Dr Cobalt, who had not had a great year herself, turned the screw. ‘The éclat that’s waiting for you when you return.’
What was waiting for Prince Fracassus on his return can be briefly stated. A dying father. A distraught mother. A flustered Palace. A restive populace. The possibility of war – for when trouble struck one of the Republics the others were unable to resist the opportunity to attack it. Air that had grown filthier in the time Fracassus had been away, though no more remarked upon than in the time he was there. Ditto, substituting heat for filth, the climate. A hunger for change. A dread of change. A virulent mutual distrust that pitted citizen against citizen. A passion for saying ‘Love you’ and appending smiley faces to messages expressive only of hate. Technological advance that had so far outstripped any human use for it that people were sending high definition images of their faeces to imaginary acquaintances on the moon and watching others doing the same on screens they at all times carried in the palms of their hands. A belief in the free market of goods and ideas that concealed a profound reluctance to trade freely in either. A delight in what was gaudy that concealed a contempt for the wealth that made the gaudy possible. A contempt for weath that concealed a veneration for it. A sense, that is to say, of universal futility and despair for which – and here was the part that interested the Prince – the only antidote was him.
Fra-Ca-Sus!
The Republic was waiting for him.
All the Republics were waiting for him.
The Grand Duke received Professor Probrius in the Grand Boudoir. The room was decorated in the Grand Duchess’s taste and so had fairies riding dragons on the walls and, to please her husband, dragons eating fairies on the ceiling. The mattress was fashioned to resemble a gold ingot and for all Probrius knew was a gold ingot. The duvet bore the Origen crest.
Professor Probrius made his deepest bow. ‘I am sorry to see Your Highness brought low,’ he said, ‘but I trust the return of your beloved son will go some way to restoring your health. I believe you will find him much changed and ready for whatever you expect of him.’
The Grand Duke raised a frail hand. ‘How the world loves a braggart,’ he said in a frail voice.
‘I hope you are not dissatisfied with the progress of his education, Professor Probrius said. ‘It goes without saying that neither I nor Dr Cobalt consider it to be finished.’
‘We are more than happy,’ the Grand Duke said. ‘There are qualities of which my dear wife would have liked to see more. And others of which she would have liked to see less. But I confess myself satisfied. We entrusted a rough buffoon to your hands, and you have brought us back a polished one.’
Professor Probrius bowed again. ‘And now, Your Highness?’
‘And now the boy takes over from me as head of the House of Origen, and must prepare himself for the great leap forward. I confess it is all happening sooner than I anticipated and would like. He is young still. But my illness together with the appeal his youth evidently exerts combine to give this inevitability. History awaits us, Professor. There are already people below who, finally but fully cognizant of his gifts, are anxious to meet him and discuss how we proceed from here. The significance of this meeting, from their point of view and from ours, cannot be overstated; but time, I fear, is not on anyone’s side. The streets are angry. We must proceed quickly. I am not strong enough myself to sit in on let alone superintend the discussions. I feel confident that your attendance will keep Fracassus focussed and ensure no liberties are taken with him. I have not seen the Prince since his return. I am weak and frankly find his company exhausting. He is said to have my eyes but I never did much like them. He is with his mother at the moment. Those in whose hands the destiny of the Prince and the House of Origen depend are in the Council Chamber on the ninetieth floor. Perhaps you will be so good as to repair there at once. Take Dr Cobalt with you. You have proved a formidable team. I will have the Prince join you presently, if he can tear himself from the bosom of his mother. He was suckled until his fourth year, you know. I put the formation of his character down to that.’
So saying, the Grand Duke fell back on to his pillows. Probrius feared the worse, but in fact His Highness was only sleeping.
It was with a great sense of purpose, to say nothing of a consciousness of history and honour, and therefore in a high state of nervous agitation, that Professor Probrius made his way to the ninetieth floor. He did not know who he was going to encounter in the Council Chamber, whether it would be the Prime Mover of All the Republics himself, or some of his most senior ministers, but the urgency with which the Grand Duke had prepared him, clearly pointed to the imminence of a decisive political act – surely not a resignation in the Prince’s favour, but why not a cabinet position.
He texted Dr Cobalt. Highest shoes, he wrote. And Quick.
In fact she was already in the Chamber when he arrived, and deep in conversation with a person whose relaxed style of dress and free and easy demeanour declared him to be anyone but the Prime Mover.
‘I might as well do the introductions, since I’m here,’ Dr Cobalt said. ‘Professor Probrius meet Lance Folder, Head of Celebrity for Ubs-Ludus Television.’
CHAPTER XXV
‘Stop It!’
Whether Prince Fracassus’s distinguished television career could be said to grace the annals of politics or light entertainment was to remain a matter of controversy long after the Prince became what he became. It depended, to a degree, on the point of view of the disputants, and of course on how the Prince’s rise to power, the reasons for it, and the resultant plusses or minuses of his ‘reign’, were viewed in toto.
Despite good will and alacrity on all sides, it took a fortuitous slip and then a fortuitous correction to get Fracassus on to the screen. Months were squandered, as the Grand Duke lay dying, debtating such basic questions as what exactly it was that Fracassus could do, what his interests were, who would be his target audience, whether he was the stuff of day-time or night-time television, whether he should be scripted or spontaneous, and who, in the final analysis, would have creative control. That Fracassus had no interests, Professor Probrius and Dr Cobalt could have told the producers, but the latter had their own way of drawing the talent out and liked to make their own decisions as to watchability. In the end they reached, in this as in other matters, the same conclusions Dr Cobalt had come to years before. The Prince had no words and no interests and therein lay both his originality and – as could be attested to by the successes he had enjoyed on his travels – his popular appeal. What form to give this most rare of talents remained the stumbling block. Fracassus himself cited Spravchik as a model but Urbs-Ludus wasn’t Cholm. Reality television was of necessity cruel, but there were guidelines, and handing your wife over to the secret police for stealing a flower from someone’s garden breached all of them. The Prince’s other idea was to make a contemporary reality version of The Life and Loves of the Emperor Nero, with himself taking the role of a latter-day Emperor, and volunteers, of which there would surely be no shortage, playing Christians (or Muslims, Hindus or Jews – Fracassus was without prejudice). In the original, Nero dipped the Christians or whoever else in burning oil and then employed them as human candles to light his pool parties. The production team was quick to reject this suggestion, but on the grounds of cost rather than morality.