VIII (3 page)

“If you see something that isn’t really there…”
I say slowly, “does it mean something’s wrong with you? In the head?” I can’t bring myself to say the word ‘mad’.

My mother looks down at me, her eyes hidden in shadow. The room is dark, the fire damped for the night, one lonely candle casting a pool of yellow light across my pillows. I’m lying under the covers, Raggy hidden out of sight. My mother’s shadow stretches itself across the floor and runs straight up the wall, like spilt ink running the wrong way.

She’s standing near the end of the bed. For a long moment she doesn’t move or speak, then she comes closer, frowning a little, and perches on the edge of the quilt. She says, “If you see what kind of thing, Hal?”

I say, “Oh, anything.” I turn my head away, reach one hand up to the nearest bedpost, and trace over its pattern. “You know, like in stories.”

On the quilt under my other hand there’s a book. My mother gently slips it from my grasp, and opens it to look at
the title page. “Well… in this story Galahad sees a vision of the Holy Grail before he really finds it, doesn’t he? Have you got to that bit? And stories of saints’ lives often mention visions, too.”

“And no one thought they were mad for seeing things? The saints, I mean?”

My mother smiles. “No, of course not. God was speaking to them. They were blessed. Though the message He gave was not always easy to hear, I suppose.” She closes the book carefully, fastens its silver clasps and moves into the shadows to stow it in a box on a shelf. She says, “Sweetheart. Why all the questions about seeing things?”

“No reason. I was just wondering.”

I haven’t spoken to anyone about what happened this morning. Not even Compton. I told him the clothes were everywhere because I’d got frustrated looking for my book. At Mass I prayed about it, though. Begged God not to let this be the first sign of some awful brain disease.

My mother moves round the bed, tugging shut the curtain at the far side, and the one at the foot. Some of the lining, she notices, is moth-eaten. As she tuts over it, I think:
If my vision of that body – that dead boy – in the trunk was God’s way of speaking to me, what could He possibly have been saying?

That this is my future: the rebels will defeat my father and make someone else king, and I will be murdered and put in a trunk?

I sit bolt upright as my mother pulls the last curtain
half-shut
. I blurt, “Does this place scare you?”

Her pale eyes widen. “No. Why should it?” Gently, she lays me down again. “It’s old. A bit fusty. It could do with redecorating, couldn’t it? But it’s a safe place, not a scary place. Now, go to sleep, Hal.”

“Don’t leave me.”

“Hal, don’t be silly.”

“Is Compton here?”

“Of course. He’s waiting outside – I’ll call him in. Now, settle down.”

Some hours later I open my eyes, very suddenly,
to blackness. I feel I’ve been woken by something, but I don’t know what.

I squirm towards the edge of the bed and pull back the curtain. I can just about make out the window, by a sliver of dim moonlight where its curtains are not quite shut. But the window is in the wrong place.

For a moment, I panic. I have no idea where I am, or what kind of room the darkness hides. Then memory slides back in, like a cloth across a table: I’m not at home in Eltham Palace – I’m in the Tower.

And one thing, at least, is the same as always: Compton is asleep, on his pallet, somewhere beyond the end of my bed. I can hear his steady breathing.

The sliver of moonlight winks, then disappears; wind whistles through gaps in the casement. Then a noise comes, outside in the passage. A door unlatching, opening. Soft
footsteps – and urgent whispers.

I sit up, holding my breath. Very slowly, I peel back the bedclothes and swing my feet to the floor. Across the other side of the room, beneath the door, there’s a faint, flickering line of orange light from the passageway. Sliding my feet forward instead of lifting them, I head towards it, feeling for obstacles as I go. The rushes are prickly against my bare ankles. Suddenly a great gust of wind lashes the window. I stop, tense; but, though Compton stirs, he doesn’t wake.

Reaching the door, my fingers search carefully for the handle. I apply the gentlest pressure possible, and open it a crack, just wide enough for one eye. It gives me a view of the passageway, looking in the direction of my mother’s bedchamber, which lies next to mine. Her chamber door is open, light spilling from the room, and a dark figure in a nightgown and shawl stands on the threshold, its back to me. This person – a woman – is looking along the passage. Beyond her, I see why: my mother is walking down it, holding a candle – a flickering spot of light in the darkness. As she walks, her free hand trails slowly against the wall. She is dressed for bed; her hair hangs loose down her back. Two of her servants are shuffling along with her, sideways like crabs, looking anxiously at her face, their arms half-open towards her as if hoping to shoo her back.

Something is wrong, but when my mother speaks, it’s in a perfectly normal tone of voice. She says, “Keep turning left, isn’t that what they say? Always turn left, and eventually you come to the place.”

Near to me, at my mother’s chamber door, a second, younger woman emerges to stand beside the first. “What’s wrong with Her Grace?” she whispers. She sounds as if she’s only just woken.

The first woman hisses, “Sleepwalking.”

“What’s she done?”

“Done?”

“People sleepwalk when they’ve got a guilty secret, don’t they? My cousin told me that.”

“Then your cousin’s a fool,” the first woman snaps. “Her Grace, poor lady, is looking for her brothers.”

Now my mother has stopped walking, and laid the side of her head against the wall. She says, “Don’t you hear it?”

One of the ladies with her says, very gently, “Hear what, ma’am?”

“A tapping. No, no – more like a scratching. Listen – there it comes again. They’re here. I must be quick.”

“What does she mean?” says the second woman at the door. “Are her brothers hiding?”

Her neighbour tuts. “I forget how young you are.” Then she whispers something in the younger woman’s ear.

“Oh, Christ have mercy upon their souls!” The woman crosses herself. “And them only little children, too!” She clutches her companion’s arm. “Do you think their spirits are unquiet here? Oh, it makes me afraid to walk the passageways on my own!”

“Pull yourself together, girl. If the spirits of all the people killed in this place were up and walking, we wouldn’t be able to squeeze down the passageways for the crush.”

“Well,
that
doesn’t make me feel better!”

“Shh. Keep your voice down. I’m going to follow. Madge has to persuade the Queen to turn back before she reaches the guards. It would be shameful for her to be seen like this.”

As the older woman starts down the passageway, and the younger turns to go back into the bedchamber, I dart sideways into the darkness of my room.

I wait until the sound of soft-slippered footsteps has faded to silence, then I push my door gently shut again and feel my
way back to bed.

The rest of that long night I lie awake, my eyes open in the darkness.

I have a tiny painting, on parchment, which
I often carry rolled up in a pouch on my belt. It shows the three nails used to fix Jesus to the cross. Each nail is shown driven through a chopped-off part of the Saviour’s body. So, one of the nails is driven through a bleeding right hand, another through a bleeding left hand, while the third goes right through two feet, laid one on top of the other and also dripping with blood. A crown of thorns lies like a garland around the whole grisly arrangement and in the middle there is a bleeding heart.

Beside the picture it’s written, in ink as red as the painted blood, that the Pope has promised that if you carry this picture with you, and say five Lord’s Prayers, five Hail Marys and one Creed every day, then your enemies will not defeat you, neither will you die suddenly; you cannot be killed with a sword, or a knife, or with poison, and you will be defended from all evil spirits, on land or on water.

This morning, despite feeling sick with tiredness and so
distracted that Compton almost despairs of getting me toileted and dressed, I am still very careful to tuck the picture into my belt. As I stand, tugged and jostled while my points are tied – to fix my sleeves to my doublet and hold up my hose – bits of the conversations I heard yesterday repeat, over and over, in my head. I feel confused every time I try to piece them together: my mother said her brothers were dead; my grandmother thinks she might not believe it – which is strange; and then the lady at the bedroom door said my mother was looking for her brothers. And:
If the spirits of all the people killed in this place were up and walking, we wouldn’t be able to squeeze down the passageways for the crush
.

I don’t know what to think, but I have a feeling of dread, as if something evil is approaching through the shadows, though I don’t yet know its form.

When I’m dressed and have eaten (after much nagging from Compton) a little bread and cold meat, I go out into the orchard that lies to one side of the royal apartments. Here, two targets have been set up at opposite ends of the grassy space. Both are made from packed straw, covered with a white cloth. In the middle of the cloth is the mark you’re supposed to aim for: a black painted circle.

As I approach, my mother is standing at the far end of the orchard, shooting her longbow. I watch her loose a shot smoothly. From where I am, I can’t see which part of the target she’s hit, but it’s probably the black circle – she’s an expert archer. She starts walking towards me, to change ends.

It’s a beautiful morning, and the sunlight makes a halo around my mother’s figure as she walks. Her quiver swings from a leather belt at her hip. The hems of her skirts are darkened with damp from the grass. Birds sing, perched on the rooftops and the twisted boughs of the old fruit trees. From the south, beyond the curtain wall and moat, I can hear
the calls of the watermen on the river; there’s no sign of yesterday’s fear of a rebel attack. Only the clanking of the Royal Mint at the other side of the Tower breaks the peace. It’s a metallic drumbeat that sounds like an army of demons on the march.

A waiting-woman tugs the arrows out of the target; my mother takes them and slots them into her quiver. Then she walks across to me and kisses me on the forehead.

She says, “You look tired. Didn’t you sleep well?”

I shrug. “All right.”

“Poor thing.” Her fair hair – loose last night – is plaited up on top of her head, as usual. Today it’s covered with a linen cap and a velvet bonnet over that; no veil to get in the way of shooting. She looks neat and entirely in control. But beneath her eyes there are heavy shadows.

“You look tired too, Mama.”

“Do I? You’re a caring boy. I slept like a log.”

She says it lightly enough, as if she believes it. If you sleepwalk, do you know about it in the morning? I suppose not. Not if your servants don’t tell you.

I follow my mother as she makes her way back to shoot again. “Has there been a battle yet?” I say.

She takes up her stance, replying over her shoulder, “Lord Daubeney’s sent your father’s best spearmen forward to attack the rebels. There’s been some fighting at Gill Down.”

“Is Father fighting?”

My mother’s movements are unhurried, smooth. She pulls an arrow from her quiver, nocks it, draws and shoots. All in three seconds, or four.

Then she says, “Not yet, I think. He’s testing the rebels. To see if they will hold their ground.”

“And will they?”

She shoots again, aiming and releasing two arrows in
quick succession, then lowers her bow and turns to look at me.

“We must wait for more news, sweetheart. I’ve told you all I know.” She hands her bow to her lady-servant. “Now, let me see you shoot.”

Behind me, Compton is waiting with my longbow and a selection of blunt-tipped practice arrows. I take the bow, tuck three arrows into my belt, and walk forward to take up my stance.

My mother shoots to hit the mark, but I’m still learning to keep a length. This means aiming the arrow correctly over different distances so that it will reach the target and not fall short. You can’t learn to hit a mark until you know how to keep a length.

Today, here, it’s a tricky task: the sight line lies between the trees of the orchard, which aren’t spaced regularly, and the distance is difficult to judge.

“Don’t forget to check the wind.”

“Oh yes.” I pull up some grass and toss it into the air. It drifts gently sideways as it falls; the wind’s coming from the south, off the river. But it’s not strong.

I take the first arrow. With my arms held low, I rest it on the knuckle of my bow hand, and position the nock – the groove at the feather-end of the shaft – against the string.

Then, as I lift the bow into position, I draw the string back – right back until the thumb of my drawing hand skims my ear.

This is where you need the strength. The more powerful the bow, the harder it is to draw. My father’s bows have a drawing weight of over a hundred pounds.

I hold – no longer than the count of three – and loose the arrow, trying to open my fingers out cleanly and quickly, without jerking. If you don’t get your fingers smartly out of
the way of the string, you know about it; it’s a mistake you don’t make twice.

“You held that one a fraction too long,” says my mother, shading her eyes to see where my arrow has hit: I’ve made it to the straw target, but low down, and over to the left. “And, look – as you loose the arrow, think of squeezing your shoulder blades together a little and pressing forward with your bow arm.” She lifts her arms to demonstrate.

“I was. That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

My mother narrows her eyes at me and smiles. I take another arrow from my quiver; nock, draw, hold and loose again. This one scrapes a tree and scuds into the grass well short of the target. I growl in frustration.

“Mama…” I say, as I pull out my third arrow.

“Mm?”

“How did your brothers die?”

I’m looking down at my bow, but I can sense that she’s suddenly very still. She says quietly, “Why do you want to know?”

“I mean, was it some disease or…” I hesitate, wondering if I’m brave enough to say what I’m thinking. “Or was it a knife, or a gun, or what? An arrow?”

“Who have you been speaking to, Hal?”

“No one.” I raise my bow; hold only a moment; and release. It’s a better shot. “But were they murdered? And did it happen here, at the Tower?”

My mother doesn’t answer. I’m still not looking at her. I add, “You said this was a safe place.” Then I set off, walking towards the other end of the orchard to retrieve my arrows.

After a moment I hear a swishing; she catches up with me, and walks alongside. Her skirts are dragging against the long grass – she grabs a handful of them, and puts her other arm round my shoulders. “Hal. Yes, they were murdered. Yes, it
happened here. But it was before you were born, sweetheart. During the old wars. It was… it was a different world back then. I don’t think you can imagine just how different.”

We’ve reached the target. My mother’s three arrows are all on the black circle; my two are more spread out, one way above it, the other low. I’ve already picked up the one that fell in the grass. Now, pulling the other two out of the packed straw, I say, “So, was it a knife, then?”

She lets out a quick breath. “Can you stop asking about it?”

“I just want to know.” I watch as my mother tugs out her arrows and puts them back into her quiver. Two patches of pink are showing high up on her pale cheeks. I say, “If you don’t tell me I’ll ask the servants.”

The waiting-woman has followed us at a distance; as she steps forward to hand over my mother’s bow, I see her dart a look at me.

My mother, weighing the bow in her hand, says, almost in a whisper, “No one knows for sure. No bodies were ever found.”

Then, briskly, she takes up her stance and shoots again. The arrow hits the target, but way off the mark.

My brain is fizzing. I’m thinking of ropes slung over walls, of daring escapes. “Does that mean… maybe they weren’t killed at all? Maybe they got away?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But it’s possible?”

“It’s possible.” She says it reluctantly.

“So… if the Pretender says he’s your brother and calls himself Duke of York—”

My mother releases another arrow. “You’re the true Duke of York.”

“Yes, but you told me that one of your brothers was
Duke of York. So – that brother could have escaped. And the Pretender could really be him, all grown up…”

She looks at me, fresh arrow in hand. “I don’t believe it.”

“But he
could
be.”

She takes aim and shoots. From here it looks as if she’s hit the very centre of the mark, but as she turns to me her expression is grim. She comes to stand close, and says in an urgent whisper, “Listen to me, Hal. Don’t let anyone hear you talking like this. It’s dangerous – do you understand? Your father is king – the true king. There’ve been imposters before, and your father’s enemies are always behind them, using them to stir up trouble. The last one was a baker’s son, who’d been trained specially for years to pretend he was a cousin of mine. When your father caught him, he set him to work in the kitchens. This man now, who calls himself York – he belongs in the kitchens too. He’s not my brother.”

Her eyes look fierce, almost frightened. I think:
How do you know for sure?
But I don’t dare say it.