Chapter Seven.


I tried to sneak in to my room  (one of only two rooms in the tiny cottage, that I used to share with my brother) like a drunk returning home. It was pitch black. I was now scared of my mother. It wasn’t the fear of scolding, but of her. She had shown signs of insanity, and I think it was incipient.
I understood she was a victim of that barbaric day. But she disturbed and frightened me. I feared insanity because I felt in some way that the more I was exposed to it, the more likely it was that I might catch it like the plague.
As I carefully turned the handle to my room, the hair on my scalp tingled, as I heard my mother’s door open behind. Sickly moonlight filtered from her room.
‘Who is there? Is it you, Prince Victor, come to force your way into me again? If you take me from behind again, you might clear the shit from my head. You can get a farthing for a bucket of manure, you know.’  I turned to look at her. The moonlight cast a jaundiced glow across her face, emphasising her nose and chin, and dear God, her eyes, wild with a fervent vacuum of swirling questions and answers - I am mad and I know everything about nothing and nothing about everything.
 At last recognition filled that empty space. ‘Oh my son my son!’ She began to run towards me, then stopped suddenly, almost toppling. ‘But were you not killed at Agincourt?’ My eyes blurred with tears, as I realised that I had lost her. Her, the female of all hers. The her that kissed a dirty graze on my knee. Her who tickled my stomach and feet, until I was drowning in laughter with the pigs that came home from the market. The her I will miss that comforts every sorrow, or compliments all grades of achievement and waits for the mother of my children, to keenly mother again.
 She was shaking her head. ‘Oh no Jeffery, Lord knows, I can’t cuddle a ghost.’ I tried to focus through the stinging salt.
‘Nor can I, mother. God bless.’ I walked into my room, closed the door behind me, and leant on it, convulsing and sobbing quietly. To my intense disquiet, she began to tap on my door.
‘Victor dear, can you have a word with the Devil, I have heard that he is not such a bad man. Can you ask if my boy and my George are there?’ She began to scratch the door digging in her nails.
‘I had a look down the well today, you know where you hung up my George, I have tried calling but he just repeats everything I say. Of course, I could go to dig him up and ask him, but you took away his head on the top of your big sword, so could you ask his head were the devil he is?… Now, what else was there… oh yes, ask him when he will be home for dinner… and would he like his favourite mutton stew? And, oh yes, I could throw in a piece of his own ribs if he likes.’ She began to laugh hysterically, her cackle vibrating through the door and echoing off the walls.
 Her madness seemed to chase me, as I ran up the street, towards the house of my best friend, Tim. Thank God for friends.
Tim, a close friend of my own age, lived nearer the centre of town. His family were Fours. His father, a Mr Hobbs, was a scribe, who when summoned, worked at the Royal Club Palace. The rest of the time, he was at the disposal of Sir Mosswood our Squire.
Sir Mosswood was a heavy drinker, feaster and womaniser. Needless to say, Mr Hobbs, with frequent protesting, looked after the drunken Knight’s sodden accounts and letters to the best of his ability, a trying task. He and his wife, in fact half the village, also complained about me, that I didn’t have a proper job, that I should be working abroad to help Prince John’s purse, in the Diamond mines, or the Heart or Spade factories. Something more menial befitting my rank, that would make me sweat.
I climbed in through Tim’s window with what I thought was a lot of stealth and swiftness, and crept over to his bunk. He snored like a feeding pig, a rapid squealing and grunting. I wondered, fleetingly, what his dreams were. He was alert though. Since the invasion of our village by the Black Prince and the rapes and ghoulish murders, everyone was on guard. As I knelt by him and was about to gently shake him, I felt warm sharp steel against my throat. ‘Jeffery!’ His voice boomed off the red brick and oak-beamed walls of the room, a sane contrast to my mother ‘Are we lovers now? What in cross eyed Queens are you doing here?’ He still held the back of my head so it pushed my neck against the edge of his knife, and I was his best friend. ‘Tim…’ I wheezed. ‘I dare not speak or swallow, in case you peel my Adam’s apple.’ He laughed and placed the knife under my testicles. ‘Apples or plums?’
 ‘I heard that plums have come down,’ I quipped. He laughed again and slid the knife back under his pillow.
‘Oh sorry, look, Jeffery, if you’re desperate for a shag, farmer Three Brown has some nice young sheep, with sexy woolly coats,’ he offered, grinning. His expression changed to one of concern when he saw how upset I was. ‘What’s wrong, Jeff?’ When I didn’t answer, he perceived my anxiety.  ‘Your mother?’ He asked sombrely. I nodded. ‘I’m afraid the whole village knows.’ He squeezed my shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll go over tomorrow when you’re at Court and check that she is all right.’
 He continued to comfort and console me for some time. Eventually I got around to the events of the day. When I declared my love for Topaz and my intentions, his kind demeanour tuned to outrage.
‘Are you fucking mad, and insensitive,’ he yelled. ‘I am incredulous! Your mother has been through a terrible ordeal and all you can think about is jumping on that spoilt Princess! By all the Aces! Tell me this isn’t true!’
 I stared back at him, irritated because he was right, but saying all the wrong things. When I didn’t answer, he continued, but with a little more levity, ‘I mean Topaz, what a schmaltzy, ostentatious name.’ He dug me in the ribs I looked away. ‘Oh no, you’re in love with her?’ I nodded. He sighed heavily. ‘How wonderful. A Two Club that has fallen in love with a beautiful Jewish Princess, who in turn is as we speak is being courted by all the princes in Cardland, and arranged by all the Queens and Kings. Jeffrey, my friend, you really know your place.’
There was dark silence in the confined shadows of the room for some moments. Tim tut-tutted a few times. ‘Well,’ he continued in a relentless summary. ‘I have heard her parents, the Diamond King and Queen, are kind and pleasant, but even in the unlikely chance that Topaz could possibly love you, do you think her parents would accept a gentile for their Son-in-law? I mean, even our Club Prince John has come up against a stone wall on that one. And don’t forget that our good knight Sir Mosswood was rejected by Collette, Topaz’s best friend. That’s why he is always drunk. And the Heart knight Sir Valentine throws himself at Topaz who constantly rejects him. That’s why he is constantly drunk and maudlin. Then there’s…’
 ‘Yes, all right!’ I snapped. ‘Sue me. I just happen to believe in chasing windmills!’ ‘Yes, but with a club? He countered. ‘And a small club at that.’
‘Alright!’ I whined. But he was obdurate.
‘Don’t you see?  It’s not just a question of innocent love, it’s political. Our Suit is poor, I believe kept poor by a weak king and greedy Prince John, but to say that is treason. The Diamond suit is wealthy, but under constant threat because of it. The Heart Suit just wants peace so it can continue its life of hedonism.  The spade suit has constant civil wars between the good led by uncommitted Knights and priests and the bad, led by Prince Victor, who when he gets his way, will unite and threaten us all. The Club Royal family want to marry into the rich Diamond suit to pay for defences. The Spade faction, led by Prince Victor, want money for offences. Nobody will accept you Jeffrey. Except as a locksmith, on your knees.’
 I sighed and lowered my head. ‘Poor fellow,’ he said sincerely. He eventually continued with a reassuring voice. ‘Look you silly turnip, you want to be a poet so gain by this experience. I have always felt that the best poets write their best work retrospectively. So write about love lost or unattainable. You shouldn’t have tried to spout poetry when you knocked her physically off her feet. Next time you see some beautiful woman, metaphorically speaking, knock her off her feet with poetry.’
An inspired thought occurred to me. ‘That’s it!’
 ‘What?’ he asked bemused.
‘I’ll write a poem to her!’ Tim slapped his head with exasperation.
‘ By all the card tables in heaven! What is the point in trying to help you?’ He threw a pillow and a blanket at me. ‘I suppose you want to stay here the night.’ I nodded. ‘Fine, but just don’t mention that bloody spoilt bitch again!’ With that he turned over so that his back was to me. I pulled off my boots, rubbed my feet, and lay down. ‘Jeff,’ he said to the wall.
 ‘Yes?’
‘You can always rely on me, you know. For better or worse. I am your best friend.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I never doubted it. Except when you had your knife on my balls.’
Our mad laughter, in unison, echoed out through the window to unite with the whoops of an owl.