Well, ‘me’ was a trickier entity after meeting Sojjourner. Sojjourner who’d loitered briefly in his thoughts like a scented candle (his own simile) and then went out. For that brief time ‘Me’ had become ‘us’. But here he was, back to being singular again. He was surprised how quickly he’d got over the heart-ache and liked what it said about him. He was a tough guy. He was hurt-proof. Love is for pussies, he tweeted.
Though the helicopter flight to Gnossia was only half an hour in duration – no more than a quick hop over the Wall – it irritated Fracassus that he had to travel the same class as everyone else. ‘Can I sit on my own if I buy the airline?’ he asked the pilot. ‘That’s not my decision, sir,’ the pilot told him. Retard, Fracassus thought.
A delegation of Gnossian Republicans greeted Fracassus and his party on their arrival. Though Gnossia and Urbs-Ludus were essentially the same country divided by a Wall, the air felt different to Fracassus. Professor Probrius pointed out that this was because there were fewer towers and ziggurats in Gnossia, so they could see the sky. Fracassus seemed disgusted by the idea of fewer towers and wondered why they’d come to such a hell-hole. ‘Diplomacy, Your Highness,’ Probrius reminded him. ‘There has been tension between the two Republics. We are here to further your education, but let us not forget that this is, inter alia, a peace mission. The Grand Duke harbours great hopes for this visit. He believes you to have good negotiating skills.’
‘I have great negotiating skills.’
‘And that is why you’re here.’
‘Are these good guys?’ he asked Probrius, sotto voce.
‘Very good.’
‘Then tell them we want peace. And tell them if they want a few more towers I’ll build them.’
‘It would sound weightier coming from you, your Royal Highness.’
A small dinner of fish that Fracassus refused to eat was thrown in honour of the visiting party, after which the Prince was granted an audience – though he hadn’t asked for it – with the President of the Gnossian republic, Eugenus Phonocrates. The President was elderly, and received Fracassus in his bed at the Presidential Palace. The President’s face was lined as though he had been sleeping on a crumpled pillow all his life. He was said to have kind eyes but Fracassus, who was said to have no eyes, couldn’t locate them in the great railway intersection of deep wrinkles.
‘I once met your father,’ Phonocrates said. ‘He must have told you that. It’s some years since we met but I see the family likeness in you.’
‘I have his hair,’ Fracassus said.
‘And I hope his good character.’
‘I have a great character,’ Fracassus said.
Phonocrates tried to sit up in bed and called Fracassus closer to him. It didn’t occur to Fracassus to offer help. ‘Many years ago,’ Phonocrates said, ‘your father told me he admired the way I ran my country and asked me to divulge to him the secret of good government. I told him that if he would ever do me the honour of sending his son to meet me, I would divulge it to him. You have an older brother, I believe. He never did come to see me. I don’t know why.’ (Transgender faggot, Fracassus decided against telling him.) ‘So I am doubly honoured that you have.’
Fracassus inclined his head. The President waited for him to say the honour was all his, but he didn’t say it.
‘Anyway,’ the President continued, ‘I am today pleased to be keeping my promise. That is not something I usually do…’ He paused, coughed, and banged his chest. ‘And there you have it.’
Fracassus waited. ‘There I have what?’ he asked at last.
‘The whole secret of good government.’
‘Where? What?’
‘Don’t keep your promises.’
Fracassus had no idealism to be outraged, but even he was taken aback by the the old man’s candour.
‘Not any?’
‘Not any… I know what you are thinking. I might have got away with not keeping some of my promises. But all! And maybe for a short time. But for more than sixty years! But this is to miss the point. And listen to me carefully now… To be successful in politics you must be thorough. If you are half-hearted you will fail. A half-hearted liar the people will not forgive. “Ah!” they will say, “did you hear that, did you notice that? He has just told a lie. He cannot be trusted.” But if they know you to be a liar through and through, and you show that you know they know you to be a liar, they can trust you. They grow fond of your lies. Eventually they will come to feel that the lies you tell are their lies. It is like pillow talk. Everyone lies in love. That’s the game. You don’t honestly believe what you say to one another. She is not really the most beautiful woman on the planet, and you are not really the most handsome man. But in the game of love you pretend it is so and think none the less of one another for telling lies and believing them. The game of politics is the same. Tomorrow you will all be employed – you promise. The day after tomorrow you will all have free health care. The day after that you will pay no taxes. Who really believes any of that is going to happen? Not the people, much as they would like to. And while they love me for telling them what they want to hear, they love me even more for the theatre of illusion I give them. They think I am the villain in a pantomime and everybody cheers the villain in a pantomime. You ask me are the people stupid. Very far from it. They can smell a fraud a thousand miles anyway. But ask me if they know what’s best for them, then the answer is a resounding no, because their besetting weakness is that they love a fraudster. If someone who wants the best for the people lets them down, they will never forgive him. But a joker who wants the worst for them they will follow into hell – this, Prince Fracassus, is what I would have told your father.’
The following morning, Eugenus Phonocrates, lover of the people, was found dead in his bed.
No one blamed Fracassus.
He stayed for the state funeral. Bells rang. Hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets. Men and women of all ages wept openly. Some cut their arms and faces. Any baby born that day, no matter what the sex, was named Eugenus Phonocrates.
At the biggest sporting arena a football match was called off so a memorial service could be held. Fracassus, as Heir Presumptive to the Duchy of Origen, was guest of honour. He sat between Phonocrates’ sons on a raised platform in the centre of the field, carried a candle, thought of Sojjourner in her trousers and wept a hard dry tear for the cameras.
Midway through the service, by which time the mourning had fed on itself like a flame, leaping from the mourners’ chests as though to be consumed by their own fervour was the only end they sought, a wild person wearing rags broke though the crowds and dropped at Fracassus’s feet. Carried away by the emotion sweeping through the stadium, the Security Services did nothing to remove the intruder. He was part of it. His own private conflagration.
Fracassus did what he always did when he was afraid and jutted his jaw.
‘Listen to them,’ the wild man said, as though to someone sitting on the Prince’s shoulder. ‘Behold the wondrousness of human folly.’