by H. M. Castor
Despite my fears, though, I’m exploring – padding up and down staircases and along dim passageways, trying every door that I pass. Most are locked. What am I looking for? In my head there’s a silly idea that this is an enchanted castle, and that something horrible is behind one of these doors, waiting for me to find it. I don’t know whether it’s more frightening to search for the horrible thing, or to hide in my room, imagining it.
It’s odd, but I feel right now there are two ‘me’s. One me is being grown-up and sensible, and opening doors to prove to myself there’s nothing there. The other me has a horrid fascination: that me is opening doors hoping to see something frightening. Which is crazy.
Still, while my imagination is filled with wispy-haired skeletons, bloodstained floors and grisly murder weapons, in reality, behind the few doors that I can open, I’m finding nothing but old trestle tables, broken stools and iron bedsteads.
The only dead thing I’ve found so far is a mouse, lying on its side with its little scratchy paws bent up and its front teeth showing. When I saw it I knew straightaway it was dead, so when it started moving – shifting a little, this way and that – I wanted to scream. But soon I saw the reason: its stomach was full of maggots, crawling in and out through a hole in the skin. The maggots were making it move. I poked it with a bit of old kindling from the fireplace, then left it alone.
Now, passing the entrance to a staircase, I find I’m almost at the end of a passageway. I’m not exactly sure where I am, but I think it’s somewhere north of where I started, somewhere close to the White Tower. Pushing open the last door before the passageway’s dead end, I look into a small chamber, where one narrow window lets in a slice of watery light.
I wrinkle my nose because the room smells musty. In the far wall there’s another door – shut. Near it, some pieces of furniture are huddled together as if they’ve been shoved out of the way: a round table covered with worn black velvet, a bench, three stools and two folding chairs made of painted wood. The only other thing in the room is a rickety-looking portable altar near the window, with a place to kneel – complete with fraying cushion – and a picture hanging on the wall above it.
The picture looks familiar – I want to have a closer look. I come fully into the room, closing the door softly behind me, and approach the altar. Yes, it’s a painting of the three nails used to fix Jesus to the cross, very like the one I’m carrying.
I pull my picture out of my belt-pocket to compare. Looking at it, it occurs to me that perhaps I should say a couple more Hail Marys; I always worry that I may have lost count and said four rather than five (in which case the protection against murder and evil spirits won’t work, will it?).
So I kneel on the cushion – which puffs out a cloud of dust – and begin in a whisper, not daring to shatter the silence of the empty room:
“Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum…”
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…
And stop. I’ve heard someone speak.
For one mad moment I think it’s the Virgin Mary replying. But then I hear another murmur – muffled, but close by – and footsteps. They’re coming from my left – from beyond the door in the far wall. I’m frozen, not breathing – listening.
Then the handle begins to move. I don’t even consider racing back to the other door, the one I came through – there’s no time for that. Instead, I dive for the corner beside the altar, crouching low, so that the width of the altar shields me.
Instantly, though, I can see this is not enough. I’m hidden from the door, but someone only has to move into the centre of the room and I will be in plain view.
The door begins to open. My mother’s voice says, “This is the best place – no one comes in here.”
My back’s resting on a piece of wainscot with a pattern of small holes in it. I realise it’s one of the doors of a press – a cupboard set into the wall. Quickly, still crouching, I open it a little. The cupboard is quite deep, lined with shelves in the upper part. The space below them is empty and, though not high, it is wide: plenty big enough for several people to hide in, let alone just me.
This is the moment of decision: do I hide? Or do I stand up and admit I’m here; take the telling-off for roaming around without Compton, and go back to my room?
I don’t stand up. I edge into the cupboard. Perhaps because I’m scared. Perhaps because, if my mother has secrets, I want to hear them. And later I wonder if there was something else at work too: maybe the three nails. Maybe God.
They’re entering the room now: my mother and whoever she’s talking to. Slowly, carefully, my ragged breathing sounding loud in my ears, I pull the cupboard door shut, hoping they’re still not far enough into the room to see it move.
I brace myself for being found out – for an exclamation – but it doesn’t come. Instead my mother says, “We don’t have long. I must be quick.”
“Yes, ma’am,” says a man’s voice.
Through the pattern of holes in the cupboard door I can see only a slice of the room straight ahead of me; there’s a wall to my left and, to my right, my view is blocked by the side of the altar. For a moment I catch sight of the edge of a brown robe – a monk’s robe – and I know, from the voice, that the man who’s spoken is Father Christopher, my mother’s confessor.
My mother says, “Well – did you go into the City? What are the people saying? Are there prophecies circulating?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so, ma’am. As always at a time of crisis, the people distract themselves with any bill or rhyme or ditty they see pinned up on a tavern door, when they should be praying, or listening to their priest—”
“I know your feelings, Father, but did you collect any? The prophecies, I mean?”
“There is a notary of my acquaintance who has been collecting prophecies as a hobby these past few years. I asked him for his latest findings. He gave me this.”
“You didn’t say it was for me?”
“Of course not.”
I hear paper crackling as if my mother is opening a package.
Father Christopher says, “There are a few manuscripts, I think, and a few cheap printed folios. My acquaintance pointed out though, ma’am, that many prophecies circulate in a town by word of mouth only.”
There’s silence for a moment. Then distractedly, as if she’s reading at the same time, my mother says, “There’s no one outside that other door, is there?”
The plain figure of Father Christopher comes fully into view as he crosses to the door I entered by, opens it, checks the passageway, and shuts it again carefully. He turns to face my mother and shakes his head.
My mother says, “Do you really think there’s nothing of value in any of these?”
“There can be…” I see Father Christopher frown as if he doesn’t want to admit it. “…in certain cases. Many of the prophecies that St Bridget made are recorded, for example. A truly holy and blessed lady… But every one of those papers in your hand is untraceable, ma’am. I would want to meet the author, ask how the message came to him, gauge his devoutness, the purity of his soul… He may have an angel at his shoulder, whispering in his ear. But it may equally well be a devil crouching there.”
My legs are getting stiff; I shift carefully.
“The Turk will come this year to Rome…” my mother reads aloud. “A great king will rise in the north who will destroy the power of all Frenchmen. Well, that would be convenient.” She makes a nervous little sound, like a swallowed laugh.
“Gosh, I’m shaking. How silly. There’s probably nothing to the point in here at all.”
Another silence. I watch as Father Christopher lifts one hand, smoothing the fringe of grey hair around his shaved head.
Then suddenly my mother says, “You understand this is a last resort for me, don’t you, Father? I would consult a respected person, if I could. I would consult our Court astrologer. But you know how the King’s mother watches me. It would be just what she has been waiting for: to
catch me asking Dr Parron to cast my brother’s horoscope! Can you imagine? She already suspects me.”
“Of what, ma’am?”
“I wish someone would ask her that: of what, precisely?” My mother’s tone is scornful. “Of wanting my brother to be alive? Of course I want him to be alive! What loving sister wouldn’t? But that doesn’t mean I want him to invade with an army and slaughter my husband and my sons and make himself king. She does not allow any separation of those things. To hope my brother is alive is, in her eyes, to be a traitor.”
I swallow a gasp. I am hot and cold at once. My mother sounds like a stranger – not capable and sure and comforting as she usually is, but frightened and angry. And now I know she has lied to me. She is not certain her brother is dead. The Pretender could be him, after all. And if he invades and my father is pushed off the throne, it’s just as I feared: he will kill us. Kill me.
Father Christopher’s voice interrupts my thoughts: “The King is devoted to you.”
“He is devoted to his mother more. He listens to her. And she drips poison in his ear…” My mother groans. “She hates me. She always has. We were on different sides in the old wars. She only made a deal for her son to marry me because it made political sense. She hates that my claim to the crown is stronger than his, and she hates that he loves me, too.”
Softly, Father Christopher says, “So, this Pretender – you think it really is him: your brother?”
“You sound like her!” my mother snaps. “Forgive me, Father. No, I don’t ‘think it really is him’. I don’t know – that’s the whole point. How can I possibly know? That’s why I asked what the prophecies are saying… I want to find out. Or at least to be given a clue.
“Is that so very bad, Father? Can you say you wouldn’t do the same? Imagine it: your brother, a little boy, is dragged away by soldiers in front of your own eyes and you are told he has been murdered. You weep and wail, but of course nothing will bring him back.
“And then, fourteen years later, someone in a distant land declares he is your brother, escaped and grown to manhood. Wouldn’t you want to know if it were true?”
“Yes, ma’am, I would.”
There’s a silence. And it’s in that silence that I hear breathing beside me. Someone else is with me in my hiding place.
I freeze. I daren’t turn my head, but I must. And when I do, every instinct in me wants to cry out; I shove my knuckles against my mouth.
The holes in each cupboard door, together with a thin strip in the centre where the two leaves haven’t quite shut properly, let in enough light to make out a figure, slumped against the wall at the other side of the space. It’s turned away from me, kneeling or crouching, I can’t see which; but the hunched back, the curl of pale hair at the collar, are horribly familiar.
That body in the trunk, in my chamber, yesterday – it’s here with me again.
Out in the room my mother says, “I feel as if I am being ripped in two, Father. I fear this rebellion. I fear an invasion. I grew up in the civil wars; I’ve seen enough horror.”
It’s a horror that I’m seeing right now: unlike yesterday, the body isn’t deathly still, it’s moving – I think of the maggots, wriggling in and out through the hole in the mouse’s skin.
“But still,” my mother goes on, “there is a part of me that cannot stop hoping that my brother is alive – that he is not, after all, a little rotted corpse somewhere in this place.”
No maggots this time. This body – this boy, this thing – is breathing, making little juddering movements, the chest heaving in and out. Whimpering sounds are coming from it too, soft and horrid like a terrified animal. Like a rabbit caught in a trap. It turns my stomach. If it were a rabbit I’d want to snap its neck.
My mother says, “I can’t stop hoping that he is alive and… and perhaps that he is this Pretender. But if he is, I pray God he will lay down his arms; let us all live in peace.”
“Amen to that,” says Father Christopher.
Amen from me, too. Let me live in peace. Let this spirit, this nightmarish vision – whatever it is – stop appearing to me. Please God, take it away.
I hear a shuffle of papers. My mother says, “Listen to this one: And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars: and upon the earth distress of nations, the soil drenched with more blood than rain. The word of God shall be transformed into a serpent, and good interpreted as evil. But when these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads: because your redemption is at hand.”
Trapped in my terror, barely breathing, I listen to the words. They seem eerily beautiful.
“The one who has been prophesied will come, full of power, full of good devotion and good love. Oh blessed ruler, I find that you are the one so welcome that many acts will smooth your way. You will extend your wings in every place; your glory will live down the ages…” My mother sighs. “That sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? It makes me shiver.”
The boy is still whimpering. I reach out my hand towards him. He has to be real – he looks so real, he sounds so real…
Father Christopher says, “It is wonderful, ma’am, but entirely unspecific. No names or dates, you’ll notice, nothing to tie it to a particular country, even.”
My hand is shaking. I watch my fingertips edging forwards through the air, as warily as if the boy might at any moment turn and bite them off.
“Oh lord,” my mother says.
“What is it?”
“You want specifics? Then here – listen to this one. York will be king.”
But just as my fingers reach him, he is no longer there. The darkness somehow seeps into the space he occupies and rubs him out.
Father Christopher says, “What else does it say?”
“He will begin as a lamb and end as a lion.” My mother sounds shaken. “That’s it.”
I feel forward as far as I can. My fingers meet nothing but empty shadows.
“The Pretender calls himself Duke of York, doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” my mother says quietly, “he does. So… if York will be king is correct, it means he will invade, and seize the crown… and, no doubt, the soil will be drenched with more blood than rain…”
I hear rapid footsteps. Looking out through the holes in the cupboard door, I see that my mother has crossed to Father Christopher and is clutching his hand. She says, “I must warn my husband!”
“How? Without revealing that you have been reading these?” Father Christopher indicates the papers.
“I don’t know. I could say I have had a bad dream – a premonition… Oh, God…” She covers her face, the papers scrunched in her fist.
“Calm yourself, ma’am. Do any of the other prophecies make any mention of York?”
“No – no. I’ve looked at them all.”
“Then it’s just one. One scrap of grubby paper. The King, your husband, has many enemies. Any one of them could have written this with no more divine revelation than a clerk has, copying out an account book. It could simply be political agitation – the Pretender’s supporters could have sent it into London to try to persuade people to join them. Nothing mystical in that. No need to say anything – no need to endanger yourself.”
My mother takes a shaky breath. “You’re right. Of course.” She folds the scrunched papers and hands them back to Father Christopher. “I shouldn’t have asked to see them, should I? What a fool I am.” Her voice is clipped. “Be sure to burn them all, won’t you? Straight away. Filthy things.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Father Christopher bows. “I’ll go and do it now.”
I’m vaguely aware of them leaving the room – Father Christopher through the door by which I entered, my mother through the other one. For several minutes I’m completely motionless – stunned, very scared, and wondering if I’m about to be sick. But there’s something else too: something small that’s tugging at my attention like an annoying pageboy tugging my sleeve. At first I ignore it – my heart is racing and I c
an’t move and I need to move: I need to get out of here.
Tug, tug. What?
A picture comes to me: my mother in the orchard. Her strong fingers snap straight; an arrow flies; she says, “You’re the true Duke of York.”
I take in a slow, shaky breath. I sense that something delicious is unfolding in my mind even before I know what it is.
What did my mother say, just before the boy – the thing, the vision – disappeared?
York will be king.
And now, in my head, I can hear her reading from that other paper:
The one who has been prophesied will come… Oh blessed ruler, you are the one so welcome that many acts will smooth your way… your glory will live down the ages…
I feel a warmth spreading from the centre of my chest, tingling through my limbs. It’s as if an invisible sun has come out from behind a cloud and is shining down upon me.
Pushing forward against the cupboard doors, I stumble out into the room and fall to my knees. I lay my forehead on the bare dusty boards of the floor.
Nothing has ever been clearer to me or more obvious. York will be king and Your glory will live down the ages – those two prophecies are talking about the same person. I know it in every inch of my being. And it’s not the man waiting abroad, this Pretender.
It’s me.
♦ ♦ ♦ VIII ♦ ♦ ♦
I have only one thought now: I must speak to my mother.
It’s the end of the day when my chance comes. After evensong and supper, I go looking for her, and find her alone in a chamber near her bedroom. The soft light of the summer evening shows through the half-drawn curtains, but the thick stone walls keep out any warmth, and the only other light in the room comes from a fire, blazing in the hearth.
My mother doesn’t hear me enter; she’s facing away from the door, sitting in a high-backed chair. The bonnet she wore in the orchard this morning has been replaced by a gable hood and veil – from behind I see the long black cloth crushed against the chair-back where she’s resting her head.
