Murder Most Royal

‘But that’s what I’m saying.’ It was a girl’s voice, soft and melodious, but loud enough to carry. ‘They feed off us. We pay for them, and they get to live in their fancy houses and race their horses, and own all the shit in the world. And we just let them. It blows my mind.’

Oh. That kind of parasite. Honestly!

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

‘Shhh. Stop it! They aren’t!’

No they aren’t, the Queen thought crossly. We’re as twentieth-century as you can get. She had lived through three-quarters of it, before cantering through a decade and a half of the new millennium. Young people needed to learn more history.

‘Well, they are. I mean, I bet I could run this estate as well as she does,’ the girl went on. (I bet she couldn’t, the Queen thought.) ‘Better. I wouldn’t kill half the bird life, for a start.’

‘Yer talking squit,’ the boy said.

‘You’re talking squit. All you see is the bling and the nice little job, but think about it. They won the lottery when they were born. And we bow and scrape to them like they earned it just because their ancestors killed a bunch of people in the Middle Ages. It’s like, we give all the rich people all the stuff – the influencers, the billionaires, the celebs, the royals, whatever – we let them take everything and we effing admire them for it. We give them our attention. It’s like “You’ve got more than me so you’re better than me. What else can I give you?”’

‘Shut up, will yer?’ the boy’s voice growled, taut with urgency. The Queen recognised it as that of Arthur Raspberry, a local lad from the estate who they had taken on as a groom last summer. ‘They pay our wages.’

‘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.

‘Your Majesty.’ The girl’s expression very much said, And you know how I feel about that.

‘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. It was always difficult to remain cross with Margaret when she herself was smiling and sunny. The Queen wondered if this girl had a similar effect on her long-suffering family.

At Estimate’s stall, the retired racing champion was grateful for a Polo mint. The Queen spent a little while congratulating her on her new life as a mother. But she hadn’t forgotten the recent exposition of her own family’s iniquities. The young groom hung back wretchedly. She felt sorry for him.

‘Was that your sister?’ she asked.

He hung his head. ‘Yes, ma’am. Her name’s Ivy.’

‘I see. I thought you looked alike. What a spirited girl.’

‘Yeah, kind of. Did you hear much of what she was on about?’

‘I think I got the gist of it,’ the Queen told him. ‘She’s not a royalist, I take it.’