VIII (7 page)

“Did my father see the strike before the last – with Brandon? Not the last one, I had open season on that, it doesn’t count – but the one before, I truly found a gap, such a small one, I was so fast!” I stop walking abruptly, and slap my gloves against Compton’s chest. “Tell me he saw that one.”

“He saw it.”

“Really?”

Compton shrugs. “I don’t know. I expect so, sir. I was watching you, not the King.”

We walk again. “Brandon’s good. He landed some amazing blows. I really should’ve seen that one at the side coming. And the way he twisted my arm, Christ – I want to practise that. I’ll get him to show me sometime. Do you think he’d practise with
me if I asked? Regularly, I mean? I suppose he’d have to come down to Eltham and maybe that’d be a problem.”

We’ve reached my bedchamber now. Entering, I sling my gloves on a table and see that I have a visitor. “Oh.” I stop, staring at him. “Hello.”

It’s Arthur: I don’t remember that he has ever voluntarily sought my company before.

He is standing, accompanied by several of his gentlemen servants, beside the window. He says slowly, “I wanted to congratulate you on your excellent performance back there.” He pauses, looks at my servants. “Compton. Boys. You may leave us.”

The pages who have entered the room behind me bow and scarper. Compton hesitates; looks at me. I nod to him to go.

Then I give a shrug and bend down to scratch my calf. “I just practise a lot. You can’t be best at everything. Don’t let it get to you.”

As I straighten, I see Arthur signal to his men. Two of them move to stand either side of me; they take my arms.

“What’s this?”

He doesn’t answer me. Struggling, I quickly discover, only makes the men tighten their grip. Arthur says, “No, no. This isn’t the time for showing off.”

He’s pulling at the fingers of his gloves, one by one, unhurried. He slips the gloves off, places them one on top of the other and hands them to a servant. Then he curls the long white fingers of his right hand into a fist. And punches me hard in the stomach.

It knocks the wind out of me; leaves me gasping, stooped forward as far as the strong hands on my arms allow. I cough and can’t do anything about a drip of saliva that stretches down to the floor.

“What was that for?” I croak. “What’ve I done?”

No answer – just another blow. This time the knuckles make contact with my left ear and temple. There’s a ringing in my head.

Arthur says, “It’s not about fighting skills, you see. It’s about power. And power is, amongst other things, having someone to hold you still while I hit you.”

By the time I can look up, Arthur has taken possession of his gloves again and is examining them, removing minuscule traces of fluff, dust, dirt. “Or having someone to hit you for me.” He nods to someone unseen to my right, who slams a knee, hard as a cudgel, into my kidneys.

Nothing on my face, of course. Nothing where a bruise might be visible.

Hanging limply, wondering if I’m about to vomit, I’m aware of a small pleasure: he is five years older than me, and he daren’t take me on alone.

I manage to say, “You’ll pay for this. I’ll tell Father.”

“Oh, Father already knows.” The voice has come from behind me, from the doorway.

I can’t turn, but I don’t need to. Automatically I start trembling, like my dog Angwen when she’s wet. Arthur’s eyes glitter, triumphant.

I hear uneven footsteps approaching and then my father swings into view, leaning on the slender stick he sometimes uses in private. He’s agile with the extra limb, like a spider.

He says to me, “Your brother thought you needed to be taught a lesson – and I agreed with him.”

I grit my teeth, fighting the shakes, and glare at Arthur. “What lesson?”

My father’s stick whips up under my chin, lifting it uncomfortably high. “You have no control. No discipline. You have been
indulged
for too long.”

He points the stick at Arthur. “You may go.”

The stick swoops back to jab me in the chest. “Not you.”

Arthur’s men release me and follow their
master out, shutting the door behind them. My father and I are alone. Despite my best efforts, I am still trembling. I feel sick at the thought of more blows.

He begins a little tour of the room, poking with his stick at the bed-hangings, a footstool, twitching aside the curtain covering a mirror. I flinch every time he swipes the stick through the air. He catches me cringing and I can see his disgust. I could so easily cry; my throat is tight, my eyes prickling. I mustn’t. It will only make him worse. More angry, more disgusted – he will beat me across the room and back. It’s happened before. And I know that a beating hurts ten times more than sword practice with the strongest opponent – though it’s a mystery to me why.

My father stops, facing me again, both hands on his stick. His hair is greying, and he’s thin under his plush velvet gown. If someone saw him on the battlefield, they might think they could take him out, no problem:
That little collection
of twigs? I’ll snap him over my knee
. They wouldn’t realise each twig is as strong as steel.

He smiles now, but not pleasantly. “That was some display,” he says, jerking his head. “Out there.”

“Tha—” I squeak. I clear my throat. I mustn’t sound like a mouse. “Thank you, sir.”

“Quite a swordsman already, aren’t you? A crack shot too. Better than Arthur, would you say?”

I hesitate – decide. “Yes, sir.”

“And so charming. The Spaniards warmed to you, didn’t they?” He nods. “Yes. But you know that. You know what you are about.”

“I am honoured to have merited their approval,” I say.

My father’s eyes widen in extravagant surprise. “Did you think they
admired
you? They were laughing! Not
with
you –
at
you. Your childish swagger! It
was
quite funny, even I had to admit that. They said to me: Contain that one. We can see he’s a problem already.”

Perhaps I’m shaking my head, though I’m barely aware of it, because he goes on,

“Oh yes, I’m afraid it’s true. You
are
, you see. A problem already. Don’t blub. A boy crying is a sight that makes me gag.”

But I can’t stop. My father moves quickly and the stick lands with a thwack across my bottom. I hit the floor, on hands and knees.

“You pathetic little insect. Get up!
Get up!
”

As I scramble to my feet my father is slipping off his long gown, keeping hold of his stick. He barks, “Take off that doublet. Take it off! I won’t have expensive cloth ruined.”

I undo the laces with quivering fingers. I’m still crying. My father grabs the garment from me and slings it onto a chair.

“It is all a great game to you, isn’t it?” he shouts, hitting me across the back.

“No, sir!”

His arm whips round my neck, doubling me over, my head gripped against the side of his body, my back and bottom and legs in front of him. “Remember this!” he roars, hitting me rhythmically now. “It is the way to learn! It is how I was taught and I have
ne
ver… forgotten…”

“Stop! For the love of God!” someone shouts.

My father suddenly lets go of me; I collapse onto the floor, unable to break my fall. From under my arm – lifted in front of my face in case of more blows – I see my mother fly into the room and my father catch her by the wrist as she heads towards me. She swings round to face him, her skirts swirling.

“No, don’t go to him!” my father growls, breathing heavily from his exertions. “This is
your
doing, Elizabeth! The boy has been spoiled. He needs to learn his place.”

“Not like this!”

“If he learns now it may save his life.”

“But he doesn’t understand!”

“Doesn’t he?” My father releases her, grabs a wooden stool from near the wall and bangs it down in the centre of the room. “Then let me explain. In simpleton’s terms.” He sits, and points at the floor in front of him. “Stand here, boy. Stop crying unless you want another beating.”

I get up, painfully, and stand where he indicates. Behind him my mother’s face looks wild with agitation and concern, but she holds herself very still, her hands clasped in front of her, the knuckles white.

My father stares at me, his small black eyes gleaming. He says, “You are my second son. What’s a king’s second son for?”

“I don’t know, sir,” I say, thoroughly miserable.

He hits me, open-handed, across the face. “What’s a second son for?” he repeats.

I swallow, blinking hard. I say, “So that if the first son dies there will still be an heir, sir.”

“That’s right. You are a spare. A backup. In case our beloved first-born son dies. From which calamity God in His infinite wisdom has been merciful enough to spare us.” Both my parents cross themselves. My father goes on, “And when the first-born son marries and has sons of his own to continue his line – guess what? That second son is not needed any more.”

He leans forward, gripping his knees. “Now. The Spanish envoys are here because Arthur is about to…?”

“Get married, sir.”

“Very good. And, God willing, the birth of Arthur’s sons will follow soon after. So. What does this mean for you, I wonder? The backup, who is not needed any more? Hm?”

“I don’t know,” I whisper, afraid of being hit again.

My father leans in and whispers back, as if confiding a secret: “It means you must be very, very careful.”

He straightens, spreading his hands. “So. You have a choice. First option: generally make a loud noise, draw attention to yourself. Like you did in the hall just now. Prove yourself

a man – eh? Eh? You want approval! You want to be noticed! You want to be
loved
.” The way he says it, it sounds like the word means something shameful.

“Well, what do you think that leads to?” Springing up, my father stumps to a table under the window where my chess set is laid out. He takes a knight – a St George on horseback – and slaps it down in the middle of the board. “Here you are: the Duke of York. Powerful landowner, brilliant military
commander, charming, popular – with a large following of loyal retainers. Sounds good?”

He’s staring at me beadily. I have to respond. I nod, feeling sick.

“Oh dear, oh
dear
. Not good at all. What if some halfwits get it into their heads that you might make a better king than Arthur, hm? It sounds to me like
civil war
.”

“I am loyal to Arthur, sir.”

My father pretends to consider. He says, “Does he really believe that? I think he might have you killed, just to be on the safe side.” With a flick of his finger he knocks over the knight. It rolls in a semicircle and lies still.

“But, how astonished you look! ‘He wouldn’t kill me, I’m his little brother!’” my father sing-songs in a baby voice. Then he starts towards me again across the room. “Don’t believe that
sentiment
will save you, boy. Sentimentality is the ruin of a king. I have stripped myself of feeling, I have flayed it like a skin from my back. And I am teaching Arthur to do the same.”

A pause. I suppose he is standing looking at me, though I don’t know, since I’m staring at the floor now. “Option two, then,” he says in a lighter tone. “You can fade quietly away. Join the Church. Why not go to Rome, throw some money around, try to get made a cardinal? That might even help Arthur.”

My father comes forward and bends, twisting his neck to look up into my face. “What? What?” he taunts. “Are you thinking you have no wish to be a priest?”

“No, sir.”

“Yes-sir-no-sir. Understand this: I am not interested in your preferences.”

He moves away. I hear a rustle of skirts as my mother moves too. She is helping him on with his gown. “God has
ordained a destiny for each of us,” he says. “My destiny has been to bring stability to this blood-soaked, war-ravaged land. Arthur’s destiny is to be the first great king of the golden age of peace. And your destiny…” The tip of his stick suddenly prods my chin up again so that I meet his gaze, “… is to keep out of his way.”

“Don’t harden your heart against your father.”

“He hates me.”

“No,” says my mother. Several hours have passed since my father’s visit. I am lying face down on my bed and my mother is sitting beside me, skilfully applying a poultice of comfrey leaves and crushed parsley to my bruises. “You just frightened him today, that’s all.”

“
Frightened
him?” I turn my head to squint at her. Gently, she presses my shoulders flat again. I stare out sideways across the bedcovers at the tapestry on the wall, where a blindfolded Lady Fortune rides through the sky, scattering roses to her left and stones to her right.

My mother says, “You win hearts, sweetheart. You are so gifted…”

“They laughed at me.”

She murmurs, “It wasn’t like that.” Then she says, “Do you know, in all the years I’ve been married to your father there isn’t a night he’s spent with me when he hasn’t been
plagued by bad dreams? He dreams of battles. He has seen things, Hal – horrors – that will haunt him all his life.”

She has finished with the poultice; carefully she tugs my shirt down over my back and begins to collect up her bowls and stray stalks and leaves. “He is trying to look after you, in his way – to keep you safe. He doesn’t want you to see what he has seen. And he finds it hard to trust… anyone. He spent so many years on the run, you know, before he became king. Afraid of spies. Afraid of men sent to befriend him and betray him. Even as king there’s hardly been a year of his reign when he hasn’t had to combat uprisings in the shires, and plots against his life here at Court. Sometimes I think he doesn’t even trust me. Not really. Not in his secret heart.”

I raise myself gingerly on one elbow and watch my mother as she crosses to the table. A large basin of water has been put there; she rinses her hands. “He’s terrified that after he’s gone, his achievements will be torn to shreds,” she goes on. “Above all he wants security for the succession. For Arthur and Arthur’s sons.”

“But how can he be afraid when he’s so brave?”

My mother smiles. “A brave man still feels fear, my love,” she says. “Everyone does. Unless they are stupid – or lying to themselves.” She picks up a linen towel to dry her hands. “It’s just that a brave man knows how to turn his fear into energy – for battle. And that’s a skill worth learning, don’t you think?”

Later, when she is long gone, and the view from my window is turning blue and grey in the twilight, I slip out. Compton and my other attendants are busy preparing for my supper and the night ahead. Only a pageboy sees me go; I pass a coin to him – a penny for his silence.

My rooms are on the side of the palace furthest from the river – the side that looks out, instead, onto Westminster
Abbey and its precincts. Prickly with pinnacles, the impressive bulk of the abbey is a dark shape now, with just a flicker of colour, here and there, where candlelight illuminates stained glass.

Standing in its shadow, inside the palace wall, is an orchard, where the grass is left to grow long. I walk there now, getting wet, turning my face to the darkening sky and feeling the rain on my skin and my open eyes, stinging like pinpricks.

I will have to go back soon – they’ll be looking for me. Compton will be agitated, afraid for my safety and his own position.

But it is a luxury to have no one here to see me cry. My back is stiff and aching – hurting more now than it did straight after the beating. I stretch out on my front in the sodden grass.

I think:
It is a lie that I am unimportant. I feel it in my gut. I feel it in the ground and the sky and the rain. A long time ago I heard a prophecy – and I have not forgotten it
.

My hands close into fists and I cling to the grass angrily, as if the ground would like to throw me off.