Penguin Books Australia

1

The Escape

Emily Miniver saw the spotlight moving towards her. Warm light streamed through the darkness as if it were alive. The light hit Emily's body and she swung automatically to face it. Emily had grown up in the spotlight, and it had always been her friend.

In that moment she was on stage again, holding her sister Rosamund's hand, while the audience shouted 'Rosamund!' and 'Emily!' and 'Minivers Forever!' Emily saw the mass of fans filling the vast bowl of the cricket ground, felt the ecstatic rush of their applause and the vibration of their twenty thousand eager, drumming feet. The words of her next song rose to her lips, and her body tensed as if to launch into a dance. Then the moving spotlight swung up and hit her full in the face. A single shout went up from the palace grounds below and all at once she was no longer Emily Miniver, miniature superstar, but a desperate fugitive, trying to escape.

Emily turned and fled the spotlight. She had hoped to get off the roof of the Artemisia Palace before her captors noticed she was gone, but it seemed she had not been as clever as she thought. For twenty-four hours, Emily had been held prisoner by Madame, the daughter of Artemisia's ruler, Papa King. Madame was trying to steal her father's throne, and it was because Emily and Rosamund were the old king's foster daughters that they had been forced to go on the run.

The spotlight dipped and wavered after her tiny figure. Emily's first instinct was to run back to the chimney through which she had made her escape, but the moment she reached it, she realised it was a hopeless hiding place. Someone would find a ladder, and she could not go back inside the building. Emily zigzagged away again, this time up the sloping roof. Her sneakers squeaked and slipped on the metal, her breath panted in and out, and her leg muscles screamed with the steepness of the climb. At the top of the roof, she scrambled over the ridge-capping onto the other side. The spotlight was still raking back and forth above the roof line. Keeping low and out of sight, Emily ran to the end of the metal roof and jumped like a cat onto a tiled one.

She had to get off the rooftops, but she did not know where to go. There was no way down, and she was not even certain where she was. A voice cried out, and Emily heard the sound of pounding feet. The roofs were like a mountain range in front of her, all steep slopes, running down to dangerous chasms between the cluster of buildings. Emily laboured uphill, away from the voice, but this was the oldest part of the palace and the tiles clunked and shifted dangerously under her feet. She reached another roof-ridge, but as she vaulted over it, a tile broke and pitched her off-balance. Emily cried out. Her arms flung up in a desperate attempt to stop herself falling, and then she was tumbling rapidly over and over, down the roof to the bottom. One hand grabbed the gutter as she bounced over the edge, and a second later she landed with a jarring thump among some hydrangeas.

'Ouch!' For a moment Emily sat under the giant leaves, catching her breath. Her hands and knees were grazed and oozing blood, but the fall had merely knocked the breath out of her. Minivers were tiny, only two feet tall, but though they were smaller than everyone else, their little bodies were toughly built. The hydrangeas had taken a worse punishing than Emily had, and luckily she had landed in soft, newly dug soil.

Emily stood up. She would have preferred to sit and catch her breath, but it was only a matter of time before the people with the spotlight arrived on this side of the building. There was a low sash window above her head, and it was open just enough for her to squeeze through. Emily clawed her way up onto the sill and dropped down into a dimly lit room inside the royal palace.

It was cold. A strange chemical smell filled Emily's nostrils, like a mixture of medicine and disinfectant, and she saw she was standing in a private hospital room with a single bed and one patient. The shadowy figure of a man with a high forehead and a beak of a nose was lying against the crisp white pillows, surrounded by monitors and softly humming equipment. His mouth was slightly open, and there was a steady hiss from an oxygen bottle that stood on a trolley beside the bed.

For a moment, Emily hesitated. She had not been here before, but she knew where she was. The man in the bed was Papa King, the ruler of all Artemisia, and Rosamund and Emily Miniver's foster father. Nearly a year ago, a stroke had left him unable to talk or even move. Emily had not seen him since his return from hospital: after Rosamund's one visit, which she had insisted on making, they had been encouraged not to come again. Emily was sure now that this was Madame's doing, but part of her had secretly been glad not to have to go. Papa King could not speak, Rosamund had told her, and she had found the noises he made when she visited so frightening, and his tendency to cry without warning so embarrassing, that she had not known what to do or say.

Now Emily forced herself to approach the bed. Papa King looked far worse than he had done the last time Emily had seen him, and with a shock she realised what in her heart she should have known long ago. Papa King was dying. It might take days or weeks; it might even be months; but one way or another, he would not be with them for long. It seemed unthinkable, but somehow she and Rosamund, and Artemisia itself, would have to go on without him.

Emily climbed up onto the chair beside the bed and took Papa King's hand in her two small ones. This was her only chance; she had to tell him what was happening, for she might never see him again. Part of her still hoped against hope that, sick and dying as he was, Papa King would be able to help her. His strength of will and force of character had held everything together for so long that it was impossible to believe it was completely gone.

'It's Emily, Papa King,' she said, in a soft urgent voice. The dark eyes opened, and Emily saw that the old Papa King was still there, hidden away inside the broken-down body on the bed. 'Papa, I'm in terrible trouble, and you've got to help me. You sent Rosamund your key, didn't you? The key to the Most Secret Room? I don't know who helped you do it; perhaps it was your old secretary, Adelaide. But Madame didn't like it. She's been trying to kill Rose and me; she wants to be queen instead of Rose, and –' The door opened and Emily broke off. Standing in the doorway was Madame, and behind her, Ron Burton, the Minivers' former Chief of Security.

Emily dived off the chair and rolled under the bed. But Ron had already anticipated what she was going to do: he had trained both her and Rosamund in self-defence, and was there to catch her when she shot out the other side. A strong hand gripped her wrist. Emily felt something sharp in her arm. Her eyelids flickered and she went limp and slumped on the floor.

Ron stood up. He re-capped the syringe he had used to knock Emily out, and tossed it into a medical waste bin. On the bed behind them, Papa King was making strange agitated noises and trying helplessly to sit up.

Madame rounded on him. 'Shut up!' she hissed. 'Shut up, you stupid old man! Do you want Titus to hear?'

Ron gave her an odd look. 'Titus is at the Archives,' he said. 'I don't think even he could hear from two blocks down the road.'

'You never know what he's doing,' said Madame darkly. 'He's three steps ahead of you, at any rate.'

Ron's face hardened. And four steps ahead of you, he thought, but Madame was no longer looking at him. She was standing by Emily Miniver's unconscious form, and stirring it gently with her foot. For a moment, Ron thought she was going to kick her. With a shock, he realised that if that happened, he would have to do something. He had no particular liking for Emily: in fact, she and her sister had caused him a great deal of trouble. But the Minivers were scarcely bigger than babies. It was all right to overpower and even kidnap them, but there was a point where the line must be drawn.

'This isn't working,' said Madame shortly, and at the expression on her face, Ron's qualms became stronger still. 'Emily's only been here one day, and already she's tried to escape. We're going to have to do something. Keep her tied up and gagged, and hide her somewhere Titus won't find her. As soon as I've decided how to proceed, I'll let you know.' She looked at Emily as if she was a parcel she had brought home from shopping and had somehow regretted purchasing – only Ron knew that Madame never went shopping, or did anything that cost her money if she could help it.

Ron popped Emily into a laundry hamper. He covered her with blankets, and wheeled the hamper out into the corridor. Madame started to follow, but a sound from the bed made her hesitate. She turned and went back to her father's side.

'You always thought you were so clever,' she said. 'When you sent me into exile with my mother, you never dreamed that I'd come back. You thought you'd replace me with the Minivers. Well, how does it feel now? Are you pleased with what you've done?'

Papa King made a noise in his throat. He stared up at his daughter, his dark eyes trying desperately to communicate. Madame refused to meet his gaze. Once, she had tried to kill Papa King. She did not want him to feel sorry for her now.

'Goodbye, Father,' she said, and stalked out of the room. She did not look back, but behind her she could hear that Papa King was crying: for her, for Emily Miniver, and for himself, whose sins had brought them all to this pass.