For the Good of the State

‘Yes.’ Panin couldn’t duck so direct a challenge. ‘And I remember the Ukraine also, before I was transferred to the Berlin front at the Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State last—’

‘And Poland?’ Audley didn’t look at Tom. ‘You remember the Warsaw Rising? Did you hear the sound of our planes trying to drop supplies to them, when you were just across the river there—?

When you bastards wouldn’t give us landing rights, so we had to make the round trip—do you remember that sound, too?’

Every Pole knew that story, thought Tom. And not a few Poles still remembered the names of the Polish Lancaster bomber crews who had died on those abortive mercy trips, delivering half their loads to the Germans. But if that was designed for his benefit it was a crude and unnecessary reminder of unsettled scores, of which he needed no reminding… But then, at times, Audley was crude—

‘What are you saying, David?’ Audley’s sudden obsession with Polish history seemed to confuse the Russian. ‘I was a staff officer with the Guards—’

‘Huh!’ Audley tossed his head like a two-year-old.

‘A staff officer—’ Unbelievably Audley had drawn blood from Panin, the momentary emphasis suggested ‘—and I thought we were in the twelfth century—? Or… the mid-twelfth century?’

‘So we were!’ All Audley wanted was that tell-tale stain through those very old bandages, apparently. ‘And… what I mean is that they built their marvellous cathedrals, which took them closer to heaven than anyone’s ever been since… but then, the other half of their time the Normans were beasts— just like the little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead: Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State When she was good

She was very, very good,

But when she was bad she was horrid—

and, in fact, if you want a really good example of that, then who better than King Henry II Plantagenet himself, who came after Matilda-and-Stephen, eh?‘ Audley shook his head sadly at the Russian. ’A great king, Henry—knew his Latin and his Law. Ruled half of Western Europe. Made short work of bastards like Gilbert de Merville, and his like… Loved the Fair Rosamund—married the fair Eleanor, and all that…“ He shook his head again, and trailed off with a sigh.

Panin waited, not patiently but nonetheless well-contained within himself again now and not to be drawn. And in that moment of silence Tom knew exactly what Audley was about, and what was coming now.

‘So there he was, keeping Christmas like a good Christian in his own private two-thirds of France—’ Audley flicked a glance at Tom ‘—in Chinon, would it have been, Tom—in 1170—?

Somewhere like that, anyway—’ He transferred the glance back to Panin ‘—when this news arrived from England, about this damned inconvenient priest, who’d been shooting his mouth off again, because he reckoned the Church was above the State. Which drove Henry right up the wall, naturally. So he shouted—shouted supposedly to no one in particular, but to everyone in general—“Is there no one here among all you skunks, who owe me everything—

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State your horses, your lands and your castles and your droits de seigneur

—”—or, as it might be in your set-up today, Nikolai, “your Mercedes cars, and your dachas and Black Sea holidays, and your pretty ballet-dancers, and special shopping privileges”—“Is there no one who’ll get rid of this priest for me, with no questions asked?” ’ He drew a quick breath which was only half a sniff. ‘So Fitz-Urse and a few of the lads jumped in their Mercedes—on their horses—and took the next cross-Channel ferry and chopped up the priest right in front of his own altar.’ This time he grimaced quickly at Panin. ‘A proper bungled job, it was—they didn’t even bother to silence the witnesses. So Henry had to throw them to the wolves officially, the murderers—’ He cocked a frown at Tom ‘—

but what did happen to Fitz-Urse and the other three, Tom? I really ought to know, but for the life of me, I can’t recall at the moment

—?’

‘I don’t know.’ Tom, for the life of Tom, couldn’t look at the Russian at that moment. ‘I expect they were excommunicated and banished.’

‘Ah… yes, I’m sure they were!’ Audley agreed readily. ‘But, of course, you probably know the story, Nikolai, old comrade—the martyrdom of Archbishop Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury? It’s all in Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoples, which you’ve read—it’s just the sort of good story he revelled in.’ He grinned. ‘But, although he made the right noises about King Henry getting his comeuppance in the end, when those appalling sons of his made war on him—“Such is the bitter taste of worldly power.

Such are the correctives of glory”— I’ve always thought he had a Price, Anthony - For the Good of the State sneaking sympathy for Henry. I know I have—I think Thomas Becket was wrong, and got what he asked for… And, of course, after the 1945 Election, which corrected old Winston’s glory, no one knew the bitter taste of worldly power better than he did.’

Another grin. ‘And I was one of those who voted against him in

’45, too—I voted for Clem Attlee and Labour. Even though Attlee was an Oxford man.‘

By this time, although still for the life of him, Tom couldn’t not look at Nikolai Andrievich Panin, to see how he was handling Archbishop Saint Thomas Becket, and Henry II Plantagenet and Winston S. Churchill, not to mention Father Jerzy Popieluszko.

‘An Oxford man?’ Panin was handling them all well. ‘And you, of course, are a Cambridge man?’ The sheep-face was like a visor, worn and pitted with time on the outside, but betraying nothing of the man within. ‘A Cambridge man who remembers his quotations well!’

Audley shrugged modestly. ‘Oh… that’s just what my old Latin master beat into me, to help me pass my exams. Examiners love quotations. The trick is to throw the Latin ones into the History answers, and the History ones into the English ones, and the English ones into the bloody Latin, he said. Because that way they all think you know more than you’re telling. Or… even if they aren’t so stupid, at least they know that you’ve been well-taught, at any rate.’

Panin nodded. ‘I see.’ He stopped the nod with his sheep-face at an angle. ‘So you have been well-taught. But do you know less than you are telling now… or more?’

Price, Anthony - For the Good of the