No one noticed that injured boy king Richard II was being raised aloft by an outsize meat hook that hoisted him to the rafters whence he disappeared from view.
Ever the master tactical expert in a strategic crisis, Edward III put his fingers in his mouth and summoned the Plantagenet coach, the resourceful Richard III who fairly leapt from the shadows onto the impromptu pitch, sword and mallet at the ready. Richard III immediately shielded young Richard Plantagenet under his cloak—much to that young Richard’s apprehension.
Not to be outdone by the Plantagenet team, Georgie blew out a whistle such as he could never have imagined himself capable of. Quick as a flash, Henry VII was at his side. After all, he was the Chudors’ named coach and now, whatever his natural reticence, had to lead from the front.
Ginny wondered if Richard III and Henry VII, these two rival kings, had somehow engineered all this as a ploy to fight the battle of Bosworth of 1485 all over again.
“We have backup,” sneered Richard III to Henry VII with such bite that Ginny thought it was like the hiss of a serpent.
“Show us. Prove it,” replied Henry VII in a peevish attempt at royal dignity.
“Of course,” replied Richard III, this time with the sort of insincere smiling insistence adopted by his most famous impersonator, Laurence Olivier, to show courtly cunning. He clicked his fingers and immediately behind the Plantagenet goalpost appeared a show of blue.
“They’re my foxes, the famous Leicester foxes—not red foxes like your common-all-garden variety of foxes but blue foxes from the English Premier League football team.”
The claim seemed so preposterous that all eyes—from the five-a-side players, the spectator kings and queens and the little heraldic animals who loved a scrap—stared as one at the blue show that now became more detailed: it was a collection of angry little men in soccer-team outfits. Ginny wondered if they were little metallic men from some souvenir or gift shop.
“Just remember,” Richard III called out to Henry VIII, “if we have to fight the battle of Bosworth all over again, this time I have terrifying Boadicea of the Iceni on my side.”
“That’s nothing,” said Henry VII. “I have my backup and they’re better equipped for fighting. If you want a real scrap, we’ll give you a decisive battle. Besides, they’re my own invention: the Yeomen Warders (commonly known as Beefeaters) of the Tower of London.”
As a host of tiny men in red materialised, Ginny again guessed that these tiny warriors also came courtesy of the Westminster Abbey (or some similar) gift shop.
But there was no time for Ginny to ponder the whys and wherefores for now the hallowed cloisters were the site of a pitched battle. The fighting among spirit kings and their tiny warriors cheered on by the heraldic devices caused pandemonium. The ermine ball sped this way and that. The mayhem spread all around the cloisters into the main body of the abbey as footballers and fans rushed hither and thither, cheering and whooping away as they thwacked and thrashed one another.
The last Plantagenet king and the first Tudor king had other things on their mind than leading a mock battle.
Captivating Richard III only had eyes for capturing Richard Plantagenet whom he had just shielded with his cloak. Now he whispered to this little Richard in his most honeyed tones, “Come with me, I’ll save you. You don’t have to return to endless toil as a gardener for the Misses Tudor.”
At the same time, Henry VII was singling out another of the unreachable innocents. He was not sure if it was Edward V or a look-alike but he knew he must not be too particular. He must seize his chance amid the brouhaha and do it quickly.
“Don’t be afraid,” Henry said to the targeted youngster. “I’m still a king, the patriarch of England’s most famous dynasty. I will save you from endless night amid the cold gloom of the Plantagenet tombs.”
However, one true-blue monarch was not interested in spare boys. Mary Stuart was ready to take charge of one of the little armies. She had once led Scottish troops into battle successfully, charging with her primitive gun at the ready, so it was no surprise to the other child monarchs to see her doing the same in the Westminster Abbey football match now.
“Atta girl,” cried Elizabeth I.
Ginny was not sure if this was intended as encouraging praise or putdown parody.
Hooping up her little girl’s skirts, Mary Stuart lobbied a daring pass to Georgie. It seemed she was playing a dangerous double game, fighting the battle and continuing the five-a-side football game. When he failed to halt it with his feet, she ran forward and kicked the ermine ball with all her little might and main past the raggedy English lion and into the Plantagenet goal.
Then there was an almighty crash of glass. How it happened in all the confusion no one could recall accurately. But the ermine ball had been sent crashing through some high window. The noise of shattering glass was distinct enough amid the hurly burly of a general scrum. The whoops and bellows of such pointless fighting drew everyone up sharp.
5 HIDDEN FIGURES
As he sat disconsolate under the renewed gaze of Edward I and George II in the sinister chamber of special purpose, Charlie Chancer knew the identity of his two jailer kings’ next visitor. It was his nemesis, Charles II, aka Mr Slime. Charlie would have recognised those creepy footsteps anywhere. So he was not surprised when the extra-tall, ultra-menacing figure of the supposedly merry monarch entered.
“What do you most want?” Charles II asked Charlie abruptly.
“To achieve a normal relationship with my children.”
“How touching,” Charles II said with relish.
Yet underneath his customary insolence, Charlie sensed that this time the loathsome Mr Slime was by no means himself. Under Charles II’s glowering brow, a tempest was brewing. It would surely lead to a mighty explosion. And it did. For Charles II had more on his mind than another verbal attack on poor Charlie. He plunged into a tirade against those kings who had wanted to become boys again. He was most cross with Anne of Bohemia who had made their wishes come true:
“They could have done anything they wanted—these errant boys—but they chose this silly football game. What a shower! As for dear Anne of Bohemia, I have no words for her.” Focussing beady eyes on George II, Charles II continued: “Anne’s role was to leave the abbey to help dear great—and I don’t know how many ‘greats’—granny Philippa—as well as your own dearly beloved German Caroline—to help them build up our financial stash on the outside—not to pray for miracles! Words fail me!”
“If only that were true,” thought diplomat courtier Geoffrey Chaucer standing in the background.
It was dawning on Charlie that Charles II knew what Edward I and George II were up to as they whispered together.
“Don’t look at me, or expect me to do any of it,” Charles II said to the other two kings in a peevish way. “You do the numbers crunching. I have minsters for that. Or used to have. Remember my honeyed words are my own. Any misapplied actions are the work of my defunct ministers. It’s always their fault—still.”
Again, George II tried to reason with his petulant confrere king.
“Like insects that last for millennia, liebchen, we send out our queens to colonise what is, after all, our wealth. You’ve had a wife and several ladies on the side. You should know by now that what women want is control of their husbands. Ask Mr Chaucer. That’s the way the life force is programmed. You might call it genetic engineering. We can’t ignore it. But we can use it for our future.”
His volcanic vocal eruption spent, Charles II was now calmer. Despite the decision of other sovereigns—to use Charlie kindly and then let him and his kids go free—Charles II wanted to try one last time and manage without Charlie.
“Before we resort to this pathetic Charlie Chancer, a rank outsider who will soon know what we are up to—if he hasn’t already guessed it—well, let’s first try and keep it in our immediate family. My old grandfather might help us. He should know what to do and be able to get on with it,” Char
les II continued. "James I was obsessed with money—his and other people’s wealth. When he came south from Edinburgh to London in 1603, he must have thought he’d gone to heaven. From penny-pinching poverty north of the border to spending south of the border as if there was no tomorrow. But there was never enough money for his tastes.
“So, now let’s be practical,” continued the merry monarch. “James I is still a grownup even if James VI has become a child again. It’s only his other self—his Scottish alter ego—that has reverted to childhood. And James I is in on our little scam. You don’t need to explain the back story to him. He knows everything.”
“But can we trust him?” asked Edward I.
“Oh no. He would easily win any contest among untrustworthy kings, and, as you know, that’s quite an overcrowded field,” answered Charles II.
Charles II sensed that the other two kings were still unsure. So he added, “If we fail, we fail. But we’ll screw grandfather James to a sticking place to make sure he doesn’t try and trick us.”
Accordingly, Edward I went to fetch James I and explain new details of the scheme to him. When he arrived back with Edward I, James I was positively quivering with expectation.
With due diplomatic deference, Chaucer showed James I what were the new coffers of gold: accounts, ledgers, computers and the operating programs like Excel that could open financial doors to the outside world.
“I need a drink,” said James I as he sat down and set out to unlock the new mysteries. James I knew exactly where he could find a stash of alcohol in the abbey and hurried away to get some.
What surprised even poet Geoffrey Chaucer was that James I was not at all surprised at any of these new IT programs and apps. Chaucer had already guessed that George II knew far more than he had been willing to admit to Edward I. Chaucer also supposed that Charlie Chancer had guessed that George II knew about electronic money transfers so he would probably not be surprised about any skills of the conniving James I. And, Chaucer concluded, it was his insights that might save Charlie Chancer.
Grown-up King James I returned to the other three kings in the L-shaped room. He had two bottles of communion wine and set them on the desk aside the computer. He looked inside a drawer in another desk and found a corkscrew and four tumblers. With no more thought for Geoffrey Chaucer and Charlie Chancer, the four kings proceeded to knock back the wine while slavering over its sugary content.
“It’s heavy stuff,” remarked Charles II as he licked his lips.
“Communion wine always is,” said Edward I.
Charles II and Edward I lounged back in uncomfortable wooden chairs. George II stood aside as if on anxious tiptoes while James I racked his brains to unlock the mysteries of computer programs. From time to time, he said under his breath, “Damn and blast it!”
It was not long before James I accepted that he would need common human Charlie’s help, after all. Drawing the other three kings into a huddle, he admitted, “I can’t do it alone. We need his assistance with the programs and then outside the abbey in the morning to make sure the money is available in a tangible form. We have to keep his kids as hostages.”
Charles II said laconically, “We can’t go outside—not until we have another winner of Queen for a Day—who will either release herself or one of us. But this guy here is our prisoner now. He can send the funds to our two queens already on the outside.”
All of this had been said in front of Charlie as if he was of no account. Taking advice from silent cues given by Geoffrey Chaucer, Charlie controlled his temper and said nothing.
Edward I said—and this time showing his iron fist more clearly than ever before, “We have Mr Chancer at our mercy. His kids are here. In all our lifetimes we learnt all about hostage taking.”
“And we have ways of bending him to our will,” added Charles II.
So saying, Charles II pointed upwards. From the ceiling, there descended someone muffled in grey and coming down slowly. Charlie could not tell who it was. Then he saw a child, a boy of perhaps nine or ten, hanging from some meat hook by the hood of a duffle coat several sizes too big for him. When the little boy reached the desk, he stood daintily on it, squirming on his unbelievably long, pointed shoes. Charlie’s eyes blurred at the horror so it took him time to take stock of face and figure. Peeping through the open coat Charlie caught enough sight of a royal tunic of red and blue embroidered with regal lions in gold to realise that this was a boy king.
One of his legs was bandaged below the knee with strips of cloth torn from some coarse ruffled shirt. But it was the boy’s innocent face that caused Charlie most dismay. For the face, still not altered by grown-up pain, looked more than a little like his own son, Georgie’s, face. But it also looked like Richard II, whose features and blank expression Charlie knew from his two most famous portraits. It was as if Georgie’s face had been turned into a template onto which an artist had impaled the features of Richard II.
“He’s not only my great, great grandson, Richard II,” said Edward I helpfully, “But also Death turned into a person. He’s here to remind us that within the hollow crown—the one that we’re still looking for—that rounds the mortal temples of a king, keeps death his court. Death does the same thing for lesser humans, as well—even children,” he added in case Charlie had missed his sinister point.
The little boy suddenly looked more alive, as if he had just woken up from a pleasure-less sleep.
Charles II explained to Charlie, “He’s just a figment.” Then, repeating his account of the transformation of the boy kings and their football game, he said (as if Charlie could not possibly have heard his earlier remark), “The boy kings are playing a modern English game: five-a-side football, the Plantagenets against us, the Tudors and Stuarts, whom they’ve dubbed the Chudors. Yes, I know, ghastly modern name but there it is,” added Charles II. “How’s it going?” he asked Richard II.
“We were winning two to one when I left.”
“We hate Death,” interrupted Edward I, determined to return to the connection between Richard II and Death and eagerly twisting the knife in Charlie’s apprehension. “We want to kill him.”
“Kill an innocent child?” asked Charlie angrily.
“To be more precise: we want not to kill Death but to cheat him. The funds we’re after—the monies—taken from visitors to Westminster Abbey who’ve come to see us rather more than they have our Holy Church. Well, these funds should be ours by rights,” said Edward I emphatically.
“After all, it’s us who bring people in. People need illusions that we supply simply by being here and in their minds, etcetera, etcetera,” added George II. “You see, from our point of view, the abbey’s takings really should belong to us—not to upstart priests.”
During all this, the little child spectre of Richard II looked around the room at the different kings and their human prisoner. He was taking an intelligent interest in the conversation.
“How can you cheat Death with money?” asked Charlie who was starting to feel bolder. “I know many rich people become afraid of what lies after Death as they get older. Some give money to good causes in their last years and generous bequests in their wills.”
There was another little cough from Geoffrey Chaucer, who apologised by saying, “Pardonnez-moi,” again. Thinking Charlie would never get the point after all his repetitions, he added, “Isn’t that what the dear Pardoner was doing in our time? Granting indulgences, receiving gifts to help build churches and to fund and support monasteries and convents?”
Every king in the room smiled at Geoffrey Chaucer’s comparisons as if in agreement of his understated point. It was clear that the kings looked down on priests as an inconvenience at best and, at worse, as a terrible nuisance without any merit in the way they expressed inconvenient truths. This short moment of silent agreement ended when the boy Richard II said, very politely, “I should get back to the game. They’ll start again soon. I don’t want to be late. I’m learning to be a good team player.”
“Off with you, then, there’s a good fellow,” said Charles II.
With that, young Richard II ascended in his outsize duffle coat and carried aloft by the cruel meat hook.
“Fine looking fellow,” said Edward I. “And he has a good heart.”
“Your son is captain of the self-styled Chudors football team,” added the not-so merry monarch to Charlie.
Charlie blanched. He did not want his son involved in any game with mysterious dark forces. He wanted the danger to Georgie to end right now. He pulled himself together and went back to his previous passing thoughts about the kings wanting to cheat Death.
To make sure Charlie fully understood what the kings wanted of him, Charles II said, "One day after one of our Queen for a Day contests, when Westminster Abbey opened its doors to our fans incontinent, Edward III’s wife, Philippa of Hainault, escaped onto the streets of London just like any other bag lady. She used the takings in Westminster Abbey to start her new life. You might say she invested the funds. She opened a flower shop.
“She got a message to us as to where she is and what she’s up to. Don’t ask how. That’s not your concern. She’s waiting for us. We want to send her more wherewithal.” [At that, he rubbed his right index finger and thumb together.] “And that’s your heavenly task—if you want to see your children again. Dear Philippa is a clever, canny woman.”
“Wasn’t she missed by the clergy and the janitors?” Charlie asked.
"Oh, no. If they care to, they can always look us up. Unearth us. But, even if they do, there wouldn’t be any surprises. The kings and queens in the tombs are incomplete. Many have body parts missing—such as Henry III, Henry V, Anne of Bohemia, Katherine of Valois—just to name four. There’s no shame in being incomplete.
Midnight in Westminster Abbey Page 29