I’d be very glad if you would take yourself off to Algarthe and call on the Duke. You’re the only one of our people they’ll allow in, now that he’s kept under such close guard. They know you as his portrait painter, and the thing is, no one will take you seriously. That’s why you are so priceless to us.”

“I must resist this notion of pricelessness. I can be paid at any time … ”

“I know,” Delorme replied with a smile. “And I am sure you’ve had little cause to complain so far. I was thinking of pricelessness in the moral sense. So, then, Algarthe … ”—and he stroked his forehead wearily. He seemed to be having difficulty focusing his thoughts. Then he continued:

“My God, I’m so tired. After we’ve brought this revolution off I shall retire for a fortnight to that sanatorium for journalists. If only I don’t have to become Prime Minister! Anyway, as I said, Algarthe … have a word with the Duke. You know how to talk to him. Try to knock some sense into him. Prepare him for what’s coming. If it comes completely out of the blue, he’s so frail it could affect him badly. It could even kill him, and then we’re right back where we started. Send me a report on his condition afterwards. And now, God go with you. I’ve got a whole series of reports to get through tonight. About the navy, the universities, the winegrowers’ association, the market traders … we’re carrying the whole country on our backs. God be with you. And please, spare me the password, and can we do without with the secret handshake? I’m tired.”

 

The situation in Alturia was as follows. Simon II, father of the present king, Oliver VII, had been an outstanding ruler, and the country had suffered in consequence ever since. He modernised the army uniform, established elementary schools, introduced telephones, public ablutions and much else besides, and all this benevolent activity had exhausted the state finances. Besides, as we all know from our geography books, the Alturian people are of a somewhat dreamy nature, fanciful and poetically inclined.

Along with the throne, Oliver inherited a chaotic financial situation. A man of true Alturian blood, he shared the dreamy nature of his people and showed little aptitude for fiscal matters. It seems too that he was unfortunate in his choice of advisers, who grew steadily richer as the public purse grew lean. To pay the state representatives on the first of each month the Finance Minister had at times to resort to near-farcical expedients, such as doling out their entire salaries and expenses in copper coins from the toll on the capital’s Chain Bridge. Malicious tongues even claimed that it was his masked men who carried out that daring break-in at the Lara branch of Barclays Bank.

At that point the Finance Minister, Pritanez, in an attempt to head off the discontent that was reaching revolutionary fervour, accepted a plan to reorganise the entire economy.

The Alturian people’s almost exclusive sources of revenue were wine and the sardine—the famous red wine of Alturia, preserving in drinkable form the memory of southern days and southern summers; and the famous Alturian sardine, a small but congenial creature, the comfort of travellers and elderly bachelors alike, when served in oil, or with a little fresh tomato.