The Phantom Tree. Nicola Cornick

haven’t seen my son since he was a few weeks old,’ she said, suddenly. ‘They took him away and gave him to a wet nurse.’ She looked at me and her eyes were such a bright blue with unshed tears that I felt shocked. ‘His name is Arthur.’

      I stared at her, uncomprehending. Why was she telling me this? Why now, when she had not spoken of the baby at all since her return to Wolf Hall? I could sense pain in her: huge, ungovernable pain, but I did not understand why she felt it. I had not known my mother at all but even had she lived I would have been consigned to the care of servants. She would not have raised me herself. My father had taken me to London with him as though I were just another piece of luggage, left in the hallway of his house for someone else to find and deal with. Why should Alison’s son be different?

      She had seen the blankness in my eyes.

      ‘I would not expect you to understand,’ she said bitterly.

      ‘I…’ I grasped after something to say. ‘Surely when he is older you will see him again? It’s only whilst he is nursing—’

      She gripped my wrist so suddenly and so sharply that I winced.

      ‘No,’ she said harshly. ‘I do not even know where he is. They will not give me any news. They say it is better I know nothing of him and he knows nothing of me and so it will remain for ever.’

      I understood now and was struck dumb by the finality of it. She had lost her child or rather he had been stolen from her. I wanted to lie to comfort her, but the words would not come and anyway there was no comfort in lies. We both knew that her fate was to wed and provide lawful heirs for her husband. No one would speak of Arthur again. Her future children would not even know their half-brother existed.

      Alison stood up, made clumsy by her tears, and the embroidery fell unheeded to the ground. I picked it up when the door had closed behind her. It was exquisite; a piece of pure white linen with a perfect rose embroidered on it in white thread that glowed with all the beauty of the flower itself. She was a very talented seamstress. I folded it carefully and put it in the wooden box where she kept her needles and thread. There was a very fine gold crucifix in there as well, and some silver pins and her pomander, smelling faintly of orange and cloves.

      I had a dream that night. It was not a vision in the sense I normally saw them though it was no less vivid for that. I was outside, in a landscape quite different from the woods and fields of Savernake. This was high country with a wide blue bowl of a sky and tracks as white as bone. I could feel the sun beating down on my head. In my hand was Alison’s box. The shining walnut was dazzlingly bright, the initials AB bold and black. The sun-warmed wood felt hot against my palm.

      It was a beautiful day but in the dream I felt uneasy. There was a flutter in my chest as though time was running out.

      I must be certain to leave word safely for Alison, I thought. Before it is too late.

      White dust was rising along the track. Someone was coming. My heart leaped, and then plummeted again. Something was wrong. I felt it so strongly through the dream, that sense of growing dread and a fear that clawed at my throat. Standing outside of myself, I saw the box fall from my hand and open, scattering its contents across the grass—a coin, a carved wooden chess piece, a sprig of rosemary that smelled sweet and fresh.

      I woke up suddenly, gasping for breath. The room was icy cold but I was drenched in sweat. I lay racked by shivers, trying to shake off that huge, smothering sense of horror, but it clung to me like cobwebs. Then Darrell:

      ‘Cat? What’s happened? What’s wrong?’

      ‘Nothing. A bad dream.’

      I sensed his relief and the clumsy hug he sent me. It made me smile and eased the horror. Even so, the dread still lingered at the corners of my mind and I did not sleep again that night.

      *

      I had a new outfit that winter, less extravagant than Alison’s trousseau but still very fine. It was green velvet with gold and a matching hood trimmed with pearls. It was too big for me, though Liz said that I would grow into it fast enough. I had wanted to wear it for the first day of the hunting party but Liz had laughed and said it was not that sort of gown so I was obliged to wear my dull old crimson velvet instead.

      Wolf Hall was in a positive fluster over so important an occasion, although I noticed that whilst Alison was supposed to be the focus of celebration, she, and indeed the rest of the women, seemed largely forgotten. Cousin Edward rode in with a whole host of cronies – men strutting like peacocks in their finery, attended by servants, surrounded by a cacophony of dogs and a host of hunting falcons.

      I didn’t like hunting, but I sat a horse well enough and was given no option other than to join the party when they rode out in the frosty morning of the following day. There was to be a grand breakfast later, but as I shivered deep in my crimson velvet, I could think of many things I would prefer to do on a cold December morning.

      The forest was full of pale light and misty glades that morning. At the back of the group the women hung back, chattering, but almost drowned out by the call of the horns and the baying of the dogs. The Queen was a keen hunter, as her mother had been before her, and many noble ladies enjoyed the chase, but none of us had the bloodlust on us that day. Early on, I caught a glimpse of a white hart and the dogs picked up the scent almost as fast. I willed it gone with all my strength and felt enormous relief when it disappeared into the mist. No one else was happy. The dogs sniffed around, running in disconsolate circles. The riders and the footmen grumbled as they waited for another scent. The excitement of the morning slowly fizzled into disappointment.

      It was a subdued party that sat down to eat a couple of hours later, but the ale and the wine, the cold venison pies and the roasted chicken soon helped to assuage the bad mood. One of cousin Edward’s squires came to sit beside me, a merry fellow with laughing black eyes and a mop of black hair, who introduced himself as Harry Stapleton. I saw Alison watching me, as though to say, ‘I told you so’, but Liz was smiling on us benignly and after a little I forgot to be suspicious that Edward wanted to marry me off too because I liked Harry Stapleton. He made me laugh.

      Suddenly it seemed everyone was laughing. The sun came out and the day felt almost warm. There was anticipation in the air again, and merriment. Alison had coaxed Dame Margery up onto her betrothal gift from Master Whitney—a highly bred white palfrey with a red and gold leather saddle. The horse had an uncertain temperament, like its master, but Alison was praising it lavishly, casting a glance at him under her eyelashes as she did so. Whitney was red and raucous from all the wine he had taken and put a clumsy arm around Alison’s waist. I heard his voice ring out:

      ‘I’d rather my own filly, even if she has already been had by other stallions first, than the old grey mare!’

      There was a horrible silence, all talk, all laughter suspended. Someone tittered; a couple of Whitney’s men, as drunk as he, roared their approval of the jest. Alison had dropped the reins and stood looking pale and stricken. Whitney tried to kiss her again, but she turned her face aside and so he slapped her, the sound shockingly loud in the quiet. In the moment that followed I noticed several things at the same time. I saw Alison’s body jerk with the force of the blow; I saw Edward take a step forward, as if to intervene, his face a mirror of uncertainty. He stopped and did nothing. The sound of the slap echoed about the clearing, so loud it raised the birds from the trees.

      To me it seemed as though the silence that followed lasted hours although it could only have been a moment. I knew with a horrible clarity what happened next; I had seen it before.

      The palfrey bolted. I heard Dame Margery scream and saw her make a grab for the pommel, knuckles white. Everything happened very quickly then. The horse crashed across the clearing, sending food, wine, platters and flagons flying, knocking over one of the footmen who tried to catch the reins, trampling the skirts of one of the women who screamed like a fishwife.

      There was a low branch blocking the path from the clearing. We all saw it. A number of us shouted a warning but it was too late. It hit Dame Margery across the throat and severed her head as neatly as