by H. M. Castor
In the very act of turning to the back of the book I imagine finding nothing – the paper vanished – and my heart starts thudding. But then I see it: a single sheet, folded several times.
I take the paper, smooth it out and, moving closer to the candlelight, I frown over the words, which are written very small (as if, I suppose, that would keep them more private) in my best childish handwriting:
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.
And, beneath this, I’ve written the other prophecy:
York will be king.
So, you weigh it in the scales, don’t you: a good thing against a bad, to see if the good thing is worth the trouble. And this is what must be weighed against my brother’s death and my mother’s grief: my glory.
It will be worth it. I will show her. She will see me become the greatest king of England that has ever lived.
♦ ♦ ♦ IX ♦ ♦ ♦
I can’t wait to see my father. As the days pass, I expect the summons with growing impatience, while a mixture of triumph and guilt fills me with an uncomfortable, fretful energy. I’m hardly able to bear sitting at my studies, even though I’m determined to work harder than ever. I can’t sit down at all without my fingers tapping, my knees juddering. It’s much easier to keep moving, from the moment I wake up until it’s time for bed again. Hunting, hawking, sword or jousting practice, playing tennis or music, even card and dice games with my friends: I must be occupied, occupied, occupied.
And all the time, my anticipation grows. Always, my father’s behaviour towards me has been defined by my position in the family. He has never seen me as a person – he has seen my function: the backup son, the spare… the spare that could become a rival to Arthur.
Now the barrier to him loving me has been swept aside. I am the precious one – I am his heir. All my talents, all the reasons why I was a threat to Arthur will now become advantages – traits to be cherished and praised.
When the summons finally arrives it is late April, almost a month since Arthur’s death, and my father is at Richmond. With Compton and Guildford, I ride from Eltham to Greenwich, and from there take a boat upriver.
It is a fresh spring day, and as we approach the Palace of Richmond the light gleams softly off the pale stone of its many towers, each topped with a dome and a lantern and a glinting golden weather vane.
My heart lifts. I have it all planned out in my head – how it will happen. My father will smile at me and put his hands on my shoulders. He will speak gently to me and perhaps even apologise. It will be like a Biblical scene – like the tapestry that hangs in the Great Hall at Eltham, illustrating the parable of the prodigal son: the penitent young man kneels before his father; the father (in a modern gown of vivid blue and gold) bends to embrace him tenderly. Except that today, here at Richmond, it will be the father who is begging forgiveness.
When we enter the palace, gentlemen-servants tell me the King is in his private rooms: I must pass through the grand public chambers to reach him: chamber after chamber opening in sequence, like a puzzle-toy made of boxes within boxes. These rooms become smaller and more intimate as they go; the people allowed through each door become fewer and fewer.
Finally, as yet another pair of guards steps aside, a door is opened for me into a bedchamber where the walls are hung with cloth of gold, and the bed is emblazoned with my father’s emblems: portcullises and roses, dragons and greyhounds.
The first thing I see on entering is my dead brother’s face: a portrait is fixed between the hangings on the wall opposite. My eyes slide quickly away, and I look about for my father. For a moment I can’t see him. Then I spy a chair facing the window at the far side of the room; above its back a section of black velvet cap is visible.
“Approach, my lord,” says Hugh Denys, nodding me on.
A length of vivid blue velvet drapes over the side of my father’s chair; as I walk round to face him I realise that this velvet is a robe, laid across his lap. He’s stroking it absently, as if it were an animal: a robe of blue velvet, lined with white damask: a robe of a Knight of the Garter.
I kneel.
“Rise,” he says. His voice is flat.
Speaking, even focusing on me, seems to be an effort. “All my advisers – Fox, Warham, the others…” He waves one hand vaguely in what I suppose must be the direction of his Council Chamber. “All of them seem to think this meeting is necessary. I’m not sure I understand why. Your position has changed – but you know that. There is a great deal of hard work ahead of you – but I assume you have enough wit to realise that too. Beyond that, there is nothing to say. Unless you have any questions?”
This, I had not expected. I rack my brains. “Am I to go to Ludlow, sir?”
There is a brief moment of silence. Then suddenly my father’s chin juts forward and the eyes fix on me, alive and accusing. “Do not imagine you will take his place,” he snaps. “You will never take his place.”
He sinks back against the chair again, looking down at the robe on his lap. I realise, with a twisting feeling in my gut, that it must be my brother’s. “I may send you to Ludlow, I don’t know,” he says. “I may make you Prince of Wales – I must, at some point, I suppose. But…” He lets out a breath. “Arthur and I understood one another. I have never understood you. Right from your earliest years you seem to have had an innate capacity to… irritate me. I don’t suppose you can help it.”
He looks up at me. “I will oversee the changes necessary in your education. It goes without saying that you will be expected to put your all into your work. If I receive reports from your tutors that you are shirking in any way, the punishment will be severe, is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That is all. Off you go.”
I hesitate, momentarily confused. Can it really be over so soon?
A flick of his fingers: “Go!”
Feeling numb, I bow and exit the chamber. Compton and Guildford are waiting for me in the anteroom outside. I keep walking, on into the Presence Chamber; they fall into step beside me.
“You all right, sir?” says Compton.
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”
Beyond the Presence Chamber lies the Great Watching Chamber, where guards with sharply polished halberds stand in lines along the walls. There we meet the King’s mother, coming the other way.
There is nothing to distinguish my grandmother in mourning from my grandmother at the height of happiness. She is dressed entirely in black, except for the white wimple around her head and throat, and her face seems to be carved from wood – grim and gnarled. As I greet her, she surveys me with something that looks very like loathing. With my solid build and my red-gold hair she sees me, I know, as entirely of my mother’s family; and now for her it must seem, I suppose, as if the other side has triumphed – the louche ones, the ill-disciplined wastrels.
One bony hand stretches towards me and fingers the stuff of my doublet at the shoulder, as if feeling my quality. “Well, well,” she says, “and what can we make of you, boy?” She does not sound hopeful.
“I am willing to learn, ma’am.”
No reply. She sweeps past me, flicking the train of her black dress out of the way as though to brush against me would pollute it. Behind me, boots and weapons clatter as the guards at the door to the Presence Chamber stand to attention to let her through. Then the door shuts behind her with a thick boom.
We walk down the grand spiral staircase and then, taking a short cut to the watergate, we head past some of the service rooms for the royal lodgings: the King’s wardrobe and his private kitchen. From the latter I hear a raised voice – someone is being scolded – and as we pass a serving hatch, I turn my head. I catch a glimpse of a scene, partly obscured by Guildford beside me and framed by the oblong opening in the
wall. We walk on so fast that I don’t register what I saw until we are halfway down the passageway. I hesitate, wanting to go back and look again, but I can think of no good explanation to give my companions. I walk on, the image lingering in my mind, though it was ordinary enough.
It was a boy my age, doubled over in pain. I couldn’t see his eyes. But his hair was the colour of straw.
♦ ♦ ♦ X ♦ ♦ ♦
When we reach the watergate we find the bargemen aren’t ready; they hadn’t expected me to set off home so soon. Neither had I. Although it’s still sunny, a hovering cloud is providing a short, sharp shower, so while Compton stays to chivvy the bargemen, I take shelter in the palace with Guildford. I am troubled by the glimpse of the boy: it’s as if I recognise him, as if I know him from somewhere. He seems significant. But how can he be?
I want to avoid the royal lodgings, so I head across the moat to the gardens, where a newly built gallery provides some cover. At ground level, the gallery is an open arcade. Above that there’s a long enclosed room, attached to the palace at one end and the nearby friary church at the other, and lit by a series of huge mullioned windows on both sides. Wanting to be alone, I leave Guildford propping up one of the open arches and climb the stairs to the first floor by myself.
I open the gallery door, hear music coming from inside, and hasten to shut it again. But I’ve been seen and a voice calls out in French, “Don’t run away.”
The music has stopped. I put my head round the door.
Princess Catherine, my brother’s widow, is sitting at a table beneath one of the windows, her fingers poised over a virginals keyboard. Beyond her the gallery stretches on into the distance, sparsely furnished – a corridor of light. Catherine smiles, drops her hands in her lap and tips her head to one side. “Won’t you talk to me? I don’t see many people these days.”
My heart sinks – I am not in the mood for conversation. Catherine’s duenna – her governess – a fearsome-looking Spanish lady, has risen from her chair some distance away and is glaring at me. I don’t know whether she is more offended by my presence or the suggestion that I might not stay.
Feeling trapped, and annoyed, I bow to each of them. The duenna sits down again and begins to stab at some embroidery with her needle.
I say to Catherine, “I’m sorry, ma’am – don’t let me disturb you. I didn’t realise you were here.”
“You wouldn’t. Not many people do. Realise I’m at Richmond, I mean – I don’t sit in this particular place the whole time, obviously.” She lifts her chin to the window. “But I do like the view. It makes a change from my bedchamber, and I don’t seem to be needed anywhere else.”
I smile, reluctantly.
The sunlight from the window gives Catherine’s face a pretty glow. She is dressed in deepest black – dress, sleeves, hood, veil, all – and if the thought of why did not give me a sick jolt of guilt I could have said it suited her. As it is, my eyes stray to the only patch of colour: a tiny book resting against her skirts, the silk rope it hangs from lying slack, since she is sitting down. The book is enamelled and jewelled – and full of dirges for the dead, I imagine.
Another knotting of my guts. Must I feel responsible for her grief, too? I say, “I am sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you. Your brother was kind to me.” She looks at me thoughtfully. “I’m sorry for your loss, too.”
I bow, but say nothing. There’s a silence. The faint sound of rain drifts in through the windows.
“It’s quite a change for you, isn’t it?” says Catherine. “For both of us.”
Another silence. She smiles, still watching me. “You’re not ‘no one in particular’ any more.”
I want to answer. I want to say something witty or at least interesting. But I can’t. I walk to the nearest window and stare out at the dripping hedges and herb bushes. I say, “I’m going back to Eltham in a moment. I’m just waiting while they prepare my barge.”
Catherine plays a little, breaks off. “I’ve been addressed as Princess of Wales since I was three – did you know that?” she says. “I spent all my childhood expecting I would come here and marry your brother. I thought it was my destiny to be queen of England.”
I think back to that day in Westminster Hall. The Spaniards never let on to my father that the deal was done and had been done for years; there was so much hesitation; we were made to feel there was so much to prove.
Catherine is saying, “But none of us knows our true destiny, do we? We make plans… and God’s plans for us turn out to be quite different.”
I think: That may be how it is for everyone else. But I know I am to be a great king. I say, “You must be disappointed.”
“I’m sad for Arthur. Though I shouldn’t be, should I, because he’s past his pain and with God. But I’m not sad for myself. I’ll go home now. When I left Spain I thought I would never see my parents again.”
In my mind, I am still in Westminster Hall. I remember shooting an arrow, and being distracted by a carved angel on the ceiling that looked for a moment like… like that boy in the kitchens just now. Am I going mad? Why do ordinary things I see suddenly remind me of someone – though I can’t think who? Perhaps it’s someone I once knew and have forgotten. Perhaps someone from a dream.
“Can you sight-read?” Catherine asks.
“What?”
She taps a sheet of music propped in front of her.
“Oh. Of course.”
The instrument she’s sitting at is a double virginals, with two keyboards side by side. She slides along the bench to make room for me. I hesitate, then come to sit next to her. I’m terrified at the thought that there may be some dangerous part of my mind that I cannot trust: something that produces visions; that recognises things I do not know. Now I concentrate ferociously on the notes written on the paper, trying to block out everything else.
“You play well,” says Catherine when the duet is finished.
“I’m not a baby.”
“I know that! I’m not patronising you. You do play well, compared to anyone.”
“I write too. Melodies.”
“Play me something of yours, then.” She gets up and moves away, leaving me in charge of the instrument.
I play. And play. Relentlessly. I play every melody I’ve ever written for my music master and some, too, that aren’t mine. Then I stop, and put my head down on the edge of the instrument’s wooden casing.
Somewhere outside a dog barks. The duenna asks a question in rapid Spanish and Catherine replies.
And I think: There was a dream… years ago… A boy came towards me on beams of light. He rescued me from a serpent…
Catherine says in French, “It can’t be easy. For you now. I mean, I don’t imagine this is an easy time.”
Without lifting my head, I say, “Do you want to go back to Spain?” My voice is muffled; I’m speaking into the keyboard.
“Of course. I miss my mother very much.”
“Will it be soon?”
“The timing is up to the King, your father. I am an English subject now.”
I look up – someone has knocked at the door. It’s Compton, telling me my barge is ready to take me downriver. We will pick up horses at Greenwich and from there ride the rest of the way to Eltham.
I kiss Catherine’s hand when I take my leave. I don’t suppose I’ll see her again.
♦ ♦ ♦ XI ♦ ♦ ♦
“He saw it – with his own eyes. The bodies of the French lying in piles higher than a man. The English soldiers climbed on top of them to carry on fighting!” I’m delighted, almost laughing – thrilled at the astonishing, against-the-odds victory won by a small band of Englishmen almost a hundred years ago.
At the other side of the room my mother, who has been at best only half-listening, says, “God bestows victory upon whom He chooses.”
Pray to be chosen, then. God’s favour certainly rested with Henry V of England that day he won the battle at Agincourt. This book, which I�
��m translating from Latin into English (an exercise set by my tutor) was written by a man who was there. He says Henry had six thousand men against an army of sixty thousand French. But, he says, it was impossible for misfortune to befall Henry, because Henry’s faith in God was so sublime.
My mother says, “Hal, you don’t have to study so long.”
“I know.” I sit back, one knee juddering, and hold my pen to the light to see if the nib needs re-cutting. I think: I, too, must have a faith so sublime that no misfortune can befall me.
My mother is sitting with an apothecary’s book open on the table in front of her, turning the large, crisp pages carefully, running a finger down them. I wonder what she’s looking for. Something to do with her pregnancy, I suppose.
Without lifting her head, she says, “Why don’t you take the dogs out – go and hunt a hare in the woods?”
“Yes, I already did, before breakfast.”
“You are so diligent, sweetheart. I only worry that you push yourself too hard.”
Not hard enough. I want to be sublime not just in faith, but in everything. Though, sitting with my mother now, there’s one imperfection I can’t seem to correct: irritation at her pregnant state. I’m uncomfortable just being in the same room as her these days. I don’t like to see the loosened lacing on her dress. I don’t like to catch sight of her hand softly rubbing her swollen belly. I shall be a glorious king, like Henry V – no backup heir is needed. So why must she complicate matters by bringing a new brother into my world?
I shake myself, push a hand back through my hair, bend over the next paragraph of Latin. “Those lands Henry V conquered,” I say, “they’re rightfully ours. Why hasn’t Father taken them back? And the crown of France, too – since Edward III’s time it should have belonged to the king of England. Why hasn’t Father pressed his claim?”
