Spare

They dredged up every relationship I’d ever had, every girl I’d ever been seen with, put it all into a blender, hired “experts,” a.k.a. quacks, to try to make sense of it. Books about me dived into my love life, homed in on each romantic failure and near miss. I seem to recall one detailing my flirtation with Cameron Diaz. Harry just couldn’t see himself with her, the author reported. Indeed I couldn’t, since we’d never met. I was never within fifty meters of Ms. Diaz, further proof that if you like reading pure bollocks then royal biographies are just your thing.

Behind all this hand-wringing about me was something more substantive than “tittle-tattle.” It went to the whole underpinning of the monarchy, which was based on marriage. The great controversies about kings and queens, going back centuries, generally centered on whom they married, and whom they didn’t, and the children who issued from those unions. You weren’t a fully vested member of the Royal Family, indeed a true human being, until you were wed. No coincidence that Granny, head of state in sixteen countries, started every speech: “My husband and I…” When Willy and Kate married they became The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, but more important they became a Household, and as such were entitled to more staff, more cars, bigger home, grander office, extra resources, engraved letterheads. I didn’t care about such perks, but I did care about respect. As a confirmed bachelor I was an outsider, a nonperson within my own family. If I wanted that to change, I had to get hitched. That simple.

All of which made my twenty-ninth birthday a complex milestone, and some days a complex migraine.

I shuddered to think of how I might feel on the next birthday: thirty. Truly over-the-hill. To say nothing of the inheritance it would trigger. Upon reaching thirty I’d receive a large sum left to me by Mummy. I scolded myself for being gloomy about that: most people would kill to inherit money. To me, however, it was another reminder of her absence, another sign of the void she’d left, which pounds and euros could never fill.

The best thing, I decided, was to get away from birthdays, get away from everything. I decided to mark the anniversary of my arrival on Earth by traveling to its end. I’d already been to the North Pole. Now I’d walk to the South.

Another trek in the company of Walking With The Wounded.

People warned me that the South Pole was even colder than the North. I laughed. How could that be possible? I’d already frozen my penis, mate—wasn’t that the very definition of worst-case scenario?

Also, this time I’d know how to take proper precautions—snugger underwear, more padding, etc. Better yet, one very close mate hired a seamstress to make me a bespoke cock cushion. Square, supportive, it was sewn from pieces of the softest fleece and…

Enough said.

66.

In between preparations for the assault on the Pole I sat down with my new private secretary, Ed Lane Fox, whom we all called Elf.

November 2013.

A onetime captain in the Household Cavalry, Elf was trim, smart, sleek. He often reminded people of Willy, but that was down to his hairline more than his personality. He reminded me less of my older brother than of a racing dog. Like a greyhound, he wouldn’t ever stop. He’d chase that rabbit to the end of time. In other words, he was wholly dedicated to the Cause, whatever it might be at any given moment.

His greatest gift, though, might’ve been his knack for seeing to the heart of things, for sizing up and simplifying situations and problems, which made him the perfect man to help enact this ambitious idea of an International Warrior Games.

Now that some of the money was in hand, Elf advised, next order of business was finding someone with the uncommon organizational skills, the social and political connections, to take on a job this size. He knew of just the man.

Sir Keith Mills.

Of course, I said. Sir Keith had organized the 2012 Olympics, in London, which had been such a smash.

Indeed, who else could there be?

Let’s invite Sir Keith to Kensington Palace for a cup of tea.

67.

I could build a scale replica of that sitting room. Two big windows, small red sofa, chandelier shining softly on an oil painting of a horse. I’d been there for meetings before. But when I walked in that day, I felt that this would be the setting for one of the more crucial meetings of my life, and every detail of the scene impressed itself on me.

I tried to stay calm as I pointed Sir Keith to a chair and asked how he took his tea.

After a few minutes of chitchat, I made my pitch.

Sir Keith listened respectfully, raptor-eyed, but when I’d finished he ummed and aahed.

All sounded very wonderful, he said, but he was semi-retired. Trying to cut back on projects, you know. He wanted to streamline his life, focus on his passions, chiefly sailing. America’s Cup, and so forth.

In fact he was scheduled to begin a holiday the very next day.