Three Kings

The boy gave a small gasp and released his construct. It shattered into slivers of light that flew in all directions. Rory Campbell, known to the world as Archimedes, who was up in the Whispering Gallery, stiffened and peered down. Noel caught his eye and gave him a brief salute. The ace gave him a dirty look but relaxed.

The service continued with prayers and hymns, readings and a sermon. Noel shifted a bit on the hard pew, attempting to ease the ache in his backside. The things I do to prove I’m a fit parent , he thought. At last it was time for the Holy Eucharist. The royals received communion first and their security detail closed in to block access and even much of a view of the family from the passing worshippers.

Noel, hand on Jasper’s back, guided him forward. All six foot six of Ranjit Singh blocked the entry into the royal pew, his turban adding to his towering presence. He had been Noel’s firearms instructor when he had been recruited into the intelligence service, and the Lion had become the head of the Silver Helix after Flint’s conviction for war crimes. Noel gave him a nod as they passed and received a glare in return.

He and Jasper knelt at the altar rail as the Bishop of London, assisted by a pair of priests (no mere altar boys for a bishop), made his way down the line dispensing the host. The dry wafer caught in the back of Noel’s throat, which caused him to take a rather large sip from the chalice being offered by the trailing priest. That earned him another frown. Nobody seemed to be happy with him today. The thought amused him.

Once back in their seats there was more singing and more praying and then blessedly, mercifully it was over. There was a brief remonstration with Henry, the gestures from the agents – both nat and wild card – indicating that they would prefer the King to leave through a more private exit, but Henry was having none of it. He sat stubbornly still until the bishop announced that the congregation should leave. Noel and Jasper joined the throng shuffling slowly out of the cathedral. Noel contemplated transforming into his male avatar and just teleporting them out of the crowd, but decided that might cause an uproar and rather undercut his image as a responsible father.

The crows of London welcomed Badb as well as any had in Belfast. More so! She’d stowed away on a lorry, hiding under a pallet of frozen fish. When the vehicle came to a stop in a place called Billingsgate and she had tumbled out of the back, exhausted and dehydrated, a spiral of crows had descended around her to pay homage.

They did not flinch as she bit through the skulls of the two closest, swallowing the brains, sating her thirst on their blood. She sent the rest of them flying again, watching the glory of London through their eyes. Oh, this city! This unfamiliar city! Its might swept out below her in all directions. How it had ripened until such a time as she could come for it.

She flitted from one bird to the next, learning the shape of the river. There were towers tall enough to house every soul in Belfast. Glass glittered, steel shone. But not everywhere. She landed outside a room where twelve immigrant workers snored beside their own washing. She soared over a knot of narrow streets where only jokers walked or slithered or hopped. Divisions. Yes, there were divisions here too. Poverty lived within stabbing distance of wealth.

Down there, in a place called Greenwich, the IRA had a safe house. Less than a mile away, their sworn enemies in the UVF kept a hidey-hole of their own. She knew all their secrets. They would do as they were bid.

Most satisfactory.

And then, a distant crow heard the peal of bells.

Great crowds gathered around a white cathedral whose dome would have swallowed Belfast City Hall. Security guards pushed back a forest of microphones at the main entrance, but they couldn’t stop Badb drifting down to listen.

Annoyingly, the city had put in those spikes intended to discourage pigeons from landing. But the crow impaled itself willingly and would live long enough to see what came next. She left it to suffer, taking the mind of another bird and then another, circling, circling until she saw what she was looking for: weakness.

A guard absent from his post, mobile phone in hand.

She landed right behind him.

‘Not now, babe,’ he said in a thick accent. He knew nobody could hear him. The crowd was too loud, the reporters too many. ‘What? Absolutely no! They find out I’m Serbian instead of Croat, what then? Home on first plane, that’s what. Marriage? Ha! They’ll read my war record. It will be prison not Belgrade where they send me.’

Fascinating.

‘Of course, I am changed, babe, but only you know. Only you. What?’ He laughed. ‘Crazy bitch. I see you tonight.’

Behind him, the doors of the cathedral swung open. A new king emerged and at his back a wealth of other important people. So handy to have them all gathered here in one place. Leaders she would follow with crows, listening to their every word for hidden cracks in this magnificent city.

It was a raw day with lowering clouds and a cold rain that had ambitions of becoming sleet. Noel tightened Jasper’s scarf, pulled on his gloves and opened his umbrella. ‘Can we wait and watch the King leave?’ Jasper asked. ‘It’s kind of like when I play Dragon Age with all the kings and stuff. I mean, to see one for real is kind of cool.’

Noel scanned the loitering crowd and realized that a lot of people apparently shared his son’s fascination with royalty. And if he was honest, he felt it too. Not for any fanciful sense of brave kings and beautiful princesses but because of what it represented: Magna Carta and Trafalgar and the Battle of Britain and fighting on the beaches. It was that sense of history, permanence and continuity embodied in an institution to which Noel had sworn his allegiance.

He hugged his son. ‘Okay, we’ll wait a bit.’

At the bottom of the stone steps the press and paparazzi lay in wait. Camera lenses stared up at him like dead eyes. There was a growing murmur as Henry and his fiancée emerged, the young woman walking a few steps behind her husband-to-be, which left Noel wondering about that relationship.

‘Answer a few questions, Your Majesty?’ a reporter yelled from the crowd.

‘Certainly.’

Noel noted that the equerry, a man in his fifties with the upright stance of a former military officer, blanched a bit at the response from Henry.

‘So what are your hopes for your reign, sir?’

‘I’d like to bring England back to being England again,’ Henry responded.

‘What does that mean? Exactly, sir’?’ another called.

‘Well, take London. In my youth you heard English spoken everywhere. Now you’d be lucky to hear your own language in amongst all the other gabble.’

Noel thought the equerry was going to have a stroke. The rapid fire of digital cameras was like claws clicking on ice.

‘So you don’t like the fact that London has become a multilingual, multicultural and multi-ethnic city?’ came a third voice out of the crowd.

‘It’s all well and good until it isn’t. If we lose sight of who we are we’ll be done for.’

‘Does that mean white and European, sir?’

Henry gazed down his nose at the questioner, a tall, elegant black man. ‘It means Anglo-Saxon. Make of that what you will.’

‘Damn right, I will,’ the journalist muttered.

Another voice rose out of the crowd. ‘The Pakis are one thing, sir, but what about those freaks down in the East End?’ Noel searched the crowd for the speaker and also for any sign that a riot was about to break out. It proved to be an older white man with a bulging belly hanging over his belt. ‘They’re driving down property values.’