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‘Well, speak now. You have an audience. I am your president and, as such, I am equipped both to listen and to take action. Get on with it – there’s no time like the present. Speak to me now.’ With this, Sergio thumped his hand on the balcony balustrade allowing his dressing-gown to fall open. He clasped it to him, now furious at the protester and his own less than professional attire.
‘Well, sir, with all due respect, the points I have to make are worthy of a more formal recourse. Apart from anything else, I’m not sure I can keep this whisper up for very much longer.’
With a stamp of his foot, Sergio whispered, ‘Oh, very well,’ and disappeared back inside, sliding the doors behind him.
Below, in the square, the minutes ticked slowly by and the student was unsure whether to flee before imminent arrest and possible detention, or to wait obediently and possibly indefinitely. But soon the president reappeared at a small door almost immediately below the balcony. He opened it just a few inches and beckoned the student to join him.
‘How do I get through the railings?’ asked the student.
‘Through the gate,’ came the exasperated reply.
‘The palace guards are at the gate. Will they let me in?’
‘Not that gate.’ Sergio was enraged at the suggestion that this wanton dissenter might drag his protest any more publicly through Piazza Rosa. ‘Through this gate – my gate.’ He pointed to a small gate that broke the otherwise continuous fence line. With nothing but the smallest catch to differentiate it, it was no wonder that the student had missed it on his first cursory inspection.
The young man laid his placard at his feet.
‘Don’t leave that there. Anyone could see it. Bring it with you.’
The student picked it up and tucked it under one arm. He tiptoed through the gate, closing it quietly behind him, and up the path to join the president, who was now wearing a casual pair of trousers and a shirt, his braces hanging down in loops at either side.
In silence, the two men traipsed upstairs, the president leading, too hot and bothered to consider any potential security threat, the student following, with the barest trace of a smile, born of his own audacity in taking on the government and finding himself in this most unlikely of pairings.
They entered Sergio’s private chambers where the president ushered his visitor to one of the lion’s-claw-footed chairs in front of the desk. The young man lowered himself, politely tweaking his trousers at the knees, a habit he had adopted to avoid creasing while at his studies.
‘Name?’ said Sergio, wresting authority out of the so-far-unsatisfactory exchange. He pulled a clean notepad towards him and dipped his pen into the ink with a flourish.
‘Woolf.’
‘Son of Renzo Woolf?’
‘Nephew.’
‘Hmm. Yes, yes, I think I know those Woolfs. Occupation? Yes, yes, of course. Student.’ Sergio pushed the notepad away from him and leaned back in his chair, shaking his head slowly as though addressing a small child. ‘And, young Mr Woolf, do you not think that before your rebellious and potentially inciteful protest, you might have found another less confrontational means to express your dissatisfaction with me?’
Sergio felt in control again. Perhaps he might not be the most skilled negotiator when dealing with dissidents but this was a Woolf and Woolfs he could deal with. He raised his eyes to meet the pale green pair gazing fearlessly back at him.
‘I wrote to you first.’
Sergio shrugged to indicate that he had never received any correspondence. ‘Perhaps it got lost in the post,’ he countered.
‘No. I delivered it myself. I handed it to the palace guards. And before writing to you I wrote to the ministers for employment and education. And before writing to them I wrote to the head of the university, and before writing to him I requested a meeting with my tutor, who felt he was not in a position to take up my cause. When all my letters went unanswered, I chose to demonstrate my disquiet with a peaceful protest.’
‘And to whom, exactly, have you spoken about your so-called peaceful protest? Am I dealing with a lone Woolf, or are there more protesters out there, waiting to attack the very fabric with which this society is woven?’
‘Well, actually, I have spoken to nobody. It was – it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. It wasn’t really until this afternoon that I decided to protest.’
Sergio leaned further forward, looking deeply into Woolf’s eyes. ‘And you’re quite sure of this? There’s no underground movement that I should know about, spreading malaise and unease among my people?’
Woolf shook his head.
‘No secret late-night meetings, fuelled by unlicensed drink and Western song lyrics?’
‘No, sir, none that I know of.’ Still, Woolf continued to meet Sergio’s gaze.
‘And your dissatisfaction, Woolf, is with what exactly?’ Once again, Sergio dipped his pen, ready to take notes.
‘It’s quite simple. As my placard says, I need a job. I’m looking for employment, sir.’
Sergio was partly disgusted, partly relieved. ‘But you’re a student! Surely you’ll follow the course of all students and when you’ve finished your education you’ll use the skills you have gained to find an appropriate position in the employment market.’
‘But, sir,’ Woolf cried, ‘I’m thirty-two years old! I’ve been in full-time education since I was five! That’s twenty-seven years! And for most of those years I’ve been continually promised an appropriate position once I’ve completed my studies.’
Genuinely baffled, Sergio probed deeper: ‘But until you’ve graduated, you’re still officially a student and therefore not available for employment.’
‘Exactly,’ said Woolf, in frustration. ‘But when will that be? I’ve a master’s. I’ve a PhD. I can speak Italian, French, English, Latin and Russian fluently. I’m ready to take a step into adult life but I have absolutely no prospects whatsoever. When I think I’m ready to graduate, I’m press-ganged into yet another few years of full-time education. When is it going to end?’
Sergio let out a low chuckle with what he hoped was a combination of contempt and ridicule. ‘Well, really, as president you’d think I’d have heard it all. But of all the ungrateful whining adolescents I’ve ever heard … Do you know what a privilege it is to be so educated? There are people around the world for whom access to even the most basic levels of literacy and numeracy would be considered a luxury yet you have the nerve to sit here and blame me for giving you too much free education? You should be grateful that your tutors consider you worthy of such great investment.’
Sergio scribbled wildly on his notepad while he contemplated his next move. Woolf was unable to decipher the notes upside-down, and when Sergio got a sense that he was trying to read them, he put a protective arm between them and his onlooker. Finally he stopped writing and carefully turned over the paper, away from prying eyes.
‘So, you want a job,’ he began. ‘What sort of job? What do you want to achieve? Where do you live?’
‘With my parents, of course, and my brothers.’
‘Good, good. So you have no cause for complaint. You have a roof over your head and food on your table when you get home. Good food and a decent roof, if I remember the Woolfs correctly. Yes?’
‘Yes, of course. I have a nice home and good food.’
‘And you are intellectually stimulated every day. Your tutors continue to challenge you?’
‘Yes, indeed. I have excellent tutors – they have much to offer.’
‘And you think, with the wonderful arrogance of youth, that you have learned everything you can, that you know as much as those entrusted with your edification?’
Woolf lowered his eyes for the first time since the line of questioning began. ‘No, no, of course not. There is much still for me to learn.’
‘So, remind me. You have a comfortable home, food on the table, and are challenged every day intellectually. You protest against what, exactly? Which element of your human rights have I abused, would you suggest?’
‘I – I have no complaints now to speak of. It’s the future I’m most concerned about, my prospects. I’ve lost sight of where I’m going.’
Sergio threw back his head and laughed, while Woolf fiddled nervously with his fingers in his lap. ‘Now I really have heard it all. I am the president of a great nation and my time is best spent offering counsel to young students. You have lost sight of where you’re going? Well, my young friend, I suggest you do one of two things. You acquire a compass or you do what the wise have been doing for many thousands of years.’ Sergio leaned forward to whisper this nugget of advice: ‘You live for the moment! Enjoy your student years because, trust me, when you’re an old man, worn small through hard toil, you will look back on them as the best of your life.’
He leaned back in his chair. ‘Chess? I always find it clears the air.’
Woolf nodded and sat looking around the fine room while Sergio set up the board. The president glanced at his watch. ‘Tea will arrive soon. Shall we?’
They played, barely exchanging a word as tea arrived, was strained and poured. The game continued briskly, silently, and, despite Woolf’s very best undertaking, it called upon almost none of the many strategic outcomes Sergio had at his disposal.
As Sergio removed Woolf’s queen with a flourish, he bowed his head in recognition of a battle nobly fought, but lost nevertheless.
‘Your education, young man, will be complete when you can beat me at chess. And when that time arrives, come and see me and I will employ you myself.’
Woolf stood up, under no illusion that the meeting had drawn to a close.
‘See yourself out, will you?’ Sergio gave a dismissive wave. With that, he turned his attention back to the notes he had been working on earlier. Before Woolf had quietly left the room he was brandishing his pen, continuing his line of thinking with renewed fervour.
Sergio pushed the disputation to the furthest reaches of his mind as he worked late into the night. Though he was confident that he had effectively dealt with the infringement and banished the memory, his sleep was restless and interrupted by the relentless imagery of attack.
When he awoke suddenly the next morning, exhausted as if he had not slept at all, he sat bolt upright, the sweat running freely, gluing his pyjamas to his skin. He experienced a flood of relief as he became aware of his surroundings – his bed, his bedside table, his fireplace, his pile of books – but this was quickly replaced by a renewed and exaggerated sense of panic. He had not dreamed the noises after all. There was another bang and then another. Gunshots, some quite close, were filling the valley. He gripped the bedcovers tightly and, acutely aware that he had no intention of being overthrown in his pyjamas, swung his legs out of bed, his mind set upon dressing as quickly as possible. In those mid-air moments, when his feet had freed themselves from the twisted, clammy sheets but had not yet hit the floor, he became aware of other noises – dogs barking and the low, indecipherable shouts of men.
The animals’ excitable squeals and their range, from faint yaps that suggested they were far up in the hills to the louder barks that intimated they were just above the town, sent slow signals to Sergio’s sleep-fuddled brain. He lowered his feet to the carpet and listened intently. The leisurely ‘Peee-eww’ of a buzzard punctuated the frenzied cacophony on the ground, and this final contribution to Nature’s orchestra allowed Sergio to place what had been the noises of a siege on Parliament Hall.
Saturday morning. An automatic lifting of the hunting ban. The men were out in full force, combing the hillsides and rooting out the wily wild boar that were now leading them and their dogs on a merry dance through woodland scrub and tea plantation. The desperate baying of the dogs closest to the town did not necessarily signal a sighting but that they had picked up the scent of other dogs belonging to another hunting party. In this way the men and their beasts could happily lose the first few hours of the weekend hot on the trail of each other. When guns were fired they were most likely being fired into the air to warn other hunting parties that the sound of crashing through scrubland was caused by them, not by a swine giving chase. Occasionally, through the clash of a boar’s misfortune and a man’s serendipity, contact between bullet and pig hide would be made and the happy hunters would return home with a tusked trophy on which to feast. Almost as often, though, it would be the shooter’s foot that warranted attention. It was not unusual for the tired, dispirited men to return home with a wounded stalker slung between them on a makeshift stretcher.
As Sergio flopped back onto his bed, trying to decipher the different cries that echoed back and forth from either side of the valley, he put his hand to his heart and felt the beat gradually settle to a steadier pace. His panic had subsided, but the sleep that claimed him now was uneasy and his dreams provided him with no respite from the impending sense of doom that increasingly dominated his waking hours.
CHAPTER 9
In Which PEGASUS Has Her Wings Clipped (#u3c792d31-806d-5bdc-a81f-be19d4816de8)
The PEGASUS steering group met with increased frequency as the early June deadline drew closer.
Sergio now oscillated between great optimism and unalloyed dread, and his men, guided by the lightest touch from Angelo, did their best to anticipate, interpret and respond appropriately to the increasingly frenetic swings in his mood.
The solitary protester’s stand had unsettled the president more than he had at first realized, and the impact on his behaviour was immense. Where he had experienced moments of self-doubt before, he now lived almost perpetually in fear of imminent failure. And though Sergio Senior had been dead for some years, it was his father he most feared failing. When Woolf had appeared on that sultry afternoon, Sergio had been momentarily proud to have dealt with the matter singlehandedly. But the ramifications of acting alone now ran deep: the memory rattled around in his brain only, haunting him day and night. There was nobody with whom to share the burden so the protester’s significance was greatly magnified by memory.
It was hard to say who bore the brunt of his vacillations. There were moments when Feraguzzi’s economic strategies seemed the root cause of Sergio’s dissatisfaction. At other times, Alixandria Heliopolis Visparelli was to blame for either his lackadaisical border controls or his over-zealous military presence, which was clearly the underlying reason for the distinctly dour disposition of the citizens. Scota was simply confused when an accusatory finger pointed towards him, while Cellini, Mosconi and Pompili took turns to cower in the background, shuffling their colleagues into the limelight in an unlikely imitation of chivalry.
The one person who remained untouched by the preparations was Chuck Whylie: he kept to his own quarters, only venturing out to the university to catch up with his email, the purpose of which seemed to be to make snide and inappropriate comments at his hosts’ expense. If the consultant had picked up on the increasing tensions in the city and among the ministers, he failed to show it. If anything, he appeared more self-satisfied than ever.
At the penultimate meeting of the PEGASUS steering group, as the days stretched out to show their true potential, Sergio assembled the quorum and made an unexpected announcement. ‘I cannot risk a Big Celebration on the night of the arrival of our royal visitor. There is simply too much at stake.’
Twelve pairs of eyebrows shot up simultaneously. For the previous two and a half months the men’s collective focus had been almost exclusively upon the impending Big Celebration. The food, the drink, the security, the protocol, the music, the dancing, each detail had been prescribed.
Angelo, the least cowed by his president’s moods, spoke first. ‘Sir, with respect, our main focus has been on the Big Celebration. Will it not be a considerable disappointment to the people if there is to be no party?’
‘I did not suggest that there would be no party,’ snapped Sergio, imperiously. ‘What I cannot risk is a Big Celebration, planned by the government. If the party is not well attended, if the crowd attendance falls below expectation, if the music is sub-standard, if the atmosphere is dull, if the wine does not flow, if the food is not the tastiest that has ever been served, then the political ramifications will be enormous.’ Sergio accompanied each scenario with a thump of his fist on the table and followed his inventory of potential pitfalls with a slow and deliberate appraisal of the assembled men, glaring at each in turn, sparing none. ‘I don’t think any of you has grasped the importance of this period in my political career. The date for my re-election is set for just after midsummer. There is absolutely no time for any political recovery between the Big Celebration and election day.’
Signor Posti piped up – somebody was clearly expected to respond to this challenge. ‘With respect, sir, we’re not anticipating any difficulty at re-election. The mood of the nation is good, we have positive news to report, we’re expecting less than a handful of negative option returns, and I can probably tell you who will be responsible for those …’
‘Well,’ countered Sergio slowly, fathomless contempt dripping from every syllable, ‘I keep my ear a little closer to the political ground than you do, Signor Posti, and I think you overestimate the mood of the electorate.’
Rolando Posti examined his fingernails and waited for another voice to fill the considerable chasm the president’s words had left in the air.
‘So,’ ventured Rossini, after a prolonged and painful silence, ‘what are you suggesting? That we cancel the Big Celebration?’
‘Cancel the—’ spluttered Sergio. ‘Are you mad? I hope you’re substantially more skilled at healing the sick than you are at managing political unrest. No, I’m suggesting that we replace the Big Celebration with a spontaneous outpouring of jubilation.’
‘Spontaneous?’ echoed at least half of the gathered men.
‘Yes, I want a party organized by the people, for the people, on the spur of the moment.’ Sergio looked around him, as if this was the most obvious idea he had yet put forward. It was clear from a dozen blank stares, however, that he needed to enlighten them further. ‘That way, if the party is a disaster, it will be the fault of the electorate. If it is a success, it will be our triumph for providing an atmosphere conducive to the flourishing of such impulsive festivity. I want our visitor to witness a nation that can literally burst into merrymaking.’
The men kept their eyes firmly on the president for fear that a shared glance between one and another might constitute betrayal.
‘And,’ ventured Civicchioni, tentatively, ‘who would you like to, er, spearhead the spontaneity?’
Impatient at the stupidity of the question, Sergio responded, enunciating each word as if addressing a particularly stupid child, ‘The committee, of course. Do you think I’d leave something as important as this to chance?’ He snapped shut his notebook, pushed his chair back and, with exaggerated irascibility, flounced from the room.
Angelo turned to a clean page in his notebook. ‘Right, gentlemen, you heard the boss. A spontaneous outpouring of jubilation it is.’
‘And don’t forget to schedule some merrymaking,’ quipped Scota, but Angelo silenced him with a look, reminding them that merrymaking was no joking matter. The men continued to sit and talk, each individually wishing to honour his president’s demands and to take the instruction seriously, but each also knowing that what had been asked of them was both illogical and impossible.
CHAPTER 10
In Which a Royal Visitor Arrives (#u3c792d31-806d-5bdc-a81f-be19d4816de8)
The VIP was due to arrive on the 05.05 freight train, the only one to stop in Vallerosa. The track actually serviced a major network that began in the French Alps to the south-west and ended in Austria to the north-east and managed, through the judicial placing of a mountainous outcrop, to carve a narrow route through the uppermost corner of the country. This meander across Vallerosan soil lasted less than three kilometres, but the government of the time, led by Sergio’s canny grandfather, had been quick to recognize the opportunity: it had granted permission to the rail company to lay the track across a corner of its land. In return the rail company would provide, at their cost, a station and a generous annual stipend with which to manage it. At the time, the deal had been heralded as an international negotiation of unparalleled success, and many days of celebration and festivity had followed. Sergio’s grandfather had earned himself the nickname ‘the Deal Maker’, and had justly garnered the praise of his fellow citizens, who now had access to and from other countries. The Deal Maker, however, was not blessed with the wisest of financial counsel, and while the fee paid by the rail company had seemed a grand gift from the heavens, the incumbent minister of finance had failed to negotiate an annual increase in line with inflation or any other monetary index. Over the intervening decades the annual income had been eroded by the ravages of economics, and today the stipend barely covered the wage of the part-time ticket collector.
Whether it was a reflection on the retrospective change of circumstances, or the genuine linguistic trickery that often takes place when a name is translated from one language to another, via Latin, and back again, Sergio’s grandfather was remembered now in the history books as ‘the Big Deal’; the ambiguity of the moniker suited those with a fond, ever-patriotic nostalgia for the previous regimes as well as those who remembered less kindly the deals with which the country was now lumbered in perpetuity.
Three times a day the diesel would roar through Vallerosa, accelerating as it drew towards the station. Curving dangerously as it sped past, the passengers on board might just glimpse the short platform and the black and red flag snapping in the train’s draught. Since the mid-1940s, the passenger trains had no longer stopped in Vallerosa, and this arrangement suited the current administration. While civilization had mercifully ignored or forgotten the small country during two world wars, today’s increasingly unstable climate would have required the opening up of rigorous border patrols, including a full-time Customs and Immigration Service.
Demand for travel to the country was negligible and as no one in the world had yet come up with any particular reason to visit Vallerosa, the current traffic was restricted to a single freight train stopping once a day. Upon this service, the occasional visitor might have negotiated a fare and, depending on the amount of currency that changed hands, take their chances with a seat among the parcels and packages in the mail carriages or secure a much comfier ride in the driver’s cabin, where there were two springy fold-down chairs and copious amounts of tea from the seemingly bottomless urn. From there visitors would alight, crumpled, disoriented and in desperate need of the washrooms that waited, spotlessly clean, to service them.
The current stationmaster, Gabboni, relished his dual role as ticket and passport inspector. Indeed, he had one of the most enviable roles in the country. Admittedly he must be up early to greet the train each morning, but for most of the time he lived a relaxed and solitary life, tasked with keeping the station platform swept, the toilets and washrooms stocked with paper and towels, and ensuring there was always a glorious display of hanging baskets and window boxes to guarantee that one’s very first sighting of Vallerosa was a positive experience.
Each year several intrepid travellers would deliberately set out to discover this most elusive of countries for themselves and Gabboni dedicated himself to welcoming them. On the whole, this group was made up of hikers and mountaineers, historians and students of General Isaak von Bunyan, explorers, cartographers and tea connoisseurs, who had heard talk of rare flavours and properties of the local brew. But there were many more whose visit was entirely accidental. Typically, these weary travellers would have embarked on a night train somewhere in the pretty hills of the north-east of Italy, or as far back as the south-eastern tip of France, and would have awoken suddenly, confused, to the screech of the diesel brakes and a neck-jerking deceleration. They would shake themselves awake to the incomprehensible realization that they were pulling into a station, although they had been told, in many multilingual announcements, that there were no further stops along the way. Leaping to their feet, hastily grabbing their luggage from the rack above their head, they would hurl themselves and their cases from the train on the false assumption that either they had slept through the country they were intending to visit or they had arrived at their destination slightly ahead of schedule.
While the statistics would almost certainly be excluded from the annual report issued by the minister for tourism, it is fair to guess that the majority of visitors to Vallerosa would have begun their unintentional visit with a glance at their watch, a quick but futile calculation of any number of time zones they might have crossed during their eastward journey, and a hurried exit from the train, tumbling to the platform alongside the mailbag, in the pre-dawn darkness. Internal panic rising, they would turn to see Vinsent Gabboni emerging from the shadows, smiling the knowing smile of a stationmaster who has seen it all before, many times.
Gabboni, so keen to protect that most coveted of positions, ensured that he did every aspect of his job with absolute diligence. And so, on the rare occasions when a visitor chose to stop at that crease of a country, he would draw himself up to his full five foot seven inches and guarantee that the visitor, American or otherwise, was treated with the unabridged Vallerosan welcome. Having allowed his visitor to alight, he would walk purposefully towards them to greet them. First he would place a friendly hand on each shoulder, and then, staring into the eyes of the often startled traveller, he would pronounce, syllable by syllable (always respectful of most foreigners’ lack of learning), ‘Your weary feet can find comfort here, your wandering soul can find answers, your heavy heart can find solace and your parched mouth can be quenched.’ Then, before the visitor had had time to recover, he would draw them firmly to his chest, laying his head briefly on their right shoulder. With a slap on the back, they would be ushered into the waiting room to meet him in his official capacity as junior minister in charge of Customs and Immigration. While the visitor would reorient himself in the small, tidy waiting room, wondering if, perhaps, he had been mistaken for somebody else, Gabboni’s head and shoulders would reappear alarmingly through the hitherto unnoticed hatch in the wall.
This very special morning, which had begun more than an hour before with the unruly clanging of the church bells, it had been decreed that Gabboni’s special welcome alone was not enough for the expected VIP.
There had been much debate, both in Il Gallo Giallo, and in Parliament itself, as to who, or what, would be most appropriate to form a welcoming party. At the peak of the debate, it had been suggested that Sergio himself might be there to greet the visitor but Angelo had spelled out the danger of allowing the visitor to think that too much significance had been attached to the occasion. In the end, it was felt by all that Sergio must retain a healthy detachment and act with the standoffish dignity of a leader who was accustomed to (perhaps even bored by) state visits. Eventually, through a rigorous process of elimination, three ministers had been duly elected to form the welcoming party.
Settimio Mosconi, the minister for tourism, was an obvious choice, and with the addition of the ministers for recreation and leisure, it was felt that just the right level of gravitas without obsequiousness had been attained.
It was agreed by all that Vinsent Gabboni had excelled himself. The station gleamed, while the scents of geranium and rose made all three ministers proud to be Vallerosan. Mosconi’s shoulders heaved and he was seen brushing the back of his hand across each eye, but whether this was because the moment was charged with emotion or because the air carried a little dust that dry morning was open to speculation. Gabboni had unrolled the red linoleum, reserved for just this type of occasion but which had only been called upon once before. On that occasion, Sergio had left the country for a week’s visit to his neighbouring countries but returned just two days later, apparently because his work had been accomplished with unrivalled efficiency; those closer to him wondered if he had been homesick.
With a full ten minutes to go before the scheduled arrival of the train, the three men took their place. Initially they ordered themselves tourism, recreation, leisure, but the gradually descending height differential added a comic dimension that was neither dignified nor intended and they quickly regrouped with tourism, the tallest, flanked on either side by recreation and leisure. On this solemn occasion, Gabboni had been relegated to the ticket office but he was proud and excited to be included and had, without either the knowledge or permission of Mosconi, agreed to head afterwards for Il Toro Rosso where he would hand an exclusive scoop to Edo Cannoni, a post-graduate English student who aspired to run the country’s only independent newspaper, the Vallerosan Reporter. As this newspaper was still an idle dream, young Edo was resigned – apparently indefinitely – to running the student newspaper and it would be to the thundering photocopying machine in the basement of the university that he would turn once his copy was filed.
The sound of the diesel engine cut through the clear morning air and could be heard for some minutes before it eventually slowed to a screeching halt at the small station. A few moments later, two heads poked out of the driver’s cabin door, which swung back fully on itself. A smallish sports bag, with a tennis racquet strapped to its spine, was thrown to the platform. This was soon followed by the unceremonious dumping of a large rucksack, which hit the ground heavily, raising a cloud of dust. Moments later, two tired visitors stepped down from the train and looked, first, at the line-up of smartly saluting men to their right, then to their left, where the end of the platform and the tracks curving into the distance offered no alternative exit route. The middle-aged man stepped forward, casually slinging his jacket over one shoulder and picking up the sports bag in his other hand.
The three ministers held their breath. There was, they admitted to themselves later, a degree of disappointment that this man, clearly a man in charge, had not thought to dress in official uniform and hadn’t even deigned to sport a necktie. But, of course, they quickly rationalized, for security reasons it must be safer to travel incognito and, with no security men to accompany him, this precaution was probably very wise.
They shared, too, their simultaneous reaction to the second visitor, previously partly shielded by the man. Lagging behind, having taken a few seconds to heave her heavy rucksack to her back, she hurried forward to catch up with her travelling companion, falling into step silently beside him. The three ministers, in unison, dropped their saluting hands to their sides and stared, unprofessionally, unabashed and unashamed, at the tallest and most beautiful woman they had ever set eyes on. Not even the sum of their combined dreams had yielded anything quite as mouth-wateringly, tear-jerkingly heavenly as the vision that now walked towards them. Perhaps the equestrian habits of their forebears were behind their unanimous thoughts as they sized up (with the open admiration of stockmen at market with a full purse to spend) her powerful legs, her wide but graceful shoulders, her magnificent neck and incredibly strong, shiny white teeth. The sun had not yet risen and still her pale hair glowed in a luminescent halo, as if illuminated from within. The few short seconds, as she strolled towards them, spiralled recklessly into cinematic-quality slow-motion as each man harboured unsolicited images, set to the music of harpsichords and tumultuous cymbals, of tumbling naked limbs, of the strong hindquarters of Arabian stud horses, of Amazonian hunters, of peach-skinned necks, of open mouths revealing rows and rows of pearlescent teeth, of whips and jodhpurs and the palest, smoothest, roundest buttocks.
