‘I think you should tell your father,’ Katie insisted. ‘See him alone, face to face. If anything happened to the Queen, and he could have stopped it, he would never forgive himself. You should have seen them together, Alice.’
‘I wish, I wish, I wish I hadn’t seen that,’ James O’Reilly moaned. The tension in the room broke and Katie and Alice laughed.
‘I’ve never seen anyone more embarrassed than James,’ Katie explained. ‘Goodness but he’s a coy young man. You’d think he’d never seen a normal loving family before.’ The moment she said it she could have bitten her own tongue. James’s father hadn’t been much of a husband. When his wife died in childbirth, leaving behind a brood of four, Dr O’Reilly took it as a personal betrayal. He paid almost no attention to the children.
James was looking at the floor, a face like a thundercloud. Katie tried to dig herself out. ‘It’s not as if I’ve ever seen a normal loving family either. At least not in my own house,’ she said. ‘Mimi is an absolute goddess of love. She falls head over heels, over and over and over again. It makes her feel young – and being young is the most important thing in the world to her. Me? I just make her feel old. So she either pretends we’re friends, equals, the same age, or tries to forget about me completely. I mean, I miss her, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t miss me. I think one of the reasons I can’t get home is that I have so little to go home to.’
Alice patted her friend’s hand. ‘There is no such thing as a completely happy family,’ she said. ‘Even ours, with Papa’s perfection and Mama’s great love – all the feeling she has for him… it seems to stop with him… it doesn’t continue on to us… to the children… well, not to me at least. And then of course, the duties of a queen and wife do not leave much time for other concerns.’
Alice shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. ‘How silly of me. It is wrong to say such things. Mama became the Queen when she was just eighteen. They came to her in the dead of night, to tell her. She went down the stairs in her nightdress, and they kissed her hand and proclaimed her Queen. “I will be good,” she said. And she has. She has been good. As to her marriage, most royal marriages are cold and heartless, designed for the status of the country, not the happiness of the individual. We are so lucky that the Queen and my father are truly in love. And to have a ruler of such greatness… it is unworthy of me to question dear Mama.’
Katie had noticed that Alice tried always to refer to her parents by their formal titles, but being human, she often forgot.
James kicked the side of Katie’s chair. ‘This is rubbish. The Princess is right. I’ve never heard such a silly conversation. We’ve got a crisis of national importance on our hands and you, Katie, start whittering on about “my mama doesn’t love me”.’
Katie didn’t snap back. She knew she’d hit a sensitive nerve with James. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘In my own time, all three of us would be sent to a shrink – a doctor who listens to you talk and tries to make you understand yourself.’
‘A shrink,’ James snorted, ‘I don’t need to get any smaller. I’ve got a better idea; let’s stop talking about ourselves and try and understand the Black Tide’s plot to kill the Queen. Katie, sometimes your way of doing things in the future seems very stupid to me.’
Katie opened her mouth to fight back, just a bit, but Alice interrupted. ‘The first thing we need to know is what was in the papers the Black Tide took from the Prince’s study.’
They were all silent. Katie tried to replay in her head the conversation she’d heard at three in the morning. ‘They said the papers were their admission ticket, admission to the Crystal Palace, I suppose.’
‘The papers probably have to do with the grand opening on the first of May,’ James added. ‘That’s the day of the Queen’s visit.’
‘I still don’t believe it,’ Alice said. ‘They wouldn’t try to kill the Queen at the official opening. Not with the entire aristocracy, the dignitaries, the Church and the ambassadors present. And all the world’s newspapers will be reporting on it. Why would they attempt this in such a public manner?’
‘But that’s exactly why,’ Katie explained. ‘They’re terrorists, at least that’s what we call them, and they’re an even bigger part of my modern life than of yours. They want to commit the crime in the most public way, so that the largest number of people will see what they’ve done. If the great and the good – as well as the press – are at the opening of the Crystal Palace, this will make the strike as powerful as possible. It’s a kind of sick publicity stunt, so that everyone will focus on what the Black Tide wants. And, as Alice says, so much of Britain’s stability is based on the Queen, this could change the course of the world. We’ll need to find out exactly what was inside that box. And time is running out.’
For the next two weeks most of the footwork was carried out by James. DuQuelle and the Black Tide had put Katie and Alice in far too much danger to move about the Palace. The night movements of the Black Tide came to an abrupt stop too. ‘They must have found what they wanted,’ Katie said. ‘If only we could find it too.’
Alice put down her needlework. ‘I’ve tried to see my father half a dozen times,’ she said. ‘I’ve even gone uninvited to his private rooms. But he’s so busy with the last-minute preparations for the exhibition and he’s never alone. Bernardo DuQuelle sticks to him like glue, except for the times he’s trailing me through the Palace, asking awkward questions about you, Katie. He’s bowing and smiling as usual, but I can’t help thinking he’s more and more anxious.’
James came in looking particularly grim. ‘For a long time I didn’t believe this whole thing,’ he said. ‘I challenged Katie’s story, demanded proof. Well, now I have that proof, and I wish to God I didn’t.’
‘What’s happened, Jamie?’ Alice asked.
‘They found Fräulein Bauer’s body.’ A chill crept through the room.
‘How bad was it?’ Katie asked.
James couldn’t speak for a few minutes. He glanced at Alice, who seemed to read his mind. ‘You’d best tell us everything,’ she said quietly. ‘I can take it.’
‘They pulled her out of the Thames early this morning. Father was sent to identify the body. He says it’s the most horrific mutilation he’s ever seen of a corpse. And not just bloated from the river. Poor Fräulein Bauer…’ James looked at the floor and cleared his throat several times before he could continue. ‘Her eyes had been gouged out and her tongue ripped from her mouth. Strange red welts covered her whole body, like burns, or suction marks. And the worst thing is… when they opened her up… all her internal organs were missing. She was filled with a poisonous tar-like fluid. The original doctors examining the body have been taken to hospital themselves.’
Alice had become very pale and Katie felt like she might vomit again. ‘Your father told you all of this?’ Alice asked.
‘He’s usually a more discreet courtier,’ James said in the bitter ironic voice he reserved for his father, ‘but he’s seven sheets to the wind tonight. He came back to the Palace and bathed himself in gin, then drank a bottle for good measure.’
‘It will make a sensation in the papers,’ Alice commented shakily.
‘You won’t read a thing about it,’ James replied. ‘They’ve sent Bernardo DuQuelle to Scotland Yard – supposedly to help with the investigation, but really to hush things up. He’s an authority on ancient diseases, with an outstanding knowledge of the medications of the Hebrews. He also knows anyone who counts in England, and exactly what skeletons they have in their closets. He’ll call in quite a few favours on this one.’
‘I think Alice needs a glass of water,’ Katie said, ‘and I could use some of your father’s gin. Sadly, there’s nothing we can do for Fräulein Bauer – but we can still help the Queen. Let’s just try to keep the body count down, and figure out what’s going on with the Crystal Palace.’
In the end it was Baroness Lehzen who gave them the information they needed, and only just in time. It was t
he very eve of the opening of the Crystal Palace. Alice tossed in her bed, while Katie fretted underneath it. Suddenly a battalion of servants descended on the nursery, Lehzen at their head. The room was bright with candles and Alice was pulled roughly from her blankets. ‘Curls,’ the Baroness Lehzen shrieked. ‘The Prince Albert suddenly remembers “Oh Baroness, Please make certain all the princesses haf the curls, and the flowers in their hair with the curls. It will look so picturesque at the opening.”’ Yanking Alice’s hair out of its braids she muttered under her breath, ‘He is impossible that man, the silliest man, and my dearest Victoria, to be besotted with such a man…’
Curling tongs were heated in the fire and damp linen cut into strips to wrap around Alice’s hair. In the meantime, a lady’s maid had been instructed to give Alice’s hair ‘100 strokes, vigorous strokes’ from the scalp down.
‘But my hair doesn’t curl. It’s so fine, the tongs will surely singe it,’ Alice managed to protest, as her head was jerked back and forth.
‘He said CURLS and I will gif him CURLS,’ Lehzen snarled through clenched teeth and barked at two shivering maids: ‘Run down the hall, wake up the others and start the curls with them. I will attend shortly.’
‘As if I didn’t have enough to do,’ the Baroness Lehzen continued. ‘The Queen’s new dress is not ready, and I must sew the silver lace on myself, and dress her hair… and, on top of that, the Prince Albert has managed to lose his personal copy of the list of dignitaries. Several of the Ambassadors have changed these last months. And the Queen has never even seen their faces. How can my precious Victoria greet her Ambassadors from around the world when she does not know who they are? I can see it,’ Lehzen barked, ‘the Ambassador from Lithorgia steps forward. He is announced “The honourable Mr Smith”? Or perhaps Mr Jones? Or maybe Prince Schlag of Creampuff? This is what the English would call the joke. Ha. Ha. Ha. But too distressing for the precious Victoria.’
Katie could smell burning hair and Alice began to complain in earnest.
‘You are the most vexing of child,’ the Baroness said, pinching Alice’s cheek very hard. ‘I must go to have my hundreds of things now. Come! Come!’ she cried, clapping her hands together and the parade of servants vanished as quickly as they had come.
With a flash Katie was out from under the bed. ‘It’s the guest list, the Ambassadors,’ she cried. ‘That’s what the Black Tide took from the Prince’s study, that’s what they wanted so much.’
‘Yes,’ Alice said, chewing on a burnt ringlet, ‘but why?’ Katie sat down on the floor to think.
‘The Black Tide said the project is running on time… the Crystal Palace will be more important than anyone realizes… their entrance ticket was within those papers. That’s it,’ she cried, looking up into Alice’s puzzled face. ‘It’s the missing list of dignitaries – that’s their entrance ticket. Didn’t you hear Lehzen talking? Some of the Ambassadors are new. The Queen won’t recognize them – no one will. The Black Tide are going to substitute one of their men for one of the unknown Ambassadors – and that’s how they will get close to the Queen, close enough to kill her.’
Alice looked like she was about to cry. ‘Do you remember when I pulled you out from under the sofa? I thought it was so funny, an adventure. I didn’t really believe you were going to kill my mother. And now here is true evil, the real thing.’ She pulled herself together, shaking her head until her damp and singed hair flew about her. ‘We have only hours now to save the Queen. We must find Jamie O’Reilly immediately. The assassins have a plan of great cunning, and now we need a damned good one ourselves.’
‘Damned?’ said Katie, startled at her friend’s language.
‘Damned right.’
An hour later Katie, Alice and James sat on the nursery floor. Beside them was the blueprint of the Crystal Palace, showing the positions of all the invited guests and a timetable of events. James had filched them from Prince Albert’s files. Everyone was too busy at this point to notice they were gone.
‘We will be here,’ Alice said, consulting the floor plan and schedule. ‘It says that “the Royal Family will arrive promptly at 12.00 p.m. and progress down the central transept to a raised dais directly in front of the largest of the elm trees. The Queen and Prince Albert will be seated under a canopy, the children behind them. Senior dignitaries will be below the Royal Family to the left, and Ambassadors will be standing behind the Bishops, to the right.” The Ambassadors need quite a bit of space, since many of them are travelling with large delegations from their own countries.’
‘The canopy might help,’ James said. ‘It will stop them from getting any kind of aim from above. But then the balconies above aren’t the problem. They’ll be filled with the season ticket holders. The building will be packed, but only the few chosen groups will be near the Queen. The Black Tide, should their plan succeed, will be with the Ambassadors.’
‘The Ambassadors are standing really far back, though,’ Katie reasoned. ‘A pistol wouldn’t have enough firepower from there to hit the target. They’d need a rifle, and that would be just too hard to get into the building – and really obvious when taking aim. There would be too much of a chance that someone would notice, and stop them.’
Alice was turning pale and her grey eyes were anxious.
Katie patted her friend on the shoulder. ‘It feels awful to talk like this in front of you,’ she said. ‘It sounds so cold and brutal.’
‘It’s necessary.’ Alice managed a thin smile.
James looked over Alice’s shoulder at the timetable of events. ‘You missed something,’ he said. Taking the sheet of paper from Alice he read: ‘“12.20 to 1. The presentation of the Ambassadors. Each Ambassador shall be announced. The named Ambassador will hence proceed up the transept to the foot of the dais, bow to Her Majesty, and salute the Royal Family.” They’ll be within feet of the Queen then. That’s when they’ll try.’
Katie could still see the fierce-eyed assassin before her in the Prince’s private study, cocking his finger and thumb like a gun, and saying in a deadly whisper, ‘The Queen must die’. For a moment none of them could speak.
‘Where will the Royal Household be positioned?’ James finally asked.
‘Here,’ Alice pointed. ‘Most of the Royal Household will be stationed behind the senior dignitaries. But Dr O’Reilly and the Reverend Duckworth will be directly to the left of the dais, in case there is a problem with Prince Leopold.’
‘Your father might be very busy tomorrow,’ Katie added. ‘It’s going to be a hot day, and that will cause a lot of problems in the glass structure. There will be more than one case of heatstroke.’
‘I’ll point that out to my father and get him to take me along to help. That will position me here, directly to the left of the platform. Is there anyone in front of the Bishops?’
Alice consulted the blueprint. ‘Just a small political grouping,’ she said. ‘The Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, a few of the most senior figures from the Royal Household.’
The three of them looked at each other, thinking the same thing, ‘DuQuelle’.
‘Well, I’ll just have to chance it,’ Katie said. ‘If James is on one side of the platform and I’m on the other, we can disarm the assassin as he’s ready to strike.’
‘You’re not going to be anywhere near DuQuelle,’ James told her firmly.
Alice added, ‘He’s right, Katie, we’ll have to leave this to Jamie. The moment DuQuelle sees you, your future will be sealed.’
‘Unless we can find a way that he can’t see me,’ Katie said. She looked at the blueprint again. ‘I never was any good at reading a map. Now what’s that cluster of red dots next to the Prime Minister again? They’re really close up.’
‘We told you,’ James said impatiently. ‘Those are the Bishops, and you will…’
‘I will be a Bishop,’ Katie interrupted.
‘Katie!’ Alice protested. ‘You cannot dress up as a bishop. It’s… it’s heretical.’
James was not much of a church-goer himself. She’d won him over. ‘The Bishop of London’s extra vestments are kept in the Chapel Royal,’ he said. ‘He’s an exceptionally small man, almost the size of a girl.’
‘Good,’ Katie said. ‘I’m an exceptionally large girl, or at least you guys think so. They’ll probably be a perfect fit. James can nick them tonight. I could also use a fake beard.’
Alice sighed. ‘If you are going to insist on this godless behaviour, we might as well make it work. Lehzen has an entire dressing room of wigs. You didn’t think that abundance of black hair was real? She’s as bald as a coot. I’ll borrow one when we’re done here, we can powder it grey.’
This brief bit of fun over, they were again weighed down by the task before them. ‘It’s not exactly Alice’s “damned good plan”,’ Katie admitted. ‘All James and I can do is try to find the assassin and then jump him.’
‘What about me?’ Alice asked. ‘You two are risking your lives to stop the gunman, while I’m “on stage” with my giggling sisters and my burnt frizzy curls.’
‘From the dais you’ll have a better view than any of us,’ James said. ‘If you see anything, wave your arms, get our attention.’
‘And Alice,’ Katie added, ‘if we fail, if it’s too late, duck. Take cover. Please. Save yourself.’
Chapter Fifteen
God Save the Queen
May 1st dawned, a day for splendour. The Queen rode in an open carriage from Buckingham Palace, her pink satin dress laden with silver lace and hundreds of diamonds. Across her breast was the Garter ribbon, and her hair was caught up in a tiara and white feathers. She had never been so proud. Dearest Albert would be immortalized through the Crystal Palace. He had been its guiding light from conception to completion; and not only her own dear country, but the whole wide world would bow down to acknowledge his superiority.
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