Freddy and Fredericka Read online

  “Newspapers?” Craig-Vyvyan asked, picturing himself talking to a newspaper held at arm’s length. “Why would I talk to newspapers?”

  “Everyone does.”

  “They talk to newspapers?”

  “That’s why so much about the royal family finds its way into print.”

  Imagining people all over Britain declaiming to their newspapers, Craig-Vyvyan said, “I never even read newspapers.”

  Here was a natural creature who seemed largely untouched by what the world had become. He still looked like a child; his hair was sandy, sun-bleached, probably cut by his mother; and he himself was sunburnt, with a peeling nose.

  “Can you read?”

  “A little. I was schooled in the croft, but my ma took ill two years ago, and we moved to Kilmuir. I work now, outside.”

  “Do you have a television?”

  “No.”

  “A radio?”

  “No.”

  “You’ve heard of the queen.”

  “Yes, and of the king. My father was a soldier of the king.”

  “Aye, her uncle, and a great king he was.”

  “Not her husband?”

  “No, the queen’s husband is a duke.”

  “A duke. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Yes it does. And have you heard of the Prince of Wales?”

  “I’ve heard of the Prince of Peace and I’ve heard of Jonah and the Whale, but I’ve never heard of the Prince of Whales.”

  “Wales the place, not the creature. Do you mean to say that you haven’t heard of Frederick, the Prince of Wales?”

  “I do.”

  “And Princess Fredericka?”

  “Are they English?”

  “Yes, they are English.”

  “This is Scotland.”

  “I grant you that, but you are among the few people in the English-speaking world who don’t know of Prince Frederick and Princess Fredericka. A thousand million people watched them wed, and every day they are found on the covers of hundreds of magazines all around the world.”

  “Oh,” said Craig-Vyvyan, who read neither newspapers nor magazines, whose father tended sheep, and whose mother spun wool.

  “I see the wheels turning,” Bannerman observed, assuming that the boy was beginning to understand fame.

  “How many is a thousand million?” Craig-Vyvyan asked.

  “Twenty times the population of the United Kingdom.”

  “What did they do with the leftovers?”

  “Craig-Vyvyan,” Bannerman asked, which caused the bird to cock its head, “when did you last eat?”

  “Dinner yesterday.”

  “You’ve gone twenty-four hours, and you’ve been walking in the wind. What did you have for dinner yesterday?”

  “An oatcake, a bit of lamb, and a baked potato.”

  “Just one potato?”

  “And a cup of milk.”

  “That’s hardly enough for a boy your age,” Bannerman said to Craig-Vyvyan, as he opened the tail-board, knowing now that he would not have to beg or cajole him to stay. “Here, take some chocolate to hold you until we eat. Have you ever heard of King Richard’s dog?”

  “I didn’t know that kings bothered with dogs.”

  “Kings love their dogs. Philippa feeds her dogs filet mignon, which Freddy pinches for his barbecues. And they’re not palace-trained, so footmen have to follow them around with soda siphons and rags. Why do you think royalty like dogs? It’s because dogs don’t grovel and beg like people. A long time ago, the Earl of Kent had a dog. He was a tall, white dog with long limbs, short hair, floppy ears, and a face like Charles de Gaulle. Unlike most dogs, who are instinctive loyalists, he was an opportunist. He calculated all the time, like a cat, and the earl kept him not because he liked him but because he was afraid the dog would think too little of him were he to abandon it.

  “When Kent’s prospects were in decline, the dog, who knew before anyone, stood up, marched out, and left the castle without looking back. He walked all over England quite deliberately until he found the future Richard the Second. The dog stayed even after this new master had become king, but with the same contemptuous detachment he had shown for Kent. One day, before anyone else understood what was about to happen, he walked out on Richard and went straight to Bolingbroke, who shortly afterward became Henry the Fourth. I wouldn’t have liked him, but that dog really knew what he was doing.”

  “How did he know?”

  “Only God knows, and Freddy, who thinks he knows.”

  “Freddy? The Prince of Wales?”

  “The tabloids and those close to him call him Freddy.”

  “How does he know about the dog?”

  “He has a theory. He believes that plants and animals were denied the gift of speech because they can see past, present, and future as one and the same thing, and that were they to tell human beings (particularly princes) what they see, it would be too difficult to bear. He talks to plants, the Prince of Wales, like his ancestor George the Third, because he thinks they are wiser than Einstein or the Archbishop of Canterbury. They’re certainly wiser than the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

  “Who are Ein . . . who?”

  “Don’t worry about them. Consider, rather, that not all dogs can tell kings, just some. Only one dog in the history of England was like the walking horseradish that went from Kent to Richard to Bolingbroke. You don’t just trot off to the RSPCA and pick out a dog that can tell kings. But,” said Bannerman, holding his index finger in the air, “the talent exists. The trick is to find it if you can, to find the rare person who can tell about animals that they can tell about kings, and then,” the falconer said, quite heatedly, drawing Craig-Vyvyan with him, “when you know which animal can do it, to breed the talent, to preserve it from one generation to the next, down the line, so kings and their heirs would always be able to know who was worthy of and destined for the throne.”

  “Who is the person who can tell about animals that they can tell about kings?”

  “Ah,” said Bannerman, “it’s a rare gift, which has only come once, five hundred years ago, when the son of an Oxford organ maker was chosen by the Yorkists to impersonate the king who would have been Edward the Sixth.

  “His name was Lambert Simnel, and, along with the Germans and Irish who backed him, he was defeated at Stoke in a fierce battle with Henry the Seventh, who proved both merciful and wise. Lambert Simnel was a boy like you. He had no corrupt desires and did not know the world, so the king spared his life, and for several years Lambert was made to turn the spit in the royal kitchen.”

  “Is this true?”

  “It’s history, Craig-Vyvyan.”

  “Is history true?”

  “More or less. Lambert would have turned the spit until the day he died—in which case I would not be here and we would not be talking now—had not a bakery maid who had once been Chantal of Cleves peered through a crack in the wall by the ovens as Lambert was engaged in conversation with the birds who had come to peck the floor of the courtyard of its stray grains. They would hop onto his finger or his arm, depending on their size, to converse with him.”

  “Like Freddy.”

  “Like Freddy, except that plants and animals don’t talk back to Freddy, but to Lambert they did. The king called Lambert before him and asked if this were so. Lambert said it was. ‘What do they say?’ the king asked. ‘They say what is the future, and what is the past.’ ‘Do they say who will be king?’ ‘They do.’

  “As you can imagine, the king was quite taken with this, and worried. He asked if Lambert could teach him to understand what the birds said. Lambert replied that although he could not teach how to converse with the birds, not knowing how he himself could do it, he might teach the birds how to give a sign. But, were he to do this, Henry the Seventh’s falcons would have to cease killing other birds.

  “As the trade seemed much to his advantage, the king was willing. He made Lambert Simnel the keeper of his falcons, who had no use now exc
ept as the subjects of Lambert’s tutorial. The falcons agreed to refrain from attacking all creatures that flew, and Lambert trained a line of them to fly only from the arms of those kings who were fit to be kings.”

  “What did the falcons get from this?” Craig-Vyvyan asked.

  “Nothing but someone to talk to for the first time in ten million years.”

  “And this falcon, with my name, is descended from them?”

  “He is, and you must keep it to yourself. They have their secrets, kings, that go back thousands of years, and we don’t know the half of it. I’m the queen’s falconer, and I know only one or two secrets, but they live with them as if on a battlefield of ghosts. Since the beginning there have been secrets, and since the beginning there have been kings. The kings know the secrets, which is why they are kings.”

  “What about him?” asked Craig-Vyvyan, pointing to his namesake.

  “He knows who has the heart of a king or queen, and will fly only for a true monarch. When Edward the Eighth became king, Gueldres would not fly for him. He never had flown for him, not even when poor Edward came back from France after the Great War, having seen with his own eyes what few kings ever see.

  “I was a boy then. My father had been keeper of the falcons for George the Fifth. Though Gueldres had not flown for Edward when he was the Prince of Wales, we were sure he would fly for him when he became king, given how his heart had been broken in the war. But Gueldres, the bearer of the line, refused, and Edward was forced to abdicate. They made up all that nonsense about Mrs Simpson to hide the secret. Had it not been for Gueldres, history would have known her, had it known her at all, merely as one of Edward’s mistresses. Then came George the Sixth, who had to abdicate after the war because of his asthma, and the nation was in a terrible pickle with refusals, scandals, and all that sort of thing, until the unknown brother, Harry, George the Fifth’s very strange son, became king for all of a month and died. Thanks be to God that his daughter Philippa has been so unlike him.”

  “What was wrong with him?”

  “Oh,” said Bannerman, “let’s see. You don’t receive foreign dignitaries while sitting on the throne in diving goggles and flippers. If you pride yourself upon speaking fake Chinese, you nonetheless avoid doing so with the Chinese ambassador. You do not—or at least you try not to—address the nation in Pig Latin. You see how delicate is the fate of kings? As delicate as ours or more so.”

  “But what about Craig-Vyvyan?” Craig-Vyvyan asked again.

  “He flies for Philippa. For her he soars and dives at great risk to himself, as you might expect for this lady who is a natural queen, born to be queen, the very emblem of a queen.”

  “Then why are you here? The bird won’t fly for you. Why have you brought him to a place so wonderful for flying?”

  “You’ve got it,” said Bannerman. “I am here because this is a wonderful place for flying. Today, we want to fly this bird, we want it badly. And if he needed encouragement or temptation, he would get it here, wouldn’t he? Look ahead. There you see a horizon so wide that the curvature of the earth is almost visible, and yet what lies before it isn’t merely a disk of flat water but a great stage with an apron of islands, of channels and the blue sea, of a rising storm that multiplies the expanse of this theatre in volumes of blackening depth. And here the sun is still shining, so that were Craig-Vyvyan to fly he would float and swoop through air both light and buoyant.”

  “But he won’t fly for you, so why did you bother?”

  “Because this time, God willing, he will fly for the Prince of Wales.”

  “Him again? Why would he fly for him?”

  “He’s the heir to the throne.”

  “Wouldn’t the heir to the throne be the queen’s son?” Craig-Vyvyan asked with mocking superiority.

  “He is the queen’s son.”

  “That’s a coincidence.”

  “No, Craig-Vyvyan, it isn’t a coincidence that the Prince of Wales is the queen’s son. If he weren’t the queen’s son, he wouldn’t be the Prince of Wales.”

  “Who would he be?”

  “He would be anyone.”

  “Then why isn’t he?”

  “Who?”

  “The Prince of Wales.”

  “He is.”

  “He is what?”

  “He’s the queen’s son.”

  “That,” said Craig-Vyvyan, “is the coincidence.”

  “All right,” Bannerman conceded, “it is a coincidence. It’s one of the most amazing coincidences in the world, that the Prince of Wales is the queen’s son. Will wonders never cease?”

  “No, they won’t,” said Craig-Vyvyan, “not as long as there’s an Earth.”

  “Today, the prince is coming here, on foot, just as you did, alone.”

  “From where?”

  “From a landing somewhere on the west coast of Skye, where Britannia put him.”

  “That could be fifty miles.”

  “That’s no problem. Look there.” Bannerman pointed over the escarpment, to the west-south-west. In the distance a figure, which though hardly visible was neat and trim, moved at military pace along a barely perceptible trail on the high shoulder of a blue lake. “That will be he. You can tell by the walk. The SAS have a certain way of moving across country. Forget that I said that. You’re not supposed to know.”

  As they watched the prince making for them with prodigious speed, the boy asked if this would be the first time Craig-Vyvyan would test him.

  “I’m afraid not,” Bannerman told him. “The first, as required, was when the prince was seven years of age. Some, like Philippa, get confirmation the first time. For them, life has fewer worries than for those who undergo the test in childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age, and immediately before the coronation. It’s a sensitive subject for Frederick, but, as a boy, he failed the test. Craig-Vyvyan peed on him and made him cry. Then he failed as an adolescent, and he failed as a young man. Now, as he enters middle age, he will be tested once again. If he fails, he will have only one chance more, after he becomes king and before he is crowned. If he fails then, he will have to abdicate. May God grant that today he has the heart of a king, so that in his middle age he can know the beginnings of contentment, which is why I’ve asked you to stay. Your name being the same as Craig-Vyvyan’s must have significance in such a place as this, so far from so much. The prince will decide, of course, whether or not to ask that you remain, but I cannot imagine that he will not at least invite you to lunch.”

  “I hope he does,” said Craig-Vyvyan. He thought for a while, and then said, “I never ate with the Prince of Wales or even a constable, and I wouldn’t know what to say, but I’m hungry enough to risk it. What do you call him?”

  “Unless he bids you do otherwise, address him as Your Royal Highness, and then, sir.”

  “I don’t think I like that.”

  “If you want to eat, get used to it. We all do.”

  They heard quick footsteps as the prince rose above the escarpment. First came the slightly thinning head of hair, then Wedgwood-blue eyes rather too close together, big ears, and a face that radiated in equal measure both extraordinary confidence and deep sadness. He had an alert and expressive visage, a strong body, and a strapping frame. In the uniform of a Scots’ regiment, with knapsack and assault rifle on his back and a tartan-banded cap folded beneath his left epaulette, here was the Prince of Wales, standing in the sun and wind.

  HE UNSLUNG RIFLE and pack and leant them against the Land Rover. After he dropped the weight his shoulders rose, and he stretched modestly for someone who had walked so many burdened miles.

  Even if Craig-Vyvyan the boy had not heard of the Prince of Wales twenty minutes before, he was frozen at the sight, and looked like a mental escapee who had wandered for days across the heath.

  “How do you do?” asked the prince, hopeful of receiving an answer though not necessarily expecting that he would, as Craig-Vyvyan could neither move nor speak. “A citizen of
the area?” the prince asked his mother’s falconer, raising his eyebrows.

  “Yes, Your Royal Highness, a boy, of Kilmuir, I believe, on his way to see his uncle in Staffin.”

  “Bones of his foot,” Craig-Vyvyan managed to rasp.

  “I beg your pardon?” asked the prince.

  “Bones of his foot,” Craig-Vyvyan rasped again, before his jaw fell, and stayed.

  “Whose foot?”

  “Bones of his foot,” came the sound, barely audible, once again.

  “Is that your name?” the prince asked. Without speech, Craig-Vyvyan moved his head from side to side. The prince looked inquiringly toward Bannerman.

  “Sir, I think you might wish him to stay.”

  “This is always done privately, Bannerman. You know that.”

  “I know, sir, but, just the same, I think you may want him to hang about.”

  “You do?”

  “I gotta have something to eat, that’s why!” Craig-Vyvyan shouted, fearful that, stoked to flame, his expectation of a royal lunch would be dashed. The worst kind of hunger is hunger that was not expecting to be hungry.

  “I invited him to lunch, sir. We’ve more than enough food.”

  “Certainly,” the prince said. “Do come to lunch, but could you just walk over that hill and stay until we call you?”

  With a quick shake of the head, Craig-Vyvyan indicated that he would not, which amazed the prince, who was further amazed when the boy said, as if letting the prince in on the secret, “I want to see if the bird flies.”

  “You told him?” the prince asked.

  “I did, sir.”

  “Everything?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who the hell is he?”

  “His name is Cockaleekie, sir. He had never heard of you, until I told him just now.”

  “Why did you do that? Not only does he now know what virtually no one save my family and a few discreet—and previously discreet—falconers have known, not only that, but you have taken one of the few people in the British Isles to whom I might have spoken as if I were just a man, and corrupted him with knowledge of who I am. Think of what he might have told us had he the power of speech that you destroyed.”