The Children of the King

by Sonya Hartnett

  Peregrine ashed and smoked his cigarette. “We can expect them to bomb hospitals, libraries, churches, museums, important places like that. They’ll try to break our spirit by taking away what we need and care about.”

  “Oh,” said Cecily again. She imagined the stuffed animals from the museum blowing sky-high, zebras and gnus and sloths and anteaters soaring to the clouds amid a glittering shower of glass.

  “And the people?” It was Mrs Winter, the housekeeper. “I don’t mind about the buildings — what about the people?”

  Peregrine said, “Hundreds died, that first afternoon and night — maybe five hundred or more. A countless number were injured. The next night, fewer were lost; we were better prepared. But while the raids continue, many people will die. There’s no doubting that.”

  “But what about the shelters? What about the windows being blacked out?”

  “The shelters will save people. The blackout will save people. Every small defence will help.”

  Cecily remembered the window in her London bedroom, its crisscross of tape and shrouding of curtain. She remembered her father standing at the window and looking through a gap in the drapes. With a sense of helpless falling she realised how flimsy a defence against a bomb was the curtain of a girl’s bedroom. “Is my Daddy safe?” she asked.

  “Humphrey is safe. Your house is safe. And May . . .” Peregrine looked to the child who crouched by the couch saying nothing, fiercely focused on every word, “your home is safe too.”

  “Today,” mused Mrs Winter. “We are safe for today.”

  The many occupants of the room and doorway gazed dully into space, as if the conversation had delivered to each of them a stunning blow to the head. Heloise was the first to speak. “So,” she sighed, “what now? What dreadful thing must happen next?”

  Peregrine smoked his cigarette and smoke drifted around him, between his elegant fingers and through his mane of hair. He shrugged and smiled. “We’ll fight, as Jeremy says. Now this battle has begun, we can start winning it. People will get up in the morning, go to work as usual, feed their families, walk in the park. No one will panic or lose hope. They will only beat us when we let them.”

  “Yes.” Mrs Winter approved. “Business as usual. Carry on.” And began doing so immediately, shuffling the staff away from the door and back to their evening tasks.

  Left alone in the study, the family found there wasn’t anything to say. The subject of the air raids could have continued all night, but there was nothing that, added now, could vitally improve on what had been said. Heloise, who liked silence, nevertheless felt compelled to break this one: “You must be tired, Peregrine.”

  “A little,” her brother-in-law admitted.

  “I’m angry,” said Jeremy. “I’m so angry.” His fists were closed, his lovely eyes hard, but he was ignored. Everyone was angry; no one assumed he was angrier than most.

  Cecily raised her head above the parapet of Byron’s ears. “Will you tell us more about the Duke, Uncle?”

  “Oh no,” tisked her mother, “no disagreeable stories tonight . . .”

  Peregrine seemed about to agree with her; then said, “Why not? History repeats itself: the battle for power is fought over and over again. We should hear from our Duke tonight. We might learn something from him.”

  “Where were we?” asked the storyteller, who knew perfectly well. “Our Duke has watched his family battle its way to the throne. His brother is king and the father of many children, including two fine princes. The Duke’s second brother, Clarence, has been put to death. Both the King and the royal children are thoroughly under the Queen’s control. The Duke and the Queen venomously hate each other, but the King stands between them, his very existence keeping the pair from flying at each other’s throats.

  “And then something happens to change the game.”

  “The King dies!” crowed Cecily.

  “The King died. And why not? A king is flesh and blood. A crown, a sceptre, a uniform, an army, boundless ambition, overweening pride: these things don’t make a man a god. The King died as a man must die: long live the King! And who, now, was the King? Little Edward, the first-born son, twelve short years old.

  “We haven’t spoken much of this boy, but he is crucial to this story — indeed, though we’ve said so much about our Duke, it’s the boy who stands at the heart of this tale, a diamond under so much coal. Prince Edward has grown up far from court — far from his mother and father, who seem to have loved him although they kept him in a castle in the kingdom’s distant south. Here he had been raised by the Queen’s family, who gave him an excellent education and appear to have produced a gracious child. All reports describe the Prince as polite and gentle, perhaps a touch grave. He was clever, a reader of books; pious, a child of faith; as well as a sportsman — he could swing a sword, hunt with hounds, play skilful games. Some say he was sickly, with disease turning in his bones: if so, it didn’t prevent him from living up to the demands of being both prince and boy. He resembled his pretty mother, and not just in beauty: surrounded by the Queen’s family, it was her influence he lived under, her thoughts which became his, her distrusts, suspicions and allegiances which he took up as his own. The Queen was crafting the Prince into a future king who would favour her line above all others, staking her family’s claim not just on her son’s crown, but on the crowns of kings to come.

  “It could only have made the Duke uneasy. This boy, his own nephew, this future king, secreted away in the south and being reared by those the Duke despised, and who despised him in return. This puppet who would come to power as sure as night follows day.

  “And now, unexpectedly, the King was dead. Like a hawk swooping out of nowhere, the critical moment arrived. The chain which had always kept the enemies at bay snapped with a twang: now one faction must pull the heart from its rival and obliterate it utterly, or have the same done to them. The Queen had already had a hand in getting rid of one of the King’s brothers. There was no reason she wouldn’t try to do the same to the brother who remained. But our Duke was no reckless fool, as Clarence had been. He was cunning, a wolf. And the King, before he died, had done a remarkable thing. Wanting, perhaps, to hobble the ambition of the Queen’s family, on his deathbed he had written a new will. In it he named the Duke protector of the nation and guardian of the royal children until the time when the young King Edward came of age.”

  Jeremy smiled. “Power.”

  “Power! Our insatiable friend rears its Medusa head. As you can imagine, the Queen was not amused to hear this news. She had no intention of handing her offspring, let alone the nation, into the care of her enemy. Twisting and turning to get a grip on her rival’s throat, she discovered that, according to law, the Duke could only stand as protector until the day the new king was crowned. Thus were plans drawn up instantly for the coronation. The Prince was summoned from his castle in all haste, under the escort of two thousand men.

  “But our Duke, in his own far-flung castle, was not without friends at court, most of whom feared for their futures if the Queen’s cronies seized power. They wrote to the Duke, urging him into action which they promised to support. Strike now, they advised, while the iron is hot.

  “And the Duke did not tarry: he struck. Some say he acted in desperation, out of genuine fear for his life; others say that everything he does from now on is a calculated step on a ruthless climb to the top. I shall leave you to decide for yourselves which is more likely true.

  “Quickly, while the two thousand men were amassing around the Prince, the Duke gathered his supporters, men of strength and standing. He wrote nice letters pledging his loyalty to the new king. When he finally set out, it was in the company of a black-clad army and one precarious, astonishing plan.

  “So now we have the Duke travelling downwind and the Prince travelling upwind, both riding towards a collision only one of them knows will happen. The Duke sends a message to the Prince’s guardians, suggesting the parties rendezvous along the road. The
Queen sends a message to these same guardians, urging them to speed the Prince to London without delay. But the Duke is not a man whom mere guardians may snub; besides, he has written those nice letters. So the leaders of each party meet to dine in a village, but not before the Prince is lodged, by the nervous guardians, at an inn some miles away. This act of rudeness — the hiding of the nephew from the uncle — was greeted by the Duke with perfect understanding and calm.

  “The meal lasted long into the night, and was very merry — long and merry enough for the Prince’s guardians to be addle-headed on retirement to their beds. Whereupon the Duke locked their doors from the outside, and, as dawn arrived, galloped with his army to meet the boy at his inn. The child was glad to see his uncle, if a little baffled as to the whereabouts of his guardians. The Duke confessed that, most unfortunately, he had had to arrest them. They weren’t men to be trusted, the Duke explained. The Prince believed otherwise, and protested; the Duke tut-tutted but added that he would now, also unfortunately, arrest those men who remained by the Prince’s side. The servants and officers, the teachers and close friends, all the people who’d surrounded and cared for the Prince his whole life, were to disappear immediately and forever, under pain of death.

  “Finding himself captured and isolated, young Edward discovered that being a prince, and even a king, doesn’t change the fact that you are, in your skin, just a boy. He did, now, what any boy might do: he put his hands to his face and cried.”

  Peregrine settled back in his chair, seeming as relieved as the Duke might have been to have reached this point in the story. Trays of cocoa had been brought, and he stirred his with a teaspoon. Cecily, snuggled up to the dog, watched him closely. Without meaning to, she had started to picture her uncle as the Duke. Her Uncle Peregrine, partaking of a merry meal. Her Uncle Peregrine, glaring down at a boy king. Uncle Peregrine, crafting a plan out of pieces like glowing arrows of glass.

  “It’s a kind of terrible chess, isn’t it?” said Jeremy. “The Duke has toppled the white pawns, the white rooks, the white bishops and the white knights. He’s cornered the white king. The queen is still on the board, but she’s in a bad position now. Check.”

  “That’s clever, Jem,” said his mother; but her son did not return her smile.

  “Check is one word,” Peregrine agreed. “Bloodless coup are two more. Now that the Duke had the Prince in his clutches, power shifted titanically away from the Queen and into the arms of the Duke. The Queen remembered a thousand reasons she’d given the Duke to think badly of her. Fearful, outraged, she looked for support, and discovered that people weren’t willing to give it: she and her gang had fewer true friends than they realised. So the Queen did the only thing she could do now: she gathered her children — yes, including Princess Cecily — and went into sanctuary in the Abbey.”

  “What is sanctuary?”

  “Sanctuary is a place which no one may enter with violent intent. Nobody may harm or seize a person who is in sanctuary, even if that person is a criminal. While someone is in sanctuary, they are absolutely safe; but they are also trapped. Sanctuary’s protection does not extend beyond the sanctified walls, so the sanctuary-seeker dare not leave. . . . By the next morning, the Duke’s men had surrounded the Abbey. The Queen might hide; but her hidey-hole would be her prison.

  “If the people disliked the Queen, it’s true they weren’t too keen on the Duke, either. As news of the coup spread, anxious crowds began to gather in the streets. The lords and councillors were also worried, as many had reason to be: they’d simpered and cooed around the Queen for years. But the Duke, still miles away on the road, wrote letters assuring everyone that he’d captured the Prince only to ensure his own safety, that he had no violent intent, that neither the country nor the boy had anything to fear. Seeing how the land lay — the Queen’s party so weakened, the Duke’s star on the rise — many people stopped cheering for the Queen, and started cheering for the Duke. That happens, of course. Acts of tyranny — which is what the Duke’s actions should properly be called — are often deemed understandable, even forgivable, by those who might benefit from them.

  “So the Duke rode in triumph into the city, weeping the loss of the old king, trumpeting the advent of the new. The Queen’s family had been torn from power like strangling ivy from a tree: everything, now, could be good again. A pressing need was to find somewhere to house the Prince, and the place chosen was the Tower.”

  “The Tower of London?” said May. “I’ve been there.”

  Cecily vaguely remembered something she’d been taught at school. “That Tower is a horrible place, isn’t it, Uncle?”

  “The Tower was old even back then,” Peregrine replied, “but it wasn’t decayed or ramshackle, and it didn’t cast a fearful shadow, as it would do in later centuries. Rather, it was a royal residence, with views across the river, manicured gardens and a zoo, and lavish rooms where the Prince’s father, like kings before him, had hosted important meetings and banquets. In short, it was a suitably luxurious, familiar, and safe place for the boy. He was given a suite of chambers with stained-glass windows and prancing animals painted on the walls; he was given some servants and attendants; and of course he was given some guards.

  “The date set for the Prince’s coronation was coming near — too near for the Duke’s liking, so he put it back another month, and used the extra time to make himself grand, lathering himself with titles, gorging himself on importance. The one cloud on his horizon was the Queen and her offspring sulking in sanctuary. It looked bad —”

  “It makes the Duke look scary!” Cecily’s understanding amazed even herself.

  “Exactly,” said Peregrine. “The Queen’s hiding makes the Duke seem a man best kept away from. So he tries to coax the family out, and the Queen refuses, which is embarrassing and inconvenient. Time’s ticking, as it always is for the Duke. Soon his reign as protector will end: the Prince will be brought from the Tower in a fury, the Queen will come snarling out of sanctuary, the boy will finally be crowned; and no one will be the Duke’s friend then, no one will want to side with one who has so offended the King. But that day hasn’t arrived, and for now the Duke has the support of the people and of well-placed men. He has ships and countless soldiers at his command, he has imprisoned his enemies, and he has, most of all, the boy in the Tower.

  “And the choice the Duke faces is this: hand all of this over on the day of the coronation, and wait for the retaliation that will certainly come . . . or don’t. Don’t give anything back. Throw caution to the wind, grab the chance while it is there, regret nothing, keep everything, and try to get more.”

  “Keep everything,” Cecily advised.

  Peregrine smiled bleakly. “The Duke makes his choice. Once made, there’s no retreat. The road forward is remorseless and bloody: but the Duke was born by this roadside, he has walked it all his life. Treachery, conspiracy, victory-or-death, might is right: he learned it in his cradle. As a child, he saw his brother snatch the crown from the old sick king. And now the time has come for the Duke to snatch the crown from a child.

  “It is not a decision which calls for a delicate touch. He summons his army from the north, soldiers he can trust. He chops heads from those who might object to his decision, including some owned by men who’d once been his friends. He does not bother with truths, trials, or any such niceties, and why should he? He isn’t playing games. A dark fire is burning in him, the flame which, once lit, must consume everything, including the heart that kindled it.

  “For the Prince in the Tower, the Duke’s decision came like a stormcloud. His attendants were sent away, so only the guards remained. He heard about — perhaps, from his windows, he even witnessed — the lopping of heads. A quiet boy, a contemplative boy, he understood the meaning of these events. And he became quieter, and downcast. He was very clever, that boy — clever enough to be afraid.”

  “I feel sorry for him,” said Cecily. The Prince was twelve, she herself was twelve: it made her feel s
he knew him better than did anyone else in the room.

  “Children have always borne the brunt of decisions made by adults,” said Peregrine. “No child is responsible for the bombs that will fall on London tonight, but plenty will pay a dreadful price nonetheless.”

  Jeremy said, “Children have no power, that’s why.”

  “Children are almost always powerless, you’re correct. And children aren’t something that powerful people often take into consideration. But this child was the King’s son. This child was to be king. The Duke had him isolated and imprisoned, helpless; yet the child shadowed every moment of the man’s life. And not just this child, either. There was another of whom we’ve hardly spoken, but who likewise preyed on the Duke’s mind. The Prince had a brother, remember? A brother younger by several years, second in line to the throne. His name was Richard. The Prince was like a fly bundled up in the Duke’s web: but as long as Richard existed, likely at any moment to step forward and claim his birthright, the Duke’s stake on the crown would never be secure.

  “This little boy Richard, nine years old, was living with his mother in sanctuary, where the Duke’s claws couldn’t reach. The Duke had tried to wheedle out the child, saying the lad must attend the coronation, saying the Prince needed a playmate, saying the child should not be a prisoner of sanctuary. His mother had refused to let the boy go. The Duke was her enemy, and thus the enemy of her children. So the Duke did what had always worked for him before. He sent the Queen a message insisting that she send the child out for the coronation. Looking beyond the window, the Queen saw hundreds of soldiers encircling the Abbey, a hint of what the Duke’s response to yet another refusal would be.”

  “Might is right,” said Jeremy.

  “What a lesson to be teaching, Peregrine . . .”

  Jeremy looked at his mother with scorn. “Uncle Peregrine isn’t teaching it. We already know it. We only have to open a newspaper to see the proof of it. Isn’t Germany doing exactly what the Duke did, hammering away at us with threats and bombs — and the Queen doing exactly as we are, hunkering down, refusing to be afraid?”