Henriad (History Plays, Book 5)

1: find we a time for frightened peace

Harry

The sweet glimpse of dawn draws past the distant mountains, and with it the fog lifts from sullen hills, finding its way through thick glass windows down to cast upon my sleeping face.
I sit up from a dreamless, dark sleep that overtook me in the small hours of the morning. Or perhaps I dreamt and did not remember. I do not dwell on it. I sit up, blinking and peeling papers from my face. I slept at my desk, as usual. I check the clock. Early yet. I slept but two hours which is my custom.
I gather the papers, straightening them and making a few last minute corrections. It will keep until I return in a few hours after the household is woken and set. For now I have business to attend to.
I find my jacket and quietly slip down to the first level of the great house. The Bolingbroke estate is massive, and I have known my way about it as soon as I could walk, I think. The manor's halls are a maze for even some of our senior servants. But it is my favorite playground just beyond my mind and holds no mystery for me.
I whistle to wake the old dog, and together we set out across the snowy fields. A fresh snowfall came late in the night, but the sun is already warming us. I smile up at it past the pale pink whisps of clouds. It's already a fine day, because I am in it.
At the pasture's edge waits my mother's horse, a gentle Palomino. My mother was a quiet woamn, who loved books, and tales of adventure, and animals, far better than people. And as a poor girl, she'd of course never owned more than a cat while growing up. But from a young age she'd dreamed of having a horse. She sketched them beautifully throughout her childhood, owning a few precious statues and toys.
That childhood ended rather abruptly. For at age seventeen she gave birth to me. Her eldest child, and a neat copy of her, lanky, lean, dark haired and yellow eyed. If I brought hardship or any heartache or fear, she never showed it in her love towards me. My father, only nineteen at my birth, her high school sweetheart and by the time I came about, her husband.
And from my memory she cared not for their age or at the time, wealth. I remember nothing but smiles from her, as she kissed my cheeks and held me up to the sun. Her routine, to take me out into the wild each morning. "It makes him less wild," she would tell my father. He'd laugh and let her have it. Whatever made her happy, was always, paramount to him. He loved me well, if only for her sake. He called me his prince. And in my infancy I knew nothing but kindness from him.
For my mother I was something else. For her I was her Sleepwalker. That was all I recall her calling me. When I was but a small child she would find me in the middle of the night, busy in my room, arranging toys or striving to read books. At first she thought that I was sleepwalking, hence the nick name. But I was quite awake.
She herself slept little. And in the mornings she would wake early, fetch me, and take me out into the fields to listen to the sounds of the wilds, while the rest of the house slept. At first this was just walking in among the trees, her carrying me and telling me the name of everything she could find.
But as soon as my father got into any form of money, then he got her the horse. Because it was always, whatever would make her happy. That was all he wanted to do. Please her.
The Palomino is growing old now, it was a fine, gentle creature when he got it for her. I remember the day. She cried. She didn't know how to ride it even. I swear she petted this creature more than she ever rode it. But of course she taught me to ride it. Truthfully, if my father had known that was going on he would have without a doubt contracted an instructor. But blessedly he did not.
I pet the gentle beast, carefully sliding on a soft bridle, the horse nudges me happily. Our morning routine has been the same for years. And the animals move in soft harmony with me. I knot my fingers in the rough white mane and pull myself onto the animal's bare back. The dog runs ahead, already well aware of the trail I will follow.
The horse needs little to no urging to take us out of the pasture, and through the trees onto the mountainside beyond. The fresh scent of pine clears my head, and the dusting of snow nestles in my hair. My mother loved these mornings. These rides. I close my eyes and imagine her fingertips curling into my hand. Her voice in my ear.
My father prays in church for her soul. I do it here. Where she took me. Where she was and where if there is an afterlife I hope she remains. It's not a sad thing. I'll die as well one day. It's sad for me. I wish she were here, yes, but for reasons my father says God understands, she is not. And I am. Her Sleepwalker up at the first trace of dawn. In the woods and the forest she loved.
We reach the lake quickly. My skates still hang where I left them on the stump of an old tree. I slide from the horse's back, stroking its side before looping the reigns over a branch.
"Ready for a game?" I ask the dog, as I finish lacing on the skates. not even my own ritual. This is merely another homage to the dead.
I pick up my hockey stick and skate to the center of the lake. It's a bit snowy but not bad. If we get more I'll have someone come out and clear it. The servants know well not to question my odd habits by now.
The dog runs to the other side of the lake, barking happily.
I tip my head up, closing my eyes and breathing in the cool morning air. Again, not my ritual. But I learn from it.
"You're smart enough to understand the physics of it. And despite what your mother says, something has to wear you out," Richard laughed, holding the puck in a gloved hand as he adjusted my stance.
Richard is not my father. He's my father's cousin so we were to call him uncle. He was my father's business partner. Was. Because he is dead.
To condense a long story, he and my father worked well together, for a time. They both became very rich men. To hear either tell it, the other was the impulsive one. Either way it happened, my father more often than not was away. And Richard was around and he saw fit to mentor me in my father's absence. I was quite well with that.
Then my father went to prison. Well. To hear him tell it Richard sent him to prison. To hear Richard tell it, he had no choice and it was sacrifice my father or several other people and possibly himself. So he made the choice with the least damage. Needless to say my father was not pleased with that. And when my father got out, well, we knew he wouldn't be pleased when he returned. And he wasn't. And now Richard is dead. He didn't kill him himself, mind you. He had him killed. Apparently there's a difference. I don't think it's a massive one, not me personally, no effectively the same thing in my mind. But my father sleeps better at night with his version where those are different things. So we leave it at that.
"You've got your fencing and your music. This is cleverness too but in a different way. If you learn nothing from it then you've proved me wrong, and you're smarter than me, again," he said, grinning, gold hair dusted with snow already, grey-blue eyes soft in the evening light.
"If I get it past you can I go through your ledger for errors?" I asked, hopefully.
"Yes, I've already promised you that, and we both know you'll probably wind up doing it anyway instead of sleeping like a little boy should," he said, tolerantly. Sometimes I think he thought I was this weird little alien that somehow got stuck in the form of a boy. He was ever indulgent and constantly amused by my wit. Unlike my father who just grows increasingly confused. I don't know why. I'm not a puzzle to be solved.
I practice shots, the dog loyally bringing back the puck each time. Soon I am warm and flushed from the exertion, but my head admittedly clearly than it was.
I take off the skates, put back on my boots, and I and the animals and my memories of the dead make our way back to the main house. This is my routine. For better or for worse. Trying desperately to cling to memories that get sweeter yet more faded with each passing day. But they are here. I feel them, and so perhaps where they are they can feel me too.
I return the horse to his pasture, and then the bridle to the tack room. I check him over, quickly, before making a mental note to have the stable hands trim his mane sometime this week. It's getting matted and in his old age he likes none but me brushing it.
Then, I return to the house, which is just waking up to prepare for the day.
"Alistair, are the children up yet?" I ask, entering the main servant's quarters from the door to the yard. Again, they are quite used to my routine and other than a few respectful nods they do not start at my entrance. They learned years ago that I am omnipresent here, drifting in and out when they least expect, and that it's simpler to just go along with it.
"The bell was rung a few moments ago, sir," he says.
"Right, see that breakfast is on the table in ten minutes, I'll have them down," I say, making my way to the back stairs.
"Very good, sir."
I take the steps two at a time then double back down another hall to the family quarters. My parents room sits empty, and diagnoally across from it, mine, the door ajar as per my wishes so that if its closed I'm not to be disturbed.
My siblings are stirring, I hear the general commotion of sleepy children not looking forward to a school day.
"Morning, you up?" I ask, knocking on Thomas' door. Thomas is the next eldest after me. In looks he takes after our father, he's short and sturdy with chestnut brown hair that's stick straight. He's quiet and generally reserved. Nothing like me, but we get on well enough maybe because it does me good to have someone quiet and thoughtful about. Being next oldest, he remembers our mother best next to me, so we have that together. He's just turned fifteen and it's his first year at Globe Preoperatory, the elite private school that all the trust fund children of our quite little town of Avon attend.
"I'm up," he says, he's adjusting his tie, sighing a bit, "Did you actually go to sleep?"
"Actually, yes, here," I enter and come to redo his tie. "Over, then under—there."
"I told you I hate this school," he sighs.
"I told you take that up with dad," I say, messing up his hair.
He slugs me in the arm before adjusting his tie again, "When did you get good at tying ties?"
"When I wasn't sleeping, I'll see you down stairs. Ellen was making French toast," I say, leaving.
"Shouldn't you be getting dressed?" he calls after me, but I ignore him. I'm still in thick jeans and a fisherman's sweater from my morning ride, I'm sure with traces of horse hair, dog hair, and if I'm lucky pine needles, caught in the sweater and my hair.
"Morning, morning, homework, morning," I say, walking into Jon's room. Jon is my next younger brother, age 13. He could be Thomas' twin, with the same soft red-brown hair and light brown eyes. Without playing favorites, Jon is one of my favorite brothers. Our mother's nick name for him was 'spitfire', and it was well earned. Jon has never backed down from a fight nor has he ever thought twice about starting a fight. He's fantastic, if a bit of a hazard to himself and others, which makes him a really great ally as a little brother. All I have to do is say 'hey I bet you can't break into dad's office and take his ledger that he doesn't want me to have' and he's like 'absolutely I'm going to do just that immediately'. It's really awesome for me. Been like this since he could walk. I always jokingly thanked my mother for giving me Jonny to play with. Our father has found that joke increasingly less funny.
"I'm looking for it—I did it, I swear," he says, rifling his own room with all the methodology and regard for personal property of a SWAT team.
"Bring it down to breakfast or you're redoing it," I say, uncovering his book bag and gloves from a pile of clothes, "Seven minutes."
"Fine!" he groans, crawling under the bed. I don't ask how homework would have wound up there. This is Jon we're talking about.
I leave, hopping neatly over a fallen hockey stick as I do. The next room is brother No 3. Humphrey, known henceforth as Rey, because that's an awful name for a twelve year old.
"Morning, you need to wake up now," I say, gently patting the lump underneath the blankets. Rey is my little shadow. For no apparent reason from when he could walk he's followed me around and looked up to me. Our father was away when he was born. Maybe that's it. I don't know.
"I don't want to go to school," he mumbles, poking his head out. His strawberry gold hair is messed up and standing on end. He was our mother's little snuggle. He's soft and quiet and still on the chubby side. He takes after our father with his red hair and red brown eyes, and short stature. But he also has our father's firey temper and while he tend to be subtler than Jon he's known for finishing fights. Real relief for our father after Jon, not that he's actually better behaved but he apologizes quicker. Anyway, as I said we call him Rey and our mother called him her rey-of-sunshine because he's usually cheerful and just plain sweet.
"Why not? Need me to come and beat up bullies?" I ask, petting his hair.
"They talk about dad," he mumbles.
"I'm sorry. We both know Jon will beat them up though," I say, weakly.
"That's part of the problem," he sighs, "Can't I go back to sleep?"
"Absolutely not. It's almost time for breakfast, come on," I say, tugging off his blanket. He glares at me.
"Do not make me come back, and I want your math homework waiting at my place at breakfast," I say, pointing accusingly.
"Jon didn't even do his," he says.
"Oh, I know, he's doing it frantically now, see you at breakfast," I say, pulling the blanket to the floor and standing up.
"Okay," he sighs, sitting up and rubbing his sleepy eyes.
The next room is yes, another brother. Well. Not technically.
"Morning, morning, you want to watch Jon speed write an essay on a book I know he hasn't read? The show is commencing in the kitchen---what's wrong?" I ask, entering Edmund's room to find him already dressed, sitting on the bed with a model set strewn in front of him. It's half finished.
"Couldn't sleep," he says, quietly. Edmund isn't my biological anything. He's not a Lancaster. He was Richard, my father's cousin's, adopted son. After my father had Richard killed, he took in Edmund. That was three years ago, Edmund was only 8 at the time, now he's 11. But he's old enough to remember his real adoptive father, and I'm one of the few people who will even talk about him anymore.
"That looks cool," I say, hugging him around the shoulders. For his sins, Edmund looks nothing like us, with ink black hair and dark black eyes. He stands out clearly as being adopted which is harder on him than ever since he looked a bit like Richard and his wife. They took him in when he was a toddler, so anyway, we're his third family now. He's generally quiet about that. He keeps quiet and does as he's told and lives with his father's murderers so I am just assuming that affects him.
"Yeah," he says, quietly, "You smell like horse."
"I was out riding the horse, yeah," I say, giving him another squeeze, "Breakfast's in five minutes, okay? Have your homework ready I need to check it."
"Okay," he says, not looking up. I leave, making a mental note to spend some time with him this evening. Just him and me, like when his father was alive and we had fun together and I wasn't consumed with running the family estate and caring for all of my siblings.
Next room is Blanche, my baby sister. Blanche is only a few months younger than Edmund, making her ten now.
"How's a beautiful girl on a beautiful morning?" I ask, coming in.
"Not ready," she sighs, smoothing her school skirt, her hair is still loose from bed and her school books scattered.
"You're fine, Breakfast's in four minutes," I say, lightly, coming to braid her hair, "What do you want done?"
"Can you French braid it?"
"Yeah, stand still," I say, smoothing her thin copper hair through my fingers, "Homework done?"
"Yeah, I'll bring it down," she says, "Is dad coming home today?"
"I don't know. I talked to him last night it depends on how he's feeling, probably," I say, coolly, "He's going to feel awful though, so you know, he might not be up for much."
"Why won't he let us come visit at the hospital?" she asks.
"He likes being in control," I answer, honestly. If anyone could defeat skin cancer with sheer aggression, stubbornness, and dumbassery, it's our father. He's been in for treatment these past few weeks, and before that he was very close to being too ill to even stand. The treatments at the moment are worse than the actual cancer which is worse than his actual personality.
"Can I leave school if he gets home?" she asks, hopefully.
"Absolutely not," I say, spinning her around, "There perfect, go meet our brothers downstairs, I'll be down in a minute."
Next and last stop. Philippa, who is my youngest sister, usually called nothing but Pippa. Our mother died giving birth to her, a long eight years ago, making Pippa's birthday the anniversary of my beloved mother's death. Who was there when she was born? Not our father. Richard and his wife, they came. He held me while I screamed for my mother and sobbed and railed I wanted her back. Pippa was premature and they wouldn't let me hold her for days.
After that? Pippa has been my pet from the moment the nurses laid her in my arms. She is my mini-me every possible way. We two are the only siblings to take after our mother, dark, almost curly brown hair, light honey gold eyes that look dark in some lights and frosted amber in others, lanky and lean with a quick temper and a quicker tongue. Our father jokes with no humor at all that we could talk a snake into stealing legs from a worm.
"Why are you so early?"
"Why does your room look like a nuclear testing site?"
"Why should I answer to you?"
"Ah Rhetoric, foul, now you must serve me," I say, scooping her up in my arms. Like I said, my baby sister, my pet, my personal responsibility. I swore to my mother that I would care for this baby she died to bring into the world. And I have. Blanche and Rey don't remember our mother well at all, but Pippa never even met her. So I try to fill that.
"Why does breakfast come earlier every day?"
"When will you learn to tell time?" I ask, scooping her onto my pack and picking up her backpack.
"Why do you suppose I can't tell time yet?"
"Since when am I an expert on your schooling?"
Our mother loved games, especially word games. She taught all of us children to play questions, a simple exercise of asking only interrogative statements, with the rules being no repeat questions, no rhetorical questions. She would play with all of us often at mealtimes. I think our father swiftly regretted siring six children all equally verbal and clever.
"When are you going to stop carrying me places?"
"When are you going to weigh more than a twig?" we progress like that downstairs, her on my back, me carrying her things and navigating the narrow stairs. We take breakfast in the kitchens, as it's easier and I think better for the children's development.
"Homework's there," Jon calls, as soon as I enter.
"Why do I know you did this five minutes ago?" I ask, setting Pippa down and going to check the work as my siblings bustle around.
"Are we really doing this now?" Rey sighs.
"Foul, why do you always go with rhetoric?" Jon, immediately.
"Aren't we incapable of having breakfast like a normal family?" Thomas asks.
"Can't you please remember we've discussed this, that so far as the papers and your teachers are concerned we are a normal family?" I ask, standing as I check their work, making marks with a pencil so they can erase it and fix the mistakes.
"Why do we have to hide what we are?" Pippa asks.
"Rhetoric, Foul," Rey says.
"Why not count that as fair because we are who we are?" I ask.
"Time out," Thomas sighs. We can do this literally all day and our father instituted something called time-outs, where we all have to stop, for the sake of his sanity. "Are you not going to school today?"
"Whom? Me? God no, I've got a million and one things to do," I say, finishing with their homework and starting to redistribute it while snagging a cup of tea from a passing servant. "I'm sorry, it's just not possible."
"It's getting awkward in World Hist, everyone knows you're fine," he says, tiredly. We share a couple of classes since I'm only a grade above him. I should be several, but years ago my mother made the determination that it was better for my development to be with a class my own age, though my father has decided to exercise me and lets me take college courses as I wish.
"With father ill the burden of the estate falls to me, I'm sorry Thomas, father left me with strict instructions and it's entirely too demanding," I say, finishing returning their homework.
"You said you'd come to practice today," he mutters.
"I will," I do have to do that, "I will, I'm just not coming to actual school it takes up far too much time and I've got a full schedule."
"You're coming to hockey practice after telling all of our teachers you have malaria?"
"I'll make a spontaneous recovery, it shall be beautiful to behold," I say, smiling at him charmingly. He sticks his tongue out at me.
Per my father's wishes, I'm on the school hockey team, the Bards. He thinks it builds some sort of character that I lack. He and Richard both played when they were, I suppose my age. The thing is when Richard was coaching me I genuinely enjoyed it. Now I'm a bit busy to care. My mother didn't like me playing in teams anyway (she didn't mind of course with my brothers) but she was convinced that I was going to get hurt playing with all the other children. I'm quite well, but it's not my preferred pastime.
"Can I help with anything?" Edmund asks, quietly. So, he and I as I said spent a good bit of time together with Richard teaching us both the family business. I probably understood calculating stocks and bonds long before I even learned to write in cursive. Of course, I was reading if my mother is to believed at age three. But my father denies that story so we'll leave it.
"Yeah actually, if you like you can look over these," I say, going to the counter and finding one of my binders. "This was last night's trading and my predictions see what you think."
"Did you not go to sleep last night, Harry?" Jon asks.
"He did not," Thomas says.
"I did, for two hours, Blanche your counselor session is today right? Want me to come?" I ask, patting her back as I pass her to give Edmund the binder.
"No, they said it's one on one," she says, quietly. I have premeptively enrolled us all in counseling for our father's illness and our mother's death, in order to strengthen the legal case I'm building to get custody of my siblings in the event of our father's demise.
"Okay cool, just call me if that changes all right? Not a big deal I'm going to be around—well just all morning," I sigh, frowning at the wall and mentally checking my schedule, "I'm going to be doing trading then I've got two meetings—just call the house and leave a message all right?"
"Isn't dad coming home this afternoon?" Jon asks.
"I'm going to talk to him but last I heard it might be late, we're not going to wait up," I say, "And get out whatever weird noisy activities you might have thought of," that's mostly to the girls. "You know he'll need quiet."
"Is that lady coming over then?" Rey mumbles
"Dad's fiancé is not, since I changed the door codes; now we've talked about this, guys, she is not 'that lady' she's father's fiancé and you're to be polite to her and unlike your typical selves," I say, finding a scone and opening my laptop to finally sit down.
"You literally in the same breath admitted to changing the codes to lock her out!" Thomas says.
"Yes, I know, if she can handle me she'll be a miracle; she most certainly won't be able to take you lot so we'll have to limit it to just me," I say, smiling charmingly at them before going back to my work.
"Joan is nice," Edmund says, very quietly. Edmund does everything quietly, and in fact he's probably got earplugs in. His house was very quiet, like, really quiet, compared to ours. As in his family, they would all sit in a room together all reading completely silently for hours, then maybe say two words and that's it. We're---a bit opposite of that. I mean there's a lot of us and we all shout, have to sometimes, show our dominance. That's our dad in us. Our mother in us, we tend to burst into song and everybody joins in. it's an experience, living with us. I've encouraged him to do a case study on us and it's going really well.
"She's father's choice so we'll be nice to her, but we will also ease her into us generally, and with him away was not the time to do that," I say, finishing my tea. Our father thought that asking her to 'check in' on us would be a nice thing to do to her. It's really ridiculous when he wants this woman to keep speaking to him. He wears me out sometimes, I mean some decisions are blatantly clearly, just bad ideas. Why am I the only person who can see that?