“Not half so blue as yours, Monsieur, as I cannot but see. Why don’t you go inside and sit by a warm fire?”
“Now you tempt me cruelly in a second way,” d’Avaux said. “I must stand here, to uphold the honor and glory of La France. But you are bound by no such obligations-why do you go out here, where only harp-seals and polar-bears should be-and in such a skirt?”
“The skirt must be short, lest it get caught in the blades of my skates-you see?” Eliza said, and did a little pirouette. Before she’d gotten entirely turned around, a groaning and cracking noise came from the center of the French delegation as a spindly middle-aged diplomat collapsed dizzily to the ground. The men to either side of him crouched down as if to render assistance, but were straightened up by a brisk idiom from d’Avaux. “Once we begin to make exceptions for those who fall-or who pretend to-the whole delegation will go down like ninepins,” d’Avaux explained, addressing the remark to Eliza, but intending it for his entourage. The fallen man contracted to a f?tal position on the pavement; a couple of sword-wearing Dutchmen scurried in with a blanket. Meanwhile a wench came down out of a side-street bearing a large tray, and walked past the French delegation, letting them smell the flip-aroma, and feel the steam, from eight tankards-which she took direct to the Englishmen.
“Exceptions to what?” Eliza asked.
“To the rules of diplomatic protocol,” d’Avaux answered. “Which state-for example-that when one Ambassador meets another in a narrow way, the junior Ambassador must give way for the senior.”
“Ah, so that’s it. You’re having a dispute as to whether you, or the English Ambassador, has seniority?”
“I represent the Most Christian King,*thatlot represent King James II of England… or so we can only assume, as we have received word that King Charles II has died, but not that his brother has been properly crowned.”
“Then it’s clear you have seniority.”
“Clear to you and me, mademoiselle. But that fellow has asserted that, since he cannot represent an uncrowned king, he must still be representing the late Charles II, who was crowned in 1651 after the Puritans chopped off the head of his father and predecessor. My King was crowned in 1654.”
“But with all due respect to the Most Christian King, monsieur, doesn’t that mean that Charles II, if he still lived, would have three years’ seniority over him?”
“A rabble of Scots at Scone tossed a crown at Charles’s head,” d’Avaux said, “and then he came and lived here, begging for handouts from Dutchmen, until 1660 when the cheese-mongers paid him to leave. Practically speaking, his reign began when he sailed to Dover.”
“If we are going to be practical, sir,” shouted an Englishman, “let us consider that your King did not practically begin his reign until the death of Cardinal Mazarin on the ninth of March, 1661.” He raised a tankard to his lips and quaffed deeply, pausing between gulps to emit little moans of satisfaction.
“At least my King is alive,” d’Avaux muttered. “You see? And they love to accuse Jesuits of sophistry! I say, is your beau wanted by the Guild of St. George?”
Civic order in the Hague was maintained by two Guilds of civic guards. The part of the city around the market and the town hall, where normal Dutchmen lived, was looked after by the St. Sebastian Guild. The St. George Guild was responsible for the Hofgebied, which was the part of the city containing the royal palace, foreign embassies, houses of rich families, and so on. Both Guilds were represented among the crowd of spectators who had gathered round to partake of the spectacle of d’Avaux and his English counterparts freezing to death. So d’Avaux’s question was partly intended to flatter and amuse the genteel and aristocratic St. George men-perhaps at the expense of the more plebeian St. Sebastian guards, who seemed to be favoring the English delegation.
“Don’t be absurd, monsieur! If he were, those brave and diligent men would have apprehended him long ago. Why do you ask such a question?”
“He has covered up his face like some sort of a volunteer. ” Which meant, a soldier-turned-highwayman.
Eliza turned round to see Gomer Bolstrood lurking (there was no other word for it) around a corner of the canal a stone’s throw away with a long strip of tartan wrapped over his face.
“Those who live in northerly climes often do this.”
“It seems extremely disreputable and in the poorest taste. If your beau cannot tolerate a bit of a sea-breeze-”
“He is not my beau-merely a business associate.”
“Then, mademoiselle, you will be free to meet with me here, at this hour, tomorrow, and give me a skating-lesson.”
“But, monsieur! From the way you shuddered when you beheld me, I thought you considered such sports beneath your dignity.”
“Indeed-but I am an Ambassador, and must submit to any number of degradations…”
“For the honor and glory of la France?”
“Pourquoi non?”
“I hope that they widen the street soon, comte d’Avaux.”
“Spring is just around the corner-and when I gaze upon your face, mademoiselle, I feel it is already here.”
“’TWAS PERFECTLY INNOCENT,Mr. Bolstrood-I thought they were sculpture until eyes turned my way.”
They were seated before a fire in a stately hunting-lodge. The place was warm enough, but smoky, and bleak, and entirely too filled with heads of dead animals, who seemed also to be turning their eyes Eliza’s way.
“You imagine I’m angry, but I’m not.”
“What’s troubling you, then? I daresay you are the brooding-est fellow I have ever seen.”
“These chairs.”
“Did I hear you correctly, sir?”
“Look at them,” Gomer Bolstrood said, in a voice hollow with despair. “Those who built this estate had no shortage of money, of that you can be sure-but the furniture! It is either stupid and primitive, like this ogre’s throne I’m seated on, or else-like yours-raked together out of kindling, with about as much structural integrity as a faggot. I could make better chairs in an afternoon, drunk, given a shrub and a jackknife. ”
“Then I must apologize for having misread you, as I supposed you were angry about that chance encounter, there-”
“My faith teaches me it was inevitable-predestined-that you would enter into a flirtation with the French Ambassador just now. If I’m brooding over that, it’s not because I’m angry, but because I must understand what it means.”
“It means he’s a horny old goat.”
Gomer Bolstrood shook his colossal head hopelessly, and gazed toward a window. The pane shouted as it was hit by a burst of wind-driven slush. “I pray it did not develop into a riot,” he said.
“How much of a riot can eight frozen Englishmen and seven half-dead Frenchmen accomplish?”
“It’s the Dutchmen I’m worried about. The commoners and country folk, as always, side with the Stadholder.*The merchants are all Frenchified-and because the States-General are meeting here at the moment, the town’s crowded with the latter-all of ’em wearing swords and carrying pistols.”
“Speaking of Frenchified merchants,” Eliza said, “I have some good news for the Client-whoever he is-from the commodities market. It seems that during the run-up to the 1672 war, an Amsterdam banker committed treason against the Republic-”
“Actually any number of ’em did-but pray continue.”