Free Stormchild by Bernard Cornwell Page B

appearance until the very last moment. Even when Charles and I drove the repaired Austin Healey to the hotel that evening we still did not know if the guest of honor had actually arrived. Charles was in high spirits, anticipating an adventure, though I suspected the evening promised to bring nothing but disappointment.
    Because, as the delegates drifted toward the banqueting hall, von Rellsteb had still not shown up. I found Matthew Allenby frantically polishing his moderate speech in anticipation of having to fill von Rellsteb’s shoes. “I’m sorry,” he said to me, as though it was his fault that I was to be disappointed.
    “It doesn’t matter,” I reassured him.
    “He might yet come,” Matthew said, and in that hope Charles and I took our positions at the back of the banqueting hall. We deliberately did not try to find places at the tables, preferring to wait by the room’s main doors. If von Rellsteb did come he would enter the room by those doors, and our new plan of attack, enthusiastically proposed by Charles, was that we should grab him as he arrived. I had spent a thoughtful afternoon writing a letter to Nicole; that letter was in my jacket pocket. Charles reasoned that von Rellsteb, ambushed at the door, would agree to take the letter just to be rid of us, but, as the meal went on and there was still no sign of the guest of honor, my letter and Charles’s enthusiasm both seemed irrelevant.
    The speeches began. The conference chairperson gave a short talk extolling the life of Otto Zavatoni, whose vast brewing fortune, left in trust, made these biannual conferences possible. Then the visiting politicians were introduced and applauded. Most, I noted, came from small European opposition parties and were politicians whose hopes of office had long faded and whose careers therefore could not be hurt by an association with the more extreme green elements. And there was a handful of politicians from the Third World who received the loudest and warmest receptions. The introductions took a long and tedious time and, for want of any better way of entertaining myself, I looked around the huge banqueting hall for the reporter who had been wearing the yellow skirt. I did not see her.
    Nor was there any sign of von Rellsteb. Conference officials, still hoping for his arrival, scurried in and out of the banqueting hall. The room was restless. I noted how many reporters were present, clearly drawn by the chance of meeting the mysterious proponent of ecotage. But von Rellsteb still did not show, and, finally, the chairperson stood and bleakly announced that a change of plans was unfortunately dictated by the absence of the guest speaker, but that nevertheless the conference was most fortunate in having the company of Matthew Allenby who had agreed to replace the absent Caspar von Rellsteb. The applause that greeted the announcement was scattered and unenthusiastic.
    Matthew gave his reasonable and sensible speech. He was a good orator, but, even so, I could see the more extreme delegates shifting unhappily as he talked of consensus and education, and of agreement and cooperation. Many of the delegates had not come to hear about consensus, but about confrontation, and five minutes into Matthew’s speech there were the first stirrings of dissent as a table of Scandinavian activists started to heckle. Matthew made his voice stronger, temporarily stilling his critics. By now it was dark outside, and the big windows that faced the sea were a black sheen in which the chandeliers, ablaze with thousands of light bulbs, reflected brightly. Matthew spoke of setting attainable goals and of the importance of not alienating the ordinary man and woman who wanted to feel they could make a genuine contribution toward repairing the damaged fabric of the earth. A man who disagreed with the moderation of Matthew’s proposals struck the handle of his knife against his empty water glass. Someone else joined the ringing protest, and suddenly