“Hold it!” Hamilton raised his hand.’ “Mr. Cooper, just what is meant by this term ‘Crown’?”
Cooper smiled for the first time. “Why, it means that in all of those lands His Majesty is, by the grace of God and by sovereign right, king.”
Cooper leaned forward and looked at Hamilton benignly.
“He is your king too, you know.”
2
The nameplate read:
Hamilton stopped before the door and adjusted the amateur researcher credential on his lapel. He wished he had kept Dan with him instead of sending him off to the library.
At first he had expected to find out that Gustaf was as crazy as his ‘valet.’ But the man’s public dossier was impeccable. In his productive Vocation he was one of the most respected robo-psychiatrists in Europe. His intellectual avocations included law and history, in each of which he had been awarded honorary professional status, a rare encomium. Everyone envied a person who won Vocation in more than one area. Gustaf had three professions!
He knocked on the door. After a moment it was opened by a dark-haired young man of above medium height, who smiled broadly and offered his hand.
“Mr. Smith? Please come in and have a seat. I’ll be right with you.”
Hamilton found himself a chair across from a broad, hand-carved mahogany desk. Dr. Gustaf passed through a side door into a treatment room. Hamilton could hear him giving firm advice to a Drone Class robot. The machine’s answers were a series of clicks and beeps that Hamilton couldn’t begin to interpret.
He looked at the items on display on the wall of the office. There were diplomas, of course, and trophies from athletic competitions. He noted that few of the works of art had that look that said they had come from somebody’s hobby. Most appeared to be quite old.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Smith.” Gustaf came in, closing the door behind him. He hung his lab coat on a hanger, then took a seat across from Hamilton.
“Now, I suppose this is about the old Bath and Garter, isn’t it? Farrell told me about your visit yesterday. It was all right for him to do that, wasn’t it? He said you didn’t ask for confidentiality.”
“Oh, sure. That’s fine.” Hamilton waved nonchalantly. Actually, he had intended to ask Cooper to respect the convention, but he had been running late for basketball practice and afterward a round of committed pleasure reading, and he had forgotten.
Today he had uncharacteristically rushed through his work at the bank and left early.
“Now, about your ritual club. Mr. Cooper makes some claims about its antiquity that are, frankly, hard to believe. Lying to a credentialed researcher is a crime, you know. Perhaps you can explain his extravagant story?”
Gustaf nodded seriously. “Oh, I’m sure Farrell meant no harm. Perhaps he got a little carried away and misinterpreted some of the facts.
“You see, Mr. Smith, the Bath and Garter has been registered as a ritual club for nearly three hundred years. That’s about the same age as our Total Social World State.”
“I see. So your members are justifiably proud to be part of one of the oldest clubs. Perhaps that explains Cooper’s flights of fancy.” Actually, Hamilton was a little disappointed. He had hoped for something more unusual.
Gustaf nodded. “Of course, the precursors of the society go back several thousand years before the Amalgamation. There were the English Knights of the Bath, of course, and the Fujiwara clan, which held the curtain to the Chrysanthemum throne…”
Gustaf’s fingers formed a bridge and he tilted back in his chair. “Do you see that ancient fan, Mr. Smith? The one in that case? It is the patent granted by the last ethnic Chinese emperor to his infant son. It was ratified by townsmen and elders up and down the Yangtze before the Manchu invaders arrived. The secret society that hid that child and his descendants is one of those that merged into the Bath and Garter hundreds of years ago. The child they protected was one of my ancestors.”
Hamilton blinked. “Then Cooper’s claims that you are this… this king’…”
Gustaf shrugged. “It’s all well documented, Mr. Smith. By all the old laws of inheritance I am the heir of the merged royal families of Europe, Asia, and large parts of the rest of the world.”
The robo-psychiatrist laughed when he saw Hamilton’s expression.
“Oh, you needn’t look so stunned, Mr. Smith. You are looking at no madman. I’m a perfectly modern and productive member of society—a society of which I approve in most parts. I don’t claim any of the privileges once due someone with my unique genetic heritage. That would be absurd. I’m merely the hereditary head of a ritual club—perfectly legal. Along with a few thousand others I take pleasure in maintaining a spiritual link with the past.”
Hamilton checked his recorder to make sure it was operating. He couldn’t believe this. “And members of your club, are they also…?”
“Hereditary? Well, yes, to a degree. Certainly new members are welcome, and the increase has been rather great of late. But patrilineal families have been our mainstay… families with names like Hsien, Orange, Stuart, Fujiwara…”
Gustaf spread his hands. “You must try to understand how things were just after the Amalgamation, Mr. Smith. Neosocialism was not, in those days, the pervasive, mostly benign set of assumptions it is today, but a powerfully emotional and violent movement. Among the scapegoats of that era was anyone who claimed distinction based on heredity or family name… although such things once had their purposes.
“The royal houses had divested themselves of real power long beforehand, so they weren’t scrutinized as much as they might have been. Their withdrawal from public affairs was generally accomplished with goodwill and careful attention to legal niceties.”
“Fascinating,” Hamilton said. “I thought that kings and queens and such were already gone back in the days of sailing ships and hang gliders.”
“Not quite. But they kept a very low profile for survival’s sake. I suppose that reticence has become a habit that’s outlived its original purpose.”
Hamilton nodded agreeably, but he wasn’t fooled for an instant. Dr. Gustaf might be a thoroughly modern gentleman, but Hamilton had seen that look in Farrell Cooper’s eyes! And the membership was mostly hereditary! How quaint!
Hamilton had to contain his pleasure. He might have stumbled across an actual tribe! It might be the first tribe found since those—what were they called?—yes, Marxists—were the talk of all the sociology journals twenty years ago. That pathetic little group had been secretly maintaining some delusion of world conquest for centuries. After the initial publicity the members had all moved to different continents in embarrassment.
Hamilton smiled and listened as Dr. Gustaf talked on.
But already he was thinking about the abstract for his paper.
He hoped the Bath and Garter would last longer than the Marxists had.
His first article in Amateur Sociologists’ Weekly was reprinted as far away as Mars and Titan. Hamilton was afraid for a time that he would lose control when the professional sociologists took notice. But with Dan AnMan’s help he was able to get a statistopsychic study ready before anyone else. That did it. They were invited to do the lead article for the next issue of Popular Sociology.
“That is wonderful news, Hamilton,” his android assistant buzzed. “You should get honorary professional status for this. It is a terrific honor to be granted a second profession at so young an age.”