Heloise sipped from her glass — one of many sips she’d taken so far — and considered her son with a cool eye. Perhaps she remembered the conversation in the grocery shop, the mention of riff-raff and unruliness in the village classrooms. Heloise Lockwood had invested in the slight frame of her boy all her hopes and ambitions; but Jeremy had reached a difficult age, and his mother’s dreams could easily become unstuck by months spent in a small room under the influence of malcontents. Nevertheless Heloise was not the type to give in easily: “I suppose it’s education of a sort — for now. Not for ever.”
The children hunched gleefully into themselves. “After supper,” Peregrine promised.
But, as is usual when children are longing for an adult to fulfil a promise, there was a drag of endless time to be fidgeted through before the obligation was met. The main course had to be finished, some digestion must be done, and dessert needed to be consumed as painstakingly as a last meal. The children were then sent off to Peregrine’s study, which was progress of a sort; but here, far from the dining room, they could not exert the pressure of their excitement, and had to sit among the rock samples and carriage clocks in a torment of impatience. The wine bottle must be drained, a subject brought to a close, the table vacated, the washroom visited. When Peregrine finally limped into the study, followed by Byron and eventually by his sister-in-law, he found three children quite bad-tempered with waiting; yet he made them wait further while the fire was stoked, the armchair repositioned, claret poured, a thin cigar lit. Heloise curled up close to the flames, Cecily and May lay on rugs beside Byron, and Jeremy sat on the floor with his back to his mother, near enough for her to occasionally reach out and stroke his glossy hair.
“You have been warned,” Peregrine began. “This story is not a pleasant one. In some ways it is like the fairytales of old, when fairies had a taste for the macabre. But it is not a fairytale: this story is true, and you can look up the facts in history books; and when the truth has been lost in secrecy the gaps are filled by rumours which may have been true, or may have been wishful thinking, or may have been barefaced lies. It’s a story you might think couldn’t happen now, when we have cars and telegrams and all kinds of modern ways. You might think it’s a story from a dark age. But the world is at war as we sit here, tearing itself up like a pack of wolves: maybe, hundreds of years from now, this era we live in will likewise appear a dark and ignorant age. At the end of the story you might find yourself judging some of its characters harshly, but always remember that the world was very different then — yet also, underneath, much the same.”
Cecily, not sure she followed all of what her uncle had said, glanced at her companions. May was cradling Byron’s paw, her face pinkened by the fire. She would understand everything — the bizarre thought came to Cecily that May already knew the story they were about to hear, that perhaps she was even in it. Cecily looked at the girl’s stockinged legs, her starfish hands, the bow in her hair that was falling loose; and was engulfed by a desire to protect her, as well as a wish to lock her and her elfy cleverness in a cupboard out of sight.
“Very well,” said Peregrine, reaching for his glass: “let it begin.”
“The boy was born into a time of mud and splendour. In most of the world people lived hard and simple lives, farming the land or sweating in occupations by which the worker came to be known — tanner, potter, cooper, wheeler — as if the work was more important than the person who did it. This was the world of hovels and shovels, dirt roads, fields and forests: a time of mud.
“It was not the world the boy knew. For him, it was a time of splendour. The youngest son of aristocrats, he knew thick blankets, rich food, fine clothes. He knew servants and horses, feasts and learning, etiquette and tournaments. All this luxury, however, did not bring with it contentment. His was a family which believed itself born to rule. Distantly related to royalty, they naturally wanted to be royal. And to become a family of kings, they needed to remove from their path all others who would claim the crown.
“The work was bloody: in the battles which accompanied his family’s rise, the boy saw his father and eldest brother killed. These losses only increased the family’s determination. Gathering their supporters, they destroyed the royal army and forced the King, a weak sick man, off the throne. The boy’s oldest surviving brother proclaimed himself regent, and suddenly the boy was no longer merely a child: brother to a king, he was now royal, and we shall call him Duke, which was one of many names he would come to have during his life, and beyond it.
“At this time the Duke was nine years old. He had lost a father and a brother; but he had two surviving brothers, one of whom had stolen by force the ultimate power in the land. The Duke had learned, from this, a lesson he would not forget: might crushes right. We’ll leave him, for the time being, to think about this in private while he grows a little older.
“The Duke’s brother, the new king, was loved by the people from the start. He was youthful in a time of decrepitude, tall in an age of stubbiness, comely in a time of ugliness, lavish in this era of mud. All the world’s prettiest princesses vied for his attention. Eventually he chose a wife, but she was not one of those regal ladies. She was, in fact, a commoner. The princesses were appalled, as were the people. Our little Duke did not like the new queen, and it’s true that, in all sorts of ways, the King could have done better. The girl was vain, greedy, ambitious. But she was beautiful and the King believed he loved her, and while in that hard world love did not count for much, in this case it had the power to turn a commoner into a queen.
“Power: I want you to remember this word. I want you to say it to yourself, feel its weight in your hand. Look into its dark depths every time this story takes a turn.”
“Power,” whispered May.
“Power,” affirmed Cecily. Jeremy glanced testily at the girls; Peregrine poured more claret.
“Time passed, and three princesses were born — the youngest of whom, I’m happy to say, was named Cecily — and the King was delighted with each. He was especially pleased, however, when the Queen produced a son. They christened the child Edward, and the King and his country rejoiced. Finally here was an heir. The King, however, had no time to celebrate. His brother — not our Duke, but the middle brother, Clarence — had taken into his head the idea that he, not his brother, should be king. He made a fuss, embarrassed the King, dug out the outcast king and tried to sit him back on the throne. The King forgave his lunatic sibling and slung the old king back in prison; but his rivals had been stirred now, and he was forced to fight again for his realm. Many pretenders to the throne were slain on the field. Eventually triumphant, the King returned home to cheers. The merchants loved him, the women loved him, it seemed the Heavens above loved him too.
“At the King’s side marched his brother, our Duke — a faithful brother, although no longer little. He was now a young man of eighteen. Unlike his brawny brother the King, the Duke was small and lightly built, dark-haired and blue-eyed. Years later, when the Duke was long dead, rumours spread that he’d been physically warped, a goblin; but portraits painted while he lived showed a man shaped as any other, and certainly he was as fit and feisty as are most young men. He liked to hawk and hunt, to drink and eat, to brawl and sleep. He liked having money, and spending it. He liked to make people laugh, and to show off his wit and education. He wanted to be popular and have friends. He wanted, in summary, to find a good place for himself in the world.
“But while he was, in many ways, a man like all others, our Duke was not the same as they were. His entire life had been shaped by bloodshed. He had fought on battlefields, and he had killed. He’d learned lessons from his clever brother, the King, and from his blockhead brother, Clarence. He’d learned to be valorous, cunning, and quiet; reliable, daring, and thoughtful. He’d learned, in short, what it takes to succeed. The King trusted him, and rewarded him with titles that decorated our cat-like Duke like so much overwrought jewellery.
“So now, at last, th
e battles had been fought, a strong king had been crowned, an heir had been born, and peace could reign. There was one final task to attend to, however, and for its fulfilment the King turned to his trustworthy brother. In the depths of night, the Duke visited the old king in his cell. The next morning the old man was found with blood flowing from him, the brains wrung out of his skull.”
“Hawg!” crowed Cecily.
“Peregrine!” scolded Heloise.
The storyteller was unrepentant. “It’s vital you understand who he was, this Duke. A creature of his upbringing and his era. A man obedient to the demands of his time. Aren’t we the same?”
“I think not. One can choose what one will and will not do.”
“That’s true, although possibly not always true. As we speak, there are soldiers in France doing what they might not choose to do. But we mustn’t judge our Duke as we would judge a man alive today. He was the product of an age of great violence. He was hardened to it, as were the people who surrounded him. Remember that — and remember the other thing.”
“Power?” said Jeremy.
“Power,” confirmed Peregrine. “For the person without power, there was only the mud.”
“Tell us about little Cecily,” begged Cecily.
“The little princess Cecily? She is growing older and more pleasing, as are all the King’s children. Indeed, another prince has been born by now, making a fine pair of brothers. We’ll talk about those boys later: but the Princess Cecily, I’m sorry to say, is not, and never will be, our concern.”
“Aw,” said Cecily.
Peregrine topped up his glass, and bolstered Heloise’s too. He rang for the maid and ordered warm milk for the children. This was brought, in steaming mugs; Cecily let hers grow a crinkle of skin, fished it out and fed it to Byron.
“And so back to the Duke,” Peregrine resumed. “He decided it was time to marry, and why not? Unlike the King, he wasn’t so foolish as to marry for love. Love could be found anywhere, if you were a duke. But there was a young lady suitable for marrying, and she suited because she brought with her the promise of a rich estate. Land, titles —”
“Power,” said Jeremy.
Peregrine smiled. “Now you understand. The Duke married into vast tracts of cool northern land with its marshes and moors, its valleys and rivers. And the people of this region, who, like their countryside, were often sneered-at as being brutish and untamed, would come to love their Duke, and claim him, and offer him a place of safety, just as he would always love and need this northern land, and the affection of its people. The couple made their home in a castle on the banks of a river in the heart of this country —”
“Snow Castle?” asked Cecily.
“— not Snow Castle — and soon they had their own little son. You might think peace should now reign: but the quest for power is strange in that, once the quest has begun, the destination always seems to shift ever further away. What power one has is never enough; whatever happiness one had turns to bitterness.
“The middle brother, Clarence, sat in his castle and stewed. After his rabble-rousing of some years earlier, the King had kept him on a short but generous leash. He had wealth and titles, yet he believed himself deprived. He wanted glory, he wanted attention, he wanted, he wanted . . . he wanted the weight of the crown. The worm that is power ate at him, stripping off his skin and lapping his blood and then gnawing at his bones. He felt unappreciated, neglected, deprived. Now the worm crawled up his spine and began to dine on his brain —”
“For goodness sake, Peregrine!”
But the children were enchanted by the machinations of this invertebrate, and tamped down Heloise’s protests with waving hands. Nevertheless Peregrine abandoned the creature and sipped his claret, smiling quietly. “You can see where this is going, can’t you? Demented Clarence, squawking in his castle, provoking the King and Queen’s displeasure with a string of complaints and lies. Poor Clarence is digging his own grave. At last he found himself standing at the crumbly edge of it: the King had him arrested and brought before a court. The court was told of Clarence’s malice and gossip, his lack of loyalty to his king. No one spoke in protest when the death sentence was pronounced — certainly not the Queen, who saw Clarence as a threat and wanted him removed. Our own Duke likewise made no attempt to save his brother. Perhaps his silence was due to powerlessness — mad Clarence was beyond redemption — or perhaps it was due to power: the Duke would, after all, inherit the lion’s share of his brother’s legacy. So Clarence was put to death, and —”
“How?”
Peregrine’s black glance shifted to his nephew. “I beg your pardon?”
“How did Clarence die? You told us the story was gruesome, so how did he die? Was his head chopped off ? Was he pulled to pieces by horses?”
“Enough of this!” Heloise clapped her hands. “It’s a dreadful story, Peregrine. Everyone murdering everyone: you’ll turn the children into thugs!”
Peregrine switched his gaze to her. “We sent hundreds of men to France today. Many of them will be shot down or blown up, or captured and tortured or drowned.”
“I don’t want to hear about that, either.”
“Why not? It will happen for your sake, and mine, and the children’s. Therefore we should hear about it, shouldn’t we?”
Heloise’s mouth went razor-thin. “The subject of death,” she said, “should not be given to children to play with as a toy. Maybe that’s the reason we’re in this terrible war: because boys treat death as if it’s just a game.”
Jeremy hit the floor with a fist, jolting Byron from his doze. “You’re spoiling it, Mother! If you don’t want to hear the story, you should go to bed!”
“Jeremy!”
“If you won’t let Uncle Peregrine tell me the truth, I’ll read it in a book!”
“Jem, be quiet! You’re spoiling it!”
Peregrine held up a hand, calming his upset audience. “Shh. Your mother is right, Jem. How Clarence died is not important. He died, and power claimed another soul. The King built a fine tomb for him, which suggests that, for all Clarence’s foolishness, the King was sorry to see him go. The Duke, for his part, blamed the Queen for his brother’s downfall, and hated her even more. He retreated to the countryside, far from the royal court and its jealousies. In the deep green dales of the north, he was well-known and admired. He had friends here who would side with him if the taking of sides was needed. With the removal of Clarence the Duke had become, after the King’s sons, next in line for the crown; in some quarters of the north, the King’s indulgence had made the Duke more powerful than the King himself. For the Duke, a man groomed from the cradle to rise in the world, it must have been an interesting position to hold, so strong, so near to the throne. But for now he watched and waited, read his books, said his prayers.
“And what he watched was the King growing fatter.”
“Yah!” laughed Cecily.
“The King in his youth had been a majestic specimen, tall, broad, hale. But by the time he was forty — an age that is elderly only to children — the years of extravagance had taken their toll. The King was as fat as a barrel, as lazy as a swine, as breathless as a cod. He was a burping, farting, flabby disgrace to behold. He’d become too lazy to think for himself, and was bossed about by his wife and her relatives. He’d handed the upbringing of his heir, little Edward, into the care of his wife’s family — a family our Duke detested, don’t forget; and the feeling was certainly mutual.
“And this was how everything stood — the Duke brooding, the Queen presiding — when the King went out for an afternoon’s boating and came home with a chill that first laid him low, and then laid him lower. On his deathbed he commanded all enemies be friends, so the enemies shook hands and smiled. When he died, the King might have believed he was leaving behind a kingdom in tranquillity . . . but in actuality, glaring at each other across the King’s corpse were two mighty rivals whose hatreds could not be healed with the shaking of hands. The Queen
stood with her supporters, the Duke stood with his. And between them was a child, Prince Edward, just twelve years old. By birth he was destined to wear his father’s crown — but what is destiny? Only something we think should happen, until it does not.”
Peregrine had been smoking a cigar; now he pressed its stub into an ashtray and the audience watched as a last grey quiff of smoke curled into itself like a spider and died. “That’s enough for tonight.” Peregrine looked tired. “There’s more to tell, but that’s enough for now.”
The next morning brought something marvellous: a letter for May. So excited was Cecily by the advent of the envelope that her hand actually reached out to grab it, managing to restrain itself only at the last instant and clonking like dead wood to the table. May gazed at her name written above the address of Heron Hall. “It’s from my mother,” she said.
“You see!” said Cecily. “I told you she wouldn’t have forgotten you. Open it!”
“She might not want to open it.”
“Why not? I want to know what it says —”
“Maybe she would rather not tell you what it says,” Jeremy sighed. “A letter is a private thing, Cecily.”
May looked from the siblings to their uncle. He met her eye for just a moment before returning his attention to his plate. “I think,” he said, “a letter should always be read in private before being inflicted on an audience, lest it be boring — or too exciting for the listeners’ own good.”
“I don’t think May’s mum would write anything exciting,” Cecily scoffed. “She isn’t a spy or something. She’s just a housewife. There’s nothing exciting about bringing in the washing.”
“She was going to get a job,” said May. “That’s why she had to send me here.”
“That’s not true! She sent you here in case of an air raid. She didn’t want a bomb dropping on your head.”
A frown came to May’s small face. “It is true. She isn’t afraid of bombs. She was getting a job to help us win the war.”
The Children of the King Page 8
