Chapter Ten


I arrived at the palace drawbridge just before noon, alone. The good Sergeant Beer had to stay behind, as the lieutenant had sprained his ankle and banged his head, in the fall from his horse. As the sergeant explained to me - ‘ lieutenant, Greycard Captain, has knocked himself sillier.’
 In the courtyard I dismounted and led Betty as usual over to the Purser’s office, before taking her to the stables. To my surprise, old Mr Mills stepped out and walked towards me, grinning. ‘Hey, Jeffery my boy, thanks for getting rid of that last Purser, what an impostor and that snake Two Spade.’ He shook my hand vigorously. I actually knew he had been kidnapped but I asked in fun.
‘Where have you been, Mr Mills?  Heartland for a dirty weekend?’ He vigorously shook his head, and stopped shaking my hand.
‘Ah no, I’m too old for that. No, it’s very odd. I was despatched for service with the Chief Rabbi up north. When I reported in someone knocked me over the head. I was rescued last night by Sir Valentine himself, and here I am.’ He ran his stubby old fingers through wavy thick hair and rubbed his bump, then stared at me with his piercing brown eyes and grabbed my arm. ‘Well my boy, you seem to be in the favour of the Queen and Rabbi Gideon. They want me to send you to a good tailor, as it happens, the best, my brother Lionel Mills. The best Four Tailor for the royal court (he winked at me so his deeply lined face looked like a prune). So what did you do? Sleep with the Queen’s Lady-in-waiting? Oi, has she been waiting a long time!’
 I smiled back at him. ‘I think she still has a long wait.’ He laughed and continued. ‘And you a Captain already.’
 Just then a window opened above. I looked up. It was a moment repeated from yesterday.  Princess Topaz leaned out and down, her breasts pressed down on the windowsill. ‘Oh there you are, Two Club. When you’ve been fitted, come straight up to Daddy’s wing. We will speak with you.’ She stared at me for a moment, expecting, I daresay, some sort of acknowledgement, but seeing this Two Club with his mouth open, and nodding as if with epilepsy, she quickly picked up the folds of her hair and withdrew. I wondered fervently if the windowsill was still warm and her heart still cold. She had called me a bloody Two Club. What happened to my promotion?  
Mr Mills nudged me. ‘My, are you the dark horse. The Queen, the Rabbi, and now Princess Topaz. Well, I know who I would choose.’
I found Mr Lionel Mills, a few doors past the Purser. He had a dark and dingy little tailor’s shop under the Palace. He sat hunched and squinting in the bad light over a workbench. He didn’t even look up when the doorbell tinkled as I entered.
I stood for a few moments, until at last he put down his needle and thread and looked up over his wire spectacles. ‘So what are you, a doorstop?’ I felt a little irritated by his attitude, just because I still had my Two Club figures on my chest. I tried to raise the level a touch or three.
 ‘I am here at the request of Her Majesty the Queen. She instructs you to make me up to a full Club Captain of the household cavalry and Master Locksmith.’ God, it felt good, he was a Four Tailor and I was a Five! I was actually talking down to someone and I was getting good at it. He was looking at me now a little wearily. The surprise made him clumsy, he caught his finger on a pin. He winced and sucked his small wound for a moment.
 ‘Well, well, why didn’t you say, what am I, a mind reader? Come in, come in, don’t stand on Ceremony.’ I felt a bit taken aback.
 ‘I wasn’t.’ He turned and pointed to a black and white cat on the floor, in the shade of a candle.
 ‘No, no, I mean Ceremony my cat.’
 ‘Oh sorry,’ I said, carefully sidestepping Ceremony. He grabbed a measuring tape and swung it around my chest, like a farm lassoo, and pulled it tight. I found his closeness a little disconcerting. He smelt of dirty clay pipes, old tobacco, and older wine.
‘So what are you, a clothes- horse? Breathe in. (I did.) Breathe out.’  He proceeded to measure my arms and torso, making small chalk marks and small talk, with pins in his mouth. ‘So how is the old Queen?’ I frowned at his levity.
 ‘You mean Queen Pauline?’ He wheezed through the pins.
 ‘Well, I’m not talking about the Heart Prince Rupert. Of course I mean Pauline.’ ‘Fine when I last saw her.’
 ‘Oi, like the weather. When did you last see her?’
 ‘Yesterday, of course.’
 ‘Of course? What am I, your diary?’
‘Well, I saw her YESTERDAY!’ He had rammed his tape up against my testicles.
‘You’ve got a fine singing voice, soprano I think.’ Before my balls could drop, he threaded the tape with adept speed around my buttocks, pulled a face, then without letting go, yanked me over to a table where there were rolls of wool. He picked up a rather drab grey sample to show me. I shook my head. ‘A bit drab.’
 ‘Drab? It’s your Club colours.’
 ‘But they are a nice grey.’  ‘A nice grey? A nice grey you have for funerals.’
 ‘No, I want to see something a little more…’ He shrugged. ‘What, grey?’
‘No, colourful.’  
‘Colourful? Look, my friend, take grey, I’ll give you a nice deal.’
‘No, I want to look like an officer and a gentleman.’ He shrugged again.
‘You want me to give you two looks, I should charge you double.’  He picked up some colour samples, and lovingly stoked them. ‘Oi feel the quality, feel the width.’ I refrained.
‘So, what colour?’ He asked.
 ‘Red and moss grey. I saw some Household Cavalry escorting the Club Queen Lucia’s coach once.’
 ‘A nice choice, so why didn’t you say?’
I mimicked his shrug and voice. ‘So what am I, a mind reader?’ He looked sceptically over his spectacles.
 ‘So now you’re a Court Jester? Do you want me to make you a funny hat with a bell on top?’
  ‘Have you got one in a nice grey?’ He looked at me appraisingly, then smiled for the first time.
 ‘My boy, Five or not, Captain or not, I’m still your senior in age. You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that.’ I tried to look ironic.
 ‘Yes, but I almost lost them. How long will it take?’ He glanced at an invoice, picked up a pencil and wet the tip with his tongue.  ‘Three…’ I stared at him disappointedly. ‘But for you two weeks?’ he offered.
‘No! I need it now, today!’
 ‘My god, what do you want blood? I work alone. What are you paying?’ I pulled out a small diamond. He glanced at it with disgust. ‘Pah diamonds! Diamonds I got, like raindrops on a picnic. For this (he said, grabbing the diamond) you can have off the shelf.’
 He led me to a clotheshorse and pulled out the very thing, an almost new Club House Guard Captain’s uniform. It looked my size, almost as if it had been made for me. It was handsome, smart, moss green with red-trimmed pockets and shoulders and a red stripe on each side of the tailored trousers, large silver buttons, and, to finish it off, three thin gold stripes on the cuff and silver mesh on the epaulets, the rank of a Captain Five. I began to feel excited this would really impress Topaz. ‘Why didn’t you show me this before? (He shrugged, I pre-empted him.) I know you’re not a mind reader.’ He shrugged, and opened the palms of his hands.
‘You’re catching on. Would you like to buy Ceremony? Now you’re a Captain.’