Work Text:
PALACE OF PLACENTIA
October, 1457
He did not mean to be in that place again. When, menaced by the rising currents of the Thames and encroached by the high winds of the approaching storm, Henry had decided to seek shelter in his wife’s favourite residence along the river, he had only thought of the safety of her ingenious new wharf and pier, of the chance of a refreshing cup of mead before he could go on his way, of the newly-built wall that stood between him and the voluminous, storming waters climbing up inch by inch, vicious as the slick rain. He had thought nothing of Placentia's last inhabitant, the uncle whose sombre presence seemed to hover over the red bricks and the Flemish tiled floors, the stone-built lodgings and the arcaded walkways of the dreamhouse over which he had once lavished his attentions. The palace stood framed against the hill and the hunting park beyond, a dead thing exchanging its carcass to make itself anew.
Even now, whispering in quiet prayer, Henry could still feel the late duke inside the same, albeit refurbished, apartments Gloucester had once owned and inhabited. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, the prayer beads clicked against each other, his brows furrowed in ineffective concentration. Henry's queen had spent around three hundred pounds to renovate the palace of the troublesome dissident Henry had years ago helped to tip into destruction, building entirely new apartments for herself in a mirroring disposition that encircled the household chapel from either side in a perfect resemblance of princely harmony. Yet Gloucester’s presence remained, a ghastly essence that emanated from the tapestry-clad walls, a murmuring, whimpering lament that travelled along the blast of cold air that somehow found its way inside the king’s inner rooms every now and again.
A bad place, and a bad time. It was All Hallows’ Eve, the day where all Christian souls hung precariously on the hinges of the gateway that stood between this and the other world, the night where the Devil and all his workers prowled, emboldened, to prey on the unsuspecting men living under the mark of their sinning. King Henry was supposed to have gone to Westminster to perform his annual solemn vigil for the upcoming holy day of All Hallows; he was never meant to be in that house that night, finding a poor substitute for his devotions inside his private closet, the only substantial renovations his apartments had seen since Margaret’s takeover. No milky light came trickling down from the three-sided window above the heavily stocked altar, no full moon triumphed over the heavy cast clouds to shine opalescent into the long night.
If Henry had not seen it during the day, he would never have known that the silhouettes of St Mary and St Joseph at the foot of the cross graced the twenty-two feet of obsidian glass that now faced his genuflect body. The black window stood like a closed, sleeping eyelid against the night. He would not have recognised the escutcheons bearing the arms of St George, of himself and his queen hanging over the Crucifixion scene like a not-so-subtle call for prayers for the royal family. Unspoken ghosts remained all around him: he could feel Margaret’s presence there too in all those new decoration devices, a kind of energy vibrating with a quietly powerful force everywhere in her precious, reformed palace. She was as ubiquitous as the pristine marguerites blooming on the stained glasses and the tough buds resisting the approaching winter in the gardens outside, a battle of hardened wills between the new and the old. Pleasaunce versus Bella Court. Yet that ever-present sensation only made his queen’s physical absence starker.
Where is she, he wondered whilst his lips repeated old litanies, not for the first time that night. When Henry had found Placentia open for him and his meagre, beleaguered entourage — reduced ever since York’s intervention — he had thought his queen had been waiting inside the royal lodgings. Margaret had always prided herself in her condition as a hostess; she had always kept a particularly lively and lavish court in all those years. Instead, not one of his servants had been able to find the queen, and not a single man or woman of her household had been spotted either. An empty great hall was succeeded by an empty parlour, an empty great chamber, an empty middle chamber, and an even emptier bedchamber: unlocked and inviting, the whole house rested as if cast under a malignant sleeping spell. With a shudder, Henry remembered that once, years ago, a witch had trodden the grounds of Bella Court too, welcomed by one of its own former inhabitants. A sepulchral silence hung over the palace.
I have come into the House of the Dead, the thought surged uninvited into his head, and the graveyard is none but the walking ground of the Devil. A freezing panic coursed through his bloodstream, a sort of quiet, despairing sinking of the heart. The news of his queen’s absence had instilled in him an uncanny, unsettling sense of strangeness, stronger and more fearful than the ominous storm gathering outside. He had retreated immediately into the innermost part of his lodgings, ordering his chaplain to hastily put together a mass in his private closet, hoping that the priest’s faithful chanting would come to muffle the increasingly deafening winds whirling around the property’s grounds. Finally calmer, fresher of mind, he had sent his chaplain and his men away to start his habitual nightly vigil. Bent in front of the elmwood altar, now only the crackling sounds of the fireplace within rivalled the diminishing weather without.
The pace of his heart began to quieten at last, but there was still something wrong lurking in that strange place. Pray as he might, he could not shake the feeling that he was not only enveloped by a ghostly presence, he was observed as well. Pairs of invisible eyes followed his every move, every rolling of the beads between his finger pads and each mouthed syllables that fell from his lips. It was a familiar sensation that followed Henry ever since he had fallen into that deep, motionless slumber they had named as ‘his episode’. No one ever comes back the same, his confessor had said in reply to that observation, half an embarrassed confession and half an ask for help. He was the new revived Lazarus, the priest had said, as if Henry had wandered across the plains of Purgatory all the time he had been unreachable to the living around him, blind and deaf as a grave. He had to grind his teeth and console himself with the thought that This too, I must endure. Like Joseph in Egypt, his was the business of enduring.
Yet what was the sound now, that picked up in the air, near—very near him—that murmur that note by note increased in intensity just outside his window? Not the wavering of the wind, no, something more sinister, more knowing, something almost as dark as the night itself, almost…. Almost like the plaintive and menacing cry of beasts, the unprecedented howling of an assembly of wolves. Lord be praised, could that be true? Those forest wraiths had been extinguished in England a long time ago, or so Henry had been told. When Henry had been just a kid, masking his own fear in the guise of regality, too shy to pass it as nothing else but his earthbound duty towards his subjects, he had asked Gloucester how he would ever protect his kingdom from the wolves, those ravenous creatures that knew no pity. There are no more wolves in England, my liege, his uncle had told him, almost amused as his eyes shot around the empty council room. Not, at least, the four-legged kind. He grimaced, deep in thought, and came closer to say: Fear the wolf, Henry. But not the beasts that live deep in the wilderness.
This is all but a figment of my imagination, Henry whispered to himself in his closet. He could not trust his own words. Stopping his prayer, he listened to the night again with the utmost effort, but only the wavering winds could be heard that time. No, indeed Henry could never trust himself again; he could not even trust that the memory of his uncle his mind had just brought back was real rather than a creation that strange house had impressed upon him just now. False, too, were the faint steps he heard coming from the empty vestry behind his closet, the place where his jewels and clothes were kept. All options of access to that room had been barred from the outside in a manner that any presence remained impossible at that time. And what, believing in the infinite mercy of Lord Jesus Christ, could Henry have to fear about his uncle’s house? Gathering himself up, feeling bolder than he had felt in ages, he grabbed a long candle and opened the vestry’s door to cast his glance within.
It was only the deep silence who greeted him inside, as well as the general darkness of an unlit closed room. Yet there was something else too, wasn’t there, a certain diffuse moistness in the air. Mould? In such a recent addition to the house? His shoe made a squelching sound when he stepped forward, as if someone had left the small window open and the room had been flooded with the recent rain that had welcomed Henry to East Greenwich village. The idea could not explain the instant sensation of disgust that shot up from his foot to the top of his head as he made his way inside, nor the warmness of the liquid that soaked through his soft, pliable sole—and what was that heavy pause, a rustle of sound, almost like a sigh? A gulp, a sob. Henry felt his heart drop from a great, frightening height. He heard the distinct sound of the crunching of bones. It was too late now. Too late to turn back, and much too soon to die.
The sparing light trickling from his candle first found a bloodied arm, its attached shoulder and torso, a stained, headless neck. Long, disembodied fangs gripped the neck in their hold. Out of the darkness, a pair of red eyes shot upwards to stare straight at him. Henry screamed, yet his throat never even made a sound. His cry was as silent as a knife cutting through the night air. And as if waking from a trance, the killer—the animal, the beast —stood up from its haunches, jaws stained with blood and dripping with saliva. A silvery object rolled down the tiled floor and shone in the candlelight to reveal the shape of a falcon trapped inside a fetterlock. York’s badge, he had still the clearness of mind to realise. The increasingly large shape that revealed itself to be an enormous, unnatural wolf, stepped on it, sent it rolling sideways into a corner. The beast's bloodied mouth opened to free a long lolling tongue from the redness inside.
Assaulted by deep, black terror, Henry’s spell-bound legs began to work again before he could even register the frenzy that took over them. He half-ran, half-stepped back, the candlestick fell from his hand to the floor with a loud thud and rolled away, leaving him in near darkness. Still he could not find the voice to protest against the demonic creature that advanced towards him step by step, all claws and teeth, giant eyes gleaming like fire. His back hit the wall and he could not retreat any further: he could not flee, he could not hide. He could not even negotiate and beg for his life, for everyone said wolves knew no reason but that of hunger and malice. Heart throbbing painfully against his ribcage, a red bird well about to climb up his throat and leave his body altogether, Henry grabbed the crucifix pendant that always hung from his neck and showed it to the forest assassin in last-minute desperation.
‘Vade retro, Satana!’
The wolf clapped its red eyes on the crucifix and growled, baring its teeth slick with spittle.
'Vade retro, Satana!' Henry shouted again, louder that time.
Quivering, the beast crouched down on the floor to throw back its sharp snout towards the ceiling, letting out a long desolate howl. It was the most terrifying sound Henry had ever heard in his life, the piercing sound of a thousand souls screaming in the very pits of Hell. A howling choir followed and erupted all around them, the wolf’s own pack singing back from outside the king’s lodgings as if lending support to their leader in a melody of horror. The world whirled around Henry's feet in a vortex of madness. He pressed his hands against his ears and still he could not stop the dreadful sound from ringing inside his head.
This is not real, Henry told himself, this is not happening. What Henry had feared all along must have proven true at last: he had fallen into another episode. He had gone again into the realm of shadows to suffer at the hands of the demons, to witness it all and endure. Nothing else could explain how God could have deserted him so, how none of his own men had come to his rescue. Nothing else could explain how the wolf stared fixedly at him but never pounced, how inconsolable the creature sounded. Nothing else could explain the vast ghastly sadness of its baying, its sob-like whimpering. Growing less terrified, Henry could not help noticing that the wolf’s eyes were neither red nor yellow but black, a starless sky reflecting back the candlelight inside the room. He had seen those dark eyes before, Henry realised. He had seen that same catastrophic, pulling blackness. What big, beautiful eyes you have! He remembered telling his wife the first time they had been together.
The flash of a white, perfect smile. All the better to see you with.
‘Margaret?’ He whispered.
The question left his lips before he could even register it. The wolf only stared at him, a nocturnal creature sitting on the hunkers of its own animal obtuseness.
Fear the wolf, but not the four-legged kind. It was impossible. Henry had heard of men who had been turned into savage wolves before, of boys born feet first into the world or unsuspecting victims touched by the ointments and potions of the Devil himself. But was there such a thing as women that turned into she-wolves? Henry allowed himself to think about his late aunt Eleanor, Gloucester’s wife, for the first time in a long while. She had consorted with a witch, that much he could remember, perhaps had even welcomed her into Placentia and rewarded and fed her under her roof. Could Margaret have been touched by the witch's lingering spells the time she had remained at the palace? What kind of curse had befallen Henry’s fearless consort? And how could God have allowed it? It's the house, something whispered inside him, that strange, accursed house.
Margaret had changed much over the last few years, the rumours were true in that regard. Ever since their son had been born, the queen had become more assertive, stronger, faster in her actions. Henry had seen her band sharp words with the Earl of Warwick and throw murderous looks towards the Duke of York and his retinue. Inwardly, Henry had thanked her every time, had felt relief at her courage and gratitude at her resourcefulness. Yet, could it be possible that he had given thanks to a curse instead of a blessing all along? How long had she been turned into a wolf? The Devil, like God Himself, of course, could work in mysterious and unprecedented ways. But could it be Margaret herself who had exchanged her soul, her humanity, for the promise of a son? They said all mothers would gladly damn themselves for their children. It was nothing less than a tragedy that his wife was plagued by the aberrated nature they had claimed her to possess.
The wolf began to approach Henry again, step after step, paw after paw. I shan’t be afraid. Henry gritted his teeth and stood his ground like a huntsman encroached by his own prey turned predator. No evil shall touch me tonight. His legs, quivering involuntarily, bent forward to bring Henry to his knees, face to face with the beast, its blood-stained slavering jaws. All he could hear, there in that dark room, was the sound of his own beating heart in his chest, his own blood pulsing in his ears. He wondered if that was how St Francis, the poor man of Assisi, felt when he set out to meet the wolf of Gubbio, the small town’s at once assassin and victim. In that one blindingly clear moment, Henry felt neither fear nor joy, neither despair nor hope. His chest grew so much in size he could swallow the whole of the Thames in its entirety. His eyes closed of their own accord.
He felt the she-wolf place her front paw on top of his wrist, pressing against his skin, pressing still, claws elongating and reaching round like human fingers circling his flesh in an odd familiar embrace until finally, at last, the night closed its jaws around him like an all-enveloping sea. All the world became one black, endless stream again. They found him in the morning.