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Finlay sets about it, clearing the island of any weapons. He gathers them by the tree stump, and in the end, five daggers are retrieved, glinting in the dark like silver fangs.
“One for every weekday,” Luke remarks as he stretches out beneath a tree. “Cute.” Danny settles beside him, seemingly unwilling to budge from his side.
With a frown of concentration, Rory bends down to the radio. He switches it on and lowers the volume, listening intently.
A series of beeps emit from the speakers, and then a grizzled male voice: “This is David HQ. No updates to report. Goliath remains subdued. Please stay tuned.”It sounds prerecorded, designed to be sent out every few minutes or until news breaks. The quality isn’t the best and it takes effort to decipher the man’s voice.
“David and Goliath?” I ask, bewildered. “The giant who was killed?”
“It’s Antiro,” Danny says at once. “They think they’re David. They think they’ve killed the giant.”
“So now they’re appropriatin’ biblical characters?” Finlay sneers, coming to sit at the tree stump. “That victimhood complex is lookin’ real strong on them.”
But Rory seems concerned. “They have their own radio station. And we didn’t know about it.Ourradio doesn’t have the range go down to this frequency. This is the last thing Benji was listening to before he broke in. This is how they’re communicating.”
“They’re organized, I’ll gie them that,” Finlay says, drawing his knees up into his chest.
I remember Benji last Christmas, the snow falling behind him as he’d switched on the chiefs’ radio. Sitting together, low electronic music in the background, talking about ourselves. Benji listening closely to breaking news as the bells of New Year tolled. His glee as Rowena Marchmont was murdered.
“We need to take this to the castle and examine it,” Rory states gravely, the instant another muffled blast of the prerecorded message hisses through the air. My heart gives an anxious jolt, as though expecting news to break at the end of the dispatch, but there’s nothing. “Bet that bastard Moncrieff is on this every night.”
He glances across to Luke, who appears to be lost in his own world, toying absently with the cuff of his school shirt. Rory purses his lips, thinking better about listening to Antiro HQ — sorry,David HQ— and twiddles the knob to flick through the stations. White noise and static crackles across the peace of the island before blooming into life with soft classical music. I sit down on Luke’s other side, listening to the gentle melody.
“I recognize this,” Luke murmurs, the music making his face more relaxed. “It reminds me of… home.”
Finlay picks up a compass from the tree stump, inspecting its face as he tilts it toward the castle. In the background, the music grows louder. It’s choral. Somber. The kind of music that reminds me of church.
From Luke’s side, I watch Rory and Finlay amble around, still clearing the space in front of us, still half-naked and glorious. Luke’s eyes have closed, his head leaning against the rough bark of the tree, as though deriving a brief snatch of serenity from the mellow song.
“And that was the Pastoral Suite by Clemence Gertrude, noted five years ago during her interview withStranded Isle Discsas one of Her Majesty’s favorite pieces.”
Luke’s eyes snap open with a start. “What?” It sounds like he’s barely breathing.
And then from the radio comes the careful, guarded tones of Sophia Milton: “It’s been a constant in my life during some of my most transitional phases.” Luke stares in astonishment at the radio, looking as though he’s been physically struck, his brown eyes wide with awe and pain. And I understand — because in a world where the Royal family has been deliberately erased from public consciousness, footage of them being broadcast on the radio like this is immense. It feels like it should be an underground recording, top secret and clandestine, more so than Antiro HQ. The chiefs expect the worst from Antiro but we never expected the best from others. Luke never expected compassion.
“I played it extensively throughout my pregnancy, as I entered motherhood,” Sophia Milton continues, her tone composed, her words precise and measured. “It was one of the few pieces to which both Lucas and Rebecca could settle when I’d been — well, otherwise incapacitated.” A hint of euphemism threads through this phrase. “From my perspective, there’s the most wonderful sense of femininity about the piece… It’s unafraid to be vulnerable, and to rise strong when the time comes. I adore it.”
Luke’s face is so naked and open with pain that my heart can barely stand it. It feels too small all of a sudden, unable to absorb what I’m seeing, unable to make the world better for him.
“Mother,” he whispers dejectedly, before sliding his fingers delicately along his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.
I rub Luke’s back in sympathy. I have the idea that if he talks about her, opens up about life with his mother, then maybe it would release some of his raw, gathering pain. It had weirdly helped me when Oscar Munro had cared enough to inquire. In a soft voice, I ask, “What did she mean — she was incapacitated?”
Luke’s mouth twists unhappily. “Officially, an extensive royal tour of Canada, most of which had to be called off due to exhaustion,” he answers. “Unofficially, I believe she had depression after giving birth. It was around this time that the press turned on her. From their perspective, she couldn’t do anything right. She wouldn’t release photos of us quickly enough — she didn’t want to, obviously. Because it wasn’t just Becca and me she gave birth to. She gave birth to a lie. My father believed it so scandalous it would consume the Royal family, that it would be the downfall of us.” He releases a small sigh as he sinks deeper against the tree. “He was right.”
It is frightening, I think to myself, how the repercussions of certain decisions are still able to be felt as they filter down the decades, like the reverberations of a drum.
“With that in mind, I suppose we’ve always existed on borrowed time,” Luke remarks slowly. “The one bright spot is that my father never lived long enough to see the public mood shift, for his prediction to come true. For his wife to…”Be killed. Luke swallows, lacing his fingers between mine, as Danny leans his head on his shoulder. “My mother had the most enormous strength to endure the smears of a bullying press and the hatred of half a country. She was diplomatic and remained devoted to the memory of my father. She was powerful in her own way.”
She was.
On the radio, a new song plays. It begins with the crash of an organ, so heavy and resolute, yet which manages to unfurl into the air like the most delicate string of a kite. A hundred voices, united in ceremony, sing the kind of music that cannot fail to touch the spirit. Every elongated note underlined with optimism. Each lyric the most beautiful poetry, a romance addressed to a country, kissed by a holy source. A solo flute that rises like a lark, a supportive string section that ekes out national pride.
Jerusalem. For a song all about the beauty and majesty of England, even Finlay respectfully remains quiet.
The five of us sit at the packed-away campsite, wrapped up in darkness and listening to music from angels. Tears begin to sting in my eyes. When the final triumphant chord is played, I can’t help but kiss Luke’s cheek in reverence.
“Another of Her Majesty’s favorite tracks. ‘Jerusalem,’ of course, which was sung by the choir of St. Camford during her wedding celebrations.” The presenter’s voice sounds slightly choked. Just as I’m thinking how extraordinary it is for a radio broadcast to feature the Royal family as humans instead of villains, the presenter clears his throat awkwardly. “And once again, this program is dedicated to showcasing the life of the queen regent, not from a royalist point of view but a historical one. All of us here, of course, stand firmly against treason and injustice of any kind, and believe that the old royalty does not align with the ethos of a modern-day Britain.”
Beside me, Luke stiffens.
Finlay’s eyes narrow. “Well, they slipped up. They called her Her Majesty and acknowledged her as queen regent. Studio will be fire-bombed by Antiro within the week.”
