Murder Most Royal

When it came to horses, she was always keen to learn.

‘Shhh, you can’t say that!’ a male voice was saying.

It was the ‘shhh’ that caught the Queen’s attention. She stopped and listened properly.

‘He’s, what, nearly a hundred. She’s just as bad. They’re practically nineteenth-century.’

‘Yer talking squit,’ the boy said.

‘Not mine,’ the girl said.

‘You don’t work, remember? Mum’s and Dad’s and mine.’

‘Only because they own effing everything. If they just minded their own business, Mum and Dad could work for themselves.

And I can guarantee you Dad wouldn’t be fattening birds for them and their fancy guests to kill for the sake of it.’

‘Everything gets eaten,’ Arthur said.

‘Like that makes it better,’ the girl scoffed. ‘It’s not just the pheasant that get killed, it’s the predators that take the chicks. It’s a wonder anything survives.’

‘They love animals, and you know it.’

‘Yeah, stuffed in a pie or stuck on the walls.’

‘I hope I’m not interrupting.’

This last voice was the Queen’s.

She had walked round and was now standing at the door to the tack room. Two pale young faces stared out at her, with identical hazel eyes framed by long blond lashes, startled and horrified.

‘You have a very well-behaved puppy,’ the Queen observed. One might as well start on a polite note, and it was the only one she could think of.

The girl, who wore a rainbow fleece over sky-blue leggings that matched her hair, slithered down from the high shelf where she’d been sitting.

When she reached the ground, she blinked, and said, ‘He’s my auntie’s. I’m looking after him. His name’s Nelson.’

‘Your Majesty,’ Arthur prompted her under his breath.

‘I came to see Estimate,’ the Queen explained. ‘Don’t worry, I know where to go.’

If anything, young Arthur’s face paled further. He stood rigidly to attention. ‘I’ll come with you, ma’am. I mean . . . I don’t need to be here. We were just . . .’

‘Talking politics,’ the Queen put in for him. ‘I must say, I wasn’t sure your generation did that anymore.

It’s quite reassuring. In a way.’

The girl continued to stare. Then, as if she’d suddenly remembered, she stuck one boot-clad foot out behind her and bobbed into an inelegant curtsey. Aware of the absurdity of it all, she suddenly grinned.

‘Awkward,’ she muttered. Her eyes gleamed with a defiant naughtiness that reminded the Queen very much of her sister Margaret at that age – or indeed any age.