The Beast of Buckingham Palace

by David Walliams

  BANG! BASH! BONK!

  “we need FOOD!”

  “help us!”

  “we are starving!”

  In desperation, some of the people leaped down from the bridge. A few missed the barge and fell into the water.

  SPLASH!

  When they tried to scramble aboard the boat, the guards whacked them away with their wooden oars.

  THWACK!

  They fell back into the river.

  “DON’T!” screamed Alfred.

  SPLOSH!

  Two of them actually landed on the barge.

  THUD!

  THUD!

  They came down at the stern and were immediately taken out with laser guns.

  ZAP!

  ZAP!

  Their bodies plunged into the Thames.

  SPLASH!

  SPLOSH!

  “MURDERERS!” shouted Alfred at the royal guards, helpless to stop the horror.

  The barge continued its journey along the Thames.

  Slowly, out of the fog, an ancient building loomed into view.

  The Tower of London.

  At the base was its famous entrance from the river.

  Traitors’ Gate.

  The prince closed his eyes. He was about to meet his fate.

  All along the battlements of the Tower of London, Alfred could make out members of the fearsome royal guard. They had their laser guns pointed down at the river. As the royal barge approached the gate, it was raised.

  CREAK!

  Like so many traitors before him down the centuries, this was the way the boy was to begin his imprisonment in the Tower. With his hands and feet still in chains, he was taken off the barge. Then he was bustled down a series of stone walkways until he reached the prison block.

  Once inside, what hit Alfred first was the stench.

  It was medieval.

  Then the noise.

  Constant cries of pain.

  “ARGH!”

  “HELP!”

  “PLEASE!”

  The Tower of London was the worst place Alfred could possibly imagine.

  Prisoners were crammed into tiny cells – as many as a dozen to each dark, damp little space – and treated worse than animals in a zoo.

  The prisoners’ faces were blackened with dirt and hollow with hunger. They were dressed in rags with no shoes on their feet. When the boy was marched past the cells, some called out:

  “Who’s that boy?”

  “Is it Prince Alfred?”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  One toothless old lady just laughed and laughed in a way that made you think she must be mad.

  “HA! HA! HA!”

  A boy held out his hands to beg. “Please. Please.”

  Alfred wasn’t sure what exactly he was begging for. Mercy, he supposed. Not that he could give it. The prince was now one of them, a prisoner too. He continued past his fellow inmates.

  Was that old man in chains once commander of the British Army? One night he had vanished from the palace.

  Was the man with a long grey beard the old chief of police? He had not been seen in decades.

  Was that Britain’s last prime minister, shivering under a dirty old blanket? She had been arrested just before Alfred was born.

  The Tower of London must have housed a hundred or more of these so-called “traitors”.

  The prince was desperate to catch sight of his mother. Was she even still alive?

  As Alfred was dragged along the row of cells, he turned to the guards and said, “I am your prince and I demand to see the Queen.”

  But the guards just ignored him. Instead they tightened their grip on the prince’s arms…

  “OW!”

  …and continued marching him to his cell.

  Once there, the guards hurled the boy inside.

  THUD!

  “OOF!”

  The chains round his arms and legs were unlocked…

  CLINK!

  …and the door was bolted behind him.

  CLUNK!

  Alfred ran to the rusty iron bars on the door of his cell and shouted at the guards.

  “You can’t just leave me here to rot!” But they just had.

  The prison cell hadn’t changed much since the Tower of London had been built in the eleventh century. The walls were dark stone, hay was scattered across the floor, and in the corner crouched a little wooden bucket. Alfred presumed this was to do his business in. Being born a prince, Alfred had been sure he would be able to go through life without ever doing his business in a bucket. But he was wrong.

  While Alfred felt that brief sense of bliss that comes with finally having a pee, he could hear a tapping on the ceiling.

  TAP! TAP! TAP!

  At first, the boy was irritated. This was really putting him off his pee.

  But as soon as he’d finished he stood still so he could listen.

  TAP! TAP! TAP!

  Three in a row. The same rhythm as before.

  TAP! TAP! TAP!

  Alfred wanted to tap back, but even on his tiptoes he wasn’t tall enough to reach the ceiling. If only he hadn’t filled that bucket with pee, he could stand on it.

  TAP! TAP! TAP!

  There it was again.

  Oh, never mind! thought the boy. There was a tiny hole in the corner of the cell, down which he carefully poured the yellow liquid.

  TRICKLE!

  “Oi!” came a deep voice from below. “You dirty blighter!”

  “Sorry!” he called back. He had only been in the Tower of London for five minutes, and he’d already upset one of the other prisoners by pouring pee on his head.

  Next, Alfred overturned the bucket and stood on it. His hand just reached the ceiling. He clenched his fist and tapped back.

  TAP! TAP! TAP!

  Then, from above, there were another three taps.

  TAP! TAP! TAP!

  Alfred began to feel a little silly.

  What on earth was the point of all this tapping?

  Suddenly he heard scraping from above. Whoever was up there was trying to scratch a hole.

  Alfred jumped down off the bucket, and on his hands and knees searched the floor of his cell. He was looking for anything sharp that could be used to dig from his side.

  Nothing.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that one of the stones in the wall was jutting out. Using the bucket, he smashed down on it…

  BASH!

  …chipping a bit off.

  CHINK!

  Then Alfred climbed back on the bucket and began scraping away at the ceiling.

  SCRATCH! SCRATCH! SCRATCH!

  Outside he could hear bootsteps approaching.

  STOMP! STOMP! STOMP!

  A royal guard was on patrol!

  Alfred leaped down and pretended to be going to the toilet by sitting on the bucket.

  When a guard peered through the metal bars, the boy called back, “Do you mind? I used to be a prince, you know.”

  The guard shook his head and moved off.

  Immediately, Alfred got back to work.

  SCRATCH! SCRATCH! SCRATCH!

  Eventually, grit fell down on to his face…

  CRUNCH!

  …as the hole was broken through.

  Alfred put his eye up to it.

  An eye stared back.

  At first he was startled, until he realised he knew that eye better than his own.

  It was his mother’s.

  “Lionheart?” asked the voice from above.

  Alfred wanted to be strong, but it was impossible. Immediately he burst into floods of tears.

  “BOO HOO HOO!”

  “SHUSH!” shushed the Queen through the hole in the ceiling of the cell. “The guards will hear you.”

  “I can’t help it!” snorted Alfred.

  “Don’t be sad,” she whispered.

  “I’m not crying because I’m sad! I’m crying because I’m happy!”

  “Happy?”

  “Ha
ppy to see you!”

  “Now you’re going to make me cry,” replied the boy’s mother. “Here!”

  The Queen pushed a lace handkerchief down through the hole.

  Alfred took it and dried his eyes. Then he blew his nose.

  HOO!

  He studied the handkerchief for a moment, and read the letters sewn into one corner.

  “VR. Victoria Regina! That’s Queen Victoria. So this handkerchief is hundreds of years old.”

  “Yes. I shouldn’t really be letting you snot into it.”

  “Sorry. Do you want it back?”

  “That’s awfully kind of you, but no.”

  “What should I do with it?”

  “Pop it up your sleeve.”

  The boy did as he was told and pushed it into the sleeve of his pyjamas. The handkerchief felt all soggy next to his skin, and for a moment he wondered why grown-ups would ever do that.

  “Mama, how I wish I could have one of your special cuddles right now.”

  “How I wish I could give you a special cuddle. I would give all my past, and all my future, to hold you in my arms right now.”

  “You’re going to make me cry again,” he sniffed.

  “Alfred, let’s have a finger cuddle.”

  “A finger cuddle?”

  “Yes! Here you go…”

  With that, the Queen poked her finger down through the hole. Alfred stretched high on the bucket and poked his finger up.

  They touched.

  It felt strange and strangely comforting all at once.

  “Why have you been sent here?” asked the Queen.

  “Father sent me.”

  “No! How could he do that to his own son?”

  “He’s not well, Mama.”

  “You’re right. There is an awful sickness in his mind. He would tell me about these terrifying nightmares. Night after night after night. Nightmares about some kind of fiery monster.”

  “They’re not nightmares, Mama,” replied Alfred. “They’re real.”

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  “You’re not going to believe me, but I saw something in the palace during the night. Something truly horrifying.”

  “What?”

  “The King was there.”

  “What was he doing?”

  “It looked like he was sleepwalking.”

  “Sleepwalking?”

  “Yes. Into this, well, I can’t say exactly… ritual.”

  “Ritual? Was it just your father?”

  “No, the Lord Protector was there.”

  “Of course! I should have guessed he would be behind it!” exclaimed Mother.

  “Yes, using some dark arts, the Lord Protector was… He was…”

  “He was what?”

  The boy felt strange saying it, but he knew what he had seen. “Conjuring a creature to life.”

  “What kind of creature?”

  “A creature made of fire! A griffin!”

  “A griffin,” pondered his mother. “The symbol of divine power dating back thousands of years. Are you sure you weren’t just reading one of your old books and then having a nightmare?”

  “No,” replied Alfred calmly. “This was real.”

  “Then this griffin must give the Lord Protector power over the King. The visions must have scared him half to death. Poor, poor man.”

  “But it isn’t just a vision, Mama. And, if we don’t stop it, this beast will kill us all!”

  Just then a bell tolled across London.

  BONG!

  It was the unmistakable sound of Big Ben.

  “Count!” hissed the Queen through the hole in her floor and Alfred’s ceiling.

  Alfred listened as the bongs continued.

  “…Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,” he whispered.

  “Not tonight, then,” said his mother.

  “What isn’t tonight?” he asked, intrigued.

  “We have to listen out for thirteen bongs.”

  “Thirteen? Why would there be thirteen?” asked Alfred, not unreasonably.

  “That’s the signal.”

  “For what?”

  “Revolution!”

  The boy couldn’t believe his ears. The Queen was a traitor after all!

  “So, you are a revolutionary!” spluttered Alfred.

  “Yes,” she replied calmly.

  “But destroying St Paul’s Cathedral! How could you?”

  “That wasn’t me!” protested the Queen.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Please! You must believe me! I would never, ever do such a thing. And neither would the revolutionaries.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “There is no reason for them to attack their own city. All they want, and I want, all the people of this country want, is an end to this evil rule.”

  “But if you or the other revolutionaries didn’t destroy St Paul’s Cathedral, then who did?”

  “The Lord Protector,” she replied coolly.

  “But why would he do that?” asked Alfred. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense.”

  “To destroy St Paul’s Cathedral?”

  “No one would ever suspect the Lord Protector of doing that himself. Instead he could put the blame on the revolutionaries. On me. Frame us as the evil ones, and not him. And with me locked up here in the Tower, the Lord Protector has free rein of the palace so he can carry out his wicked plans! He is an evil dictator, and he must be stopped. Alfred, will you help us?”

  Before the boy could answer, he heard the sound of bootsteps approaching.

  STOMP! STOMP! STOMP!

  “Guards!” he hissed.

  “Go! Go! Go!” implored Mother, so he jumped down from the bucket, and leaped on to a pile of hay.

  THUD!

  There he pretended to be asleep. Alfred even did his best snore, though, as far as he knew, he didn’t snore in real life.

  “ZZZ!

  ZZZZ!

  ZZZZZ!”

  The boy didn’t dare open his eyes. He could hear the guard stop at his cell, and then move off.

  STOMP! STOMP! STOMP!

  He opened his eyes again, and heard voices from his mother’s cell above.

  “How dare you barge in here like this!” said the Queen.

  “Tell us where your friends the revolutionaries are hiding!” demanded someone with a deep gravelly voice.

  “I don’t know!”

  “Answer the question!” he barked.

  “I swear I don’t know,” she replied.

  “Come now, let’s not play games.”

  “I command you, as your Queen, to release me from this godforsaken place. Oh! The noise! The people! You must set me free at once and let me return to the palace.”

  “Orders of the King himself,” came the barked reply.

  “The King is not well enough to give orders! I know him better than anyone! Please!”

  The man was having none of it. “Orders of the King. All traitors are to be imprisoned in the Tower.”

  “I am not a traitor!”

  “Oh yes you are. And you know where the revolutionaries are hiding. Tell us, and we can wipe out the traitor scum once and for all.”

  “For the last time, I don’t know!” exclaimed the Queen.

  “Then this calls for extreme measures,” said the deep voice.

  “Torture me again if you like! I still won’t know anything!”

  There was a long, low laugh.

  “HUH! HUH! HUH! Oh no, we are not going to torture you. I have a much better idea about who we can make suffer. When you hear their screams, you will be sure to tell us everything you know!”

  “WHO?” demanded the Queen. “TELL ME WHO, YOU BRUTE!”

  “Your son, of course.”

  Moments later, the boy was dragged kicking and screaming from his cell by two royal guards. They hauled him to one of the turrets on top of the Tower of London.

/>   Thunderclouds rolled overhead as a wicked wind whipped through the sky. There, on the turret, was the Queen, squashed into a metal cage that was swinging in the air.

  CREAK! CREAK! CREAK!

  The cage was something that had been around since medieval times. It was used for “coffin torture”. The cage was just big enough for the Queen’s body, but not big enough for her to move. The expression on her face betrayed the agony she was in.

  “MAMA!” cried Alfred upon seeing her.

  “DON’T YOU DARE HURT MY SON!” yelled the Queen at the guards.

  They threw the boy to his knees. He scrabbled up, and raced over to his mother.

  He hurled himself at the cage, his little fingers poking through, desperate to comfort her.

  “Be strong, Lionheart,” she whispered. “Be strong. We’re going to get out of here alive. I promise you.”

  Before the boy could reply, a giant of a man, his face hidden by a black hood, dragged him away.

  He was the Executioner.

  “YOU ARE COMING WITH ME, LITTLE ONE!” he said in his deep, rough voice.

  This was the same man who had been interrogating the Queen in her cell not long before.

  “NOOO!” cried Alfred.

  But the Executioner was so much stronger than him. Soon the boy was tied to a huge wooden wheel.

  Yet this wasn’t just any wheel.

  This was a Breaking Wheel, another instrument of medieval torture: a giant wheel that revolved a person as their limbs were broken. One by one.

  Without a word, the Executioner ensured that Alfred had been secured properly by yanking on the ropes round his ankles and wrists.

  “ARGH!” exclaimed the boy as his skin was burned by the ropes.

  However, the torture was yet to begin.

  “Revolve the wheel!” called out the Executioner, and the royal guards did his bidding.

  “Now, Your Majestical Majesty! Tell us where the revolutionaries are hiding,” began the Executioner, “or your darling little boy will be crushed to death!”

  “For the last time, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” shouted the Queen. “I would tell you if I knew anything, I promise. But I don’t. Put me on that thing if you must. Not him. I beg you. He is just a child!”