you could also buy a country. The proposal made to Pritanez was that he, Coltor, would take control of the entire wine and sardine production of Alturia. In return he would put the nation’s chaotic finances in order. The Alturians were poetical souls, for whom the whole tedious business of money was just a source of worry and disappointment, but now he was offering to lift this burden from the nation’s shoulders.

Pritanez embraced this proposal with the greatest
enthusiasm
, not least because the contract, once signed, offered him personal prospects such as the finance minister of an impecunious little country could only dream of—presuming,
of course, that he addressed the issue with the resolution of a Cesare Borgia. Determination was not one of his
characteristics
. He was a rotund, circumspect individual, who lived in a perpetual state of terror.

By extending similar blandishments to his fellow ministers, Pritanez managed to secure their support. But that still left the most important item of all, the consent of the King. From the outset, Oliver had opposed the plan with unusual vigour. He would not hear of his country being sold to foreigners, and he turned a bright red if Pritanez ever dared mention it. The man was beginning to sense that the whole wonderful scheme would come to nothing, because of the stupid pig-headedness of a callow youth.

Coltor meanwhile went on developing the plan in ever finer detail, as if no obstacle to it could possibly arise from the Alturian side. He managed to rouse interest in it even in those ruling circles in his own country that had initially thought it rather ambitious, and their enthusiasm had grown steadily. In the end, the Norlandian government had adopted the scheme as its own, and Baron Birker, their ambassador in Lara, had done his best to win the King over. Eventually, it seemed, Birker’s reasoning had prevailed: Oliver now saw that his country had no other means of escape from financial chaos, and he finally accepted that he would have to put his name to the document.

Even so, the Norlandian government still felt it necessary to make sure that the King did not change his mind with the passing of time, and that he would continue to believe in the plan and support it. The best way to ensure that, it seemed to them, as a nation deeply committed to family life, would be to bind the King to their own ruling house by personal ties. They proposed that Oliver should take Princess Ortrud, daughter of the Emperor of Norlandia, as his wife. 

Oliver had not the slightest objection to this idea. He had known Ortrud since childhood, when they had played together in the dust of the Imperial Palace gardens. She was a handsome, cultivated young woman, and they had always been the very best of friends.

However, when the news was given to the citizens of Alturia that they would soon acquire a queen in the person of Ortrud, a difficulty began to emerge. Normally they were as
enthusiastic
about such royal goings-on as the citizens of any other country, and their government had counted on this feeling. But it did not materialise. The press made great play of the fact that never before in the history of their Catholic nation had the king married a Protestant. One way and another, all sorts of absurd rumours began to circulate, most notably that the male members of the Norlandian royal family had been, for over a hundred years and without a single
exception
, drunkards, philanderers or halfwits. Some of the dailies went so far as to issue lurid pamphlets alleging that Emperor Eustace IV had stolen one of the smaller state crowns as a pledge for a Greek pawnbroker, and that Prince Simiskes had drowned in a barrel of rainwater when inebriated.

Then one day the real scandal broke.

The opposition press got wind of the Coltor Plan and announced the news with the full panoply of suitably
outraged
comment. What was particularly strange about all this was that only the King and his ministers—none of whom had anything to gain from a premature disclosure—had been party to the information. From that point onwards they viewed each other with even greater distrust, double-checking their wallets as they went into cabinet meetings, and burning their account books before leaving home. But for all their vigilance, they never discovered who the traitor was.

This marked the start of the role played by the fire-eating
Dr Delorme. Here was a treasonous plan, which would bring total destruction on the state of Alturia! Day after day his ranting editorials poured out molten lava against it—it was scarcely credible that one man could carry so much lava inside himself. And these daily outpourings were devoured with ever greater eagerness by the population. The
government
made one or two clumsy attempts to silence the press, but in that archaic world the techniques for doing so were still remarkably undeveloped.

The young King became more and more personally unpopular. Prior to this, the good-hearted Alturian people had always taken a misty-eyed delight in his youthfulness. Now, when he appeared in public, he was met by sullen, hostile looks. His oleograph portraits were stripped from the walls of public houses, and the popular baby soap, cider and travelling basket that carried his image became unsellable, however great the discount offered by their horrified vendors. The Alturian people, like southern races everywhere, loved to express their political opinions in the form of slogans daubed on walls. Now, instead of the universal “Long live the King!” and “Oliver our pride and joy!” there was a steady shift to such sentiments as: “Foreigners out!” “Death to Coltor!” and “Keep our sardines free!”

The unrest was quietly fomented by underground
organisations
. The Alturians, although gentle and dreamy by nature, were born conspirators. For decades they had
channelled
all their sporting inclinations in this direction, and the plotters, as we noted earlier, came from every level of society. Following ancient tradition, they swore an oath of loyalty to the ‘Nameless Captain’. There were those who thought that this being was a mere mythical notion, but others, the
majority
, were convinced he was a real person, who would come forward and declare himself at the critical moment.

The conspirators’ stated aim was to force the abdication of Oliver VII and replace him with the country’s grand old man, Geront, Duke of Algarthe—the person on whom Sandoval was to call the following day.

The one-hour taxi ride from Lara to Algarthe was not cheap, but that too was added to Sandoval’s expense account with the Revolutionary Committee. A man on a mission for
important
conspirators can hardly take the suburban train.

Some ten minutes before they reached the mansion, the car was stopped.

“Excuse me, sir—customs check,” said the military officer, whose appearance was so aristocratic Sandoval found it hard to believe that this was a matter of routine customs harassment. There was no inspection process, only
questions
about his name and the purpose of his journey. When he explained who he was, and that he was painting the Duke’s portrait, the officer saluted politely and waved him on.

The taxi turned into the park and proceeded up the broad yellow driveway. Two astonishingly ancient footmen stepped forward, opened the door and greeted him affably.

“His Highness will be delighted to see you,” they assured him. “So few people have come this way recently … ”

Sandoval made his way through the foyer, whose walls were hung with vast historic canvasses in the somewhat rhetorical style of the mid-nineteenth century. The Duke’s taste was for delicate miniatures, and these hereditary daubings had been banished to the entrance. In the second room stood some small earthenware statues; in the third, cupboards filled with
kamea
—little square objects engraved with kabbalistic
symbols; in the fourth the Duke’s renowned collection of keys. Everything was in exemplary order.

He moved quickly on, up the inner stairway, to the Duke’s private apartments. In a room packed with Japanese
watercolours
another praeternaturally ancient footman received him and offered him a chair.

In no time at all Duke Geront appeared, supported by a young woman. The claimant to the throne was
seventy-five
years old and in rather poor condition for his years. He wore extremely thick spectacles, groping his way ahead as he walked, and his voice wavered into a sort of bleat; but his manner was decisive and intelligent. There was much more life in the girl, Princess Clodia. She was about thirty years of age, energetic and rather stern of feature: handsome enough, but as an old woman, Sandoval thought to himself, she would be really formidable.

“Ah, Sandoval,” the Princess cried, “so they let you through the cordon? How did you manage it? They have practically sealed us off from the outside world. Our mail is opened, they listen in on our telephone calls … ”

“You must remember, your Highness, that you are a
claimant
to the throne. There is a price to pay for that.”

“Have you brought news from the Committee?”

“Yes. Here, in my pocket.”

He handed over a thick envelope.

“Thank you, Sandoval. I’ll go and read it up in my room. Meanwhile you may entertain my father.”

After a long search the Duke produced a
netsuke
from his pocket—a little button carved from stone and used for
clasping
the kimono at the shoulder.

“Marvellous,” he commented. “Fifteenth century.”

They talked at length about the netsuke and other things Japanese, the Duke leading him with uncertain steps through
room after room, bringing out his treasures to show them off. Sandoval made tactful but persistent attempts to introduce the subject of what was to happen the following day, but even the most oblique mention of any such topic produced a display of violent irritation.

“All these stupid claims to the throne,” he muttered. “Don’t say one word about any of that. Nothing will come of it, I’m quite sure. In my late brother Simon’s reign I was next in line three times … or was it just twice? … and nothing ever came of it. All the better for it, too.”

A full half-hour or more passed in this manner, before signs of fatigue began to show on the Duke’s face. Princess Clodia and a footman came for him soon after, and made him lie down on a divan.

Clodia and Sandoval went through into another room.

“He’s interested in nothing but his collections,” she
complained
. “But he always was like that. He’s spent his entire fortune on them, and he’s run up so many debts he won’t be able to pay them even if he does become king. Oh well, never mind. It’s lucky I’m here. It’s not that I have an especially high opinion of myself, but I could run this country every bit as well as that daft cousin of mine, Oliver. Even when we were children he was completely useless. He used to write poetry … ”

“Your Highness, the people are always happy to be ruled over by a woman. Because the male monarchs are always swayed by their women, and the women by their men.”

For a moment the Princess frowned at this extreme
impertinence
, then she smiled. She thought of those exemplary women whose lives she had studied with such care: Elizabeth of England, Catherine the Great … Yes, Sandoval was right.

“The Duke will have to be shaken out of his apathy,” Sandoval continued. “Tomorrow is the day we’ve all been
waiting for. For a little while at least, he ought to show some enthusiasm and appetite for the job in hand. By this time the day after tomorrow, assuming all goes well, he’ll be king—and he still won’t let us mention it in his presence.”

“You are quite right. His lack of interest could be very damaging when he comes face to face with his supporters. It might even turn the Nameless Captain against him.”

“The Nameless Captain? Does Your Highness believe in such a being?”

“Of course. I don’t understand how you could think otherwise. Who do you imagine is funding the revolution? You don’t think it’s us, in Algarthe? We haven’t a penny to our name … ”

“True, true. But then who could this Nameless Captain be? Who in Alturia has that sort of money? And is it possible that Your Highness really doesn’t know?”