Chalice of Darkness, page 18
‘Make a copy of whatever you send,’ advised Tod. ‘A tedious task, copying, I know, so if you should want me to undertake it for you—’
‘I expect I can manage,’ said Mr Byron, and half-winked at Gus, who knew, of course, that old Inkling made a charge for copying anything and everything if he could.
‘And do warn him about Miss Viola, won’t you? He’ll want to know about that, I daresay.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Mr Byron, softly, ‘he’ll want to know.’
‘Good. Now, Gus, you’ll take a drop of malmsey, won’t you?’ said Tod. ‘Nonsense, good wine can be drunk at any time of the day, and it’s mid-afternoon already.’
Gus noticed Mr Byron had the slightly flushed, bright-eyed look of someone who has already had several glasses. Whatever else you might say about old Inkling, he was always generous when it came to dispensing wine; the trouble was that you did not always want quite that much generosity, not in the middle of the afternoon, and especially not when you were preparing to listen to the writings of someone who had lived hundreds of years ago. The date on the top of the first page had read 1483. That meant someone had sat at a table or a desk, and had written these words in the year 1483 …
But when Mr Byron began to read, it was not in the least what Gus had been expecting.
Tonight my brother and I are going to become thieves. It was Richard who had the idea – he says it will be an adventure. He has not had many adventures in his nine years, so I think he can be forgiven. I have not had many adventures either, so I hope I can be forgiven, as well. I do not count coming to this place, Ludlow Castle, as an adventure, because it is a vast gloomy place, full of echoes and darknesses.
Since we came here, we have both had nightmares, but we have not told anyone for fear of seeming weak. The nightmares we have are almost exactly the same, though: they are about being shut away in dark stone rooms far below the ground. Sometimes there are sounds of people moaning and of chains clanking within them.
Richard has confessed to me that he often tries to stay awake, because of the nightmares waiting for him. The adventure we are going to have will show him he is brave and able to fight nightmares off, though, so I think it is a good idea.
We are at Ludlow Castle to study and learn. I am doing my best, but Richard says books and learning are boring, and none of it will be of any use when we are grown up. He gives poor Master Godfric a terrible time – he often hides when it is the lesson hour, and Master Godfric has to go scurrying back and forth in search of him. It can take hours, even though I help and often some of the servants join the search, but by the time Richard is found it is usually past the hour, which is what he intends, of course.
We do not like this place, although Richard makes up stories and rude songs about the King who built it – William of Normandy. William the Conqueror people call him now. He made dungeons here – we have not been into them, but we know they are there. William did not call them dungeons; he called them donjon on account of him being French. Richard says it would have been better if William had stayed at home in France anyway, and not come marauding over here with his armies.
When I am King, which I think might be quite soon, I shall not maraud into other countries and turn them upside down, and pillage and rape. I am not entirely sure what rape means. I am not really sure what pillage means, either, so I shall ask Master Godfric, because he knows about words and language and history, which he learned when he was a monk. He is clever and kind and he knows interesting things. We like him very much.
Tonight is the night of our stealing adventure. It will be after everyone is in bed. If we can steal something and hide it without anyone catching us or finding out what we have done, we shall have proved that we are brave, and do not need to be frightened of the nightmares. If I have got to be the King I do not think I ought to have nightmares.
Later, we shall light a candle each, then creep out of our rooms. Richard thinks, and I agree, that we should go to the tapestry room. It has wall hangings all around, showing battles and people storming castles and galloping to wars on horseback waving swords. Our ancestors fought in some of those pictures in the tapestries. They fought against the French quite a lot – at Agincourt and Harfleur, when Henry V led his men into battle. Master Godfric has told us about the battles, and about Henry V and people like Harry Hotspur who fought the Scots, and has shown us the tapestries, and it is all quite exciting.
There are a great many small objects in that room, so we can choose something to steal.
It is not quite dawn, but it is nearly so, and there is light coming through the window of my room.
We are not in our beds, because Richard says we should write down what we have done. By this, he means I should write it down. When I have done so I will hide the pages. It will be a good thing to have an account of tonight. When we are much older, perhaps as much as thirty years of age, we can read it and remember that it was the night we became brave.
There were huge shadows as we tiptoed out of our rooms and went through the castle. I kept looking over my shoulder, because I could easily believe that one of the shadows would suddenly rear up and reach out long arms or clawed hands, and scoop us up and carry us off. I know of course that shadows are not real people, but that was how it felt.
There were whisperings, too.
‘The wind in the chimneys,’ I said at one point, but Richard said, very softly, ‘Are you sure?’
I was not sure, really, and I am not sure now, but it was better to believe that than to believe the shadows were whispering and watching – even to think they were saying we were going to do a bad thing – stealing was a sin – and we would be thrown into prison.
There were no whisperings in the tapestry room, though. We set down our candles and went cautiously around. There were cupboards and shelves, with carved figures and bowls. Some were beautiful and some looked very old and some were too big for us to take.
Except for one thing.
It was on the end of a ledge, almost as if it had been given a place of its own. I think it is what is called a chalice – it might have been used as a communion cup for Mass. It is quite big, and made of coloured glass like the windows in some churches.
‘And so,’ said Byron Fitzglen, setting down his notes for a moment, ‘there it is – the second theft of the chalice. And this time it was stolen by two princes who were already doomed.’ He glanced at Gus. ‘You understand who those two boys were?’
‘The Princes in the Tower. The murdered boys.’
‘Yes. The writer was the boy who would have been Edward V. And so,’ said Byron, ‘for the second time in its history the chalice had fallen into the wrong hands as the result of a theft.’ He frowned at his notes, then said, ‘It doesn’t sound as if this theft at Ludlow Castle was ever discovered – although there was so much unrest and threats of rebellion and usurping of the throne going on at that time, I should think half the contents of the place could have been loaded on to carts in broad daylight and nobody would have bothered. A missing communion chalice certainly wouldn’t have been noticed. But two things are grabbing me by the throat.’
Gus said, ‘Edward writing down his plans for when he’s king – how he won’t go off to war, but his brother will?’
‘Yes. And,’ said Mr Byron, ‘the nightmares he describes. Darkness – images they had of being shut away in a dank cell. It’s horribly prophetic, isn’t it?’
Tod said, ‘It’s never been known what happened to those princes, of course, but they were certainly taken to the Tower of London by scheming, ambitious men who wanted to keep young Edward off the throne. It’s generally accepted that he and Richard never came out of the Tower alive.’
Gus found it immeasurably tragic that the boy who had written about being king and describing the tapestries showing battles, and who had clearly been trying to protect his younger brother, was destined to die. But he said, ‘What’s the rest of the document, Mr Byron? Is it still written by the boys?’
‘No. It’s written by the man Edward refers to as a former monk and who tutored them.’
‘And who had to search for Richard when he ran away to avoid lessons,’ said Gus eagerly. Then, slightly defensively, he said, ‘It makes them somehow real to hear that, doesn’t it? Those boys. Children still run away to escape school today.’
‘That monk,’ said Mr Byron, ‘is almost certainly the scholarly gentleman referred to in some of the sources I explored about the princes. They all referred to him just as some kind of librarian or under chaplain, who was “much given to recording his work”. They all say his name was never discovered. Except that we’ve discovered it now. Godfric.’
‘And,’ said Tod, ‘it’s Godfric who wrote the main part of this document.’
‘The one who set down the year he began writing,’ added Byron. ‘In 1483.’
SEVENTEEN
It is the year of 1483, by the grace of God, although I have to record that it is also by the grace of the usurper, Richard III.
Having read that sentence, I see it is something that would have been better left unwritten – I should likely be put to death for treason were anyone to read it. But I shall not scratch it out, for I cannot see him as anything other than an outright usurper. It is all very well for people to say the throne was offered to Richard by the citizens of London. So it was. But Richard accepted it very eagerly indeed. He did so within days – days! – and he was crowned at Westminster Abbey before a further ten days had passed.
As for the two boys I have in my care, perhaps I could be persuaded Richard did not play a major part in their imprisonment. I will never believe, though, that he did not know they were brought here.
So I shall let that first sentence stay, although I shall not put my name to this document. I know this could be classed as cowardly – I should be prepared to speak out for my beliefs, but I dare not. They say Richard Plantagenet is a temperate man with many good qualities, but I do not think his temperance or good qualities are likely to extend to a former monk calling him a usurper and questioning his right to the throne. I would rather be a coward than face being convicted of treason, and end in being hanged, drawn and quartered on Tower Green.
While I am in this place, I am going to set down events as they unfold around me. Even if the Tower guards should chance on these pages it will not matter, for of course I am writing in Latin, as we all did at the monastery. I cannot think any of the guards would be able to read and understand Latin script. I cannot think that most of them are able to read at all, in fact. No one is likely to find this document until after my death, when I shall long since have gone to my just reward (or punishment), and by then it will not matter what I said about Richard Plantagenet.
I shall keep these pages behind my small stack of books in this room. I was allowed to bring the books with me, because it makes it look as if I am continuing to tutor the two boys. Indeed, I shall endeavour to do so. It may help to distract their minds from the fear I see in their eyes. They are right to be fearful; I cannot believe Richard Plantagenet’s supporters will allow them to live. Their claim on the throne is too close.
This morning I went along to the boys’ rooms, as usual. I should be accustomed to this place by now – we have been here since the month of May – but I am not. I am increasingly aware of a sensation of dread – almost as if I am moving (or even being dragged) closer to some vast tragedy. Several times while walking through the passages I have felt actually sick, so much so I have had to pause and take deep breaths before going on. The air in here does not help quell sickness, in fact it feels like breathing in the stench of death itself. Thankfully the stink has not actually made me sick yet, which would be undignified and humiliating, especially if the guards were around – as well as the splattering mess it would make on the floor, although the floors of these passages bear evidence to the spillage of just about every bodily fluid known to man, so I should not think a few drops more would be noticed.
I constantly try to believe that the boys will not be here for long. At the start, the men in power said it was, ‘A ceremonial stay, in preparation for King Edward’s coronation. An old tradition.’ They smiled when they said this, in the smooth oily way of all liars.
It is a story only a fool would believe. There will never be a coronation for young Edward. But I cannot believe that any of the people who pushed the boys’ uncle into power would kill two innocent children. I cannot believe that the recent group of conspirators rumoured to be plotting to replace Richard of York with the greedily ambitious Welshman, Henry Tudor, would do so either. And yet today’s Plantagenet monarch may well be tomorrow’s Pretender, and little as I trust Richard, I trust that upstart Henry Tudor even less.
There are torch flares in places along the stone passages, but they often flicker out because of the damp, so that you have to feel your way along the walls. The stench of the River is ever present – it’s a murky slimy old waterway, the Thames. My footsteps echo and I sometimes wonder if they are my own footsteps, or whether they might be the steps of the murdered souls who have perished in here. However, this morning I had donned light, very soft shoes – velvet, and embroidered with my initials by a lady. It would be ungallant to set down her name, but wearing the shoes recalls to me the memories of her – especially the memory of a long-ago afternoon beneath a willow tree, watching the sunlight reflect on the surface of a river …
This morning Edward seemed preoccupied, and presently he said, ‘Master Godfric – am I allowed to make confession to you?’
I thought for a moment, then I said, ‘It’s an interesting point, sire.’
(I have always been careful to call both these boys ‘sire’, for to me they still command that form of address.)
‘Once,’ I said, ‘I was a man of God – not empowered to give absolution, but perhaps able to guide and advise.’
Edward looked at his brother, then said, ‘There is something we want to tell you – something we did just before we were brought here.’
Young Richard, seated quietly in his usual place, nodded with a solemnity he does not often display. ‘We were bad,’ he said. ‘We committed a bad act.’
I waited, then Edward said, ‘It was when we were at Ludlow Castle. We wanted to have an adventure.’
‘We wanted to show the nightmares we were not feared of them,’ said Richard, and my heart constricted, for they are so young, so vulnerable.
‘We stole something,’ said Edward, his face white and set. ‘We crept through the castle when everyone was asleep, and we took something from the tapestry room.’
‘It was an act of bravery,’ said Richard, hopefully. ‘Because it was frightening to walk through those rooms in the middle of the night.’
‘I am sure it was.’ My mind was starting to churn with apprehension. The tapestry room, I thought. Dear God, what was it they took?
‘We brought it here with us,’ Edward was saying. ‘We had hidden it in a chest in our rooms at the castle – and they let us bring the chest in here with us. It had clothes and some books.’
‘And the story we wrote about what we did that night,’ added Richard.
Edward had gone to the small box in a corner of the room, in which reposed their few belongings, and was kneeling down to open it.
‘This is the confession,’ he said, handing me a single sheet of parchment with his writing on it. ‘This tells what we did. We wrote it in Latin, as you taught us, Master Godfric.’
‘We don’t know if the Latin is as good as you would like, but we did our best,’ put in Richard, hopefully.
This last remark affected me more than I dared let them see, so I only nodded, took the paper, and slid it inside one of my own books, where it would not be noticed by the guards. I would read it later, but already I knew that whatever the level of the Latin they had managed, this would be one more keepsake, one more memory to cherish of these boys. Please God I won’t need keepsakes, though.
‘This is what we brought out of the castle with us,’ said Edward, unfolding a velvet cloak.
And there it was. Vivid and glowing and beautiful beyond imagining. The communion chalice stolen by Richard II from an Essex monastery, almost a century earlier. A theft that few people knew of – but a theft that I, and every monk who entered that monastery, vowed to keep secret.
I am one of the monks who took the vow and I shall keep it, save for in the privacy of these pages. But I believe I can write here how the pitifully few possessions salvaged after Richard’s death were taken to Ludlow Castle – that symbol of Yorkist authority – for safekeeping.
And how I, lured by the rumours that the chalice was within those ancient stone walls, intrigued to get the post of tutor to Edward and his young brother.
I will be honest. My motives were not entirely pure. I wanted to be the monk who restored the stolen Plantagenet chalice to the Essex monastery. I would still like to be.
However, I am huddled in a dank stone chamber in a vast Norman stronghold that was built over four centuries ago. I am writing by the light of a single candle, which drips sour-smelling grease on the floor, and wrapped in a blanket to keep out the seeping cold.
I cannot possibly take the chalice back to that monastery where once I lived a devout, studious life. I could no more take from those doomed princes the one beautiful object they have – the one thing that represents to them their small act of bravery and defiance – than I could sign a pact with the Devil to practise the Dark Arts.
There is a sense of furtive excitement within this part of the Tower.
Earlier, I went along to break my fast with my charges, as usual. I could not help seeing how the guards were gathering in little groups, their eyes watchful. Furtive is not a word I ever expected I would use to describe those men – they are hulking brutes with not the smallest shred of compassion or humanity in them. Today, though, they are furtive. I gave them good morning, and went on my way.
But I believe something is about to happen.
