"In my reign, I had people investigate whether the bones supposed to be those of Edward V and his brother, Richard Plantagenet, really were in Westminster Abbey. The investigators concluded they were. Since then, no succeeding monarch has permitted yet another investigation into the bodies in Innocents’ Corner. Besides, the jumble in Westminster Abbey is part of its story—part of its charm you might say.
“A year or two ago, George II’s beloved wife, Caroline of Ansbach, did the same thing as dear Philippa. Caroline is also waiting for us. She’s become a novelist as well as a medium. As to being missed—well, as you surely know, when she died ahead of him, dear George II here arranged that after his death, the sides of their coffins were to be removed so that his and Caroline’s ashes and bones would co-mingle. And so Caroline’s not going to be missed—or detected by any prurient modern grave-openers.”
“What do you want of me?” Charlie asked. “How can I help?”
“That’s better,” said Charles II. “You’re a Wall Street trader in commodities—something that’s interested me ever since I gave a royal grant to Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada in 1670.”
“What hokum,” thought Charlie. But when Geoffrey Chaucer gave him a sharp look, he knew he must bite his tongue.
“You wanted to see us hidden figures, we resurrected royals. We will release you when you find our hidden figures—the monies rightly ours and owed to us by a grateful nation.”
“You sit down at the computer, like a good fellow,” said Edward I. “King James I will help you—supervise you—and see that you don’t cheat us. You will move the funds from Westminster Abbey accounts to the outside accounts of Queens Philippa of Hainault and Caroline of Ansbach.”
“I’ll leave you to it,” Charles II told the other kings. At that, he nicked a clerical collar and stole off a peg and disappeared but not, as Charlie would have preferred, in a puff of pantomime smoke.
And so it was that, under the beady eyes of James I, Charlie Chancer crunched the numbers, twisted and turned the sums they represented and eventually sent sums from Westminster Abbey off into two different outside accounts as per James’s instructions: one, James said, was to Philippa of Hainault and the other to Caroline of Ansbach—both under assumed names. James I knew by heart the various sort codes, account numbers and their security codes. He relayed the information to Charlie albeit reluctantly. Under the snooty royal nose, Charlie was so intent on getting things right to rescue his children that time meant nothing to him. But he wondered if the dread kings would kill him off when they had finished. He was convinced they were mulling this option over as they muttered in a corner.
“He’s certainly got the skills we need,” Edward I said to George II. “Should we keep him in reserve for next year? Whatever dear Henry V argued, shouldn’t we keep at least one of his children here as a hostage? What do you think?”
Before George II could answer, James I said, somewhat out of breath, "Mission accomplished. We can rest now. The whole task was so easy. Such a singe. So, let’s have another little drinkee. How does it go—that tired old rhyme about one of the discredited prime ministers?
"Mr Asquith said in a manner sweet and calm,
Another little glass won’t do us any harm."
WHEN THIEVES FALL OUT
Without waiting for any response, James I was off to raid the abbey’s best cellars for more communion wine.
George II had not wanted his great-great-grandfather to help. And he did not want to be part of any arrangement that would divide the purloined abbey funds spread cooperatively among all the kings and queens.
“He was too quick,” he said to Edward I. “I think he’s manipulated the figures to his own advantage—not Charlie Chancer, our dear James I. That wouldn’t be a surprise,” George II continued with a lovely turn of his German accent like a keen knife. “We didn’t want Old King Cole in this little scam, anyway,” he added. “Two into three won’t go, let alone to into three hundred or so. Better share things evenly. Divide everything by half, fifty-fifty between just the two of us.”
“Let’s take a look,” said Edward I, reining in his temper. “My English may not match yours. But my beloved father, dear Henry III, has taught me figures—and they haven’t changed over the centuries the way that English, French and German languages have.”
So saying, he scrolled up and down the screen.
“You’re right. Damn him to hell fire—the double-crossing, two-faced, two-for-one, double-dealing king! My reading may not be the best but whatever language it’s in, I would know ‘Scotland’, and ‘Scots’ and ‘Scottish’ anywhere. And that goes for figures. He’s got Charlie Chancer here to move the monies into some different Scottish accounts.”
With that, Edward I cast a particularly baleful glance at Charlie. But Charlie knew this was not the time for him to quiver. He had to hold fast.
With any pretence at civility gone, Edward turned on Geoffrey Chaucer.
“Since your use of the English language makes you one of the immortal artists—or so the plebs say—and you can come and go at will, tell us this: can we retrieve the funds, reverse the transaction?”
Mr Chaucer adopted his most reverential manner.
“If Mr Chancer has the skill—yes. This year, the last two days of All Souls’ fall on a weekend. Banks are closed from Saturday afternoon to Monday morning. If Mr Chancer acts quickly, he can put a stop on what King James has just ordered him to do. Then you could start the process again and divert the money into your preferred accounts—the accounts of Queens Philippa and Caroline.”
“That’s it,” was Edward I’s response. “First we get Charlie Chancer to move money from more accounts and turn it into real money—cash right here and now.”
Charlie did not know how he was going to do any of this nor how long it would take. It seemed time was of the essence to these greedy kings. Charlie clenched his fists hard and thought, “If I there’s a scintilla of Queen Anne of Bohemia’s magic left, I would turn it on these evil spirits and get them to do away with one another.”
He looked around the room. Geoffrey Chaucer had left.
George II had to admit, “I have the numbers and sort code for dear Caroline’s outside account. I keep them written down on a slip of paper in my pocket. But I don’t have the numbers for Philippa’s account.”
Ever the pragmatist, Edward I said simply, “Then we just get the funds to Queen Caroline and try for money transfers to Philippa later.”
George II nodded his assent.
Charlie and the two kings heard James I’s skittering tread outside. As he drew nearer, they caught snatches of him singing a Scots ballad with his quivery-quavery voice. It was something about Scots kilts, a wind blowing high and low and, “Where’s your trousers?” It was incomprehensible and weird.
Edward I and George II steadied themselves to be ready for the kill.
“As for our treacherous false friend, our remedy is at hand,” said Edward I. And with that remark, he picked his cloak off a peg in the room to show the outsize hammer on the back.
“I think we can manage something easier, sharper and quicker,” said George II. “Besides, it has to look like this American guy has done it. His fingerprints will be all over the keyboard. The moderns are very keen on fingerprints, DNA and all sorts of scientific clues, etcetera, etcetera.”
Together Edward I and Charles II pinioned Charlie with some spare ceremonial rope, tying his hands backwards to the back of an office chair. They blindfolded him with a smelly scarf from some abbey cleric who was a heavy smoker. Charlie knew he was sweating profusely. He could hear what he thought was going on but not see anything. He felt his forehead wet with uncomfortable, uncontrollable perspiration.
He knew when James I was back in the room, however. By now he would have known that traipsing-about tread and James’s phoney Brit twit accent anywhere.
“I say, fellows, here it is.”
Charlie heard the sound of glass tumblers being filled up, follow
ed by slurpy sounds of drinks being downed as George II said, “Down the hatch.”
“Bottoms up,” said James I.
“Cheers,” said Edward I. “To each his own.”
Charlie felt his head tighten as one of the kings pulled his blindfold tighter, and then looser as his blindfold was relaxed. George II had now changed his mind. He wanted Charlie to see Edward I draw a dagger from his belt and let it rip right across James I’s throat.
“I say fellows,” James I began in his English accent. And, as life drained away from him, he retreated into his original Scots accent with, “Burr, ouch, traitors! Infamy, aye!”
James slipped onto the floor. The tumbler fell with him and its half-full contents dribbled out.
Just as George II was congratulating Edward I on their little victory and getting ready to make Charlie reverse the money transaction and start a new one, he felt a nauseating, throbbing pain down his throat and into his upper stomach. “He’s done for us,” George II said with some difficulty. “He was ahead of us. We didn’t want to share the funds. And neither did he.”
With that, George II fell noiselessly onto the body of Edward I who had collapsed just before him.
Charlie sat petrified more than shocked. In all the horrid history mysteries of kings killing one another, he had never heard of two simultaneous murder plots with a triple consequence.
Charlie started to struggle with the rope twisting and turning so much that the chair fell over. Charlie hit the floor with a nasty bump. Geoffrey Chaucer was back in the room. The poet steadied Charlie and raised him upright in the chair.
The attractive man in Elizabethan garb appeared from somewhere and, in a seaman’s trice, undid the knotted ropes binding Charlie.
“Thank you,” said Charlie as he rubbed his sore wrists. “How did it happen?”
“With your help, the three of them conspired to steal money from the abbey—at least an electronic form of it, anyway,” answered Geoffrey Chaucer. “Two of them wanted to divide it two ways. George II could easily persuade Edward I to act the assassin because he didn’t fully understand modern finance. And so, Edward killed his and George’s untrustworthy partner by slitting his throat. But King James—temporarily offstage—did not want to divide the funds either. He had given you numbers and security for some account different from Queen Philippa’s—some secret slush Scottish funds of his own. And he had already poisoned the communion wine. As Edward and George celebrated their presumed victory, they drank it and it killed them.”
“Now I get it—why you kept saying ‘pardon’. You were thinking of the plot of your own ‘Pardoner’s Tale’ and the ugly fate of the three thieving rioters. You were trying to give me a clue about getting out of this fix. That was it, wasn’t it?”
“Maybe,” said Geoffrey Chaucer non-committedly.
“But I didn’t do it—take action—kill these kings.”
“No,” said the Elizabethan man with the west-country accent. “But you thought about it in your subconscious. As Mr Chaucer has tried to tell you, your involvement in these royal shenanigans is a product of your powerful imagination—a result of your obsession with the royals.”
Charlie did not like this. But at least he could see his way to freedom.
“You say James I diverted the money intended for Queen Philippa. But what about the money intended for Queen Caroline?”
“It’s all gone—gone to James’s secret account—we think. One more thing: you can put a stop to it—like George II said. But you have to do it straight away.”
Geoffrey Chaucer handed Charlie a paper cup with water. Charlie hesitated.
“Don’t worry,” said the original poet of Poets’ Corner. “It’s legit. Yes, it tastes bad. But London water has always tasted like that. The water here is hard.”
Charlie sipped the water cautiously, nevertheless. He pulled himself together. He wanted to return to his questions about kings wanting to cheat Death.
“First, stop the transaction,” said Chaucer. “You have to give a reason. Just say it’s on instructions from the Financial Ombudsman. That should close down any prying queries.”
Chaucer beckoned Charlie back to the computer that was still active. The transaction proved easier than Charlie would have thought possible—perhaps because he was being guided by an expert tactician. His forehead was sweating again but this time the perspiration was drops of relief.
“So neither Philippa of Hainault nor Caroline of Anspach will get any money?”
“That sums it up,” said Chaucer. “Don’t worry about them. To get by, they have their talents—and they use them.”
Charlie wanted to thank his two saviours.
“This is Sir Walter Raleigh,” said Chaucer, indicating his ally. “He lives nearby and he will help you. You met him briefly earlier tonight.”
Sir Walter gave a curt bow and said, “What you’ve just lived through has been a shabby little shocker. It’s made your heart leap and your brain reel. You don’t disbelieve what you’ve lived through because you haven’t had time to think it through but now you need to get back to your children and get them away.”
“What about the bodies?”
“What bodies?”
Charlie looked down and around. All that was left of the murder scene was a carafe of communion wine, two tumblers on the desk and a third on the floor in the midst of some spilled wine that seemed to be evaporating. Edward I’s famous cloak was also on the floor where his body had been. There was no other sign of the three kings, alive or dead.
“What happened? Did I dream this?” Charlie asked.
“No. You didn’t dream it. But you made it up,” said Chaucer. “You know the royal histories—too well, perhaps. You’ve read them. You’ve devoured them. We might say they’ve consumed your mind. Am I right?” he asked Sir Walter.
“Right in every particular. This is how these kings are, in life and legend, gossip and folk history—and in books, whether fiction or history that is really fiction. And what Mr Chancer—or any other readers—take from reading their books is slightly or more different each time. So you might say that the book never stays the same because your own reading and understanding shifts emphasis. I should know. I’m a historian myself as well as a buccaneer. But your core fascination with the royals is rock solid.”
“Am I going mad?” asked Charlie.
“No. At least not in certifiable terms,” Chaucer replied. "But you’ve let yourself get obsessed: obsessed from the Latin obsideo, obsidere, obsessus sum—meaning your object has come right in and now sits right down beside you, inside you.
“You’ve given your imagination, your obsessions, to your children. Every time you read about Henry V at Agincourt or Elizabeth I quarrelling with Mary, Queen of Scots, these people come to life, whether or not they met face to face in their lifetimes.”
“Your daughter, Ginny, is a smart kid,” said Sir Walter. “She worked it out all by herself.”
This chastened Charlie. Now he realised that Ginny was not a kid but a blossoming young woman. But he knew Sir Walter and Mr Chaucer were right. He must not waste time on self-recrimination. Chaucer urged him on.
“By allowing greed to get the better of three kings so that they would kill one another, you brought the royal curtain down on them—at least for as long as it will take you to make your escape. This means you have cleared your head.”
“You and your dear children are free to leave as soon as the doors open for today’s tourists. You’re such lucky people. Our royal pedants couldn’t decide if you are pests, predators or prey,” concluded Sir Walter. “Because they delayed, you can evade their clutches.”
Chaucer was being more practical when he said, “We’re wasting time. Get your kids back and get out before things change again and the dreaded kings come to life again.”
ESCAPE ARTISTS
Once he was back in the great nave of Westminster Abbey, it seemed to Charlie that, after the three kings had killed one another, t
he mysterious but impregnable films that had divided the abbey into different courts had simply disappeared—evaporated. In his desire to escape with his kids, Charlie was not going to ponder why. But as he glanced around the abbey it looked different again, just as it had when he and his kids had arrived as regular visitors: gloomy, slightly untidy but cavernous enough for ghosts. Certainly the distinctly Gothic atmosphere that Ginny had found alluring and the Tudor country-estate atmosphere with the regimen of skeletal queens that had held Georgie enraptured—well, these were gone. But then, dawn must be returning.
At Charlie’s side, whispy Geoffrey Chaucer was still himself, an all-seeing custodian who knew more than his supposed betters around him but who had the wisdom to keep his superior interpretations to himself. Chaucer simply folded his hands in front of Charlie then released them in a sign of benediction. He grew fainter and fainter until he vanished.
Charlie heard sounds coming from the cloisters, unmistakeable squealy sounds of excited children playing football—or was it some sort of pitched battle with armoured toys? Charlie needed no further invitation. He arrived at the cloisters at the height of the mock battle and quickly got himself over to Ginny.
“Move now. There’s no time for anything else,” he urged her.
Once he had located Georgie amid the useless fighting, he pushed himself into the melee and practically dragged his son after him. Then he propelled his kids towards the abbey doors. Panting he added, “No time for explanations.”
Kings and commoners alike saw streaks of yellowy light in the sky. Dawn was drawing on apace. The kings and queens knew that they had to scurry back to their accustomed places of slumber, whether in tombs, under stone slabs, or high in the nooks and crannies of the fan vaulting.
Richard III was in a hot panic and a cold sweat. Because his twisted skeleton was now buried in Leicester Cathedral, his vivacious spirit could not stay with his adversary relatives in Westminster Abbey, no matter how much he wanted to needle them from beyond his grave. Yet he was still wooing Richard Plantagenet—or was it another young gardener?
Midnight in Westminster Abbey Page 30