Читать книгу The Beast of Buckingham Palace - David Walliams - Страница 16

The throne room was modern and high-tech compared to the rest of Buckingham Palace, which had not changed for centuries. The walls, floor and ceiling were silver metal. One side was covered with a giant television screen, affording any view of the palace imaginable from a roving flying robot.

In front of the screen was a figure, slumped on the throne.

The King.

The man was only in his fifties, but he looked a good deal older. He had a long, grey beard, and deep, dark circles round his eyes. His appearance had changed rapidly over the years. This once-handsome upright man, full of life and love and laughter, had become an empty shell. Alfred thought that something must have happened to him, something terrible, to make him like this. Father was a completely different man from how he’d been when Alfred was a toddler. It was disturbing to witness such a change in him. As always, the King was wearing his silk pyjamas and dressing gown. He never got dressed or shaved or even washed.

You would never guess he was the King. Once he’d been a great guardian of the British people – now he was seen as their enemy.

Behind the King stood the Lord Protector, his long, thin fingers creeping on to the back of the throne.

“Lord Protector! What in the name of Great Britain do you think you are doing?” demanded the Queen.

The Lord Protector looked past her and the two royal guards – he’d spotted the prince crouching behind them.

“Well, well, well. We have an uninvited guest,” he purred.

“WHAT?” demanded the Queen. She looked round to see her son lurking there.

“I’m sorry, Mama.”

The Queen was furious. “Alfred! I told you to stay in your room!”

“I know, but I couldn’t just let them take you away. Not without a fight.”

The Queen mouthed “I love you” to her son.

The boy mouthed “I love you too” back.

“FATHER!” shouted Alfred. “They are taking Mama away! You have to stop them!”

The King turned to his son, but his eyes had an absence about them, as if there were a deep sadness that no one could reach.

He was staring at Alfred, but seemed to look right through him into space. There appeared to be no thought or feeling within him.

“Your Royal Highness,” began the Lord Protector, “with respect, this is neither the time nor the place for one of such tender years. Please let me call your nanny. She can escort you safely back to your room.”

“NO!” snapped the boy, finding a strength he didn’t know he had.

“No?” The Lord Protector had a way of being perfectly unruffled.

“NO! I demand to know what you are doing with my mother!”

The Queen allowed herself a smile, as if to say, “That’s my boy!”

“Father! Please help us!”

The King held up his hand as if to say, “Enough.” At once, his son noticed nasty cuts on the palm of his father’s hand. He’d seen these before, although, when asked, his father had no memory whatsoever of how they’d got there.

The Lord Protector smirked. He spoke softly and slowly, not meeting the boy’s anger.

“There must be some misunderstanding, Your Royal Highness. I am not doing anything to your mother, the Queen. I am merely a servant of the King.”

The Queen glanced sadly at the King. “My husband is a lost soul and has been for many years, thanks to you. No, this is your doing, Lord Protector!” she stated. “What a title you have! Protector! You protect nothing and nobody other than yourself. You are destroying this kingdom, but you are not going to destroy me!”

The Lord Protector smiled and sighed. “Please forgive me, Your Majesty, but you are quite wrong. This is not my doing. Your arrest is a direct order from your husband, the King.”

Neither the Queen nor the prince could believe what they were hearing.

“Father,” called out the boy.

But the man did not respond.

“FATHER!”

The King’s black eyes came to some semblance of life and fixed on his son.

“Alfred?” he asked. “Is that you?”

“Yes, Father. It’s me, your son, Alfred!”

It had been days since he’d seen his father, and he seemed more distant than ever. “What are you doing, Father? Mother is being taken away by the guards. And the Lord Protector says it is on your direct order!”

The King gathered his thoughts and began. He spoke slowly and softly. “The revolutionaries struck again tonight. St Paul’s Cathedral has been destroyed.”

“A place of worship,” sighed the Lord Protector. “Cruel and callous even by the standards of the revolutionary scum.”

“What on earth has that got to do with me?” demanded the Queen.

The Lord Protector’s mouth twitched into a ghoulish grin, but he said nothing.

The King continued, refusing to look his wife in the eye. “It has everything to do with you.”

“This is nonsense!” she protested. “UTTER NONSENSE!”

The King’s eyes flickered again, and he turned away. He couldn’t bear to look at his wife as he spoke. “For some time, I am sorry to say, you have been under suspicion.”

“Me?” she demanded. The lady was incredulous. “But I am the Queen!”

“You have been spied upon. And the All-Seeing Eye sees everything,” added the Lord Protector.

“Intelligence information has been brought to my attention,” continued the King, still unable to look at her, “that points to you being in direct communication with the revolutionaries.”

The Queen glowed red and began spluttering her innocence. “But… I…”

“You don’t deny it, Your Majesty?” pressed the Lord Protector.

“No, I, er…” the lady stuttered. “Of course, I deny it!”

“Then,” began the Lord Protector, “why did you have this hidden in your bedroom?”

He lifted a cloth to reveal an old-fashioned radio crouched guiltily on a metal table. It had a microphone, a speaker and an aerial, and looked as if it dated back nearly two hundred years to World War Two.

“I have never seen that before in my life!” protested the Queen.

“It was found hidden in a secret compartment in your dressing room.”

The radio crackled into life. A muffled voice on the other end said,

The Queen bowed her head.

Alfred thought he recognised that voice, but he couldn’t be sure. A voice from his dim and distant past, perhaps.

“Regina. The Latin word for Queen,” began the Lord Protector. “Hundreds of coded messages going back and forth over the last few weeks. Here, in the throne room, we intercepted them all. Then tonight, moments after your last message, KABOOM! Another precious building in flames. Sickening. Absolutely sickening.”

Alfred couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it, but he knew from the look on his mother’s face that it was true.

“Mama? How could you? The revolutionaries are evil! They want to kill us all!” he exclaimed.

“I can explain,” she spluttered, turning to the King. “My darling husband, you’ve changed. Something has happened to you, something very wrong, and I don’t know what. Please, I beg you. Don’t do this!”

The Lord Protector turned to the King. “Your Majesty, what would you like me to do with the traitor?”

Alfred was stunned into silence as that dreaded word sank in. TRAITOR.

“Take her to the Tower,” ordered the King.

“NO!” screamed the Queen. “Henry, it’s me, your wife. The mother of your child. I love you. Why are you doing this to me? Or is this really all the work of the Lord Protector? He has you under some kind of spell!”

On the Lord Protector’s nod, the royal guards seized her arms tightly and began dragging her out of the room.

“MAMA!” cried Alfred, and he reached out to grab her hand. But, before he could, a guard shoved him away.

“ARGH!”

The boy fell to the floor.

THUD!

“You are now the kingdom’s only hope,” said the Queen. “Goodbye, Lionheart!”

Alfred watched as the huge metal doors to the throne room slid open…

WHOOSH!

…and closed behind her.

His mother was gone. Perhaps forever.

The Lord Protector paced over to the prince. “There, there,” he said, reaching out to comfort him.

“No. I don’t want you. I want Mama back. PLEASE! I BEG YOU!”

“Your Royal Highness, I realise this is deeply upsetting news, that your mother, the Queen, is a traitor. But I want you to know that I am always here for you. I am, and will forever be, your loyal servant. If you need to talk about your feelings, you know my door is always open, as it has been for your father.”

“Please leave me now,” said the King, still staring off into space. “I need to be alone.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” replied the Lord Protector. He took the prince tightly by the hand. “This must be a difficult time for you more than any of us.”

Still holding the boy tightly by the hand, he made his way over to the metal door.

“Father?” said Alfred, turning towards the King.

“Please, you heard His Majesty – your father needs to be alone,” said the Lord Protector.

“Mama is a good person,” said the boy. “The best. If she did this, there must be a reason.”

“The reason is that there is evil inside her,” interjected the Lord Protector. “The Tower of London is the best place for her. The Executioner should be able to cast the evil out. By hook or by crook.”

Alfred gulped. Whatever “by hook or by crook” meant, it sounded deadly.

No one sent to the Tower of London ever came back.

“Now come on, young prince, a sickly child like you shouldn’t be out of bed at this late hour. You might catch your death,” said the Lord Protector. “You will be King yourself one day. We wouldn’t want anything happening to you, now, would we?”

The huge metal door slid open…

WHOOSH!

…and he led the boy out of the throne room.

Alfred allowed himself one last glimpse of his father. He was searching for a flicker of kindness in his eyes. A shadow of the man he used to be.

But there

was

nothing.