Scilly Seasons

by Chris Tookey

  “No.” Osprey looked at him inscrutably. “I can see that you don’t. I have seen you lurking in the shadows.”

  “I don’t mean to lurk, sir.”

  “But lurking is what you do, seeing things perhaps that you are not meant to see.”

  “But I never say anything, sir.”

  “Very wise,” said Osprey smoothly, “if you do not wish to meet an untimely demise. What is your name, boy?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” said Wyrd, honestly. “But everyone calls me Mouse.”

  “That is disrespectful of them,” said Osprey, drily. “But how appropriate for one who spends his time scurrying about in the shadows.”

  “I don’t mind the shadows, sir. In fact, I like them.”

  “And what a shadowy child you are,” said Osprey, coming towards him and putting one gloved finger beneath Wyrd’s chin. The wizard pushed Wyrd’s face upwards into a shaft of sunlight, and Wyrd felt Osprey’s piercing eyes drill into his, trying to read his mind.

  “You’re a cripple, and yet you consider yourself above the other menials?” asked Osprey.

  “I’m not sure what a menial is, sir. But if you mean the other servants, I don’t think I’m better than them. In fact,” said Wyrd miserably, “I know I’m not that much use. Mrs Scraggs says I’m stupid, clumsy and I don’t remember half of what I’m told.”

  “And is Mrs Scraggs right?”

  “My head gets so full of things that sometimes the jobs I’m meant to be doing do go out of my head. And I’m always dropping things and leaving them around.”

  “Such as this incriminating document,” commented Osprey, drily. “So you have no ambitions beyond being a miserable menial?”

  “Well, I would like to see the world,” said Wyrd, “but I can’t see how that will ever happen. I mean, it’s so dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?” mused Osprey. “Yes, I suppose it is dangerous.”

  “Merlin told me there are people out there who want to kill me.”

  “Merlin?” Osprey suddenly spoke much more sharply. “Told you that? When?”

  “It was Merlin who brought me here,” said Wyrd. “When I was ten. He saved my life.”

  “Saved your life? Preposterous!”

  Osprey seemed incredulous that a wizard could possibly have had dealings with so insignificant a creature as Wyrd.

  “I don’t remember much about it, sir. Though I dream about it. All the time. But now I don’t know which bits I dreamed and which really happened.”

  “And have you remained in touch with Merlin?”

  “No, sir. But he said he’d come back one day. And tell me who I am.”

  “And, no doubt, who was trying to kill you,” said Osprey. “Interesting. Very.”

  The wizard seemed distracted, as though he was trying to unravel the mystery himself.

  “Have you ever,” Osprey said, with a searching expression, “heard of a prophecy?”

  “Prophecy? No, sir.”

  “Has Merlin talked to you of any prophecy?”

  “No, sir.”

  At this, Osprey seemed to relax.

  “In that case I expect you were just one of my brother’s whims. Even in his youth he was fond of helping injured animals, birds that had fallen out of their nest, et cetera. Though I still wonder that he should help a creature as insignificant as you.”

  “I wonder that myself,” said Wyrd honestly. “Please could I have my parchment back, sir?”

  Osprey gazed back at Wyrd with a smile as warm as winter sunshine on a coffin lid.

  “Certainly not. I shall have to show it to the proper authorities. And they will decide on a proper punishment for your insubordination.”

  ***

  Nothing happened to Wyrd for more than a week after that, and he hoped that Osprey had forgotten the matter, deciding perhaps that a Mouse’s droppings were of too little concern to him. But early one morning, before most of the castle was up, Wyrd was on his hands and knees, scrubbing the stone floor of the scullery, when the huge oak door creaked open. There in the doorway was Wenda.

  “Oh, Wyrd, what have you done?” she said. Although she was only fourteen years old, she always seemed infinitely older and more experienced than Wyrd in the ways of the castle she had inhabited since her birth. And since the day she had seen Wyrd naked on the floor with the princess, Wenda seemed wary of him, as though he had in some way betrayed her.

  “Nothing,” said Wyrd. “What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know what the matter is,” said Wenda, “but I’ve been told to fetch you. It’s Osprey. He wants to see you in old Buzzard’s study. In ten minutes. And Osprey’s in a dreadfully bad temper.”

  “He usually is.”

  “This time it’s worse,” said Wenda. “He’s got a nasty look in his eyes. As though he’s in a mood to flog somebody.”

  “Oh well,” said Wyrd with a cheerfulness he didn’t feel, “I daresay I shall survive. Maybe old Buzzard will put in a good word for me. Do you know if it’s anything to do with a parchment?”

  “Old Buzzard did have a parchment in his hand,” said Wenda. “He kept crumpling it up, then smoothing it out to look at it again, then crumpling it. What have you done?”

  “I… I wrote something I shouldn’t have,” said Wyrd. “About the prince. I should have known something like this would happen.”

  “Serves you right,” Wenda told him, pointedly. “You shouldn’t be messing about with princes and princesses.”

  “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

  “It’s what I know you’re doing!” said Wenda. “You’ve got to know your place! Have you any idea of the risk you’re taking, being with… her?”

  “Anyone would think you’re jealous,” mumbled Wyrd.

  “I’m not jealous!” she retorted. “I just don’t want to see you hurt. Or worse.”

  “Well, maybe I don’t know my place,” said the boy. “Maybe I don’t want to be a nobody all my life. Maybe I… I don’t know. Maybe I deserve better.”

  “Deserve better!” echoed Wenda. “You don’t even know who you are, let alone what you deserve! I suppose you think I deserve to be a kitchen maid!”

  “You seem happy enough, not knowing even how to read and write.”

  Wenda flushed. It was the first time Wyrd had ever insulted her.

  “At least I know my place,” she said, a tear starting in her eye.

  “And where’s that? In the King’s bedchamber?” retorted Wyrd.

  There was an awkward pause.

  “What?” asked Wenda.

  “How long has that been going on?” Wyrd spat the words out.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Letting the King kiss and paw you, as if you’re his plaything!”

  Wenda made no reply.

  “Does Queen Elinor know about it?” persisted Wyrd.

  “No, she doesn’t,” said Wenda, looking scared. “And she mustn’t.”

  “I shouldn’t think she’d care,” replied Wyrd. “After all, she’s got Osprey. At least he’s more or less her own age.”

  “And that makes it all right, I suppose,” snapped Wenda. “Like you and Princess Melisande!”

  “Leave her out of it!”

  “Can’t you see she’s using you?”

  “Maybe it’s the other way round,” said Wyrd. “Maybe I’m using her.”

  “What? For pleasure? Surely you don’t think she’ll give you some kind of preferment? As soon as some eligible prince comes along, she’ll drop you. Just like that.”

  Wenda snapped her fingers.

  “I know it,” said Wenda. “You know it. And she certainly knows it.”

  “Why do you hate her?” muttered Wyrd.

  “I don’t hate her. I just see her for what she is.”
r />   “She’s a princess – which is more than you’ll ever be!”

  “And I suppose you imagine that one day you’ll be a prince!”

  Wyrd flushed. In some of his dreams about himself and Melisande, that’s exactly what he’d imagined.

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” said Wenda. “Oh, Mousie, you’re such a dreamer.”

  “It’s dreams that keep me alive in this… cold, stone prison.”

  “At least you’re alive and safe in here,” said Wenda. “Don’t you remember? Merlin said there are people outside, maybe monsters outside, wanting to kill you?”

  “That was years ago,” said Wyrd, blushing that Wenda could see his thoughts so clearly. He decided to say exactly the opposite of what he really felt.

  “They’ll have forgotten all about me,” he said. “They probably think I’m dead.”

  “But you’re not dead,” Wenda pointed out. “And half the castle knows that Merlin brought you here. You know what a gossip Mrs Scraggs is. I’ve heard her talking about it. The one good thing is, no one knows who might have contacts outside the castle.”

  “Oh,” said Wyrd.

  “What do you mean, oh?”

  “I think I may have mentioned it to Osprey.”

  “You did what?” asked Wenda. “Why do you think Merlin brought you to the kitchen and not the front gate? To make sure the wizards here didn’t know who you were!”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Wyrd admitted.

  “If Osprey knows, soon every wizard in Albion will know. Not only what happened to you, but where you are now!”

  “Oh,” said Wyrd. “You really think I’m in danger?”

  “And what have you done to upset old Buzzard?”

  “I don’t know,” said Wyrd. “But I think it might be something I wrote. On a parchment. Osprey may have shown it to him.”

  “Well, it could have been worse,” said Wenda. “At first I thought the King had found out what you’ve been up to with his daughter. He’d soon have her in a chastity belt, and you executed. You’re such an idiot.”

  “I’m not the only one,” said Wyrd. “What about you? If Queen Elinor found out about you and the King, she’d have you sacked or thrown into the dungeons.”

  Wenda looked at Wyrd, pityingly.

  “No, she wouldn’t!” she said. “She’d have me poisoned. That’s much more her style.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She poisoned my mother.”

  Wyrd’s jaw sagged open.

  “Didn’t you know?” she continued. “Six years ago. Just before you came here. My mother was the King’s mistress, you see.”

  “It’s good to see you carrying on the family tradition.”

  Wenda glared back at him.

  “My mother didn’t have a choice. Any more than I do. The King can do whatever he likes inside his own realm. As can the Queen.”

  “But the Queen doesn’t love the King, or she wouldn’t be carrying on with Osprey.”

  “If you must know, the King and Queen haven’t shared a bedroom since she was pregnant with Princess Beatrice,” explained Wenda. “But that doesn’t mean the Queen would be happy to see lots of the King’s bastards running around. After all, if anything happened to Artorus, Melisande and Beatrice, they’d be next in line for the throne.”

  “So that’s why she killed your mother!” said Wyrd.

  “That’s right,” said Wenda. “She was pregnant with the King’s baby.”

  “But you could be next!” gasped Wyrd. “What if you became… you know?”

  “I can look after myself,” said Wenda. “You’re the one who’s in trouble at the moment. Remember?”

  “Oh. Yes,” said Wyrd.

  “So, you don’t think they’ve found out about you and the princess?” asked Wenda.

  “Not unless you’ve told them,” said Wyrd.

  “Wyrd,” said Wenda, “I haven’t told anyone, and I never will. As long as you don’t tell on me. To anyone. About the King.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” said Wyrd. “Honestly, Wenda. You know I wouldn’t.”

  “Yes,” said Wenda seriously, “I know you wouldn’t.”

  She smiled and punched him playfully on the shoulder.

  “Now go!” she said.

  ***

  Old Buzzard’s study was in the tower at the south-western corner of the castle. Wyrd walked down the steps of the tower where he had made his nest. He had taken pieces of parchment from his pockets and pushed them into the seat of his breeches. They wouldn’t do much to stop the last few lashes of the wizard’s cane from cutting into his flesh, but they might stop the first two or three from hurting quite so much.

  He entered the school courtyard and tried not to show his fear as he made his way to the south-western corner, where Buzzard would be waiting for him. But when he knocked on the study door, the voice that said “Come in” was not Buzzard’s.

  As Wyrd edged in through the door, he looked around him and then cast his eyes to the floor. He had never been looked at by so many people at once. Buzzard was there but keeping to the background. Beside him and also keeping his distance was Osprey, looking across at the boy with an exultant expression.

  Just to the left of them was Mrs Scraggs, who had her arms folded and a look of annoyance on her face, as if she resented being called away from her kitchen. Just in front of her was Prince Artorus, looking cool, blond and imperious, in his usual attitude of elaborate boredom.

  And there, in front of them all, was King Otto.

  Wyrd had never been so close to Artorus’s father. King Otto was an imposing, red-bearded hulk of a man. In addition to the hair sprouting on his head and over the lower half of his face, he had it sprouting from his nose and ears. He looked as if a haystack had exploded inside his head.

  The King’s belligerence and capacity for cruelty made him feared throughout the castle and, so Wyrd had heard, far beyond. Though not as tall as Osprey, he was far more powerful – in a physical as well as a political sense. The veins in his forehead bulged dangerously as he took two giant paces up to Wyrd and jabbed him roughly in the chest.

  “So, you are the worm who wrote these insults about my son!” he boomed.

  “I wrote what is on the parchment. Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “How dare you write such things? Eh? Eh?”

  “I – I didn’t write them for anyone to read but myself. I dropped it. It was an accident.”

  “Accident? I don’t believe in accidents!” barked King Otto. “I suppose you’ll tell me next that writing it was an accident?”

  Without waiting for a reply, the King ploughed on.

  “Let me tell you, young man, I know treachery when I see it! And you know what I do to traitors?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” And indeed Wyrd did.

  “I have them hung until they’re all but dead and their eyes are popping out of their sockets. Then they’re drawn on the rack until their limbs are torn out of their sockets. After that, I have them quartered. You know what quartered means?”

  “Chopped into four, sire.”

  “Yes. Five, if you include the head, which I then place on a spike and put on the castle walls as a terrible warning.”

  “And it’ll be no more than the boy deserves,” said Mrs Scraggs with a disapproving sniff.

  “However,” said the King, “first you will apologise to Prince Artorus for your impudence.”

  Wyrd hardly knew what form of words to use but came out with:

  “I’m sorry, Prince Artorus.”

  Artorus advanced towards him.

  “Oh are you, Mouse?” he sneered.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sorry for what, exactly?”

  W
yrd flushed under the cross-examination.

  “Sorry I wrote the things I did.”

  “But are you sorry for thinking them?” asked Artorus with poisonous sweetness. “That’s the thing that concerns me – and my father.”

  “Quite right,” said Osprey, coming forward to place one yellow hand on the young prince’s shoulder. “Well said, sire.”

  “I – I think,” said Wyrd hesitantly, “that I was wrong to express my feelings.”

  “Feelings?” said Artorus. “You have no feelings worth the name. You’re kitchen scum.”

  “Not any longer,” said Mrs Scraggs. “I’ll not have him back in my kitchen.”

  “This young whelp has no father to give him a sound thrashing?” asked the King.

  “No, Your Majesty,” said the cook. “There’s a lot of us have tried to beat some sense into him, but he’s a hopeless case. Always clumsy, dropping things, and he’s never there when you want him. Always skiving off.”

  “Hmm. Well, I will not have treachery within my castle,” said the King, circling Wyrd with the air of a wolf examining its prey. “And it’s your very good fortune that I happen to agree with you. My son is an arrogant young pup, and he does enjoy flaunting his wealth. And your brief essay gives me the opportunity to tell him so to his face.”

  Prince Artorus’s face flushed.

  “Father!” he said.

  “Your mother’s always spoiled you, and if you’ve any sense at all, which I seriously doubt, you’ll take on board what this lad has written about you.”

  “Oh,” said Artorus, lamely.

  “It’s quite obvious to me,” said the King, rumpling Wyrd’s hair, “that this child is entirely wasted in the kitchen and needs educating so that he can grow up to be a useful, law-abiding subject. Has he no parents at all?”

  “I was left here when I was ten,” said Wyrd. “But I don’t remember much about it.”

  “He was brought here by a wizard, sir. Merlin,” said Mrs Scraggs.

  Wyrd noticed a sharp exchange of looks between Buzzard and Osprey. This was clearly the first time that Buzzard had heard the story. So, Osprey hadn’t told him. Wyrd noticed that the older wizard was looking at him with a thoughtful expression, as though studying him for the first time.

  “Someone tried to kill him. Probably his mother,” said Mrs Scraggs. “Bore him out of wedlock, I should imagine, then found she couldn’t afford to keep him. There’s a lot of loose women in this world, Your Majesty.”