Chapter XXV:
A Competitive Examination

IN THE PAUSE between the bottom of the sixth and top of the seventh, while the groundskeepers dragged the base path, and freshened the baselines and batter’s box, and while I tried to shake off the dolor following Sandy’s departure, the Dragons and Knights mascots dashed onto the infield for their little show, which consisted of running in circles around each other, occasionally coming close enough for Sir George (so named at the team’s inception) to poke the dragon with his blunted sword, or the dragon to score a hit with limb or tail. An added attraction was the flame-throwing apparatus concealed within the head of the dragon’s costume, the operation of which drew the requisite oohs from the crowd, though I stood ready with a quenching spell in the event of a mishap. To the mascots’ credit, I did not need to employ it.

Home-field advantage dictated that Sir George win—reversed whenever the Knights played at Tbilisi—which he did after he and the dragon collided, locked arms, tumbled to the ground, and tussled about in mock mortal combat for a good three minutes, accompanied by the ballpark’s organ and the crowd chanting, “George, George, George!”—the rhythm and pitch escalating as the contest peaked to its inevitable conclusion.

None of it lifted my spirits a fingernail’s thickness.

As the game was getting back under way, I received another call, this time from a member of President Malory’s bodyguard detail confirming her visit to New Wembley and pumping me for security details. Annoyed and wanting to get back to watching my Knights, I told him to send a contingent in advance of the President’s arrival to meet with my chief of ballpark security. That I did not even contemplate zapping him for the annoyance bears proof of how low I felt.

After ringing off with him, I phoned the chief to give him the heads-up. I also texted the board members to inform them of a mandatory emergency meeting immediately after the game regarding the replacement of Sandy Carter. When one member had the audacity to text me back stating that replacing my personal assistant did not constitute a team emergency, I fired him, too, in a text that went to the entire board. No one else replied, and everyone—sans the fired one—arrived at my box for the meeting.

The Knights, by the by, won 11–5. Grigori, the player over whom Sandy and I had experienced our most recent falling-out, ended the night at one-for-four batting and no RBIs, and he recorded four putouts. With as much emphasis as I had put on hitting of late, I felt justified in my stance not to acquire the overpriced, overblown center fielder.

The board, while not pleased about another of Sandy’s departures, saw my point. Either that or they did not wish to risk their necks on the block, since I already had proven I was in a mood to chop.

“Madame, did you have someone in mind as Mr. Carter’s replacement?”

Indeed I did. It is a fine thing in this business called baseball to be surrounded by experts,—but only up to a point. Their knowledge balloons them to the bursting point, and they begin to adopt airs and assumptions to which they are not entitled, the end result being exactly what had happened between me and Sandy: conflict and chaos. What I needed was someone to assist me, not someone to run the team for me. As Queen of Gore I had my pick of princesses and princes, scions of client kings, with whom to populate my court. These young women and men were, if not precisely my peers, close enough to me in rank that I could trust their behavior and decisions. Dash it all, I missed having royalty round me. I said:

“I want Prince Peter.”

You would have thought by their beet-faced, purse-lipped, goggle-eyed reactions that I had ensorcelled them. Much more of that display, and I would earnestly begin to consider it.

“I am most serious, ladies and gentlemen. Prince Peter is a staunch Knights fan: he never misses a home game and attends a fair number of our away games. He has already completed his compulsory military service, and his other royal duties—Children’s Hospital Patron and that sort of thing—are flexible enough to make it feasible.” Plus, he was a bachelor, with the face of a god and the body to match, and languishing between romances, if the tabloid-zines could be believed; being third in line for the throne tends to reduce the urgency for a more stable lifestyle.

One woman had the balls to say, “He’d never go for being your assistant. And even if he did, his father wouldn’t. Prince Peter is royalty, for God’s sake!”

Dear Lord, the crosses I must bear with these dimwitted people. I said: “So he’s royalty. So, with royalty, titles are everything. Call him ‘Patron of the Knights Baseball Club’ and be done with it. As patron he would be required to work very closely with the owner of the Knights, would he not?”

That prompted a round of affirmative murmurs and nods, before a board member chimed in with, “What about the Devonshire Devils manager? He has done very well there for several years and is quite worthy of a promotion to the front office.”

Other “worthies” in the opinion of the board, once their tongues and brains shook themselves loose to rattle about in their heads, included six other managers, a batting coach, and three pitching coaches working for farm clubs across the landscape,—and not a single drop of blue blood among the lot.

Being queen means always getting one’s way, and in the end, the board had to bow to my wish to invite Prince Peter to become Patron of the Knights, which he accepted with the grace and speed of a leopard on the hunt.

I must admit in retrospect the move was an unequivocal disaster. It did carry the singular advantage of my being invited to the über-posh Royal Box; but the sex was only fair, and Prince Peter’s public entourage, which included a cloud of hopeful young women, and ever so many photographers hoping to film him with anybody in a compromising pose, was an annoyance of imperial proportions.

They do not make royalty like they used to.

One cannot offer a title to a royal and then yank it back again, so I allowed the office of Patron of the Knights to be a symbolic one; that was the sad tack to which the British monarchy had for centuries been accustomed, and so Prince Peter experienced no difficulties with the transition. In fact, I believe he rather enjoyed it, to judge by the giggles and other noises emanating from the Royal Box whenever I walked past.

Engaging a responsibility-free Patron of the Knights left me one personal assistant short, however, so I took a deep breath, banished my anger, and proposed to the board that they do whatever it took to get Sandy back, even if it meant giving him the GM job and shuffling everyone else thither and yon accordingly. They were not best pleased by this development but acceded to my request. I suspect they knew as well as I did that given the on-again-off-again nature of my relationship with Sandy, it would take quite a sweet pot to lure this bee back to the hive… and its queen.