Princess Alice barely left his side, showing fortitude far beyond her age. Katie tried to beat down her resentment and shut out the bitter selfish voice. Alice needed her. When Alice did leave her father, Katie was there to make certain she had a cup of tea, or lay down to rest. One afternoon, as the Prince dozed, Katie walked on the East Terrace with her friend. Underneath her fur cloak, Alice’s dress sagged and dragged through the snow.
‘Alice, you’ve got a big family, can’t the others take some of the stress?’ Katie asked. ‘You’re worn out, absolutely exhausted, and so thin . . . You’re going to get sick yourself.’
A cold wind swept across the terrace. Alice took Katie’s arm, teetering slightly. ‘I am tired,’ Alice admitted, ‘and I am so worried.’
Katie gave her arm a sympathetic squeeze. ‘It must be awful. I can’t imagine. And it is so like you, to give your all to your father.’
Princess Alice walked along in silence. Then she turned to her friend with a face filled with anxiety and guilt. ‘It’s not just my father. It should be. That is my duty. But there is something else. Oh— I am an unnatural child, Sir Brendan is right . . .’
They stopped walking and Katie turned to her.
‘Alice, you couldn’t do something bad if someone offered you a million dollars to do it. How could you listen to Sir Brendan? I wish we could get rid of him. I know he’s up to something really awful.’
Princess Alice sat down on a stone bench. Fretfully she tunnelled into a mound of snow with her boot.
‘It’s . . . it’s . . . marriage! It’s what Sir Brendan said . . . about Louis of Darmstadt . . . he says I am going to be married to him . . . Oh Katie! Is this really all that life has for me? I so want . . . I want . . .’
For a moment, the secret black speck in Katie’s heart leapt up. She knew what Alice wanted. And if she got it, Katie would be left out in the cold, all alone again. But then a streak of winter light fell across Alice’s bowed head. Jealousy. Katie was jealous of her friend. The idea formed into words before her. Words had such power over her. Once Katie could see the words, she understood: she was being stupid. She must try harder and defeat this jealousy. She didn’t know what had hold of her, but she must fight back, through the strength of her friendship. Katie sat down next to Alice and put her arms around her. ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry over this. It would be a good thing, to talk it over I mean.’
Alice was completely silent. She turned so red it was painful to watch. ‘This isn’t something I should talk about,’ she finally said.
Katie didn’t laugh at her primness. She knew how hard this must be for Alice, being who she was; and living when she did. She tried to speak lightly to her friend.
‘You know Mimi, my mother? She pays someone two thousand dollars a month just to talk about this kind of stuff. And sometimes she wakes me up at 3 a.m. to have another crack at it. You’re a serious person, Alice, and this is important to you. Go ahead. Talk.’
Princess Alice shivered in the cold. Katie was freezing, but she knew enough to wait. This kind of conversation took time. Finally Alice spoke. ‘I didn’t have any idea that I might feel this way about, well . . .’
‘James,’ Katie supplied helpfully, and then was sorry, as Alice turned that dull aching red again and mumbled.
‘No, I didn’t know. And now I am so ashamed. Such a lack of modesty and discipline.’
Katie frowned. ‘But it’s not like you’ve done anything. I mean, kissed or . . .’
Alice jumped up from the bench. For a moment Katie thought she was going to run back into the Castle. ‘Of course not!’ Alice cried. ‘I would never behave in that manner. Nor would James O’Reilly. It has never entered his mind. These feelings are all of my own making and I bear the responsibility.’
If Katie hadn’t felt so sad, she would have smiled. ‘Never entered James’s mind? Alice, it’s all he thinks about. For him, it’s always been you. I mean, I know you’re a princess and everything, and I know how different your time is. But James has been raised in the Royal Court. He’s ever so nice and he’s going to have a great career. Isn’t there any way that could be enough?’
Hearing that James cared for her made Alice turn a different kind of red-rosy and happy for one moment. And then the colour drained from her face.
‘You don’t understand, Katie. It could never be. I had hoped to stay with my mother and father. I thought that James and I could continue on, as we always had; as friends, sharing notes on science and medicine . . .’
Katie looked at Alice. She lived a life of privilege and luxury, yet she wanted so little.
‘Hesse-Darmstadt is so very far away,’ Alice murmured, looked down at her hands.
Just then, James came out onto the terrace. He’d been talking with the doctors about hygiene in the sickroom and was wiping his hands with tar water. Peering down at the girls, he scowled. ‘It’s cold out here. Princess Alice is too frail for this weather.’
Alice kissed Katie on the cheek, and ran past James into Windsor Castle. Katie stopped to talk to him.
‘James,’ she said, ‘with all my heart, I’m sorry.’
He looked surprised. ‘You weren’t outside very long,’ he said. ‘And it’s easy to forget that Alice is delicate. She has such fortitude and strength of mind. But even you must be cold. Come inside. The Prince’s pulse rate is more regular. He’s sleeping now. Even I hope against hope.’
Yet, as the day turned to night, the Prince did not rally. And now the doctors feared for the Queen. For ten days her husband had been ill and she was numb with exhaustion. Towards midnight, after much cajoling, she agreed to rest on the sofa in her husband’s dressing room; the doctors had assured her there would be no crisis that night. She would only go, though, once Alice had promised to stay awake, all the night, at his side. As the candle burnt low, Katie made her way to her own bed.
When Katie reached her tiny room in the visitor’s apartments she didn’t even undress, just took off her shoes and loosened her stays. Within moments she was in a deep slumber. But just as quickly, about two hours later, she was awake. Eyes wide open, staring into blackness, as if she would never sleep again. Everything raced through her brain. They wouldn’t make Alice marry that handsome stranger. Sir Brendan must be wrong. She tossed and turned. Sir Brendan, a human mine field, an explosion waiting to happen. How dangerous was he? Would he really going to track down Sir Lewis Tappan?
Katie buried her head beneath her pillow. One of the biggest problems was . . . well . . . she was one of the biggest problems. Who had called her to this time? Were they responsible for her secrecy, her defensiveness, her anger? She could not fight off that strange, secret darkness – a tiny pinprick of evil – that leapt in the furthest reaches of her mind. The call of the Tempus had come before, and she’d grown to understand, she was a force for good. Alice believed in her and, grudgingly, so did James O’Reilly. Even Bernardo DuQuelle had been won over. But this time . . . Could she? Would she really harm her friends?
Katie swung her feet off the bed, and pulling her shoes on, laced them tightly. There was no point staying in bed. She was searching for her shawl when she heard a noise. Standing very still, she strained her ears; was Alice calling to her? No. The sound wasn’t coming from outside her door, or from the sickroom. Below her window all was silent. It was the sound she had come to expect and dread. The call was low but clear, and it was coming from inside her own head. It was not to be ignored. She took up the walking stick, for protection; lighting her candle, she opened the door. The hallway was quiet. Down from her little flight of stairs she could see the flickering reflection of the huge lamps that were left to burn all night. Katie followed the light, but instead of turning right, towards the Royal Apartments, she found herself turning left.
Soon she was outside, in the bitter winter night, the snow crunching underneath her feet. ‘I’ll turn back,’ she thought, but the voice within her head led her on. It wasn’t quite human and it wasn’t really a song. More o
f a rhythm she could not withstand. Katie could see a guard in the courtyard, so she slipped into the quadrangle and then struggled up the snow-covered hill to the monumental Round Tower of Windsor Castle. ‘Why?’ she asked herself. There was no answer, but her body had a strange confidence. This was where she must go.
The tower loomed above her, block after block of grey limestone, circling to a great height. She could just spy a small arched oak door on the far side. The voice inside told her: this door would not be guarded and it would not be locked. Entering, she could see a long, steep stairway. The entire passage was cave-like, as if carved through dense rock.
Slowly she climbed the stone steps, passing under squared and rounded arches, built for need rather than show. On and on she went, up the steps, worn deep in their centres by thousands of feet over hundreds of years. Her little candle flickered and sputtered but did not go out. The steps seemed endless, her remorseless tread echoing through the dark and empty tower. ‘It’s just one of those dreams,’ she reassured herself, ‘the kind where you are exploring the jungle, or being chased in a house. I’ll wake up soon.’ At the top of the stairs was another low wooden door. It swung open almost before she could touch it. Katie was hit by a blast of freezing winter air. Her candle went out. No dream was ever this cold.
She stood at the highest point of Windsor Castle, the battlements of the Round Tower. The winter wind was brutal and a simple shawl was no match for it. Katie crouched down, clutching the shawl, shivering. But her shivers were a mix of excitement and fear. Whatever it was, whatever had called her, it had to be here. There was nowhere else for her to go. Regaining her breath, she stood and staggered to the edge, clutching the large carved crenellations. It was a wild night, the clouds whipping across the sky. The snow below reflected the light of a full moon, giving, for a brief moment, the eerie sensation of full daylight.
The clouds raced across the moon, blotting out the light. All was darkness. Through the pitch black and the bitter wind she could sense something – another presence. Someone was there. She could hear it, the clear ring of a step against the frozen stone. Panic rose in her throat. Whatever this call to her had been, she should have resisted. Instinctively she edged towards the door, scraping her back against the castle parapets. She reached out her hand, making a grab for the door handle. Her foot slipped and a gust of wind propelled her backwards. She was between the gaps in the battlements, flailing, trying to regain her balance. With dread, she realized she was going over.
Chapter Fourteen
On the Battlements
Can you die in another time? Katie wondered, almost idly, in that split second between the battlements and thin air. Dolores flitted through her mind. How could she leave Dolores in another century? Even as she fought to regain her footing, Katie could see herself toppling backwards, headlong, arms splayed, into the snow below. It looked so soft, but it was certain to be a hard landing. Goodbye to James . . . goodbye to Alice. They must battle on alone to save Prince Albert.
And then a hand reached out. It grasped her firmly around the wrist and pulled her forward, back from the brink and onto her hands and knees. She struggled, hitting out with the walking stick, only for it to be torn from her grasp. She was still in grave danger. The wind lashed across the sky and the clouds were swept from the moon. She could see. Before her a figure loomed, cloak whipping, arm raised. A strange white face stared down at her. It was Bernardo DuQuelle.
‘You!’ she gasped. ‘You almost killed me.’
DuQuelle bent forward and, retrieving her walking stick, handed it to her politely. ‘On the contrary, I am trying to save you.’ He tapped his own walking stick against his chin, absentmindedly, as Katie caught her breath and sat back, wrapping her shawl tight around her.
‘I wonder why?’ DuQuelle continued. ‘Why should I save you? You are, of course, one of the Tempus Fugit, the three. The child who brings peace, the child who brings war – and you, Katie, the child who brings war and peace. Your great gift has always been that you can choose: war or peace, evil or good. Time and again, you have made that choice, the choice for good. But now, I have my doubts.’
Katie huddled on the floor, tapping the cane against the stones. She had her doubts too, and it was doubly worse hearing it from DuQuelle.
‘There is a darkness that blocks your thoughts,’ DuQuelle said. ‘I can no longer read them, and this fills me with dismay.’
The dark leaping thing rose up in Katie. What business was it of his? Bernardo DuQuelle had no right to try and control her.
DuQuelle sat down on the stone floor, next to her. He tucked the shawl firmly around her, and raising her chin with a long white finger, looked her in the eye. ‘Do you know, Katie? Why are you here?’
Katie opened her mouth, and then shut it. Part of her wanted to tell him, even the little she knew, but that terrible feeling stopped her. Pushing the dark thing to the back of her mind, she forced the words from her mouth.
‘I was led. Something called to me; the same thing that pulled me into this time.’
DuQuelle took her hand and held tight. ‘Who called you, Katie?’ he asked.
And now the blackness fought back. ‘It is still calling me,’ she said dreamily, ‘a strange dark joy, a thumping, a sliding, undulating dance within my head. It has such a lovely tempo, soft . . . throbbing . . .’
‘You must fight it,’ DuQuelle said.
Katie stood up, moving towards the sound. ‘It is like waves on the beach, lapping against fine sand. It is the wind, coming in low from the sea, circling the dunes.’
DuQuelle heard it too, and it was not a welcome sound. ‘You’ve been deceived,’ he told her. ‘It is the most horrible sound; sush-sush-sush – I cannot stand the rasp and slink of snakes.’ The sound was louder now, a rhythmic sliding and hissing as hundreds of undulating forms heaved themselves up the stone steps. They slithered round and round, towards the top of the tower. DuQuelle rarely showed emotion, but he blanched so white he was almost translucent. Reading his face, Katie felt dread spread through her body.
‘What have I done?’ she asked.
‘You have followed a most sinister siren’s song,’ DuQuelle replied. ‘But how could you not? Evil is so often more alluring than good.’ He took his own walking stick and tapped her lightly on the ear, first one, then the other.
A terrible knowledge swept through Katie. ‘I know who called me. I was fooled by the snow globe. I thought Princess Alice needed me. But it was Lord Belzen. I’ve been lured to this time. And now Lord Belzen has come to claim me.’
DuQuelle circled the tower, for once impervious to the cold. ‘Trapped at a great height, with only one way down, and an enormous slithering serpent blocking the way. Unless we choose to leap from the battlements, I do not see an escape,’ he murmured.
Katie dropped her head to her knees, covering her ears. Among the sliding snakes, a distinct footstep could be heard. ‘I can’t think! I can’t think!’ she cried.
DuQuelle stopped pacing. He lifted his head and seemed to confer with some unseen being. ‘Perhaps you do not need to think. Perhaps this is the time to trust in faith and simply choose. Of all the Tempus, you are the one with options. You are, after all, the child of peace and war. But you must understand you choices. It must be fair. There is no need to die. You can still go to Lord Belzen. He called you. He wants you. As long as you serve his purposes, your rewards would be far beyond anything I could bring you. It is your choice.’
She hadn’t thought of this. DuQuelle was right – again. There was great power in evil. And Lord Belzen possessed power in spades. She had no real place in this time. Sure, she was friends with Alice and James: but they really just wanted to be with each other. She was in the way. And in her own time . . . Mimi? She knew Mimi did need her and love her; but how much love could a completely self-centred, celebrity-obsessed mother actually give? Her modern world would get along perfectly well without her. It was a world where she just didn’t count. Why not go to L
ord Belzen? For once she would be important. She could fly through time with him. And as long as she did what he asked . . .
Katie looked out over the battlements, to the town of Windsor below and the countryside in the distance, imagining a life of such power.
DuQuelle cleared his throat. ‘You can see twelve counties from up here: Middlesex to Bedfordshire. Our friend James O’Reilly could probably recite them in order. He loves facts. And he always has gentle Alice to listen to them. She believes him to be almost perfect. Thank goodness he has a friend like you, Katie, to occasionally puncture his pomposity.’
Friends and friendship. It seemed a strange, bland thing to talk of at such a moment. But it cleared Katie’s mind. What luck, to have such friends. There was James, with his sharp, clean intellect. At the beginning he had questioned Katie’s story. But once he’d accepted it, he’d accepted her. Since then, their friendship had remained steadfast. He might be gruff, but he was truthful and loyal. On more than one occasion he had risked his life for Katie. How could she have resented his new affection for Alice, when their own friendship was stronger than ever?
And Princess Alice. From the beginning she had believed Katie. Alice had an entire kingdom of friends to choose from, yet she chose this awkward girl from another time. She had such a fine mind and natural kindness. No one gave Katie more confidence and happiness. In Alice, she had found that vital thing: a best friend, the sister she had always dreamed of. How could Katie have been bitter and jealous? Now her heart yearned to help her friend, as she knew the road ahead for Alice would be a rough one.
The Chronicles of the Tempus Page 57