February 1212
He lay in his lonely little bed, curled up into the smallest shape he could contrive. He was six years old, and so scared that he was quite sure he was going to wet himself. She would be so angry if he did. She would probably do what she did last time and push his face into the stinky sheets, as if he was a puppy that had made a mess on the floor. He must get up and reach under the bed for the piss pot. He knew he had to. But he also knew there was a monster under the bed.
He hadn’t really seen the monster. All the same, he could describe it. It had a big, long snout and a thick, ropy neck that sort of spread out into its shoulders. It had spiky bits on the top of its head and all down its neck and backbone. It was hairless, and its skin was hard and scaly. It made a rustling, rattling noise when it moved. It moved oh so slowly, like a snake sliding across the ground. It had huge gaping jaws and its breath smelt foul, like old meat. And its teeth—
NO. Don’t think about its teeth, don’t, don’t, don’t …
The little boy gave a soft moan, quickly stuffing his fist in his mouth to muffle it. He mustn’t make a noise. She had told him that, so many times. He must be a big brave boy because he wasn’t a baby any more. He was a Person of Importance. He must behave like a little lordling.
He didn’t want to be a little lordling. It meant things he didn’t like. It meant wearing stiff, uncomfortable clothes that had to be kept very clean all the time. It meant having to have nice manners at table. It meant he wasn’t allowed to play with the other boys because they were servants’ children. She had caught him playing tag-and-run with the groom’s little lad, and she had pulled him away, that horrible expression on her face when her lips seemed to fold in on themselves and her eyes went cold and empty, and then, inside the house where nobody could see, she’d boxed his ears so hard that his head rang and he couldn’t hear properly for quite a long time.
That had been quite a lot of days ago. His ears still hurt, sometimes.
He thought for a while. He realized she hadn’t punished him since then. Well, not by hitting him, anyway, although she still kept sending him to his room when he’d done something naughty. Often he never knew exactly how he’d been bad or which one of her many rules he had broken. She had so many rules. It seemed to him that the more people did what she said – and it was funny how they usually did – the more rules she came up with.
Being sent to his room such a lot was good in one way, and that was he didn’t have to see so much of Her. It was almost as if, having worked so hard at trying to make him the sort of boy she appeared to want – a little lordling – now she had stopped trying. Perhaps he was a little lordling now, and that was why she’d stopped, but he didn’t really think so. Much more likely was that he was so bad at being it that she had despaired of him and given up.
It was all right in his room, but it was very lonely.
I wish my daddy was here.
He wasn’t sure if he’d whispered the words out loud or just thought them. They were true, either way. But his father was dead: he knew that. He had a new father now. The new father was quite nice, and he had a kind face. But he didn’t seem to know about boys.
Don’t think about my daddy.
The other thing he didn’t like about having to be a lordling and a Person of Importance was that he was no longer allowed to sleep in a safe, cosy, warm bundle with lots of other people. She said that Important People demanded and received their own beds. They slept in what she called splendid isolation, although he didn’t really understand the words. He knew what they meant, though. They meant being all by myself in the pitch-dark with nobody to hold my hand and nobody to snuggle up to not even a dog and so desperate to wee that it was going to come out and so afraid so so so afraid of the monster that I don’t even dare put one foot out of bed.
He lay very still. Perhaps if he didn’t move at all the need to wee would go away. He could hear the house. It made soft, gentle sounds as if it was murmuring. As if, now that everybody was in bed and it was silent and dark, the house got a bit of peace and took the opportunity to have a little chat to itself. Hello, house, have you had a nice day? That was a bit silly, and the little boy grinned to himself in the darkness.
It was a good house. A friendly sort of house. It was very, very old – somehow he knew that, although he couldn’t remember if anybody had actually told him – and he thought that a lot of good, kind people had lived in it and left something of themselves in its stones. The boy liked living there, and, had it not been for the monster, and Her, he would have been happy. Well, quite happy.
He felt that the house liked him, too. It felt as if its darkness wrapped itself round him, comforting him. He had sensed that there was a big, strong presence looking out for him. Once when he’d screamed out loud because of the monster, and She had come and shushed him, pinching and punching and pushing at him and telling him to behave himself, he’d thought that, just for the blink of an eye, a big, strong man had come out of the shadows and told her to go away. The man cared about him. The man had defended him from Her.
He really, really hoped the man would come again.
Desperate, his bladder bursting, suddenly he threw himself out of bed, scrabbled beneath it for the pot, directed a long, strong stream into it, shoved it under the bed again and then scrambled back under the covers, pulling them right up over his head.
He screwed his eyes tight shut. The monster was there. He had caught a glimpse of it as he pushed the piss pot back under the bed. A horrible, dark, thick, curled-up forelimb, like a huge coil of rope, only it ended in long, curved, wickedly pointed talons. The little boy gave a whimper.
Was that snaky forelimb even now uncurling? Blindly pushing forward across the dusty floor, sensing for him, snuffling for his smell, the terrible talons extending as the monster prepared to strike?
He listened, straining so hard that it made his ears hurt.
Nothing. Not a sound.
Ah, but monsters were very clever. Perhaps it was just pretending not to be coming for him …
He lay still as stone for an eternity. Still no sound.
He wondered how long he would have to endure the darkness and his bone-deep fear before morning came.