Michael Dobbs - To play the king

'MP for Dagenham. And you're Mycroft, the King's press secretary. Didn't know you were one of the girls.'

The youth with pimples looked scarcely sixteen with unpleasant yellow stains between his teeth. Mycroft felt sick.

'Don't worry, old love. I'm not from the News of the Screws or anything. If you want to lock it away, your dark and dreadful secret's safe with me. All girls together now, aren't we? Happy New Year!' A gurgle began in the back of Marples' throat which passed as a chuckle and he leaned to kiss Mycroft. As two thick wet lips extended towards him Mycroft knew he was on the verge of vomiting and gave a lunge of desperation, pushing the MP away as he made a dash for the door.

Outside it was pouring with rain and he'd left his mohair overcoat inside. He was freezing and would soon be soaked. It didn't matter. As he fought to rid himself of the taste of bile and to cleanse his lungs with fresh air, he decided the overcoat was the least of his concerns. With creatures like Marples inside, he would rather die of pneumonia than go back to collect it.

She studied his face meticulously. It had lost its brightness and energy. The eyes sagged, looked older, the high forehead was rutted, the lips dry and inelastic, the jaw set. The atmosphere was heavy with cigarette smoke.

'You arrive in this place, believing you'll remould the world to your will. And all it does is to close in around you until you feel there's no way out. Reminds you how mortal you are.'

He was no longer a Prime Minister, an elevated figure above the rest. All she saw was a man, like any other, with troubles piled high upon his shoulders. 'Mrs Urquhart not here…?'

'No,' he responded, brooding, until he seemed to realize he might have given the wrong impression. He looked up at her from his glass of whisky. 'No, Sally. It's not that. It's never quite like that.' 'Then what?'

He shrugged slowly, as if his muscles ached from the unseen burden. 'Normally I'm not prone to self-doubt. But there are times when all you've planned seems to slip like sand between your fingers, the more you scrabble for it the more elusive and intangible it becomes.' He lit another cigarette, sucking the harsh smoke down hungrily. 'It has, as they say, been one of those fortnights.'

He looked at her silently for a long moment through the fresh blue haze which hung like incense in a cathedral. They were seated in the two leather armchairs of his study, it was past ten and the room was dark except for the light of two standard lamps which seemed to reach out and embrace them, forming a little world of their own and cutting them off from what lay in darkness beyond the door. She could tell he'd already had a couple of whiskies. 'I'm grateful for the distraction.' 'Distraction from what?' 'Ever the businesswoman!' 'Or gypsy. What's bothering you, Francis?'

His eyes, rims red, held her, wondering how far he should trust her, trying to burrow inside to discover what thoughts hid behind the coyness. He found not pools of feminine sentimentality but resilience, toughness. She was good, very good, at hiding the inner core. They were two of a kind. He took another deep lungful of nicotine; after all, what did he have to lose? 'I was thinking of holding an election in March. Now I'm not. I can't. It will all probably end in disaster. And God save the King.'

There was no hiding the bitterness, or the genuine anguish of his appraisal. He had expected her to be taken aback, surprised by the revelation of his plans, but she seemed to show no more emotion than if she were studying a new recipe. 'The King's not standing for election, Francis.'

'No, but the Opposition are walking in his shadow, which is proving to be exceptionally long. What are we… eight points behind? And all because of one, naive ribbon cutter.'

'And you can't deal with the Opposition without dealing with the King?' He nodded.

'Then what's the problem? You were willing to have a crack at him before Christmas.'

His gaze was rueful. 'I was trying to silence him, not slaughter him. And I lost. Remember? Over a simple, silly speech. Now his words have become weapons on the field of parliamentary battle and I can't discredit them without discrediting the King.'

'You don't have to kill him, just kill off his popularity. A public figure is only as popular as his opinion-poll ratings, and they can be fixed. At least temporarily. Wouldn't that do?'

He swilled another mouthful of whisky, staring hard at her body. 'O Gypsy, there is fire in your breast. But I have already taken him on once, and lost. I couldn't afford to lose a second time.'

'If what you say about the election is true, it seems to me you can't afford not to take him on. He's only a man,' she persisted.

'You don't understand. In an hereditary system the man is everything. You are all George Washingtons, you Americans.' He was dismissive, deep into his glass.

She ignored the sarcasm. 'You mean the same George Washington who grew to be old, powerful, rich – and died in his bed?' 'A Monarch is like a great oak beneath which we all shelter…' 'Washington was cutting down trees when he was a boy.'

'An attack on the Monarchy would turn the electorate into a lynch mob. Bodies – my body – swinging from the highest branches.' 'Unless you lopped off the branches.'

They were engaged in a verbal duel, thrust and parry, parry and thrust, automatic responses, using the honed edges of their intellects. Only now did Urquhart pause to reflect, and as his eyes ran over her she could feel the tension begin to drain from him, the malt beginning to dissolve the shards of glass grating inside. She felt his gaze wandering up from her ankles, over her knees, admiring the waist. Then he was lingering at her breasts, oh, and how he lingered, peeling off layer after layer, and she knew the mellowness had already been replaced by a renewed tightening inside. He was changing from victim to hunter. It brought back a sense of boldness, of command, as the energy of fresh ideas began to flow through his veins and wipe away the lines of despondency which had crowded in around his eyes. In their small world of the armchairs, he began to rise above his troubles and to feel once more in control. As if he were back on his Chesterfield. When, finally, his thoughts had travelled up her body and their eyes met, she was smiling, slightly mocking, reproachful but not discouraging. Her body had been massaged by his imagination, and responded. He brightened. To do battle with the Monarch would be…' 'Constitutionally improper?' She was goading.

'Bad politics. As I have already learned, to my cost. The King's speech gave him the high ground and I cannot afford to be seen once again in public dispute with him…' He arched an eyebrow, exquisitely. She had never known an eyebrow to express such passion. 'But perhaps you are right. If I am denied the high ground, then there is always the low ground.' Once more he was alive, tingling, she could feel the energy and renewed hope. 'An hereditary Monarchy is an institution which defies all logic. An opiate we sprinkle on the masses from time to time to reassure them, to fill them full of pride and respect, to extract their allegiance without them asking too many questions.' 'Isn't that what tradition is all about?'

'Yet once they start asking questions about an hereditary system there is little logic left to sustain it. All inbreeding and isolation, palaces and princely privilege. It is not the stuff of a modern world. Or of a debate about the underprivileged. Of course, I couldn't possibly be seen to lead such an attack. But if such an attack were to be mounted…' 'The King is Dead, Long Live the Prime Minister!'

'No, you go too far! You're talking revolution. If you start hacking away at the greatest tree in the forest, there's no telling how many others will be brought down with it.'