Nation (32 page)

The boat touched the sand and one of the men jumped out, hurried toward him, and drew him, protesting gently, along the beach and away from the match.

The conversation that took place was baffling to Mau, because the man in the black clothes spoke in a whisper while His Excellency asked questions at the top of his voice, so that what he heard was a fast buzzing, punctuated with explosions, as in “Me?”…“What, all of them?”…“What about Uncle Bernie? I know for a fact he is in America!”…“They have lions there?”…“Look, I’m really not—”…“Right here?”…“Well, of course no one wants another Richard the Lionheart, but surely we don’t need”…and so it went on. Then His Excellency held up a hand to stop the man in black in mid buzz and turned to Mau. He looked shaken, and in a strained voice said, “Sir, would you be so good as to fetch my daughter? I believe she is up at the Ladies’ Place, stitching somebody. Er, I’m sure this will all turn out to be a misunderstanding. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”

When they got back, His Excellency’s soldiers, who had been lounging around in their shirtsleeves for more than a week, had struggled back into their red coats and were standing on guard, although at the moment they were unsure whom they were guarding from what and how, not to mention why, and so until there were any orders to speak of, they were guarding everyone from everything.

Another boat had been lowered and was heading into the lagoon, with more people in it. One of them, sitting bolt upright, was unfortunately familiar to Daphne.

She ran to her father. “What’s going on?” Daphne glared at the men in the black suits and added, “And who are these…people?”

“Is this your delightful daughter, sire?” said one of the men, raising his hat to her.

“Sire?”
said Daphne. She glared at the man in black. No one should call anyone delightful without written proof.

“It turns out that I am, not to put too fine a point on it, king,” said His Majesty. “This has not come at a good time, I must say. This gentleman is Mr. Black, from London.”

Daphne stopped glaring. “But I thought one hundred and thirty—” she began. Then an expression of horror crossed her face. She looked back at the approaching row boat. “Has my grandmother been doing anything…silly? With knives and guns, perhaps?”

“Her ladyship? Not that I am aware,” said the Gentleman of Last Resort. “Here she comes now, Your Majesty. We called first at Port Mercia, of course, and picked up the Right Reverend Topleigh. I’m afraid the archbishop of Canterbury does not travel well, but he has sent instructions for the coronation.”

“A coronation
here
? Surely it can wait!” said His Majesty.

But Daphne was watching the figure in the distant boat. It couldn’t be true, could it? She wouldn’t come all this way, would she? For the chance of bossing a king around? Of course she would—she would have towed the ship with her teeth! And this time he wouldn’t be able to run away to the other end of the world.

“Strictly speaking, yes,” said Mr. Black. “You became king as soon as the last king died. At that very second. That’s how it works.”

“Really?” said His Majesty.

“Yes, sire,” said Mr. Black patiently, “God arranges it.”

“Oh good,” said the king weakly. “That’s very clever of Him.”

“And for full ratification, you understand, you must stand on the soil in England, but in these unusual circumstances,” Mr. Black went on, “and uncertain times, and so on and so forth, we thought it might save any argument—if we were delayed, for example—if the crown was firmly on your head. It would save any hairsplitting arguments—with the French, for instance—which can take such a long time.”

“There was the Hundred Years’ War, for example,” said a second gentleman.

“Well pointed out, Mr. Amber. In any case, we will have another coronation once we get home—which must, now, be a matter of some urgency, of course. Bunting, cheering, souvenir mugs for the children, that sort of thing. But in this case the Crown thought it would send out the right message to get you sorted out, as I might say, as soon as possible.” As he spoke, two of his colleagues began to take apart, with great care, the small crate they had brought ashore with them.

“Am I not the Crown?” asked His Majesty.

“No, sire, you are the king, sire,” said Mr. Black patiently. “You are, like us, underneath it. Subject to it.”

“But surely I can give you orders?”

“You can certainly make requests, sire, and we will do our very best to help. But, alas, you cannot give
us
orders. My word, we would be in a bad way if we took orders from kings. Isn’t that so, Mr. Brown?”

One of the men working on the crate looked up briefly. “It would be Charles the First all over again, Mr. Black.”

“You never said a truer word, Mr. Brown,” said Mr. Black. “It would be Charles the First all over again, and I don’t think any of us want to see Charles the First all over again, do we?”

“Why not?” asked Daphne.

Mr. Black turned to her and looked for a moment as if he was giving her a very quick examination.

“Because his arrogance and stupidity nearly lost England for the Crown, Your Royal Highness,” he said eventually.

Oh dear, thought Daphne, I
am
a princess now. Cor blimey. And I don’t think it’s the kind of thing you can resign from! A princess! Did you hear that, Mr. Foxlip, wherever you are? Ha!

“But wasn’t it Oliver Cromwell who had him executed?” she managed, trying to sound regal.

“Certainly, ma’am. But Oliver Cromwell wasn’t the problem. Charles the First was the problem. Oliver Cromwell was the solution. I’ll grant you he was a bit of a nuisance for a while afterward, but at least his unpleasant rule made people happy to see a king again. The Crown knows how to wait.”

“Charles the First’s head was cut off,” said Daphne, watching the new boat hit the sand.

“Clearly another reason for not wanting to see him,” said Mr. Black smoothly. “We wouldn’t be able to understand what he was saying.”

A plump man in clerical clothing, except possibly for the sarong, was helped out of the boat, and he in turn offered his hand to, yes, her grandmother. She was carrying an umbrella. An umbrella! It wasn’t to keep the rain off, of course. It was for prodding people, Daphne
knew
.

“Ah, and here is Her Ladyship now,” said Mr. Black, quite unnecessarily in Daphne’s view. He added: “She was wonderful company on the voyage out here. The nautical miles just flew past.” The little smile on his face was a masterpiece.

Grandmother looked around at the island, as if inspecting it for dust, and sighed. “One would have thought that we could have found somewhere cleaner,” she said. “Never mind. I trust you are well, Henry, and ready for the responsibility that has been thrust upon us by Divine Providence?”

“You mean all those people dying was
provident
?” said Daphne sharply. In her mind’s eye, ancestors toppled like dominoes…138 of them.

“That is no way to speak to your grandmother, Daphne,” said her father.

“Daphne? Daphne? What is this ‘Daphne’?” said Her Ladyship. “Ridiculous name. Don’t be silly, Ermintrude. Now, can we get on with things before we get eaten, for goodness’ sake?”

Daphne blushed in anger and embarrassment. “How dare you! Some of these people can speak English!”

“So?”

Daphne took a deep breath, and then her father’s hand was laid gently on her shoulder just as she opened her mouth. She shut it again, letting the rage seethe inside.

“That’s not the way, dear,” he said. “And we must get on.” He left her and shook hands with the bishop. “Ah, Charlie, good to see you. Your pointy hat not here?”

“Lost at sea, old boy. And when I picked up my crosier, it was full of blasted termites! Sorry about the sarong, couldn’t find m’ trousers,” said the bishop, shaking the king’s hand. “Wretched shame about what’s been happening, of course. Bit of a shock all around. Still, it’s not given to us to know the way the ways of Prov—of the Almighty.”

“It was probably an Act of God,” said Daphne.

“Indeed, indeed,” said the bishop, fumbling in his bag.

“Or a miracle,” Daphne went on, defying her grandmother to take her by the ear on
her
beach. But Grandmother did not take defiance lightly, or at all.

“I shall talk to you later about this wayward behavior, Ermintrude—” she began, striding forward. But two gentlemen were suddenly in her way.

“Ah, here it is,” said the bishop very loudly, and he straightened up. “Of course we don’t generally carry royal anointing oil out here, but my lads make a coconut oil that keeps cricket bats nice and supple. I hope that will be sufficient.” This was to Mr. Black, who worried him even more than her ladyship.

“That will be fine, Your Grace,” said Mr. Black. “Miss…Daphne, would you be so kind as to ask the islanders if we may use one of these ceremonial stones as a throne?”

Daphne looked at the scattered god stones. They’d gotten rather unnoticed in the past week.

“Mau, can they—?” she began.

“Yes, they can,” said Mau. “But tell them they don’t work.”

It was, according to the history books, the fastest coronation since Bubric the Saxon crowned himself with a very pointy crown on a hill during a thunderstorm, and reigned for one and a half seconds.

Today, a man sat down. He was handed a golden orb and a golden scepter, which the watching islanders approved of because, when you got right down to it, a scepter was just a shiny club. Mau was happy with his fish spear, but in their hearts the islanders knew that a chief should have a really
big
club. Later on, some of them had had a go with it, however, and considered it a bit cumbersome for a real fight. They found it far more interesting than the crown, which sparkled in the sunlight but didn’t do anything useful. But because of it, and after a certain amount of talking, a man stood up who ruled so many places on the planet that mapmakers often ran out of red ink.

At this point the men in black produced some small versions of the trouserman flag, raised them enthusiastically, and shouted: “Hurrah.”

“I’d like the crown back now, please, Your Majesty,” said Mr. Black quickly. “I will give you a receipt, of course.”

“Oh, it will all be so much better when we are crowned properly in London,” said Grandmother. “Really this is just for—”

“You will be silent, woman,” said the king without raising his voice.

For a moment Daphne thought she was the only one to have heard. Grandmother hadn’t, because she still went on talking. And then her ears caught up with her tongue, and couldn’t believe their eyes.

“What did you say?” she managed.

“Ah, you’ve got it right at last, Mother,” said the king. “I’m me, not
us
. I am I, not we. One pair of buttocks on the throne, one head in the crown. You, on the other hand, are a sharp-tongued harridan with the manners of a fox
and don’t interrupt me when I’m talking
! How dare you insult our hosts! And before you utter a word, contemplate this: You treasure your elevation above what you call the lower classes, whom I’ve always found to be pretty decent people once they’ve had a chance to have a bath. Well, I am king, you see—king—and the very notion of nobility that you cling to like grim death means that you will
not
answer me back. You
will
, however, act with grace and gratitude during the remainder of our stay in this place. Who knows, it may speak to you as it has spoken to me. And if you are even now putting together a scathing remark, let me point out for your lengthy consideration the wonderful and highly advisable option of silence. That is a command!”

The king, breathing a little heavily, nodded to the leader of the Gentlemen of Last Resort.

“That was all right, wasn’t it?” he said to the Gentlemen of Last Resort. Grandmother was simply staring at nothing.

“Of course, sire. You are king, after all,” murmured Mr. Black.

“’Scuse me, miss,” said a voice behind Daphne. “Are you Miss Ermintrude?”

She turned to see who’d spoken. One of the boats had returned and picked up more of the crew, and now she was staring at a small man in badly fitting clothes. They had clearly belonged to someone who had been happy to get rid of them.

“Cookie?”

He beamed. “Told you my coffin’d keep me alive, miss!”

“Papa, this is Cookie, who was a great friend to me on the
Judy
. Cookie, this is my father. He’s king.”

“That’s nice,” said Cookie.

“Coffin?” said the king, looking bewildered again.

“I told you about him, Papa. Remember? The pockets? The mast and shroud? The tiny inflatable billiard table?”

“Oh,
that
coffin! My word. How long were you at sea, Mr. Cookie?”

“Two weeks, sir. My little stove ran out after the first week, so I made do with biscuits, mint cake, and plankton until I fetched up on an island,” said the cook.

“Plankton?” said Daphne.

“Strained it through my beard, miss. I thought, well, whales live on it, so why not me?” He reached into his pocket and produced a grubby piece of paper. “Funny little island I landed on, too. Had the name on a brass plate nailed to a tree. I writ it down—look.”

The king and his daughter read, in smudged pencil,
Mrs. Ethel J. Bundy’s Birthday Island
.

“It really exists!” Daphne yelled.

“Jolly well done,” said the king. “Do tell us all about it over dinner. Now, if you will excuse for me a moment, I have to reign.” King Henry the Ninth rubbed his hands together. “Now, what else…ah, yes. Charlie, do you want to be an archbishop?”

The Rt. Rev. Topleigh, who was packing his bag again, waved his hands wildly, a look of sudden dread on his face. “No, thank you, Henry!”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Yes, thank you. They’d make me wear shoes. Love it down here among the islands!”