The Tower

by Gowan Campbell

My brother and I have just finished eating dinner.  We weren't particularly hungry - at least I wasn't - but there was nothing else to do.  Ritchie sits and looks at the floor, a blue look with long lashes and blonde bangs.  He is still holding his fork.  There is no food left.  He is quite still.  He looks and looks.  I don't want to look at him looking at the floor.  I don't like it.  I get up and walk to the east wall.  Then I walk to the west wall.  Then north, then south.  I manage to use up nearly a minute this way.  I wander, now that I have done all that could be expected.  I wander to the small, barred window and look out.

            There is a man down there.  He is a funny man.  I'm sure I never saw him before.  A nobleman, I think.  His clothes are about right.  There is something strange about the way he is moving.  As he walks he puts his feet down viciously hard into the dirt roadway.  He digs the heels, and grinds.  I can hear the grinding from up here.  Heel, pebbles, clay, pebbles.  His face is flushed and he is grinning ferally, a rictus like a rabid dog without the foam.  I see, rather than hear, his teeth grinding.  His eyes widen.  Then they narrow to slits.  Then they widen again, as if he had been bitten, or as if he had bitten into something unexpected.  He drives himself forward - yes, as if he were separate from his bodily contortions, trying to control his body.  His body is unwilling to obey.  It wants another master.  He forces it on.  He is stubborn.  I can't tell if he is angry, grieving or insane.

            He reminds me of Uncle.  I turn away from thinking of Uncle.  It won't help to think of him.  It won't help not to.  He will continue to exist and continue to do as he must, like a bear or a lion, or a jackal or a vulture, no matter whether I think of him.  I could find no objection to his taking the throne away from me - I wasn't ready for the burden, or Father would not have made Uncle my Protector.  Maybe that's all he'll take from me and my brother.  There are some things a little more indispensable than a throne.

            My brother and I are what you might call distraught.  Part of the reason I'm distraught is that I have toothache.  It seems that no one can do anything about it.  It's worse today than it usually is.  I have to take it as a reminder that I am alive.  Most of the reason I am distraught is that every single minute could be my last.

            It's the hot months and things are burning.  People are dying, or being hurt - I keep hearing screams now and then these days, and angry voices.  I have smelled smells as of noisome and evil bonfires.  I keep having dreams that someone is being burned alive, or an animal perhaps.  Burning hair and skin, and the sounds of death-struggles - so much more vivid and serious than the sort of thrashing and grunting that goes on when you're merely being captured, or dunked in the harbour by your fellows - wide swings, heels and fists striking dirt and embers too hard, hard enough to break bones and skin, but not hard enough to save them from being roasted.  Grunts and squeals from the quietest throats.  Sizzling and crackling and the croaking of tonsils too raw or too burned to scream the more.  Ghastly black smoke dotting the sky in trails and clouds.

            The man has fallen down in the roadway.  He is thrashing - something between ordinary struggling and death-struggling.  Some trick of the wind carries his exhalations to my ears, "leave me be, lay me out, line me up, mow me down, set me deep, seal me fast," and then he lets out some squealing noises that are more comical than anything.  But coupled with his behaviour prior to falling down, and the overcast gloom of the day, the setting sun peeking out from under a vast gray canopy, soaking everything within reach in red and yellow and red and orange and red and red and red, it seems for a moment that the ordinary world has flowed into my dreams, or vice versa, like a tributary stream joining a large river just near the source, where the currents are strong and incalculable and the water cold enough to steal your breath.  I can almost smell the charnel scent on the early evening air.

            I suppose I must have made some noise, for my little brother says "Dragon bite, Ed?"

            "Nothing, Ritchie," I say.  I move away from the window, and lie next to him on the bed.  "Nothing."

            We will probably lie together here until morning.  We won't speak to one another the whole evening.  That's how we are lately.  We used to quarrel, as all brothers must I suppose, but we seem to have run out of things to quarrel about.  We sleep fitfully.  Ritchie's dreams are at least as bad as mine, and probably worse.  He wakes me several times with his cries and whimpers.  I hold him, for all the good it does.  It might be better if either of us had any cause for optimism.  I've been here since mid-May, and poor Ritchie joined me in late June - Uncle got him away from Mother, I'm not sure how.  Now it seems as if we've been here all our lives.  One day is much like another.  We did plenty of playing and praying toward the beginning, but that has dwindled.  We receive mass and make confession as frequently as possible, under the auspices of one or another of Uncle's pet clerics.  We eat, we use the chamber pot, we sleep.  Dighton or Forrest will come in now and then to tend to the necessities.  Neither one has ever said a word to either of us, nor have we spoken to them.  Not much point.  We will stay here in this demented quarter of an existence until Uncle decides we are no longer necessary, and then - I shudder away from thinking of that, just as I shudder away from thoughts of Uncle.  He shows up in my dreams now and then - his unmistakable size and clothes, but in my dreams his face is never visible.  He will pursue me through my dream landscape of an England in eternal night, in which everyone is pursued by someone and the moon pursues everybody.  He will pursue me, over grass and under stars, through a stand of trees and out in the open, a bonfire, surrounded by strange faces, faces that give nothing, and ask nothing except my immediate absence, there is crackling in the undergrowth and I know the madman is behind me and I run again, into the night, searching for a fire where I know that they will acknowledge me and protect me from my kin.  He pursues me from bonfire to bonfire.  Sometimes I will think I am looking for Father, sometimes for Mother.  The Mother dreams are worse while I dream, for as I run I am always filled with a terrible certainty that Mother is worse off than am I.  The Father dreams are worse to wake up from, because in those I am sure that Father is still alive, and I continue to be sure of that until almost a minute after awakening.  Then I will remember that he is gone, that he will never return, and it is like losing him all over again.  The summer's too long, and it feels like the end of my life.

 

                                                                        *

 

The next day Uncle comes in to talk to me.  His visits have become less and less frequent as the summer has worn on.  I can see that he is distracted.  He is thinking of other things.  I am not sure why he is here.  He avoids looking me directly in the eye.  The conversation is compacted.  It is collapsed into a very small space.  He doesn't have long.  He has things to do.  I am part of a very tight schedule.  Nine o' clock, meet with the French ambassador.  Ten o' clock, address Parliament.  Ten-thirty, make superficial soothing-down conversation with deposed monarch.  Eleven o' clock, lunch with Buckingham.  He converses me into a shrinking box.

            "I know you must think me wicked, but taking the throne from you was the best way I could think of to serve as Protector."  Lie number one.  "Whatever you say, Uncle."  "I mean, Nephew, with the very greatest respect to you, what do you know of governing?  And you're only twelve.  The international situation being what it is, a boy-king would be a very great disaster at this time.  I would have been pleased enough just being your Regent and Protector, but I was forced to admit that we must show strength at this time.  I didn't really want the throne, you know - Parliament forced it on me."  Lie number two.  "I know that, Uncle."  "And this business of you and dear little Dickie being illegitimate.  I had nothing to do with that, I promise you.  I had to concede it when the evidence turned up, I mean, I really, I had no alternative.  It's trumped-up.  It'll fall down.  I'll overturn it.  When you're old enough, you will have the throne.  I promise you.  You'll live to thank me one day."  Lie number three.  I think.  "I'm sure I will, Uncle.  I thank you now."

            A few more soothing-down remarks, and he leaves.  My jaw hurts from talking to him.  If I don't use any of my facial muscles at all, the pain remains a dull throb.  Move one little thing and the pain twitches across my face, like a hungry animal disturbed in its sleep.  I sit down on my bed.  Dear little Dickie sleeps on his.  He spends too much time napping.  If I thought he had much to live for, I would worry.

            I lie to Uncle, too.  I lie to him because it's safer.  I am his prisoner.  I am at his mercy, and he is widely known for not having any.  But in that case, why does he lie to me?  To what possible end?  I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that everything he says is falsehood, palpably so; some of it outright, some cleverly fashioned perceptions of the shifting shadowy world of international dickering and parliamentary debate, of expediency and high policy.  His words deny the very existence of truth or falsehood; outmoded, old-fashioned ideas.  They get in the way of our doing what we want to do.  I may be only twelve, but I've read enough history to know that this is not new.  In any aristocracy, be it Egyptian or Greek, Roman or Romanian, the vast majority have no scruples, or have a knack for conveniently ignoring their consciences while a crime against humanity is in commission.  Nothing matters so much as that I should have what I want, is their unspoken mass credo.  I don't care about the consequences.  I may have to kill people, I may have to destroy their lives and their reputations.  Parents will lose their children, farmers will lose their land, holy men and women will fall from grace with God.  But I will have my land, my money, my office.  Mine.  Give me that, it's mine.  It was promised me.  It is my family's, by ancient custom.  It is mine by right.  It is mine, by God's will.  The extemporisings, the rationalisations of kings and chancellors.  They kneel and pray in the temples they have commissioned, and beg the gods they have raised for favors, dicker with the Almighty for their good fortune.  If you let me get away with this, I'll give you another temple.  Made of gold.  Well, partly.  Gold-plated.  And we'll tell everyone it's gold.  You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.  Forgive my sin and I will -

            "Ed?"

            "Yes, Ritchie?"

            "Was that Uncle?"

            "Yes, Ritchie."

            "What did he say?"

            "Said that nothing's his fault."

            Ritchie ponders this for a moment.  Then, "Well, I suppose he should know."

            That seems to be all.  He doesn't talk much anymore.  He used to talk a lot.  He would gabble all the livelong day, and laugh, and run, and play.  He loved a joke.  Ever since Uncle stole him out of sanctuary, he's been dwindling to a point.

            I stay seated.  The pain is miserable.  I cry a little, but not seriously.  I'm grateful in a way for some feeling, because the rest of me is numb.  In a little while I'll start pacing again, and probably looking out the window.  That'll be a treat.  But not just yet.  I'll sit here and let the anticipation build for a little while.

 

                                                                        *

 

            Later - I'm not sure how much time has passed - it could be hours, or days, or even weeks - I am sitting in much the same place, contemplating that same excitement involved in getting up and pacing our cell, when - well, something happens.  It isn't easy to describe.  I spin away, I'm not sure where, or how, and I am in another place, suddenly.  My bed, Ritchie's bed, Ritchie, the Tower - it's all gone.  Where I suddenly am looks like a courtroom, but it's paneled strangely.  Likewise the people; their clothes are cut right, and they fit, but the fabrics look peculiar.  There are only men here.  Uncle is nowhere to be seen, but one of his retainers is standing by the dock, which is empty.  Could Uncle be on trial?

            It seems so, for the Judge - who is wearing positively the oddest wig I have ever seen on a man…makes him look a bit of a ponce, actually - says to the Defender and the Prosecutor, who are similarly bewigged, "Well, it seems to me a clear enough matter.  There is much circumstantial evidence to condemn this man for the murder of his nephews, but nothing rock-solid.  Of course, the final decision rests with the jury.  Has the Defence anything further to say?”

            "Yes, my lord.  There is still Dr. Shaa."

            "Put him up."

            Shaa enters, to some sort of fanfare.  He climbs cautiously into the witness-box, trembling.  "I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me."

            "So help you what?"  barks the Judge, quick to spot any clever omission.

            "So help me please."

            "Admirable!"  The Judge looks admiring.

            "Well said!" say some of the jury.  Most of them just mutter.  Two or three of the spectators try a "hip-hip-hooray," but it falls flat.

            "I have only a brief statement to read, my lord."  Shaa pulls a bit of foolscap out of his robe and begins to read, in a firm, clear voice:  "Ooga booga booga, mumphry pumphrey tumph.  Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.  What is truth, said Pontius Pilate, and washed his hands, but the multiplying brood of the ungodly shall not thrive, nor take deep rooting from bastard slips, nor lay any fast foundations.  Have you an arm like Richard's, and can you thunder with a voice like his?"

            Seven or eight of the spectators burst into spontaneous applause.  The Prosecution rises to address the bench.  "My lord, I was thinking that it would be nice if just one of the witnesses for the Defence could keep up some show of relevancy -"

            "Overruled," yips the Judge.  "Pray continue with your masterly argument, Doctor."

            "Yes, my lord.  So Uncle Richard was just this guy.  He was just going along, minding his own business, when suddenly his brother was king.  He was loyal to his brother, minding his own business, and suddenly his brother married the Whore of Babylon.  He stayed loyal to his brother, although the Whore of Babylon is not exactly p.l.u., minding his own business, when his brother died.  Then the Whore of Babylon and all her family tried to take over the country and put her infernal brood on the throne.  So did Dickie have a duty, or did he didn't?"  There is a whistle from the jury box and a "nice one, guv" from among the spectators.  "Moreover, Mummy was mean to Daddy, and Dickie's brother should never have been king in the first place.  What I'm trying to say is, Eddie IV was illegitimate, but don't let it get you down, it's okay, Richard is here to save the day, he's so cool and he's so tough, and he's here to prove that he's tough enough."  There is a "hear, hear" from the bench.  "So you see, mes copains, the progeny of old King Eddie Baby should be instantly eradicated, for neither was he a legitimate king, nor can his issue be so, everso.  Edward IV was conceived in adultery and sin and naughtiness and all that sort of thing, and in every way was unlike the late Duke of York (Requiescat In Pace, Daddy-o); but" - Dr. Shaa is inflicting a passionate crescendo on the courtroom without warning - "Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who altogether resembles his Daddy, is to come to the throne as the legitimate successor!"

            There is a burst of heavenly light, and from above a "Hosanna!" in glorious harmony, and Uncle is lowered from the heights into the witness-box.  Unfortunately, the wire snaps and Uncle is dropped from about three feet.  He doesn't fall, but he does stagger a little.  I begin to wonder about this vision - or is it only a dream after all?  And where am I?  Uncle recovers quickly.  "Yes, yes, legitimate successor, that's me.  Mother was a harlot and brother's wifie too.  But I don't let anything bother me, I just keep doing what's best for England.  Don't bother to thank me.  It's my job."

            "Your majesty," yelps the Judge, "what about any accusations that you might have murdered, might be murdering, or might someday murder those dear little nevvies of yours?"

            "I never!" declaims Uncle, not too forcefully.  "Lies!  Lies spread by Lancastrians and sexually inadequate historians!  Where's the evidence?  Show me the evidence!"

            "It's over there," says the Prosecution, pointing at the four or five foxed and dogeared documents that make up the exhibits.

            "Oh.  Well.  Then show me the proof!"

            "There is none, your majesty," says the Judge, placatingly.

            "Then why is this trial being held at all!" says Uncle in indignant, ringing tones.

            "Oh, just something to do," says the Prosecution wearily.

            "My lord Judge!" I cry.  Suddenly I am aware again of my own physical presence and, just behind me, Ritchie's.  He is holding my hand.  I am glad that this opportunity has come.  It is time to speak up.  "My people -"

            "Address your remarks to the bench, princeling," says the Judge.

            I decide not to argue about his form of address.  "My lord.  For your sake, and for the sake of England, as well as for my own, I demand justice.  Do what is right.  Punish Richard.  He has lied, and he has cheated, and he has stolen.  Is that the sort of man you want for a King?"

            Silence.

            "Well, is it?"

            No one is saying anything.  Not the Judge, not the Prosecution, not the spectators, not the jurymen.  They are all staring at the floor, some more sad than angry, some more angry than sad.  What can we do? their stares seem to say.  Our hands are tied.  He's the strong man, we the yes-men.  The bull in the herd.  The first.  If we oppose him, he will eat us alive.  And we have our own interests to protect, our own lesser plots to incubate, hatch, cook, eat and occasionally choke on.  Nothing we can do for you, young lordling.  Sorry.  Sorry.  You're on your own.  They stare sullenly, rhetorically at the floor.

            My tooth is hurting like God's vengeance.  I usually can't feel it when I'm asleep, but now it is hurting worse than it does when I'm awake.

            I go to the dock, where Uncle is now sitting.  I keep hold of Ritchie's hand, and he follows pliantly enough.  "Uncle," I say.

            He is the only one of them not staring at the floor.  He is staring through me at the Judge's bench, which seems to annoy him for some reason.  At least I think it does.  I can't really interpret his expression.  His eyes are red-rimmed, probably from lack of sleep.  He never was a crying man.  He seems angry, irritated.  He is...trembling vaguely....  Fear?  I shake my head.

            "Uncle," I say.  "You've got to stop this."

            His eyes flick approximately in my direction, then back to the bench.

            "Uncle."  Unmoving.  I can feel tears threatening, force them back.  No time.  "I'm your brother's son.  Ritchie is your brother's son.  We are your mother's grandchildren.  We are your blood, your bone."

            His upper lip curls upward, almost into a sneer, but not quite.  Then it goes back to the way it was.  Is there a trace of wetness in his red eyes now?  I can't be sure.  My own tears are beginning to force their way out.

            "Your brother left us in your charge.  A sacred trust.  All those stories.  Even if you didn't make them up, even if they were really true, we...are...your"

            Nothing.

            "blood and bone."

            A sudden fierce grin, animal death's head grin of unbeatable good humour under a snarling nose and terrified, almost weeping eyes.

            "Bone, perhaps," he says through his teeth.  "Blood, no."

            He is looking at Ritchie.  I look at Ritchie too, through tears.

            Ritchie is naked.  He is covered in dried blood.  The flesh that isn't reddish brown is white as sea-foam.  His mouth is open impossibly wide; his chin hangs down on his chest, but I can just make out on his neck the terrible flap of skin, and I realise that the blood is his own.  His bones show through his desiccated skin, in stark relief.  His tongue is mottled blue and white, and his teeth are dry.  His eyes, wide open, are fixed expressionlessly, malevolently on Uncle, and I realise that Uncle has been meeting his stare.  I start to let go of Ritchie's hand, and find that I cannot.  I try to scream.  I see that my own hand is bluish-white.  I look down at myself, and find that I am as naked as Ritchie, and that my skin is all the same bluish-white as my hand.  I keep trying to scream, but nothing will come out of my throat; my will is seeping out of me like blood.  Behind me, Uncle is either screaming, or laughing, or sobbing.  I can't tell which....

            When I come back to myself, I am shaking and thrashing and screaming hoarsely.  Ritchie is holding on to me, sobbing, apparently afraid that I might hurt myself.  I calm myself as best I can, and just lie there.  Ritchie quiets, then breaks into a fresh spate of sobbing.  I hold him.  It is something to do, and it prevents my having to look at his face for awhile, and seeing that other face behind it.

 

                                                                        *

 

I'm dreaming again.  It is the dream of the chase.  Unexpectedly, Uncle catches me at the third bonfire.  He's never caught me before.  I see his face for the first time in my dreams.  It's much the same as his face is in the waking world except that his teeth are a little longer and he has a tendency to spit when he talks.  He's talking to the people around the fire.

            "It's not really me doing this, whatever you think you see.  Just because he's in my custody and under my protection is not sufficient reason to suppose that I have anything to do with anything that may happen to him, or the other brat, his brother.  All quite circumstantial.  History will vindicate me, I feel sure.  And even if I were doing something, something that might be considered, under ordinary circumstances and involving ordinary people, something, well, evil -"  They only stare back at him.  "- as I say, even if I were, I wouldn't care what you think about it, I would just go ahead and do it.  Anyway, what is evil?  Define it for me.  If a thing is necessary for the greater good, how can it be evil?  But that's not an admission.  In no case.  I deny that categorically."  None of them moves or says a word.  "It's not my fault his father married a harlot.  Nor is it my fault that his father promised marriage to that other woman, what-was-her-name.  The point is, even if I were doing this, what you think I'm doing, it would be doing you a favor.  Because both the brats are illegitimate.  Their father was illegitimate too.  His whole reign was a mistake.  A hiccup of history after too rich a meal.  Mother was unfaithful to father.  My brother wasn't really my brother.  It is filial piety that forces me to say these things.  I would much rather not have to say them.  It is very painful to have to acknowledge them.  You must believe me.  I am descended from Henry Fitz-Empress.  How could such a man lie?"  The fire dances and swirls, and the night is silent except for its crackling, and the noises of strange beasts that move in the forest.  The firelight reflects redly off their eyes, and off the eyes of the people around the fire staring at Uncle.  They are burghers and merchants and shoemakers and grocers and bakers, and men and women and youths and maidens and boys and girls.  They are blonde and brown and red and black and bearded and smooth.  They stare and stare.  "That’s it, you just keep looking at me.  You don't understand what you see.  Just like my enemies.  They watch me all the time.  And they plot against me.  They wait for me to fall.  I know this.  They don't understand, and you don't understand.  You don't know what a nobleman is, what a gentleman is.  I'll explain me to you.  Loyalty is the mainspring of my life.  Loyalty to you, to our beloved island, is what makes this necessary, this terrible thing that you think you see me doing.  It is loyalty that binds me to my family, to my country, to my people.  It is because of my loyalty that I must stand against those who would see me fallen, they are the evil ones, those unseen pretenders to the throne.  They hate you and I love you.  They hate our country and I love our country.  It is they who do this.  They spread malicious lies and propaganda about me.  Don't believe them.  Don't."  They don't believe him, but they're not trying to stop him, either.  "Don't believe them.  Don't hate me.  Why should you hate me?  What ever have I done to you?  Hate them.  They are the enemy.  They are the ones who are doing what you think you are seeing me do.  It's all a terrible lie.  I would like to cast this terrible lie back into the terrible teeth of the terrible man who says it.  Who says it?  Who says this thing?"  He rubs his mouth briefly with the back of his hand.  He is quite pale, and his teeth have grown slightly longer, and more disordered; he has cut the back of his hand on one of them.  The blood dribbles down slowly, dreamily, into his sleeve.  The pupils of his eyes are black glass beads in the firelight.  He can't seem to take his eyes off the people.  I can't seem to move.  They can't seem to take their eyes off him.  I can't seem to breathe.  I'm hot and I can't move and I can't breathe.  It is becoming a nightmare, a suffocating dream.  It's dark, I can't see.  Something is pressing me down hard.  I can't find the air; Uncle has it in his pocket.  I hear Ritchie crying somewhere.  I can't get breath to cry or speak or scream or sing.  My eyes are aching, hardening to stones in my head.  My teeth are dry.  My sore tooth doesn’t hurt anymore.  I'm not hearing anymore.  I can't hear Ritchie.  All I hear is somebody somewhere breathing heavily. 

                                                                        *

 When I wake up my brother and I are lying together.  His crying has stopped.  It is still dark.  The air is close.  I still can't move or breathe, but that no longer seems such an urgent matter.  There is wetness everywhere, but I'm barely conscious of it.  There is a faint, rusty smell, but I can't identify it.  Ritchie's lost a lot of weight; I feel the bones right through his skin.  My awareness seems to be creeping out of me slowly, like a partly-crushed beetle.  Even if I could move, I don't think it would be any use.  We're in a box, buried under stones.  The rest is darkness and despair.  There is no way out. 

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