by White, Gwynn
“If it had, would I be here now, officially dead, on the run from my own son-in-law? Before we could complete the ritual, Oswald betrayed me.”
“That traitorous knave.”
“I trusted him, Robert. He was my closest confidant, my daughter’s husband, the father of my heir. Fool that I am! And now I’ve lost Ringgil.”
“He’ll be sorely missed.”
“But all hope is not lost,” HM said.
It isn’t? Leonie thought.
“I have in my possession a little book that once belonged to Diarmait MacConn, with his handwriting on it and a trace of his blood. As you know, the Black Mother joined herself to his cause after the Belfast Uprising, under the name of Millie O’Braonain.”
“Alyx O’Braonain—”
“Their daughter. Still pesters Ireland, and I have had to let her live, for fear of offending the mother. But that’s scarcely the most pressing of my troubles now. See here?” There was a crackling noise, as of a map being unfolded. “Ringgil and I used the souvenir to trace the Black Mother to her lair.”
“How did you do that?”
“She was the only woman Diarmair MacConn truly loved, God help him. What endures of him is indissolubly joined to her. And so his spirit guided us to her. I saw her in Ringgil’s cauldron—a vision of ugliness, by the way. The years have not been kind.”
“Having found her, couldn’t you have winkled her out the usual way, using the police?”
“The Black Mother, Robert? How well do you think that would have gone? No, I had to summon her with power—to make her obey me. But then Oswald’s men struck.”
“So near, and yet so far,” Sir Robert grunted.
“But all is not lost. I know where she is, and I shall go there myself.”
“Impossible! Depend on it, Oswild’s men are hunting you even now. Your first duty is to survive. You must flee to safety!”
“You certainly know how to hearten a man, Robert.”
“I speak only the truth. I would lay down my life for you, but I cannot protect you here. You must go to your cousins in Germany.”
Leonie exhaled in relief. At last they were talking sense. But then HM laughed. It was the first real laugh she’d heard from him since Castle Arundel. “The Bismarcks? Are you serious? My father-in-law has wished me dead for years. For all I know he may have plotted this with Oswald.”
“Rainer Bismarck is an honorable man—”
“And the financial markets are in a mess, and he takes that sort of thing seriously.” HM spoke with utter contempt. “No, if I went to Rainer I would end up plastinated. Or rather, I would end up cremated, and a touched-up doppelganger with a decent credit rating would end up on the auction block, sold off to pay the senior bondholders.”
“Go to Spain, then! King Carlos owes his realm to you. He cannot refuse you sanctuary. My yacht is at your disposal.”
“Old friend, your loyalty means a great deal. But I’m done with running.”
There was a long pause.
“At least I beg you, don’t do this alone,” Sir Robert said, sounding defeated. “Can’t you call on your livery for aid?”
“Not and hope for much,” HM said cheerfully. “I kept the Wessex livery separate from National Chivalry. But all the really useful people wanted to be in NatChiv. I’m afraid the livery has turned into a sinecure for retired navy men and minor nobles prone to the vapors.”
Leonie started to back away from the rhododendrons.
“At any rate, I have a handful of men of whom I’m fairly sure,” HM said, “if only because they’re too stupid for Oswald to have recruited them. Brakespear—you know, the retired admiral, former ambassador to Germany—he should be capable of getting my daughter here in one piece. When she arrives, we’ll discuss this again. You’ll have another chance to dissuade me then, and no doubt Madelaine will try to dissuade me, too.”
Leonie clutched her head. Sire, no! You DIDN’T!
Sir Robert sounded equally shocked. “You aren’t thinking of taking her with you, Tristan?”
“God, no! We’ll put her on your yacht. She shall go to Carlos in Spain, and we’ll pray he has enough chivalry to protect her from her enemies … such as her husband.”
Leonie fled through the shrubbery, placing her toes down before her heels to make as little sound as possible. When she got out of hearing range, she swore out loud.
“You are mad, Sire! Bringing Her Royal Highness here?”
But then she stopped. Outrageous as it seemed, this could be their best chance of derailing Live-Long Day’s coup. If he couldn’t produce the king’s body, and he couldn’t produce his wife, either, his regency was going to start looking quite dodgy, wasn’t it?
She looked out at the dazzling sea. And what about my family? Who’s going to fetch them out of London and send them somewhere safe?
* * *
That Afternoon
Princess Madelaine rolled up in a crimson limo that might’ve been low-profile in London, but which stuck out like a dog’s bollocks as it crawled up the road from Penzance. The cook dragged Leonie into the hall to line up with the rest of Sir Robert’s household. So much for keeping HRH’s arrival quiet. The steward bowed and scraped, the footmen made legs, the cook and housekeeper and maids curtseyed. Leonie bowed, feeling stupid. The legs of the princess, stick-thin in tight black denim, passed her.
She straightened up once Madelaine was past.
Her jaw hit the floor.
Over HRH’s shoulder peeped the cherubic, sleeping face of a baby in a pink bobble hat.
She’s brought her bloody sprog!
Not Crown Prince Michael, no such luck, but the younger of Princess Madelaine and Lord Day’s two children: little Princess Fiona, age eight months.
Behind the princess hurried a lady-in-waiting with bags of royal baby-kit. The party was completed by a languid young knothead who made Leonie think of HM’s phrase, minor nobles prone to the vapors, and an older knight who fitted the other half of the Wessex livery profile: gin flowers on his bearded cheeks, a paunch like a cannonball.
“This is a right turn-up,” Leonie said challengingly to HRH’s chauffeur, who had not joined the royal party in the library but was sitting in the kitchen being quizzed by Sir Robert’s staff.
“What a circus, eh,” the chauffeur said glumly. “Kid was screaming its head off all the way. She finally gets it off and then we arrive. I never asked for none of this. I’m only in the livery, and here’s Admiral B flapping, telling me to bring a car around to Macenought Lane, which turns out to be one of them minging little closes up to the east of the castle, ought to be torn down for the public health; and when I get there, strike me if it’s not HRH in a nosegay mask. And the kid. We came through the secret passage, she says, all smiles. It’ll be my neck if Lord Day catches up with us. I wish I’d never taken the king’s shilling, but the livery is money for old rope. It used to be, anyway!”
“Were you followed?” Leonie demanded. “Any vehicles that stayed behind you for longer than they should’ve? Did you see a chopper or hear one?”
“Not as I’m aware,” the chauffeur said stiffly, obviously thinking: Who’re you anyway?
Leonie pinched a cucumber sandwich off the tray that the cook was preparing and went out of the house again. It had looked as if everyone was in the kitchen, which meant no one was on sentry duty. She walked past the garage and down the drive. Just as she’d expected, the gates were unguarded. The sentry kiosk was a one-room shed inside the stone wall, smelling of fags. As she stood looking down to the valley, she felt herself being entrapped in the rubbery coils of the law of maximum embuggerment. Whatever can go wrong, will.
Not one but two princesses on site. All HM’s eggs in one basket. What else could go wrong here?
Think, Grant, think.
She pressed herself to the side of the inward-facing window.
The pale-haired young knight who’d come with HRH stood on the lawn in front of the house, smoking.
With a nervous gesture, he threw his cigarette into a rosebush and strolled into the freestanding garage beside the house.
He’s fetching something from the limo, she thought, waiting for him to reappear.
He didn’t.
Maybe the garage had a back door.
She went back up the drive, walking on the grass instead of the gravel, and still he hadn’t come back out. The sun rode just past the zenith. She approached the garage from the east so her shadow wouldn’t fall in front of the doors. Peeking in, she didn’t see the knight. She slipped inside, trainers silent on the concrete.
The garage held five vehicles. Besides the royal limo, there was a Pinnace van with dented, scraped sides; a bright yellow limo with white roses on its bonnet; the blue Morris that she and HM had arrived in; and another Morris, beige, equally clapped out. The vehicles were lined up in that order beneath the high rafters.
A sharp hiss of escaping air.
She tiptoed towards the sound.
The young knight stood up from behind the beige Morris, a knife gleaming in his hand. He jumped a mile at the sight of her.
The Morris slumped noticeably to one side.
“What do you want?” he said sharply.
“You’re slashing the tyres,” Leonie said just as sharply. “What’re you doing that for?”
He raised his knife as if to throw it at her, and she ducked, but he turned and fled towards the back of the garage. She chased him. He dodged between the cars and made it to the doors ahead of her. He sprinted down the drive to the gates, his hairknot coming loose.
Leonie hurtled back to the house. Blinded by the shadows in the hall, she barged past the housekeeper and into the library.
Sunlight filled the room. Walls full of books, a globe on a stand, plants everywhere. She took it all in like a snapshot. HM pacing in the middle of the carpet. Sir Robert, who wasn’t eighty after all, but HM’s own age and enormously fat, swaddled in a houppelande and fur mantle like something out of a historical drama. Admiral Brakespear nursing a drink. Princess Madelaine balled up in an armchair, all white face and black clothes. The baby let out a wail, on the lap of the lady-in-waiting who’d been banished to a corner.
“Uh,” Leonie said.
“Where’s Lackland?” HM said mildly.
“If—if that was the other knight, I caught him slashing the tyres of the vehicles in the garage, Sire. He’s run away.”
“What?” Admiral Brakespear crashed down his glass.
“Treachery,” HM said. “Brakespear, what do you know of this?”
“Nothing! Loyal as a dog—trust him with my life—can’t be—woman’s lying!”
“This woman saved my life yesterday. It sounds as if she may have saved it again.”
“Sire, we need to go after him! I think …”
But the king ignored Leonie. He turned to face his daughter. “Well, Maddie?” he said quietly. “What d’you think?”
The princess put her hands over her face and started crying. “I’m sorry, Daddy! Forgive me, I’m so sorry!”
“You have betrayed me,” HM said in the stillest voice Leonie had ever heard, like stones falling into a well with no bottom.
“No, no, it w-wasn’t me! I wanted to come to you in secret like you said, but I couldn’t leave Michael and Fifi, so I went up to the nursery to fetch Fifi, and that’s where Oswald caught us. Sir Lackland was with me. He—he went to pieces and practically started to lick Oswald’s boots. It was revolting. And Oswald said, ‘Go then, go, I won’t hold you back.’ So I thought it was all right. And so we came.” She scrambled out of her armchair and plucked at HM’s arms. “Are you cross, Daddy? Don’t be cross!”
Sir Robert said, “Did you tell your husband where you were going?”
“No, of course not!” Princess Madelaine said indignantly.
“But I’ll bet Lackland did,” Admiral Brakespear growled. His face had gone purple. Leonie thought: Don’t trust him, Sire, he’s probably in on it, too!
HM shook his head slightly. He seemed indecisive, and Leonie thought in horror, He’s sinking again.
Sir Robert heaved himself to his feet. “Tristan, you must leave immediately. If they didn’t follow too closely behind Her Highness, you can still reach the yacht.” Leonie looked gratefully at the obese magician in his silly costume. “To make speed, they’ll have to come overland, not by sea—and I’ll back the Lady of Cornwall against anything in Penzance harbor, if they get any clever ideas about commandeering a vessel to give chase. But you must escape as soon as possible.”
“I’ve had enough of escaping,” HM said.
Leonie dared to speak up. “We’ve got no time to stand around here with our thumbs up our—twiddling our thumbs! Sir Robert’s right, Sire! Please!”
Again the king appeared to hesitate. He strolled over to the globe and spun it, trailing a finger over Europe.
“With all due respect, Sire,” Admiral Brakespear burbled. “Haste makes waste—bound to be some time before they arrive—”
“Oh, shut up,” HM said. “Robert, will you come with me, after all?”
“If you wish it, but I’d slow you down, unfit as I am. If I stay here, I may be able to hold them for a while.”
Little Princess Fiona started shrieking.
“Oh, God, can’t you shut her up, Elspeth?” Princess Madelaine shrieked, almost as loudly. She hung on her father’s arm. “Me and Fifi can come, can’t we? I can’t go back to Oswald. I won’t. Daddy, don’t make me!”
Leonie blurted, “There’s only the one access road. Right? So if we want to make them think HM is still here …”
* * *
The Pinnace van flew helter-skelter down the road, a rotten little bubble of rust that drifted towards the drop at every hairpin bend. Leonie reflexively trod on phantom brakes. Sir Robert’s steward, Yarrow, gripped the wheel in arthritic knuckles. Lady Elspeth—the lady-in-waiting—and little Princess Fiona were bouncing around in the back.
“Slow down, mate,” Leonie begged. “You’ll have us off the road.”
The sea was a floor strewn with tin tacks. She could have spat down the chimneys of the rustic cottages bedded in the folds of the headland. The wind moaned in the loose top of her window.
The squared-off snout of a LongHOG heaved around the approaching bend.
“Saints help us,” Yarrow groaned. “It’s them.”
“Keep your head on! You’re driving into town with a load of cabbages and that! Just do what you’d normally do!”
And if they stop us we’re fucked.
But they won’t stop us. That’s why we took this van. We’re just an old feller and his daughter driving into town, and all we’ve got in the back is cabbages, cabbages …
She held the revolver she’d borrowed from Sir Robert down the side of her seat. As old and neglected as the defenses of Acton Castle, its action was so stiff she’d need both hands to cock it, and she had no great hopes of its accuracy.
The road was too narrow for the vehicles to pass. The LongHOG’s horn blared, ordering the van to reverse.
Yarrow crunched the gears, backed up. The LongHOG followed, practically scooping the van up on its grill. They reached a passing place and tucked in, brambles scraping the van’s sides. The LongHOG roared past, followed by two Rovers. Four or five ROCK knights lounged in each jeep, faces hard behind their sun-gigs.
“Why have we stopped? Are we there?” Lady Elspeth’s high-pitched voice came from the back of the van.
“Not yet, m’lady, don’t move!”
“Villains! Villains!” Yarrow’s voice shook as he swung the van back onto the road.
“Look on the bright side,” Leonie said. “Your master won’t put up any vain resistance when he sees that lot. That’s something.”
The road descended through a few more hairpin bends, then they came to a T junction and turned right, away from Penzance. Dipping down further, the road met the bay and followed the shore back out along the head
land. Neat houses and gardens lined the road on their right, then it was just the barren hillside again. They came to a disused-looking pier. A wall of rock beetled ahead, in shadow. The end of the road. The steward did an unhandy three-point turn and parked with the nose of the van facing back in the direction of Penzance.
Now they just had to wait.
Leonie looked at her watch. Twenty minutes since they’d left Acton Castle. She’d hoped to see the yacht waiting for them here, but of course it would take the crew a while to fuel the engine and raise the anchor, or whatever you did to get a boat underway.
As for HM and Princess Madelaine, it would probably take them even longer to hike down from Acton Castle on foot.
The silence in the van drained her confidence.
Maybe we all should’ve come together.
She now knew that they could have got past Lord Day’s snatch squad safely, but she hadn’t known that before. She’d thought that if they did run slap bang into the enemy, as they had, there was a quite substantial chance they’d be pulled over and bubbled. In that case it would have been better to lose just the baby than all three royals.
Of course she hadn’t said anything like that to Lady Elspeth, who now sounded calm enough as she crooned to little Fiona.
Listening to the lady-in-waiting’s nonsense-talk, Leonie felt sad. It reminded her of her sister Mystie and her little niece Bryanna.
When she got back to London, if she ever did, would her family still be there?
She wound down the window and craned up at the headland. The barren skyline told her nothing.
“Young Barkin knows this area like the back of his hand,” Yarrow said. Barkin was the Cornwall man-at-arms who’d volunteered to guide the royals. “He’ll bring them down safe.”
“He’d better bring them down fast,” Leonie snapped. She suddenly felt frantic. Something was wrong. Her internal danger alarm was yammering at her. She stuffed the revolver into her pocket and threw open the van’s door. “I’m going to look for them. If they come, and I’m not back yet, don’t wait for me. Just get HM on the boat, if it ever bloody shows up.”
She jogged across the road and jumped over the stone wall on the other side. Up the hill through the pasture. She wrapped her sleeve around her hand to push down barbed wire, climbed over that, too. Tufts of sodden wool were caught in the fence. Sheep droppings littered the outcropping rocks. The headland beetled over her.