The greenhouse at Highgrove smells of wet soil and bruised rosemary at dawn. I’m seventy, spine curved like the old espalier pears I trained against the south wall, fingers swollen from fifty winters of pruning. My knees click when I kneel to deadhead the last ‘Munstead Wood’ rose. The petals drop into my palm, dark as dried blood. Today is the day I hand in the secateurs. Fifty years. Five decades of coaxing life from clay and chalk, of whispering to roots while the world outside changed kings and fashions. I lay the shears on the potting bench, blade still bright. My resignation letter (folded once, creased twice) sits beside them like a white flag.

Footsteps crunch gravel behind me. Not the gardeners; too measured. I turn. King Charles stands in the doorway, coat unbuttoned, wellies caked in mud. Alone. No equerry, no corgi, no press. Just the monarch and the scent of turned earth between us.

“Thomas,” he says. My name, not the formal Mr. Harrow. He steps inside, closes the glass door. The latch clicks like a starting pistol. “You’re early.”

“Roses don’t wait for ceremony, Sir.” My voice rasps. I haven’t spoken since yesterday’s frost.

He nods, eyes on the bench. Picks up the secateurs. Tests the spring with his thumb. “Still sharp.”

“Always.” I swallow. “I oiled them last night. Habit.”

He sets them down, gentle. Then reaches into his coat. Pulls out a small terracotta pot. Inside: a single seedling, two leaves, stem no thicker than a matchstick. Rosa ‘Highgrove Legacy’. The label is in his own handwriting (spidery, impatient). My chest tightens.

“I propagated it myself,” he says. “From the bush you saved in ’98. The one the late frost blackened. You wrapped it in hessian, sang to it, remember?”

I remember. I was forty-eight, voice still strong, humming old hymns while the others laughed. The rose lived. Bloomed blood-red the following June.

“I thought,” he continues, “you might plant it wherever you go next. A piece of here. Of us.”

My eyes sting. I blink hard. The greenhouse blurs.

He sets the pot in my gnarled hands. The clay is still warm from his pocket. “There’s more.” He gestures outside. I follow, legs stiff.

The garden is empty. Dawn mist clings to the yew hedges like breath on glass. We walk the gravel path I raked yesterday, past the stumpery where ferns unfurl like green fists. At the far end, where the wildflower meadow meets the orchard, a new bench waits. Oak. Simple. No plaque yet. Just a rectangle of fresh wood smelling of sap and sawdust.

He stops. “Sit.”

I do. The seat is exactly my height. He planned it.

He stands before me, hands clasped behind his back. “Fifty years, Thomas. You arrived when I was still Prince of Wales, still learning which end of a trowel was which. You taught me that soil remembers. That a garden is a conversation, not a command.” His voice catches, just once. “I have dismissed prime ministers. Opened parliaments. Buried my mother. But I have never dismissed you. And I never will.”

I stare at my boots. Mud from the compost heap still clings to the welts.

He reaches into his other pocket. Produces a small velvet pouch. Opens it. Inside: a silver lapel pin shaped like a rosebud, petals half-open. On the back, engraved: T.H. 1975–2025. Roots Run Deep.

“I had it made from the first pruning knife you ever gave me,” he says. “The one I ruined trying to graft that wretched apple. You sharpened it anyway. Said even kings make mistakes.”

My throat closes. I take the pin. The metal is warm from his hand.

He kneels (actually kneels) in the damp grass, heedless of his trousers. Places his palm flat on the earth beside the bench. “This spot. I want you to choose what grows here. Not me. Not the head gardener. You. Every year, on this day, I’ll come alone. Check on it. Talk to it. Tell it how the realm fares.” He looks up. Eyes the color of winter sky. “And if I’m gone before you, my children will. Promise kept.”

A tear escapes. Lands on the pin, beads like dew.

I nod. Can’t speak.

He stands. Brushes soil from his knees. “The cottage by the west gate is yours. Rent-free. For life. The greenhouse key stays on your belt. The roses will miss your swearing when the aphids come.”

A laugh breaks from me, rusty.

He offers his hand. I take it. His grip is firm, gardener’s calluses matching mine.

“One more thing,” he says. Leads me back through the mist to the greenhouse. On the bench now sits a battered tin lunchbox (my old one, dented from decades of sandwiches). Inside: a thermos of tea, two slices of Victoria sponge, and a single white envelope.

I open it. Inside: a photograph. Me, thirty years younger, arms full of ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ blooms, grinning like a fool. On the back, in his handwriting: To the man who taught a prince that crowns are temporary, but compost is eternal.

He watches me read. “Frame it. Or don’t. But keep it.”

I clutch the photo to my chest. The greenhouse smells suddenly of roses and possibility.

He turns to leave. Pauses at the door. “Thomas?”

“Sir?”

“The bench. Plant something stubborn. Something that refuses to die.”

I smile through the blur. “Already have.”

He nods once. Steps into the mist. The gravel crunches, fades. I’m alone with the seedling, the pin, the photograph, and fifty years of roots twisting deeper than any throne.

I kneel (knees protesting) and press the terracotta pot into the soft earth beside the bench. The rosebud pin glints on my lapel. I whisper to the tiny plant, voice steady now.

“Grow, little one. We’ve got time.”