The Phantom Tree. Nicola Cornick

Alison was desperate to escape. She could not give herself to Edward again when he treated her with such contempt.

      She threw a glance over her shoulder towards the other door, the one out into the street. What future lay behind that one in a place so foreign and strange? The servant had her in a tight grip, half dragging, half lifting her towards the carriage and, suddenly, now that it was too late, Alison wished she had found out. She struggled but the man only laughed. And then the door slammed and the darkness closed about her.

       Mary, 1560

      I missed Alison. It surprised me. I was growing up and the gulf between the younger children and me seemed accentuated by her departure. Wolf Hall was quiet. No new waifs and strays came to take Alison’s place. My lessons with the chaplain and with Liz Aiglonby continued and, in between, I avoided Dame Margery and spent any spare moment in the forest.

      I had never been afraid of the forest despite the nightmare that had been my introduction to its secrets. Forests were full of concealment and surprise and I had known that from the beginning. I took delight in exploring Savernake. It was by no means an empty land. It seethed with people: Sir Edward’s ranger, the foresters, the villagers whose pigs grubbed for nuts in the undergrowth in the autumn, the poachers who risked their lives to take the Queen’s deer, the thieves, gypsies, runaways, witches. I saw them all and avoided them as much as I could, slipping between the trees like a wraith, like a hind.

      Now that I had a bedchamber to myself, it was easy enough to slip away at night, simply by climbing down the ivy that covered the old brick wall of the manor. I knew every ancient oak in the forest now including the one that marked the boundary of Edward’s land with its huge bulging belly. It was rumoured to be the oldest tree in the woods, already ancient when the Conqueror had claimed Savernake along with the rest of the kingdom, a tree in possession of old magic. I had heard Dame Margery whispering to the scullery maid, with many gestures to ward off evil, that the witches sought its power to summon the devil. I could imagine that they did and I shuddered to think of it. Old magic was dangerous and unpredictable. Even though I had never dealt in it myself, I had an instinct for it, never knowing where my knowledge had come from, only knowing that I saw and heard things that others did not. However, the threat of heresy, of witchcraft, haunted my every step. I thought of my mother and longed for an ordinary life, free of visions, untouched by magic.

      One day, when I had tired of my lessons with the chaplain, who was even more tedious than usual, I asked permission to visit the privy and rather than return to the schoolroom went instead out into the garden and through the orchard gate into the forest. It was high summer, hot and heavy. The closeness of the air made me want to sleep. I followed a track through the dreamy woods, until I came to the top of hill where another of the old oaks grew, the Duke’s Vaunt, named for my uncle Protector Somerset, who had liked to hunt here. From there the view was wide out across the treetops and down to the cottages below, where a number of youths and maids cavorted naked in the pond, their shrieks of excitement and pleasure floating up to me. What I saw of their sport made me feel even hotter and I plunged back into the woods feeling that I was spying. Instead, I found a warm clearing used by the charcoal burners for one of their kilns. The sun cut through the trees and the wild raspberries grew and I sat down to eat some. They were sweet and burst on my tongue like sunshine and I ate too many, greedy for them, until my tummy ached.

      I must have fallen asleep after that, although I don’t remember. I do remember waking because it was sudden and frightening and there was a pain in my head that felt like a shout.

      ‘Cat! Wake up!’

      It was Darrell.

      ‘Danger to you. Run. Hide…’

      I didn’t question. Already I could hear it, the clash of steel on steel, brutal, closer by the second. I dived through brambles, cowering behind the widespread roots of a nearby tree, shaking.

      They had reached the clearing. There were only two men, for all the noise and fury, but they fought with a ruthless intensity that was terrifying. I watched through the veil of bracken and nettle. The light glanced off the sword blades in a run of fire. The crack of metal on metal bounced off the trees. It was not like anything I had seen before; I’d seen men fight, in practice, as a game, even in earnest when blood ran too hot, but it had not been like this. These men were dressed strangely and their swords were like none I had ever known.

      The conflict was as brief as it was brutal. The shorter and stockier of the two men was lighter on his feet than his bulk might have suggested. He parried a blow aimed for his neck and counter-attacked, dancing forward on the balls of his feet, beneath the guard of his opponent to slide his blade between his ribs.

      Blood spurted. The stench of it made me want to retch. I had seen wounds before. I had even seen death in my short life. It was ever present in the pecked corpses that hung from the gibbets at crossroads to the beggars dying in the filth of the gutter. It stalked childbirth and shadowed every step we all took. It had taken both my parents before I was a year old. Yet to witness such violence in death was still unusual for me.

      The murderer looked around quick, furtive, and then dragged the body roughly towards the kiln. As I heard the crack of bones, I stuffed my hand into my mouth, biting down on my knuckles to crush my screams. He was trying to push the corpse into the furnace, which glowed with the sullen light of old burning, but the body would not fit. Finally, with much cursing under his breath, he managed to wedge it inside. Grey smoke belched suddenly from the open roof. Soon, I knew, it would start to smell of burning flesh.

      Despite my attempts to keep still and quiet I must have made a sound. I was shaking, my hand pressed to my mouth to keep the sickness down. The murderer’s head came up. He turned slowly, like a hunting dog scenting the air. I saw his face clearly then, the lank hair darkened with sweat and his narrowed blue eyes. He withdrew his sword from the corpse, cleaning it with great deliberation on the grass. Then he took a step towards my hiding place and I flattened myself even closer to the roots like a cowering mouse. There was no sound but the slam of my heart against my ribs as I waited for him to find me. I could feel Darrell with me. He was afraid also, but there was anger in him too, and frustration, and despair. His feelings seemed to sweep through mine, merging with them, flowing like a tide. Any moment now I knew we would be discovered.

      The ground vibrated the same way it had when I had seen the apparition of the woman on horseback only this time the noise was louder, the vibrations more intense. The man’s head snapped around. His breath hissed in on a fierce whisper.

      ‘King’s men!’

      He ran.

      The air was full of noise now, the thunder of hooves raising dust from the track. I saw the flash of men through the trees, cavalry, with buff coats and crimson sashes, a whole column of them. I waited until they had gone and the world had turned quiet and then I waited some more. I could not have moved had I wished it. I was paralysed with terror and confusion.

      Stiffly, I stood and stretched, feeling the tension slowly leach from my body leaving me exhausted. Darrell had gone. I felt light-headed, as though my mind was empty.

       King’s men…

      Yet we had a queen now, Elizabeth, and before her another queen. There were no king’s men in England any more and had not been for more than a decade.

      I walked home very slowly along the track. It didn’t occur to me that the riders might return. I made no attempt to hide. The forest was in one of its silent moods when it felt as though nothing lived, nothing moved in it. I felt dizzy and drained of emotion. I placed one foot in front of the other and thus I got back to Wolf Hall.

      ‘You imagined it, lovey,’ Liz said later. I was lying on my bed and she was stroking my hair, soothing me, as though I were still a child. ‘Doubtless you were asleep and dreaming. Raspberries can give you nightmares.’

      All the raspberries had given me was an ache in my stomach. However, I said nothing. When I had arrived back at Wolf Hall I realised for the first time that my skirts were in shreds and that there were leaves in my hair and dirt on my face. I had had to come up with some explanation and I thought