King Malcolm I
Malcolm Reed woke up because someone was kneeling beside the bed crying.
At first he assumed there had been a death in the family. This was inconvenient, mostly because it was Monday and he hated emotional obligations before coffee.
He opened one eye.
A man in white gloves bowed his head beside the duvet.
“Your Majesty,” the man whispered hoarsely. “England awaits.”
Malcolm shut his eye again.
Then he opened it.
The man was still there.
He had an enormous silver chain around his neck and the sort of posture usually associated with expensive horses.
Malcolm sat up violently.
“Who the hell are you?”
The man looked confused.
“I am the Lord Chamberlain, sire.”
“You’re kneeling on my wife’s side of the bed.”
“Yes, Majesty.”
“That’s Karen’s side.”
The Lord Chamberlain lowered his eyes respectfully.
“Indeed, Majesty.”
Malcolm looked around the room.
It was still his bedroom, right down to the yellowing wallpaper.
The damp patch shaped like Paraguay was still there, as was the pile of unfolded laundry resembling a recently discovered corpse.
Karen snored beside him beneath a floral duvet.
“Karen,” Malcolm hissed, shaking her shoulder. “There’s a government man in the bedroom.”
Karen opened her eyes calmly.
“Oh good,” she said. “They’ve come.”
Then she sat up and curtsied.
That’s right, she curtsied. To Malcolm.
“Your Majesty,” she murmured.
Malcolm stared at her.
Karen had never curtsied in her life.
Karen once gave the finger to a priest in traffic.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m showing respect to the role you represent, darling.”
“What role?”
She looked puzzled.
“Head of state, of course!”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Karen frowned slightly.
“You really must stop saying that. It frightens the staff.”
“What staff?”
At that exact moment, six trumpets sounded downstairs. They almost gave him a heart attack. Long, medieval blasts of doom.
Malcolm climbed out of bed wearing only boxer shorts printed with tiny fishing rods and marched downstairs intending to remove whoever was making trumpet noises from his property.
Instead he found twenty-seven guards in bearskin hats standing rigidly in the living room.
His cat sat among them licking itself.
One guard stepped forward.
“The carriage is prepared, Your Majesty.”
“What carriage?”
“The royal carriage.”
Malcolm looked through the window.
Outside his semi-detached house stood a golden coach the size of a cathedral.
Neighbourhood children pressed against police barriers screaming and waving Union Jacks. Helicopters circled overhead. A horse defecated magnificently onto Malcolm’s begonias.
“Oh,” Malcolm said.
He sat down very suddenly on the staircase.
Within forty minutes he was travelling through London accompanied by cavalry.
Nobody explained anything properly.
Every question he asked received the same answer.
“As Your Majesty wishes.”
This was not helpful.
“Where are we going?”
“As Your Majesty wishes.”
“Why am I king?”
“As Your Majesty wishes.”
“Has there been some kind of administrative error?”
“As Your Majesty wishes.”
The coach smelled faintly of oranges.
Karen sat opposite him wearing pearls she definitely didn’t own yesterday.
“You should wave more naturally,” she advised.
“I work in insurance.”
“Not anymore.”
“I processed claims for flood damage.”
“You must move on.”
Crowds roared outside. Malcolm cautiously lifted the curtain.
Thousands of people lined the streets cheering hysterically.
One woman fainted upon seeing him scratch his neck.
A child held up a sign reading GOD SAVE MALCOLM I.
Malcolm lowered the curtain.
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
Karen adjusted a diamond brooch.
“You’ve always said you wanted more responsibility.”
The palace was enormous and deeply upsetting.
Every corridor contained either portraits of dead people or men carrying ceremonial sticks.
Malcolm was led through room after room while servants bowed at dangerous angles.
The Prime Minister arrived almost immediately.
He was a tiny sweating man who looked assembled from damp napkins.
“Your Majesty,” he said breathlessly. “The situation with Norway has escalated.”
“What situation?”
“The cod situation.”
“What cod situation?”
The Prime Minister blinked.
“…The cod situation, Majesty.”
Malcolm looked around helplessly.
Nobody else appeared confused.
A footman entered carrying a velvet cushion upon which rested a single boiled egg.
Everyone became silent.
“What’s this?” Malcolm whispered.
“The egg of state,” said Karen.
“You made that up.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury crossed himself solemnly.
“No one jokes about the egg of state.”
Malcolm poked it cautiously.
The room gasped.
“Your Majesty!” cried the Prime Minister.
“What?”
“You touched it before the declaration.”
“What declaration?”
The Archbishop began trembling visibly.
“The sacred declaration of egg continuity.”
Malcolm stood up.
“No. Absolutely not. I refuse to participate in whatever this is.”
Dead silence.
Then, unexpectedly, Karen spoke in a frighteningly regal voice.
“My husband is tired.”
Everyone relaxed instantly.
The Prime Minister nodded sympathetically.
“Of course. The burden of the crown.”
Malcolm pointed at the egg.
“That’s just an egg.”
The Archbishop fainted.
Things became progressively worse.
By afternoon Malcolm was forced to knight a badminton player.
The sword was surprisingly heavy.
“You may rise,” he muttered.
The badminton player kissed his hand and began sobbing.
Then came diplomatic meetings.
An ambassador from Belgium presented him with a taxidermied swan wearing spectacles.
“This symbolises trade,” the ambassador explained.
“Right,” Malcolm replied weakly.
At three o’clock Malcolm was introduced to the royal astronomer, an old woman with eyebrows looking like frost-covered moss.
She unfolded a chart.
“The moon is behaving disrespectfully again.”
“What?”
“We suspect France.”
“I don’t understand a single thing happening.”
The astronomer nodded sympathetically.
“A wise king admits this.”
By evening Malcolm had signed twelve documents, pardoned a magician, and accidentally declared war on Luxembourg after sneezing during a ceremony.
“Can’t someone else be king?” he begged Karen privately.
Karen looked shocked.
“And abandon the realm?”
“The realm seems deeply unstable.”
“That’s monarchy.”
Then she kissed his forehead and adjusted his tie with terrifying tenderness.
“You’re doing beautifully.”
The strange thing was that nobody found anything strange except Malcolm.
Television presenters discussed his reign with absolute seriousness.
Historians analysed his “refreshingly suburban aura.”
Newspapers praised his “common touch” after he was photographed eating crisps directly from the packet.
One headline read:
KING MALCOLM REJECTS BOWL TYRANNY.
Poll numbers soared.
A constitutional scholar appeared on television explaining that the monarchy had always functioned this way.
“Every few decades,” she said calmly, “England selects a new king spontaneously. It’s one of our oldest traditions.”
Malcolm screamed at the television.
Karen muted him gently.
“You’ll upset the corgis.”
“There are corgis now?”
“There have always been corgis.”
Indeed there were. Dozens of them.
They emerged nightly from hidden corridors like furry government secrets.
One particularly fat corgi followed Malcolm constantly and growled whenever he criticised the monarchy.
“I think it’s judging me,” Malcolm whispered.
Karen nodded. “That’s Winston. He served under three reigns.”
That night Malcolm couldn’t sleep.
Rain battered palace windows.
Beside him Karen slept peacefully in silk sheets as though she had been born there.
Malcolm watched her uneasily.
“Karen,” he whispered.
She opened her eyes immediately.
“Yes, darling?”
“How are you not frightened?”
Karen considered this.
“Because you’re the king and I’m the queen.”
“That sentence explains nothing.”
She touched his cheek gently.
“You think too literally.”
Then she went back to sleep.
At three in the morning Malcolm wandered the palace in his dressing gown.
Somewhere a cello played a single mournful note repeatedly.
Eventually he reached a staircase he didn’t remember seeing before.
At the bottom stood a black door. On it was written:
THE ENGLISH RESERVE.
Malcolm opened it.
Inside sat hundreds of people. All ordinary.
A woman in a supermarket uniform. A plumber. A teenager eating chips. A bald man in golf clothes. All wearing crowns.
They looked up simultaneously.
“Oh,” said a woman polishing a sceptre. “Another active monarch.”
“Active monarch?”
A man raised his hand.
“I was king during the marmalade crisis of 1998.”
Another nodded.
“I had Wales for six weeks.”
“You’re all kings?” asked Malcolm.
“And queens,” corrected the supermarket woman.
“What is this place?”
Nobody answered immediately.
Finally the teenager shrugged.
“England.”
Then the bells began again.
The crowned people suddenly looked terrified.
“Go back upstairs,” whispered the woman urgently.
“Why?”
“The Keeper dislikes leaks.”
The lights flickered.
From somewhere deep below the palace came a wet dragging sound.
The crowned people lowered their heads instinctively.
Malcolm heard breathing. Enormous breathing.
Then, slowly, from the darkness beyond the cellar, a voice emerged.
It sounded ancient and moist.
“Where,” it asked, “is my king?”
Malcolm ran.
The next morning he sat rigidly at breakfast while footmen served kidneys.
Karen buttered toast elegantly.
“You look pale.”
“There’s something under the palace.”
Karen sipped tea.
“Yes.”
“You know about it?”
“Of course.”
“What is it?”
Karen looked mildly surprised.
“England, darling.”
At that exact moment the doors burst open.
The Prime Minister stumbled inside white with terror.
“Your Majesty,” he gasped.
“They’re saying on the news that you might have murdered the President of The United States.”
The room froze.
Somewhere below the palace, something enormous exhaled.
Karen placed a loving hand over Malcolm’s trembling fingers.
“A king must do what is required. For his people,” she said softly.
Outside, trumpets sounded.
Inside the walls, unseen machinery groaned awake.
And Malcolm Reed, former insurance adjuster of Croydon, realised with absolute horror that he was beginning, very slightly, to enjoy himself.
Enjoyed the story? You can support my work here: https://ko-fi.com/echoesofiskander