Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Five
Through a peep-hole they’d bored in the floor, Queen Betsy and her princes stared down, from the disused loft space they’d commandeered, at the old, divested father-king, Arthur, walking down the corridor hand-in-hand with the interloper O’Herlihy. Something snapped in Prince Danny—it was, he wasn’t quite mature enough to recognise, his last tether to his parents and all his forebears. Prince Charlie felt an irrepressible urge to smash things. Prince Doobie stared and nurtured his own mysterious thoughts. Eric renewed his vow to serve his queen. Prince Bo slept, off in a corner. And Queen Betsy accepted that her family would never reform, and that adults were hopeless, and must be forcibly civilised, for their own good.
“Our utopia is perfected,” she announced. “All that’s left now is to expand our Empire.”
“The army is ready,” Prince Charlie declared. “Our weapons are built. All we await is the word from your majesty.”
“The time is nearly ripe,” judged the queen. “Any day now, and their own degeneration will have practically wiped them out—then we may move in and finish the job.”
“Total slaughter!” Prince Charlie screamed.
“Will you read us a story first?” Prince Eric asked the queen.
“Yes, I’ll read you a story first.”
“Hooray!”