VIII by H. M. Castor Page A

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 hasordained 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.”

IV
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    “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 beenplagued 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.