The Lords' Day (retail) (6 page)

‘Say, do they do croissants and coffee at this State Opening thing?’ William-Henry enquired.

‘When grown men start dressing in silk stockings and wigs, there’s no way of being sure what to expect,’ the ambassador replied.

9.42 a.m.

The day really wasn’t working out for Harry. A state of near-paralysis was spreading through the arteries that led from the Palace of Westminster until it had choked much
of Central London. Harry tried to call a taxi, but nothing was moving, forcing him to go by foot. Not that this was unusual. In his early days as an officer in the Household Cavalry he had once
taken his troop on an unscheduled six-hundred-mile route march down the spine of Norway, much to the delight of his men and the consternation of his CO, who just hated surprises. Harry had an
extraordinary knack of pissing off his superiors. His last outing with the Special Air Service had proved to be one hell of a yomp, too. He’d loved the SAS, not so much for what it was but
because, after Julia’s death, he had been able to lose himself within its monkish company of warriors. He had shown himself to be utterly fearless, some said reckless, but only with his own
life. Others did their damage with little more than a pen. No sooner had his squadron proved its mettle in counter-terrorist operations throughout Northern Ireland and many other parts of the world
than an order was signed placing them on role rotation. They were intensely honed experts in urban warfare; now with little more than a few weeks’ training behind them, they were sent to
fight in the desert. It was the inexorable Law of Sod. They found them selves thrust into something called Gulf War One. The equipment had been crap – some of it literally melted – the
intelligence had more holes than a whore’s knickers and they’d been dropped in a location that was supposed to have been empty for miles around but turned out to be within spitting
distance of a major deployment of the Republican Guard. After a disastrous firefight Harry had been forced to walk more than two hundred miles to safety with a bullet in his back and a wounded
colleague slung over his shoulder, and only two litres of water between them. Yes, Harry knew how to walk.

Now, as he hurried through the park at the back of Downing Street, he wondered if he was still able to do it, to take all that pain. He knew he’d changed, perhaps gone soft. He was used to
controlling his feelings, not letting the anger show, so why was this baby thing getting to him? Christ, he’d even voted for the abortion bill, but now . . . He strode on, trying to work off
his frustration. Soon he was cutting through St Margaret’s churchyard where, in the lee of the abbey, the lawns had been planted with a spreading tide of tiny wooden crosses bearing poppies.
Remembrance Day was less than a week away. He slowed his pace. Small family groups were gathered, pointing to crosses, planting their own, talking in low voices washed with pride about those they
had lost. Harry came to a halt for a few moments, struggling with his own memories.

As he stood in this field of poppies, much of his immediate anger passed from him. He had to regroup, get back in control of the situation. He couldn’t leave things where they were with
Mel, buried in lurid recrimination. Whatever he thought about her, he needed her, had to find some way of changing her mind. He tried her mobile but she wasn’t answering, not to him, at
least. He left a mumbled half-meant apology and asked to meet up to talk things over – perhaps over dinner again? Tonight? The suggestion might promote a few happier memories; after all, less
than nine hours ago they’d been having sex in the communal lift.

A few strides later and he had reached the crowd barrier manned by armed police at the edge of the security cordon.

‘Have you got your pass, sir?’ one of the constables, a woman, asked. Harry took in the brightly manicured fingers hooked around a Heckler and Koch MP5, and still couldn’t
persuade himself that such things were right. He began scrabbling inside a pocket for his green-and-white barred security pass when the other policemen, without waiting, drew back the barrier.

‘Morning, Mr Jones, no need for that.’ The bobby saluted.

‘I’m sorry, do we know each other?’

‘You won’t remember but we met, briefly, after you gave a speech at the Hendon police academy. Fine speech you made that day; not heard a better one since. Pity you left the Home
Office, that’s what many of us thought.’

‘Yeah. I thought that, too.’

And he was through, past the security cordon, crossing the empty street. Instead of the usual barriers of concrete and steel that protected the parliament building, now there was nothing but
wide, open space. The forecourt of the House of Lords had been cleared of all the regular security checks and devices, and where armed policemen normally patrolled, today Harry found nothing but a
troop of young adventure scouts, boys and girls, standing in the sun. Here, everything seemed peaceful and was assumed to be safe. In fact, by this time the policemen who usually patrolled the
corridors within the parliament building were being withdrawn as their presence was deemed to be not fitting with the pomp and splendour of the occasion. To Harry, this seemed to miss the point.
Hadn’t almost all serious threats to the lives of monarchs come from within this building, not from without, from the likes of Guy Fawkes and Cromwell and the rest? For a moment, it struck
Harry that all the forces of security he had passed that morning were looking the wrong way, but life was often absurd. Then his mind strayed back to the field of poppies outside the church, and
the small gatherings of loved ones who had come to remember. A disturbing thought suddenly grabbed hold of him and began to shake him. If he died, right now, today, who would be there to mourn? Who
would bother to remember him? Who would come to plant a poppy in his name? Lacking any answer he found acceptable, Harry hurried on.

10.25 a.m.

It was almost time. The senior judges were en route from the Royal Courts of Justice in a convoy of cars. The adventure scouts listened to their final instruction. The men and
women from the BBC ran one final test. Yet not everything was running smoothly. The Vice-Chamberlain of the Household, the government minister who was to be held hostage at Buckingham Palace for
the duration of the ceremony, was descending into a state of panic. A fly button on the grey-striped trousers of his morning suit was hanging by the slenderest of threads and would never last the
morning. This was his first time; he was nervous, and all but screamed with frustration. His secretary, as always, came to the rescue with a soothing word and a needle and thread, trying not to
laugh at the sight of his dangling double cuffs and pale pastry knees.

The benches in the chamber were beginning to fill. The first bishop had already taken his place, and behind him ambassadors and envoys were gathering. The first to arrive was
the High Commissioner of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, a portly man dressed in a bright gold and highly decorated
achkan
, a long coat that ended at the shins. He leaned heavily on a
walking stick, and at his special request had been placed at the end of the leather bench rather than being forced to squeeze between many others. The high commissioner had only recently arrived in
London, following the turmoil and revolution that had left his country with a second change of government in less than a year. Robert Paine sat nearby, but they exchanged nothing more than the
briefest greeting; the weight of his country’s troubles seemed to weigh heavily on the Pakistani’s shoulders. Paine looked up and offered a private smile to Magnus and William-Henry who
had taken their places in the gallery. It was a narrow and desperately uncomfortable perch, designed for women of a delicate Victorian stature, but the two friends hadn’t a care, leaning
forward to spy on the scene below. They found a sight that was staggering and, to their young eyes, even faintly comical. Television lights danced upon a brimming sea of tiaras, medals, brooches,
silks, jewels, decorations and dog collars. Their pro gramme told them they were looking down on Pursuivants Ordinary and Extraordinary, heralds and high men, barons, bodyguards and bishops, earls
and ushers, and they thought they could see Pooh Bah and Uncle To m Cobley mixed in there, too.

‘Straight out of Gilbert and Sullivan,’ Magnus muttered in awe.

‘Like one of those fifties films with the colour control on full blast,’ William-Henry replied.

‘Designed to impress the masses, of course.’

‘The cradle of democracy.’

‘Not quite,’ Magnus responded. ‘Technically, this is a royal palace. Funny place. You know, that makes it almost impossible to die here. To have a death certificate record your
place of departure as the Palace of Westminster, it’s got to be signed by a royal surgeon. Buggers are never around when you need them. So if you stop breathing, you’re put in an
ambulance and carted off across the river to St Thomas’s. Dead on arrival. Somehow takes the splendour out of it all, don’t you think?’

‘Magnus, you are a fount of the most useless information imaginable.’

‘Just wanted to make you feel at home.’

‘Then get me some breakfast! Hey, that one’s a waiter, isn’t he?’ William-Henry said, pointing to a black-clad figure below.

‘I think you’ll find that’s the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod. Good for a brandy but not bacon and eggs.’

‘Then I’m going to die of hunger, no matter what you say.’

The truth was, no one was supposed to die in the Palace of Westminster. It was against regulations. It was yet another of those rules that, in the next few hours, was going to be torn up.

10.30 a.m.

Even as the young men gently mocked their elders, the main gates to the Sovereign’s Entrance were being opened in preparation to receive Her Majesty. At the same time, her
hostage was being driven up the Mall to Buckingham Palace, his trousers now intact. He held his top hat on his lap in one hand and his wand of office in the other, and fidgeted nervously.

Heading in the other direction down the Mall, in its own coach, came the Imperial State Crown. It was the finest piece of jewellery in the world. Its sapphire had been taken from the ring of
Edward the Confessor, its diamond was the third largest in the world, and the egg-sized ruby had once belonged to the Black Prince, making it one of the oldest known jewels known to man. To add a
little sparkle there were more than three thousand other diamonds, pearls and precious stones embedded in it. The Crown was heavy, it could not be otherwise, and too heavy for comfort on most
heads. Wearing it required both patience and a little practice. Palace footmen reported seeing Elizabeth wearing the Crown over breakfast, with her newspapers, in preparation.

Along with the Crown came the Sword of State and the Cap of Maintenance, a crimson velvet affair carried on a stick and whose origins lay so far back in the shadows of the past that no one could
remember what it was for, although it was still treated in much the same way as if it had been the bones of St Peter. Except that, for some reason no one was entirely clear about, it seemed to have
spent the last year tucked away in a drawer of Prince Philip’s desk. No one had been unwise enough to ask the Prince why; he was sick, and in any event probably wouldn’t have a clue how
it had ended up there, but he’d be sure to throw one of his castle-cracking fits if he thought they’d been raking through his desk drawers. No telling what might turn up in them.

At 10.52 precisely the coach carrying the royal regalia arrived at the Sovereign’s Entrance. Here the Crown was passed to the Royal Bargemaster before being taken under guard to the Robing
Room, where were waiting the other necessary props required for the occasion. These necessaries included the Queen’s robe, six yards of it, four page-boys to carry it, and a bottle of sherry
which had been brought from the palace by one of the Ladies-in-Waiting. Elizabeth was partial to sherry on such occasions, for medicinal purposes. Great care would be taken to ensure that what
remained of the sherry was taken back to the palace afterwards. It wouldn’t do to have a half-empty bottle of
oloroso royale
popping up on eBay.

Back at Buckingham Palace, Her Majesty was being seen off from the inner courtyard by a group of officials, in the midst of whom stood her ministerial hostage. He bowed his head low. The day was
unusually clement for November, the palace basked in the sun like a contented walrus. The Irish State Coach was drawn by four white horses, their hooves echoing back from the walls of the inner
archway as, with her son beside her, the Queen set out for that other palace of illusions that lay on the far side of the park. A squadron of the Household Cavalry led the way.

As the noise of the hooves died away, the Lord Chamberlain touched the elbow of his parliamentary guest. ‘You are now my prisoner, young man. Come with me.’ The junior minister was
escorted up to the Lord Chamberlain’s offices, walled with bookcases and equipped with several fine cracked-leather armchairs and a television. A bottle of old champagne was standing on a low
side table.

‘Now that the Boss has gone, we can get down to business. Will you pour or shall I?’ the Lord Chamberlain enquired.

‘You know, I think I might learn to enjoy being a hostage,’ the young politician replied, at last relaxing.

The Lord Chamberlain offered a modest smile. ‘The House of Windsor does its best.’

As they made themselves comfortable in the armchairs, on the other side of the park, in the heart of parliament, the last of the assassins, who now numbered eight, was taking his own seat.

11.02 a.m.

The Royal Gallery that adjoins the chamber itself is not so much a gallery as a vast chamber, larger even than that in which the peers sit. It is sumptuous, and dominated by two
extraordinarily long tableaux that commemorate the British victories over the French at Waterloo and Trafalgar. The paintings are vivid and bloody, with bodies and broken bits scattered everywhere,
most of them French. This is where guests who are unable to be in the Chamber itself are seated, and through which, with pomp and circumstance and just a touch of carnival, the Queen and her royal
entourage pass. A tremor of excitement ran through the guests waiting here, for it was their day, too. There were sikhs, sultans, saris, rabbis and minor foreign royalty, commoners black, white,
yellow and brown, Nepalese and Nigerians and a couple from Nottingham. The wife wore a creation of plumes and plucked feathers that on a different day would have done as dusters. The hat was also
as broad as a London bus, lacking only the advertisement stuck on its rear end.