Blondel shrugged. 'All right,' he said amicably, 'entirely up to you. I just thought you might be more comfortable sitting down. Have an aspirin or something.'

'I don't want an aspirin,' Giovanni replied. 'For two pins I'd take a short cut through a couple of hours and only come back when it's all over. Only then I wouldn't be able to keep an eye on you ...

The door opened and Guy came in with a tray. It contained a gla.s.s of water, a dry biscuit and a handful of seedless currants.

'There's a man outside,' he said, 'claims he's from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, wants an interview. I told him to get lost.'

Blondel drank half the water and nibbled the edge of the biscuit. 'He was probably telling the truth, actually,' he said. 'Still, I don't much care for reporters. Silly of me, I know, and they're only doing their job, but -'

'Job nothing,' Giovanni interrupted. 'We've done an exclusive deal with the FT.'

'Never mind,' Blondel said. 'Now, if it'll take your mind off worrying, we can run through the programme. Will that make you feel any better?'

Giovanni nodded. He'd grown his fingernails for two years just to be ready for tonight, and he'd finished them already.

'Well,' Blondel said, 'we'll start off with Purgator

Criminum, something with a bit of go to it; then we'll have Ma Joie, follow that up with a couple of numbers from the GB-'

'Which ones?'

'I thought Estuans Intrinsecus, followed by Imperator Rex Grecorum. Or do you think that's wise, after what happened at Antioch?'

'Don't worry about that,' Giovanni rea.s.sured him, 'I've brought in the whole of the Knights Templar to cover security. First sign of any trouble, they'll be out, dead and excommunicated.'

Blondel shrugged again. 'Nothing to do with me,' he said. 'Then I thought we'd do the rest of the White Alb.u.m stuff, finish off with Mihi Est Propositum, and have the break there. That sound OK?'

Giovanni nodded. 'That's good,' he said. 'That way we'll sell a h.e.l.l of a lot of peanuts in the interval. So what about the second half?'

'Pretty straightforward,' Blondel said. 'We'll do all the new material there.'

'New material?' Guy interrupted. 'You mean you've written more songs since you...'

Blondel grinned. 'I like to keep my hand in,' he said, 'just for fun. So I reckon we might as well do Greensleeves, Molly Malone, Shenandoah, Au Pres De Ma Blonde, Liliburlero and The Bonnie Banks of-'

'Hang on,' Guy said.

Blondel wrinkled his nose. 'Maybe you're right,' he said, 'not Loch Lomond. Don't know what I was thinking of. How about Swing Low Sweet Chariot?'

'Ever since Blondel ... retired,' Giovanni explained, 'he's written under a nom de plume.'

'What's that?'

'Anonymous.'

Guy closed his eyes and then opened them again. 'What, all of them?' he asked.

Blondel made a tiny movement with his shoulders. It might have been wincing. 'Pretty well,' he said.

'Did you write Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major?' Blondel nodded. He did not speak.

'And Frankie and Johnny?'

Blondel's head dipped, just perceptibly. 'Really?'

Blondel nodded again and smiled; or at least he lifted the curtain of his lips on a set of clenched teeth.

'Gosh,' Guy said. He seemed to experience an inner struggle, as perhaps between hero-worship and extreme embarra.s.sment. 'Er, can I have your auto -Blondel gave him a cold look.

'I also,' he said, 'wrote -'

'It's not for me,' Guy went on, 'it's for my -'

Western Wind When Wilt Thou Blow, Silent Night and The Vicar of Bray,' Blondel went on. He signed the envelope-back that Guy had thrust at him without comment. 'Anyway,' he added, after a while, 'that ought to do for tonight. And of course we can finish up with L'Amours Dont Sui Epris. End up with something they can hum on the way home, you know.'

'You didn't write -'

'No,' Blondel snapped, 'certainly not. Look, unless anyone's got anything important they want to talk about, I really am going to try and get a nap now. All right?'

'Anything you say,' Guy said. He folded the envelope carefully and put it away. Even then, he felt he had to add something. You don't meet a seminal genius every day, after all.

'Mr Blondel,' he said, 'I take my hat off to you.'

'So long as it's your own hat,' Blondel replied sleepily, 'that's fine by me. Shut the door behind you when you go.'

Guy did so. By this time, Giovanni had disappeared to have another tearing row with the electricians. The man from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle had retired to the bar, and was probably trying to coax a story out of the PR people in an attempt to scoop the Tres Riches Heures Du Duc De Bern. There was nothing, Guy decided, that he could usefully do; which meant he had time to go and find something to eat. Now that was a good idea.

A section of the audience was having trouble finding its seat.

'This,' it said, 'is Row 8765, right?'

'Yes,' said the usher, 'but -'

'And this is a ticket, right?'

'Looks like one,' the usher admitted, 'but -'

'Read me,' said the section of the audience, 'what it says on the ticket.'

'Row 8765 Seat 3654,' said the usher, 'but -'

'Thank you,' said the section of the audience. 'Now, if you'll kindly throw out the man who's sitting in my seat, I can take the weight off my foot and sit down, and you can go and do something else.'

But he's got a ticket too, the usher would have said, if he hadn't met the full force of the section of the audience's eye. As it was, he said, 'Yes, sir,' and shortly afterwards, 'You, out of it.' This remark was addressed, as it happened, to the music critic of the Oceanian, whose great-great-great-great-great-grandfather had booked the seat five hundred years in advance and left it in his will, together with strict instructions to his descendants to devote themselves solely to preparing themselves for this event.

'Thank you,' said the section of the audience, as the music critic of the Oceanian was carried away on an improvised stretcher. 'You can go now.'

'Yes, sir.'