‘Should we send for bulldozers?’
‘It doesn’t seem safe but if you think we should…’
It didn’t seem safe and no, she didn’t think they should but that they deferred to her was astonishing. She was a historian.
A historian who knew about mine management, she conceded, but they didn’t know that. She found herself snapping orders-sending people to find shoring timbers, assessing load strengths, standing back from digging every few moments to see the whole picture…
She did know what to do. The history of gold-mining was littered with tragedy and she knew enough now to prevent mindless tunnelling from parents desperate to reach their children at any cost.
But it wasn’t her role as historian that these people were reaching out to, though, she thought as she dug. It was her role as royal.
Like Matty, standing white-faced and grim just out of reach of the diggings. Every other small child had been hauled away, well out of danger. Matty had a right to be here.
Matty’s duty was to be here. He knew it. It’d been instilled from birth by those around him. Today he’d acted with a gut instinct that seemed almost inbred.
‘My people need me.’
Royalty might be anachronistic, totally outdated, unfair. But right now it was what these people needed.
She dug on, and the picture came to her again of the young King during the Second World War, touring the diggings. Winston Churchill with his cigar, standing on a heap of bomb site rubble with King George beside him. The King and the Prime Minister, with the people they represented.
If she left now…if she took Matty, as was her right, and left this place, left the digging to others…
It could be done. She could give orders as to how to shore up the tunnel they were working on. She could take Matty home, cuddle him until the colour came back into his face, maybe play with Rafael’s toys until he forgot…
She could never do such a thing. Because Rafael was under there? Because Rafael had kissed her?
Yes, but more than that.
Because there were twenty children and their teacher trapped?
Yes, but more than that too.
Matty was right. What he had was an age-old heritage-the leadership of his people. And, by marrying Kass, she’d inherited it as well.
Sure, she could walk away. Royals had done that since time immemorial-had walked away from their royal duties, had elected to live a normal life.
But…But…
But the good ones stayed.
‘The sounds are getting clearer,’ someone yelled. ‘There’s more’n one alive.’
‘That’s great. So slow down,’ she yelled. ‘And let’s increase the rate of supports. No unnecessary risks.’
‘No, ma’am.’
The good ones stayed. Queen Elizabeth, taking on the throne as a young mother, a young bride. Overseeing change in the monarchy so the people had a say in the government, so monarchy wasn’t an absolute.
Doing what she saw as her duty, no matter what. And in times of crisis…
Giving a focus. A sense of leadership. A sense of continuity, regardless of personal grief.
Kelly’s hands had blisters on blisters. She could stop. Men were taking turns. But the fact that she was beside them was driving them forward with renewed energy. She didn’t understand it, but the fact was that monarchies had endured for century after century and here she was, a princess…fighting for her two princes. One behind her, staring at his mother as if he’d like to be part of her. He’d be digging in a heartbeat, she knew, if she let him. Matty. Mathieu. Her own little prince.
And below ground…
Rafael.
They weren’t digging indiscriminately. As every layer was worked through they probed cautiously before they dug, just in case…just in case…
In case Rafael hadn’t made it. In case he was trapped before the entrance to the basement. In case his body was caught up in this mass of mud and sludge and mess.
The thought had her choking and fiercely hauling her arm across eyes that welled with tears before she could stop them. She paused, fighting for breath.
‘Are you okay, Your Highness?’ a man asked beside her and she turned and saw his eyes were red and swollen.
‘You have a child down there?’ she whispered.
‘Two,’ he muttered. ‘Heidi. She’s eight. And Sophie, who’s six.’
‘Then we have no time for tears,’ Kelly managed and wiped her face again, this time with a savage determination she knew would stay with her to the end. ‘We only have time to dig.’
And in the end…
In the end it happened so fast she could scarcely believe it. One minute they were digging, the next they’d reached what seemed a vast, solid door. Six feet across, eight feet long. Mounded with debris.
They’d dug across and down, but not tunnelling. They were open cut mining, completely removing the mass of dirt above and shoring the sides. It made things slower but surely safer. To tunnel in these unstable conditions would be madness, Kelly had decreed, and the red-eyed men and women around her had agreed.
So now they had a trench thirty feet long, starting at the edge of the mass of debris and working in, dropping fast, so the sides were twelve, fourteen feet high. The trench was big enough for two men to work side by side, while those behind cleared and passed the rubble back.
And now…The last few spadefuls had exposed the slab. The men in front edged shovels sideways, exploring.
Hitting wood.
‘It’s holding the whole mess off us,’ a man’s voice called weakly from below, and Kelly’s heart seemed to almost stop. The voice was muffled but finally they could make out words. And the voice…the voice was surely Rafael’s.
‘Your Highness…’ someone called.
‘We’re okay. Take your time. Get it right,’ he called.
‘Madame Henry?’ The man beside Kelly-Heidi and Sophie’s dad-could barely speak through tears as he called down to the schoolteacher they hoped was still safe.
‘The children are all here.’ The teacher must be elderly, Kelly thought. She sounded little and acerbic and frightened-and also just a wee bit bossy. ‘Prince Rafael got down here just in time before the mess came down. When it started moving he blocked the door so it couldn’t crash through but then the stuff moved again and he was caught…’
‘Rafael was caught?’ Kelly demanded, tugging loose debris free with her hands. They were so close…
‘I’m fine,’ Rafael called from through the rubble but she knew from his muffled voice that he wasn’t.
‘We have to get this free.’
‘We take our time.’ It was Sophie and Heidi’s dad, pulling her back, putting both hands on her shoulders and setting her aside. ‘We don’t undo Prince Rafael’s work-your work-by moving that slab until we’re sure the land will hold.’
‘Y-yes.’
‘You’ve done enough,’ he said gently and then looked at the seemingly impenetrable slab and sighed. ‘And so have I. Everyone behind us is willing. We let those whose hearts aren’t behind the slab make the decisions from now on.’
He was right. It nearly killed her but he was right. She was ushered out of the trench. Matty was waiting, staring at the entrance to the trench as if by will alone he could bring them out alive. She hugged him close. She was soaked to the skin, coated in thick, oozing mud. Women came forward carrying blankets. They would have ushered her away but she’d have none of it.
Rafael…Rafael…
But finally her prayers were answered. Finally the slab was moved. They inched it from its resting place with
