It had been a long time before she could persuade Luke and Lyn to go to bed and leave her to settle Tom. When at last they had gone she had sat down beside his cot and read him a story and soon, very soon, his eyes had closed. Kissing him she had self consciously made the sign of the cross over him before tucking in his blankets and tiptoeing out of the room.
As she sat, with the baby cradled in her arms she found her thoughts going back to Lyn. It was as though her sister didn’t trust her. Or was it just that she was jealous, without babies of her own? She frowned, picturing the bruises on Tom. It was not the first time the little boy had fallen and been bruised, and she was sure that Lyn must have seen those bruises too. Bruises from falls. They must be. After all, he was growing more adventurous now, banging his head on the corner of the kitchen table, nearly tipping over his high chair. Bruises were normal in a toddler. But what about nightmares? His nightmares about the tin man.
She sighed. They were not nightmares. She had seen him, sensed him, too, in the corner of the room, Tom’s room, her own bedroom and the great hall, watching from the shadows, no more than a shadow himself, yet always there, waiting. Waiting for what? Even the kittens had sensed him, she was sure of it. Neither of them liked the great hall, avoiding it where possible, or if intent on finding her in the study scampering through with huge eyes and flattened ears. She shivered, her arms tightening round the baby and Ned stopped sucking. He gave a resentful whimper and opened his eyes to look up into her face. She smiled at him and dropped a kiss on the dark hair. ‘Sorry, little one.’
Her thoughts went back to David’s letter. After she had picked the envelope up off the breakfast table she had put it on her desk in the study unopened. David’s letters were no longer seized and torn open with eager anticipation. Now she dreaded them, although she didn’t have the will-power to ask him to stop writing. She had sat down at the desk and drawn her mug of coffee to her, cupping her hands around it, staring sightlessly out of the window. In front of her the pile of manuscript was very little higher than it had been a month before. Her long sessions in the study were more and more unproductive. Sitting at the desk, her ears straining for sounds from the depths of the house – a whimper from Ned, a cry from Tom – she could not concentrate on the story unfolding before her. And always there was the fear that she would hear the others – the lost boys.
Reaching for the computer switch she had watched the screen as her program came up, sipping at the steaming coffee. Then her eye had fallen again on the envelope. With a sigh she reached for it and slipped her finger under the flap.
No photocopies this time, just several pages of David’s closely typed script. She pictured his old battered portable – sometimes to be seen on the staff room table, more often lying tossed and abandoned in the back of his car, the case covered in torn travel labels. He typed with two fingers, often crossed as he explained to anyone who came face to face with his efforts – but there was no sign here of the rows of xs which so often littered his work. Where he had hit wrong keys he had left the results uncorrected.
Dear Joss
Hope my godson flourishes. Give him a kiss from me.
Re: the tin man. I think I know who/what he is!!!! Maybe!!! I’ve been following up on Katherine de Vere and her witchy mother. There are some wonderful records of court proceedings extant. They didn’t entirely get away with it, you know. Margaret was actually arrested in 1482. She was taken from Belheddon to London but before she could be brought before the court she demanded to see the king – Edward IV. He interviewed her in the Tower. It is not recorded what she said but the charges were immediately dropped and she left London laden with gifts. It’s my guess that she had something on him, as they say, and that that something was to do with her daughter Katherine. King Edward had visited Belheddon four times the previous year and on each occasion he stayed several days – once for ten days which was comparatively unheard of. What was the attraction? The place was hardly a political centre in any sense and taking time off from the war/ruling the country was not a particularly expedient action at that time. One contemporary source says Margaret bewitched him to fall in love with her daughter. The idea was that Elizabeth Woodville would die and he would then marry Katherine de Vere.
The Belheddon de Veres were close kin of the Earls of Oxford, and the political implications were enormous if they could net the king and ally themselves by marriage to the white rose …
Joss put the letter down and rubbed her eyes wearily. The white rose. It seemed almost corny, but did King Edward present white roses to his girl-friends? Is that where they came from? Or did Margaret de Vere use them in her magic spells to conjure the love of a king for the daughter of a minor noble who lived at the easternmost edges of his kingdom. She shuddered. Leaning forward she pulled open a small drawer. She had put one of the roses in there, at the beginning, before they had begun to fill her with such dread.
She poked around amongst the pencils and stamps and sticks of sealing wax, but there was no sign of it now. Not even the crumbs of brittle petal in the bottom. The drawer, when she pulled it right out and held it up to her nose smelled of camphor and dust, nothing more. She took a deep breath, sliding the drawer back into place, and picked up the letter again.
Of course, we will never know how much of all this was malicious gossip and rumour, and how much if any was based on fact.
Fact: Elizabeth Woodville outlived her husband.
Fact: Katherine de Vere married a man who died in mysterious circumstances only six months later.