The twentieth century has borne witness to a spate of exiled royal families, and a brace of strange tales to match. Only recently has it been demonstrated to satisfaction that the imperial family of the Romanovs was entirely extinguished in the Russian Revolution. As for the Saxe-Coburg line of Bulgarian kings, the exiled infant Simeon II would return many years later to win election as prime minister of the republic that had once overthrown him.

And what of Marania, that charmed but impoverished island nation lying in the distant ocean blue of the imagination, yet within reasonable flying distance of London Heathrow? Inexorable forces are at work. Some former royals chafe at their exile, while others have become more than resigned to it. All are swept up in an improbable train of unfolding events.

 

As Basil Vestine, General Secretary of Marania, seeks physical release in his regular run through Constitution Park in the capital city of Urbana, before his eyes loom dark and puzzling images of a sad and formless mental panorama which speaks of the centuries of human suffering that constitute the history of his country.

This history is composed of violence and the constant threat of violence. He sees a land dominated by xenophobia, and a people whose rulers – from the tribal chiefs to the seaborne plunderers and the Arabic invaders, the kings and the revolutionary leaders – chose to seal Maranians off from the world.

Yet he sees too, in remote and diffuse fragments, the beam cast by glorious heroes, by the notable few who served human liberty.