Adventures in Time Travel: Deeper Undercover (part three)
“No chocolate, darling. Not teatime yet.”
“Chocolate now, Mummy.”
“I said no, dearest.”
Oscar dropped the sword and began to wail. “Give him to me,” ordered John.
Hodierna handed him over. “This is Daddy,” I told Oscar.
“Daddy, I want some chocolate. I want some Teasers.”
“What is this stuff?”
“It’s a sweetmeat,” I said, “there’s a bag in my suitcase, but he’s not supposed to have – “
John turned to Hodierna. “Have it brought to him at once.”
We waited, Oscar now sobbing and purple in the face, (“TEASERS! TEASERS!”), John walking him up and down (“Don’t fret, little man, chocolate’s on the way”), and Hodierna making admiring comments (“Such rapacity, my lady! God help the castles he lays siege to!”).
Finally a servant dashed in with a large bag of Maltesers. John gave some to Oscar and tried one himself. The other children crowded round him, pleading, “Daddy, chocolate!” although they couldn’t have known what they were asking for. He patted their heads, then threw a handful of Maltesers on the ground for them to fight over.
After that it was plain to me that Oscar had to stay exactly where he was. The thirteenth century thought he was going to be a hero. The twenty-first century thought he was going to be a psychopath. It was obvious where he was going to find the most fulfilment.
I was glad I had brought his toothbrush, though.
***
That evening John read out to me the letter he had written to Mrs Kensington.
John, by the grace of God, King of England, to Mrs Kensington, Little Princes and Princesses Nursery, greeting.
Our faithful friend Lady Moppet of Yorkshire has signified to us that you have had the charge of the education of our beloved son Oscar, for which Lady Moppet has dispensed large sums. We marvel that our son was suffered to consort with common children, which we were far from inferring from the name of your establishment. And we were astonished and concerned to learn that he was treated neither kindly nor honourably, but offered insults and threatened with expulsion. As God is our witness, we are greatly irritated and incensed thereat. Know that we call you and your house to account for it, and we command you both diligently and effectually to treat of this business and to desist from the exactions you are making from Lady Moppet. And so act in this that we may not have cause to offer injury to you or your property. Witness ourself at Marlborough, the 9th day of April, in the second year of our reign.
“I’m rather pleased with it,” he said.
“Oh, it’s very good,” I said approvingly.
“It’ll take her back a bit.”
“It will, darling.”
“I don’t think,” he said meditatively, “that I’m going to execute you after all. I’ll have you know I’m still annoyed about that crown thing. But you’re making yourself useful, and you’ve given me the best son a man could ask for, so on the whole I think I’ll spare your life.”
“That’s awfully sweet of you, darling.”
“You can have the same deal as my other mistresses. I’ll sleep with you at least once a week, buy you all the clothes you want, and if you disobey me, or run away, or look at another man, I’ll kill you.”
“All right then, darling.”
The next morning I was trying to persuade Excel to add up pre-decimal coinage when John burst in.
“Leave that, I need you.”
So…he can’t wait till the end of day to be alone with me now, I thought. Little by little, my ascendancy is growing.
“It’s Isabella,” he said. “She won’t come out of the Wendy House.”
Oh. “One of your daughters?” I asked sympathetically.
“No, no,” he said impatiently, “it’s my wife. She flatly refuses to leave, not that I’d care, but our state visit to Paris is coming up, and she’s supposed to have her gowns fitted. Someone has to get in there and reason with her, and I can’t fit through the door. I should never have built it, but I thought it would keep all the princess stuff out of the castle.”
That seemed unreasonable, but there wasn’t time to argue the point. I followed him out of the keep and down the motte to the Wendy House. A small figure was visible at the window.
“How old is she?” I asked.
“She’s eight.”
“And three-quarters,” shouted the little girl.
“Isabella!” John yelled back. “You are a bad wife and a very naughty little girl. Come out at once. I won’t tell you again.”
“Make me.”
“You get in there,” muttered John. “See what you can do.”
I squeezed in through the door. Immediately a sparkly pink plastic wand decorated with marabou was pointed at my throat.
“Who are you?” demanded Isabella.
“Lady Moppet of Yorkshire. I’m your father’s – your husband’s new mistress.”
“Oh, that’s right,” she said indifferently. “Another one died. I saw them carry the coffin away. None of them last long.”
“No, well, we’re not here to discuss that. The King insists that you come out and have your dresses fitted.”
“I won’t. I don’t want to go on this silly state visit. What do I get out of it?”
I was darned if I knew. “Everyone looking at you because you’re the Queen?“
“Only in name. I don’t have any power.” She stamped her foot. “I married John because I thought he’d keep busy with his mistresses and his bastards and leave running the country to me. But no. He won’t let me take any decisions. I can’t even issue my own charters. He wants me to sit and smile and bow and wave like a little doll. Well, I just don’t feel like it. You tell him that.”
I did tell John exactly that and he trembled with anger.
“She’ll regret crossing me,” he said.
He raised his voice. “Isabella! You’ve done this once too often. I warned you. I’m cancelling your subscription to I’m A Little Princess magazine.”
I’m A Little Princess magazine?
Something wasn’t right.
Was that where Isabella had got a pink plastic wand?
I’m A Little Princess was a publication with which I was all too familiar. It was owned by the Little Princess Corporation, which also owned Little Princes and Princesses Nursery. Little P&P was always knee-deep in back numbers of the thing. Oscar loved ripping them to bits.
Isabella went pale, but she stood her ground.
“Do it!” she cried. “Cancel it, for all I care! You’ll hurt yourself more than me. I know you take it away and read it yourself!”
To my surprise John went bright red and muttered something about ‘liking the puzzles.’
Routed, we returned to the keep.
“She’ll come out when she’s ready,” he said. “And I don’t care if she doesn’t.”
Meanwhile, I had other concerns. I had discovered that while John’s plebeian offspring were being fed huge plates of vegetables, the diet of the noble children consisted mainly of red meat. I was in the nursery trying to force Oscar to eat some vegetables, much to the disapproval of Hodierna (‘He’s not a rabbit, my lady’), when John came in triumphantly waving a teddy bear.
“Look what her ladyship left lying around once too often. I tripped over it just now. Damn near kicked it into the fire. Then I realised. This is my hostage.”
A party of workmen passed the afternoon in the construction of a tiny gibbet.
“Let me talk to Isabella again,” I pleaded.
Squeezing into the Wendy House for a second time, I was slightly more observant. And now I realised that Isabella’s subscription to I’m A Little Princess magazine was not of recent date. Posters of Cinderella and the Sleeping Beauty grinned manically down at me from the walls. Plastic jewellery was heaped in the corners like a dragon’s treasure.
“Isabella,” I said. “Daddy – I mean the King – has your teddy bear, and – “
“He won’t do it,” she said, white-faced. “Even he wouldn’t do that!”
“I’ll do it and I’ll enjoy doing it,” said John when I told him Isabella refused to emerge.
We went out to the Wendy House.
“Isabella, Queen of England!” roared John. “Your bear is now our prisoner. If you do not immediately give yourself up to us he will be hung, drawn and quartered and his innards burned before his eyes.”
Beside the gibbet a little bonfire crackled.
Isabella waited until the noose was around the teddy bear’s neck. Then she flew out of the Wendy House, snatched her bear, paused long enough to scream, “I hate you! Teddy hates you!” at John, and sped towards the keep.
“I hate you, too,” he shouted after her.
I went up to my room and scooped up some of the plastic jewellery from the dressing-table. Then I went to find John and dropped it into his lap.
“Is this what you wanted with Isabella’s magazine? The plastic jewellery that came with it?”
“I knew the stuff couldn’t be worth much,” he said. “It came free with the magazine, and it breaks if you step on it. But Belle-Belle thought it was real. She thought I was the most generous prince in Christendom. You have to laugh.”
“For shame, Sire. Stealing a little girl’s jewellery!”
“Isabella doesn’t care about the jewellery! She had more than enough of it. What annoys her is when I do the puzzles in the magazine first. Or colour in the pictures. Anyway, I’m not stopping the subscription. It’s the only thing that keeps her quiet. Before that she was always trying to get into council meetings, telling the clerks to issue proclamations in her name, that sort of thing. That magazine was a godsend.”
“Do you have the latest issue?”
He produced it. It wasn’t quite the same as the ones I’d seen at Little P&P. For one thing, there wasn’t a bar code. It was priced at six shillings and eightpence.
‘Published by The Little Princess Corporation (Europe) Ltd., London, UK,’ it said inside the magazine. ‘We regret that giveaways and competitions are open to entrants living in Europe between 1066 and 1485 only. Prizes may differ from those shown. When you have finished with this magazine please recycle it.’
Right.
I flicked through it.
“The content’s different too,” I said. “The ones I saw didn’t include cartoons about the lives of the saints. Or a cut-out-and-keep rosary. Or a maze based on the Way of St James. I have to pass this on to MI5. Clearly, unless they’ve taken to selling magazines for five year olds, someone else knows about time travel. Who collects the subscription?”
“Some peddler, follows the court, turns up every couple of weeks.”
I considered. “Next time he turns up, throw him in jail. Detain him until I can talk to him.”
I had quite a lot of work to convince John that a return trip to the twenty-first century did not constitute ‘running away.’
“How do I know you’ll come back?”
“You’ve got my child.”
He wasn’t convinced.
“You’ve got my laptop.”
He thought about it.
“I don’t suppose you could buy any more of that silky, lacy stuff while you’re over there?”
“Lingerie? By all means. But for that I shall need some cash.”
***
