The Queen Must Die Read online

  They were interrupted by sounds in the hallway. Katie just had time to dive back under the bed when Baroness Lehzen entered, followed by a small woman in a black dress, her hair in grey braids wound around her ears like giant Danish pastries.

  ‘Your father has come to see the Prince Leopold, and he wishes to observe the lessons you take. But are you working? No! You are playing with the toys!’ A loud ‘pop’ reverberated through the room, as Lehzen boxed Alice’s ears. ‘Now go!’ she ordered. ‘To the schoolroom, and try to put the ideas into the little little brain you haf.’ Alice ran through a door on the opposite side of the room, followed by the two ladies.

  Curiosity overcame Katie’s fright, and she crept back out from under the bed and to the door. Opening it, just a crack, she could see a long narrow attic room, whitewashed, with one of the walls painted black as a chalk board. The others were covered with maps, botanical drawings, dictation symbols, scripture quotes and an enormous diagram of the royal succession to the throne of England: from Ethelbert the Unready onwards. The two women were curtsying again and again to a tall man with blue eyes and silky brown hair like Alice’s. This must be Alice’s father, Prince Albert. Katie thought he looked silly, with his long sideburns and delicate mustachios, but she knew it was the style of the time, and that Prince Albert had been considered quite a heart-throb – at least by Queen Victoria. He turned to the table and began to leaf through some of Princess Alice’s work.

  ‘And with Vicky gone from the schoolroom, how do you get on with your studies?’ he asked Alice, who was standing in front of him, trying to smooth her rumpled gown. His accent was softly German as he had come from the tiny state of Saxe-Coburg to marry Queen Victoria.

  ‘She does poorly without the Princess Royal,’ Baroness Lehzen interrupted, getting another curtsy in for good measure. ‘The shining star is the Princess Royal, such a star! The liebchen Vicky. So like the dearest, sweetest mother.’

  Annoyance flooded Prince Albert’s face. Katie could have laughed, except that Alice looked so miserable, her grey eyes downcast. ‘I try,’ said Alice. ‘I try to follow the classroom regime as closely as possible.’

  ‘Ya,’ interrupted Lehzen again. ‘We keep to the regime. In the morning there is the study of the arithmetic, the poetry, the history and the dictation. And the afternoon does go to the geography, the scripture and the study of the royal progenitors.’

  ‘And German,’ added the small woman in the black dress. ‘And the music, and the art, and the dancing…’ Fräulein Bauer began to curtsy again, as did Baroness Lehzen. Prince Albert rubbed his eyes and sighed. Katie noticed his hairline was receding and his face looked puffy and tired. Her own father often had this look, after a hard day at work, especially when Mimi was asking him for yet more money. Cutting across the two bobbing and grinning women, he turned again to Alice.

  ‘Vicky was exceptional, and was given exceptional academic training. If you are finding the work too difficult, we can of course adjust the schedule.’

  ‘No,’ Alice answered, looking agitated. ‘I must be able to do as well as Vicky. It’s just…’

  ‘She is without the application, the concentration, we cannot find it in her,’ Baroness Lehzen plunged in. She lifted her hands as if to box Alice’s ears again but catching sight of Prince Albert’s face hid her hands behind her back and tried another curtsy.

  As Albert began to speak there was a knock on the door. The Prince’s Private Secretary, Bernardo DuQuelle, moved softly into the room to remind the prince of his other meetings and obligations. DuQuelle was a tall man with jet black hair and a strange pallor, as if his skin were powdered. His eyes were hooded and his nose was hooked. Despite his very English clothes, he had an air of the Orient about him. He wore a tight-fitting black frock coat and high black hat only emphasized his exoticness. Katie couldn’t take her eyes off him. In the back of her mind she had known all along that he would be here. It was the tall man in the black silk top hat. The man of her visions. ‘SEEK’ had swirled above his head as he had emerged from the subway in New York City. As he peered around the room, he still seemed to be seeking – lifting random papers from the schoolroom tables, and drinking in the words. She couldn’t say she was delighted to see him.

  Bernardo DuQuelle turned towards the Prince. He had a way of waving his elaborately engraved walking stick, and whispering in the Prince’s ear. The Prince looked annoyed, and moved away from him, as if avoiding a bad smell. But there were half a dozen appointments left in the day, and Prince Albert knew DuQuelle was right. The allotted time in the nursery was over. The Prince took Alice’s hand. She curtsied. Just like the others. ‘Mein liebe,’ the Prince said, ‘I am so busy at the moment, so occupied with my big project. We will talk soon, though, I hope.’ He did not sound very hopeful.

  As the two men turned to leave the room, they passed near Katie. She could just catch part of their conversation. DuQuelle spoke low, to avoid the curious ears of Lehzen.

  ‘MacKenzie insists it is the plumbing, but the senior household steward fears a breach of security. We are getting word of a new underground movement of anarchists; coming from the Balkan States … they are, how would one say it, a particularly rabid strain of anti-monarchists and seem to be targeting the Royal Family… the children …’ Albert turned to look at Alice. Katie thought he would have liked to have gone back and embraced his child. DuQuelle lifted his head and scanned the room; he almost seemed to sniff the air. Did he know of Katie as she knew of him? Shaking his head slightly, he hurried the Prince away.

  As the door shut, Baroness Lehzen vented her anger, giving Alice a swift clip on the side of the face. ‘Dummkopf!’ she spat.

  ‘Perhaps the Princess needs help. I could stay to advise with her lessons,’ Fräulein Bauer offered timidly, only to be answered with a matching box of the ears.

  ‘You know what I have asked of you,’ Baroness Lehzen snapped. ‘Can none of you remember any of the things I say? Must I repeat every little word? You must follow Mr MacKenzie, watch him. We must find out what is the mischief he is doing.’ The door banged shut, but the Baroness’s scolding of Fräulein Bauer continued down the corridor.

  Putting aside her own fears, Katie ran into the room and hugged Alice. ‘How can you put up with that? Why do your parents let that horrible old hag near you?’

  Alice gently shook off Katie’s hug and squared her shoulders. She would not cry. ‘The Baroness Lehzen was my mother’s own governess when she was a girl. She fought for the Queen like a lioness for its cub, protecting her from the intrigues and power struggles of the Court. The Queen loves her like a second mother, and the Baroness’s love for the Queen knows no bounds. She can’t bear anything that gets between herself and the Queen, so she hates us, all the children, except my older sister Vicky. She thinks Vicky is just like the Queen. She particularly dislikes me – she says she cannot bear the turn of my countenance. And then there is my poor performance in the schoolroom …’

  ‘I don’t believe her for a minute,’ Katie said, trying to cheer Alice up. ‘I bet you’d be head girl at my school. No one looks as brainy as you do without some real brains behind it.’

  Alice tried to smile. ‘I am not unintelligent,’ she admitted, ‘I like my history and poetry lessons. And occasionally they let me read science. But the Baroness Lehzen has a point. I do not concentrate. I am no Vicky. I am no star.’

  ‘But why?’

  Alice thought for a moment, listening to the rain dripping from the trees outside. ‘It’s different for Bertie, he’s to be King, but everything Vicky and I have been taught – the arithmetic, the music, the history, the languages – all of this is to prepare us for marriage. Vicky is bounding towards this goal. She is already engaged, and confident that she is making one of the greatest of matches to the highest of the European Crowns. She is sure that her marriage will be a stupendous success. Of myself I am not so certain.’ She looked at her feet as if she were about to tell Katie a shameful secret. ‘I don’t
think, well – sometimes I don’t think I even want to get married.’

  ‘Well, that proves you’re brainy,’ Katie reassured her. ‘I don’t want to get married either. Look at Mimi – my mother – she’s been married three times and each time it’s ended in disaster.’

  Alice looked up, her face full of sympathy. ‘But your poor mother, widowed three times! She must be prostrate with grief.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Katie said cheerfully. ‘Not widowed – though she’d love that: lots of crying and in-depth touchy-feely interviews with the gossip magazines. She’d probably bring out a new single on the back of it. No, Mimi’s a serial divorcer. My dad’s the first one, followed by Dr Jones – plastic surgeon to the stars. She’s just left Bob Burg, founder of Burg’s Burgers. She’s still in court about the payout, it’s sure to be huge, though it’s really messy, and it’s just so embarrassing, because it’s in the papers all the time.’

  ‘Plastic surgeon? Burgers? Payout?’

  ‘Sorry, Alice, forget what I just said. It’s not important. And you might just make the brilliant match they expect of you.’

  ‘I am the third child, of much less dynastic importance than Vicky and Bertie. And my looks and manners will hardly make up for this. I am too sharp-tongued, too quick-tempered, too serious. I have none of the qualities to attract a brilliant match.’

  ‘If you could do something else, what would you choose?’ Katie asked.

  ‘There is no other choice,’ Alice said with a trace of bitterness.

  ‘But if there was?’ said Katie.

  Alice looked into the distance, as if she could, just faintly, see a different future. ‘I’d like to learn things that I could use in the real world, the world outside the Palace. Then I could do something with a purpose – not embroider or dance or tell you who all my ancestors are: but maybe make sick people well. I’d like to know enough of medicine to be of real use. And I’d like to use this knowledge to help the lower classes, those poor souls who need the most and receive the least. But how can I be of use to them when I am trapped in the Palace?’ She shot Katie a look of defiance. ‘It is impossible, I know, but the profession of nursing, it calls to me. That is the choice I would make, but I can’t. And sometimes it makes me angry.’

  Katie had grown up with hundreds of girls. She’d sat next to them in class, gone to their birthday parties and heard their whispered whines about teachers and parents and boys. She’d liked some of them, ignored others, and disliked quite a few. But she’d never been close to any of them. The girls she knew seemed so predictable, so trite. Better adventures and more interesting conversation came from books.

  Alice was still looking past her, to the life she dreamed of. Now, here was a girl, straight from a book, who interested Katie more than anyone she had ever met. Alice had everything her time could offer, but she seemed lonely, just like Katie. Unlike Katie, though, she had a goal. She didn’t loll about under her bed feeling sorry for herself. Not Alice. She wanted to help other people. Katie thought with great guilt about the book in her rucksack – was it still under her bed at home? Or was it under the sofa in Buckingham Palace? Inside was that book about little Mashaka. Alice would want to read it. She would want to feed and clothe him, to find a way to get him to school.

  ‘Poor Alice,’ Katie said. ‘Bertie’s rhyme is right. The palace fills you with malice.’

  Alice shot Katie a startled look. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Because you wrote about it in a letter to your sister, a letter I read over a hundred and fifty years later.’ Katie was sorry she’d brought it up. It must be creepy for Alice, talking with someone who not only knew the details of her past, but also scraps of her future. Katie tried to remember more about the letters Alice had written to her sister. Did Alice marry? And if so, who was it? ‘Perhaps,’ she said carefully, ‘you’ll be able to do the things you want from a Palace. I think it would be easier to change the world from a position of power anyway. And face it, Alice, you’re a lot better off than most girls in England at this time.’

  Alice’s face brightened. ‘You’re right, thank you, Katie.’

  ‘Thank you for what?’

  ‘For listening, and understanding. The only female friend I’ve ever had is Vicky – and everything is so easy for her. She can’t understand why it isn’t for me. Follow your duty, she says, and I try. And the more she lectures, the more Lehzen scolds, the more disappointed Papa looks, the more I want to rebel. But you seem to know how hard it is for me, and for some reason that makes it easier. It has been indulgent of me to neglect my lessons, just because I can’t achieve exactly what I want. And to let dear Papa down the way I have… He is perfect in every way. I must respond by trying harder and taking up every opportunity he provides for me.’

  Katie hadn’t formed quite the worshipful view of ‘dear Papa’ that Alice seemed to have, but she kept her opinions to herself. ‘Alice,’ she said, ‘I have got to have something to eat. And then I might be able to help you with your lessons. Though don’t ask me about the royal progenitors. I’d be totally lost by Ethelbert the Unready.’

  Chapter Four

  The Cloaked Intruders

  When James O’Reilly returned that night, he was still in a sulk. To make things worse, he had Riordan in his arms.

  ‘Why is that child never in bed?’ Alice asked crisply. ‘A baby needs to keep regular hours.’

  ‘You’ll have to discuss that with my father,’ James said glumly. ‘He’s hired the damnedest – I mean the worst – nursemaid possible. She is the youngest daughter of Lord Twisted of Wastrel – she’s been disappointed in love and has no dowry. She weeps and weeps, drinks like a fish, passes out and leaves Riordan to roam the Palace.’

  ‘But why would he hire someone like that?’ Katie asked. ‘Your father’s a doctor.’ James turned a bit pink.

  ‘She’s the daughter of Lord Twisted. They were once a very grand family, it’s an old title – even if they have fallen on hard times. My father thinks it might help him, the connection, you know, in court circles …’ Seeing Alice look at him curiously, he grew even pinker.

  Alice turned her attention to Riordan. ‘He’s half asleep now. Why don’t we put him in my bed? That way we can keep an eye on him.’ Taking the chubby little boy in her arms, she rocked him gently, murmuring snatches of lullabies. His round cheek drooped on to her shoulder and soon he was snoring, his baby mouth half open. Laying him gently in her bed, she wrapped him in her blankets and turned to the others. ‘I believe a plan would be of great help,’ she said.

  ‘All experimentation must be with the physical object involved,’ James pontificated. He was relieved that their talk had moved away from his distant, ambitious father. He wasn’t comfortable with that particular topic and would rather cut off his arm than discuss his ‘feelings’. He was on much firmer ground with science. That was solid. That was fact. That couldn’t hurt your heart when you lay awake at night. James was still sceptical about Katie, but he couldn’t close his mind completely to the idea. The innovators of his age had already wrought such wondrous things. The more he thought about time travel, the more excited he became. ‘You say you found Katie under a specific sofa in a specific place? I suggest we return to the sofa and examine it minutely. If Katie is telling the truth – though I still think she is not – then the sofa will open to reveal another time and …’

  ‘That’s stupid,’ Katie interrupted, ‘a magic sofa is a lame idea.’

  ‘Not as ridiculous as a time travelling girl—’

  ‘You really can be an ass—’

  Alice looked seriously nettled. ‘We’re not going to achieve anything by arguing. James, I have full belief in Katie’s story and insist you have faith in her as well. Katie, I won’t have that kind of language in the Palace. Since you don’t seem to have any ideas yourself, I suggest you treat Jamie’s with a bit more respect.’

  Alice’s sharp outburst brought the quarrel to an end. For the first time, James and Katie sm
iled at each other: blood would tell, and Alice was, after all, the daughter of a very grand Queen. James bowed: ‘Lead on your highness.’

  After tucking Riordan in more firmly, Alice led them to the schoolroom. ‘We shouldn’t go into the corridor,’ she explained. ‘There’s a guard room at the end of it. And though the soldiers spend most of their time mucking about and smoking, they might just see us. All other entrances to the royal nurseries are locked. My father holds the master key.’ Ducking behind a Japanese folding screen they found a battered chaise longue, a broken globe and a rocking horse missing one rocker. Hidden by the clutter was a small door. Alice produced a key and opened it. ‘Courtesy of Bertie,’ she said, looking guilty. ‘He was locked in the schoolroom so many times, that he, well, he filched the key from father’s dressing table and had a copy made. And one for me, so that I could sneak him a morsel of supper …’ The three of them crawled through the small door and into a low narrow corridor, hidden between the inner and outer walls of the Palace. ‘It leads to almost every room in the Palace,’ Alice told them. ‘The workmen used it while they were building the original structure and everyone else seems to have forgotten it. Careful, there’s a deep hole coming up, and we’ll have to take the ladder down a floor.’ They clambered down the ladder and twisted and turned through myriad passages.

  James O’Reilly was astonished and impressed. He’d always thought Princess Alice a fairly good sort of girl. Now she went further up in his estimation. ‘I’ve lived in this Palace most of my life, and I never knew any of this existed,’ he observed. ‘You certainly seem to know your way around.’

  ‘I’ve had lots of practice,’ Alice said. ‘Bertie was always in trouble. He once replaced Lehzen’s caraway seeds with peppercorns. I do get lost sometimes, though. Now I think this is the door we are looking for. But do keep quiet. The under-housemaids like to meet here in the small hours.’ Stooping through the door they were in the grand hallway. ‘They’ve moved everything around on Lehzen’s orders,’ Alice said. ‘But I think that’s the sofa, and I believe it’s in the same place.’ It was high-backed, with straight legs and carved Chinese fretwork. It looked innocuous enough, but the three of them couldn’t help approaching it on tiptoe. Suppose it was a magic sofa?