The majority of demonstrators were labourers and artisans. Apprentices and errand-boys were obviously present for the fun of it. I also saw a surprising number of mothers with toddlers or babes in arms. These were shouting, “Safety for our kids!” and “A future for the wee ones!”

  Soon people were shouting, “We want the queen! Where’s the queen? Why doesn’t she come? Doesn’t she care? Why should we care about her? Why should we care about princes? And bishops and knights? Who needs them? We want a republic!”

  Were they challenging palace guards to come and disperse them so that some child or impetuous apprentice should lie bleeding in the square, providing a martyr? But no such thing happened. As yet.

  I couldn’t spot who was orchestrating this outcry. The ringleaders stayed hidden in the crowd.

  Who had advised the proprietors of most of the smart cafes to shut up shop that morning? Had they decided this of their own accord? Were they in their own way a silent part of this protest?

  Next thing I knew, the demonstrators were crying out as though Spomenik had been a great champion of the common people; as though the damage to his statue was an insult tolerated by the palace.

  Spomenik had been a composer of comic operettas. Admittedly those operettas featured commoners such as bird-netters or chimney-sweeps with pretensions to nobility or magic (misunderstood). This was why they were comic. Otto Spomenik happened to bear a name which was also a word in the magic language. Thus a monument had been erected to him rather than to any other light musician.

  At the cafe where I loitered, the waiters had stopped gliding about amidst the outdoor tables and were clustered together in a knot. Disgruntled patrons waved in vain to attract their attention. The manager himself emerged, wearing white waistcoat and velvet tuxedo, to remonstrate with his staff.

  His arrival on the scene might well have been a signal. Youths surged from the crowd towards the cafe.

  They snatched drinks from tables, stole gateaux from plates. They insulted young ladies. They knocked hats off heads. The manager grabbed hold of one offender. The other youths immediately began overturning tables, while all the customers-and myself-retreated indoors for sanctuary. The manager broke away and followed us. A lout picked up a chair and threw it at the cafe window, shattering glass all over the display of strudel and baklava, melba and walnut cake.

  At this point a party of royal guards, all leather and brass, did at last arrive. As they advanced on the cafe-wreckers with their batons those youths took to their heels. The bulk of the protest also melted away. Soon the square was clear, and cafe patrons could escape, stepping over wreckage in apprehension and astonishment.

  Overnight, more crude posters appeared, referring to the “Battle of Terga Square” which was nonsensical since there had been no such “battle”.

  I accompanied Henchy to the observatory to beard Matyash. Our astrologer denied all responsibility. “There’s more discontent than you realize,” he told us.

  “Someone’s stirring the pot,” insisted Henchy. “Someone’s printing those posters.”

  “Not I! Please note how I’m collaborating with the Shrimp. If you ask my opinion, we’re in a prerevolutionary stage.”

  “What sort of jargon is that?”

  The giant ambled to a shelf piled high with star charts and horoscopes. He tugged loose a pamphlet. “Have you seen this, then?”

  Title: The Capital: a Manifesto.

  I turned the twenty or so pages which were smudgily printed in ugly type. The “capital” in question was Bellogard, and the text purported to be a rigorous critical analysis of “historical inevitability”. It would seem that rule by king and queen based upon magical values was inherently doomed. Salvation lay in a “diktat of the commons”.

  “Personally,” said Matyash, “I think this is stupid compared with a metaphysical solution to our dilemma achieved through science. What’s more, it preaches revolution in a single kingdom: ours. The anonymous author assumes that this will ‘inevitably’ cause a subsequent revolution in Chorny. It would have made more sense to call for a common revolution in both kingdoms simultaneously. But what do the common folk of Bellogard know about life in Chorny? Ignorant they are, ignorant! Hence the need for a scientific initiative.”

  “Aiming,” enquired Henchy coldly, “at a common revolution?”

  “Aiming at astrological co-operation to ward off the doom of the world.” Matyash took the pamphlet back, as though we had no right to be looking at it. “Incidentally, the author of The Capital predicts that as the court of Bellogard grows more desperate, so it will start to govern repressively. Soon guards will patrol the streets. There’ll be arrests and executions. The palace dungeons will fill up. There’ll be corpses gibbeted on the battlements to cow the populace. This repression will signal-and provoke-the dawn of angry revolution.”

  “Hence that bomb?” said Henchy. “And the ridiculous riot in Terga Square? All in an effort to provoke the palace. I suppose now there’ll be more such provocations?”

  “How should I know?” rejoined Matyash.

  How indeed? We held a war council in the Chequer Chamber, chaired by Sir Brant. I already knew the name of my contact in Chorny-a music teacher named Skripka-and I had his address. Matyash had furnished credentials, and by now I knew enough astrology to pass myself off as his trusted messenger. So we decided to wait no longer. We would launch the infiltration of Chorny two days hence.

  Next we discussed the “internal security” situation; and here Bishop Veck insisted on taking charge.

  The queen counselled moderation but Veck argued strenuously for severe new laws. Veck wanted travel restrictions imposed on countryfolk entering the capital and on townsfolk leaving it. He wanted internal passports issued. He wanted the streets patrolled. He insisted on recruiting more royal guards. He wanted our newspaper, Noveeny, strictly supervised and censored. Just as per The Capital, so the unknown author couldn’t have been entirely an idiot.

  Henchy demurred, but Henchy was only a pawn-squire. The idea of law and order appealed to Prince Ruk. Isgalt consented reluctantly.

  I had no pressing need to visit Matyash again. However, on the morning when Sir Brant and I were due to depart, doubtless due to excitement and anxiety I woke up at four a.m. I decided to dash over to Bresh Hill for one last talk to the astrologer before he sank into bed for the day.

  The sky was beginning to grey with impending dawn when I reached the observatory. Within, was black dark. I called out in vain, then lit the candle stub I’d brought.

  Matyash lay on the floor in a pool of blood.

  He’d been stabbed repeatedly, maybe by several assailants. His body was still slightly warm to the touch. I immediately drew my poniard for protection (though as it turned out the observatory was deserted).

  Lighting a spare lantern, I climbed the scaffold but found no clue. Descending again, I inspected Matyash’s private chamber; his charts and records all seemed undisturbed. I sat on his bed and thought hard.

  Had he been assassinated as a new act of provocation? Irrespective of any private games which Matyash had been playing, he was the official astrologer, after all.

  Or had he been murdered because of those games? Because he knew the author of The Capital but disagreed with the thesis of revolution in one kingdom?

  Or-this was the most disconcerting thought-had Matyash been killed on the orders of Bishop Veck, new head of “security”?

  I remembered Henchy’s veiled threats to Matyash.

  Suppose I needed to lurk in Chorny for a long time? Suppose Matyash changed his mind about cooperating? Suppose he decided to denounce me to his Chorny contacts-in the service of a common revolution? His death would protect our invasion plan.

  I would be highly unlikely to learn of his murder, since I was due to depart within hours. I would be journeying magically, outstripping any common-or-garden traveller. In any case the news wouldn’t reach Chorny at all quickly now that Noveeny was censored.

  I resented this death. If Matyash’s friends in Chorny did find out, how would they regard me-who had left only a few hours after he was butchered?

  I walked through to the main dome again. How ungainly and undignified Matyash looked now that he was dead, like a felled hairy ox. I decided not to accuse anyone, or say anything at all. Let some other visitor discover the stabbed corpse.

  Towards noon we combatants gathered in the Ex-Chequer Chamber. I was in my disguise, was wearing off-duty clothes, and carrying a scrip containing gold, dagger, and astrology documents.

  Sir Brant, with his hair newly dyed jet-black, was dressed in rustic finery like a prosperous farmer. He had wrapped his sword in oilcloth, and a bulging satchel held rations, as well as gold to purchase more from farmsteads in the Chorny hinterland.

  Prince Ruk, well armoured, stood ready to guard our journey with straight-line magic (so long as no enemy power interposed). Bishop Veck was absent, busy with security. To bring diagonal magic to bear would have needed at least two slantwise leaps.

  The queen was there to see us off; also King Karol. The king puffed nutmeggy gusts from his pipe, as if nervous at the imminent withdrawal of knightly, and possible princely, protection from his royal person. Karol had gathered the two remaining able-bodied squires, Josip and Beno, close to him; at one stage he leaned over to clasp his young wife’s hand.

  Flunkies trundled out a step-ladder on wheels so that I could mount Sir Brant in dignified style. (Brant had no choice but to carry me pick-a-back on the magic stages of our journey, otherwise he would far outpace me.) Queen Isgalt addressed some encouraging words. Without further ado I climbed up and scrambled on to the knight’s back.

  “Easy off, lad! You’re fair throttling me.”

  “Sorry, sir.” I resettled myself on his hips.

  “I won’t drop you!”

  I didn’t imagine that he would. The muscles of Brant’s arms and shoulders felt more like rock than flesh. I had muscles, but mine could be squeezed and shifted. Nothing short of an axe blow could dent Sir Brant’s compacted musculature, so it seemed.

  On the day four years earlier when Isgalt had become queen, I remembered Brant struggling to hold Squire Pyeshka erect after spitting him on his sword. Now I understood that Brant had not been faltering because of the effort of the task but on account of emotion.

  He bellowed magic words.

  We shifted sideways dizzyingly through a crackling blue emptiness. Momentarily we halted at somewhere which was nowhere. Due to some skill which I could never gras -though I grasped Brant tightly enough!-we pivoted upon nothing, and rushed in a new direction.

  Then we were standing in a woodland glade. Elms towered high: heaps of green cumulus. Fallen limbs, victims of past storms, littered the mossy forest floor. Fleeing squirrels leapt from bough to bough. A rook clattered away from the heights, cawing.

  “You all right, lad?”

  “I think so, sir.”

  “Plain Brant will do fine, while we’re campaigning together. You jump down till I get my wind back.”

  I slid from his back, to perch on a broken branch.

  “Ever been here before, lad?”

  “Is this part of Shooma Forest?”

  “No, it’s Lisitsa Wood. I jumped a long leg to the south, then a short leg east. We’ll carry on that way. Third leap will take us over the marshes into enemy territory. After that we’ll turn west by south. One last jump, and you’ll be a day’s walk north-west of Chorny city.” “Er, Brant, out in the midst of nowhere-when you pause between legs-do you ever, well, do you ever sense a borderland of other magics?”

  “Other magics? Hrumph. You have been listening to Mr Matyash.”

  To Matyash. who was murdered. I felt sure from Brant’s tone that he knew nothing about that deed. “Do you, Brant?”

  “Funny you should ask. I’ll tell you a true story, lad. It happened long ago, on my second ever jump.”

  So commenced the following tale, which Brant continued at each successive stopping point.

  A Knight’s Tale

  (abridged, for the sake of decency)

  “I’m one of the old Originals, as you know, lad. So when the world started up, I was already a knight with a memory of knightly things. I hadn’t exactly put those things into practice as yet. The very first time I jumped, I knew what I was supposed to do-but it was all fresh and new to me.

  “After that first jump, I felt ever so sure of myself. I was younger then; I was cocky in more ways than one.

  “Back in those days I had a maid called Lisa, whom I referred to as ‘my little Lisitsa’. She was foxy, eh?”

  “Lisitsa” was the name for “fox” in the magic language. I mounted Sir Brant and we leapt again.

  We arrived on an open moor, to the startlement of a covey of partridges.

  “Second time out, I invited my little Lisitsa along for the ride, the same way as you’re riding me today. Ordinarily, as I’m sure we both know, it’s a fellow who rides upon a lady-as surely as a cavalier mounts his steed! ’Cept that a fellow generally faces his lady while he tittups upon her; though not always, I’ll admit.

  “I thought I’d excite Lisitsa by letting her ride me through the magic spaces. What enterprising chit of a commoner would refuse the offer of a magic trip?

  “I also had an overwhelming urge to have Lisitsa, there at the place where we pause and pivot. Would it be possible to take one’s pleasure there, without the pull of the world crushing us together? Not that I quarrel with my bulk bearing down on a gal. Keeps her in place, eh? But I was curious to experiment. I wanted to see if I could prolong the pause-then put the long leg over her short one, if you get my drift.”

  We jumped through the blue, tingly space-pausing for the merest moment-to a hot, sedgy, midgebuzzing fenland. We were on the fringe of the Lettish marshes near the border. Brant lowered me ankle- deep into black peaty water.

  “So I suggested to Lisitsa that we should jump stark-naked from my room in the palace. Didn’t want armour and gowns impeding my thrust, eh? Told her that was all part of the magic, when you were carrying a passenger. Skin contact, absolutely essential.

  “She was game. So we both stripped. She climbed on my bed. I backed up. She clung to my neck, and I wrapped her legs round my waist. When we reached the half-way mark I intended to slide her lovely little body right round to the front of me. I might add that my shaft was already sticking out proud, eager to be saddled.”

  Was this true? Or was Brant spinning a cock-and-filly tale to occupy my attention, in case I lost my nerve in the magic emptiness?

  I’d done a spot of magic jumping, myself, when Veck and Ruk were training me. However, a pawn jumps quickly, only a little distance, straight from here to there. He doesn’t tarry in the spaces between. Nor, after my initial training, had I done any more jumping simply for the joy of it. One didn’t jump idly, without urgent reasons of war. This tradition had been drummed into me. Obviously Brant had behaved differently in his youth.

  Ordinary travel could prove preferable for other reasons. On the night when I killed Bishop Zorn, if I had jumped magically from Sara’s room in Groody Lane instead of running through the streets to Terga Square, the bishop might have sensed a magical collision and avoided me. Or stabbed me.

  I had some trouble regaining my mount. The marsh water and soggy peat sucked at my boots, gluing me, making it wellnigh impossible to leap up on to Brant’s back. After my third attempt, Brant hoisted me bodily and slung me astride his waist; I regained my seating.

  We leapt again through magic space. arriving this time on the bank of a brook. Brown water rushed through heather down a hot little glen. A bird of prey drifted lazily overhead.

  “So, with Lisitsa aboard, I leapt to that place where I ought to make a half-hop the other way. Instead I paused, paused, paused. I slid her around me, Lisa still clinging tightly to my neck. I slipped my tongue betwixt her lips and my sceptre up between those other private lips of hers. At first we were both floating as light as that glede-kite up there.

  “At first. Then my feet started trying to slide sideways. It was as if I was balancing on a glassy slope which was slowly getting steeper.

  “I was determined, though. I was aroused.

  “Lisitsa had her eyes shut, the way women do. But not me.

  “Way beyond her darling little head I caught a misty glimpse of. Well, it looked like a whopping big snake. Not any tiddly grass-snake or viper such as you might find in this glen here. This was something enormous, muscular and long. Rippling and strong.

  “Between you and me, lad-man to man-I reckon that serpent was a projected image of what I was up to! Me with my fleshy shaft, eh? But that’s what I saw.

  “Just then my shaft erupted deliciously, not to put too fine a point on it. Lisa was pushed upwards.”

  (Oh, this had to be a tall tale.) “She lost her grip. Me too. By now I was skidding sideways. I had no choice but to jump.

  “Jump I did. And I was standing erect and starkers half-way up Mount Planina. All on my ownsome! Lisitsa wasn’t there.

  “I quickly jumped back towards the palace. I was hoping against hope that I’d spy her floating in space when I paused midway. Somehow I’d manage to collar her and haul her home.

  “No such luck. She was nowhere. I tell you, lad, I felt terribly cut up about this.”

  Brant wiped a tear from his eye. He was genuinely moved. This was no tall tale after all. It was the crazy truth.

  Now I knew who had established the tradition that we did not jump for idle fun.

  “For months I feared if I jumped again I’d meet her ghost in the empty spaces. Since she only had a fragment of a soul, I suppose she could only have become a fraction of a ghost. A ghostly hand, a ghostly foot. A ghost of a tit, or lips. Reproaching me for my careless lust.

  “Two years after, word arrived at Bellogard of a skeleton found in Lisitsa Wood. The bare bones were high atop an elm; and it wasn’t at all obvious how anyone could have climbed there even when alive. There were no rotten rags on the bones, or scraps of skin or tendon, or even hair on the head. Crows could have accounted for edible carrion, but not for clothes or hair. There was only the skeleton, the pattern of a body-the oddity of this was the reason why news travelled.