All along the battlements of the Tower of London, Alfred could make out members of the fearsome royal guard. They had their laser guns pointed down at the river. As the royal barge approached the gate, it was raised.
CREAK!
Like so many traitors before him down the centuries, this was the way the boy was to begin his imprisonment in the Tower. With his hands and feet still in chains, he was taken off the barge. Then he was bustled down a series of stone walkways until he reached the prison block.
Once inside, what hit Alfred first was the stench.
It was medieval.
Then the noise.
Constant cries of pain.
“ARGH!”
“HELP!”
“PLEASE!”
The Tower of London was the worst place Alfred could possibly imagine.
Prisoners were crammed into tiny cells – as many as a dozen to each dark, damp little space – and treated worse than animals in a zoo.
The prisoners’ faces were blackened with dirt and hollow with hunger. They were dressed in rags with no shoes on their feet. When the boy was marched past the cells, some called out:
“Who’s that boy?”
“Is it Prince Alfred?”
“What’s he doing here?”
One toothless old lady just laughed and laughed in a way that made you think she must be mad.
“HA! HA! HA!”
A boy held out his hands to beg. “Please. Please.”
Alfred wasn’t sure what exactly he was begging for. Mercy, he supposed. Not that he could give it. The prince was now one of them, a prisoner too. He continued past his fellow inmates.
Was that old man in chains once commander of the British Army? One night he had vanished from the palace.
Was the man with a long grey beard the old chief of police? He had not been seen in decades.
Was that Britain’s last prime minister, shivering under a dirty old blanket? She had been arrested just before Alfred was born.
The Tower of London must have housed a hundred or more of these so-called “traitors”.
The prince was desperate to catch sight of his mother. Was she even still alive?
As Alfred was dragged along the row of cells, he turned to the guards and said, “I am your prince and I demand to see the Queen.”
But the guards just ignored him. Instead they tightened their grip on the prince’s arms…
“OW!”
…and continued marching him to his cell.
Once there, the guards hurled the boy inside.
THUD!
“OOF!”
The chains round his arms and legs were unlocked…
CLINK!
…and the door was bolted behind him.
CLUNK!
Alfred ran to the rusty iron bars on the door of his cell and shouted at the guards.
“You can’t just leave me here to rot!” But they just had.
The prison cell hadn’t changed much since the Tower of London had been built in the eleventh century. The walls were dark stone, hay was scattered across the floor, and in the corner crouched a little wooden bucket. Alfred presumed this was to do his business in. Being born a prince, Alfred had been sure he would be able to go through life without ever doing his business in a bucket. But he was wrong.
While Alfred felt that brief sense of bliss that comes with finally having a pee, he could hear a tapping on the ceiling.
TAP! TAP! TAP!
At first, the boy was irritated. This was really putting him off his pee.
But as soon as he’d finished he stood still so he could listen.
TAP! TAP! TAP!
Three in a row. The same rhythm as before.
TAP! TAP! TAP!
Alfred wanted to tap back, but even on his tiptoes he wasn’t tall enough to reach the ceiling. If only he hadn’t filled that bucket with pee, he could stand on it.
TAP! TAP! TAP!
There it was again.
Oh, never mind! thought the boy. There was a tiny hole in the corner of the cell, down which he carefully poured the yellow liquid.
TRICKLE!
“Oi!” came a deep voice from below. “You dirty blighter!”
“Sorry!” he called back. He had only been in the Tower of London for five minutes, and he’d already upset one of the other prisoners by pouring pee on his head.
Next, Alfred overturned the bucket and stood on it. His hand just reached the ceiling. He clenched his fist and tapped back.
TAP! TAP! TAP!
Then, from above, there were another three taps.
TAP! TAP! TAP!
Alfred began to feel a little silly.
What on earth was the point of all this tapping?
Suddenly he heard scraping from above. Whoever was up there was trying to scratch a hole.
Alfred jumped down off the bucket, and on his hands and knees searched the floor of his cell. He was looking for anything sharp that could be used to dig from his side.
Nothing.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that one of the stones in the wall was jutting out. Using the bucket, he smashed down on it…
BASH!
…chipping a bit off.
CHINK!
Then Alfred climbed back on the bucket and began scraping away at the ceiling.
SCRATCH! SCRATCH! SCRATCH!
Outside he could hear bootsteps approaching.
STOMP! STOMP! STOMP!
A royal guard was on patrol!
Alfred leaped down and pretended to be going to the toilet by sitting on the bucket.
When a guard peered through the metal bars, the boy called back, “Do you mind? I used to be a prince, you know.”
The guard shook his head and moved off.
Immediately, Alfred got back to work.
SCRATCH! SCRATCH! SCRATCH!
Eventually, grit fell down on to his face…
CRUNCH!
…as the hole was broken through.
Alfred put his eye up to it.
An eye stared back.
At first he was startled, until he realised he knew that eye better than his own.
It was his mother’s.