‘Um, so do you think we should speak with mister Calabrese?’ Lolabelle looked over at Jean-Thómas, her mouth slightly open.
‘I might text Aubert about it...’ said Jean-Thómas, referring to his minister counsellor. ‘He should be somewhere nearby.’
In fact the Baron Aubert Raphaël Nalâryn had already begun enjoying the festivities.
Once, and only once, had the Baron Nalâryn been asked for his opinion upon the matter of Naiya’s coronation. ‘Well, I say,’ said he, ‘that the world could learn a thing or two from the Dominion, in the matter of succession. Pick the likeliest daughter amongst the next of kin, and as for the rest, strangle the lot!’ Unsurprisingly, the Baron was not asked to share his thoughts again; not that this disturbed him very much.
Never had talent been at a higher premium, nor had Jean-Thómas ever had greater difficulty recruiting intelligent and capable employees, than since he had had to make do without an embassy staff budget or the appeal of an exotic foreign posting. Unfortunately, he was not the only hermit ambassador in Närväryn; indeed, so many of Xirnium’s ambassadors, envoys and ministers plenipotentiary had been withdrawn from nations signatory to the Western Atlantic leagues of Lyeithen and Courtland that they had founded a club — the Anâdal Ellenëthil, or ‘Diplomats Within Borders’ — with comfortable armchairs, bridge rooms and a roof garden and the latest periodicals, housed within a suite of rooms in the old Eastwestern Guarantee Loan Building on Anáryadal street and the Vogàret.
Baron Nalâryn was the eldest son of the Viscountess Séverine zy Däthymäthede, heir to House Auvêzera; in short, he was third in line of succession, under the mother right of Eternal Republic common law, to the lordship of the family, behind his mother and younger sister. To judge by the blackened portraits preserved at Castle Däthymäthede, the family of House Auvêzera had, in days of old, been composed of undaunted lancers and grim-faced dragoons. Squeezed tightly into their old picture-frames, they glared at visitors, who could not help but be impressed with the fixed stare of their eyes, the enormous shells of their iron breastplates or their richly embossed heroic cuirasses modelled to imitate the nude torso.
House Auvêzera was a little old fashioned and few of its seniors were exactly disciples of the classic works of educational theory. Countess Henriëtte Hilda z’Auvêzera, the lady of House Auvêzera, had said once or twice: ‘As long as the child has learned to pay the acts of cult and can sit a horse, who cares if he knows arithmaticcy and the concert violin?’
As for the Baron Nalâryn himself, he was often busy flaying the wolves and stags which, according to the antique customs of the battue, he hunted to the sounds of trumpets and drums, or drilling with his fashionable regiment, the XXIII The Lord Speaker’s Own Hussars; had the war against the Knootian Marine not ended when it did, the XXIII would have been included in the first wave of a spectacular parachute operation to capture Hartstad Airport Schiphol. The Baron liked brandy and the tables and chasing foxes sometimes but skirts mostly, and he was often seen at the lighter theatres and music halls or at the racetracks and cabarets. He was in his early thirties, and some said his pale face was adorned with weakly-handsome good looks and others did not say so whatever they may have thought.
Baron Nalâryn was what they called blokeish, talking briskly in the bantering, half-serious way that comes naturally to men of the regiment and that Jean-Thómas lapsed into easily as well. Although the Baron was a little younger, and moved in different circles, Jean-Thómas got on well with him and enjoyed their male conversation, about Rugby football and which of their female colleagues they would like to sleep with. He was a decent enough man in his own way, Jean-Thómas supposed, and well enough liked in his set, which was that of the country squire and the landowning aristocrat, standing for extreme conservatism, support of military tradition and protectionist policies for agriculture. They were generally pro-Amestrian; and indeed the Baron Nalâryn was president of the Agamârian chapter of the Amestrian Xirniumite Friendship Association, counting amongst his friends and associates Louis Sauveur Puchot, formerly Amestria’s ambassador to the Resurgent Dream, now ambassador to Eternal Republic, and Octave Mouret, chief of the Amestrian North Investment Association. The Baron was known to the puissant bankers, board chairmen, bureaucratic plenipotentiaries and retired generals who met under the aegis of the Motor Yacht Club in Närväryn; secret guardians of their touchy, wilful, aging republic, they were contacts Jean-Thómas knew it would be useful to connect with on JoinedUp.
‘Okay, I’ve just sent Aubert a text,’ Jean-Thómas said.
‘I like Aubert, I think...’ said Lolabelle abstractly.
Baron Nalâryn certainly liked her.
‘Jean, would I look well with ringlets, do you think?’ she asked.
Lolabelle was a slim, giggling, vampy-looking blonde, and she teased the Baron Nalâryn to distraction with her constant pouting, eyelash fluttering, and tugging at his sleeve; she grinned at him all the time with a provocative parting of her lips. For the moment, however, he had sated himself, and was emerging, carrying half his clothes and tucking in the rest, from the upstairs room of an excellent Devras brothel. The house was tall but somewhat narrow and the stairs curved tightly so he must step back hard against the wall to make room for another man ascending, anonymous in the discreet light. His smart phone glowed in the gloom, after vibrating softly in his pocket and being clumsily fished out; the Baron read the text with his hand upon the bannister.
He had managed to make himself resplendent in full dress uniform, looking extremely formal in his tightly buckled belt, pistolled cross-strap and frogging, braided and corded in gold, with a cape-style greatcoat thrown over his shoulder, by the time he met with Cesare Calabrese — pointed out to the Baron Nalâryn by a secretary, who also introduced them.
‘Allow me to introduce Baron Nalâryn.’ The Baron clicked his heels and bowed stiffly.
‘Honoured to make your acquaintance, Chancellor.’ He gave the man a flashing smile and a firm but not unpleasantly firm handshake. ‘You’ll forgive my French, but it’s better than my English.’ His secretary translated smoothly, in any case. ‘I trust that her Majesty is enduring her well-wishers? Rest assured I will not permit the ambassador to intrude too greatly upon her important evening...’
Glancing behind him, the Baron Nalâryn saw that Lolabelle and Jean-Thómas had just arrived at the government offices; Lolabelle’s high heels clicked and clacked happily on the floor and he turned his head to see her flirty lace sandals and red-painted toes. She waved her fingers at him.
Cosima, the pretty little blonde he had been told to ask for at the brothel, had been standing near the bed sweating, tousled, pawed over, chewed up, though luminous through all that. She had asked the Baron if he wanted her like that or if she should wash; sticky though she was, he took her like that, there at the edge of the bed. But Lolabelle was exquisite and radiant on the surface, dressed completely in sheer white, red-lipped, polished and fresh.
‘Ah,’ said the Baron Nalâryn, ‘and here they are.’
