Michael Dobbs - To play the king

'Let's not beat about the bush, Bryan. You don't have a cat in hell's chance of getting your gong unless you find a Prime Minister willing to fight in the last ditch for you. A Prime Minister isn't going to do that unless you're willing to reciprocate.' He wiped a hand over his forehead to clear his line of vision. 'Your unstinting support and cooperation all the way up to the next election. In exchange for informed briefings, exclusive insights, first shot at the best stories. And a knighthood at the end of it. It's a chance to wipe the slate clean, Bryan, and put the past behind you. No one argues with a "K".'

Brynford-Jones sat, his elbows on his knees and the folds of his belly piled one upon the other, staring straight ahead. A smile began to etch its way across his damp face like a beam of light through this murky, misting world of fallen chests and sagging scrota. 'You know what I think, Tim?' 'What?' 'I think you may have just rekindled my faith.'

Buckingham Palace 16 December My dear Son,

You will soon be back with us for Christmas, but I felt I needed someone with whom to share. There are so few people to trust.

My life, and yours to come, are beset by frustration. We are expected to be examples – but of what? Apparently of servility. At times I despair.

As we discussed when last you came down from Eton, I had planned to make a speech drawing the country's attention to the growing divisions within the country. Yet the politicians have 'redrafted' some of my thoughts, so I no longer recognize them as my own. They are trying to make me a eunuch and force me to deny my own manhood.

Is the role of the King to reign mute over a nation being led to dissolution and division? There seem to me to be few clear rules, except that of caution. My anger at the Government's treatment of my speech must remain private. But I cannot be a Monarch without also retaining my self-respect as a man – as you will find when your time comes.

If we have not the freedom to defend those things in which we believe passionately, then at least we can avoid colluding in those actions we oppose and feel dangerously inappropriate. Never let them put words into your mouth. I have simply omitted large chunks of the Government's draft.

My task, and yours to come, is a heavy burden. We are meant to be figureheads, to symbolize the virtues of the nation. To do so grows increasingly difficult in a modern world which surrounds us with many temptations but so few occupations. But if our role is to mean anything, then it must at very least allow us our conscience. I would sign a bill proclaiming a republic tomorrow if it were put to me approved by Lords and Commons, but I will not speak politicians' nonsense and bless it as my own.

Everything I do, every blunder I make, every morsel of respect I gather, will in time be passed on to you. I have not always been able to be the sort of father I would want. Formality, convention, distance too often come between a King and his son – me and you, as they did between me and my own father. But I will not betray you and your inheritance, on that you have my word. In previous times they have taken our forefathers to a public place and chopped off their heads'. At least they had the dignity of dying with their conscience intact.

The world seems dark to me at the moment. I eagerly await the light which your return for the seasonal holiday will bring. With my warmest affection to you, my son. Father.

Mycroft had spent the evening pacing disconsolately around his cold, empty house, searching for distraction. It had been a miserable day. Kenny had been called off at short notice for a ten-day tour to the Far East which would keep him away over the holiday. Mycroft had been with the King when Kenny called, so all he got was a message left with his secretary wishing him Happy Christmas. As Mycroft gazed at the four walls, he imagined Kenny already cavorting along some sun-kissed beach, laughing, enjoying himself, enjoying others.

The King hadn't helped, either, spitting incandescence at the Government's redraft of his speech. For some reason Mycroft blamed himself. Wasn't it his job to ensure that the King's views got across? He felt as if he had failed. It was another pang of the guilt which plagued him whenever he was away from Kenny and out from under his spell.

The house was so neat, orderly, impersonal, he even longed for the sight of some of Fiona's clutter but there wasn't even a dirty dish in the sink. He'd paced all evening, unable to settle, feeling ever more alone, drinking too much in a vain attempt to forget, drowning once again. Thoughts of Kenny only made him jealous. When he tried to distract himself by thinking of his other life, all he could feel was the force of the King's passion and his bitterness at the Prime Minister. 'If only I hadn't been so open with him, thought he might be different from the rest. It's my fault,' he had said. But Mycroft held himself to blame.

He sat at his desk, the King's emasculated draft in front of him, the photo of Fiona in the silver frame still not removed, his diary open with a ring around the date of Kenny's return, his refilled glass leaving rings of dampness on the leather top. God, but he needed someone to talk with, to remind himself there was a world out there, to break the oppressive silence around him and to distract from his feeling of guilt and failure. He felt confused and vulnerable, and the drink wasn't helping. He was still feeling confused and vulnerable when the phone rang.

'Hello, Trevor,' he greeted the Telegraph's Court Correspondent. 'I was hoping someone would ring. How can I help? Good God, you've heard what…?'

'I am not an 'appy man. I am not an 'appy bloody man.' The editor of the Sun, an undersized and wiry man from the dales of Yorkshire, began swearing quietly to himself as he read the lead item in the Telegraph first edition. The profanity became louder as he read down the copy until he could contain his frustration no longer. 'Sally. Get me that bastard Incest.'

'He's in hospital. Just had his appendix out,' a female voice floated through his open door.

'I don't care if he's in his bloody coffin. Dig him up and get him on the phone.'

Roderick Motherup, known as Incest throughout the newspaper world, was the paper's Royal Correspondent, the man paid to know who was doing what to whom behind the discreet facades of any of the Royal residences. Even while he lay flat on his back. 'Incest? Why the hell did we miss this story?' 'What story?' a weak voice sounded down the line.

'I pay you a whole truckful of money to spread around enough Palace servants, chauffeurs and snitches so we know what's going on. Yet you've bloody gone and missed it.' 'What story?' the voice chimed in again, more weakly.

The editor began reading the salient facts. The extracts from the King's draft speech excised by the Government. The replacement sections suggested by the Government, full of economics and optimism, which the King had refused to use. The conclusion that behind the King's recent address to the National Society of Charitable Foundations lay one hell of a row.

'So I want the story, Incest. Who's screwing who. And I want it for our next edition in forty minutes.' He was already scribbling draft headlines. 'But I haven't even seen the story,' the correspondent protested. 'Have you got a fax?' 'I'm in hospital!' came the plaintive protest. 'I'll bike it round. In the meantime get on the phone and get back to me with something in ten.' 'Are you sure it's true?'

'I don't care if the damned thing's true. It's a fantastic ball-breaking story and I want it on our front page in forty minutes!'

In editorial offices all around London similar words of motivation were being relayed to harassed Royal-watchers. There was the sniff of a downturn in the air, advertising revenues were beginning to fall, and that meant nervous proprietors who would more happily sacrifice their editors than their bottom lines. Fleet Street needed a good circulation-boosting story. This would put many tens of thousands on tomorrow's sales figures, and had the promise of being a story which would run and run.