VIII

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.

 
♦  ♦  ♦  VI   ♦  ♦  ♦
     
     
    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