The Fiddler (Hand in Hand Chronicles)

Chapter 13 - "with mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come"

It works. I wait a good year to tell them he's dead.
As I predicted, considering I told him to do it, our young prince refuses to take the crown unless his father actually abdicates. That's no concern. I produce the papers within a week, long since signed and sealed, by now Edward's fled for a solid four weeks. But this puts him still at Kenilworth. A thing of beauty.
The young King is crowned, and immediately dissent begins to grow. I dominate Parliament. Nobody likes it but I'm the most powerful man in England, they can't argue. I'm head of the young king's advisors and perfectly poised to make sure he sheds the others. He's a bold thing, brash, he longs for battle. So I promise him Scotland, then let Mortimer put himself in charge. In due course Mortimer deprives the boy of battle and flees Scotland. While I watch. He's rapidly wasting his moves.
Mortimer assumes a proper revenge would be to take Edward as HIS prisoner, not mine. I am of course getting paid for it. That isn't hard.
I send three children, Emmy, Pierce, and Harry, to go and bicker and find a suitable corpse. There are plenty by the side of the roads, I love this country.  Send three kids to pick one corpse you get two corpses because they couldn't agree. Ah well.
We mutilate the corpse and present it to Mortimer. The man about faints.
"Hot fire poker, up anus, makes it look like natural causes," I gesture to a mutilated corpse, "You  really didn't think I'd give him up, did you?"
He vomits.
I stand there patiently watching, "Are you done?"
"That doesn't look natural," he winces.
"Take him. Your captive eh?" I ask.
He does, and we have a whole entire funeral. It's very dramatic since nobody but perhaps the young king believes he's dead. I quickly sort that I don't want the kid to think his father's dead.
"Your father lives yet," I whisper. That goes well. I don't expect Mortimer to be a total idiot but he shortens my game plan by two years.
"He must have escaped captivity, he was with Mortimer," I explain.
"You said you killed him by driving him—-through with a hot poker," Mortimer chokes.
"What?" Young Edward frowns.
"Why would I say that? That's disgusting don't say that," I cover the young king's ears.
So Mortimer is now terrified of me.
It doesn't take long for him and Isabela to start wearing out their welcome on the young king. They spend the royal funds on themselves, they rule in his stead and he's a young man now.
Amusingly, to me and my family, there's a whole entire manhunt going on, lead independently by three people, for a man who's been declared dead. Of course we know by now Edward is safe all the way in Italy, in a monastery. He's safe and well enough. We provide updates that his children are well and having a good time.
Young Edward is now married his wife is clever thank god one of them needed to be. My own children are growing up as well. Emmy and Joan both express interest in marriages, which I condone when decent men are found. All the children still live with me and the youngest three girls are still in lessons. Bell is not interested in marriage, or leaving home. I'll likely keep her with me or let her go into the church.
My eyesight has worsened, with several children about to read aloud when necessary it mattered little. Mary or Bell is usually there to do it. But as the decade draws to a close it worsens, to where I can barely make out general shapes. I know my way around Kenilworth, and Leicester, but against my pride I have to admit that it's becoming increasingly debilitating.
The best surgeons can tell me is that my neck, as I age, is getting even tighter, something I was aware of but was putting down to just that, old age. I'll be fifty years old. However, they suspect it's affecting my vision. To that end I have to adjust my own lifestyle. And admit that I can no longer make my way around, let alone read anything by myself.
The children take it better than I thought they would. They all still live at home. Emmy and Joan are married now but live at home still, they're not quite of age though they soon will be. Harry we've enquired about a bride but he doesn't particularly care there's still time. Blanche and Tommy remain at home, their affairs are tied up in mine, and while Harry inherits in name it's long since understood in practicality Blanche is my heir, she'll handle things for both of us, and she's well with that. She has her own estates of course but she's primarily here, or in London. Bell, Ellie, and Mary, are still in lessons, with Mary just going to be ten years old, still a child, I'm wholly responsible for. After their dear mother's death I dislike the elder children feeling a loyalty to taking care of me or their siblings, which as the younger ones grew I thought we'd all move past a bit, now I'm growing increasingly infirm. And it bothers me. My auxiliary sons, Tommy and Pierce are also here and generally involved. Both lack proper families of their own. Tommy barely remembers not being a Lancaster. Pierce is an odd thing, after a childhood locked up in a priory the child is rather eager to be free, and hauntingly similar to both parents, and quite effectively passing as a boy. Per his request he lives as one of the knights usually in Harry's company as one of his young companions, or on loan to the young king to do the same. He and Harry are both home when I finally decide to make the announcement that despite treatment, I'll soon be totally blind.
I'm not a very gentle person I don't think, so I take time to phrase it tactfully. The girls are still young it might upset them. I decide to make the announcement one evening after supper. I trained them to quiet their usual chatter if I clap my hands. They're very good with this, and I don't usually use it as their happy chatter over supper is balm for my trouble thoughts.
"I wanted to let you all know I've seen another surgeon. It's unlikely that anything can be done for my vision, and within the year I'll likely be completely blind. The good news is I'm quite certain we can use this to disgrace Mortimer and get Edward to kill him, I'm now open for questions," I say, leaning back in my chair.
"That's how you chose to present that?" Blanche.
"Seriously?" Joan.
"Does it hurt?" Bell.
"Are you gonna get mad at me too if I ask how we're gonna use it—ow," Pierce someone definitely threw a piece of food in his direction.
"That's it? They really can't do anything?" Emmy.
"Somebody who isn't me has to go with him to Parliament now he can still write there's—he brings so many papers you all don't even know," Harry.
I can't see them. Not anymore. There's blurry shapes in the light. That's all. No more freckled faces, sunkissed redheads. Bell's sweet dark curls so like her mother. Pierce's green eyes like his poor dead father. My sweet Blanche who is glaring at me but I can't see her saucy expression that would usually make me laugh. It's like being trapped underwater once more. I don't know who's coming. I can pick my children's voices out but not others. I feel the familiar tightness in my chest.
"Everybody shut up! I have a schedule!" Blanche rallies her siblings, "You two—morons—,"
"US?" Harry says.
"We don't respond to that," Pierce hisses.
"One or the other of you ride with him. Simple. The rest of us will take shifts around the house,"  Blanche says.
"We have staff for all of this, and I know my way about," I reason.
I feel her soft hand over my mouth, "Please be quiet father I'm trying to organize them and they're very easily distracted."
I almost laugh. She sounds like her mother. If Maud were here we'd have none of this. I never wanted to leave her side anyway.  But I didn't want the children being more responsible for me.
"None of you are to worry. My stewards will guide me and I've dogs, that's all," I say.
Naturally they ignore that sentiment.
I was never well with being woken in my room, or anyone entering when I'm asleep. Now I wake to the dark, which sets off a panic in my head before I calm myself. That I'm in my own manor, that's my children's laughter down the hall. I'm not alone and no one is coming to harm me. My staff are used to not waking me unless they want to be pinned to a wall, or have a dagger pulled on them.
But seven children and being a father some twenty five years has conditioned me to being woken by soft little hands patting my cheeks.
Bell takes her job very seriously. She'll come and wake me and let me put a hand on her little shoulder to come to the dressing room. Then she or Mary will take my hand as we walk down to parlor. The girls can and do ride with me but they have smaller mounts usually, and don't always go to Parliament when I do. Harry has a huge white charger, which can bear us both he's still quite lean though he's now taller than I. Pierce has a smaller sprinter but it's tough enough to bear us both and Pierce is small and slim like Gaveston, making him an obvious choice to ride with me.
The worst is at night. I roll over in my bed I feel like I'm being drown. And nothing to ground me from the nightmares where I can see the choppy water. I fall back to my old entertainments. I'll work through songs in my head. I imagine Maud lying beside me and I'll wake and see her face. I'll go through chess games, over and over in the darkness of my mind. I survive. It torments me at times. But then one of my little girls will appear from the dark hugging me about the waist, offering to lead me outside do I want to feel the rain? Yes, yes I do.
Politically I'm training Harry well. We're systematically driving Mortimer insane, so that's been fun for the entire family. Because Mortimer knows our Edward is alive, knows I'm responsible, but can't prove it. I let my blindness be obvious. I don't need my vision to destroy them they can be terrified by that. I'm still the most powerful man in the room. Our young Edward is married now, and quite enamored of his wife, a Philippa. I don't know what she looks like. By now she's just had their first child. A son, another Edward. So we have a fine healthy royal family, the young Queen's doing well.
"I feared for her a bit," young Edward tells me, he doesn't fully trust me he isn't stupid. But he hates Mortimer. And he's rapidly leaning on me to be a father to him, "With the baby. Women die and—,"
"I did fear when all of mine were born. Especially the first," I say, hand on his shoulder. We're standing out in the yard. I don't know what the boy is looking at. He's tall but not tall as his father or my son.
"Did you? The baby—I've never held one before. But I think he likes me," he says.
"They know your voice, my wife used to say, and they did. All of mine would be pleased when I came and visited them," I tell him.
"It's strange I wake up, I still feel like a child. Like I'm looking for my father. And yet—now I have both of them relying on me," he says, quietly.
"You'll keep them safe. Of that I have no doubt. And it is strange, when you're first a father, and you've no one to turn to. But you have a good wife. And a good family. You know what's right in your heart," I say.
"I have to get rid of Mortimer. And my mother—needs to be put on a leash," he says. And his voice, that cold near malicious tone I knew so well in my own father. Total control. He can see it so close.
"Patience. If you know a cat is beneath a bed you don't reach for it, all claws. You wait. It will come out, and then you snatch it up," I say.
"I'm tired of waiting. I have a newborn and a wife that need me to look out for them. Not waisting half the Royal budget on furs and new clothes for Mortimer and his entire family, let alone my mother's extensive staff?" He sighs.
"Let us see what this next Parliament brings, eh? We're at Nottingham, I'll be there," I say.
"I can't have another—he made me kill my uncle," he says.
I was slightly responsible for that. Well, Kent, Edward's half brother. Like everyone else, rather quickly discovered that Edward likely was not dead. He was unsure of who to blame but rapidly tried to find his brother. Understandably so, everyone was doing that it was nothing to be concerned about. I shut up and did nothing. Stupidly no one asked me, likely the last person to see Edward, knowing they would not get a straight answer presumably. But they did not. Kent was trying to get into contact with his brother, he may actually have found some of our tracks, including false ones we laid to France. Anyway, Mortimer discovered that he was doing that, and exposed him in open Parliament, making Kent a traitor. Young Edward had no choice but to cut off his own uncle's head. And none of us could do anything, we all of course knew Edward was alive and well and everyone but me was looking for him. Young Edward was incensed against Mortimer, as was my goal I didn't know it would go that bloodily, however. Mortimer was at fault, he had no reason to expose this thing we all clearly knew. Had Kent lied somehow or even done anything other than confess he might have lived, for example, had he blamed me the definitely guilty person for kidnapping his brother, but he did not, I can't script everyone's reactions sometimes I try and they ignore the letter.
As it is, Young Edward is furious. He didn't want Kent dead, he wanted to find his father too. And unlike his father, he's cold hearted enough to stop the murderer in his tracks before more harm is done. Mortimer's a loose end that needs cutting off.
"I know—you know. Something, about my father," Edward says.
I don't reply.
"Can we talk, after —Parliament? Will you come stay at Woodstock with me and my wife? I'd—I'd like to talk about my father," Edward says, calmly. We can't speak the truth. But he's not a complete idiot, he listens to his wife she's surely deduced I'm to blame if he didn't come to himself which I think he didn't. There's two of them now, which is how it's meant to be.
"I'd be glad to," I say, patting his back.
Parliament is to convene at Nottingham. I met Edward at Windsor before he left, in order to leave Pierce and Tommy with his party, and ensure he had his usual loyal men like Montague. Harry remains with me, and our usual followers. None of the girls this time, I sent Emmy and Joan to go visit the young Queen and the rest are at Kenilworth ready should we need to retreat.
Harry and I beat Edward's party to Nottingham, that's by design. Mortimer hates me, for reasons other than my attempts to ruin his life, because I don't know if he knows I'm actively doing that. Not yet. He thinks I want the power. Which is absurd I already have the power. My grudge against Mortimer is less specific, only that he is a bully. He's a crass idiot and he's not good at what he does. And Hugh Despenser, poor soul. When we were rescuing Edward, he was caught by Mortimer's men. They not only killed him but. He was dragged through the streets, castrated while alive, disemboweled, and then quartered. A torturous death for a man who while he was guilty of theft and perhaps abusing privilege, possibly deserving prison or at worst a beheading, certainly did not deserve the death of a traitor and a murderer when he was primarily serving our rightful king. My brother in law, Maud knew he was a criminal and we knew he'd meet a bad end, but some things are without honor. That's one of them. And so I have little pity for Mortimer now. And for my brother in law's sake I'd like to end him. That sort of cruelty must be stopped.
"I don't like using you as bait," Harry whispers, my hand is on his shoulder, our simplest method of guiding me even if my handsome boy is taller than I now. Odd pair we make, my red hair mostly white, head crooked, eyes staring and probably clouded. Him last time I beheld him, tall and handsome, pretty with high cheekbones like his lovely mother, with sweet freckles and still decidedly slim.
"I am aware. It is a double edged trap now. If he actually tries to harm me then he's an attacking an old blind man, and Edward can kill him. And he will. If he does not and he acts out in any other way he's disobeying royal orders to appear, and you're right here," I say, squeezing his shoulder, "I'm tougher than I look."
"Even so you wouldn't let me do something like this," he mutters.
"No, you're supposed to be cleverer than me, like your sweet mother. How close are we?" I ask. We're walking over rock.
"At the gates they're not open," he says, "Stand there. I'll return. I'm two steps ahead."
"Right," I say. Letting him go knock. The children have been remarkably adept at guiding me, when I didn't know how we were going to properly do that.
"Here," he takes my elbow, "They're not opening."
"What?" I ask, what fun is that? "They're not—letting us in? Is this intentional?"
It is.
A messenger comes out to tell us that Mortimer, refuses to be in the same castle as me, because I'm a threat it seems. A threat to him. I'm old and blind.
Hysterical laughter isn't the right response but Harry and I make it back to the horses and the road before we have to hold each other.
"That—imbecile—is making us go to a tavern?" He's laughing.
"Once Pierce is back with us I have a story about his father, that you and he are going to find hilarious you were infants then, it's good," I'm laughing.
Such a threat.
Might as well say you know you're weak. Of course I'm the fucking threat. I don't have to be in the castle to kill you Mortimer. I'm everywhere. You won't catch me now.
The young king's party meets us on the road.  Harry tells me it's them. I'm so glad all of my children are sarcastic.
"Pierce looks not surprised little disappointed not surprised, Montague looks disappointed, Edward is like surprised, like he doesn't know why we'd be laughing in the road he doesn't know us well, Tommy's making hand gestures like what did we do we had a plan I'm ignoring him—-my lord—father, the king approaches," Harry, in one breath, from whispers to a normal voice, bowing us both.
"What's happened? Nottingham's a mile back," young Edward says.
"We've been turned out," I say.
"Like the Virgin Mary," Harry says, offended, like he wasn't laughing hysterically two minutes ago.
"What?" Edward asks.
"Turned out. Apparently I'm too dangerous to be in the same castle as Mortimer. We're to go to a tavern," I say, "Mortimer's orders. He's the keys to the castle it seems."
"Oh has he?" Edward's voice quivers.
"He's shaking in happiness—ow—what? He can't see you grinning, I can," Harry says.
"We'll deal with this. My deepest apologies cousin, for your lodging, meet me after midnight tomorrow, by the south wall," Edward says.
"Where the secret tunnel opens?" I ask, pleasantly.
"You know about that?" Edward asks.
"Yes."
"You've always known about that?"
"Yes."
"Did my father know about that?"
"Yes."
"Do you think Mortimer knows about that?"
"No."
"South end, tomorrow night," Edward says, embracing me quickly. His arms are wiry, they feel like my father's arms. How can we live on in so many different people, over so many years? Even when we're forgotten what parts of us will remain? Hopefully the good. I hear their mother's laugh in my children's voices. Even if evil prevails perhaps good too can last beyond a lifetime.
But for tonight.
We go to the tavern. Pierce and several of Edward's other soon join us. They weren't admitted. I tell them of a Parliament twenty odd years ago when no one would show claiming fear of just Gaveston. They find that as funny as I did all those years ago.
We go to Edward's proposed meeting spot. Early, which is good because he's early.
"Oh they got Mortimer—ooo dragging him by the hair, that's fun," Harry says.  My children's narration is like my inner monologue it's lovely we are all like this I do blame myself.
"Don't kill him now, Edward," I say, as a precautionary statement, leaning against Harry who I'm riding behind.
Voice bubbling over with anger, "Why?"
"It looks bad. You can't kill him here that's illegal. You can kill him and make him stand trial. Kent stood trial. You can torture him longer that way. And it looks better. You're a just king you let him stand trial. But you get what you want. You always get what you want," I say.
"Fine," Edward says. General screaming of a Mortimer being stepped on. "I suppose you're right."
"It'll be fun throw him in the Tower, we'll have a whole trial your wife can go then she gets to see," I point out. He loves his wife.
"All right," Edward sighs, "He stands trial."
That's his grandfather's boy. He throws Mortimer in the tower, but he bricks him in a room with no sunlight or food till he stands trial.
"He's cruel," Blanche observes.
"He has what it takes to survive," I say, "Good men die. He needs a little cruelness. They'll think twice about usurping that."
And so my family is safe, as England is now safe. They like their young king, he's bold, he's handsome so they say, he loves jousting, he has a wife and son already. England is ready for a reign of peace. And Lancaster will ensure that happens.
There is of course a few loose ends.
I go to meet with young Edward and his wife. Bell leads me in to a chair and then I bid her go.
"Come in an hour, or when I call," I say, kissing her hair.
"Yes papa," she says, patting my arm. Then she goes.
I hear the young royals settling across from me. And I wait till the room has emptied.
"You captured the old king. You took him to Kenilworth," the queen says, flatly, "You were the last person, to have contact with him. You and your men."
"I turned him over to Mortimer, as I was directed by Parliament. And we'll never speak of this again, because Mortimer murdered your poor father, understood?" I ask.
"What?" Edward asks.
"Right understood," his wife says.
"Sadly I could do nothing for my cousin. I'm not a schemer. I'm not even a warrior I've barely seen battle. I am infirm, and have but one son. Were I a stronger man I might have tried to help my cousin. Tell him to escape while the going was good, and that his crown was lost. And there were no moves left to make him king. And that his son needed him alive more than dead. And that he could finally live without the burden of his crown. And if he were clever he might have agreed. And left Kenilworth that very night, on a ship bound for Ghent. By then he'd have had several weeks start to Italy, where he could live in sanctuary, and get the occasional news of home," I say, calmly, "Unfortunately, that didn't happen."
"Oh my god," Edward breaths.
"Since all that didn't happen—you don't know exactly where he is?" The queen asks, immediately.
"I wouldn't know how to contact him. Sadly in my infirmity I only write to these certain orders, praying for a cure for my eyes. In one a monk is kind enough to answer," I say, taking letters from my pocket and dropping them on the floor. I hear Edward weeping softly. "If your father lived he'd surely tell you that you'll be a good king. And that he's glad you have your son and the child and your wife are well. And that he didn't mean what he said about you being a poor son, that he only wanted you to come home he feared for his life he blamed your mother not you. But he'll never tell you all of that. Seek solace in the church as I have."
"Thank you," Edward whispers.
"Is this going to work?" The queen asks, "Forever."
"He's just a man. In theory a man can disappear. Our faces change quickly with time, it's a large, large world. And if we wish we can simply vanish, others have before, changing names, lives, for revenge, for safety, anything at all," I say.
"This is it?" Edward is picking up the papers it sounds like.
"My Celestine order which I write to in Italy seeking a cure for my blindness? Yes please my lord seek spiritual comfort. Perhaps you'll get to the continent someday and be fortunate enough to visit," I say.
"That was good," the queen laughs, "It took me a while to guess it was you. You acted like you wanted power."
"I have the power. I don't have to fight for something already posses," I say.
"I see that," she says, "Thank you."
"Yes," Edward says, "Thank you."
"I couldn't protect Edward. That's obvious. I can protect a monk of unknown name, funny how life works," I say.
"Yes," the young queen says, "Funny how life works."
I retire to Leicester. I'll still go to Parliament but Harry's mostly independent. He doesn't need me now. And as time passes even my little girls start to grow up. Bell joins the church. Joan and Mary and Ellie find husbands they want to wed. But most of them end up returning home to me, at one point or another. The girls have babies of their own, except Bell and Blanche. Bell is a nun and has no interest in men. Blanche has Tommy and they have no children of their own. They live with me. 
I can still play the fiddle. I can do that without my eyes. I stay in Leicester, I know my way around. And in my dreams I still hear Maud's laughter from the other room, and our children's footsteps as they play in the halls. I help the children manage their own estates and offer advice. Our young king Edward is learning to be king and manage his affairs, he still calls upon me now and again.
And my cousin is not so lost. The odd letter. He tells me of peace, of getting news of home and his grandchildren. He hopes to see them one day. That it's strange how little all of it seems to matter. His now secret life of a lost crown and years of war. He's a different person, he supposes a better one.
So am I.
"Do you hear the water yet?" Joan asks, my hand on her shoulder.
"I do," I say. I can hear the rushing of the river, somewhere up ahead, "Hold that little girl now."
"I am," she laughs. She's home with her children to visit me. She has two daughters and a little boy. I can hear the children's laughter as we walk down to the river.  "There, we're rather close. They're all just playing in the reeds."
"Are they? I hear them talking," I say.
"They're still on a mask we saw," she says, taking my hand, "Are you feeling well?"
"Yes, this does me good," I say, I can hear the children's voices, and the rushing of the water. Happy, raised voices, giggling occasionally as the tug at the reeds.
"Blanche said you were playing late last night," she says.
"Yes. I wake in the night these days, it's hard to sleep. Odd," I say, rubbing her arm, "Thank you—for bringing me with."
"If I bolt it's because one went too close to the water," she laughs, "They're being good though. They try not to scare me."
"Do you remember when your mother and I took you to the beaches in France?"
"And you made us all wear matching terrible yellow?" She asks, "And I wanted so badly to go in that you waded in up to your knees and held me above the water, dipping my feet in as I laughed? I didn't know you were afraid of swimming back then, I'd not have run so close."
"I'm not afraid of it anymore. Anyway I'm glad you did run in, you weren't going to drown," I laugh listening to the happy sounds, in the dark. Waves gently lapping on the shore. The steady rush of water. And cold wind rushing through the reeds. I know where I am. My daughter's hand is in mine. There is nothing fear. The world is safe here.

The End