Jenny gazed around, awestruck by the grandeur of Hampton Court Palace. Her active imagination caught fire as she envisioned lords and ladies arriving at the palaces garbed in sumptuous clothes of velvet, fur and silk and adorned in glittering jewels. She could picture King Henry VIII walking out with Queen Anne Boleyn to go on a hunt or for a walk in the beautiful, lush green gardens. Jenny adored history. She had been bursting with excitement ever since she had learned that her parents were planning on bringing herself and her little brother, Mark, here for the bank holiday weekend.
‘Jenny!’ she heard her mother’s voice call her name.
She turned and saw her mother beckoning from the entranceway into the palace itself. Jenny raced over.
‘What were you doing still back there? Had your head in the clouds again, did you? I swear you’re as bad as your father,’ her mother admonished her.
Jenny felt her body tense under the weight of her mother’s criticism. Her mother had never approved of her enthusiasm for history or her vivid imagination. Her mother was a bank manager with a very particular sense of what life should be like. Jenny didn’t know how her father had talked her mother into arranging this trip in the first place, but she was very glad he had.
They walked through some Tudor kitchens and Jenny had great fun imagining all the servants bustling about and preparing great feasts for the King and all his nobles. She caught up to her father and chatted enthusiastically with him about all that she imagined. He smiled fondly and told her anecdotes he had read about the strange kinds of food people in Tudor England ate while her mother frowned and kept Mark from under the feet of the other visitors and staff.
They made their way through some more rooms and corridors before reaching a great hall where lots of people in Tudor style costumes were dancing an old Tudor dance. Jenny gasped in amazement. There were other people in Tudor costumes talking to groups of adults and their children, telling them about the history of the palace. Jenny already knew all of that. She watched the people in costume dance and teach children the dances. A kind seeming lady wearing a French hood asked her would she like to join in but Jenny politely refused. She had attended ballet classes when she was younger but had constantly tripped either herself or the other girls up until she was asked to leave. It had been totally mortifying.
There was one other longer room at the back of this hall.  It seemed to be empty at the moment except for one of the actors. From his large feathered hat, beard and shiny doublet Jenny supposed that he was supposed to be King Henry VIII. He looked a little sad sitting on the bench on his own
Jenny felt a surge of shyness come over her and began to back out of the room when the man looked up and spotted her. His expression cleared and gave a hearty chuckle.
‘Ho, little girl! Don’t be afraid! Come, sit down beside me,’ he said and patted the bench beside him with a heavily ringed finger.
Jenny blushed but felt warmed by the kindly twinkle in the man’s blue eyes and made her way towards him.
She sat down on the bench next to him.
They sat quietly for a while and then the man spoke in a great booming baritone:
‘Are you enjoying the palace?’ he inquired. 
‘Oh yes, very much!’ Jenny replied enthusiastically. 
The man smiled and his eyes twinkled kindly. 
‘Did you join the dance?’ he asked Jenny then.
‘No,’ Jenny replied, feeling shy again suddenly. 
‘No?’ the man repeated, with mock disbelief in his tone.
‘When I try to dance I usually end up falling on people,’ she said by way of explanation. 
The man chortled heartily at this. 
‘That is most unfortunate to hear, young lady!’ he said through his chortles. ‘Indeed it was so with my fourth wife also, very embarrassing in front of all the court. One of the reasons I had to divorce her in the end.’
Jenny gaped at him. She knew the story of Henry VIII and his six wives very well and this actor was so good he was improvising around it.
‘Yes indeed,’ he continued ‘She was the only wife who did not cling to her hold on power and I rewarded her generously for it.’
Jenny watched the man closely, he wasn’t breaking out of character for even a second. She looked around to see if anyone else was watching this but the room was strangely empty.
The man turned to her, his small grey eyes looking into hers.
‘Treat those who do not seek to merely further themselves or their families in an alliance with you with generosity, my young lady, they are most rare to come by,’ he said this in the grave tones of one choosing to bestow hard earned wisdom on another.
Jenny gaped at the actor, he was really running with this theme. She briefly considered running to find her family who would also enjoy this, but did not want to miss anything herself and so stayed right where she was.
 ‘Most will seek to ally themselves with you merely for their own gain, and the betrayal will sting until the day you die,’ he said. 
Jenny felt slightly uneasy at this and began to wonder if finding her mother or father would not be a good idea after all. 
The man looked to her with a grave expression on his face and suddenly chuckled.
‘Such things are not for the delicate ears of a such a young one,’ he said ‘Although you may do well to remember it in future.’
Jenny was suddenly brought to mind about her a friend she knew from school who had stopped talking to her because she did not own a smartphone. She was upset and asked her mother for a better phone for Christmas. Her mother had been very angry. Her mother thought that if Jenny had a phone it was just so that she could know where Jenny was, not to talk for Jenny to talk to her friends or be on Snapchat or Facebook. When her parents thought that Jenny was asleep she heard them having a row about it. She had never spoken to that friend again, who she only ever saw hanging out “cool kids” anymore. She listened more carefully to the great man on the bench beside her. 
‘One last word on the subject, my young friend, and then you must go and entertain yourself in the palace,’ he continued ‘Keep in check your own ire when dealing with those who have betrayed you, for the guilt of your actions will be your torment in the end.’
Jenny looked at the man seriously. The story of Henry VIII beheading his wives was infamous to history. He was widely regarded now as a tyrant and a monster, a man completely devoid of conscience. She was glad she had not run to get her mother or father now. She felt that they would be very upset with the way this was going now. 
She looked down at her shiny black boots with pink butterflies stitched into the sides and wondered what she should do, or if there was something she should say. It was then that she heard him heave a great sigh.
She looked up and saw his the man’s head was bowed. She could have sworn she saw a glistening tear roll down his fat cheek. 
‘Sir!!’ she exclaimed ‘Whatever is the matter?! You really musn’t -’
‘No, young one, it is quite alright,’ the man said sadly ‘The burden I carry is of my own creation.’
He stopped and stared into nothingness for a time. 
‘What burden? What do you mean?’ asked Jenny, now becoming alarmed.
‘What I did to them all….’ he replied still staring on. Jenny could swear she saw his eyes filled with ghosts when she looked at them. 
‘I needed a son,’ he said with a strange intensity to his eyes, his face twisting ‘I needed an heir to my realm. It was my duty to my people to ensure there was safety to the bloodline. But I should not have acted so. I should have trusted to God and his wisdom. Instead I am damned to his hell.’ 
Jenny stared up at the man wide eyed. She wanted very much to believe that it was only a riveting and imaginative performance but something deep inside told her it was something more. 
‘There is no peace for one such as I,’ he went on. ‘I will roam these corridors and halls for the rest of my damned eternity.’
Jenny felt her face drain of blood at his last utterance. 
‘Jenny!’ she heard her mother’s voice call then. 
She turned to see her mother standing in the entrance to this hall. 
‘Mother, mother!’ she cried running over ‘You must come see -’
But on turning around saw that the man she had been conversing with was no longer there. 
Her brow furrowed in consternation, how could he have left this hall without her seeing when he had been right there?
‘See what Jenny? Are you feeling alright?’ her mother asked. 
‘But I was talking to a man just there,’ Jenny said, still bewildered.
Her mother groaned. 
‘Oh, Jenny you have let your imagination run away with you again! I told your father that this would happen...’ she said wearily. 
‘Come along now, we will find him and Mark and go get some tea and then it’s time to go home,’ she said taking Jenny firmly by the hand.
They found her father and little brother checking out one of the suits of armour. They and their mother chatted about the sights over tea as Jenny tucked into her pie so her family would not bother her and she was free to muse about the events of the afternoon.
Her mother had put the man down to Jenny’s imagination. Jenny knew she had a good imagination. All her teachers said so. However when she remembered the man and his eyes as he spoke she knew in her heart that her imagination was not that good. 
She had just spoken to the spectre of the long dead English monarch who was most infamous for his brutal marital record. 
Jenny chewed on the last remaining morsels of her chicken and mushroom pie mused on his eternity spent roaming the halls with only a heavy conscience. She wondered if he would ever be forgiven for his sins and find some peace at last, or if he would be damned forever.
If he was to be damned forever, she thought she would like to go and visit him some more. Perhaps he had done terrible things, but she felt it was only right he should at least have some company if he was going to endure such an equally terrible punishment.
‘You have been quiet Jenny,’ her father interrupted her thoughts ‘I hope you enjoyed the day.’
‘Oh yes, very much,’ Jenny responded enthusiastically, she was never going to share her secret as she knew what they would think already.
Her parents both smiled at her fondly. 
Her mother surveyed the clean plates on the table.
“Well, I think it's time to get going now,” she said “Mark are you going to finish your juice?” 
Jenny's mother fussed over her little brother as Jenny and her father headed for the car. 
Jenny sat in the backseat of the car thinking of the old ghost king trapped there in his sprawling red brick palace. She would be sure to come back and visit him, even if it took her time. 
She watched from the backseat of the car car as it drove away.
I'll be back, was her silent promise, as the battlements faded into the distance.