The Armourer's House Read online

  ‘It was my fault,’ said Giles, standing with his feet apart and his hands behind his back (but still carrying the pot of honey). ‘I got tired of watching the archery, and so I threw a stick up in the air, and we walked the way it pointed when it came down, to look for an adventure.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Uncle Gideon. ‘And by the time you have been away, I gather that you found one?’

  ‘Well, not exactly, sir,’ said Giles. ‘We found a Wise Woman, and she said she came from Devon, and she gave us bread and honey, and then she showed us her garden and it got later than we knew – well, I mean to say we couldn’t eat her bread and honey and then not look at her garden when she wanted to show it to us, could we, sir?’

  ‘I see your point,’ said Uncle Gideon.

  ‘And that’s why we were late, because we couldn’t eat her bread and honey and then not be interested in her garden,’ said Giles virtuously. ‘I mean you can’t go round eating people’s bread and honey, and then – ’

  ‘Giles,’ said Uncle Gideon, ‘if you mention bread or honey again, I shall be seriously displeased.’

  ‘Sorry, Father.’

  ‘And may I ask what is in that pot you are so carefully hiding behind your back?’

  Giles turned bright pink, and swallowed hard. ‘Honey,’ he said.

  Uncle Gideon covered his eyes with his hand and said, ‘I cannot bear it!’ And pretty Aunt Deborah began to laugh. She tried not to, but she couldn’t help it; so they knew that everything was going to be all right, and there would be no spanking.

  Beatrix explained, ‘The Wise Woman gave it to him, and she gave me this necklace, and she gave Tamsyn a thing to grow in a pot.’

  And Tamsyn held out the precious bulb, gazing beseechingly at Aunt Deborah. ‘Look!’ she said eagerly. ‘She said I was to put it in a pot in a warm window and it will flower at Christmas, and please, Aunt Deborah, can I have a pot?’

  Aunt Deborah took the bulb and looked at it. ‘I believe it’s a tulip,’ she said, quite forgetting, for the moment, about being late for Littlest’s bedtime, because she never could resist bulbs of any sort, and tulips were very rare and precious things in those days. Even the King’s Grace had very few of them in his gardens at Westminster, growing with other strange and rare things, such as white lilac and winter jasmine and passion flowers. As Tamsyn had never seen one she asked, ‘Please, what is a tulip?’

  ‘Wait until it flowers, and see for yourself,’ said Aunt Deborah, giving the precious bulb carefully back into Tamsyn’s hands. ‘But I don’t think it will flower before the spring, however warm you keep it.’ Then she remembered about it being late, and said, ‘And now we really must go home, or we shall never get any supper at all.’

  So they collected Littlest and set out for home.

  London still seemed a long way off, and not quite real, with all its crowding towers and spires and pointed gables tinted lilac and tawny by the evening light; and suddenly, as the sun sank lower, it began to flash back from the glass-filled windows of churches and rich folks’ houses, so that the City was a city in a dream, a city of golden windows.

  Piers and Tamsyn were walking behind the others, hand in hand; and ‘Look!’ said Tamsyn, ‘London has golden windows.’

  ‘So it has, Tamsy,’ said Piers, and that was all, but Tamsyn knew that he liked the golden windows as much as she did. That was one of the very nice things about being with Piers – you always knew he understood.

  As they got nearer, the golden windows faded, but when they passed through Ludgate, the City was full of Midsummer magic, all the same, and the crowds in the streets were one and all just a little fairy-kissed, so that if a white cat in a golden kirtle, or an enchanted prince, or a pumpkin travelling-wagon drawn by harvest mice, were suddenly to appear among them, Tamsyn would not have been in the least surprised. The streets were mostly in blue shadows now, but if you looked upward the steep roofs were still warm in the sunshine – pointed, leaning roofs of russet and tawny and coral-pink, where the pigeons fluttered and perched, crooning in the evening warmth, and here and there was still a golden window, after all. The green birch branches that shaded every door, and the foxgloves and orpin and white Madonna lilies, were all beginning to cast long, fairy-seeming shadows; and every house had its lamps before the door, green and yellow, crimson and rose-pink, waiting to be lit when the twilight came.

  Some of the Midsummer magic got into Tamsyn’s toes, and took the tiredness out of them, so that she gave a little hop every three steps. And a little more of the Midsummer magic had found its way into the tulip bulb – or perhaps the Wise Woman had put it there before she gave the bulb to Tamsyn, to make sure that it would flower at Christmas and bring her her heart’s desire, in spite of what Aunt Deborah said about tulips not flowering before the spring. It felt warm and alive in her hand, as though the flower inside it was stirring in its sleep; and she nursed it close against her as she pattered along beside Piers, with that little hop every three steps, because of the magic in her toes.

  Piers said, ‘Was it a tremendously good adventure, Tamsy?’

  And Tamsyn gave an extra hop, and said, ‘It was loverly! But I do wish you could have had it too.’

  And that same moment they reached the Dolphin House; and the carved and painted dolphins seemed even more joyfully adventurous than usual, as they stared down with their little rolling eyes, through the green branches and fairy-foxgloves and St. John’s wort, at Piers and Tamsyn standing below – as though the Midsummer magic that had got into Tamsyn’s toes and the tulip bulb had got into them too. And perhaps it had. Queer things happen at Midsummer.

  5

  How Tamsyn Saw the Laughing Lady

  The next day Aunt Deborah gave Tamsyn a green earthenware pot, and Tamsyn filled it with earth from the garden, which she picked over carefully for stones or sharp things that might scratch or worry a baby tulip, and planted the precious bulb in it, and put it in a dark cupboard in the still-room. After that she visited it two or three times every day, to make sure that it was all right and see if it could have begun to shoot since the last time she came.

  Summer drew on, and in the open country Tamsyn knew that the hay harvest would be all over and the wheatfields turning from green to gold, and in the hedges there would be meadow-sweet and little wild convolvulus striped pink and white, like marchpane. In the garden behind the Dolphin House the lavender was in flower, and Aunt Deborah picked it with Tamsyn’s help, and laid it out on the turf-plot to dry in the sun before she made it into packets to go among her linen in the big linen-press in the still-room and mixed it with the strewing herbs. And the gooseberries on the three gooseberry bushes that shared the bottom of the garden with the quince tree were swelling out. Soon they would be big and bursty-soft, and sweet to taste and golden to look at; and when you held one up to the sunlight you would be able to see the shadows of the seeds inside it.

  All the family were waiting for those gooseberries to ripen. But Littlest didn’t want to wait until then. He liked gooseberries to be hard and green and eye-watering sharp. Even when they gave him a pain he still liked them like that. Nothing that anybody could say or do would keep Littlest from going straight back to those gooseberry bushes the moment they took their eye off him – and quite soon there would be no gooseberries left!

  ‘Peacocks love gooseberries,’ Beatrix and Giles told him over and over again. ‘If you go on eating green gooseberries, you know what will happen to you. You’ll turn into a peacock, and probably you’ll be eaten at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, because the Lord Mayor is very fond of roast peacock.’

  Littlest looked a bit worried when they told him this, but he went on eating green gooseberries all the same. And then one day the dreadful thing happened!

  Aunt Deborah had gone to spend the afternoon with Mistress Whitcome two doors down the street to help her cut out a new kirtle from a length of orange damask that Master Whitcome had given her for a birthday present; Meg the Kitchen was scouring pans with
a great clattering and scraping, and the children were left to themselves in the garden. Tamsyn had just been into the kitchen to borrow a slice of saffron cake from Meg, and it had taken her a little while to do it, because Meg was rather deaf and was making such a tremendous clattering with the pots and pans. When she came out into the garden again she saw something so astonishing and frightful that she could only stand quite still and gasp. She even dropped the piece of cake. The Almost-Twins were sitting side by side on the still-room windowsill, gazing vaguely up into the sky and doing nothing in particular; and up the path from the gooseberry bushes came Littlest, strutting along and pulling Lammy behind him on the end of a piece of cord. And Littlest had grown a peacock’s tail!

  He looked quite all right otherwise; in fact he looked very nice, with his red-gold hair and his bright-blue eyes and his scarlet stockings. But there, growing out from under the skirts of his doublet and trailing behind him along the path, were five long peacock feathers gleaming green and gold and blue in the sunlight. Poor Littlest had eaten green gooseberries once too often!

  The Almost-Twins seemed to notice what had happened practically at the same moment as Tamsyn did, and blank horror spread over their faces. Then Giles got up and went to Littlest, saying sorrowfully, ‘Oh, Littlest, we did warn you – and it’s happened.’

  Littlest stood with his legs wide apart, and looked up at Giles a little puzzled, with a bit of green gooseberry skin stuck to his chin.

  ‘You must be very brave,’ said Giles, ‘Look what’s growing out of you behind.’

  Littlest screwed round and looked behind him over his shoulder, and saw the peacock’s tail spreading out across the path with all its jewelled eyes bright in the sunshine. For a long, breathless moment he simply stared, and then he opened his mouth and let out an agonized yell. ‘Pully out!’ yelled poor Littlest. ‘Pully out! Pully out!’

  Beatrix flung herself down beside him, and raised imploring arms to Giles. ‘Oh, do not tell the Lord Mayor,’ she cried. ‘Peacocks are so very scarce this year.’

  ‘I think we ought to tell him,’ said Giles. ‘He’s bound to find out, anyway.’

  ‘Oh no, not if we hide Littlest very carefully,’ cried Beatrix, wringing her hands. ‘We can hide him in Kit’s Castle and feed him on corn and branmash. Nobody must know that he has turned into a peacock.’ And she flung her arms round Littlest, who promptly hit her on the head with Lammy and went on roaring, ‘Pully out! Pully out!’

  ‘Never mind, Littlest darling,’ cried Beatrix distractedly. ‘We love you just the same, even if you are a peacock.’

  ‘Poor Mother!’ said Giles gloomily, taking no notice of Littlest’s yells. ‘She’ll never believe, when we take her up to Kit’s Castle and show her a peacock, that it’s really Littlest.’

  But Beatrix said, ‘Of course she will. Mothers always know their own children, even when they’ve grown feathers.’ And she clasped Littlest more closely to her, while he roared louder than ever.

  And at that moment two things happened: the back door opened and Piers came out into the garden and shut it behind him; and Tamsyn saw that the peacock’s feathers were fastened on to the skirts of Littlest’s doublet with a large pin. They were the five feathers from the play-chest in Kit’s Castle!

  Piers demanded, ‘What are you doing to Littlest?’ And then he saw the peacock’s tail and Tamsyn frozen rigid with astonishment, and the Almost-Twins wringing their hands and shouting that Littlest was turning into a peacock. He did not waste an instant. He went straight across to Littlest and pushed Beatrix firmly out of the way and squatted down and put an arm round the terrified little boy.

  ‘Pully out! Oh, do pully out!’ wept Littlest.

  ‘Of course I’ll pull it out,’ said Piers consolingly. ‘You hold tight to Tamsy, and I’ll pull it out this moment.’

  So Tamsyn came unfrozen and flew to sit on her heels in front of Littlest, and hold him tight round the middle, and Littlest clung to her, sobbing and hiccoughing and rubbing his teary face against her, so that she thought she had never noticed properly before what a dear little boy Littlest was; and Piers took a firm hold of the peacock’s tail. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘hold tight.’ And he pulled, and he pulled, and he pulled, while the Almost-Twins stood by and offered helpful advice, and Bunch looked on in an interested sort of way.

  ‘Pully out!’ bellowed Littlest. ‘Pully out!’

  ‘He’s pulling it out, darlin’,’ crooned Tamsyn. ‘Almost out, darlin’; hold tight to Tamsy.’

  ‘Ugh!’ grunted Piers, pulling harder than ever with one hand and slipping out the pin with the other. ‘It’s coming. It’s – almost – out – now. One more – pull – and it’s – OUT.’ And the tail was out, and Piers fell over backwards into a lavender bush.

  Everybody sorted themselves out and picked themselves up and looked at each other, Littlest hiccoughing and rubbing his seat, and Piers holding the five long peacock’s feathers in his hand.

  ‘There,’ said Piers. ‘That’s all over. But I shouldn’t go eating any more green gooseberries, if I were you, or it might happen again.’

  Littlest shook his head and rubbed harder then ever. His chest was still heaving with sobs, but he swallowed them manfully, and promised, ‘Littlest won’t!’

  ‘Anyway, you have some peacock feathers of your own now,’ said Piers.

  Littlest’s sobs and hiccoughs broke off between one sob and the next hiccough. He stopped rubbing his seat, and a slow smile spread over his teary face, and he put out his hands for the lovely jewel-bright feathers that were so exactly like the ones in the play-chest, which he had never been allowed to touch. ‘For Littlest?’ he said, rather uncertainly, because it seemed too good to be true.

  ‘Of course,’ said Piers. ‘You grew them, didn’t you?’ and gave him the feathers.

  ‘Yes, but – ’ said the Almost-Twins with one voice, looking very blank.

  Piers turned on them, with his eyebrows cocked up towards his red hair. ‘There’s no “but” about it,’ he said. ‘Littlest grew these feathers himself, and of course they are his to keep.’

  ‘Yes, but – ’ began Giles again.

  Piers looked at him very hard, and asked politely, ‘You were going to say?’

  And Giles turned very red and swallowed and didn’t say any more.

  And Beatrix said, ‘Oh, I see,’ in a very small voice.

  Littlest, with the tears still wet on his cheeks and his face wreathed in smiles, was gazing lovingly at his precious feathers. Tamsyn gazed at Piers with her mouth and eyes very wide open in admiration, and then suddenly she saw how funny it all was, and she collapsed on to the grass and sat there with her russet skirts flung out round her, kicking her heels and laughing, laughing, laughing. For a moment everybody just looked at her inquiringly, and then Piers began to laugh, too, and even the Almost-Twins joined in, and Bunch sat down with his tongue lolling out of his mouth, as though he were laughing most of all. But Littlest just went on smiling lovingly at his peacock’s feathers.

  When they had all laughed until they felt quite weak and silly, they just sat round on the little grass plot and looked at each other, while they got their breath back. It seemed very quiet in the garden, after all the noise and excitement of the last few minutes – a hot, sleepy sort of quietness made up of lots of small sounds: the scraping and clattering of Meg still scouring pans in the kitchen, the distant song of a Jenny-whitethroat in somebody else’s garden, the droning of brown velvet bees among the sweet-william and snapdragon and peonies, the murmur of the City, the whisper of the Thames below the garden wall. Tamsyn wriggled over to the piece of saffron cake which was lying under the lavender bush where she had dropped it when all the excitement began, and gathered it up carefully; it had been slightly sat on and squashed well into the dark earth of the flower-bed, but when she had dusted the pieces it was almost as good as new.

  It was nice sitting on the warm grass in the sunshine and eating saffron cake.

  ‘
I say, did Meg give you that?’ asked Giles, hopefully.

  Tamsyn nodded, with her mouth full.

  ‘Then she must be in a very good temper,’ said Giles. ‘I think I’ll just go and see – ’ And he scrambled to his feet without even waiting to finish what he was saying.

  ‘You’ll have to shout awful loud, to make her hear above the pots and pans,’ Tamsyn called after him.

  Piers uncurled his long legs too; he ought to be at work, of course. He was supposed to be blowing up the forge fire for old Caleb, who was working on a breastplate of white steel which had been ordered by My Lord Guildford. He had come out when he heard Littlest’s shrieks, but now he must go back again, although he didn’t much want to. Then he stopped quite still in a half-getting-up position, with his head turned towards the river, listening; and Giles, who had got as far as the house door, stopped and listened too. A faint noise of shouting and a lilt of music stole into the hot stillness of the garden from somewhere far down river, a long, long way off, but coming nearer every moment.

  ‘Please, what is it?’ asked Tamsyn.

  ‘I say, something’s coming up the river,’ said Giles.

  ‘It must be a Great Noble,’ cried Beatrix. ‘There are musicians – and listen to people shouting! Oh, Piers, you don’t suppose it’s the King’s Grace, do you?’

  Piers said, ‘I wonder. It might be him coming up from Greenwich to Westminster. Come on, let’s go and look,’ and he sprang to his feet and went swinging down the garden.

  Tamsyn kilted up her skirts and flew after him, and Bunch and the Almost-Twins brought up the rear; but Littlest still sat where he was, smiling peacefully at the five peacock’s feathers that seemed to stare back at him with all their round, jewelled eyes.

  The barges and tilt-boats on the river were all drawing in to shore, leaving the way clear for whatever it was that was coming upstream. The thread of music was growing louder and shriller and sweeter every moment, and they could hear words in the shouting now, ‘God save your Grace!’ The people were shouting, ‘Harry! God save King Hal!’