Connecticut Vampire in King Arthur's Court

by Hall, Ian

  But to my dismay, he shook his head. “Never been a history buff, I’m afraid. The only stuff I know, I got from the Tudors on HBO. And that’s probably shit; certainly not accurate.”

  “But Prince Arthur is next in line to be King, and I can’t remember him at all.”

  “Yes, that makes no sense.”

  “And then there’s the shimmering.”

  “Yes!” he roared, and I knew we were in for a long chat.

  8th November, 1501

  Bedding Jane

  The first change since meeting Fallon again seemed to be a feeling of hyper-awareness. And, to be honest, maybe I should have been more careful from the start.

  I expected to see him round every corner, and lurking in every room I entered.

  So I made a conscious effort to put him out of my mind; I had some important theatre to perform that evening, and I had to get the audience in place.

  But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get past the idea of meeting Keith Fallon again. He wanted a truce. He had a ‘good thing going’ back in Exeter, in Devon, in the far southwest of England, and he supposedly intended me no harm.

  Most of all, amidst the whole population, he alone saw the shimmering when it happened, and yes, he’d seen it happening when he hadn’t done something.

  So basically, we’d both witnessed the shimmering for each other’s killings.

  It made sense.

  I never saw the Princess that day, and both the Prince and Princess were not at dinner. I assumed they’d be on their knees at their ‘devotions’, praying for all they were worth. Considering the Prince’s intended entertainment that evening, I wondered exactly what he prayed about.

  I checked on Eleanor, and to my surprise, found her in much better shape. She sat up in bed, and the color seemed to have returned to her cheeks. We talked for some time, but she could recall no details of the clergymen who’d tried to poison her.

  No one had tried to gain entry.

  As night fell, I retired and lit a few candles, which I placed on my chest of drawers, and my nightstand. As I looked around the room, content with the lighting, I heard a tap at the door.

  “Your Grace,” I said, opening the door wide, and quite glad he’d got here early. The last thing I wanted was to have to turn Lady Jane away. “I have the curtain ready.”

  I led him to the heavy drape on my window. The fashion in these times, the drapes were numerous, heavy, and fell to the ground. I felt sure that their intention was to mask the draught from the badly fitted windows.

  Once the Prince stood behind the curtain, I could discern no outline from the bed, so felt quite happy with his concealment.

  When the second tap sounded and the door opened wide, my Lady Jane swept into the room, her nightshirt hardly concealing any portion of her nakedness beneath.

  I’d like to say that I found it the most impressive of our jousts, but sadly, my enjoyment felt soured by the presence of my onlooker.

  I felt inhibited, but tried my best to keep my head ‘in the game’, as we cavorted on the candlelit bed.

  When we changed position, I tried to align her sex with the window, hoping for my only chance to show the Prince the beauty of the female condition.

  I dallied at her entrance with my fingers, then positioned myself above her, keeping the action straight, to the point, and non-cluttered with inessential foreplay. When I finally entered her, even at that late urgent phase of our coupling, I still thought of our audience’s enjoyment rather than my own.

  And of course, at the climax, as I fired my seed deep into her, I had to hold myself back from taking her neck, too.

  Altogether a quite mundane night.

  As I lay atop her, I whispered, “Sleep, my dear, sleep.”

  Then, once I’d made sure she’d passed out completely, I wrapped a sheet around me.

  “She’s asleep, Your Grace. You can leave.”

  A very silent Prince emerged from his hiding place, his head hanging low. He crossed the room and left.

  I sat on the bed and let out a deep sigh. For the first time some while, I did not feel under observation and analysis. It felt good.

  Then another tap at the door.

  “Damn,” I said under my breath, crossing to the door. I didn’t open it wide, but when Keith Fallon recognized me, he pushed the door open and walked past me.

  “Nice fuck-piece,” he said, looking at the partially covered form on my bed.

  “Get out!” I snapped, whisking myself between him and Lady Jane, but he waved me away.

  “Enough.” He shook his head, irritated. “Our conversation earlier brought a most urgent matter to my mind.”

  “And you can’t wait ‘til morning?”

  He shook his head. “I’m off for the home castle tonight; pressing matters. Besides,” he pointed to the bed, “looks like you’re finished anyway.”

  Well, I couldn’t argue with that. “Okay, get on with it.”

  “Have you found others like us?”

  “Time-travelers?”

  Again the old Fallon irritation. “No, vampires?”

  I decided instantly to keep my ‘wisewoman’ a secret. For one thing, I had no desire to share her favors with my enemy, but I also saw her as a possible ally in this ‘olde’ world, and now I had an enemy in my midst.

  “I’ve not come across any.”

  “Me neither, maybe we’re the first? Maybe all vampires are descended from us?”

  I shook my head. “It can’t be. All the old tales from the council tell of the ‘ancients’ from Romania and Transylvania, not from merry old England.”

  “True. Have you turned anyone here yet?” He again glanced over my shoulder at the recumbent form on the bed, then sniffed openly. “You’ve fed from her, but she remains just a husk; she’s no vampire.”

  “No, I’ve not turned anyone.” I looked at his face. A serious expression had come to the surface.

  “And the earthquakes that happen when we change time? You call it the ‘shimmering’?” he asked.

  I nodded, intent on determining the depth of his emotions.

  “I fear the shimmering,” he said at last. His eyes looked up at mine, and I knew his words to be true. “I’ve killed here. Killed many times. And sometimes the shimmer is low level, but once… once… it shook the very foundations of the earth.”

  He lapsed into silence.

  “And you’re afraid that turning someone, making a permanent vampire here would be worse?”

  I’d never seen fear on the eyes of Keith Fallon, but I did then. I wondered if he’d tried to do a turning, then had to rub out the consequences.

  He turned and left my room without another word. It had felt strange witnessing a ‘human’ side to my adversary, rather than the arrogant bastard he normally portrayed.

  Closing and bolting the door, I circled the room, blowing out the candles, then crossed to the bed, where I got under the covers with my sleeping lover. I had not actually considered turning Jane, but now, after seeing Fallon’s reaction, I put it out of my mind.

  I nuzzled behind her and slipped an arm under her, drawing her close to me. Absently, I felt her breasts, then slipped a hand between her legs, knowing that if I wanted to, I could wake her, and we’d have another round.

  But I lay back on the pillow, content in my belated afterglow, nuzzling under her hair, to kiss the soft skin at the back of her neck.

  I awoke to her touch, and although we could have dallied longer, it seemed prudent that she return to her chambers before the palace rose. I watched her leave the room, and wondered what future we had together.

  I had placed my faith in the Prince, determined to ride in his shadow, and the possibilities of being high in King Arthur’s court were not inconsiderable.

  I checked on Eleanor before I went down to breakfast, but found her bed empty, so I assumed she had resumed her duties with the Princess. But when I arrived in the large dining room, the Princess Margaret was attended by Lady Jan
e and only two others.

  I quickly walked to her side. “Mistress Eleanor? Is she up and well?”

  Jane looked around, her brows questioning. “She was still resting in bed. I saw her this morning.”

  I left the room without further questions. As soon as I got outside I dashed, super-fast, back to Eleanor’s room, looking for any signs of foul play.

  I sniffed for vampire, my head already blaming Fallon, but detected nothing. Eleanor’s dress lay on the top of her dressing table, and I cursed myself for not seeing it before. Using my vampire speed, I dashed around the palace, systematically searching all areas, corridors, rooms.

  Then, in one of the lower chambers, where the stone walls were wet with water seeping up from the nearby Thames, I saw a group of men, walking fast, torches held high. The flames danced across the ceiling, and in seconds I had silently closed the distance between us.

  Five men; two churchmen, two burly guards, and a man who carried a wrapped form.

  Just as I arrived behind the last guard, the man carrying the bundle changed his carrying position, his arms tired, and I saw a hand extend from the white sheet, the fingers flexing.

  At least she was alive.

  I didn’t even announce my presence; I drew my sword quietly, and stabbed it right in the back of the last guard.

  He roared in alarm, then his hands tried in vain to touch the blade behind him, dropped to the ground. In uproar, one guard turned to face me, his hand drawing his sword. I pierced his neck with my blade, the point coming clean out the back of his lower skull.

  Then the first shimmer happened, and I had to concentrate not to lose my footing as the dark corridor shook violently.

  “Run!” I heard a call, the sound distorted by the shimmer. “Take the girl!”

  I vaguely saw the last guard pass the bundle to the struggling churchmen, then he advanced on me.

  With the second wave of the effect distracting me, I tried to pull my sword from the man’s neck, but it proved difficult, lodged in a twisted figure on the stone floor.

  I saw the man raise his sword to strike, but he’d mistimed his blow, and hit the wall instead. I kicked out, catching him somewhere near the crotch. I heard the howl of pain, but the influence of the shimmer still lingered, the ground shaking.

  Then I got my sword free, and somehow got it between us. His blade clashed into mine, sending a shockwave of pain up my arm.

  Behind him, the two clergymen carried the body between them, disappearing down the tunnel.

  I leant forward past the guard’s sword, grabbing his head and twisting, his neck breaking instantly.

  As the ground trembled again, I stumbled after the churchmen, catching them at a large studded door. I made the decision to kill one, and question the other, so stabbing the nearest one hard in the back, my blade going deep into his ribcage, I punched the other on the forehead, and caught the bundle as it fell towards the hard stone floor.

  This time, the tremors came harder, and I fell backwards to the ground, Eleanor’s body across my waist. I held her tightly to my chest as the world shook.

  Man, this proved a bad one. It seemed as if the stone walls of the corridor were collapsing inwards on me. My breathing became ragged at the overwhelming feeling of being caught in such an avalanche.

  In time it began to calm, unperceptively at first, then in waves.

  Then it was over. The torches discarded on the wet floor, the bodies all around us. I pulled the sheet from her face, and Eleanor blinked at the light of the flames.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll soon find out,” I said.

  I carried her back to her room, then once certain that she’d bolted the door from the inside, I returned to the corridor. I sped through the palace with the churchman on my back, dumping him in my room, tying and gagging him with torn strips of bedding.

  “I’ll be back for you later,” I said, then left the room to tidy the bodies in the depths of the castle.

  November 9th, 1501

  The Plot Thickens

  I found Sir Gruffydd with Sir William Uvedale and Sir Richard Croft, but unwilling to bring them all into the plot, I singled out Gruffydd, and told him of the day’s adventure.

  “What of the Mistress Eleanor?” He looked concerned.

  “She is safe for now, under lock and key.”

  “Do you fear for the Prince himself?”

  “I don’t think so. I fear for the work being done around him. I don’t like being a bystander, Sir Gruffydd.”

  “So it seems.” He grinned at me. “Seems I misjudged you a little, back in Ludlow. I was suspicious of bringing you into the Prince’s inner circle. So what now?”

  “Well, we interrogate our prisoner.”

  “You have one alive?”

  “Oh, did I not make myself clear? I apologize. I have one tied up in my room.”

  He pushed me towards the building. “Let’s not waste time!”

  Behind the gag, the churchman looked at us, terrified. I paced the room before him, a cloudy day shining in my window.

  “You will tell me the truth,” I said, bending low to effuse his face with both my breath and suggestion. “Won’t you?”

  He nodded furiously, his eyes still wide open. I pulled his gag down over his chin, until it hung loose round his neck.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Frederick Sandilands,” he said, stretching his jaw in freedom of the gag. I looked at Gruffydd, who looked surprised he’d spilled the beans quite so easily.

  “Who employs you?” Gruffydd bent low, slapping his face hard.

  “The Archbishop.” The clergyman whimpered, flinching from another offered blow.

  “His name?”

  “Sire, his earthly name is Henry Deane.”

  I baulked slightly. I had never heard of the man, and said so.

  “Sire, he is just appointed to the role this year, in April, sire, a transfer from the bishopric in Salisbury.”

  Gruffydd bent low. “So whose bidding does this man do? Whose orders does he follow?”

  Frederick seemed to be confused as to the answer or the question, and sat shaking his head.

  “I ask again, whose orders does this Archbishop follow?”

  “I’m not sure he follows anyone, sire.”

  Since Gruffydd’s questioning had ground to a halt, I decided to take another route. “Why did you kidnap the Mistress Eleanor?”

  “Sire, she had designs on the Prince Arthur, and we were under orders to dispose of her.”

  “Who told you of her ‘designs’?” I asked.

  “By her own lips, sire. She confessed it to a priest in the palace chapel.”

  “Who told you this?” I demanded.

  “The Archbishop, sire.”

  I paced for a moment, then, turned to Sir Gruffydd. “What do we do with him?”

  “Well, we can’t let him go.” And he delivered such a punch to the man’s chin, that he just fell over, totally unconscious. He picked him up, and put him over his shoulder. “Anyone asks, he had too much to drink. Where are the bodies?”

  I quickly led him to the cellars, where we found the corpses where I’d left them. Gruffydd looked closely at the faces of the three guards. “Not Ludlow men. They must be from London, Richmond.”

  “From the Archbishop himself?”

  “Possibly.” Holding a torch high, he opened the large door, and led me along a water-filled underground wharf. At the end, the Thames rolled stately by. “This is used by the King’s men. We’ll dump the bodies here, and let the river wash them out to sea.”

  He stabbed the chests of each body many times. “So the organs don’t fill with air and bring them to the surface.” Then we launched them out into the darkening waters.

  “Now then, let’s get talking to your girl.”

  Eleanor looked considerably shaken, but she answered Gruffydd’s questions to our satisfaction, and we allowed her to rest.

  “I th
ought confession was meant to be a private thing?” I asked as we headed for dinner.

  “Not in these parts, obviously.”

  “But are you satisfied that her ‘designs on the Prince’ had been taken out of context?”

  “Not necessarily, but I don’t think a lady in waiting having ‘designs on the Prince’ is grounds for murder. If it was, they’d all be dead.”

  The next day, we rode to Saint Paul’s Cathedral, ostensibly to go through the ceremony, but for me, I stayed in ‘tourist’ mode for most of it; staring high into the vaulted ceiling, marveling at the stained glass windows. Now, I’m no history geek, as I’ve probably already established, but the wooden inside of this building looked stunning. Each tall window, eased by the wooden buttress outside showed a different scene from the Bible; I recognized many, the colors rich and vibrant. The craftsmanship of the stained glass proved magnificent, each window seemed to shine with its own life-force.

  I looked on as Prince Arthur, with his sister Margaret standing in for Princess Catherine, were made to go through their parts again and again by the Bishop of London, William Warham. Initially they read from paper scripts, but soon they were cast aside, the lines now in memory.

  A huge timber stage had been built, almost the width of the Cathedral, and about five feet high, with wide stairs on every side. Workers tacked sheets of red material round the couple’s feet as they practiced walking on and off. Two large bleachers had been erected on either side, to hold the complete gentry of England and its visiting neighbors.

  As I waited and watched the practices, I counted a hundred people polishing the oak pews.

  From time to time, the large choir would beat out a song, their attention focused on a conductor to their front. Their voices reverberated around the cathedral and made it difficult to hear our own practices, but no one seemed to mind.

  Neither the King nor Queen attended this practice, nor the one the next day.

  Princess Margaret, Prince Henry, and little Princess Mary also had parts to play in the ceremony.

  In the absence of Catherine’s father, King Ferdinand, young Prince Henry would bring her to the Cathedral, arrive at the Galilee porch at the west end, then escort her up the long aisle to meet Prince Arthur on the stage. Ten small children walked behind Margaret, posing as Catherine, doing nothing as yet, but they would follow her everywhere on the wedding day, holding her long, trailing robes high off the ground.