by H. M. Castor
My heart is pounding. I struggle to rise – the boy watches the attempt.
“I thought I was rid of you,” I say to him. “You showed me the evil and I destroyed it. I have my son now.” At last I’m on my feet, twisted awkwardly to keep the weight off my maimed leg, one hand gripping the chair-back. “Why the—” I point to his hands. “Why the blood?”
“Sir, what is it?” “Sir?” Kate and Denny’s voices now, together.
The boy says nothing. His pose is tranquil, as if he has stood there for an hour, and intends to remain there an hour more. But there is something horrifying in his look: his stare has such intensity – a kind of fury of interest.
“Speak, damn you!” I start forward across the circle. “You were right. She was the Devil’s creature. So I destroyed her and I got my son. What evil are you here to show me now? Will there be a death? Surely not Edward, please! God would not allow it… Or is it evil in someone’s heart? I am constantly watchful. I continue to do God’s work. But now your… your appearance frightens me – the blood…”
He does not blink; I cannot bear that he does not blink. His hair is moving a little, as if in a draught I cannot feel.
Panic constricts my throat. I croak, “What do you want from me? Who are you?”
I’m aware of a shifting at the edges of my vision. In the circle around me there is fear – and embarrassment. Behind me Denny says, “The King is tired. He has overexerted himself today.” There’s a clatter and shuffle as people rise, eager to leave.
“Stay!” I put out my hand, still staring at the boy. They sit again.
No movement but the stirring of his hair. No reaction but the continued ferocious determination of his gaze.
And then his voice speaks, as if whispering in my ear.
Whom do I resemble?
Hair the colour of straw. Hollow, haunted eyes. A livid pallor on the young-old face. I say, “No one. Evil. Death.”
Now there’s movement in the face at last. He smiles, and his greyish teeth seem longer and sharper than before.
Try again. Whom do I resemble?
I stare at him. I am loath to admit what I am thinking. “My family. My mother’s family. One of her brothers? I said once before I thought you were a ghost. But what does it matter? A devil can take any shape.”
No. You are close. But not close enough.
I am close indeed. An arm’s reach away, now. He looks so real. I can see every pore of his sallow skin, every strand of hair against the blue of the curtain behind him. I cannot bear it. I stagger forward, yelling, “Who is it this time? What evil stalks me? Tell me!”
I reach out, grabbing for his scrawny neck. My hand closes on something too soft – fine blue taffeta. The curtain. I wrench it aside.
I find myself looking into the boy’s eyes: amused, savage, triumphant.
But the eyes are in my face. It is a mirror.
My forehead crashes into the glass. With a crack the mirror splinters into a fan of jagged pieces. Sections of a queasy, jarred room. Sections of a face – my own – that do not fit together. The eyes are mine again, but one is closer than the other, grotesquely unaligned.
“Call the King’s physician.”
“Get off me!”
“Sir, you are bleeding.”
Slowly, I lumber round to face the room. Since when did my body become a ship that is so hard to turn? I am breathing heavily. Terror has opened like a pit at my feet. I sway and stagger back to catch my balance.
A circle of faces, staring at me – afraid. Among them, Kate’s. I see that in her alarm she has clutched Culpeper’s hand. Her fear is so innocent, like a child’s in a thunderstorm.
There is blood trickling into my left eye. I wipe it with the back of my hand and hold the hand out to her. Almost reluctantly, she rises and comes to me.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” I murmur. “It’s those damned medicines they give me. They bring strange daydreams. But, as you see, the dreams pass in a moment.” She’s looking at the floor now. I tilt her chin up; I manage to smile. For a brief moment I have the strange sensation that something else is looking out through my eyes, smiling at her too. I say, “There is nothing to fear.”
♦ ♦ ♦ VI ♦ ♦ ♦
But there is something to fear. I fear to look in the mirror, in case I see his eyes in mine. I fear an empty room, an unturned corner, the slightest sound whose source is not instantly clear.
The boy’s appearance is an omen. I do not know what is coming, only that something is. And so I fear not just him, but everyone – men close at hand, men far away. A face in the crowd – any face. Disease.
I am diseased – dis-eased. On edge: I cannot sleep. And yet, for the hours in the day when I am with Kate, for the hours in the day when I am without pain, I think I am the happiest I have ever been. It is a strange, contradictory existence.
As summer approaches, I plan a progress: I will take Kate and my Court to the third of my kingdom that I have never seen: to the North. To those benighted shires where the most brutish of my subjects still cling to the lies peddled by the bishop of Rome – the one they call Pope – and where the weeds of rebellion spring up year after year, and must be hacked down in cold blood. These northern men have never seen the magnificence of their king, nor his might. A thousand soldiers will accompany me – it will be a show of strength.
But as I turn to the North I must watch my back, too: in London, the Tower must be cleared of prisoners before we go, to alleviate the risk of unrest in my absence – for who knows what form the evil will take this time. I insist that the job be done thoroughly: even the elderly Countess of Salisbury, my daughter Mary’s erstwhile governess, is hustled out one windy morning to the block. Her Popeloving sons intrigue against me in their exile, abroad. I cannot be too careful.
And so, in July I set off – with my Queen and Court, with my soldiers, with five thousand fine horses and two hundred tents and pavilions. It is unseasonably wet, and the carts and wagons of our vast baggage train founder in the flooded and muddy roads. But at last we make it: to Lincoln and Pontefract, to Hull and York.
We wear cloth of gold, my simple-hearted, loving little Kate and I, our outfits embroidered with each other’s initials. In the cathedrals, we have incense swung and prayers said over us, calling on God to grant us long life and many children. My subjects kneel to me in their hundreds, cheer for me in their thousands. But I am scanning the crowds, always – scanning the faces for signs of ill intent.
As the days of the progress pass into weeks, however, my agitation begins to ease. I begin to settle more fully into my happiness. I begin to look forward to the birth of the Duke of York – for surely Kate will give me a son soon.
At the end of October we return, in easy stages, to Hampton Court. I order a thanksgiving to be held in the chapel there for the joy Kate has brought me. I attend it on All Saints’ Day, and hear Mass in public beneath the blazing blue and gold of the ceiling. Gilded angels hang above me, stars twinkle in the manmade firmament, and my motto declaring my divine right to rule, written in gold, stripes the sky like the tail of a comet.
The next day is the Feast of All Souls. I go to Mass again, but more privately this time: in my closet on the chapel’s balcony. Entering it, I see my familiar cushions and prayer books, my spectacles resting as always on a folded silk handkerchief – plus something unusual.
There is a letter on my chair.
♦ ♦ ♦
“This is a lie.” The door to my closet bangs against the wall as I come out. I’m holding the letter. “This is an evil lie. Bring me the person who cooked up this filth.”
Half a dozen of my gentlemen are standing in the passageway, rigid with alarm. No one moves.
“Christ! Jesus Christ!” I crumple the letter and throw it, hard, down the passageway. I grab the nearest man by the doublet. It’s Denny. “I. Am. Happy. With. Her. You understand?” I shove him aside; Denny staggers.
The letter contains accusations ag
ainst Kate. That her innocence is a pretence. That she had lovers before we were married – several. But more than this. Much more. That, on the progress just completed, in Lincoln and Pontefract and York, she and Tom Culpeper met by night while I slept in my apartments.
Tom Culpeper? That pretty, roguish boy? I can believe he is a fool, but he is no traitor. His accuser must be a jilted woman, or a man jealous of his looks and charm.
And Kate… my devoted, artless Kate. Is this what the boy’s appearance signified: not a death, but an attempt to destroy my happiness?
I yell, “What are you waiting for? Bring me the wretch who did it. Bring me the man who spewed up this stinking, putrefied fantasy.”
Denny, having straightened his doublet, hesitantly steps towards me, with something in his hand. “Sir?”
“What?”
“You might need to take a look at this, sir.”
Another piece of paper. He pushes it at me quickly then steps back, as if I will bite.
“What is it?” Holding the paper, I’m still looking at him. He sucks in his lips. He won’t answer.
I look down. It’s a letter, closely written.
Master Culpeper…
I recognise the writing – awkward, clumsy. It is hers. What trick is this?
I never longed so much for anything as I do to see you…
…It makes my heart die to think that I cannot be always in your company…
I am confused; it cannot be hers. I look to the end.
Yours as long as life endures, Kate.
And a fault? she had said.
That she is already married, he had replied.
And she had laughed.
I take a step back and jolt against the wall. My legs buckle; the letter crumples as I do, sliding down. My bad leg won’t bend – I fall part of the way; catch myself with my hand against a wooden chest.
I turn myself into the corner between chest and wall. My fists are shielding my face. I am sobbing.
♦ ♦ ♦ VII ♦ ♦ ♦
Dark, dark, dark within. I am plagued by strange dreams, from which I wake smothered by sweatsoaked sheets and an undefinable feeling of dread.
And I begin to see him everywhere. Scan any mass of people long enough, and I will spot him. In a crowd-lined street, in the stands at a tournament, glimpsed amongst a huddle of courtiers: he is always there – he is always watching me.
Some days I gaze in the looking glass and see him behind me. Or I see his eyes in mine. Through an archway, I spot him, waiting. If I glance down into the garden he will be standing in the shadows, looking up at me. Sometimes he peeps at me through a half-open door.
But if I lunge for him, he is never there. I learn not to do it. I learn to endure his appearances. To turn away. I know now that he will never leave me.
And sometimes I feel movement in my mind, and sometimes none. I am no longer so sure that it is God. And I think of the Devil, and evil spirits, and I shudder… but I know that however viciously they attack me, I will not be defeated; I am a creature of light and blessedness.
Culpeper goes to the block in December, Kate two months later.
Evil stalks the land. If you don’t believe it, you are a fool.
♦ ♦ ♦
What is this sense I have of being in a speeding cart, racing, horseless, down some steep slope? I dream of it…
The days pass so quickly – I blink and a year is gone. And somehow the hours of pain are drawn out and lengthened. The pain, and the night. While the sunlight flees from me, and the flowers bloom only for a breath.
Sometimes I wake and think she is beside me in the dark. Anne. Watching me, her eyes glittering with laughter.
I wake to find my fingers clawing at the bedcovers, scratching the silk.
♦ ♦ ♦ VIII ♦ ♦ ♦
“Sir?”
“Mm?” I open my eyes.
“The bandages on your leg. Are they more comfortable now?”
“A little. You are gentle. Your fingers are more skilled than those infernal doctors’.” I gesture vaguely. “You may read again.”
The young woman opens the book at its ribbon marker; I settle myself against the cushions piled behind me.
It is summer again. I have married again. A widow, this time: Kathryn, the sister of one of my Knights of the Garter, William Parr. She is a young lady with a grave, gentle face, a dependable, thoughtful nature and a known past. This morning she has been reading to me from a new translation of the Proverbs of Solomon. As she scans the words, she frowns a little.
“Let mercy and faithfulness never go from thee; bind them about thy neck, and write them in the tables of thine heart.”
“Amen to that,” I say. “Put a mark in the margin.”
She rests the book in her lap, takes a pen from the table beside her and dips it in ink; I watch her draw a small pointing hand on the page.
The windows are shaded, the room a softly lit clutter of books and papers, maps and medicine boxes. The only sounds are the scratch of the pen and a repetitive tapping as the weighted hem of a curtain, lifted by the breeze, scrapes against the edge of a table. I know that if I were to go to the window, I would see him, somewhere outside, watching.
Kathryn puts down the pen and looks at me, considering. “Later, sir, if you are not too tired, might you like to watch Prince Edward in the tiltyard? You expressed an interest…? He has been working hard. And your daughters are keen to accompany you, if you wish it.”
I close my eyes. “They’re both here, are they? I thought Mary was at Hunsdon.”
“She was, sir. But she arrived here yesterday.”
I don’t reply. After a moment Kathryn adds, “You are blessed with such loving children, sir. They are all eager to have the honour of seeing you.”
Beside my daybed stands a silver pan in which perfume is being heated. Gusts of rose-scent drift to me with each gentle inrush of air from the window. They cover, mostly, the smell of my ulcerated leg.
The tiltyard does not see much of me these days. I grunt, and indicate the book with my hand – Kathryn resumes reading.
♦ ♦ ♦
I go as far as the orchard in my carrying chair, my feet supported on its footstools, four gentlemen bearing the weight, one at each corner.
I don’t, though, want my son to see me in it; I have the men put me down well before the tiltyard gate and I walk the rest of the way, my arm through Kathryn’s, my other hand grasping my black and silver stick. The sun is warm; by the time I reach the gate I am sweating.
There is hardly a breath of wind – the flags at the top of the tiltyard towers droop against their poles. In the sandy space before the building, they have put up an open-fronted pavilion to provide some shade. Two figures start forward from it to greet me: dark shapes gliding across the dusty ground.
“Your daughters, sir,” Kathryn murmurs. I set off towards them.
Walking takes all my concentration. I do not see that I am upon them now; that they have halted in front of me and dropped into curtsies, their heads bowed. I stop, my breathing harsh in my own ears. I swallow. I say, “You may both rise.” I hold out my hand to each in turn for them to kiss.
Mary is dressed in black today, Elizabeth in red. Elizabeth is only ten – or is it eleven? I forget. Whatever she is, she is disconcerting; watchful like her mother, and precociously self-possessed. Despite the heat of the day, her long, pale fingers feel cold as they touch me; I withdraw my hand quickly.
Mary – bony, sallow Mary; where did the pretty little scrap of a child go? – is, by contrast, disconcerting only in her continued presence. Being well into her twenties, she should have been married off long ago. But her status as the product of an invalid marriage has proved a… well, a cause for uncertainty, shall we say, among the royal bridegrooms of Europe.
Now, as she straightens and releases my hand, her birdsharp eyes are checking for the smallest sign of approval or dissatisfaction. At least she is eager to please, these days. That, in itsel
f, pleases me.
My daughters step back to either side, revealing a smaller figure some way off, just now breaking free of a cluster of gentlemen-servants: a perfect knight in miniature, hurrying towards me, the sunlight catching blindingly on the surface of his gilded armour.
Edward – already, at seven, the most significant person in Christendom, who will be, when I am gone, the greatest king to walk this earth since the days of Solomon and David – stops in front of me, biting his lip, and kneels.
I ruffle the red-gold hair, then raise him up and pinch his cheeks – pinch some colour into them. “My jewel. My boy.”
He smiles, pleased and a little awkward. “It is an honour to see you, sir.”
I turn him to face the girls, holding him in front of me by the shoulders. I say, “Kneel to him. Both of you. One day you may have to beg him for your lives if you have displeased him. Eh, Edward?”
“Yes, Father,” he says, as Mary and Elizabeth each obediently pay him homage. “I will always be merciful to my sisters.”
“Promise nothing, Edward.” I bend to whisper in his ear. “Trust no one.”
The boy, for a moment, looks profoundly uncomfortable. I pat his shoulder, my rings clinking on the metal. “Well then, son. Show me what you can do.”
I retreat to the shade of the pavilion. I think I glimpse a figure in the shadows of its farthest corner; determinedly I turn away, towards the light, and sit in the large chair provided. Edward takes the sword a servant passes to him – an elegant blade, the perfect length and weight for his size.
Not far from me a wooden stake five feet high has been set firmly into the ground. It is thick and has been gouged with a pattern: lines and crude features make it look like a man – a docile opponent with whom to practise single combat.
In a moment I’m on my feet again.
“Step in and out quickly! Quicker than that! Vary the attack! Come on: head, sides of the body! Go for the thighs!”