Connecticut Vampire in King Arthur's Court

by Hall, Ian

  Wow, I didn’t expect that; the Prince actually feared his father.

  “And with the impending birthday, comes my marriage to this stranger and the nuptials that I must consequently endure.”

  Oh, my sainted aunt. A boy has a birthday in two weeks, and rather than it is an occasion for longing and wonderment, it becomes a date which he has come to loathe because of the pressures it brings.

  “Your Grace, you must begin to look forward to your arriving Princess with joy and longing.” I still let my breath dally over his face. “You will be King one day, and rule the country, and be master of your own destiny. You must begin to look forward to the day when there is joy in the court of King Arthur.”

  “King…” he started, but the word trailed off.

  “King Arthur,” I said firmly. “Say it to me. King Arthur.”

  “King… I cannot!” he snapped, turning away from me, my control lost. “For me to be King, I must hope the death of the present King, and that is treason!”

  I realized his dilemma. “No, Your Grace.” I walked around to face him. Arthur’s face had grown a deathly pale, and tears built up in his eyes. “Not hope for his death, the act of which you correctly label as treason, but a realization that the King is not immortal, and will one day go to his maker. It is a realization of the life and death of us all. You will be King one day, and I shall stand by your side.”

  Then a very strange thing happened. Tears came unbidden to his face, and he looked at me like he’d just found a puppy or something. “You will stand by me?”

  I felt the emotion in the room. “Your Grace, I have been sent to educate you. You are my charge, and I would lay down my life for you.”

  Well, you see, we Americans are well used to hugging, and I stepped forward and embraced him, pressing my hands on his back. “You’ll turn out fine, Your Grace, don’t worry.”

  I felt him cry onto my shoulder for a moment, then his hands eventually found my back and I felt him return the grip.

  That moment proved a distinct shift in our relationship.

  As a kid, when I went on vacation with my parents, my mom packed in like, an hour. We’d jump in the old station wagon, and we’d be off. If we’d forgotten something; it stayed forgotten.

  The royal household in Ludlow Castle took four days to pack the wagons for the journey, although for the clothes the poor Prince owned, I could have packed them in minutes. He seemed to have only two tunics, both old and worn, obviously hand-me-downs.

  Thankfully, the hustle and bustle both blocked the continued ardor of Lady Jane, not that I didn’t fancy another meeting, but because of propriety, we had to keep our ‘relationship’ discreet. It also sent Princess Margaret into a whirlwind of longing to see her precious ‘London’ again, and thus kept her out of my hair. I can do without child sex fiends, thank you very much.

  “Will you ride or travel by coach?” Linacre asked as the final preparations were put in place.

  Not knowing how my vampire scent would affect a horse on close proximity, I chose the latter, and as the convoy assembled on the castle grounds, I found myself in a coach with Linacre, Prince Arthur, and the young Prince Henry.

  Gruffydd sat mounted on a large black mare, matching his usual black doublet. He rode with two older men; Sir William Uvedale and Sir Richard Croft, both of whom I’d seen in the last few days at Ludlow. Both were courtiers of the King, with special duties to the King in waiting, Prince Arthur.

  We travelled ten bone-jarring miles that first day, stopping at an Inn at Leominster. Not my idea of travel. And due to the ‘royal party’ getting priority on bedrooms, I slept rolled up in a blanket in the small stable.

  The next morning, with my body still aching from the first day in the coach, I tried approaching the horses. To my eternal gratitude, none of them seemed to pay the slightest bit of attention to my vampire side. Having done a bit of riding on vacation once in Colorado, I procured a mount for the day, and it made the next segment of the trip far more bearable.

  At every juncture I could, I spent private time with the Prince. I built him up, I brought up the ‘King’ word much more often, and I tried to prepare him for meeting this father-figure that he’d built up to the size of an ogre in his mind.

  I often found Gruffydd at his side also, and the two seemed to share a good bond of friendship, although there were almost ten years between them.

  Hereford turned out to be the ‘stop’ at the end of the second day. I shook my head at the sluggish pace of travel. I had covered the distance in minutes when looking for the arrival of the real tutor. After Hereford, we endured a long segment to Cheltenham; a much bigger town, and the first time people actually lined the streets to gawk and wave at the royal procession.

  “Hail Arthur!” and “Prince of Wales!” were heralded so many times; even the Prince himself began to grin at the public adulation. He waved from the open window of the carriage and eventually began to call back to the onlookers.

  The next day, Prince Henry also took to a horse, swearing at the stablemen that his ‘arse’ couldn’t take one more day being flailed by the coach’s hard seating.

  He proved a fine horseman, often galloping up and down the convoy, passing the ponderous coaches at some speed.

  “Why don’t you ride, Your Grace?” I asked across the dinner table that night. Arthur looked thoroughly uncomfortable sitting on the bench, shifting position constantly as he ate.

  “I dare not,” he said, his voice low, only meant for my ears. “The King would be consumed with worry.”

  “But he would not know.” I shook my head.

  “He would know.” Arthur looked from side to side, seemingly in the direction of Uvedale and Croft. “He has spies everywhere; they tell him everything I do.”

  I pondered this for a moment. “Just ride alongside me, Your Grace. No one’s asking you to race around like Prince Henry. We can tell everyone that it’s for the good of your health.”

  “We will see,” he said reluctantly, but I knew he’d crumbled.

  In any case, the heavens opened up the next day, and anyone who had a seat in a coach took it. The roads rutted deeper in the mire they called a road, and the whole caravan almost ground to a halt. Luckily Gruffydd knew of a safe house close by, and diverted a mile off the road to a large building in Cleveley Wood.

  Sir John Rich, a longtime supporter of the King, made us welcome, and although I hadn’t ridden that day, sitting in the coach to keep out of the rain, my clothes were still quite sodden. Luckily there was a fire in my bedroom, and although we only had an hour before dinner, I stripped, and hung them over the fire to dry.

  A knock sounded at my door and I pulled a blanket from the bed and draped myself quickly. “Yes?”

  The door opened and Princess Margaret quickly ducked into the room, closing the door behind her. “Oh, my,” we both said together.

  “It seems that I have you at a disadvantage, Master DeVere.”

  “Yes, Madam,” I hissed, forgetting the proper title in my nervousness. “And you better leave, or your father, the King, will have me shot.”

  She looked at me askance. “What a strange expression.” Then she approached, and rubbed my arm and shoulder. “You are indeed cold, Master DeVere, perhaps you’d like me to stroke you, to get you warm?” Her voice held a triple shot of double entendre.

  “No thank you, Your Grace.” I awkwardly brushed her hand from me. “I can perform that function quite well on my own, thank you.”

  “That’s hardly what you said when the Lady Jane offered her services.” She advanced further, and her hand fumbled at the blanket covering my waist. “Just let me see.” An irritation had crept into her voice.

  “Margaret!” I hissed in rebuke.

  Then the door opened, and Prince Arthur walked right in. He looked at us, frozen in our embarrassing situation, unfocused his eyes, then fell limply into a pile on the wooden floor.

  “Shit!” I rushed to his side, my blanket falling off
my shoulders. I put my hand on his beading forehead; hot, very hot. “He’s burning up!” I turned to Margaret as I scrambled to pick him up from the floor. “What do I do?”

  “Take him to his bedchamber, I’ll go get Gruffydd,” she snapped, her face suddenly serious.

  “Show me to his quarters, quickly!”

  I hate to say that Margaret paid more attention to me, my base ass and my undercarriage than she did to Arthur’s condition, but she did direct me to his room, where I laid him on the bed.

  “Margaret!” I scolded her, lifting her eyes from my groin. “Get Gruffydd, and get broth, hot tea, anything.” I pointed to the low fire in the hearth. “And get some wood for the fire. We need to get some heat in this room to drive the dampness away.”

  The Prince rose onto his elbows. His eyes looked to hold some form of delirium, but he took a deep breath and spoke slowly. “Maggie? No one must know of this.”

  She rushed to his bedside and pushed him back onto the soft pillows. “My promise.”

  Leaving them together, I ran back to my room, my nakedness not giving me the slightest cause for embarrassment, thankful for the deserted corridors.

  Moments later, my trews safely covering the object of Margaret’s apparent desire, I stood back in the Prince’s room. Gruffydd stood over him. Arthur was awake, but he looked deathly pale. “It is the rain.” His voice sounded rough and grating. “I can’t do rain very well, never could. The dampness gets to me.”

  “Don’t worry, Your Grace.” I closed the door behind the throng. “We’ll have you up and about in no time.”

  Margaret appeared at the door, logs clutched in her arms, awkwardly laying them near the fire. I pushed her gently out of the way, arranging the logs on the fire. “Why must it remain a secret?” I looked up at her.

  The Princess looked at Gruffydd, and he nodded.

  The Princess’s face had cleared of all her earlier coquettishness, all attempts at pre-teenage foreplay long forgotten. From the fear that fleetingly crossed her face, it appeared obvious she’d now admitted me into the ‘inner circle’. “Arthur has had illness for the last two years, but every time he tells the physicians, they bleed him, weakening him more.”

  Gruffydd’s expression looked filled with concern. “We took a chance; we hid his condition. We swear it is getting steadily better.”

  “They bleed him?” I couldn’t believe what she’d told me.

  “Yes, it defies both logic and everything I read from the scriptures.” Margaret crossed to the bed and placed her hand on Arthur’s forehead. “Now, when he becomes weak, we treat him secretly, thus avoiding the physicians. We swear he regains his strength much quicker.”

  “I’ll say. Bleeding a person can never be good for his health!”

  She rushed to my side and hugged me. Not the hug she’d tried for minutes ago in my room, but the hug of gratitude for a secret shared and kept.

  We kept watch on Arthur for most of the night, but well before dawn, he’d recovered enough to walk around. With a few bowls of meaty broth, both his color and good humor returned. Actually, I’d never seen him look better.

  “Do you eat the same food as everyone else?” I asked, slightly ashamed that I’d not noticed before now, my attentions elsewhere.

  “I eat mostly colorless soups, and white meats,” he replied.

  “Specifically prepared?”

  “Our father, the King, has appointed a cook who prepares all my food.”

  “And you, Margaret?” I turned to the Princess.

  “I eat from the general table. Henry, too.”

  I paced back and forth for a moment, then turned to Gruffydd Rhys, now dressed and ready for the day’s travel. “Who is the special cook for the Prince?”

  “Campion,” he said. “Tall, white hair; you must have seen him.”

  “Rat-like features,” the Princess added.

  “I’ll be back soon,” I said as I strode off down the corridor.

  I felt and heard Gruffydd right behind me.

  August, 1501

  The Plot

  We easily found Campion in the kitchen, preparing breakfast. He did indeed have rat-like features, and worked alone in the crowded room.

  I crossed to his side. “Master Campion, do you prepare the Prince’s meal?”

  He just about shit himself. If it hadn’t been such a serious situation, I’d have laughed out loud. “Eh, yes, eh, you’re the Prince’s tutor?” He looked from my face to Gruffydd’s.

  “Yes and here for both my meal and His Highness’s.” I flicked my fingers towards the plates. “My Prince will eat alone in his bedchamber this morning. Are the meals ready?”

  “They will be soon, eh, tutor.” He tried to wave me away, and I feigned reluctance to his wishes. From the doorway, I watched him treat the Prince’s oatmeal with various herbs, and once they were set on a large silver tray, a servant girl walked them to Prince Arthur’s room, where I followed.

  Back in the bedroom, Gruffydd and I both smelled and tasted the Prince’s gruel. Although we couldn’t find anything poisonous in the porridge, there certainly existed a strange smell which we had difficulty in identifying. “Something is amiss, Your Grace.”

  That morning, because I did not need human sustenance, Arthur ate my food, and I discarded the Prince’s porridge around the strewed herbs and grasses on the floor. I reckoned it would be noticed, but not until long after I’d dealt with Campion.

  Leaving the royal siblings to prepare for the day’s travel, I paid the kitchen another visit. Without disturbing the rest of the staff, I got Campion to follow me out into the courtyard. “Follow me,” I breathed close across his face.

  I walked towards the high hedges in the garden, and making certain he followed me, I led him to the extent of the cultivated garden, almost to the woodland beyond. Then certain of no witnesses, I grabbed him by the waist, threw him over my shoulder, and ran as fast as I could, ducking and dodging trees as I went. After about a minute, I stopped, throwing him on the ground.

  “Who’s paying you?” I leant over the cowering creature.

  He cringed further. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I leant in, and once more the vampire pheromones had him under my spell. “Who’s paying you to put that crap in Prince Arthur’s food?”

  “No one pays me,” he said, reeling from my fist in his face. “The physicians instructed me in the herbs to use.”

  “The physicians?” I asked. “Really?”

  “They said it was best.”

  “And who appointed them?”

  “His father, the King.”

  I breathed on him. “Forget the Prince, forget working for the court. Go find a job in an inn or something.” And hoping that my suggestion worked, I sped away, arriving just as the party prepared to leave Sir John’s considerable estate.

  As I turned to look for my horse, the ‘shimmering’ effect happened again. Not as much as when I’d killed the tutor, but I definitely saw and felt it.

  The only acceptable explanation seemed to be that when I changed history, this effect happened. The more pronounced, the bigger effect I had on the timeline. It seemed the only explanation. So I’d changed history, sending the cook away. Whatever.

  Back at the caravan, I saw Phillipa getting onboard the Princess’s coach, and suddenly remembered her heady conversation with a gentleman on my first night in Ludlow.

  “I lace his evening drink with my ‘special’ mixture every night. Have done for years.”

  Why, the little minx. As I approached, I cursed myself for not remembering sooner.

  “Lady Phillipa, good morning.” I startled her. “I would appreciate a private word.”

  We walked away from the buzz of activity. “Yes, Master DeVere?”

  “The sleeping draught that you give the Prince every night?”

  She blushed deeply, then looking to either side, recovered herself enough to answer. “Yes, what of it?”

  “Its cont
ents, and who first charged you with such a draught?”

  “Why, sir, it is just a weak infusion of chamomile,” she said, frowning slightly at my attentions. “Nothing more. I’ve given it to him for years. He had trouble sleeping when he was Henry’s age.”

  “I see.”

  “What is it to you?”

  “I tasted it, and just was interested,” I lied. “That’s all, my Lady. Have a pleasant day.” I bowed low theatrically and left, determined to stop the nightly practice. I joined Arthur in the coach that day, my main purpose just to keep a close watch over him in case of a reoccurrence of last night’s symptoms.

  That day we processed through the villages of Burford and Witney. Both had been alerted to our arrival, both sides of the muddy road were lined with waving peasants. To his credit, despite his sickness of the previous night, Arthur coped well with the adulation.

  “Think when you are King, Your Grace,” I said into his ear more than once. “Think how they will cheer for you then! King Arthur!”

  This time he looked more embarrassed than afraid.

  That evening we approached Oxford; at last, a town I recognized the name of. I stuck my head out of the coach’s window and looked ahead. Real houses, real buildings, the first considerable sign of civilization that I’d seen in my time here in 1501.

  The wayside inn looked immense. The Chancellery had thirty bedrooms, and for the first time, the mattresses felt relatively comfortable. But only relatively.

  I made sure the Prince ate what I did, putting both red meat and vegetables under his nose. He consumed them without protest, nodding appreciatively at his ‘new diet’.

  In the caravan, it proved difficult to keep out of everyone’s way, but somehow without trying to, I’d managed to dodge the Lady Jane.

  That evening after dinner, I literally bumped into her in the upper floor corridor.

  “Why, Lady Jane.” I grasped her by the shoulders to stop us colliding.

  “Master DeVere.” She looked directly into my eyes, and I swear my dick winced.

  “I enjoyed our little evening together,” I said, my fingers finding their way to her bare shoulders.