The Prince, the Cook and the Cunning King (2 page)

“Yes, Cook?” he said, and he shivered.

“Look after young Ellie. Show her where she sleeps. Show her what to do.”

“Yes, Cook.”

The boy looked back longingly at his half-full bowl of mush. He left the bench and moved towards me, walking almost sideways like a crab. As he passed Cook, the fat man lashed out at Lambert and the boy ducked.

“He didn’t do anything!” I cried.

Cook turned his fat face on me. His lips curled back to show those green teeth.

“Lambert has been a wicked, wicked boy, haven’t you, Lambert?”

“Yes, Cook.”

“He doesn’t deserve a smack on the head!” I said, and my face was hot in that cold kitchen.

“No,” Cook said softly. Then a dirty finger prodded me in the shoulder and he exploded with stinking breath in my face, “He deserves an axe on the back of his scrawny neck.”

Suddenly, he picked up a meat-axe from a table and shook it wildly. “He deserves to be executed. Don’t you, Lambert?”

“Yes, Cook,” the miserable boy murmured.

“Now take her to the room over the stables and show her where she’ll be sleeping.”

Lambert nodded, gave me a quivering smile, picked up my bundle and nodded for me to follow him. I stopped at the door and looked back to see one of the servants emptying Lambert’s porridge bowl.

Chapter Three
The Scratching Straw

“I have to sleep
here
?” I asked Lambert.

He nodded and dropped my bundle on to a pile of straw in the loft.

“Sleep on the straw,” he said. “Use the blanket to cover you. It’s warm with the horses below you in the stable.”

I was staring at my bed.

“The straw moved,” I whispered.

Lambert laughed. “That’ll just be a rat. I have a special friend rat,” he said.

Suddenly he darted to the top of the stairs and looked down. “People listen at doors here, you know?”

He scuttled back to me. “I call my rat Henry. After the King!”

“The King would be furious, if he knew,” I said.

“The King is the biggest rat of all,” he said wildly. “Why do you think everyone in the palace is so miserable? Because the King is so mean. We eat the cheapest food. Even his wife, Queen Elizabeth, is made to patch her dresses. She has tin buckles on her shoes when a queen should have silver!”

I sat down on the straw. “Cook looks fat enough,” I said.

Lambert dashed to the top of the steps and back again. “He steals the King’s food. If we did it we’d be whipped. But Cook has the key to the pantry.”

“Why did Cook call you ‘wicked’?” I asked.

Lambert ran to the top of the stairs and back for the third time. He spoke quickly.

“King Henry stole the crown of England. The real king should be Prince Edward, but he was locked in the Tower of London by King Henry Tudor.”

“I’ve heard the story. He’s still locked away there, isn’t he?”

Lambert shook his head so hard I thought it would fall off on to the rat-filled straw. “Edward escaped!” he squeaked.

“How do you know, Lambert?” I asked quietly.

“Because it’s me! I’m Edward, Earl of Warwick. I’m the real king of England!”

Chapter Four
The Midnight Meeting

That day, I learned my duty as kitchen maid.

I scrubbed pans with sand and I swept the floor. I made bread till my arms ached and I carried buckets of water till my shoulders were numb.

We had bread and cheese for lunch–but Cook didn’t eat with us. He disappeared into the pantry for two hours and came out with food dribbling down his chin, looking sleepy. Then it was time to make the evening meal for the King and his court.

Cook breathed over me. “If you work hard, one day you may become a serving maid and get to see the King.”

One day.

I saw him sooner than that. I sank into my straw that night as the clocks struck eleven.