“We need a leader!”

Alfie’s history class was standing in the middle of the cricket pitch. Their teacher, Professor Lock, was striding up and down in front of them, carrying a metal detector. He fixed Alfie with his piercing blue eyes and smiled.

“How about you, Alfie?”

Alfie shook his head and looked at his feet. Mortimer shoulder-bumped him out of the way and grabbed the metal detector for himself. “I’ll do it.”

“Very well, Sebastian. Eager to learn as ever, I see,” said Lock. “Switch it on and get sweeping—head for the pavilion.”

With a cocky grin, Mortimer thumped the ON button and started to swing the metal detector back and forth. The class fell in behind Professor Lock as he strolled across the immaculate grass.

Cameron Lock was like no other teacher Alfie had ever known. Harrow School’s youngest ever head of history, Lock had arrived a year ago following a research career that had produced a couple of books few had heard of and little else. Still, he’d beaten several older, more qualified applicants to the post, and it was soon clear why. In teaching he had found his calling.

“Sebastian, what do you want to be when you escape this place?” asked Professor Lock.

“Investment banker,” snapped back Mortimer, without hesitation.

“The perfect job for someone like you,” Lock said. Mortimer’s smile was uncertain. That was the other thing about Lock—it was impossible sometimes to know if he was joking or not.

“Jamie, what about you?”

A bright-eyed boy at the front answered, “Surgeon, sir.”

Lock nodded. “An admirable ambition … Tony?”

“Superhero crime fighter, sir!” piped up the tiny Chinese boy with the red glasses behind Alfie. The boys laughed and he took a bow. Tony was a serious eccentric; he never seemed to care what other people thought of him, which is why Alfie liked him.

“Maybe a little too ambitious, Tony. But you never know. Not too fast, Sebastian, you don’t want to miss anything!”

Mortimer scowled and swept the metal detector extra slowly.

“And, Alfie, what does your future hold?”

Alfie felt the eyes of the class shoot his way as he opened his mouth, struggling for a meaningful answer. Was Lock really asking him? What did he expect him to say? The other boys snickered as Alfie closed his mouth again, his face getting redder by the second. He was saved by a sudden beep-beep-beep coming from the metal detector.

“Found something!” yelled Mortimer. The class stopped and gathered around him, excited.

Lock eased his way to the front. “If history tells us anything, it’s that we never truly know what’s coming next.” He pulled out a small gardening trowel and tossed it to the ground at Mortimer’s feet. “Well, dig it up, then!”

The boys looked at one another, shocked. “But … it’s the cricket pitch, sir,” said Mortimer.

“So what? You have to dig if you want the treasure!”

Mortimer shrugged, knelt down, and plunged the trowel into the soft turf. He pulled out a clod of earth and shook it until it landed upside down, revealing something shiny stuck in the soil. A small silver coin. Lock picked it out, brushed it clean, and held it up for the class to see. It was thin, with rough, uneven edges. On one side was the crude image of a man’s face in profile, wearing some kind of band around his head; on the other, some strange symbols Alfie didn’t recognize.

“This is a penny from the reign of King Alfred the Great, over a thousand years ago—ruler of Wessex and, some say, first true king of England.”

“What was so great about him?” sneered Mortimer.

“Well, he saved the country from the Vikings for starters,” replied Professor Lock, “not to mention created the first proper education and legal systems. But here’s the interesting part—he was never supposed to be king. Alfred was the youngest of five brothers. It’s kind of amazing that we’ve even heard of him … Keep searching, Seb.”

Mortimer groaned and turned the metal detector back on. He’d taken only a few more steps when the machine beeped again. It was another coin. This one had a Latin inscription around the edges and bore the image of a noble-looking woman wearing a crown and a ruff around her neck.

“Elizabeth the First,” declared Professor Lock.

“Wow!” blurted Jamie.

“He planted it here, you moron,” hissed Mortimer.

Lock smiled and passed the coin around. “No one wanted her to be queen. Declared illegitimate by her own father, imprisoned by her own half-sister. Yet she survived, took the throne, and ruled for nearly fifty years, successfully defeating the invading Spanish Armada and becoming one of our finest ever monarchs.”

The metal detector beeped once more. Mortimer stooped and came up holding a dirty, but new, two-pound coin, bearing the face of Alfie’s father, the current king.

Lock looked at it, amused. “Now this one was nothing to do with me,” said the teacher. “King Henry the Ninth. These days, of course, the monarch is more of a figurehead; they don’t exercise any real power.”

“Guess royals aren’t what they used to be,” sniped Mortimer at Alfie.

“Tell you what, Sebastian,” said Lock, taking the metal detector and stamping the loose clods of earth back into the pitch. “For being such an excellent treasure-seeker, you get to keep any one of the coins—your choice.”

Mortimer snatched back the two-pound coin. “I’ll take the one I can spend,” he said smugly.

Lock winced. “Should have gone for the one you could sell,” he said, flipping the ancient King Alfred penny in the air and pocketing it. “Not sure banking’s really for you, matey.”

The class laughed. Mortimer scowled and muttered something about history being a “stupid waste of time anyway.”

Suddenly an indignant “Oi!” drifted their way from the far side of the pitch. The head groundsman had spotted them and he did not look happy. Lock waved at him and hurried the boys back toward the school.

As they reached the safety of the history department, Professor Lock pulled Alfie aside. “Can I have a word?”

“If it’s about the essay, I’m sorry it’s late, sir,” said Alfie. “I’ll get it in tomorrow, though, I promise.”

Lock waved a hand dismissively. “That? I’d forgotten all about it. Let’s pretend you didn’t mention it, eh? No, I just wanted to say sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you out there with all that monarchy business. I know it must be awkward for you.”

“Kind of hard to avoid in history, I suppose, sir.”

Lock laughed. “Good lad. Listen, I think I get your problem.”

“My problem?”

“Your motivation problem. It must be tough to care about the future when your fate has been decided for you since the day you were born.”

Alfie was speechless. It was as if Lock had reached into the darkest corner of his mind and shone a light on the thing he’d been secretly feeling his whole life. That strange empty sensation, deep down in his gut: that feeling of total and utter pointlessness. Like nothing he did mattered. He tried not to think of the future, because when he did, all he saw was more of the same—a life not his own, governed by stupid rules and traditions and ceremonies he neither understood nor cared about. His father’s life. The life that would one day be his. He’d always tried to put it as far from his conscious thoughts as he could, and yet he had never realized how much it stopped him from living in the here and now. Not until Professor Lock said those words to him and brought it all crashing into focus.

Lock smiled, sympathetic, and pointed up at the grand portrait of Winston Churchill, Britain’s greatest prime minister, who had led them to victory during the Second World War, and—as the headmaster never tired of mentioning in assembly—a former pupil at their school. Another legend that felt impossible for Alfie to live up to.

“He hated it here, you know,” said Professor Lock. “Barely scraped through his exams, didn’t have any friends. No one expected much of young Winston.”

Alfie was amazed. “But he was … he was Churchill.”

“Ha, yes, he was, eventually. But you know what made him great? He was never afraid to do his own thing, strike out and find his own path. Even when people said he shouldn’t. Do you know what he said about fate?” Lock put his hands on his hips and barked out in his best gruff Churchill impression: “It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.”

As Alfie walked to his next lesson, his feet felt like they were skating across the hallway floor, disconnected from the rest of his body. Lock’s words had lit a fire under him. He was sick of people telling him what to do. He decided there and then, he was going to do what he wanted for a change. From now on, he was going to choose his own direction.

“WALES!”

A bony hand landed on his shoulder and spun him around. It was the deputy headmaster, Mr. Beakley, a pig-eyed, cruel little man, who had one level to his voice, and that was “shouty.” He loved to use Alfie’s “official” surname. It was so stupid. Who else was named after a country?

“Headmaster’s study. Now, Wales!”

Alfie hesitated. He wanted to yell back at Beakley, scream at the top of his lungs and tell him just where he could stick his rules and his orders.

“Coming, sir.” Alfie turned and followed Beakley down the hall, head bowed. All the air had gone out of him like a deflated balloon.

Alfie reached the enormous oak door to the headmaster’s study, adjusted his tie, and took a breath. He would listen, nod, say sorry about the whole pizza adventure, and that would be that. No problem. He’d been hauled in front of the headmaster before and no doubt would be again. But when Mr. Beakley opened the door, it took Alfie less than two seconds to realize that a) he wasn’t about to get a telling-off from the headmaster (it was much, much worse than that), and b) that he had been, appropriately enough, royally stitched up.

“Hello, Alfred.”

Only one man could imbue those two simple words with a lifetime of disapproval and disappointment.

“Hello, Father.”

King Henry the Ninth sat straight-backed behind the grand leather-topped desk, in the chair that Alfie doubted the headmaster had ever let anyone else sit in. His father’s beard was even grayer than last time Alfie had seen him, back in the Christmas holidays. His face was lined with worry, his shoulders tense.

Behind the king lurked the lofty, skeletal figure of his chief advisor, the Lord Chamberlain. He’d been there, a permanent fixture in his dad’s shadow for as long as Alfie could remember. Dress rules for the palace staff had relaxed a great deal over the years, but the Lord Chamberlain was seriously old school and always wore a dark formal suit with long tails, breeches, and black shoes with silver buckles. It was impossible to say how old he was, but if Alfie had to hazard a guess, he would have said about two hundred.

“All right, LC?”

Nothing annoyed the old retainer more than using his nickname, which is precisely why Alfie did it. Besides, he had no idea what the Lord Chamberlain’s real name was, or even if he had one. The old man nodded the smallest of nods at Alfie and hissed a curt, “Your Highness.” But the arched eyebrow and curl to the upper lip betrayed what the old geezer really thought of him.

A low growl issued from under the desk as a long black nose poked out, sniffing. Oh great, thought Alfie, Dad’s brought the killer pooch too.

“Settle down, Herne!” huffed the king.

The huge, steely-haired Irish wolfhound withdrew and wrapped its body around its master’s feet. Herne had always hated Alfie—the dog had once chased him around the palace gardens and up a tree, where he’d had to wait for the whole afternoon until Brian came to the rescue.

“Well?”

Apparently his father expected him to say something. The front pages of the newspapers were spread across the desk between them, all featuring photographs of Alfie in the trash. “All I wanted was a pizza. You should taste the food in here—it’s revolting.”

The king emitted a deep sigh and rubbed his neck until a red patch started to appear under the skin. He looks so tired, thought Alfie.

“I can’t keep defending you, Alfie. You’re not a child anymore.”

“Well, technically I am. For a couple more years anyway.”

When it came to judging the right moment to crack a joke, Alfie scored a D every time. The Lord Chamberlain cast his nose to the ceiling, as if a nasty smell had just offended him.

The steel returned to the king’s gaze. “You know what is expected of you, Alfie. All I’m asking is that you stay out of trouble. I don’t have time to deal with this nonsense.”

“Why not?” Alfie said it almost as soon as he’d thought it.

His father’s neck was growing redder. “Pardon?”

Alfie persisted. It was going badly anyway, so why self-edit now? “I mean, I know you have the royal visits and dinners and ceremonies and all that, but, well, it’s not exactly life and death, is it?”

The Lord Chamberlain’s face had become so pinched, it looked like he might implode.

“I just don’t see why you’re so stressed all the time,” continued Alfie. “I mean, it’s only for show, isn’t it? Wave at the crowds, cut a ribbon here, smash a bottle on a ship there. It’s not like our family really has to do anything, is it?”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Alfie. We’ve talked about this before. What is it that you want?”

“I don’t know. To do what everyone else does. To go for a walk without a bodyguard. To make friends without worrying whether I can trust them or not. Maybe get an ordinary job one day. Just to be, you know, normal. Not some kind of … useless freak from a history book.”

King Henry pounded a clenched fist on the desk. Herne whimpered beneath it. Alfie had gone too far. That much was clear. But he’d never seen his father so angry.

“YOU WILL NOT TALK ABOUT YOUR FAMILY THAT WAY! IF YOU ONLY KNEW WHAT WE’D DONE FOR THIS COUNTRY—”

Alfie was spared the rest of the lecture by the ringing of the phone on the headmaster’s desk. The Lord Chamberlain picked it up, listened, and replaced the receiver without saying anything. He whispered in the king’s ear before moving to the study door and holding it open. King Henry looked away from his son, his thoughts suddenly lost somewhere else. His face resumed the blank, resigned look that Alfie had seen so many times before.

The king gathered up Herne’s lead and stepped past Alfie to the door. “I’m afraid there’s something I must attend to at once.”

Alfie tried to hold his tongue, but he couldn’t. “There’s always something more important, isn’t there? More important than your family.”

His father froze in the doorway, his back to Alfie. Herne growled once more, but Alfie ignored him. He was too angry to be scared. For a moment Alfie thought his father would turn on him, shout or scream—he yearned for him to do it, anything to show that he cared.

But the king didn’t turn. He just moved off to whatever duty lay beyond, leaving Alfie alone, anger still burning in his throat.