‘What happened then?’
‘There was uproar in the House,’ said Mestolone, ‘and one night the Speaker’s Chair was stolen. This gave certain elements an excuse to demand the dissolution of parliament. Not long afterwards our country was offered the usual protection; an offer duly accepted by the same elements. That was when we decided to leave.’
‘So you’re migrants rather than travellers?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Mestolone.
I had to admit that he’d lost me slightly when he referred to ‘certain elements’ and ‘the usual protection’. Presumably he thought I knew what he was talking about, but actually I didn’t. I could tell by Whimbrel’s face that he didn’t either. All we could do was provide tea and sympathy.
Thankfully, Mestolone wasn’t the kind of person to dwell on his misfortunes. As soon as he’d had his tea he announced that he must be going because Gallinule was beginning rehearsals that very day.
‘What are you rehearsing?’ I asked.
‘It’s a play about ambition, treason and murder,’ said Mestolone.
Chapter 12
The recent imperial edict was going to take a lot of getting used to. The first thing everybody had to do in the morning was put their clocks and watches forward by two minutes; this meant they had to get up a little earlier than the day before. Soon people would be waking up in darkness. The postmen, of course, were already accustomed to rising early. All the same they didn’t take kindly to the new regime, just as Garganey had predicted. It wasn’t long before some letters began going astray for days on end, while others got lost in the post entirely. Garganey held talks with the postmen’s representatives but to no avail, and eventually he was forced to abandon his so-called efficiency measures. Accordingly, the postmen resumed their practice of having breakfast halfway through the morning. Even so, they still weren’t happy about the edict. They began to call it ‘the conspiracy of the clocks’.
‘Perhaps you should give them a pay rise,’ proposed Whimbrel.
‘I can’t do that,’ said Garganey. ‘Their wages are fixed by imperial decree.’
‘Does a decree carry the same weight as an edict?’ I asked.
‘Apparently, yes,’ said Garganey.
Whimbrel and I were on our way to see Brambling. We needed to replace our stipendiary sixpences.
‘Why don’t you come along too?’ I suggested. ‘Who knows what’s hidden in the coffers.’
We arrived at the counting house and found Brambling perusing his ledger. It was lying open at the page that dealt with stipends.
‘This is all highly irregular,’ he said, when we submitted our claims. ‘It says nothing here about a telescope.’
‘But I need it for my work as Astronomer Royal,’ objected Whimbrel.
‘Well, you’ve managed all right without it up to now,’ replied Brambling. ‘Why do you need a telescope all of a sudden?’
In this light, my own claim for a new sixpence was even more groundless. After all, I had no need for a telescope to carry out my ‘work’ as Principal Composer. On the other hand, I was entitled to my stipend by imperial statute, and Brambling knew this. As Whimbrel and I sat facing him across his desk, I became convinced that he was simply toying with us because he held the purse strings. Finally, after much prevarication, he relented. He opened the drawer of his desk, took out the tin money box and unlocked it.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Empty.’
He then went over to the iron-bound treasure chest in the corner of the room. This too was locked, and only after a further delay was the key found and the lid raised. Inside, it was full to the brim with sixpences, shillings and half-crowns. Whimbrel, Garganey and I joined Brambling in the corner and we all stood gazing down at the gleaming hoard.
‘No wonder there’s hardly any money in circulation,’ I said. ‘It’s all in here.’
‘This isn’t for circulation,’ replied Brambling. ‘This is the reserve currency.’
‘What’s it reserved for?’
‘A rainy day.’
‘But it rains half the year in Fallowfields!’
‘It can’t be helped,’ said Brambling.
He selected a sixpence each for me and Whimbrel, and then prepared to close the lid again.
‘This is preposterous,’ said Garganey suddenly. ‘My postmen are struggling to get by on a penny a day, and meanwhile there’s all this money lying unused!’
‘I wouldn’t say they were struggling,’ said Brambling. ‘They’re in the public houses every night.’
‘It’s not up to you to decide how they spend their earnings,’ retorted Garganey.
‘No,’ said Brambling, ‘but this treasure chest is my responsibility.’
‘It seems very unfair to me,’ remarked Whimbrel.
‘Unfairness is what keeps the world going round,’ announced Brambling. ‘These coins are staying firmly under lock and key.’
Brambling’s approach to money had certainly changed during the course of his tenure. Anybody would have thought that it was his own funds he was paying out, rather than the imperial coinage.
‘No more sixpences for sightseeing,’ he proclaimed, as the three of us departed.
‘Damned cheek,’ muttered Garganey. He was still clearly enraged.
‘It’s good to see you have such deep concerns for your workforce,’ observed Whimbrel. ‘After all, they can be quite troublesome at times.’
‘Oh, they’re troublesome without a doubt,’ said Garganey. ‘Nevertheless, I cannot simply abandon them to their fate. As Postmaster General I have obligations not only to the empire but also towards those who are dependent on me. I’ve come to realise that only by commanding their loyalty will I ever make the postmen more efficient.’
Garganey’s words were still ringing in my ears as I neared the park and headed for the cake. It struck me that maybe I should try to do more for my serfs. True enough, the postmen received a penny a day for their labours and were therefore less deserving of sympathy. All the same, Garganey did his best to provide for them. When I thought of Greylag and his unpaid musicians in their threadbare coats I couldn’t help feeling a pang of guilt.
I was still pondering all this when I entered the cake through the main doorway and looked down towards the orchestra. They had evidently just finished playing. I could tell this from the way they were attending to their instruments and talking quietly amongst themselves. Meanwhile, Greylag was standing on the podium making small changes to his manuscript. All appeared to be normal, and I was about to proceed down the aisle when I noticed Wryneck sitting in one of the hard seats at the rear of the auditorium. This was the second time he’d turned up uninvited. Presumably he’d been snooping on the orchestra again and I decided to say something to that effect. When he saw me approaching, however, he waved his hand in acknowledgement.
‘This overture,’ he said, before I had a chance to speak. ‘Did you specify a particular duration?’
‘Not really,’ I replied, ‘though I expect it’ll be in the order of fifteen minutes or so.’
‘I see.’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘I’ve just sat through it from beginning to end,’ said Wryneck, ‘and it ran to almost an hour.’
‘Well, if you didn’t like it,’ I snapped, ‘why bother staying so long?’
My raised voice must have caught the ear of some of the musicians, because they began to peer in our direction.
‘I didn’t say I didn’t like it,’ said Wryneck. ‘As a matter of fact I believe you have a work of genius on your hands.’
‘Really?’