Rennie

At breakfast Alexander was reading a British newspaper with great care, as though it were evidence.

The small dining room on the first floor, a round table, a sideboard with silver dishes that nobody had asked for, rain on the window over the garden. Lukas was eating eggs at a rate Frederick had only ever seen in Theo. Theo was eating eggs at the same rate beside him, and the two of them had established, without apparently speaking, a system for the toast.

“They have printed a map,” said Alexander. “Of the route on Saturday. With where to stand.” He turned the paper round. “And a box. What the King Will Wear. With drawings.” He turned it back. “In Königsberg nobody will tell anybody what I will wear until I am wearing it. Mama says it is to prevent disappointment.”

“Whose?”

“Everybody’s.” Alexander folded the newspaper exactly in half. “There is also a column by a man who says you should have been crowned in America, because it is where you live, and that a King of Great Britain who sleeps in New Westminster is a tenant.” He looked at Frederick. “I liked him. He was very angry and he spelled everything correctly.”

“He’s in the Register,” said Frederick. “Not him. The argument. Republicans in America say the London coronation proves the American Crown is British.”

“And in London they say it proves the British Crown is American.”

“Do they?”

“This man does.” Alexander put the newspaper down. “So you are wrong on both sides of the ocean at once. That is efficient.”

Lukas said something in German with his mouth full.

“He says,” said Alexander, “that in Königsberg everybody will agree I am Prussian, and they will be wrong about something else.” He almost smiled. “He is usually right. It is very tiresome.”

---

The morning at the abbey he did not tell anybody about.

He had been told he could. Canon Lyle had said, at the west door at half past eleven, His Grace asks me to say that what passes in rehearsal is yours to repeat or not as you please, sir, and he had thought about it in the car back, and decided not. Not because anything had happened. Because nothing had: a man in an ordinary black suit with a book had walked him through it, in a voice that was very quiet and very kind and entirely without hurry, and had stopped at the chair, and said what he would say there on Saturday, once, and closed the book, and said that is all. And it had been enough, and it was not Frederick’s to give to anybody.

He had asked one question. Whether he was supposed to shut his eyes.

If you wish, the man in the black suit had said. Most do. Your father did not. He told me so himself, in 1998, at a garden party, unprompted, which I have always thought was the only unprompted thing I ever heard him say.

---

The Prime Minister of Great Britain came at five.

The Yellow Drawing Room, which was yellow: yellow silk on the walls, a great deal of gilt, a fire, two chairs facing each other a little too far apart, and a small table between them with nothing on it. London’s red box was on a side table against the wall, closed. It was the same red as the Realm’s. It was in a different room.

Alistair Rennie came in, bowed his head, and sat down when asked, and put a battered brown folder on the small table and did not open it.

He was sixty-one. Grey, square, heavy-browed, in a suit that had been good once and was now comfortable. His party had put him in Downing Street in 2028 in place of Caroline Pembroke, and had tried to take him out of it twice since, in February and again in July, and failed both times by fewer than twenty votes, and he had said afterwards, both times, on the steps of Downing Street, well, that’s that, and gone back inside. He was from Fife. He did not sound as though he had ever left it.

“Sir.”

“Prime Minister.”

“I’ll not keep you long. You’ve a long day tomorrow and I’ve a short one; I sit in the north transept and stand up four times.” He looked at the fire. “I’ve three things. One’s the oath. One’s the country. And the third’s a thing I was asked to say and I’ve not decided whether to.”

---

The oath first.

He did not read it. He did what Lord Whitlock did: he knew it.

“You’ll be asked four questions, sir, by the Archbishop, at the altar, before the anointing. Whether you’ll govern the peoples of Great Britain according to their laws and customs. Whether you’ll cause law and justice in mercy to be executed. Whether you’ll maintain the Church of England as by law established. And whether you’ll preserve to the bishops and clergy their rights.” He folded his hands. “And you’ll say I solemnly promise so to do, and all this I promise to do, and sign it. On the altar. With a pen they’ll hand you.”

“I’ve read it.”

“I know you have, sir. You’ve read everything. Your Private Secretary tells my Private Secretary you read the papers twice for what they assume.” Something like amusement crossed Rennie’s face. “What I’ve come to say isn’t what’s in it. It’s who it’s to.”

Frederick waited.

“It’s not to me,” said Rennie. “I’m in the north transept. It’s not to the Archbishop; he asks. It’s not to the people in the abbey, who mostly have tickets because of something their grandfathers did.” He leaned forward a little. “It’s to a great many people who aren’t in it and weren’t asked and mostly won’t watch. Sixty-odd million of them. A third of whom think a King is a fine thing, and a third of whom think it’s a nonsense, and a third of whom don’t think about it at all from one year’s end to the next, and that last third is the one that matters.” He sat back. “Because you’re promising them something, sir, on Saturday, that they never asked for. And they’ll never hold you to it. Not once. Not one of them. And you’ll have to keep it anyway.”

---

The country second.

“You’ll have read,” said Rennie, “that you’re a tenant.”

“This morning. At breakfast. My cousin liked him.”

“Aye. So did I. He was at school with my son.” Rennie looked at the fire. “He’s not wrong, sir. That’s the trouble. You’ll be crowned here and you’ll live there. You’ll come four times a year, if we’re lucky, and do the things a King does here, and go home. The last King lived here and went there. You’ll do it the other way round.” He paused. “There’s a portion of this country that’ll never forgive you for it. Not a large portion. A loud one.”

“What should I do about them?”

“Nothing,” said Rennie. “Come when you say you’ll come. Leave when you say you’ll leave. Read our boxes as though you lived here.” He looked at the red box on the side table. “My Private Secretary tells me you do. Every night. After yours. After chemistry.” The same look. “He says nobody in Whitehall can decide whether that’s flattering or alarming.”

“Which is it?”

“It’s both, sir. Which is how you’ll know you’re doing it right.” Rennie turned his hands over on his knees. “My grandmother is ninety-four and lives in Kirkcaldy and thinks you live in Canada. I’ve told her twice. She says it’s all the same to her as long as you come at Christmas on the television.” He looked at the King. “Don’t correct her. She’s the third third. She’s the one you’re promising.”

---

“And the third thing,” said Frederick.

Rennie did not answer at once. He looked at the battered brown folder on the table, and did not open it, and looked at the fire.

“I was asked,” he said, “by the Chief of the Air Staff. Who was asked by the officer commanding a squadron at Brize Norton. Who was asked by a crew.” He paused. “They’ll fly you home on Monday. You’ll know that. As Kittyhawk. They know you asked them to use it. They know you were offered another and said no.” He looked at Frederick. “They wanted their Prime Minister to tell you that they’ve not had a word from any King of Great Britain in fifty-six years that meant as much to them as that one. And that they’ll get you home.”

Frederick could not answer for a moment.

“That’s all, sir,” said Rennie. “I’d not decided whether to say it. I’ve said it.” He picked up the brown folder. “It’s not in here. Nothing in here is anything you’ll want.”

“Prime Minister.”

“Sir.”

“What’s a coronation for? In British.”

Rennie stopped with the folder half off the table.

He put it back.

He looked at the King across the too-wide gap between the two chairs, with the fire going and the yellow silk on the walls and the rain on the window over the garden.

“In British, sir,” said Alistair Rennie, “it’s the one day in a reign that the one person in the country who can’t resign stands up in front of everybody and promises not to.” He stood. “Everybody else in that abbey tomorrow can walk out of their job on Monday. Me included. Twice they’ve tried to make me. You can’t. That’s what it’s for. So that everybody can see you know it.” He bowed his head. “Good night, sir. I’ll be in the north transept. I’ll shout.”

---

Theo found him on the stairs at seven.

“What did he say?”

“He said a coronation’s the day the one person who can’t resign promises not to.”

Theo thought about that.

“That’s not very cheerful.”

“No.”

“It’s true, though.”

“Yes.”

Theo sat down on the stair beside him, in his ordinary clothes, with his knees up.

“Lukas says in Königsberg they have a rule that the Emperor has to walk the last bit to the altar by himself, without a page, because the Teutonic Knights did,” said Theo. “Alexander’s practising on the landing. With a book on his head.” He paused. “Lukas says it’s a dictionary. Lukas says he chose the dictionary himself because it’s the heaviest book in the house and he’s like that.”

“He is like that.”

“So are you,” said Theo. “You’ve read that oath forty times. I can tell. You’ve got the face.” He looked at the stairs going down. “You know what Mr Tilney said to me today? After the backwards?”

“What?”

“He said the 1973 page fell over on the third step at the rehearsal and was so frightened he didn’t sleep for two nights, and on the day he didn’t fall, and afterwards he drove buses for thirty-six years and never had an accident.” Theo looked at Frederick. “And then he said, that is what a coronation is for, Mr Hartigan. And walked off.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what he meant.”

“I think,” said Frederick, “it’s the same as what Rennie meant.”

“Is it?”

“I don’t know. Nearly.”

“Good,” said Theo, and got up. “Then I’ve only got to understand one of them.” He went down three steps and turned. “Lukas wants to see the garden in the rain. Coming?”

“Yes.”

He went.