Ormond House - The Bones of Avalon

‘Rome?’ Dudley said. ‘I thought it was all down to this fellow Nostradamus, at the French court.’

‘No, it was an Italian, Luca Gaurico. Not personally known to me any more than is Nostradamus – he was asked by the Queen of France to investigate Gaurico and his prophecy. This was after the King chose to laugh and ignore it. I find the whole thing doubtful in the extreme.’

‘Oh, well, of course. We all know, John, that you merely indicate the moods of the universe… and would never be so foolhardy as to forecast injury or death.’

‘And mistrust those who would.’ I let the sarcasm go, folded Blanche’s letter. ‘I’d understood that was what the Queen found useful in me – an ability to see through the fakery, offer informed advice. Apparently not. It seems she has a secret craving for the sensational.’

‘Of course. That’s why she’s so fond of me. But what would you have said about this fellow from Rome… had he heralded her demise? Not possible?’

I thought of the wax effigy in its coffin in the alley by the river. Had I been too dismissive of that and its power to do harm to the Queen? Did I continually dismiss what I, with all my scholarship, could not think to accomplish?

‘I think… that it is possible, but not likely. I believe there are some who see the same stars as I do, draw the same charts and then… either God himself intervenes or some faculty comes into play, some hidden organ of sensing which… doesn’t function in me.’

‘Your blind arrogance leaves me breathless,’ Dudley said.

‘Most times, however, it’s still trickery, for monetary gain.’

And yet…

I bit down on my lower lip, all too aware of the widespread fear and awe engendered by the prophecy apparently fulfilled at a jousting tournament held to celebrate the marriage of the French King’s daughter to Philip II of Spain.

Lest you forget… the King, though indeed in his forty-first year, had been far fitter than our own King Harry at that age and had elected to take a primary role in the jousting on that fateful day – the 30th day of June, 1556.

The reason we had a full account of what happened was the presence at the jousting of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, the Queen’s envoy to Paris. Throckmorton had a good seat. He’d seen the lance hit Henri’s helm, watched it break, causing the splinters that would pierce the King’s eye and enter his brain. Had seen him helped from his horse and stripped of his armour. Reporting, at first, that the wound was not as severe as had been feared – unaware of the French surgeons frantically dissecting the heads of newly executed criminals to try to work out how the splinters might safely be removed.

All to no avail. By the second week of July the King of France lay dead in his darkened chamber, and soon the whole of Europe knew of the power of prophecy through astrology.

‘You don’t believe that prophecy was ever made, do you?’ Dudley said.

‘It’s too exact for my liking. But leaving that aside, is this -’ tapping Blanche’s letter – ‘the first you’ve heard of a prediction linking Arthur with Anne Boleyn?’

‘How sure are you that Morgan le Fay’s even supposed to represent Anne Boleyn?’

He would, of course, have read only Malory, who likes to play down the role of the enchantress Morgan in Arthur’s story.

‘I think this is Blanche’s own coded reference.’

Le Fay. Though sometimes portrayed as Arthur’s half-sister, in the earlier tellings she’s at least a partly supernatural being. And certainly a witch.

‘An evil influence?’ Dudley said. ‘I was never sure.’

‘Not wholly. It’s true she’s accused of trying to wreck the marriage of Arthur and Guinevere. She’s not trustworthy by human standards, causes mischief.’

‘Well, that’s Anne, certainly.’

‘However, in the story of Arthur – the earlier tales – Morgan’s role seems to be to test the faith and courage of the knights of the round table. And, in the end, all is reconciled, for she’s one of the ladies who accompanies the King on that last dolorous voyage to Avalon. Which brings us to the essence of this prophecy… that if what remains of Arthur is returned to Avalon…’

‘Then the Queen will have no more trouble from the witch.’

‘I thought at first that it might be nonsense, pamphlet trivia. Yet it’s being informed by a knowledge of the oldest accounts of Arthur… It could, when you think about it, be the reason we’re here. Or a big part of it.’

He was silent for just a moment too long.

Saying, at last, ‘How do you know Blanche didn’t make it up?’

‘Credit me at least with a knowledge of my cousin. Look, even if it were mischievously cobbled together to upset the Queen, it was done by someone who knew what he was about. And so…’ I tried to catch Dudley’s eye, but he was turned away. ‘As a man about court, have you heard of other prophecies of this nature?’

‘No.’

His head still turned to the wall as if he found the candle too bright. He knew something. He was not a duplicitous man – not with me, anyway – so I reasoned that his only cause for concealment would be the light it might throw upon his own relations with the Queen.

‘Or any other matter which might disturb the Queen’s rest?’ I said. ‘Because if anyone-’

‘You know what it’s like at court.’ Dudley flipped over a hand. ‘Rumours coming from all directions. Rumours of new plots to put the Queen of Scots on the English throne. Even the story going round that Mary’s reign was founded on a lie because Edward’s not dead.’

I nodded. I’d heard that one, too, but it was predictable – either a yearning for the return of a powerfully adult Edward or a hint that it was time Elizabeth found herself a man to rule the country. To the end of her reign she’d have the burden of proving that a woman on the throne of England was actually the will of God.

I kept up the pressure, quoting again from the letter.

‘ Her nights tormented…’

Thunder rattled the panes. Dudley’s body pulsed under the sheet. He rolled over to face me.

‘What are you trying to say?’

‘What are you trying to avoid saying?’

‘I’m sick,’ he said, with a childish pathos. ‘What the hell’s got into you, John? You’re a mild man, a man of books. Why don’t you piss off and read one?’

I stood up and looked down on him, stripped of his finery and his waxed moustache, his hair all matted.

‘I have to know this, Robbie. We must needs fathom why we’re really here.’

He sat up, reached for the pitcher of water and the mug. The jug was too heavy for him and water spilled. I took the jug and poured him some, but he did no more than wet his lips. The thunder was like far-off war drums and, at the same time, Dudley spoke.

‘There was a night… three weeks ago… four, maybe. I was summoned to court at Richmond. A message brought to me, in private, by someone we both know.’

Maybe Blanche.

‘I was admitted to the Queen’s chamber, past midnight and all her ladies had been sent away, and I found her… distressed. In need of comfort.’

‘Comfort,’ I said.

‘And we talked. Long into the night. Talked. ’

Hmm. I waited, guessing I’d be the first person ever to hear this and probably the last.

‘Bess was… much disturbed, you might say, by forecasts of her impending death.’

‘How? By whom?’

‘God knows. Omens and portents. Hardly the first. Hardly the thirty- first, but she demands to be told about all of them. Nothing must be hidden. All manner of letters and writings are put before her every day. This one was from a prophetic pamphlet found on the streets – treasonous drivel. She’d caught two of her ladies whispering about it.’