The Golden Portifor - 18. Chapter 18

Serge had taken to whistling Christmas carols around the house, despite Jan Lisku’s tired insistence that it was only the first week of Advent.

‘But we’ll soon be heading to Olmusch for the season, you have to be a little excited, Janeczu.’

‘Maybe, sir. But my mind revolts against the inappropriateness, that’s all. Besides, there’s an awful lot to do before we go.’

‘Not so much after your hard work. How you talked Gottlieb round, I’ll never know.’

‘Money had something to do with it, and the awe he has for Mistress Margrit. She fully supports the scheme, and is eager to mother any waifs that may turn up here.’

Failing to gain any institutional support for a refuge for the street children, Serge had tightened his jaw and pronounced that they had a large and sound barn, which over the holiday period would be empty and fit for the purpose. So he had Karl and Andreas go down to the Neustadt and spread the word in the more vulnerable gangs that the barn on Engelngasse would be open to all comers to shelter in on any day when sleet or snow fell, or when ice and frost formed on the streets, and from the beginning of December to the end of January any child who turned up on a Sunday afternoon would find a hot meal.

The first such event had happened the previous Sunday, the first of Advent. During his instruction, Andreas had made good friends with Father Waxmann of the Veronkenkirche and talked to him about the plight of the street children down in the Neustadt. The father had turned up with some parish matrons and piles of second-hand children’s clothing.

About a dozen street children from the Conduit and the Weg, led by Wilchin, had trailed in, and found a full trestle of hot pies, loaves and stews on which they had feasted royally. They had left with full stomachs, bags of bread, sound shoes and warm clothing. Andreas would communicate to Wilchin when the barn was open for shelter from the weather, which had not as yet turned really cruel. Father Waxmann, who had been much engaged with the project, said that next Sunday he would have a friend who was a physician on hand to inspect the children for symptoms of illness.

Serge rang a bell and his domestic staff entered the parlour, standing respectfully along the walls. Gottlieb had even remembered to remove his boots at the yard door.

‘Now, dear friends,’ he said. ‘Master Jan and myself will be leaving for Glottenburg on Saturday, the 8th. I will also be taking Karl with me. Andreas will stay here until he departs for the Christmas and New Year holidays at Tarlenheim with the lord Boromeo. Now take a glass of wine ... not you two boys!

‘Before we toast the season, I want to say how very much I appreciated the hard work you all put in last Sunday with our relief day for the homeless children. Master Jan will be returning just after Christmas to supervise the work, though I and Karl will be staying on at Olmusch. I realise this will be putting a lot of responsibility on Mistress Margrit for two weeks, but I have every confidence that between Margrit, Gottlieb and Father Waxmann things will go well.

‘A number of the ladies of the Veronkenkirche have informed us that they are happy to be called upon at need and will contribute food. We’ve built up sufficient supplies in our storeroom to tide us over. Just as important, Master Jan has entered into an arrangement with the ward constable that he’ll look the other way when the waifs come trailing into and out of Engelngasse. Is there anything else, Jan?’

‘No sir, I think I can speak for all of us that we’re glad to have been able to help. The sight of how small some of those abandoned ones are was heartbreaking. We just wish there was more we could do.’

‘That’s to be seen. Maybe the new year will bring ideas.’

After glasses had been duly raised the domestic staff filed out, murmuring their thanks, and Serge tried to apply himself to his notes, though he didn’t get far. The weather outside his window was chilly and a grey blanket of cloud pressed down on the city. It was a couple of hours later that thumping coming up the stairs announced a visitor, as much as the shout of ‘Phoebus!’ which preceded Willi von Strelsau bursting into his workroom.

His lover was wide-eyed with news. ‘You won’t believe this!’

‘Believe what? What’s got you so excited?’

‘Excited? I’m stunned. You know last year His Dark Majesty gave short shrift to my pleas to leave his Hades and visit the upper world? Just to irritate the old crow I put in a sweetly worded request that I be allowed to accompany you to Glottenburg, without any expectation that it would be granted.’

‘And?’

He waved an opened letter. ‘Well here it is! My permission to leave the court and my laissez-passer to cross the frontier into the Duchy!’

Serge leaped up and hugged Willi. ‘That’s excellent! I’m so happy. I never hoped we’d travel together, but here it is: permission to enjoy ourselves out in the world beyond the Marmorpalast.’

Willi had shifted from delight to vague puzzlement in the meantime. ‘But why was it not permissible to travel harmlessly through Ruritania and visit abbeys and the houses of Elphberg loyalists, and suddenly it’s fine if I take off to a foreign land which has a centuries-long history of warfare with the ruling family of which I am so irregular a member? It makes no sense.’

‘Maybe Henry’s told him I’ve tamed you into something vaguely civilised, or maybe he was really impressed with the theatricals for Prince Eugene. You’re proving yourself a useful little bastard to the House of Elphberg.’

Willi snorted. ‘There has to be more to it. What with Dodie’s betrothal, I’ll bet I’ll be expected to sound out young Willem Stanislas: make a pass at him and see if he falls to temptation.’

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ Serge shook his head. ‘Always it comes back to you.’

‘You’re right. You’ll have to seduce the boy. Much more likely to succeed. Let’s fuck. I’m really so excited.’

***

The household of the Sign of the Angel was gathered apprehensively in the courtyard as Serge, Jan and Karl mounted up. It was a bitter Saturday morning and in ones and twos street children had begun arriving the previous night, shepherded by Wilchin and Andreas, who had gone down to the Neustadt to spread the news. With two stallions and a mare about to depart, the barn at least had no other occupants, so the children were sitting round a trestle filling themselves from a vat of hot porridge. Fifteen of them had slept there safely and in the warm the previous night, and the older ones would soon be off to their various occupations, but the smaller boys would stay all day. It was too cold to send them out.

‘Just remember,’ Jan Lisku said to Margrit, ‘the constable will help if there’s any trouble; that is, I assume he’ll stay bribed. You may send down to Herr Simon in Judengasse for extra funds if necessary. I shall be back before Briskefest.’

‘Safe journey, Master Jan. It’s good that you’ll be seeing your family over the season.’

‘All well then?’ Serge enquired. ‘Good. Let us be off down to the Marmorpalast and hope that my lord Strelsau is ready.’

The palace had provided Willi with a docile bay mare. He looked back at Karl. ‘What shall I call her, Master Wollherz? They didn’t tell me her name in the stable.’

The boy concentrated a few moments before responding. ‘My lord, she’ll answer to Whitetail.’

‘Really?’ Willi raised an eyebrow at Serge, and gave a half smile. ‘We’d better be off to Hentzau. It’s going to take three days, I’m told.’

The little party took the road back to the southern suburbs of Strelsau, and then a route that followed the right bank of the wide Starel for six leagues. As the sky of the short winter’s afternoon was turning pink towards dusk they came to the riverside market town of Bielefurt and its busy ferry. The ferries were long, flat barges rowed across the stream by watermen standing at the sweeps. The four horses were led on, though Acheron proved fractious until Karl went back to take his bridle, whispered into his ear and led him onto the ferry without further trouble.

‘Whitetail’s a good mare, my lord,’ he remarked to Willi as the boat cast off from the bank.

‘That so, urchin?’

‘Oh yes, sir. She and Brunhild have made really good friends already.’

‘That damned horse only responds to Whitetail, whatever its real name might have been,’ Willi remarked to Serge as they settled in their shared bed at the inn they found at the ferryhouse on the other side of the river. ‘Your Karl is an odd youth, y’know.’

‘Gottlieb reckons he’s unnatural, but then the man’s jealous of Karl’s very evident gift.’

‘I get the impression the boy knows a lot more about what’s going on around him than a thirteen-year-old should.’

‘Tsk, Willi. I’d taken you for a rational man.’

‘Where on earth did you get that idea, Phoebus?’ Willi snapped. ‘What a tedious place the world would be without the overheated imagination of the human race, where Reason has no place. You don’t have to justify a belief in such things as ghosts or elves. Just by the idea of their existing they make the world a richer place. The mind has to be open to all sorts of possibilities, or the Muses of creativity are strangled.’

Serge was bemused at the sudden vehemence he had just called out of the normally ironic and detached Willi. ‘I didn’t mean to say fiction and art are wrong,’ he responded defensively. ‘It’s just that superstition gets in the way of the improvement of the human condition. Think what dreadful things are done in those places we hear of where women are hunted down and murdered as witches.’

‘Hmph!’ came the dismissive reply. ‘An extreme case which has more to do with the weakness of men in the face of their own fear and anger than their superstitions. In that future you like to imagine when religion is dismissed as mere delusion, it will be an uncomfortable fact that for centuries most of the supreme art and drama which redeems fallen humanity was inspired by it. The point is, Phoebus, that there’s something in us that strives to be more than we are and see further than we can. Call that superstition if you will, but take it away and humanity has lost its better part.’

Serge hesitated in the face of his lover’s contradiction of the doctrine of Reason, to which his grandfather had long ago converted him.

He pondered the transcendence of some of the music he had raptly attended to in the Hofkapelle, the profound feeling that had infused it, and the beauty of religious art he had sketched. It all seemed at times to touch something deeper than aesthetics. But, he thought, there was the undeniable fact that artists depended on patronage, and so many commissions even from secular lords would be on religious themes. And, of course, the Church was the wealthiest patron of all. How often were artists inspired by their own feelings of devotion, and how often were they rather turning their gifts to fulfilling a patron’s desires?

Divided in his mind, he allowed a rare event to occur. Sergius von Tarlenheim was silenced in argument.

***

It was late on Wednesday that they reached the palings of the park of Olmusch, after a hard day’s journey that left the horses head down with weariness, despite the travellers’ care to rest and water them as much as they could. The sun had already set and darkness was taking hold as they approached the lodges and had a lamp shone in their faces.

‘My lord Sergius! And young Jan Lisku!’ cried the keeper in Rothenian. ‘Welcome both! His lordship wasn’t expecting you till tomorrow. But he’ll be glad. Hang on, I’ll send the lad up to the house to alert them.’

‘My backside is feeling so ill-used,’ Willi commented as he groaned and dismounted in the stable court. ‘Why on earth did I let you talk me into this jaunt?’

‘Let me take the horses, my lords,’ Karl said.

‘Leave it to the grooms here, my lad,’ Jan determined. ‘There are limits to devotion to duty. Come down to check on them later once you’ve rested. Now follow me and I’ll take you round to the office wing and get you sorted.’

Serge watched the pair depart, took Willi round the shoulder and guided him through the stable gate and round the front of the great house. The pedimented porch was lit up with lamps and an elderly couple stood waiting. A boy again, Serge quit his hold on Willi and ran up to be embraced by them. ‘Grosspapa! Grossmutta!’

‘Come in, dearest Serge! It’s cold out here,’ declared his grandmother.

‘And you, sir!’ said his grandfather. ‘You must be Wilhelm von Strelsau.’

Willi made a very appropriate bow and his hand was taken and held by the old man. ‘Welcome to our house, my lord, most welcome. Come inside now.’

A dinner was laid out in the smaller dining room, where a cheerful blaze crackling in the hearth and tall Delft stoves made for a comfortable temperature. Serge was able to doff his coat and sat in shirt and waistcoat. His grandfather was as usual in his domestic costume of brocade banyan and Turkish cap.

‘And how did Jan Lisku work out for you, my boy?’

‘Admirably, sir,’ Serge replied.

‘He’s usually the grown-up in any room we’re in, sir,’ Willi seconded.

The old man chuckled. ‘The boy had to grow up fast,’ the baroness observed. ‘His parents needed all his help with so many siblings. He was always a steady sort, fortunately. They’ll be glad to see him back home. I hope you’re willing to dispense with his services for the time of his stay here.’

‘Yes, grossmutta. That’s understood. As it happens he’s found and trained up a very capable young page by the name of Karl Wollherz, who can take excellent care of me and Willi too for that matter. He’ll be staying on with me when Jan returns to Strelsau after Christmas. Jan will be needed back in Strelsau to keep my household together.’

Willi snuffled. ‘It’s overrun with beggar children at the moment.’

The baron raised his eyebrows. ‘What’s this?’

Feeling unaccountably sheepish, Serge told the story of his encounter with the street children of Strelsau and how he became responsible for them. His grandfather’s face ran through a range of expressions, from bemusement to amusement. He looked over at his wife. ‘Well Serge, my dear, you never disappoint. What does this remind you of, Lucinda?’

She laughed and said ‘The Olmusch Foundation for Superannuated Donkeys.’

‘What, ma’am?’ asked Willi.

‘At the age of ten,’ she responded, ‘Serge, and of course Jan Lisku, became very much agitated about the fate of the aged and tired donkeys about the town, and indeed some of the local farmers did tend to work them beyond the point of cruelty. Our pair published a manifesto and pinned it up around the town. They confronted one of the worst offenders, a surly old brute called Merko Krasnic, who threatened to use his crop on them, not his donkey. So Serge scraped together all his pfennigs and begged others, and gave the money to our estate provost to act as his agent to buy the poor old beast. Which he did.’

The baron shook his head. ‘No thought of course as to what to do with the creature once he had him, which is very much Serge. But we honoured him for his warm heart and so we designated a small close on the home farm as the Olmusch Foundation for Superannuated Donkeys, and there the old animal spent the rest of his days in tranquillity; at my expense, of course.’

The baroness tutted, adding ‘The treatment of such beasts did noticeably improve around the town for some while. Be fair to the boy. And I have no doubt that Serge’s enthusiasm will likewise benefit the poor children of Strelsau.’

‘Yes, of course,’ the baron replied, ‘but I think it will take more than pasturing them in a close in the fields of Strelsau to provide for them in the longer term.’

‘My own concern, grosspapa,’ Serge admitted with a sigh. ‘People don’t see the problem, because they don’t see the children. The poor and disadvantaged are invisible in cities. It’s not like Olmusch, where injustice and indifference can be observed and rebuked.’

‘Well, well, my boy. You must give it some thought. You’re no longer a child, and a man’s part is to make plans as much as to fight wrongs. Now I’m sure you young gentlemen will be ready for bed.’ He gave a bland smile. ‘I’ve readied your old room, Serge. And your friend can have the adjoining one.’

***

Serge sought out his grandfather the next morning where he knew he would be, in his library. He had slept late, but in a separate bed from Willi.

‘Good morning, Serge my dear!’ the old man cried out as he entered the familiar room.

‘Hello sir! I had to come see you first thing.’ Serge looked at the long central table, and found that his grandfather was currently studying maps of Hungary, Carniola and Dalmatia, piles of books stacked around them. ‘Why these maps, sir?’ he asked.

‘I think you may guess, dear. I’ve been following the news from the imperial court, and it seems the emperor has succeeded in enticing King Rudolf into committing himself to the Turkish wars. Now the question is, will the king himself once more lead his armies eastward and take command of the forces of the Catholic League, or will he resign the task to the new generation?’

‘I think Prince Henry hopes for the latter, sir.’

‘So I understand from my ... er ... sources in Strelsau. I gather you know something about a military gentleman by the name of Dudley Bard.’

‘Quite a bit, sir. I mentioned Colonel Dudley in one of my letters. He’s held in high esteem by my Uncle Sergius out at Tarlenheim, where I believe he may again be staying over Christmas. He is on the staff of Eugene of Savoy.’

‘No longer, it seems. My latest bulletin from Strelsau tells me he has been gazetted major general in the army of Ruritania and licensed to raise one regiment of foot and another of horse for the coming campaign.’

Serge was momentarily taken aback, though on reflection the transfer made sense. ‘Ah! He’s finally achieved his ambition then. He had been expecting a promotion in the imperial forces in last year’s campaign in Lombardy, but was disappointed of his hopes. My guess is that Prince Eugene’s influence in Vienna wasn’t quite sufficient to match his promises to Dudley. Prince Henry, on the other hand, is in the perfect position to further his career. He was very impressed with Dudley’s capacities as a raiser and trainer of his Mittenheim regiments. It’ll be good news for his friend and follower, Captain Barkozy, who rides on Dudley’s coat-tails. He’s Boromeo’s company commander in the Prinzengarde, sir.’

‘There will be a good deal of opportunity for military gentlemen in the coming year, I think. And my dear, it seems you too are following your father into the field of Ares rather than me into the groves of Athene.’

‘Oh sir! Nothing so dramatic. I’m just an ornamental adjutant to the crown prince. No one takes me seriously as a soldier. I certainly don’t.’

‘Whether or not, I rather think that you’ll be expected to march with the army of the Catholic League next year. Duke Willem Stanislas has come under pressure from Vienna to contribute, so a regiment of Glottenburger dragoons and several batteries of artillery have been initially promised to the League, provided they’re not placed under direct Ruritanian command. Which is why I have these maps out. You and I must have a long discussion on the subject of grand strategy in due course.’

‘I’ll look forward to it, sir. I made good friends with Princess Dorothea Sophia in Ruritania. She’s a fine person, sir, and much loved by her cousin, my lord Strelsau. One reason Willi’s here is to assure himself that her intended Glottenburger prince will be a suitable match for her. Will it be possible to get over to the ducal court at some time?’

The baron shrugged. ‘The boy prince Willem Stanislas is not as committed to his studies in statecraft as I’d like. He had rather be out in the woods with his shotgun than perusing Hobbes and Cicero, but I can say nothing but good of his disposition, which all agree is straightforward and amiable. He’s also shown no weakness for drink and whoring as he approaches his adult years.’

‘The Princess will make up for any intellectual shortcomings, sir. She has a fine mind. You’ll like her.’

‘I move to our Glottenburg house at Paulenfest, Serge my dear. You boys can travel with me and welcome. Now sir, perhaps you and I can study these maps for a while. I spent time in Carniola some years ago. I was at Auersperg back in ’75 when we were negotiating your uncle’s marriage, while old Duke Johann was still alive. He was your other grandfather’s friend as much as mine, so was open to the approach despite Count Oskar’s disgrace and exile from the court. Though, perhaps due to this, he was only willing to provide a modest dowry.

‘I still correspond with that good fellow the Freiherr von Valvasor, whom I met that year in Laibach. We were admitted Fellows of the Royal Society of London on the same day in ‘87. I have his Topographia Archiducatus Carinthiae and all four volumes of his Die Ehre deß Herzogthums Crain down off the shelves here, and you would do well to study them in the weeks before we leave for the city, since it seems the Catholic League will be assembling its army in Carniola in the new year.’

***

The Baron Olmusch made his journey to Glottenburg by coach, which in January was a blessing. It was early on a crisp, frosty morning that his equipage left the park. A well-wrapped-up Karl Wollherz rode on the outside, as did Willi von Strelsau, who claimed that the weather was too beautiful to waste by sitting in a stuffy box, and besides he was abnormally resistant to cold. Serge said he preferred the comfort of inside, as well as having the benefit of his grandfather’s conversation.

The post road to the capital was very well maintained and the two-day journey not particularly arduous, other than the hard frost. Conversation with Karl was necessarily more or less one-way, and Willi had to come to terms with the boy’s inability to understand his wit and the nuance of his manner. But though Karl was uneducated he would ask questions and follow them up with more, and listen keenly to Willi’s explanations. He seemed particularly struck with the brilliant ring that Willi had worn openly on his right hand since leaving Strelsau, the ring that had once been his mother’s and had finally been delivered to him by his old nurse when he was twelve.

‘Not much younger than me, my lord.’

‘Indeed. And it should be an encouragement to you, child, that you may one day, and in but five years, attain the dimensions and sophistication of my good self, and so emerge from your present dowdy duckling stage.’

‘Pardon me, my lord?’

‘Never mind.’

‘So my lord, you have never seen your mother. That is sad. Though my mother is with the angels, I at least knew her and felt her embrace till the plague took her, and I have good memories of her which will never leave me.’

‘You’re a wise fellow for an urchin, Master Wollherz. I’ll tell you what I tell no other, not even your lord Phoebus. It is a constant torment to me that I know not whether my lady mother be dead or alive. No one at court can be got to tell me anything of her. Maybe only the king knows the truth of it, and to ask him would I fear lead to my own disappearance.’

‘May I look closer at the ring, my lord? Of your kindness.’

Willi held it up to the boy’s closer gaze, and he seemed very struck with it. ‘It is very beautiful, sir,’ he eventually said. ‘Have you ever seen another like it?’

‘No child. There may have been another like it once, but that was on the finger of my father, whose terrible end I think you know. We’ll talk no more of this, if you please.’

The boy apologised and was silent for many miles thereafter.

Willi admired the beauty of the hill country the road traversed to reach the valley of the Radeln and the ducal city. He was even more admiring of the prospect of Glottenburg set in its broad, rich valley, the snow-capped Glottenburg Massif rising to the east, beyond which lay Moravia and Hungary. The city was a thicket of church spires and towers, all pealing the angelus from their gilded onion domes as the Olmusch coach rumbled into the city’s great square.

At the north end of the square was the ducal castle, the colourful Voyvodesker Hrad, and at the south end was the great metropolitical cathedral of St Boniface, for Glottenburg was the second and lesser Rothenian archiepiscopal see, once in nominal subjection to Strelsau, whose archbishop bore the title of Primate of the Rothenians. But since the fifteenth century Glottenburg had renounced its dependency, a decision which had become a source of endless ecclesiastical strife, as the Baron Olmusch was complaining of despairingly to Serge while their coach was taking its turn past the Gothic flying vaults and radial chapels of the cathedral’s east end and on to the street that led to the Olmusch city mansion.

The Olmusch house had felt the improving hand of the Baron. Most of the gabled houses in the street were medieval in date, opening directly on to the street, and constructed of timber with many of their beams skilfully and quaintly carved with foliage and animals, both natural and mythological. The Olmusch house was set back behind railings, with a double stair up to the pedimented front door. The basement floor was made of rusticated limestone and the two floors above of brick with stone dressings, while stone urns adorned the parapet that masked the roof. The coach rumbled into the forecourt and then under a stone arch to the right. This led to a rear stable court, where the equipage was rapidly unloaded by the several red-coated servants that emerged from the house. Two grinning younger pages adopted the similarly red-coated Karl as one of their own; fortunately they must have been able to speak some German, for Serge observed all three boys chattering as they left, carrying valises.

***

Serge and Willi attended the first ducal levée after their arrival in Glottenburg.

‘I have to say, dear Phoebus, that I have something of a professional curiosity as to how they do these things in other courts,’ mused Willi. ‘And this is the first court other than a Ruritanian one I have ever attended. I wonder if it will be parochial and small. I hope so. I feel obliged to sneer at it, being a sort of Elphberg.’

‘No insulting of my future homeland, Willi. One day I shall be a peer of this realm, so I must ask you to turn a blind eye to its lack of sophistication.’

‘You ask a lot, Phoebus. I say! Colourful old gatehouse isn’t it?’

Crossing the great square the ducal castle loomed above them. Its cavernous gatehouse was painted and gilded with a quite remarkable façade of sky blue set with stars and astronomical symbols gilded with leaf, within which was set a huge mechanical clock. Figures of knights, ladies and saints were carved as if watching the shooting stars and planets from windows. Serge itched for his sketchbook.

‘Judging by the style, Willi, it looks to date from the middle of the fifteenth century, when Count Stanislas of Glottenburg had himself proclaimed Duke of the Rothenians against the Elphberg usurper. He must have rebuilt his castle on a suitably grand scale.’

‘And thereby hangs a long tale, I do not doubt. But don’t trouble yourself. It’s too early in the day.’

The pair were admitted to the inner court without trouble, Serge being recognised as the grandson of the Lord Chancellor and Willi’s laissez-passer serving to identify him as a member of the royal court of Ruritania.

The inner court was galleried and cobbled and an arch led through to a fountain court, surrounded with state rooms. A clock sounded a carillon for the hour as the two young men joined a line of worthies entering the palace. Pages lined the corridor to a pair of double doors, which were rolled back as the calls of Hoch! Hoch! rang out, to permit His Highness Duke Willem Stanislas III to process with his household to the chapel. Serge and Willi removed their hats and bowed as he passed, joining the throng following after him and his court.

The palace chapel was nothing near as grand as that of the Hofburg of Strelsau. It was flagged and bare except for a few funerary monuments on the walls and tomb chests down both sides. White painted galleries ran around three walls. The high altar however had an impressive canvas of the last century as a reredos, some thirty feet tall, depicting a Crucifixion with the saints of Rothenia gathered to witness it alongside the Virgin and St Thomas. Serge made out St Vitalis, Apostle of the Rothenians behind St Thomas, and St Fenice of Tarlenheim standing behind the Virgin Mary. Mass was said by a priest chaplain without choral accompaniment, causing Serge to reflect once more on the grandeur of the Hofkapelle, its chapter, choirs and musical establishment, and quite how much King Rudolf was willing to pay to indulge his love of music.

The Duke of Glottenburg stood throughout, other than kneeling at the elevation, an act of devotion which Serge had to admit he had never seen done by the King and Crown Prince of Ruritania. When the mass was ended, the court processed out and the throng followed it into a presence chamber. The duke seated himself on a chair of state under a canopy, beside him and one step down standing a pleasant-looking youth of about fifteen, Prince Willem Stanislas, the intended of Princess Dorothea Sophia.

Serge raised an eyebrow at Willi and they went forward to join the line of those to be presented, whispering their names to the chamberlain. At ‘The Freiherr von Tarlenheim-Olmusch!’ Serge climbed the dais and took to his knees to kiss the proffered princely hand. He looked up into the keen gaze of the duke, who kept hold of his hand.

He leaned forward. ‘My dear young Freiherr, I think you have not been presented before, is that so?’

‘Yes, Highness,’ he replied, ‘though I have attended several court functions when younger’.

‘Then my formal welcome to my court, young sir. Rather different from what you’ll have found at the Hofburg, eh? Your good grandfather has had much to say about your career in Strelsau. It intrigues me. You will stay for coffee. And if that is the Lord von Strelsau with you, he’ll stay too. My son is eager to talk to someone his age who knows his bride to be, I believe, eh what, Staszek?’

‘Yes father,’ the prince replied with a solemn expression, but then winked at Serge, who could only grin back, intrigued. It seemed there might be more to this young Erbprinz than rumour reported.