To play the king

January: The Second Week

The gravel of the long drive leading from the gate lodge to the front of the old manor house rattled against the bodywork of the car as it drew up alongside the other vehicles. The polished dark-blue Rolls-Royce seemed out of place alongside the battered Land-Rovers and muddy estate cars, and Landless already knew he would not fit in. He didn't mind, he was used to it. The manor house was the ancestral home of Mickey, Viscount Quillington, and commanded magnificent views over the rolling countryside of Oxfordshire, although a grey January afternoon was not the best of settings. The fabric of the building charted the chaotic progress of an ancient aristocratic family and was mostly William and Mary or Victorian with a hint of Tudor in the wing nearest the tiny chapel, but of the twentieth century there was little sign.

The damp seemed to follow him into the rough and tumble of the large entrance hall filled with tangled hunting dogs, mucky Wellington boots and a variety of anoraks and outer garments all struggling to dry. The floor tiles were badly chipped and there was not a hint of central-heating anywhere. It was the type of house which in many other parts had been rescued from decay by an expanding Japanese hotel group or golf-course consortium, but not here, not yet. He was glad he had declined the invitation to stay the night.

The Quillingtons traced their line back to the time when one of their ancestors had travelled to Ireland with Cromwell, collected his estates for bloody services rendered, and returned to England at the time of the Restoration to make a second fortune. It was a fine history, on which the current generation of Quillingtons, impoverished by time, misfortune and inadequate tax planning, reflected with awe. The estates had gradually been whittled away, the ties with Ireland finally broken, many of the paintings sold, the best pieces of furniture and silver auctioned, the large staff pared. This was old money, and it was growing increasingly short.

Meeting the other guests proved something of a trial for the businessman. They were all old friends, some dating from nursery days and displaying the type of public-school clannishness boys from Bethnal Green find impossible to penetrate. His clothes hadn't helped. 'Country casual' he'd been told. He had turned up in a check two-piece with waistcoat and brown shoes; they were all wearing jeans. Not until Princess Charlotte greeted him warmly did he begin to feel less defensive.

The weekend had been built around the Princess. Arranged by Quillington's younger brother, David, it was an opportunity for her to relax amongst old friends away from the petty intrigues of London's socialites and gossip columnists. Here they were almost all scions of old families, some older than the Windsors, and to them she was a friend with a job to do, still the 'Beany' of childhood squabbles in the swimming pool and fancy-dress parties organized by po-faced nannies. She had insisted on a private bedroom well away from other guests and David had seen to all the arrangements, tidying the two detectives and chauffeur of the Royal Protection Group well away at the back of the house. The Princess had the Chinese Room, not so much a suite but more a single vast room on the first floor of the East Wing, with David occupying the only other bedroom on the floor. Her privacy was ensured.

There was a certain sadness in surveying the house with its ancient wiring, frayed edges, dank corners and one wing almost completely closed down, yet it had character and a great sense of history, and the dining room was magnificent. Fifty feet long, oak-panelled, lit by two fern-like chandeliers whose lights shone deep into a burnished table constructed from the timbers of an old Man o' War and crafted by prisoners from Napoleon's navy. The silver was old and monogrammed, the crystal assorted, the effect timeless. Old money, even in short supply, certainly knew how to eat. Quillington presided at the head of the table, on his right the Princess and on his left Landless, with others further down, and they listened politely to the publisher's stories of City life as their ancestors might have listened to explorer's tales of the South Sea islands.

After dinner they took their port and cognac into the Old Library, where the ceiling was high and the winter air clung tenaciously to the far corners, where leather-clad books were piled along endless shelves and smoke-darkened oil paintings covered the one free wall. Landless thought he could see marks on the wall where paintings had been removed, presumably for auction, with the remainder spread around a little more thinly. The furniture seemed as old as any part of the house. One of the two large sofas crowding around the roaring log fire was covered in a car rug to hide the ravages of age, while the other stood battered and naked, its dark-green fabric torn by the insistent scratching of dogs, with its stuffing of horse hair dribbling out like candle wax from underneath one of the cushions. Within the embrace of the Library, dinner guests became almost family and the conversation grew more relaxed and uninhibited.

'Shame about today,' Quillington muttered, kicking the fire with the heel of his leather boot. The fire spat back, sending a shower of sparks up the broad chimney. He was a tall, streaky figure much used to wandering around in tightly tailored jeans, high boots and a broad kangaroo-skin fedora, which looked eccentric if not vaguely ridiculous on a fifty-year-old. Eccentricity was a useful cover for encroaching impoverishment. 'Damned hunt-saboteurs, buzz like flies around horse shit. There they are, on my land, and the police refuse to arrest them or even move them on. Not unless they actually attack someone. God knows what this country is coming to when you can't even prevent layabouts like that rampaging all over your own land. Home a man's damned castle, 'n'all that.'

It had not been a successful day's hunting. The animal-rights protesters had waved their banners and spread their pepper and aniseed, unsettling the horses, confusing the hounds and outraging the huntsmen. It had been a soggy morning overflowing with drizzle, not good for picking up trails, and they had lumbered through the heavy clay of the countryside to find nothing more enthralling than the carcass of a dead cat. 'You can't throw them off your own land?' enquired Landless.

'Not bloody likely. Trespass isn't criminal, police'll do damn-all about it. You can ask them politely to move on, they tell you to piss off. You so much as lay a finger on them and you find yourself in court on assault charges. For protecting your own bloody property.'

'Chalked up one of the yobs, I did,' the Princess intervened gaily. 'Saw him hovering close behind my horse so I backed the beast up. Scared all hell out of him when he saw sixteen hands shunting straight towards him. He jumped back, stumbled, and fell straight into a pile of fresh crap!'

'Bravo, Beany. Filled his pants, I hope,' David Quillington interjected. 'You hunt, Mr Landless?' 'Only in the City.' 'You should try it sometime. See the countryside at its best.'

Landless doubted that. He had arrived in time to find the stragglers returning from the hunt, faces red and blotched, covered in mud and thoroughly soaked. Mix in the sight of a fox being torn apart, its entrails smeared over the ground and squelched beneath horses' hooves, and he thought he could well do without such pleasures. Anyway, boys born and brought up in concrete tower-blocks surrounded by broken street lamps and derelict cars tend to have a naive empathy for the countryside and the things that live in it. He hadn't seen any of England's green and pleasant pastures until a school day-trip when he was thirteen and, in truth, he held an undemanding admiration for the fox.

'Foxes are vermin,' the younger Quillington continued. 'Attack chickens, ducks, new-born lambs, even sick calves. Scrounge off city rubbish dumps and spread disease. It's too easy to knock the landowners but, I tell you, without their work in protecting the countryside, keeping it clear of pests like foxes, rebuilding the walls and hedgerows, planting woodlands for fox and pheasant cover – all at their own expense – those protesters would have a lot less countryside to protest about.'

Landless noticed that the younger Quillington, seated on the sofa next to the Princess, was moderate both in his language and his drinking. That could not be said of his brother, leaning against the Adam fireplace, glass in hand. 'Under threat. Everything under threat, you know. They trample over your land, shouting, screaming like Dervishes, waving their banners and blowing their bloody horns, trying to pull the hounds onto busy roads and railway lines. Even when they manage to get themselves arrested some damned fool magistrate takes pity on them. And me, because I've got land, because my family have worked it for generations, devoted themselves to the local community, done their bit for the country in the House of Lords, because I've tried so hard and got no bloody money left and nothing but bills and bank letters to read, I'm supposed to be a parasite!'

'There's no sense of proportion anymore,' the Princess agreed. 'Take my family. Used to be held in respect. Nowadays journalists are more interested in what goes on in the bedroom than the State Room.'

Landless noticed the exchange of looks between the Princess and the younger Quillington. It was not their first. They had begun the evening sitting well apart at opposite ends of the sofa, but they seemed to have drawn ever closer, like magnets.

'Absolutely, Beany. They know you can't defend yourself so they lay into you without pity,' Mickey continued from his position by the fire. 'We've all worked damned hard for what little we have. Yet they get at the fox-hunting, they attack the landowners, they undermine the hereditary principle, and the next thing you know we're a sodding republic. It's about time we started sticking up for ourselves, stopped taking it on the chin and turning the other cheek.'

Charlotte had finished her glass and was holding it out towards the younger Quillington for a refill. 'But, Mickey, I can't, none of my lot can. The Family's supposed to be the silent service.' She turned to Landless. 'What do you think, Benjamin?'

'I'm a businessman, not a politician,' he protested coyly, but checked himself. She had offered him a chance to break into their tight circle of concerns, there was no point in turning it down. 'Very well, take a lesson from the politician's book. If a Minister wants something said but finds it injudicious to say it himself, he gets somebody else to do the talking. A fellow MP, a business leader, a newspaper editor even. You have friends, influential friends. Like Lord Quillington here, with a voice and seat in the House of Lords.'

'Slave labour, rowing the Government's galley, that's all they reckon we are,' Quillington sniffed.

'And so you shall remain if you don't speak up for yourselves,' Landless warned.

'Sounds like mutiny,' his brother said from the drinks table, 'taking on the Government.'

'So what? You've got nothing to lose. Better than staying silent simply in order to be abused. Remember what they tried with the King's speech? You're in the same firing line.'

'Never did have any time for that Urquhart,' Quillington muttered into his brandy balloon.

'The press wouldn't report it anyway,' his brother commented, handing a full glass back to the Princess. When he sat down, Landless noticed he had drawn even closer to her. Their hands were side by side on the car rug. 'Some press would,' Landless interjected.

'Benjamin, of course, you're a darling,' Charlotte said soothingly, 'but all the rest of them are interested in is a photograph of me with my dress blown up around my ears so they can gossip about where I buy my knickers.'

It was not an entirely accurate picture, mused Landless. The press were mostly interested in where she left her underwear, not where she bought it.

'Shouldn't give honours to press men,' Mickey continued. 'Particularly peerages. Clouds their objectivity. Makes them too damned self-important.'

Landless didn't feel insulted; rather, he felt as if slowly they were beginning to offer him acceptance, setting aside the fact that he was born to a different world.

'You know, perhaps you're right,' Quillington continued. 'Hell, about the only right they allow us nowadays is to get on our hind legs in the Lords, and it's about time we started using it properly. You know, making the Lords and the hereditary principle the first line of defence for you and yours, Beany.' 'If you've anything you want to say, I'll make sure it gets an outing,' Landless offered. 'Just like we did with the Christmas speech.'

'I think we've hit on a damned fine idea, Beany,' Quillington said. Already he was beginning to expropriate the idea for his own. 'Anything you want said, I'll say it for you. If the King can't make a public speech, then I'll make it for him. Into the public record on the floor of the Lords. We mustn't let them gag us.' He nodded in self-approval. 'Sorry you can't stay the night, Landless,' he continued. 'Plenty of other ideas I'd like to try on you.' The conversion was complete. 'Some other time, eh?'

Landless understood the hint and glanced at his watch. 'Time I was going,' he offered, and rose to his feet to make his rounds of farewell.

He would be glad to get out into the fresh air. He didn't belong here, not with these people: no matter how polite they were and no matter how successful he became, he would never belong. They wouldn't allow it. He might have purchased a ticket to the dinner table, but he could never buy his way into the club. He didn't mind, he didn't care to join. This was yesterday, not tomorrow. Anyway, he'd look ridiculous on a horse. But he had no regrets. As he glanced behind him from the door, he could see his host standing by his fireplace, dreaming of chivalrous battles yet to come on the floor of the House of Lords. And he could see the Princess and the younger Quillington, already anticipating the disappearance of the outsider, holding hands on the sofa. There were stories here aplenty, with patience. It had been worth it.

The House of Commons attendant entered the gentlemen's lavatory in search of his quarry. He had an urgent message for Tom Worthington, a Labour MP from what used to be a mining constituency in Derbyshire before they closed the mines, who prided himself on his working-class origins in spite of the fact that it had been more than twenty years since anything other than ink and ketchup had stained his hands. The lavatory was inescapably Victorian with fine antique tiles and porcelain, sullied only by an electric hot-air drier at which Jeremy Colthorpe, an ageing and notoriously pompous Member from the pretentious shires, was drying his hands. 'By chance seen Mr Worthington, sir?' the attendant enquired.

'Can only handle one shit at a time in here, my man,' Colthorpe responded through his nose. 'Try one of the bars. In some corner under a table, most likely.'

The attendant scurried off as Colthorpe was joined at the wash basins by the only other man in the room, Tim Stamper.

'Timothy, dear boy. Enjoying party headquarters? Making an excellent job of it, if you don't mind my saying.'

Stamper turned from the basin and lowered his head in appreciation, but there was no warmth. Colthorpe was known for his airs, purporting to be a leader of local society, yet he'd married into every penny, which only made him still more condescending towards former estate agents. Classlessness was a concept Colthorpe would never support, having spent most of his life trying to escape from its clutches.

'Glad for a chance to speak with you actually, old chap,' Colthorpe was saying, his smile more a simper as he searched keenly in the corners of the mirror for reassurance that he and Stamper were alone in the echoing room. 'Confidentially, man to man,' he continued, trying to glance surreptitiously beneath the doors of the cubicles.

'What's on your mind, Jeremy?' Stamper responded, mindful that during all of his years in the House Colthorpe had never done more than pass the time of day with him.

'Lady wife. Getting on a bit, seventy next year. And not in the best of health. Brave gal, but finding it more than ever difficult to help in the constituency – it's damned large, forty-three villages, don't you know, takes some getting round, I can tell you.' He moved over towards Stamper at the basins and started washing his hands for the second time, trying to evince confidentiality but clearly ill at ease. 'Owe it to her to take off some of the pressure, spend a little more time together. No way of telling how long she may have.' He paused while he worked up a considerable lather as if he were always meticulous about hygiene and to emphasize the depth of his concern for his wife. Both effects were wasted on Stamper who, when Deputy Chief Whip, had seen Colthorpe's private file, which included reference to the regular payments he made to a single mother who used to tend bar in his local pub.

'To be frank, I'm thinking of giving up my seat at the next election. For her sake, of course. But it'd be a damnable pity to see all that experience I've gained over the years go to waste. Would love to find some way of… still being able to contribute, don't you know. To go on doing my bit for the country. And the party, of course.'

'What did you have in mind, Jeremy?' Stamper already knew precisely where the conversation was headed.

'Open to suggestion. But obviously the Lords would seem a sensible option. Not for me, so much, but for the little lady. Mean a lot to her after all these years. Particularly when… you know, she might not have very long to enjoy it.'

Colthorpe was still splashing water around to make a pretence at casualness and had succeeded in drenching the front of his trousers. He realized he was beginning to make a fool of himself and turned the taps off with a savage twist, turning directly towards Stamper, hands by his side, water dripping from his soaked cuffs. 'Would I have your support, Tim? The backing of the party machine?'

Stamper turned away and headed for the electric hand dryer, its harsh noise forcing Colthorpe to follow him across the room, and them both to raise their voices.

'There will be quite a few colleagues retiring at the next election, Jeremy. I expect a number of them will want a scat in the Lords.'

'Wouldn't press my own case, but for the wife. I'd work hard at the job, wouldn't skive off like so many of the others.'

'Ultimately, of course, it's up to Francis. He'll have a tough job deciding between the various claims.' 'I voted for Francis…' – that was a lie – 'I'd be loyal.'

'Would you?' Stamper threw over his shoulder. 'Francis does value loyalty above everything.' 'Absolutely. Anything the two of you want, rely on me!'

The hand drier suddenly ceased its raucous huffing and in a moment the atmosphere had grown hushed, almost confessional. Stamper turned to stare at Colthorpe from only a few inches away. 'Can we really rely on you, Jeremy? Loyalty first?' Colthorpe was nodding. 'Even as far as the King is concerned?' 'The King…?' Confusion crept in.

'Yes, Jeremy, the King. You've already seen how he's rocked the boat. And Francis fears it's going to get worse. The Palace needs reminding, very firmly, who's in charge.' 'But I'm not sure…'

'Loyalty, Jeremy. That's what will make the difference between those who get what they want out of this Government, and those who don't. It's an unpleasant business, this thing with the Palace, but somebody has to stand up and defend the important constitutional principles at stake. Francis can't, you see, not formally and publicly as Prime Minister. That would create a constitutional crisis, which he absolutely does not want. The only way to avoid that may be to get someone other than a Minister, someone with great seniority and authority – someone like you, Jeremy – to remind the Palace and the public what's at stake. It's the least Francis has a right to expect from his loyal supporters.'

'Yes, but… Get into the House of Lords by attacking the King?'

'Not attacking. Reminding him of the highest constitutional principles.' 'But it's the King who creates new peers-' 'Solely and exclusively on the advice of the Prime Minister. The King cannot refuse his recommendations.' 'It's a little like Alice In Wonderland-' 'So's a lot of what the Palace has been saying.' 'I'd like to think about it a little.'

'You need to think about loyalty?' Stamper's tone was harsh, accusatory. His lip curled in contempt and there was fire in the sepulchral eyes. Without a further word the Party Chairman turned on his heel and made his way towards the door. His hand was already on the shiny brass door knob, and Colthorpe realized his ambitions were ruined if the door closed on this conversation. 'I'll do it!' he squealed. 'Tim, I know where my loyalties lie. I'll do it.' He was breathing heavily with the tension and confusion, trying to regain his self-control, wiping his hands on his trousers. 'You can rely on me, old chap.'

Stamper held his stare, spreading his lips in the coldest of smiles. Then he closed the door behind him.

The lunch had started excellently. Both Mickey Quillington and his first cousin, Lord Chesholm of Kinsale, appreciated a good claret and the cellar of the House of Lords dining room had a large number from which to choose. They had chosen to drink Leoville-Barton but were unable to decide between the '82 and '85 vintage. So they had ordered a bottle of both and slipped gently into mid-afternoon in the warm embrace of the elegant mahogany panelling and attentive staff. Chesholm was a good twenty years older than Quillington and substantially more wealthy, and the impecunious younger peer had hoped to use the lunch for the launch of an appeal to family solidarity which would involve his relative in leasing several hundred of Quillington's Oxfordshire acres at a generous rate, but sadly his tactics had gone awry. The claret proved too much for the elderly peer to manage and he couldn't concentrate, repeatedly exclaiming that he didn't live in Oxfordshire. The bill, although heavily subsidized, still reflected the exceptional nature of the wine and Quillington felt bruised. Maybe the old bugger would regain his wits by teatime.

They were attending the House to voice objection to a Bill which sought a total ban on fox-hunting, and the debate was well underway by the time they took their places on the deep-red morocco benches in the Gothic chamber. Within minutes Chesholm was asleep while Quillington slouched with his knees tucked beneath his chin as he listened with growing resentment to a former polytechnic lecturer, recently elevated to the life-peerage for his diligence in the study of trade union matters, expounding his belief in the decay and corruption of those who still believed they owned the countryside as if by divine right. Debates in the Lords are conducted in far less pompous and vitriolic style than in the Lower Chamber, as befits its aristocratic and almost familial atmosphere, but the lack of outright rudeness did not prevent the peer from putting across his point of view forcefully and effectively. From around the Chamber, uncharacteristically packed for the occasion by hereditary peers and noble backwoodsmen from distant rural parts, came a growl of wounded pride, like a stuck boar at bay. Such displays of emotion are not commonplace in the Upper Chamber, but such a concentration of hereditary peers was also unusual outside the circumstance of state funeral or Royal wedding. It may not have been the Lords at their norm, nor even at their best, but it was certainly their Lordships at their most decorous.

Quillington cleared his throat; the debate was threatening to spoil the warm glow left by the claret. The poly-peer had broadened his attack from fox-hunting itself to those who hunted, and Quillington took great exception. He was not the type of person who rode roughshod over others' rights; he'd never forced any farm labourer out of a tied cottage, and any damage inadvertently caused while hunting was always paid for. Blast the man, the Quillingtons had been dedicated custodians. It had cost them their fortune and his father's health and had left his mother with little but years of tearful widowhood. Yet here was an oaf who had spent all his working life in some overheated lecture room living off an inflation-proofed salary, accusing him of being no better than a scrounger. It was too much, really too bloody much. This sort of wheedling and insolent insinuation had gone on for too long, harking back to a style of class warfare which was fifty years out of date.

' 'Bout time we put them in their place, don't you think, Chesy?' Almost before he realized it, Quillington was on his feet.

'This debate is only nominally about fox-hunting, that is merely the excuse. Behind it lies an insidious attack on the traditions and values which have not only held our countryside together, not only held this House together, but have held the whole of society together. There are wreckers in the land, some maybe even amongst our number here' – he deliberately avoided looking at the previous speaker, so that everyone would know precisely whom he meant – 'who in the name of democracy would force their own narrow, militant opinions upon the rest, the silent majority which is the true and glorious backbone of Britain.'

He licked his lips, there was a flush in his cheeks, a mixture of Leoville-Barton and real emotion that succeeded in engulfing the unease he customarily felt in public, which on more than one occasion had left him tongue-tied and floundering at the opening of the annual village fete. 'They want revolution, no less. They would abandon our traditions, abolish this Chamber, stamp on our rights.' Quillington waved a finger at the canopied Throne which dominated one end of the hall and stood empty and forlorn. 'They even seek to reduce to silence and insignificance our own Royal Family.'

Several of Their Lordships raised a collective eyebrow. The rules about discussion of the Royal Family were very restrictive, particularly in a debate on blood sports. 'To the point, my Lord,' one growled in warning.

'But, noble Lords, this is the point,' protested Quillington. 'We are not here to rubber-stamp what comes from the Lower House. We are here to offer counsel, advice, warning. And we do so, just as the Monarch does, because we represent the true long-term interests of this country. We represent the values which have made our nation great over previous centuries and which will continue to guide her well into the next century. We are not here to be swayed by every passing fashion and fad. We do not suffer from the corruption of having to get ourselves elected, of having to pretend that we are all things to all men, of making promises we know we cannot keep. We are here to represent what is immutable and constant in society.'

Mutters of 'Hear, hear' could be heard from the crowded benches around Quillington. The Lord Chancellor drummed his fingers as he concentrated in bewigged and ermined splendour from his seat on the Woolsack; the speech was most unusual, but really rather a splendid entertainment.

'It may seem a long way from the plottings of hunt-saboteurs to assaults on Buckingham Palace, but what we have seen of both recently should encourage us to stand firm in our beliefs, not to run for the cover of undergrowth like terrified vermin.' His long, thin arms were extended theatrically away from his body, as if trying to haul in their sympathy. He needn't have bothered, peers were beginning to nod and tap their knees to indicate support. 'Both this House and the Royal Family are here to defend those timeless aspects of the national interest, unfettered by the selfishness of The Other Place. There is no need for this House to kowtow to the muscle and money of commercial interests!' The poly-peer was sitting upright, ready to try and intervene. He was sure Quillington was about to go too far. 'Not for us the temptations of bribing the public with their own money, we are here to defend the public against shortsightedness and falsehood. And at no time is that duty more pressing upon us than when we have a new Cabinet and a Prime Minister who have not even been elected by the people. Let him go to the country promising to castrate the Monarch and abolish the House of Lords if he dare, but until he has won that right and power at an election, let us not allow him to do quietly and privately what he has not yet been able to do publicly.'

The poly-peer had had enough. He was not quite sure what transgression Quillington was making, but the emotional temperature in the Chamber had soared, shouts of support for Quillington were coming from all sides, and the poly-peer suddenly felt the Chamber close in around him like a courtroom dock. 'Order! The noble Lord must restrain himself,' he interjected.

'Why…?' 'No, let him go on…' 'Allow him to finish…' On all sides Quillington was being offered advice and encouragement, while the poly-peer sprang to his feet, shouting across the Chamber and wagging his finger in vain. Quillington had won, and knew it.

'I have finished, my Lords. Do not forget your duty, nor your allegiance to the King, nor the sacrifices which you and your forefathers accepted in order to make this nation great. Use this wretched Bill to remind others that you have not forgotten, and let the lion roar once more!'

He sat down as peers took their Order Papers and rapped them sharply on the leather benches in front of them to show their approbation.

As Order Papers beat down either side of his head, the elderly Chesholm woke with a start. 'What? What was that? Did I miss something, Mickey?'

'On a Point of Order, Madam Speaker.' 'Point of Order, Mr Jeremy Colthorpe.'

Madam Speaker's shrill voice cut through the din of the House of Commons as MPs milled around preparing to vote after an Opposition debate on sub-standard housing, which had just wound its way through three turbid hours. Normally Madam Speaker was caustic about points of order raised during divisions and, indeed, the ancient rules of the House made such interruptions problematic by requiring the MP to have his head covered – in order better to be seen amidst the confusion, so said the rule book; to deflect idle time-wasters, according to common sense. But Colthorpe was a Member of long standing and not a renowned trouble-maker; he stood defiantly if somewhat absurdly attired in a collapsible opera hat kept in the Chamber for the purpose. Points of order often had an element of comedy to them, and the bustle in the Chamber subsided as MPs strained to hear what was upsetting the old man.

'Madam Speaker, on rare occasions a question of such importance and urgency arises that it is of overriding importance to the business of the House, and you decide it is necessary for the appropriate Minister to be summoned before us to answer for it. I believe this matter is just that.' It was more than that. News of Quillington's speech had drifted through the tea rooms and bars of the House of Commons even as Colthorpe was still chiding himself for making such a nonsense of his exchange with Stamper; he didn't have much practice in grovelling to estate agents, he told himself, and he knew he'd made a hash of it. He had listened to reports of the peer's words like a drowning man greets the sound of an approaching rescue ship, and had bustled off to find Stamper, terrified that someone else would find him first. Within forty minutes he was back in the Chamber, and on his feet.

'Earlier this afternoon, in Another Place, a noble Lord accused this House of political corruption, of seeking to deprive both their Lordships and His Majesty the King of their constitutional rights, and claiming that His Majesty had been improperly silenced. Such a challenge to the actions of this House and to the office of the Prime Minister is such as to-'

'Hold on a minute!' Madam Speaker enjoined Colthorpe to silence in a broad Lancashire accent. 'I've heard nothing about this. Most improper. You know it's against the rules of this House to discuss personal matters relating to the King.'

'This is not a personal matter but a constitutional matter of the highest importance, Madam Speaker. The rights of this House are enshrined in custom and established over the course of many years. When they are challenged, they must be defended.'

'Nevertheless, I want to see what was said before I allow this one to run.' The Speaker waved Colthorpe down but he was not to be deflected.

'We tarry and delay at our peril, Madam Speaker. This is just another example of the interfering, interventionist tendencies of the mod-Monarchy-'

'That's enough!' She was on her feet now, staring furiously over half-moon glasses, demanding Colthorpe subside.

'But Madam Speaker, we must be allowed to respond to attacks made on us, no matter from what source those attacks emanate. The debate in Another Place, ostensibly about fox-hunting, has been turned into a direct assault on this Chamber. Now, Madam Speaker, I don't wish to impugn the integrity of anyone wishing to make such attacks…' She liked the sound of that, and hesitated.

'It is possible, I suppose,' Colthorpe continued, 'to care passionately for the welfare of the nation from the back of a horse while out pursuing foxes.' There was an amused growl of support from the benches around. 'It may even be possible to identify with the plight of the homeless from within the luxury of a palace – indeed, several palaces. It may even be possible, I could not deny it, that being driven around the country in chauffeured limousines and private trains with forty carriages affords a unique insight into the problems of those confined to wheelchairs…'

'Forty coaches?' a voice queried. 'What on earth does he need with forty coaches?'

Madam Speaker was on her feet again, lifting onto her toes, trying to give herself added height and authority and angrily pointing her glasses in his direction, but Colthorpe, voice rising in turn, ignored her.

'It may also be possible for those who live entirely off the backs of taxpayers and who pay no tax at all to accuse those who do of greed and selfishness. It is possible. Madam Speaker, but isn't it more likely that this is just another load of the organic fertilizer which gets spread all over the Palace Gardens?'

The Speaker's cries of 'Order! Order!' were lost amidst the instant hubbub. 'If the Honourable Gentleman doesn't resume his seat immediately I shall be forced to name him,' she mouthed, threatening Colthorpe with the procedure that would eject him from Parliament for the rest of the week's business. But already it was too late. As Colthorpe looked towards the press gallery he could see scribes furiously tearing at their notebooks. There would be a posse of them waiting as he left the Chamber. His point had already been made; he would be named in every morning newspaper. 'Order! O-o-o-order!' cried the Speaker. With what he hoped was a bow of great dignity, which caused the opera hat to tumble from his head and roll across the floor, Colthorpe resumed his seat.

Landless was having his hair trimmed when the call came through, and he didn't care for being disturbed at such moments. His secretary thought his reluctance arose from embarrassment because his hairdresser, who visited the businessman once a fortnight at his office, was what she called 'delicate', but Landless didn't mind. Quentin was the only barber he'd ever found who could manage to keep his rope-like hair under control without larding it in hair cream and, besides, the Landless reputation with women was sufficiently beyond dispute to survive contact with an affected queen. In truth the hairdresser was a disgraceful gossip who had a fund of stories about his other fashionable clients, all of whom seemed to regard him as a father-confessor for their sex lives. Landless never ceased to be intrigued by what others would admit to or fantasize about under the influence of nothing more potent than shampoo and an expert scalp massage. He kept his own mouth shut, and listened. He was engrossed in a fascinating report of what other parts of his body the country's leading romantic soap star shaved, and in what designs, when the whine of the telephone dragged him away.

It was his editor-in-chief, seeking guidance, covering his ass as usual. But Landless didn't object, not on this occasion. This was his story, after all. 'How are the others going to play it?' he growled.

'No one's quite sure. This story's so out of the ordinary.' The issue involved King, Prime Minister, Lords and Commons – the Archbishop wasn't in there yet, but doubtless the Sun or Mirror would find some connection. Yet it had been raised by two such nonentities – few had heard of Colthorpe, none of Quillington. It was a sensitive issue, perhaps an item on the parliamentary page? 'Any guidance from Downing Street?'

'They're cautious. Clean hands, so they insist. Serious issues which they understand must be reported and all that, but suggest Quillington's a fool and Colthorpe went over the top. They don't want a repeat of what happened before Christmas.' 'But they didn't request we spike it, either?' 'No.'

'Colthorpe tried to shift the argument away from a divided nation to hard cash. Clever – too clever for him on his own. They're flying kites. Trying it out with Colthorpe to see if it gets a fair wind.' 'So what do we do?'

It was not so much that he had promised Quillington, it was more instinct – the instinct of a man who had been used to street-fighting all his life, used to recognizing the difference between shadows that provided cover and those that hid the enemy. He trusted his instincts, and they told him that amongst these shadows there lurked the figure of Francis Urquhart. If Landless threw a little light around, who knows what he might flush out. Anyway, he had a lot of money invested in the Royal Family and there was no dividend in it unless the Royal Family was news. Good, bad, indifferent news, he didn't mind – so long as it was news. 'Splash it. Page One lead.' 'You think it's that big?' 'We make it that big.'

There was agitated breathing on the end of the phone as the editor tried to catch up and comprehend his proprietor's flow of logic. 'Peers Attack Urquhart?' he suggested, practising a few headlines. 'PM Unelected and Unelectable, Say King's Allies?'

'No, you bloody idiot. Six weeks ago we were telling the world what a fine, noble creature he was. From Roger Rabbit to Rasputin in one bound is more than even our readers will swallow. You make it balanced, fair, authoritative. Just make it big.'

'You want to catch the others standing on this one.' It was an assumption, not a question: this was going to be a front page like none of the competition.

'No, not on this one,' Landless responded thoughtfully. 'Spread word around the news room.'

'But that'll mean it will be all through Fleet Street in under an hour.' They both knew there were journalists in the news room taking backhanders for alerting their rivals to what was going on, just as they paid for whispers in the other direction. 'They'll all follow. Think we're up to something, know something they don't. No one will want to be caught out, it'll be used on every front page…?'

'Precisely. This one is going to be a runner, because we're going to make it run. Freely, fairly, in the national interest. Until the time comes for us to climb down off the fence, by which time the noise we make will give our Mr Urquhart nightmares for months. That's when we make sure he's not only unelected, but unelectable.'

He dropped the phone back into its cradle and turned to Quentin, who was propping himself up against a far wall of the huge marble-covered private bathroom, seemingly engrossed in pursuit of a stray eyelash. 'Quentin, do you remember King Edward the Second?'

'You mean the one they did for with the red-hot poker?' He puckered his lips in distaste at the legend of sordid butchery.

'If I hear a word of this conversation breathed outside these walls, you're going to become Quentin the First. And I personally am going to administer the poker. Get it?' Quentin tried hard, very hard, to imagine the newspaper man was joking. He smiled encouragingly, but all he received in return was a sustained glare which left no room for doubt. Quentin remembered that Landless had never joked. He went back to cutting the hair, and said not another word.

She had taken the first editions up herself. She'd bumped into the messenger on the stairs. 'Nice to see you again, Miss.'

'Again' – Sally thought she detected undue inflexion on the word. Perhaps it was her imagination – or her guilt? No, not guilt. She had long ago decided not to run her life by codes and rules which others so blithely ignored. She owed no one, and there was no sense in being the only impoverished virgin in the cemetery.

He laid the newspapers side by side on the floor, and stood over them for a considerable time, lost in thought.

'It's started, Sally,' he said at last. She noted an edge of apprehension. 'Soon we shall be beyond the point of no return.' 'To victory.' 'Or to hell.'

'Come on, Francis, it's what you wanted. People beginning to ask questions.'

'Don't misunderstand. I'm not despondent, only a little cautious. I'm an Englishman, after all, and he is my King. And it appears we are not alone in asking questions. Who is this Quillington, this unknown peer with a mission?'

'Don't you know? He's the brother of the man who is, as it is said, close enough to Princess Charlotte to catch her colds. Always in the gossip columns.'

'You read gossip columns?' He was surprised; it was one of Elizabeth's least attractive breakfast traits. He eyed Sally closely, wondering if he would ever get the chance to eat breakfast with her.

'Many of my clients live in them. Pretend to be upset when they appear, are mortified when they don't.'

'So Quillington's a King's man, is he? And the King's men are already answering the call to battle.' He was still standing over the papers.

Talking of clients, Francis, you said you'd introduce me to some new contacts, but I've not met anyone apart from the occasional messenger and tea lady. For some reason we seem to spend all our time alone.' 'We're never truly alone. It's impossible in this place.'

She came behind him and slid her hands around his chest, burying her face in the crisp, clean cotton of his shirt. She could smell him, the male smell, its muskiness mixed with the pine starch and the faint tang of cologne, and she could feel the body heat already rising. She knew it was the danger he enjoyed, which made him feel he was conquering not only her but, through her, the entire world. The fact that at any moment a messenger or civil servant might blunder in only heightened his sense of awareness and drive; while he was having her he felt invincible. The time would come when he would feel like that all the time, would dispense with caution and recognize no rules other than his own, and even as he reached the height of his powers he would begin the downward slide to defeat. It happened to them all. They begin to convince themselves that each new challenge is no longer new but is simply a repeat of old battles already fought and won. Their minds begin to close, they lose touch and flexibility, are no longer attuned to the dangers they confront. Vision becomes stale repetition. Not Urquhart, not yet, but sometime. She didn't mind being used, so long as she could use him, too, and so long as she remembered that this, like all things, couldn't last forever. She ran her hands down his chest, poking her fingers between his shirt buttons. Prime Ministers are always pushed, initially by their own vanity and sense of impregnability, and eventually by the electorate or their own colleagues and political friends. Although not by a King, not for many years. 'Don't worry about your clients, Sally. I'll fix it.'

'Thank you, Francis.' She kissed the back of his neck, the fingers still descending on his buttons as though she were practising a piano scale. 'You understand your job exceptionally well,' he breathed. 'Mrs Urquhart not around?' 'She's visiting her sister. In Fife.' 'Sounds a long way away.' 'It is.' 'I see.'

She had run out of buttons. He was still standing, newspapers at his feet, facing the door like Horatius at the bridge, ready to take on any intruders, feeling omnipotent. When he was like this, with her, she knew that nothing else mattered for him. Part of him yearned for the door to burst open and for all of Downing Street to see him with this much younger, desirable woman and to understand what a true man he was. Perhaps he hadn't realized that they had stopped barging in with their interminable messages and Cabinet papers while she was here, always finding an excuse to telephone ahead first, or simply not bothering to come at all. They knew, of course they knew. But maybe he didn't know they knew. Maybe he was already losing touch.

'Francis,' she whispered in his ear. 'I know it's late. It will be in darkness, but… You always promised to show me the Cabinet Room. Your special chair.' He couldn't answer. Her fingers held him speechless. 'Francis? Please

He hadn't slept again. And he knew he was beginning to get things out of proportion. Ridiculous things like his tooth mug. The valet had changed it, just like that, assuming as they all did that they knew best what was good for him. It had caused an unholy, spitting row, and now he felt ashamed. He'd got his mug back, but in the process lost his equilibrium and dignity. Yet somehow knowing what was happening to him only seemed to make it worse.

The face in the bathroom mirror looked haggard, aged, the crow's feet around the eyes like great talons of revenge, the fire within damped and exhausted. As he studied his own image he saw reflected the face of his father, fierce, intemperate, unyielding. He shivered. He was growing old even before his life had properly started, a lifetime spent waiting for his parents to die just as now his own children waited for him. If he died today there would be a huge state funeral at which millions would mourn. But how many would remember him? Not him the figurehead, but him, the man?

As a child there had been some compensations. He remembered his favourite game dashing back and forth in front of the Palace guard, all the time being greeted with the satisfying clatter of boots being scraped and arms being presented until both he and the guard were breathless. But it had never been a proper childhood, alone and unable to reach out and touch like other children, and now they were intent on depriving him of his manhood, too. He would watch television yet couldn't understand half the commercials. A stream of messages about mortgages, savings plans, money dispensers, new liquids for washing whiter and gadgets which got the paint into those difficult corners and out of the bristles of the brush. It was as though the messages came from another planet. He already had the softest brand of toilet tissue, but hadn't the slightest idea where to buy it. He didn't even have to take the top off his toothpaste in the morning or change a razor blade. It was all done for him, everything. His life was unreal, somehow so irrelevant, a gilded cage of miseries. Even the girls they'd found to help with some of the basics had called him 'Sir', not only when they first met and in public, but later when they were alone, in bed, with nothing else between them other than an enthusiastic sweat while showing him how the rest of the world spent their time.

He'd done his best, everything that was expected of him and more. He'd learned Welsh, walked the Highlands, captained his own ship, flown helicopters and jumped out of planes at five thousand feet, presided over charity committees, opened the hospital wings and unveiled their plaques, laughed at the humiliations and lamentable impersonations, ignored the insults, bitten his lip at the vicious untruths about his family and turned the other cheek, crawled on his belly through the mud and slime of military training grounds just as he was expected to crawl through the mud and slime of Fleet Street. He'd done everything they had asked of him, yet still it was not enough. The harder he strived, the more cruel their jests and barbs became. The job, the expectations, had grown too much for any man.

He looked at the bony, balding head, so like his father's, and the sagging eyes. He'd already seen the morning newspapers, the reports of the debates, the speculation and innuendo, the pontification of the leader-writers who cither discussed him as if he were known so intimately to them they could peer deep into his soul, or treated him as if he, the man, simply didn't exist. He was their chattel, a possession brought out on display at their convenience to sign their legislation, cut their ribbons and help sell their newspapers. They wouldn't allow him to join the rest of the world yet deprived him of the simple solace of being alone.

The once clear blue eyes were bloodshot with fatigue and doubt. Somehow he had to find courage, a way out, before they broke him. But there was no way out for a King. Slowly his hand began to tremble, uncontrollably, as his thoughts began to tangle in confusion, and the tooth mug started to shake. His damp fingers gripped white around the porcelain, struggling to regain control, yet it was all slipping away and the mug flew off as though possessed, grazed the edge of the bath and bounced onto the tiled floor. He stared after it, captivated, as if watching the performance of a tragic ballet. The mug gave several tiny skips, the handle bouncing this way and that, waving at him, taunting him until, with a final extravagant leap of despair, it twisted over and smashed into a hundred angry, savage teeth. His favourite tooth mug was gone after all. And it was their fault.