When all of history sits on your doorstep,
the adventures never end!

“M’lady.” Maids of honour closed round her like an armed escort. “The King awaits.” With a crackling of skirts, Liz was led down the stone steps from the nursery, her slim body adorned by a crimson cape and embroidered gold gown; her chin held high above a crisp, new ruff.

Crossing the castle courtyard, she was hit sounds of revelry. From the Great Hall tumbled a wild wailing of pipes; the crash of an overturned stool; drunken shouts for “more ale, more meat!” Lizzy knew just how these royal feasts played out...but she’d never been the offering served up. Until now.

Blood trickled down her neck. Tears pricked her eyes. Bad enough her ears had been pierced by Hogwitch’s hateful pearls. In a couple of years, he’d possess the rest of her. Betrothal period respectably expired, Princess Elizabeth of Tudorgate would be the evil’s Earl’s property - to toy with (and torture) as he wished. But what could she do?

Liz bowed her head – and saw a bare, filthy foot scuttle across the flagstones ahead of her. Then another. Brushing the blood from her neck, she peered through the cracks in her maids’ skirts – just as the feet jumped into a huge heap of...rags, was it? And bones.

The heap moved.

Liz yelped. But by the time the maids had turned, she’d recovered herself - no way was she bringing more trouble on those poor souls. For the bundle of bones and rags had revealed themselves to be the Earl’s whipping boys.  Crouched by the open doors of the Great Hall, the lads were huddled together for warmth. Eldest cradling the youngest, all craned towards the feast, as if simply breathing the rich smells could fill their bellies. As Liz passed them, the youngest held out his bandaged hands to her, pleading. But what could she do?

Lizzy buried her face in her hands. And tore the bloody, black pearls from her ears. “Here,” she thrust them at the eldest lad. “Buy your freedom. All of you!”

She felt the scrape of his rough hands, then a swish of silk as the maids closed in on her. She breathed in a gust of rotting oranges and cloves, then suddenly all was roar and candlelight. They were inside the Great Hall, swimming in a rich stench of close bodies, roast meat and gravy. Tipping her head back for air, she felt the hammer-beam roof spin high above her. Gripping on to a chair-back, Liz tried to steady herself. What was that word Mary kept using? Focus. From the Latin for ‘fireplace’. She frowned at the hearth of the Great Hall. It blazed like a bonfire, but tonight there was something different about it...

Ah, the tapestries above it! Rich as anything and freshly-hung. Illuminated by flaming rushes that spat in polished gilt torch-holders. Even the old portrait of her miserly grandfather, Henry VII, had been given a dust. Betrothal, it seemed, was big business. And every toff in Tudorgate had turned up to trade on Henry’s hospitality. As her maids steered her towards the top table, Liz got a grip of herself. With a regal twitch of her robes, she proceeded past long benches crammed with nobles, all acting ignobly.

Court beauties giggled behind fixed-feather fans, their bodices cut as low as modesty allowed, their hair coiled and dressed with pearls. Young men ‘played the poet’, sweet-talking the ladies, then sulking if they got blanked for their verse. Meanwhile the older men competed to see who could grow most choleric. Guzzling wine, they gorged themselves on ever more extravagant dishes: Stuffed heron followed roasted swans followed a huge peacock with eyes dulled, beak painted gold. Liz paused to stroke his beautiful blue feathers, now stained by spilled ale and gravy, when two serving boys ran into the back of her. Fawning apologies, they rushed to right their load: a giant platter holding a cockerel’s head stitched on to the body of a pig. What Mary would give to dissect this, thought Liz. Where was she?

Casting round the crowded hall, Liz spied her sister penned in a corner by her pious mother. Fondling the heavy cross around her neck, Katherine of Aragon was moving her lips rapidly. Whatever her utterance - prayer or promise – it was turning Mary’s face to a mask of horror! Liz darted towards her – only to have the maids of honour pinion her arms. Legs kicked out from under her, she was briskly chairlifted towards the royal dias, a raised platform that struggled to contain the majestic presence of the King. Yep, as Lizzy was pushed down into a curtsey, she could hear the stage groaning:  Henry VIII was a golden youth no more.

Phew, she tottered back, he stank, for starters. The rotting ulcer on his leg gave off foul fumes of corrupting flesh and bad egg. Years since he’d last charged at the joust like a bull. Now he just farted like one. Catherine Parr fed him tonics, and tactfully blamed the stresses of kingship on his ballooning size. But Liz had noticed her dad went a doublet-size whenever a royal ship returned ruined and empty from a quest for the Hidden Isles. Now the once great man generated nothing but gas, wine fumes – and fear. While he terrorised his courtiers, Liz watched the panic growing in his piggy eyes. Liz felt them bore into her now, daring her to some act of impertinence, so he could stamp her down. That’s what bullies did it, wasn’t it? Kicked the little people, and cowered from the big. Because no matter how much weight you throw around, there’s always someone bigger...

She clocked the huge, empty seat that dominated her father’s right side. Canopied in bile green velvet and blood-red silk, it made Henry’s throne look threadbare. And didn’t he know it. Catching his daughter’s eye, Henry gave a hot, bitter belch. Then he waved her away with his soft, white fingers, and turned to his son.

Poor Eddy, puffed Liz. In honour of the feast, her little brother been dragged from his beloved books, and plonked down by his father’s left hand, which now picked up a giant turkey drumstick. “One day, boy,” bellowed Henry, “you will grow great as me.”

“Mwababa”, mumbled Edward, disappearing under his dad’s gargantuan gut. But before she could go to help, Lizzy felt a hiss in her ear.

“Forget your weakling brother.” Pain shot across her shoulder, as if it were caught in a vice. A vice formed by eleven fingers and one cast-iron ambition. “The real throne beckons.” Anne Boleyn pulled her daughter towards Hogwitch’s empty seat. “When the Earl makes his entrance, he’ll want to see you.”

“Hogwitch can wait.” A stout, old man blocked their path. “I’ve not seen my young friend here in months.”

“Winston!” beamed Lizzy.

“Please,” Anne Bolyen tried to push past, “my daughter is busy. Getting betrothed.”

“Ah, yes,” he clamped a fat, brown stick between his lips, “not Henry’s finest hour. Or yours.” He blew smoke into Anne’s eyes. “But the battle’s not lost yet.” He winked at Lizzy. “Still beaches to storm, eh?”

She nodded cheerily, despite having no idea what a “beach” was. Enough she’d got him to explain his smouldering stick to her. “It’s a cigar, my dear – puffing on it helps me think”. Which didn’t make it any less curious! Ditto “dicky bow” he insisted on wearing with his “evening tails”. Tails? Even now Liz had to fight the urge to check round his back for a fluffy powder puff. There was something bunny-like about Mr Churchill. With his soft ring of white hair, and bright, twinkly eyes, he reminded her of a big, kindly rabbit. With whiskers of steel.

“Come,” he twitched Liz to towards his Ground Council table. “Let’s talk maps. Any closer to plotting your route out of here?”

Left behind in a cloud of cigar smoke, Anne Boleyn could only fume.  No-one defied the Grand Council. Elected from the mightiest rulers of the Many Realms – drawn from the greatest figureheads of all time - the Council protected and governed Conturbabimus. Their power was unimpeachable, their word law. Crucially they alone could travel freely across the Walls that cut up the vast, sprawling city.  Lesser mortals had to wait for the monthly carnival: For one glorious day lucky ticket-holders rode ferries out to the Floating Fairground – and hurled themselves into the whirligig of other worlds.  Here, savage vikings could ride on steam trains; cosmonauts could dance with Druids, and Roman soldiers could pilot a Spitfire - so long as nothing was stolen or smuggled home on pain of death.

Yep, Liz took a nervous seat among the Council, death was a big thing in Conturbabimus: If you weren’t ducking it, you were dealing it.  Perhaps this was why Lizzy was so fond of Winston Churchill. He was the only Grand Councillor not a total psychopath or bloody murderer. He was also the lone voice raised against her betrothal: “Henry, old man,” he barked gruffly across the table, “surely it’s time to outlaw these enforced engagements?”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Winnie,” Cleopatra tapped him with a fish bone. “If the girl doesn’t like her husband, she can poison him!  That’s what I did.  Seriously darling,” she pouted at Liz. “There was zilch chemistry in my past two marriages. Why, I don’t know!” She rolled her black-kohled eyes. “You’d think it easy to have chemistry with your own siblings”

“You married… your siblings?” stuttered Liz. “Why?”

“To get the throne, of course,” she shrugged. “I married both my younger brothers - one after the other, yaawn.” She nestled against her hunky dinner date. “I’m much happier with my little Julie, aren’t I?”

Wedged against the voluptuous Egyptian queen, Julius Caesar grinned like he couldn’t believe his luck. But it was his wily wife getting lucky, noted Liz. As Cleo stroked the “big, strong arms” of her Roman general, she slipped off his imperial wristband and two gold rings, and dropped them into her lap.

“Please! No more jollity about husbands,” boomed a portly, white-haired lady dressed in deepest mourning. “We are not amused.”

“You never are, dear,” Winston patted her hand. “Comes from missing your beloved Albert.”