In his usual comer a man in an extraordinarily-ripped frock coat was staring into a wine-cup as though engaged in divination. Bruto’s gesture brought wine pouring into the cup, and after the level had gone down again, Bruto spoke.
“Professor. A, like, question.”
“Question me,” the professor said, after a moment.
“On, like, etiquette.” A subject less likely to invite questions in Pie-Petro’s, it would have been hard to find. “Supposing there’s, like, a queen. And she bobs. Who’d she bob to? Huh?”
Slightly readjusting his tom coat, the professor said it would depend. “Could be to anybody. The Patriarch. The Emperor. Depends. A queen could curtsey even to a muck-raker, if he’d just saved her tiny grandson from tumbling off a dock....” The level of the wine went down again, a bit more was added to raise it, not much. “How deep does this queen bob?”
Bruto looked all around the low dive and there was that in his look which made all shun his glance. He then, and most solemnly, performed a curtsey before the professor’s bloodshot eyes.
“That deep, eh?”
“Yeah.”
“Only to a fellow-sovereign. Why —?”
A clumping of boots down the long steps; in came Pishto-the-Avar, drew Bruto slightly aside. “I shadowed’m, Boss. To the Windsor-Lido — ‘King’? There ain’t no kings there. There’s a couple counts there, though; they’re travellinon Scando-Frorish passports, whatever the Hell they are. Huh? Boss?”
But, prior to answering, Boss posed a further question of his own.
“Hey, Professor, what’s it mean if a king is travelling like a count, like?”
The professor gazed once again into his goblet; divined it was empty; was obliged to look up. His face ceased to be vacant, entirely; a look of faint thought came over it. “It means he is travelling incognito, incognito, literally unknown, you know....” His title derived from his having been for a while, long ago, a tutor to the junior page-boys at the Palace; he knew, then, presumably, whereof he spoke. “As, for instance, a sovereign wishes to visit a foreign country, but not in official state. Could be inconvenient both to him or her and to the host nation; therefore he or she employs what is termed a lesser title, as for example the late King of Illyria visited here as Count Hreb, and ” The professor’s voice, in its alcoholic monotone, had gotten lower and lower and slower and slower. It next ceased. Then with a look of, almost, terror, on his filthy face, the professor lurched to his trembly feet and took a tottering step towards the door. He was, to employ a polite term, distrained.
Afterwards, the professor having been made comatose with wine, a further conversation:
“Kidnap a king and hold him for ransom. Why, it’s never been done”
“Sure it has! Didn’t them French capture the old King of Scythia and hold him for ransom, back in them Bonaparte days?”
“Yeah... but the French had a army. We ain’t got the place, we ain’t got the —”
“We ain’t got the strennth.”
“We ain’t got the strennth. Fact. — Still...”
They gazed at each other, eyes gleaming; mouths open, silent.
“This could mean we swing.”
“Yeah . ..” Silence.
“This could mean buckets o’ ducats.”
“Yeah . ..”
Then —
“Only one man could do it. On-ly one”
“Yeah . .. uh, who’d ya mean?”
A hissed-in breath. “Who’d I mean? I mean the Boustremovitch. Who I mean.”
“The Boustremovitch! Yeah. . . . Yeah. Yeah!. . .
The two young men continued their stroll. Bella was certainly not Paris, but it was equally certainly larger than St. Brigidsgarth. And far more cosmopolitan. Here one saw men and women whose cut and style reminded one, at least, of Paris — or, at any rate, Brussels. And here were yeoman farmers in the boots and baggy britches of the Gothic Highlands, there a pair of Lowland Hussars in black shakoes, a group of drovers in the characteristic embroidered vests of Poposhki-Georgiou, Mountain Tsigane women in gaudy Bounces, River Tartars wearing caftans of many colors, barge-sailors with rings in dirty ears, Avars in low-crowned hats with narrow brims and embroidered bands .. .
“— and,” Count Calmar enquired, “besides your duties as equerry, of course, what do you do?”
The young cornet chuckled. “ ‘Do’? Why should I ‘do’ anything? Well, well, you must excuse my levity. My estates are not vast, but at least they are not entailed. I am such a younger son of such a younger son of a cadet branch that what lands came to me were not thought worth tying up; I may sell them if I wish, but there is no hurry. What would I do with the money? Wastrel it away in France? I think not. But... why... when I am not on duty for the Palace? Well, I hunt a little, I Fish a little; very few people of our class do fish here, but I picked it up in England. I have an uncle with an English wife and have spent many summers there; God save us from the winters!”
Magnus said, a touch of reproof, a touch of gloom, in his voice, “The winters of England are tropical in comparison to our Far-Northwestern winters. We have snow instead of rain. And so. And also —?”
Also Cornet Eszterhazy played cards and billiards. He had a horse— sometimes two. He visited the music halls and, and in season, the opera. Now and then he visited the ladies. No, there was no one lady. “I’m afraid it sounds like a rather useless life.”
Magnus said it sounded like a rather delightful life. “Everywhere I go at home some minister or chancellor is thrusting papers at me; och! God! Those eternal papers! And not just one set of them. Two! One for each kingdom. Oh why did my thrice-re moved grandfather marry my thrice-. removed grandmother! ‘To unite adjacent kingdoms,’ you will say. ‘And the House of Olaus-Olaus-Astridson with that of Katzenelenbogen-Ulf- and-Olaus.’ Well, the Houses are united. But the kingdoms, not. Always, from the Frores, some new demand. Always. Always. The Scands bother me quite enough, ‘Sire, you must not so often get drunk’ — why not? If I am sober for the ceremonies, what difference, the rest of the time? ‘Sire, you must put on a different uniform,’ ‘Sire, you must attend for this occasion, for that, you must get up,’ ‘Sire, you must not do that, Sire, you must do this, Sire, you cannot eat with people of a lower class, Sire’ — och! God! So stiff, the Scands! The Scands, so stuffy!” He stopped and shook his head so rapidly that his English-style cap almost fell off; he adjusted it so that it rested more securely on his long, blond hair.
“But the Frores! The Frores! Look: an easier way of collecting taxes: the Frores don’t want it. A better method of arranging the Army, the Navy: the Frores don’t want it. Such a simple method of satisfying the demands for free education: the Frores are not satisfied at all. Always dour, always scowly, always standoffish; the Borg uk Borg said a good word once: said, ‘The Frores always fight to drift upstream.’ Now, why, my dear new friend? Why?”
His dear new friend stroked a moustache like corn-silk — was thoughtful indeed.