VIII

carving on a hall roof, an anonymous kitchen boy, a stranger in a boat…
    In my churning mind only one thought about this boy rises clearly to the surface, horrifying enough and inexplicable:
    I know him.
    Or rather, something in me knows him. Some instinct, something unreachable and dark that stirs far below the surface of my thoughts.
    The eerie boat, moving faster than us with the help of the tide, has been swallowed by the night. We are almost at the Tower. The boatmen manoeuvre us across the river, across the dragging current, and the jagged battlements of the ancient fortress loom at my back. In my mind I see mouths, the mouths of beasts; portcullises with rows of spikes like teeth. My own teeth ache with the cold and I realise my mouth’s ajar; I’m panting, my heart’s pounding, sweat prickles under my arms.
    And now a sudden wild feeling floods through me, as if I have been trapped, or am about to be. All at once the Tower seems like a living thing: monstrous, malignant. I have lost all thought of reaching my mother, deep inside it. I feel alone and vulnerable, as if I am something’s prey and about to be swallowed.
    We are coming past the entrance that leads to the Traitors’ Gate, coming to the wharf steps near the Byward Tower.
    “Turn back.”
    “What?” Compton stares at me from his place at the stern.
    “I said, turn back!”
    “But we’re here, sir. Look—”
    I am amazed they cannot feel it, if not for themselves then rising off me: this animal fear.
    Is my mother asking for me, somewhere deep in there? She could be asking for me right now.
    I clutch my head. “Pay them double, triple, I don’t care – just get me away from here .”
    The older boatman mutters an oath; Compton tells him sharply he’ll not be paid at all if he complains – but he’s already turning the skiff, his oar working in the water, the other angled up.
    Then the men begin to row in earnest and we pick up good speed, running with the tide.
    I look beyond them, searching for the boat that passed us. Might we catch it? I am terrified to, but eager as well: I want to know if what I saw was real. But however much I strain my eyes, I can make out nothing but thick soupy blackness, punctuated here and there by flaming torches marking wharves and waterstairs or the jetties of grand private houses.
    Guided by one feeble lantern, we are tiny specks, skimming over the depths of this great river. I think of the hundreds of drowned there must be below us, swaying upright like reeds. And above us, in the infinite blackness, how many other dead, speeding as phantoms through the air, brushing their vaporous fingers over our faces with the wind? Even the boatmen look sinister; even Compton, in my fear, looks unknown and unknowable – a grotesque stranger in the night.

 
♦  ♦  ♦  XV   ♦  ♦  ♦
     
     
    Morning – a grey, grinding morning in February. The world is solid, leaden and unmysterious. I am in the tiltyard.
    Last night we made it back into the palace thanks to Compton’s imaginative storytelling. He reported to the guards that I – his assistant, bundled in my cloak, leaning against him – had been taken ill and that we’d had to turn back before reaching the Great Wardrobe. In the safety of my chamber, I slept only fitfully for the rest of the night. This morning, having woken feeling drained and sick, I have chosen the most difficult physical task I can think of. I am hoping it will drown out my thoughts.
    There is much to be learned from tilting at a stone wall. Slamming a lance into a solid, unmoving object, at speed, is the hardest training there is.
    The wall’s corner is the part to aim for. The force of the impact travels along the lance (whether it breaks or not) and delivers a hefty blow to your right arm and shoulder. Meanwhile you have to stay in the saddle as the horse is brought round in an arc by the blow, and keep your touch light on the reins with your left hand.
    Considerable strength is needed – in your thighs to stay with the horse, in your torso and shoulder and arm to control the lance and take the impact.
    In competition all this is done, of course, whilst wearing eighty pounds of plate armour. Oh, and against a live, moving opponent instead of a wall, with the risk of someone else’s lance slamming into your head at the same time.
    I’ve been practising all morning, using one corner of the wall that borders the tiltyard. Lone, meticulous training builds trust