The Queen Must Die

by K. A. S. Quinn

  Katie was trying hard to understand. ‘So what have you done to my diary?’ she asked. ‘Is it magic now? Or scientifically modified?’

  DuQuelle laughed. ‘No, indeed, and that’s the beauty of it all. Though you travelled here through our abilities, you will travel back through your own. You are the Tempus, chosen by some force beyond us, to understand the power of the written word. And now you must harness that ability to your own writing, your own words. It is your thoughts, from your own time, that will send you home. Katie, find your own voice. That is the key to all the travels of your life.’

  Katie took off Alice’s cloak and, hitching the rucksack over one shoulder, slid under the sofa. DuQuelle got down beside her. ‘Turn to the 1st of May,’ he ordered.

  ‘But that is today,’ Katie protested. ‘Or at least the bit of today that’s left. I haven’t written in my diary since I arrived. I didn’t even know it was here.’

  ‘You’ll be surprised,’ DuQuelle responded. ‘Now open the diary and try to concentrate. Dig your heels in. Put that wilfulness of yours to good use.’

  Katie opened her diary to find all her feelings and actions lay before her. There in its pages was the friendship and fear, the kidnap of Riordan, the Crystal Palace, and the attempt to assassinate the Queen, Lucia, Belzen, DuQuelle… How could it all have got there? ‘Find your own voice,’ Bernardo DuQuelle had said. This was her own voice.

  DuQuelle peered under the sofa, ‘You certainly don’t think much of me,’ he said, poking the diary with his walking stick. ‘But that will change with time. I somehow think that we will meet again.’

  Katie looked up at DuQuelle. His eyes glittered, but his face was sphinx-like. He was still the greatest mystery of all. ‘What is your universe called?’ she asked.

  ‘I do not know,’ he said. ‘We have lost our words and can only use yours. You think of a name for us. Though limited in many ways, you have great powers of communication. I will abide, Katie, by your choice of words. Now go back,’ he commanded. ‘Go back in your diary to the time before you came. Read up to that date. Concentrate on what is happening, feel it, live it.’

  She bent her head to the diary to meet – again – her own life. There was her school, Neuman Hubris, and the babble of her classmates. Tiffany sprang up from the diary cooing adoringly at baby Angel. Her father exhaled through his nose in exasperation and Dolores grumbled ‘You think you’re so smart, but you don’ know nothin…’ And there was Mimi, sitting in the kitchen, smoking by the open window so that Dolores wouldn’t know. Head tipped back, blowing smoke rings, her speciality.

  ‘How can you let those girls get to you?’ Mimi was saying to Katie after some playground fiasco. ‘I’ve seen them in endless school plays. Cheyenne is certain to run to cellulite and Amber has a very iffy chin. Neither of them has your long legs or cheekbones. Tell them to go to hell.’

  As Katie reread her diary, Mimi seemed so different. Why? Could it be that Mimi had changed? Or was it Katie? It had only been a few months since Katie had appeared under the sofa at Buckingham Palace, but she felt years older. One hundred and fifty-something years had given her a bit of distance from her own life. ‘Look at Alice,’ she thought. ‘The Queen spends so much time as the mother of the Empire, that she has little time to mother her own children. And then there’s James, so secretly hurt, wanting his own mother so much – a mother who can never come back.’

  As Katie turned the pages, she could hear her own voice, telling her what really counted. It was Mimi, looking up from the diary with a face that expressed so many emotions at one time. There was anger, resentment, boredom, frustration – and love. And not just ‘Hey, girlfriend, call me Mimi’ love, but mother love. Katie turned to another entry. ‘I cried myself to sleep,’ she had written, ‘and when I woke up Mimi was lying next to me, her arm across my chest.’

  ‘She doesn’t know it most of the time,’ Katie realized, ‘but I am the love of Mimi’s life. The men will come and go, but I will always be there. Hey, I’m the only stability she has. I haven’t been truthful with myself about Mimi. She’ll be frantic when she realizes I’m gone. And yes, it will be drama queen, over-the-top, cry on prime-time news frantic, but her pain will be real enough.’

  Something was happening in the corridor at Buckingham Palace. Katie could faintly hear Leopold’s excited voice and then a cry from Alice. There was shouting and shuffling, a full-scale brawl. Someone was pulling her rucksack out from under her… trying to reach her… but Mimi was reaching out too… becoming stronger and louder… insistent that Katie return to her… asserting herself as a mother… demanding her daughter… Katie was flying, or was she falling?… all she could see now was Mimi… with her complex face of love and anger… and then there was nothing.

  Silence. And then the growing murmur of suppressed, excited voices. ‘It’s all gone wrong,’ Katie thought. ‘Oh my God, is it Mr Belzen? I don’t believe DuQuelle is strong enough to fight him off. Alice and James: they need my help. We must abort the time travel attempt. Now that we know how to do it, we can try again, I can always go back tomorrow.’

  She turned her head and felt the scratchy shag of carpet beneath her cheek. She sneezed. Dust. Dolores hated getting out the vacuum cleaner. The slap of the iron came to her. The excited voices were a Spanish soap opera. She was home, and whatever was happening in Buckingham Palace would have to go on without her. She could be of no help.

  Katie crawled out from under her bed. There was no panic in the apartment. No police cordons and no screaming Mimi. It looked the way it always looked, with the vomit pink carpet and wallpaper fairies. It sounded the way it always did, what with the ironing and the TV and the New York traffic many floors below. ‘But it’s not the same,’ Katie said to herself, ‘I can prove it.’ Feeling around under the bed, she found her diary.

  Flipping through the pages she looked for the day’s entry. There was no 1st of May or 1st of April or 1st of March. The last thing Katie had written was on the 1st of February, the day she had fallen asleep over her book and travelled through time. There was no Alice, no James O’Reilly and certainly no Bernardo DuQuelle, no Verus and no Malum. It was as if her adventures had never happened. Searching under her bed again she found the book, the letters from Queen Victoria’s daughters. She carefully looked up Princess Alice. There were dozens of letters from Alice to her sisters, but not one of them mentioned Katie Berger-Jones-Burg. Katie shook her head at the book. ‘I’m sorry I teased you about writing boring letters,’ she told the printed words. ‘Because this is all I have of you now.’ She carefully closed the book, as if saying goodbye to a best friend, and giving it a hug, put it in the cardboard box with her other treasures. ‘It was not a dream,’ she said as loud as she could. ‘There is a world beyond my world. Many worlds. We are still in danger.’

  ‘Is that you, sleepy head?’ Dolores yelled from the kitchen. ‘You’ve been dozing under that bed for the whole afternoon,’ she added, without taking her eyes from the small television perched on the counter. ‘She’s got a nice comfy bed with Gucci sheets and pillows, a down comforter, the works. But does she sleep on it? No, she does not. She sleeps under it, like an old stray dog,’ Dolores confided to a very sexy nurse on the television screen. ‘Mimi called,’ she added.

  Katie knew this final comment was not meant for the nurse. She stumped into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. There was nothing new inside.

  ‘So she’s married, huh? Well, mazel tov to her.’

  ‘She is not married,’ Dolores said. ‘She did not make it to the altar. She didn’t even make it to Acapulco. Seems there’s already a Mrs Fishberg, and that Dr Fishberg is not planning a divorce. So much for Mimi’s soulmate. My guess is that soulmates and alimony don’t get along too good.’

  Katie took a banana from the bowl and peeled it. ‘Katie Berger-Jones-Burg-Fishberg,’ she said tentatively. ‘That was a narrow escape.’

  Dolores finally looked up from the television.

  ‘Mim
i was crying,’ she said, taking up a white silk shirt to iron. ‘Crying to beat the band. When she gets home she’s gonna cry all night long, and you’re gonna have to be the shoulder she cries on.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ Katie said. And she really did mean it.

  ‘There’s a package for you,’ Dolores added. ‘It arrived some twenty minutes ago. The doorman says be careful. It was a kind of weird guy dropping it off. I said, don’t worry. You’ve had some pretty weird daddies. Maybe one of them remembered your birthday or something.’

  Katie took up a very long, narrow parcel. It was wrapped in stiff brown paper and tied up in cord.

  Katie Berger-Jones-Burg

  was written in the most elaborate penmanship, the many flourishes and swirls made it difficult to read. There was no address, no stamp, no date. Her heart skipped a beat. It was not from her time. With shaking hands she cut the cord and undid the paper, exposing an ivory and gold box. She lifted the lid.

  Dolores harrumphed and returned to her ironing. ‘That’s no gift for a child,’ she said to the nurse on the television.

  Inside the box was a walking stick of ebony with its elaborate silver head engraved with strange letters and symbols. Katie could still see Bernardo DuQuelle. Still feel the walking stick poking her in the chest as the carriage rolled along. An embossed card fell from the folds of tissue. The card read:

  Aide Memoire

  To help her remember! Katie shivered, and then smiled. As if she could forget.

  Dear Reader,

  This is a story filled with both fact and fiction. Queen Victoria did have a daughter named Alice, but there is no record of Alice finding a twenty-first-century time traveller under the sofa in Buckingham Palace. Baroness Lehzen did exist; though Fräulein Bauer’s grisly death is pure imagination. Prince Leopold did suffer from haemophilia. Joseph Paxton did create the Crystal Palace. And the Queen did love Prince Albert dearly.

  If you’re interested in the Victorians and the 1800s, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London is a good place to start. Its collection of drawings, reporting and memorabilia on the Crystal Palace is wondrous. I also recommend The Museum of Childhood and The Foundling Museum, also in London. They often have moving and fascinating exhibitions on Victorian childhood.

  There are so many interesting facts about the Victorians, but occasionally the 1851 in The Queen Must Die is at odds with the 1851 in your history books. Every once in a while I’ve tinkered with the ages, temperaments and actions of some of the real people involved. I don’t think it’s enough to affect any of your exams…

  One fact is rock solid though. Katie, Alice and James are as real to me as if they were my own sisters and brother. They were alive in my head, and I was truly sad when I finished writing this book. Luckily for me, The Queen Must Die is the first of three books, a trilogy called ‘Chronicles of the Tempus’. It was a great joy to begin writing the second book: The Queen at War. Katie, Alice and James will be back, along with many new characters, such as Florence Nightingale. I’m particularly fond of Miss Nightingale, though she probably wouldn’t have cared for me. She didn’t suffer fools gladly.

  I’d really like to know what you think of this story. And do you have any questions? I’ll try to answer them. You can talk to me on my Facebook page (Chronicles of the Tempus), or through my website: www.chroniclesofthetempus.com. It would be very exciting to hear from you.

  Respectfully yours,

  K. A. S. Quinn

  Prologue

  The Darkened Room

  A single candle flickered on the bedside table, casting the faces of a boy and girl into light and shadow. The boy bent over the bed, and wiping the girl’s forehead with a damp cloth, spoke with a roughness meant to mask his anxiety. ‘I am surprised at you Grace; you’re supposed to be the obedient one. Yet you’ve gone against father’s orders and returned from Florence. The climate there was helping you. Father says you were gaining strength each day and were on the road to a good recovery. How do you expect to get well in London’s damp and fog? You had to take to bed from the moment you stepped off the mail steamer.’

  The candle caught the girl’s eyes, bright with something beyond the tears that filled them. ‘James, I couldn’t stay away. I begged to return. I longed for the mists and rains, the soft green of England. I even yearned for the smoke and bustle of London. And I had to see you and Jack, to be with my dear wee brothers. You’re growing so fast, the only truly little one left is Riordan. And then war is coming. Jack’s regiment will soon be off to the East. I know father says I was getting better in Florence, but each day I woke, feeling I’d lost something, and knew I would never get it back. I so fear—’

  A hacking cough sent the girl bolt upright in bed, struggling for breath. James rubbed her back vigorously, propping the pillows behind her. He busied himself, warming a liquid over the candle, and then measuring drops into a glass. ‘Don’t talk Grace,’ he said. ‘It tires you so. Here, take this, it will help you to rest. Now do as your “wee brother” instructs, he’s a good foot taller than you now.’ James tried to smile, but it was a thin-lipped effort. Grace smiled back, and taking the glass, drank it down to please him.

  ‘You take such good care of me James. You and Jack, such strapping fine young men now; I want so much to see you grown, to—’

  James interrupted, placing a finger against her lips. ‘Rest, I said. Not talk, but rest. When did you become such a chatterbox? Father says there’s nothing wrong with you except exhaustion, too frantic a social life, too much dancing in crowded ballrooms. He thinks the waltz is the source of much evil.’

  ‘Father says even worse. Don’t you know it’s all due to books? He says I read too much and it’s brought on a hectic fever. The lectures I’ve had on “over-stimulation of the female brain”.’ James and Grace both laughed, but hers was cut short by the persistent hacking cough.

  ‘Rest,’ was all James said, but his eyes said much more as he made her as comfortable as possible. ‘I’ve left a bell next to the bed, and I’ll move the candle over here onto the dresser. The palace has arranged that I can sleep next door. Ring if you need me. Goodnight dear Grace. Sleep well. I am certain you will feel better in the morning.’

  ‘You are sweet to hope James, but I doubt it will be so,’ Grace murmured. The drops were beginning to take affect. She closed her eyes, breathing more evenly.

  In the next room another girl waited for James, a girl with silky brown hair and serious gray eyes. She moved quickly across the room, holding back her long skirts with one hand. ‘How is she James?’ Princess Alice asked. ‘Do I need to call your father?’ James looked bitter and weary, older than his years.

  ‘My father continues to pretend that Grace is simply “delicate”. I try to go along with this, but you know as well as I do what the truth is – Grace is an intelligent person and can see through the pretense as well. She’s losing hope, and we’re losing vital time.’ Alice drew a chair up next to the fire and coaxed James into it.

  ‘If your father could put aside his pride, admit he was wrong about Grace’s illness, could he cure her?’ she asked.

  James stared at the fire. In his mind, Grace’s frightened eyes glittered back through the flames. ‘I hate to say it Alice, but Grace’s illness is beyond my father’s capabilities. Yes, I know he’s at the peak of his profession, physician to the Royal Household. But that position was achieved through good looks and a glib tongue. I’m afraid his ability to charm the Queen holds more sway than his medical talents.’ James blushed. ‘I’m sorry Alice. I would never be disloyal to your mother, and I wish with all my heart I had more faith in my father, but he is more likely to harm Grace than cure her.’

  Alice stood behind James, staring into the fire as well. ‘Is there anyone else who could help – any other physician?’ James shook his head.

  ‘There are doctors who have had some luck treating this type of illness. But that’s the problem, it is just luck. Sometimes patients recover, yes; but at other time
s they waste away, or are gone within hours through a galloping fever. I’ve been reading everything I can; doctor’s notes, university lectures, medical treatise. Each one contradicts the other. The only certainty is the no one in this world knows enough to cure Grace.’

  He slumped in the chair, and Alice looked down on her friend’s bent head. ‘If the answer isn’t in this world, it might be in another,’ she said. ‘There’s only one thing I can think of to do, and I’m going to go do it now.’ Patting James lightly on the shoulder, Alice went out of the room and into the corridor. Up the stairs and down she went, stumbling slightly on her skirts – they’d only just been let down to suit her years. ‘It is a nuisance,’ she mumbled to herself, ‘she was right about our clothes.’ Moving aside a tapestry, she knocked softly on the low door behind it.

  ‘Ah yes, do come in,’ said a low, foreign voice from within, as if she were expected. It was a small room, more like a closet, with stone walls curved upwards to an arched ceiling. It had a strangely medieval feel, a forgotten room in the midst of a modern, bustling palace. Inside she found a tall man of striking pallor, sitting at a desk, poring over a manuscript. He stood as Alice entered, bowing deeply.

  ‘You are up late princess.’

  ‘I come from a sad vigil,’ Alice replied. ‘James O’Reilly’s sister Grace. She is deathly ill.’

  The tall, pale man offered his chair. ‘It is indeed sad,’ he said, ‘when one so young is found in such a hopeless, helpless state. She has my sympathy.’ Alice did not sit, but stared at his desk absently, hardly noticing the strange symbols etched on the manuscript before her. She looked up, into the man’s creased white face.

  ‘It is hopeless for Grace,’ she said. ‘Because no one in this world can help her. But you have other means, other ways. You know what brings me here?’ He smiled slightly and nodded. ‘She must be called,’ Alice added. He smiled again, but this time shook his head in dissent.