by H. M. Castor
I want to cry out. Deep in those shadows I sense rather than see a glittering gaze trained directly on me – I sense that this boy, this thing, knows who I am and why I am there and is not surprised: he’s been expecting me.
I put out a hand and steady myself on the edge of the boat. It is the boy that I have seen before. The boy in the kitchen. The face of the angel on the roof. And perhaps… It is as if in my mind there is a locked room, a door I do not open. Behind it I have hidden the image of a boy that I am terrified to recall: at first as congealed and unmoving as cold meat, then hunched and whimpering: those apparitions that I saw in the Tower, years ago. I only ever saw him from the back, but wasn’t his hair this colour – didn’t he look like this too?
Mother of God, what is it? A ghost? A restless spirit that has some business with me? Or some incubus, some devil that is not out in the world at all, but in here, in my mind, projecting visions onto the world I see – onto a carving on a hall roof, an anonymous kitchen boy, a stranger in a boat…
In my churning mind only one thought about this boy rises clearly to the surface, horrifying enough and inexplicable:
I know him.
Or rather, something in me knows him. Some instinct, something unreachable and dark that stirs far below the surface of my thoughts.
The eerie boat, moving faster than us with the help of the tide, has been swallowed by the night. We are almost at the Tower. The boatmen manoeuvre us across the river, across the dragging current, and the jagged battlements of the ancient fortress loom at my back. In my mind I see mouths, the mouths of beasts; portcullises with rows of spikes like teeth. My own teeth ache with the cold and I realise my mouth’s ajar; I’m panting, my heart’s pounding, sweat prickles under my arms.
And now a sudden wild feeling floods through me, as if I have been trapped, or am about to be. All at once the Tower seems like a living thing: monstrous, malignant. I have lost all thought of reaching my mother, deep inside it. I feel alone and vulnerable, as if I am something’s prey and about to be swallowed.
We are coming past the entrance that leads to the Traitors’ Gate, coming to the wharf steps near the Byward Tower.
“Turn back.”
“What?” Compton stares at me from his place at the stern.
“I said, turn back!”
“But we’re here, sir. Look—”
I am amazed they cannot feel it, if not for themselves then rising off me: this animal fear.
Is my mother asking for me, somewhere deep in there? She could be asking for me right now.
I clutch my head. “Pay them double, triple, I don’t care – just get me away from here.”
The older boatman mutters an oath; Compton tells him sharply he’ll not be paid at all if he complains – but he’s already turning the skiff, his oar working in the water, the other angled up.
Then the men begin to row in earnest and we pick up good speed, running with the tide.
I look beyond them, searching for the boat that passed us. Might we catch it? I am terrified to, but eager as well: I want to know if what I saw was real. But however much I strain my eyes, I can make out nothing but thick soupy blackness, punctuated here and there by flaming torches marking wharves and waterstairs or the jetties of grand private houses.
Guided by one feeble lantern, we are tiny specks, skimming over the depths of this great river. I think of the hundreds of drowned there must be below us, swaying upright like reeds. And above us, in the infinite blackness, how many other dead, speeding as phantoms through the air, brushing their vaporous fingers over our faces with the wind? Even the boatmen look sinister; even Compton, in my fear, looks unknown and unknowable – a grotesque stranger in the night.
♦ ♦ ♦ XV ♦ ♦ ♦
Morning – a grey, grinding morning in February. The world is solid, leaden and unmysterious. I am in the tiltyard.
Last night we made it back into the palace thanks to Compton’s imaginative storytelling. He reported to the guards that I – his assistant, bundled in my cloak, leaning against him – had been taken ill and that we’d had to turn back before reaching the Great Wardrobe. In the safety of my chamber, I slept only fitfully for the rest of the night. This morning, having woken feeling drained and sick, I have chosen the most difficult physical task I can think of. I am hoping it will drown out my thoughts.
There is much to be learned from tilting at a stone wall. Slamming a lance into a solid, unmoving object, at speed, is the hardest training there is.
The wall’s corner is the part to aim for. The force of the impact travels along the lance (whether it breaks or not) and delivers a hefty blow to your right arm and shoulder. Meanwhile you have to stay in the saddle as the horse is brought round in an arc by the blow, and keep your touch light on the reins with your left hand.
Considerable strength is needed – in your thighs to stay with the horse, in your torso and shoulder and arm to control the lance and take the impact.
In competition all this is done, of course, whilst wearing eighty pounds of plate armour. Oh, and against a live, moving opponent instead of a wall, with the risk of someone else’s lance slamming into your head at the same time.
I’ve been practising all morning, using one corner of the wall that borders the tiltyard. Lone, meticulous training builds trust between horse and rider and I have been training up several mounts, learning with each one how best to keep in rhythm – how to keep my backside stuck to the saddle no matter what the animal does.
It’s a bitter day. Even inside my gloves, my hands feel raw.
I jump down from my horse and sit on the sandy ground, tugging on one stirrup and the reins. I am teaching the horse not to drag me if I fall off.
A shape blocks out the meagre sunlight.
“Sir?”
It’s Compton. I carry on with what I’m doing. He waits.
“Sir?”
And waits.
“Will you stop, sir, for one second?” he says at last, exasperated.
“No.” I get up and walk past him.
My hand hovers over the lances laid out in a rack; I can’t quite decide. Then I pick one.
Compton says, “Bishop Fox is waiting to speak with you.” He’s come to stand beside me. “There’s some news.”
I turn to him for the first time. He looks stricken, agitated. The wind is blowing the fur on the collar of his gown flat, showing the pale roots of the hairs.
Somehow I know what the news is without being told: my mother is dead. I say, “When did it happen?”
Compton looks at me searchingly. Then he says, “In the night. I’m really sorry, Hal.”
High above us, the flags crack and slap in the wind; somewhere a bird takes off, screeching. I search my mind for something to say, but all I find is a great emptiness, like an expanse of grey sea.
Beyond Compton, a tall figure stands waiting: Richard Fox, the Bishop of Winchester. I can see his long, lined face from here, his black cap pulled well down over his ears. He’s one of the men closest to my father – one of the gang who shared his exile in France during the old wars. Well rewarded for his loyalty, Fox is now a high-ranking minister.
“Send him away.”
“I can’t, sir,” says Compton. “The King ordered him to come.”
So I approach, and suffer the telling with perfect calm. My mother is dead, and the baby too.
I ask, “Where is my father?”
“His Grace the King has retreated to his chamber,” says Fox. “He cannot receive anyone. He is deep in sorrow.”
I thank Fox, wish him good day and turn to the nearest groom: “Tack up the black mare.”
By the end of the day I’ve trained with five different horses. It is slow, hard work. But I am getting better.
♦ ♦ ♦ XVI ♦ ♦ ♦
February drags on, as Februarys do, and the weather gets worse. Damper, less decidedly wintry, and all the drearier for it. I return to Eltham and continue my studies. I don’t see my father. By
day I try to fill every waking moment with work, with sport, with gambling for distractingly high stakes – anything. By night my dreams float towards me on black rivers, full of visions of my mother, white-faced and unreachable.
And then an idea comes, and fixes like a tick to my mind, resisting removal, growing fatter and fatter until I must do something about it.
I persuade my tutor to arrange a visit to Westminster, arguing that it would help my studies to have access to my father’s impressive library there. The real purpose of the visit, however, lies elsewhere. Just a short scull downriver from the palace, there is a set of landing stairs at what, for a private house, is an impressive waterside gate. This gate belongs to Durham House, the London residence of the Bishops of Durham – a grand house, currently used as lodgings for the Dowager Princess of Wales: in other words, for Princess Catherine.
I instruct Compton to find some pretext for getting me into a boat during a break from lessons. He does it. I don’t even bother to ask what story he’s made up.
And so, after three hours spent sweating over Latin and Greek texts, Compton and I and a couple of guards are on the river. Swans accompany us as we glide along, passing Lambeth Palace on the far bank and approaching, on the near bank as the river starts to curve west, the first back-gates of a whole row of great houses, whose faces give on to the Strand and whose gardens reach right down to the river.
The third of these is Durham House. We disembark at the landing stairs and Compton speaks to the guard at the gate, who stands aside smartly to let me pass.
I’ve heard that Catherine has retained a whole Spanish household about her, and I’m cowed at the idea of a roomful of women like her duenna, their critical black eyes fixed on me as I try to talk. So I send Compton to present himself at the house, and to ask whether Catherine might come into the garden to meet me. In the meantime, I loiter in a squally corner among the spiky bare branches of fruit trees. I lean on a wall, pushing the gravel about irritably with my foot.
I’m there for some time. It occurs to me that, in this weather, she may prefer to say she is indisposed.
But at last a side gate opens and Catherine emerges, attended by her duenna, with Compton following. I push myself off the wall and she sees me, and threads her way towards me on the pathways. She’s wearing black still, but after so long with my mind filled by pale mournful figures what strikes me is how robust, how capable she looks, with her healthy blooming cheeks and the stripe of glossy apricot hair showing beneath her hood.
When we’ve wished one another good morning, Catherine says, “My sorrow at the news of the Queen’s death could not have been deeper. She was a lady of such wisdom and generosity. She was always kind to me.” Her eyes are bright with sympathy.
I manage to grunt some thanks, ducking my head (sympathy right now is unendurable), and try to steer her away from her duenna.
Catherine sees the target of my glances. She says, “You can speak freely. Doña Elvira understands no French.”
“All right, then.” I can’t do this elegantly, I’m too ragged to be capable of it. I know how I’m going to seem to her: twitchy, confrontational, demanding. I say, “Don’t go back to Spain. Stay here and marry me.”
She stares. “But you’re…”
“What? What am I?”
“Where do I start? Too young.”
“To get married? Or too young for you?” I don’t wait for a reply. “We can contract the marriage now – it just won’t be binding until I turn fourteen. And you’re only six years older than me – that’s not much… She said we should.”
“Who did?”
“My mother. Oh, and don’t worry about the fact that we’re related. The Pope will give us a dispensation, apparently.”
There’s a silence, in which I’m vaguely aware of Compton trying to engage the duenna in conversation some distance away. Catherine’s not answering. She looks pained – and sorry for me.
She touches me lightly on the arm. “Let’s walk.”
As we crunch along the gravel, the clouds begin to clear. Patches of sunlight make the yellow flowers on shrubs of witch hazel and wintersweet glow gold. The air is crisp; shouts from the river carry to us on a thin breeze.
Catherine talks about the gardens in Spain and the castles – the Moorish palace at Granada, the fortresses of Aragon and Castile. She still hasn’t said whether she’ll marry me. But why wouldn’t she want to? She told me she’d grown up expecting to be queen of England.
We pause by a fountain, where water cascades down two tiers of fantastical carved beasts into a sunken square pond at our feet. The beasts of each tier support a great dish on their shoulders, gripping it with claws that protrude from batlike wings. Jets of water gush from their mouths, the pipes hidden between fangs.
In the sunlight each stone face is covered with a bright sheen of water; at the point of each beastly chin, stray droplets collect, cling and fall. I watch them. And without planning to, I find myself saying, “I heard a prophecy once. It said I would be king.”
Beside me Catherine says, “Where did you hear it? When?”
“Oh, years ago. Long before Arthur died.”
“That gives me the shivers.”
I shrug; that’s just how it is. I say, “But I didn’t have Arthur poisoned or anything – to make it come true – if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“No. Of course not.”
“The prophecy said I’ll be… not just any old king. God has chosen me for greatness. My glory will live down the ages.”
“Oh!” She’s smiling. “That’s nice!”
“Yes, go on – have a good laugh,” I say savagely. I turn, swipe at a bush and come away with a handful of leaves. “You think I’m useless, just like my father does.”
“No, I don’t. Sorry, Hal. Look, I’m not laughing. I believe you.”
“Doesn’t matter if you do or not. It’s true.”
There’s a silence. I open my hand and the leaves scatter in the wind.
Catherine says quietly, “I really am sorry about your mother, you know.”
Another silence.
I say, “I want to… grieve.” I bare my teeth, pushing the word out as if it has a foul taste. “But I can’t. Because it’s my fault she’s dead.”
“That’s crazy. Don’t say it.”
“It is. Arthur died because God chose me to be king. And Arthur’s death was the reason my mother had another child. So she died because of me.”
“Even if that’s true, it’s not your fault. You didn’t ask to be chosen.”
I stare at the ground. “God tests His chosen ones – He finds out if they are worthy by sending them trials. It’s all over the Bible: Job, Abraham, Joseph—”
“And Christ.”
“Exactly.” I nod. “And now me, too. My mother dying is my trial. I have to prove I can take it. I just need…” I look up at Catherine. “I suppose the plan is for you to leave soon. If you tell me you agree, I can speak to the King. Is the dowry sorted out?”
“Hal…” She looks distressed. “He’s made enquiries about marrying me himself.”
“What?”
“He’s going to write to my mother.”
A gull wheels over the river, squawking. I feel suddenly that I am adrift at sea, entirely alone.
“What an honour – congratulations,” I say briskly. “And I’ll have you as my stepmother instead of my wife. Another trial.”
“Not everything’s about you, you know.”
Oh, but it is. She doesn’t understand. It’s a burden I have to bear. I am carrying everything. The enormity of it is terrifying. I lie awake at night, pinned to the bed, spinning in the blackness, dizzy with it.
She says, “I’m… frightened.”
I almost haven’t heard her. I look at her, trying to take in the words. I think of my father being ceremonially brought to the marriage bed by his attendants, as Arthur was – and of her lying there, waiting for him, in the place my mother has vacat
ed so recently that the imprint of her body could almost still be warm. I think of Catherine’s auburn hair fanning out across the pillow, her soft smooth face…
“You’ll cope,” I say, and walk away to examine a sundial.
“Don’t be like that.”
I turn back and face her. “The Lord is a just and merciful God, who allows no one to be tried beyond his strength,” I say. “St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter ten, verse fifteen.”
I’m crying. I can feel the tears streaming down my face. Dripping – like the fountain beasts’ water – off my chin.
♦ ♦ ♦ XVII ♦ ♦ ♦
As the door shuts, my father is laughing – expansive, warm, his arm around my shoulders.
The envoys left behind us in the Presence Chamber – a couple of effortfully charming Venetians – probably think the door shuts out all sound. In fact, the laughter ceases the instant the door closes. And the arm drops from my shoulders, too; my father walks ahead of me through the small vestibule and into his Privy Chamber. I follow. It’s a different world here – quiet, secret, with just a few servants moving unobtrusively to anticipate my father’s demands.
At last my father has summoned me to live at Court – now I am to be always at his side, learning how to be king from his example. I am waiting for it to be announced that he will marry Catherine. I can only think that the delay is for propriety’s sake; the arrangements must be in place – she has not gone back to Spain, after all.
“Get me something to eat.” He’s slung off his hat, and is vigorously scratching his scalp as he sits down, the oiled grey hair swinging by his cheeks. No smiles now. He glances back, rakes me with a dead look. “You need to put in some more hours with the accounts today.”
The food comes; his men know what he likes: a leg of meat, a puddle of sauce to dip it in. He sits on a stool to eat, his elbows on his knees, plate in his hand, like a soldier in camp. It’s a wonder he can still chew meat – his teeth are few, these days, and blackish. Watching him eat, I think of Catherine.
