VIII

father, for once, has not immediately sent me back to Eltham), there is a church adjacent to the palace, belonging to a community of Franciscan friars.
    I daren’t go to the palace chapel for fear of meeting my father, so I spend the evening in the friary church, my old picture of the three nails of the crucifixion clutched in my hand.
    I am God’s Chosen. The one who has been prophesied will come, full of power, full of good devotion…
    Surely, then, I only have to pray – to demonstrate my good devotion , my faith as sublime as the conqueror Henry V’s – and it will follow that no misfortune can befall me.
    The church is as cold as a vault. The candle flames flicker and bow to the swirling draughts. When it is time for evening prayers a single bell starts to toll, and around me the black-robed friars glide in, silent as spectres. No one speaks to me; no one questions my presence. When the service is done they disperse again through drifting clouds of incense, their hoods raised against the cold.
    In bed that night I dream of the black-hooded figures, but now they are mourners at a funeral, following a coffin across snowy ground. I wake in a panic.
    “Get up.”
    Compton stirs on his pallet as I dig at his blanketed bulk with my foot. He tries to pull the covers higher.
    I crouch down and shake him. “Get up. I must go to the Tower.”
    I’ve only lit one candle; it throws our shadows, hugely magnified, onto the arras-covered wall. I look like a hunched monster grasping my sleeping victim. My victim swears blearily, and rolls out of bed.
    Ten minutes later we’re both dressed. Compton is pulling on his boots while I buckle my sword-belt.
    He says, “They won’t let you in.”
    “That’s the third time you’ve said that.”
    “Because you’re taking no notice. And it’s true.”
    “Look.” I catch his wrist. “One day I will be king, and when I am king it may count for something that you have served me now. Or it may not.”
    Compton understands. He stops arguing and hurries to the door. But, with his hand on the latch, he turns back.
    “You must have a guard.”
    “I can’t. At this time of night? The captain will want it agreed with my father. All hell will break loose.”
    Compton passes a hand over his face – imagining, no doubt, a whole range of possible calamities. “We’ll get into trouble, going without one.”
    “We’ll get into trouble anyway. Just get me a boat, will you? Stop wasting time.”
    He closes the door carefully behind him. He has a few delicate negotiations ahead – to get me out of the palace past the guards, and then into a boat with some plausible excuse for going to the Tower. But I will leave that to his ingenuity – what is he for, after all?
    I snuff the candle and grope my way to the window, where I pull back the curtain and look out into the night.
    The moon is high and almost full. Its light skitters across the surface of the Thames. Beneath the window, flaming torches mark the landing stairs and the gatehouse, where guards remain on duty through the night. Across the dark water, marshy fields and woods on the far bank are invisible against the distant higher ground – a mass of black against midnight blue.
    Compton comes back, holding a candle. His face, lit from below, looks ghoulish.
    “We can go.”
    “What did you tell them?”
    “That my Lord Prince is still awake and has ordered some clothes to be brought from the Great Wardrobe at Baynard’s Castle for the morning. You’re a servant, coming to assist me.” He sets the candleholder on a stool and throws open the lid of a trunk. “You’d better borrow one of my cloaks, they’re plainer than yours.” He pulls a grey woollen cloak from the trunk and slings it to me. “I suppose we’ll have to come back with something that passes for a chest of clothes.”
    “But we’re not going to Baynard’s Castle.”
    “I’ll break that to the boatmen once we’re on the water. It’s the guards that are the bigger problem. Come on.”
    Compton has done his work well; the guards inside the palace let us through without question. We emerge into a courtyard half-bathed in milky light, and turn left to the gatehouse where another guard unlocks the small wicket door within the big gate. We step through.
    We’re not far from the water’s edge – a dank wind flaps at us like wet washing. Underfoot, the flagstones of the path to the landing stairs are black and glassy.
    Ahead, a mountainous boatman