Chalice of Darkness, page 29
He said. ‘I’m glad, as well. Did you enjoy the concert?’
‘Very much. Do you often play at Chauntry concerts?’
‘Quite often. There’s one next week – for half-term.’ He considered her, then said, a bit hesitantly, ‘Might you come to that?’
‘I could. Would you like me to?’
‘Yes,’ he said, at once. ‘Yes, I would like that very much.’
This is it, thought Jack, standing on the side of the platform, seeing the King, with Queen Alexandra at his side, ushered into place. Two discreet-looking aides were with them, and Declan Kendal stood on their left. This is going to be the most memorable stage appearance I will ever make, thought Jack.
He waited for Declan’s signal, then, holding the chalice carefully, walked on to the stage. The applause was polite and muted, but Jack felt the emotion filling up the hall.
They had agreed there should be no speeches, and so, after a small bow, he said, ‘It’s my honour to return this to you, Your Majesty.’
‘And my honour to accept it, Mr Fitzglen. An object with a remarkable history, or so I believe.’
‘I believe so, Sire.’
Jack held the chalice up for a few seconds, wanting the audience to see it more clearly. For an incredible moment he thought it pulled slightly away from him, as if trying to reach up to the light from the stage lamps. He thought he had never been more aware of the chalice’s history than in this moment – of the dark radiance that had beckoned to a Plantagenet King inside a long-ago monastery … That had accompanied two doomed boys to a grim prison fortress … That had taken a lady who had been loved by a Tudor monarch to the scaffold … And that, in living memory, had caused a girl who had been admired by a royal prince to be shut away in a dark attic for fifteen years …
Violence and murder and old tragedies, thought Jack. Then he placed the Plantagenet chalice in the hands of England’s King, and as the King’s hands closed around it, he stepped back.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
English history is threaded with legends, many of which have a pleasing touch of eeriness. There are spectral coaches that rattle across ancient courtyards to herald a death – ghostly music that issues from empty rooms – disgruntled apparitions demanding the righting of wrongs …
And there are gifts allegedly bestowed by grateful monarchs – bowls or cups or religious vessels, beautiful and valuable, but carrying strange pledges or disquieting warnings.
For me, searching for a plot on which to base the exploits of the newly created Fitzglen family, one legend in particular stood out.
The Muncaster Luck.
The story goes that in the mid-1400s no less a person than Henry VI gave to a Cumbrian family a Venetian glass bowl, in gratitude to them for sheltering him after he lost his throne to Edward IV.
The family were the Penningtons of Muncaster Castle, and Henry’s gift to Sir John Pennington carried a vow that the bowl held good fortune, and that as long as it was unbroken the Penningtons would prosper. That belief has survived from that century to this – and so, remarkably, has the bowl itself.
A fragment of an old verse apparently promises:
It shall bless thy bed, it shall bless thy board,
They shall prosper by this token,
In Muncaster Castle good luck shall be
Till the charmèd cup is broken.
To use the Muncaster legend in a novel – especially as the bowl can still be viewed in the castle – seemed fraught with potential problems. Historical facts often have an annoying way of tripping up fictional events. But there seemed no reason why a whole new legend could not be created – that of a bowl, or better still a chalice, in similar vein to the Muncaster bowl, but with a dark back story that would be all its own.
And so the Talisman Chalice came into being.
Rather than assign its origins to the hapless Henry VI, I arranged for it to make its first appearance in the company of Richard II, who already had a few robust tales in his armoury, and whose reputation could probably take one more. The chalice itself had collected a few robust tales of its own, as well – most notably a belief that anyone who possessed it ‘wrongfully’ would be dragged into a darkness ‘from which he or she would never emerge’. A medieval way of warning enterprising thieves that if the chalice were to be stolen, a very bad fate would befall those who stole it.
I’m immensely grateful to Henry VI for giving the Pennington family the Muncaster bowl, and in the process providing me with the inspiration for Chalice of Darkness. And I’m delighted that the bowl itself is still at Muncaster Castle – still intact – and hopefully still containing the luck handed down by a long-ago King of England.
Sarah Rayne
Sarah Rayne, Chalice of Darkness
