The Other Henry VIII

In Nomine Patris

Hampton Court Palace was in turmoil once more. Soldiers packed the halls, lords and servants alike forsaking the garb of their rank to arm themselves against the oncoming foe. Barked orders stampeded through the stale air, pockmarked with murmured prayers and the throaty groan of leather against leather against skin. Youths of fourteen, thirteen, twelve, seized gleaming weapons from the armoury alongside men of half a century, who had sworn half a dozen wars would be their last and still fought on. To the men of England, peace was nothing but a fool's fantasy. Whether it be minor border skirmishes or stagnating international wars, one could always find a place where blood soaked sodden soil and Death clung to the skin like a leech.

Amid the disarray, a young boy tottered down a corridor, hand clasped tight in the cradle of his mother's. He traced the grooves of her palm with his fingertips, wondering if she knew she was trembling. The black velvet hem of her veil ruffled his hair, and her navy skirts lapped at his feet. She had forgotten how much he had grown these past few months, decided the boy, forgotten he was not so little anymore that she must needs hold his hand. She assumed that because he was quiet, because he liked to fold himself away with a book where no-one would find him, that he was lacking in some way, that he was stunted like a flower shut up in a dark cupboard. But he was not.

The boy glanced up, hoping for a clue as to where they were headed. He saw his face in hers —how her fair hair formed its frontline in a high arch over her forehead; how her brows never seemed to move in unison; how she gnawed at her upper lip when she thought no-one was watching. But he always was. His watching drowned out the clang of swords and pikes, the clamour of troops and their armour-clad liege lords, until his ears were muffled as if someone had filled them with candlewax. He had always been good at drowning things out. All he saw and heard and felt was his mother. He alone could decipher her when others could not.

They passed a chamber, the door so very slightly ajar that all he could glimpse was a sliver of chainmail. They passed another, shut fast, then another, wide open to an empty, barren room. His mother strode quicker still, her paces lengthening so far that the boy broke into a run to keep up. Nobody paid them much heed, a feeling with which he was far from familiar.
His jumbled thoughts strayed to his sister. Her warm, rosy shape filled his mind like honey, and he mused how queer it was that she was not there with them. He had many sisters — not all of them walking the earth — but she was his favourite, his counterpart, his twin. Hers was the face that danced across his mind in that moment; that, and the tickle of her ringlets in his neck as they sat side by side last night. The boy gazed at his mother again. She would take them both, surely, wherever they would go. She would not forsake anyone, especially not his sister. Her light shone brighter than his ever could.

Descending the stairs, he began to think that she had forgotten. Forgotten, not only that he was a grown boy of six sturdy years, but that there were others left behind. In the hall amongst a blur of soldiers stood his nursemaid, his brother at her hip, who exchanged a few indistinguishable words with his mother, unperturbed by their lawless surroundings. Inspecting his brother, the boy pondered for a minute why adults were always so entranced by infants. He could comprehend what made them so appealing — surely not their misshapen heads? Or their drifting, swaying, snatching hands? Or their cheeks, swollen and oozing like baked apples? A pang of jealousy quivered through his heart as his mother dropped his hand, reached for the baby and kissed its pudgy white head. He stared at the pair of them, tongue dull and heavy as though an ox had trodden on it, and wished suddenly that his eyes were brown too.

And then they were out in the courtyard, a carriage waiting just three steps away. Still he could not hear the bustle, for all he could think of was how empty, how purposeless his hand felt without his mother's. The boy did not understand himself — how could he yearn for solitude but also for affection? For uniqueness but also acceptance? For change but also comfort? One by one, he picked up his thoughts, then threaded his arms around his mother's waist.
"Be strong, my son," she whispered into his ear, the same delicate curve as her own. "Take care of your brother. Judith will accompany you — you like her, don't you?" The boy managed a nod into the nape of her neck. "And remember who you are," she added, gentler still. "I know, whatever happens, that you will be my greatest pride of all."