• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Outside the crowd moved, like scales of a snake. Snake. I must see to the masque. I nodded to Caroz and indicated that the exchange was over. Still he stood staring at me, his eyes wide and almost fixed. “Your Grace ...” he said, “your cloak ... it is magnificent. It blinds me!”

It was a full-circled cape of cloth-of-gold, weighing almost ten pounds. I pictured with amusement the little Spaniard decked with it. Common men think only of the glow of gold, never of its weight. “It is yours,” I said, unfastening it, and draping it over his shoulders. He almost buckled, with both the weight and astonishment. O, his face!

Before he could utter a word, I was past him and opening the door to the antechamber, which served as a rehearsal room in which the players were already costumed and speaking.

“Continue, continue!” I ordered them. I could hardly wait to see this idea of mine enacted: the story of the baby Hercules strangling the serpents sent by jealous Juno to destroy him in his crib. I had needed a large child to play the part of the mighty infant; Sir John Seymour’s six-year-old son Edward was now wearing an infant’s robe and practising throttling the “snakes”—long tubes of multicoloured velvet that had young ferrets inside, so they would move and writhe on their own.

“I hate the infant!” “Juno” proclaimed, pointing toward the crib. “Jupiter has sinned, and this child is the product of this sin. He must die!”

Of course the infant prevailed over the serpents, and the happy conclusion was announced by “Britannia”: “Thus perish all the enemies of the King’s babe, who seek to harm him. Jealousy, envy, spite cannot stand against the will of the gods, and their protection gives our prince supernatural strength.” The company then gathered round the crib, raised their arms, and began an elaborate set-dance. I, as Jupiter, would appear in their midst, bringing the masque to a happy conclusion.

Then we would all come forward, leaving the stage, and present ourselves to Katherine. For it was she I was honouring; she, as the goddess who had brought forth an heir. And if they said it was unseemly for a king to “present himself” to anyone, no matter who ... well, I would do as I pleased.

The order had been given, and the commoneas past usual consumption time. My father stuck a large piece in his mouth. “Harry would have had himself naked,” he said, his words slurred because of his chewing.

My mother tore off a piece of bread from a stale loaf and soaked it in the rabbit juice. “We could have had a gold letter,” she said wistfully. “Then our lives would have changed.”

“Only for a year,” replied Father. “And then what? Back to foul rabbit stew?” He made a face as he chewed up a semi-rancid piece.

Neither of them questioned the fact that the King lived in such wealth that the loss of the gold letters meant nothing to him. On the contrary, they were proud of having such a wealthy King. They did not connect their poor eating with the elaborate court masques designed by the revels-master.

As well they should not, in spite of the current idea held by some that dividing up the Royal Treasury would enable everyone to dine on dainties for the rest of their lives. A mathematician friend of mine has calculated that if the Queen’s wealth were distributed equally throughout the kingdom, each person would receive exactly enough to purchase five loaves of bread, shoe one horse, and purchase one blanket. Hardly a luxurious life.

But I digress. I speak now as a man, whereas I was then but a child, and as awed by the story of the King’s gold letters as anyone else. I lay in bed that night, imagining myself to be the young Prince. What would my life be like? I would lie beneath soft coverlets (I thought this as I scratched myself against the irritating rough wool), never have to do schoolwork, and have horses and hawks—in short, all the things an ignorant ten-year-old imagines when constructing the perfect life of another child.

Over the next week I thought of the young