The Eyes of a King

by Catherine Banner

  The next morning there was a knock on the door at about eleven o’clock. I glanced in the mirror, straightened out my shirt collar, ran my fingers through my hair, and went to answer it. It was Maria, of course, carrying the baby. “Hello,” I said. “Come in; my grandmother is out.” She was wearing a dressing gown.

  “Hello, Leo,” she said. “You are looking dashing this morning.” Dashing? She did it on purpose, for sure.

  “Sorry about what I’m wearing,” she said. She said this as if she had on a dress that was too old or too casual for a party, not a dressing gown in front of a boy. “Anselm threw up on my clothes—little angel—and the rest are drying.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “Er … sit down.” She did.

  “This is a change from sitting about by myself,” she said.

  “What—sitting about with me?”

  She laughed. “Your mother’s always out?” I asked.

  “Yes, she works at the market full-time now. At the fruit and vegetable stall.”

  “Mr. Pearson’s?”

  “How did you know?”

  “My grandmother talks to him sometimes. I don’t know him well.”

  I was trying to think of something to say before the silence drew out any longer, when the downstairs doorbell jangled loudly. “Probably my grandmother,” I said.

  “Should we answer it?”

  “Mrs. Blake downstairs will. She always does.”

  I stood up to go to the apartment door. But the voice that came from downstairs was not my grandmother’s; it was a man’s deep monotone, asking a question that I could not hear. Mrs. Blake answered quietly. The man spoke again, more loudly, and I could have sworn that I heard “Leonard North.”

  “Did he just say my name?” I whispered, frozen in midstep halfway to the door.

  “Is your real name Leonard?” Maria whispered back.

  “Originally.”

  “Then he did. It was ‘Leonard North.’ ”

  “But who—” A loud thumping on the door interrupted me. I stepped forward and opened it without thinking.

  The man looked to be about fifty, with a sharp-boned face and reflective glasses that captured the whole room. I saw the worry in Maria’s face reflected there and, stupidly, smiled at her tiny reflection. I realized I was actually smiling at the man. He did not return it. Instead, he flashed some sort of official pass at me but snapped it back down to his side before I could see what it said.

  “Ethan Dark,” he said. “Truancy officer. Are you Leonard North?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you aware that you should be in school?”

  “Er … yes, I’m aware of it….”

  “Why aren’t you there, then?”

  I explained what had happened the week before. “You passed out?” said the man, as though he was not impressed by that. I nodded. “So that was last week,” he said. “And you are still at home.”

  “I’m supposed to be resting. It’s dangerous to go out with so much silent fever about.” The man smiled, curling his lip up like a snarling dog, as if I was an anxious old woman, and I did not appreciate that.

  Anselm began a shrill wailing. Maria tried to quiet him, and the man frowned. “Legally, I am not required to be in school,” I told him loudly.

  “I think I know better than you what the law is on this matter.”

  “Most fifteen-year-olds are working. You do not trace them like this because they are not at school.”

  “Mr. North, you are among the privileged few. You are officially registered as a military cadet. If you wish to work, clear that with the authorities. If not, you are required to be in school, eight-thirty to three-thirty, five days a week. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Is this standard? Do you hunt down everybody who misses two weeks’ school?”

  “Mr. North, I am not here to argue with you. I have other important business to attend to. If you are not in school next week, this visit will be followed up.”

  “Who sent you here?”

  “I said I am not here to argue.”

  “Can I see that pass again, please?” But he was already on his way back down the stairs. Anselm’s crying settled to a quiet grizzling, then stopped altogether, as if it had been the presence of the man that had upset him. Perhaps it had. He had a very brash presence.

  The man turned again and called back, “You will be in school on Monday morning, or this will be followed up. I trust you value your future career as a soldier.” I leaned out the doorway and stuck two fingers up at his retreating back and my future career as a soldier.

  As he let himself out the front door, he collided with my grandmother, and she looked up at me, question in her face. When she reached the apartment, I took her shopping from her and shut the door behind her. “Who was that?” she said, rubbing her hand where the basket handle had cut into the palm.

  “Truancy officer.” She looked at me with evident concern and then saw Maria and Anselm.

  “Hello, Mrs. North,” Maria said, standing up. “I am Maria, from the apartment upstairs. Leo said I could come over. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Oh, not at all …,” said Grandmother. She was looking at Maria’s dressing gown.

  “Oh yes, sorry about this,” said Maria. “I’m afraid my baby was sick on my only clean clothes, and …”

  “Ah,” said Grandmother. “No matter, anyway. I am glad to meet you, Maria. I have heard a lot about you.” She held out her hand and Maria took it, shifting Anselm up her arm to do so. “And what a charming baby!” Grandmother exclaimed, looking at Anselm. “He looks very like you.”

  “Yes, people say that often.”

  Baby Anselm stretched out a small hand to her, gurgling, and my grandmother smiled. “May I hold him?”

  “Of course.” Maria tipped the baby into her arms. He flapped his hands and feet but did not start to cry again.

  “So, what is this about a truancy officer?” Grandmother asked, rocking the baby.

  “That man was apparently a truancy officer,” I said. “And he says that I have to go back to school on Monday or he’ll follow up the visit. He was very insistent.”

  “He looked angry. You weren’t rude to him, were you, Leo?” I opened my mouth, then closed it again. She turned to Maria. “Was he?”

  “Only where it was justified,” Maria said.

  Grandmother laughed reluctantly. “Aye, for sure. Leo is so disrespectful—the number of times I have told him!” Her face grew serious then. “But who has sent this man? The headmaster told Stirling only yesterday that it was perfectly all right for you to go back next week. Surely they do not need to send the truancy officer round here.”

  “Perhaps it was Sergeant Markey,” I said. “You know that he hates Stirling and me.”

  “Well … it may be …,” she said. “We will not find out, anyway.” And we did not speak about it again.

  On Saturday evening I was staring out the window, and Stirling was lying on the floor, trying to read the newspaper. “N-O. No. R-E-S … R-E.” It said “No Rest at the Border,” but I didn’t tell him. Grandmother was sewing more of those squares I had seen her making before when she suddenly exclaimed, “Oh—I had forgotten about that!” and stood up.

  “Forgotten about what?” Stirling asked her, but she had already left the room.

  “She is almost as bad as you,” I told him.

  Grandmother returned and touched my shoulder. “What is it?” I asked, then saw that she was holding out a book—that strange black book I had found.

  “It is yours,” she said. “I am sorry to have taken it. It was on the windowsill and I picked it up.”

  I had forgotten again about the book until I saw it now in her hand. I was sure that I had not left it on the windowsill. “Did you read it?” I said.

  “No. I intended to, but I changed my mind.” I glanced up at her, and I could see that she was telling the truth. In any case, Grandmother never lied. “It would not have been right to read
it,” she said. “I knew it was yours.”

  I was surprised. I had always thought that she didn’t trust me. I took it silently and put it into my pocket. She patted my shoulder briefly, and I gave her a quick smile. “I am sorry I took it,” she said.

  That night I looked through the pages to check if there was any more writing. There was none. Stirling asked what it was, so I told him. “It’s like a story,” he said. “Finding a magic book. As long as it is not evil magic.”

  “No,” I told him. “I do not think it is.”

  But how could I be sure? I put the book in the chest under the windowsill, right at the bottom. It would have been better to put it under my pillow, but I felt somehow as though it would be dangerous for it to be so close to my head.

  The stars were bright that night. I stood at the window and watched them and wondered who had written in the book. Stirling could barely print his own name, and Grandmother wrote with difficulty. It was neither of them, and it was not me. Then who? I might find out. But I was beginning to doubt it. It was one of those unexplainable things, that was all.

  I looked for the star called Leo, but I had never known where in the sky it was. It might be any among those thousands; it was pointless, then, to search for it. But still I did, and often. There was one that I thought it might be—one of the palest in the center. Then again, perhaps it could not even be seen from here. It always made me sad when I didn’t know which star was Leo. I don’t know why. Later, when I fell asleep, I was still trying to guess.

  When I woke on Sunday, the sunlight had already reached my bedcover. I got up straightaway. A heavy thud on the floorboards made me start; I had knocked something onto the ground. Looking down, I saw that it was the book.

  I stared at it and then at the windowsill, where I remembered leaving it. I had put it right into the chest there, under my clothes, the day before. I had not touched it since. I would have sworn it on my life.

  Stirling would remember. He had seen me do it. I left the book where it lay, taking care not to step near it, and went out into the living room to find him.

  On the table was Friday’s newspaper, “Gone to church” scrawled on it in my grandmother’s shivery handwriting. Then it was past ten o’clock. The writing carelessly marched across the face of Lucien’s man Ahira, an artist’s impression. They always drew him from the left-hand side—his left, that is—because of the scar across the right side of his face. Underneath the picture was the headline: retreat is not surrender. The war was not going well, then, although it was hard to tell from the newspaper.

  I went back into the bedroom and frowned at the book. It had fallen spine up, so that some of the pages were folded against the floor. When I picked it up, the bent pages forced it to flap open, and I saw at once that the crinkled, written-on section was thicker. Someone had written in it again!

  I sat down on the windowsill and found the place where the previous writing had ended. It was very strange. The text finished halfway down one page, and the next page was blank. There were several more empty pages. I flicked through them until I found where the next section of writing began.

  “Field,” said Raymond one day. The butler had been with him several months now. “Would you drive me to the seaside? I have not been for so long, and I thought we might take a drive up there.”

  “The seaside?” The butler nodded. “Certainly, sir. I will go and get the car ready. Anywhere in particular?”

  “Graysands Beach,” said Raymond. “It is not far.”

  It was the beginning of the tourist season. They went out to the little island. They were the only ones on the boat, which clanged in mournful tones as they moved over the wide, dark sea. “Was there any special reason you wanted to come here?” asked the butler as they walked along the gravel beach that ran around the island. The sun had come out, and spring was stirring in the air. A couple of mangy seagulls flapped and screeched overhead.

  “I used to come here when I was a lad,” said Raymond. “With my friend, I used to come here. We’d walk for hours around this island.”

  The butler was eating chips. He threw one carelessly into the oily water and watched the seagulls fight over it, screaming. “What happened to this friend? Did he go away from here?”

  Raymond sat down on a rock and rested his walking stick against his knee, frowning at the carved handle. “He went away, yes. He joined the army and went to war. You should have seen the medals he won! They sent them to me after he went. They aren’t part of my collection, of course. They’re just in a box somewhere in the attics.”

  Raymond looked up then. He found it hard to judge the butler’s reaction from his expression. “I am boring you, perhaps,” he said warily.

  “No, no. On the contrary.” The butler frowned slightly. “I am surprised you never went into the army yourself, sir. That was my thought.”

  “Yes.” Raymond gazed out over the dark water. “I used to want to be in the army once, you know.”

  “Truly, sir?” The old man had never mentioned it before. “What made you change your mind?” And then, “Sorry, sir. I am forgetting my place.”

  Raymond always thought that it seemed to amuse Field to say things like “I am forgetting my place.” “No, no, do not apologize, Field,” he said. “It was a long time ago, and I ought to …” He twisted the carved top of the walking stick in his palm. “I failed the medical.”

  The butler nodded but did not say anything. “The problem was my heart,” Raymond went on. “I’ve always had trouble with it.” He smiled faintly. “It’s funny. It mattered to me so much at the time, not getting into the army, and I never really got over it. Even now, if I could change something—one thing—about my life, it would be that. If I could have done.”

  “I daresay your mind was set on it for a long time.”

  “Yes. Ever since I was a young boy.”

  “And I suppose you used to plan it with your friend. I expect you always thought you would go together.” The butler scattered the last chips for the seagulls and folded the paper. “Perhaps you were walking up and down this beach planning it and came home to find that Britain had declared war, and you swore to go together.”

  Raymond stared at the butler. “How did you know that?” he demanded.

  The butler studied the gravel in front of his feet. “Just a guess. I hope you do not think I am speaking out of line.”

  There was a silence. “It’s still cold this time of year,” said Raymond then, getting to his feet. “Doesn’t do to sit still.”

  The sun was setting as the boat rocked away from the island. The butler leaned over the side and threw something into the water. “What was that?” asked Raymond.

  “Nothing. Just a stone.”

  Raymond thought he had seen something glitter before it sank, but he was weary that day and had no strength to question the butler further. He had learned, anyway, in these past months, that it was pointless. Field told him what he wanted to, and nothing more than that.

  “You know,” said Raymond, looking back at the island. “I think I’m going to die. I really do. I’m going to die soon.”

  “No, sir,” said the butler. “No, you are not. You may live twenty years more.”

  “Now I’ve seen that island again, it doesn’t matter. It’s funny; it used to look beautiful to me in the old days, but it’s nothing special.”

  “I am glad to have been here,” said the butler, turning back to watch the sun spread, glittering, over the sea.

  “Sir?” said the butler as they drove home through the darkness. “Sir, I have been meaning to ask you something ever since I came here.”

  Raymond turned in his seat to face the butler. “I wondered if you ever knew a lady called Emilie,” Field continued. “She used to live near here a few years ago.”

  “Emilie?” said Raymond, frowning. “A French name. It is familiar. What was the lady’s surname?”

  “Field.”

  Raymond was startled. “A relative of
yours, then?”

  A bird leapt into the headlights, and the butler swerved. “My brother’s wife,” he said, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. “His wife or his partner—I don’t know. My brother was in England before me, several years ago. He was very close to this lady, but he did not treat her as he should have done. Harold was not the best of men.”

  “You have never spoken about your family before,” remarked Raymond. The butler did not reply. “But tell me, what did your brother do wrong?”

  “I understand he lived with this lady for some years. Even if they were not married, there were certainly children. Then he got up one day and left them all. I don’t know why. I have never understood Harold. But I wanted to find this lady, this Emilie, and set things right. I believe that she lived near here in those days.”

  “There was an Emilie Devere in the village,” began Raymond slowly. “Yes, she worked in the Red Lion. She had two little girls—Monica and Michelle, I think their names were. But she moved down south about twenty years ago. I saw the husband once, actually, when he was around. A flashy sort of man, and very high-spirited.”

  “That is Harold,” said Field quietly. “It must have been.” He glared at the dark road ahead.

  “Was he really so bad, your brother?” said Raymond.

  “He was a great gambler when he was a young man. It nearly ruined us all. His behavior made my sister ill with worry on several occasions, and I find that hard to forgive. She was always so devoted to him. She even named her son Harold. And he treated her like that in return. You know, sir, all the time he was in England—six years—we none of us knew where he was. But then, he was never in higher spirits than when people were crying over him and he could come sauntering in and make everything all right.”