Winston Churbull could hardly believe the radio. “The coronation today suffered an attack today of the worst kind… three assassins attempted to end the life of the young girl on the very doorstep of the royal palace. There are thirty two reported dead and sixty-four with injuries ranging from minor to life threatening. The Queen herself is completely unharmed… and… according to witnesses, she killed one of the attackers herself.”

Winston Churbull choked on his cognac and dropped his cigar. His comrade pounded on his back, “Sir?! Are you alright?”

“Yes, yes… but did they say what I think they said?” He asked, and the bartender nodded.

“Aye, she killed one of em herself, or so they say. But I’d wager far more that the ‘footage’ of her actually doing that will be mysteriously lost. Whoever heard of something so absurd?” Charles gave a dismissive sort and wiped the interior of the glass clean.

He slid another cognac over to the Secretary, and Churbull caught it without looking. “Still, I can’t believe there were that many…”

Others in the bar were already talking, the buzz was quickly running wild, and Sam turned the radio up.

“...Whoever would strike at this country in so cowardly a manner, you should know that we will find you, we will punish you, and we will neither forgive nor forget you, not until the end of time.” It was the voice of Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

Churbull gritted his teeth while he picked up his cigar from off the table and began to puff rapidly, smoke drifted up into the air, hanging over him like a cloud, like his anger given physical form. “Pompous windbag.” He mumbled around the long brown wrapped leaf.

But internally, beyond his annoyance… ‘That’s not how that was supposed to happen! Could she really have killed someone… could she?! A quick scare, a single pistol shot, she’s just a girl, how hard could it be to scare one girl into going home and realizing that being the empire’s tool of manipulation is just… absurd! The royal family is dead, they should have stayed that way! Better no monarchy than some foreign riffraff!’

He groused about it in his head and around cigar after cigar, drink after drink, for so long that he lost track of time until the hour came for him to go home. He stumbled away from the bar, leaving money behind him, plenty to cover the cost of his drinks and a very healthy tip, and staggered out into the street.

Most of the time he would take a car back, but today, ‘I want to see the evening paper… what do they say about all this?’ The thought was almost a recording in his head, muscle memory kept him from looking ‘too’ intoxicated, and when he passed the shabby boy on the street shouting…

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Extra! Extra! Assassins target Queen! Special edition photos included!” The boy waved one excitedly, he was one of countless young boys who peddled papers to survive. They bought them from the newspaper houses in bulk, marked them up by a few pennies, then sold them on the street. Any that didn’t sell, either went to public food sellers who used papers to wrap fish and chips, or to other vendors. If there were any papers left after that, the houses would buy them back for about half their value, acid wash the ink off, then dry and reprint them the following day with new headlines.

The boys like this one, who couldn’t afford to attend school, were a dime a dozen and filled countless workhouses and trade schools as ‘apprentices’. The girls ended up in mending and sewing shops or became maids, some found places as farmers wives, and a handful ended up in factories with men.

Everybody smiled while they did… whatever. And this boy was no exception. But even Winston knew that wasn’t the same as being ‘happy’.

He gave the boy a quid and said, “Keep the loose.” The boy beamed, that one quid was worth at least twenty or thirty sales.

“Thankee sir!” The boy exclaimed and handed Winston the paper.

He accepted it in his hand and looked at the cover.

There she was, very much a young girl, a little blonde child no more than eleven or twelve. But her face was not a child’s. She had iron determination on her face and held her hand out with one foot on the balcony, the magic that surrounded her protected her and to some extent, those who were with her. The lady-in-waiting behind her did the same thing, had they not, most of those guests would have died along with the new Queen.

It was the picture perfect photo of a poised leader. He didn’t read the headline, instead he flipped the page. Special editions usually came out when they couldn’t decide what pictures to use, it meant extra photos, and thus cost a little more to print.

They didn’t come out often, and mostly in his own mind, they weren’t worth it.

One look at the next page as he half walked, half swayed on his way home, and Churbull recognized that this was the exception. Another photo showed her holding a rifle in her hand, one lucky snapshot showed the moment a grenade exploded after presumably being hit in the air.

The photos were plentiful. On the table, the lady attendant taking a fighting position, the Queen taking command and pointing here and there in the rapid giving of orders. Only after he saw all of the pictures did he bother to read the story. Her speech, her instructions, everything that was said and done in the course of the attack and the aftermath.

Given the state of things, he had no doubt there would be footage of the entire attack as well. ‘This is bad, this is very… very… very bad. This one won’t ‘scare’ off. There’s no way… there’s just… there’s no way…’ He only slowly embraced that understanding.

And by the time he fell into a drunken slumber in his home, he wondered… ‘How many will have to die to save the Commonwealth from the devil on the throne?’