“The wedding will take place on the day after your arrival in the city of Strackenz,” Bismarck went on, for all the world as though he had been telling me the time of day. “You have already received some instruction in the details of the ceremony, of course. And then—all plain sailing, as you people say.”

He sat down, and poured himself a glass of brandy from the decanter. He sipped at it, while I sat mute, staring at my glass. “Well, Mr Flashman; what have you to say?”

“What the hell does it matter what I say?” I burst out. “I’ve no choice, damn you!”

To my amazement, he actually chuckled. He stretched his legs and twirled the stem of his glass between his fingers.

“None at all,” says he, grinning. “Flashman, you should be glad. You will be making history—aye, great history. Do you realise, I wonder, the magnitude of what we are doing? We are nailing a little hinge to a door, a great door which will open to reveal the destiny of a greater Germany! And you—a half-pay officer of no account, a pawn even in your own country’s affairs—you are going to make it possible! Can you imagine what it means?” The man was positively beaming now, with a kind of fierce joy in his eyes. “For we are going to win! We six here, we are staking ourselves, our lives, everything—and we are going to succeed! I look at you, and I know we cannot fail. God has sent you to Germany, and I send you now to Strackenz.” There was a nice little comparison there, all right. “And in Strackenz you will play such a game as has never been played before in the history of the world. And you will not fail—I know it! What a destiny! To be one of the architects of the new Fatherland!” He lifted his glass. “I salute you, and drink to our enterprise!”

Believe it or not, he actually raised my spirits a little with that. Of course, it was all humbug, designed to put some backbone into me—that was all he knew—but the man was so supremely confident it was infectious: if he really believed we could bring it off—well, perhaps we could. The others cheered and we all drank, and Bismarck sighed and refilled his glass. I’d never seen him anything like this before; for the moment he was almost jovial, showing an entirely new side of his nature—all carefully calculated for my benefit, I imagine.