03 Coat of Arms by Bernard Cornwell & Susannah Kells

Author:Bernard Cornwell & Susannah Kells [Cornwell, Bernard & Kells, Susannah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

The weathermen pronounced that June 2nd would be the perfect day of 1953. It would be sunny, warm, dry, it would be splendid.

It was cloudy, cold, it rained, but it was undeniably splendid.

Dukes, marquesses and earls, duchesses, marchionesses and countesses, viscounts and barons, lords and their ladies; all the aristocracy of Britain had been ordered by the Earl Marshal to take their places by half past eight in the morning. Brought by taxis or cars, by bus or by tube, they obeyed.

Heads of state, prime ministers, and foreign royalty took their places obediently. Carriages brought the dukes, the princes and princesses of the Blood Royal to Westminster Abbey. A hum of conversation filled the great stone hail where Saxon kings had raised their eyes to God’s glory. Trumpeters and heralds, knights and bishops, all waited as Big Ben tolled the passing hours.

The peers had come from their dilapidated homes in the shires, from their castles on the border marches, and from their semi-detached houses in the new suburbs. There were rogues and great men among them, bankrupts and millionaires, fools and wise men, but all were aristocrats, and this day they would flank their monarch in the places of honour. No prime minister, not even Churchill, and no foreign head of state could usurp their privilege this day, for they were the Queen’s peerage. Their robes had been hired or taken from long-locked cupboards and the thin smell of mothballs clung to the banked seats where the nobility of Britain waited.

The fifth Marquess of Arlington, his scarlet robe trimmed with black-studded miniver, waited among them. The fur prickled at his neck while the television lights, brilliant and huge, made his ceremonial dress unbearably hot. His neighbour, a fellow marquess, grumbled about the long wait. “Fellow can’t even light up a cigarette, Monty!”

“I noticed the television chaps were using Poets’ Corner as a smoking room.”

“Really? Think I might join them.” He pushed his way along the row of seats, leaving Monty his newspaper to read.

The front page was full of triumph because the British expedition had conquered Mount Everest while, inside the paper, the City pages continued the note of unbridled optimism. This was the new Elizabethan age and profits must rise. There was even a promise from Churchill’s government that, eight years after victory, wartime rationing would end. Building controls were being relaxed and those who, like Sol and Monty, had bought cheap sites in the wake of war were beginning to reap the profits of their foresight.

“You’re sure your damned clocks are right?” A sour voice spoke behind Monty. “You weren’t here two hours early?”

He turned to see the Baron de Conroy’s dark face framed in miniver. It was the first time Monty had seen his enemy since the Court case, and the Marquess of Arlington filled with the goodwill of this day, smiled benignly. “You’re not looking well, my dear Kynaston! A touch liverish this morning?”

“That’s better than being a bloody bowler hat, isn’t it?” De Conroy sneered at the newspaper.

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