Midwinter Nightingale by Joan Aiken

of the West Saxons, as well as a very ancientEuropean family—she had a son by that connection, but what became of him I have not been informed. However, if he is alive, he might consider that he has a claim.”
    “What was his name?”
    “I am not certain that I ever heard it.”
    “Mind you,” said Dido, “if I know Simon—and I
do
know him pretty well, he's as decent a young feller as ever came walking down the pike—I wouldn't reckon on his being all that
willing
to step in and have a crown stuck on his head. Who'd say thank you to have sich a job dumped on them? I ask you? He's an easy, free-acting kind of cove; he likes to paint pictures. I don't see him sitting on a throne and being obligated to marry some princess.” Here she grinned to herself. “Who'd want that? I'm dead certain Simon wouldn't. Maybe he spirited old kingy away on purpose sos to wriggle out o' the net….”
    “If he did so, he did very, very wrong,” said the archbishop severely.
    “Well, I wouldn't blame him if he did. Not one bit.”
    “Just the same, child, can you help us to locate them? Rack your brain, cudgel your memory—some passing allusion, some chance recollection may return to help us.”
    Dido sat silent, racking and cudgeling as directed. Absently she ate the last cucumber sandwich.
    “Ain't there any other cousins?” she asked presently.
    “Some Plantagenets, I believe—and some illegitimatedescendants of Henry IX and the duchess of Dee, a young female formerly known as Polly Stone—I believe there is Aelfric of Bernicia—”
    “Don't sound too promising.”
    Dido brooded with her chin on her fists.
    Presently she noticed that the archbishop appeared to have fallen into a doze.
    She had been on the point of making a suggestion, but now she decided to keep silent. And, thinking over the notion that had struck her, she felt more and more strongly that if the king had suddenly taken a fancy to go into hiding—possibly with Simon for company—he had a right to be left to his own devices. A perfect right! After all, thought Dido, a king oughta get better treatment than common people—not worse. If he's sick and wants peace and quiet, that's what he oughter have. It had suddenly occurred to Dido that the person who might well know King Richard's whereabouts was Mr. Greenaway, the father of Podge, who presided over a huge warehouse near Green Bank in the middle of London's dockland. The king used to go and chat with him, Dido recalled, and drink his apple punch and ask his advice about all sorts of problems. Mr. Greenaway knew Simon too.
    What was that that Podge had begun to say—something about painting a picture? I'll not worrit His Reverence with this right now, case it's nought but a wild goose chase, Dido decided. I'll go ask Mr. Greenaway first what he thinks. Podge out there willtake me to his da; it can't be far from here. Maybe King Dick has holed out there in the warehouse.
    But firstways and foremost, I reckon that poor old Royalty oughta have a say in whether he's hunted out of his hidey-hole or left on his lonesome.
    That is, supposing the cove is still
alive
, she suddenly thought, a horrid possibility striking her.
    Well, I'll ask Mr. Greenaway what he thinks—he's got a lot o' sense—and then I'll get back to His Holy Nibs.
    She scribbled a note in a notebook that lay on the kitchen table: WILL BE IN TUTCH—YORS, DIDO and. let herself quietly out the door. She wouldn't be sorry, she thought, to get away from the archbishop's dank little hideaway.
    The moment she was outside, a thick black sack enveloped her from head to foot, and something that felt heavy as a tombstone slammed her hard on the back of her head. Her knees buckled, her eyes shut and she fell forward into a pit of nothingness.

pay you,” said Jorinda to the driver, jumping out of the hackney coach.
    “Beg parding, miss, but I druther have the cash here and now, or your bags stays on the roof.”
    “Oh, bother! You tiresome man!