“I shall have to watch my back, surely,” Charles said with a forced laugh, “in case this son of mine decides to snatch my crown before his time.”
The midwife prised the torn piece of material out of the infant’s fist, and he began to wail.
“You shall surely die abed, an aged and beloved king,” murmured one of the physicians. “This is no omen to be feared.”
“Of course not,” said Charles, but at that moment the room darkened as a cloud covered the sun, and the only one in the chamber who did not shiver in dread was the baby.
Weyland Orr brought his little sister Jane to stand outside the octagonal-towered gatehouse of St James’ Palace among the other crowds awaiting news of the queen’s delivery. Most of the crowd prayed for a prince; Weyland and Jane knew the child would be a prince. A king reborn.
Weyland hoisted Jane in his arms so that she could see through the gates into the Colour Court off which, the crowd was reliably informed, the queen laboured in her chamber.
See, Genvissa. In that tumbled mess of ancient buildings Brutus-reborn draws his first breath, while you sit, caught in the arms of Asterion, knowing you’ll never feel Brutus’ arms about you again. Will he come looking for you, do you think, once he has control of those infant legs of his?
Weyland laughed, softly, tormenting Jane with his thoughts. No, of course not. He’ll want his precious princess, Cornelia. He won’t want you, particularly after what I have planned.
Weyland sent a series of images skidding through Jane’s mind, and the girl began to cry.
Weyland hugged her to him. “There, there,” he whispered, playing the part of the affectionate brother to perfection. “All will be well. I shall look after you.”
Then he lifted his head. A nobleman had walked to the gates, and now shouted to the crowds.
“A son! A son! The queen has been safely delivered of a healthy son!”
The crowd roared, and Weyland cheered with the best of them.
In his arms, the little girl wept.
Three
Pendinnis Castle, Cornwall, and London
Fifteen years later
Queen Henrietta Maria of England stood in the centre of the hall of Pendinnis Castle, holding the letter in trembling hands. She looked about the great chamber, first at her beloved fifteen-year-old son, Charles, and then to their advisers and protectors, Sir Edward Hyde, John Colepeper and Thomas Howard, Earl of Berkshire. Honest men all, and loyal in an age when it seemed to Henrietta Maria that loyalty was a forgotten concept.
“It comes from my lord my husband,” she said, unnecessarily.
Hyde bowed his head, hiding his impatience. “Majesty, what does our king command?”
Tears filled Henrietta Maria’s eyes, and Charles moved to her side, resting a hand on her arm. Even at fifteen he towered over his mother, and his physical presence was such that Henrietta Maria instinctively leaned against him.
“He commands,” she said, “that I take our son Charles and flee this realm.”
There was an appalled silence. King Charles must think matters desperate indeed.
“No!” Charles said. “This is my land! I will not be exiled because some rogues say my father has lost his right to rule!”
“Charles…” his mother murmured.
Charles was so angry he visibly shook, his long black curls trembling in the weak candlelight, his darkly handsome face flushed. “I will not leave—”
“Your father thinks you will die if you don’t,” Henrietta Maria said.
Charles took the letter from his mother, and all could see the effort he made to be gentle as he did so.
“You are your father’s heir,” Hyde said softly. “One of you needs to live.”
“No,” said Charles, but his voice had dropped, and he had to dash away the tears so he could read the letter. His eyes skimmed the lines, then he read one line aloud: “’I sense a malevolent, ungodly hand behind all this treachery’,” Charles quoted, then looked up, although he did not focus on any of those standing about him. “Oh, aye, malevolent and ungodly indeed.”
There was a further silence as all thought on the crisis that had gripped the realm. Charles I had always endured an uneasy relationship with the Parliament which was now determined to curb his power. He’d tried to rule without it, had been forced to recall it, and had then been subjected to humiliation after humiliation by the rebellious parliamentarians until war erupted. The country had divided between those who supported the king, and those who supported the Parliament. For years the armies of king and Parliament had battled each other the length and breadth of the country until, some ten months previously, Charles I’s forces had been disastrously defeated by Parliament’s New Model Army. Henrietta Maria and her son had held out hope for months, but now…
“He tells us to flee,” the queen said, “so that you may live.”
“For what?” said Charles. “My father has no kingdom to leave me. Not a one. He’s lost them all: Scotland, Ireland, and now England.”
“Then you must rely on your wits to retrieve them,” said Hyde.
“And retrieve them you most surely shall!” Berkshire said loyally and with a little too much bravado.
“As I have had to previously,” Charles muttered, “from this ‘malevolent and ungodly hand’.”
“My prince?” said Colepeper.
“Nothing,” Charles said, and sighed. “My younger brother and sisters are safe?” he asked of his mother.
“Yes. I received word this morning that James and Henriette-Anne are in France. Mary, of course, sits and frets with her husband in the Netherlands. We shall be the last to abandon your father.”
“Parliament will kill him,” Charles said.
“They dare not,” said his mother, but all heard the uncertainty in her voice.
“My queen, prince,” Hyde said. “We must go. I can ready a ship within the hour.”
“Where?” asked Charles, his voice harsh and bitter.
“The Scilly Isles,” said Hyde.
“So my inheritance is to be reduced to the Scilly Isles,” Charles said. “How…quaint.”
That night, as Hyde hurried Charles and his mother towards the hastily readied ship, Charles leaned down and snatched at a piece of turf.
“I will not leave it all behind,” he said to Hyde, who looked on incredulously as the young prince pocketed the crumbling handful of turf and soil.
Weyland slouched on the single chair in the small, cramped room. In his mind’s eye he watched as Charles was jostled aboard the ship.
How comical. Almost three thousand years ago Brutus had arrived in England, Llangarlia as it was known then, at the head of a magnificent fleet of Trojan ships. He’d been met by Genvissa, chief priestess of the land as well as Mistress of the Labyrinth, and together they had created the Troy Game, the ancient labyrinthine sorcery which would give power and protection to the city Brutus intended to build on the shores of the Thames. Brutus and Genvissa had thought to rule the world through the Troy Game.
Instead, Weyland had outwitted them, time after time, life after life.
Now here they were, both debased. Genvissa-reborn forced, as Jane, to live a life of humiliation at Weyland’s hands; and Brutus-reborn, born to be king, but exiled with nothing more to show for his almost three thousand years of effort to control the Troy Game than a pocketful of dirt. He didn’t even have the six kingship bands of Troy, which he needed in order to control the Troy Game. They remained buried about London, waiting for Weyland to seize them…and control the Game as he now controlled Jane.
All Weyland needed were the kingship bands and Cornelia-reborn, once Brutus’ contemptible wife, but now a goddess in her own right and destined, by the Game itself, to become its Mistress of the Labyrinth.
There came a sound at the door, and it opened to admit a woman of some seventeen or eighteen years of age. She was tall and lithe, with pretty dark-blonde hair and brown eyes. Most men would have found her attractive were it not for the hard cast to her features, or the practised blankness in her eyes.
“Jane, my pet,” said Weyland. “Did you manage to find my plums at market?”
She held up a small package, and Weyland nodded. “Good. I shall allow you one or two, for this is an auspicious day and I am feeling gracious.”
Jane tipped the plums into a wooden bowl. If she was curious at Weyland’s words she didn’t show it.
“Brutus has gone,” Weyland said. “Fled. Brutus…Charles…is not a happy boy. His father is about to lose his head, his kingdom is lost, and his kingship bands are so out of reach they might as well not exist at all. He should have tried to snatch them while he had the chance, eh?”
Jane walked over, her every movement stiff, and held out the bowl of plums.
“I thank you, sweetheart,” Weyland said, then smiled as he watched Jane’s features harden at the endearment.