The Court of the Midnight King: A Dream of Richard III (12 page)

At home, Kate had never been idle. Here, by contrast, the ladies lived like true gentlefolk. Anne Beauchamp had her dual life, which – Kate learned – her husband tolerated, as long as no attention was ever drawn to it. The daughters, though, had nothing to do but wait for husbands. They might sew, read prayer books, pore over bolts of material for sumptuous dresses, find a score of distractions; but really, they were only marking time.

After a while, Kate realised it was more subtle than that, and worse. They were waiting for their father, Warwick the Kingmaker, to determine their futures to his own best advantage. If he couldn’t become king himself, the next best thing would be a grandson on the throne.

Most shocking of all, the countess hadn’t introduced them to the ways of Auset. Kate was instructed never to mention such matters. All they knew was obedience to their father and the Church. No barefoot walks by moonlight, no awareness that everything around them had its own spirit, no wondrous encounters with elementals. Their eyes were sealed shut. Kate was outraged on their behalf, but dared not say anything.

The outer world, as her mother had warned, was alien. Larger and grander in every way, yet stark.

“We are haunches of meat,” Isabel whispered once, in a rare reflective mood. She had one hand through Kate’s arm, her slim body pressing against Kate’s. “I love my father but I know his schemes. He’s so disappointed that he has no sons. In fact it’s a disaster. His only hope is to marry his daughters to the most powerful men in the kingdom. And he’s rich, so someone will be eager to take us. He’s determined to marry at least one of us to a king, and he’ll use us to barter with until he wins.”

“What king?” said Katherine. “Edward is taken.”

“And how my father weeps blood over that marriage!” Isabel’s eyes were half-closed, brooding. “I know who’s intended for me. Edward’s brother George, Duke of Clarence. He’s fond of me, and a fine, handsome man, but…”

“Not a king?”

“He is Edward’s heir, until Edward has a son,” Isabel said softly. “That’s why Edward has forbidden us to marry.”

“Will the earl obey him?”

“I doubt it,” Isabel said, sanguine. “My father’s suffered too many insults from the king. All the fault of the Woodville clan.” She made a noise of disgust. “No doubt Queen Elizabeth thought she’d chain George to yet another of her own relatives. But my father always gets his way in the end.”

“What do you want?” Kate asked. The sacrilegious question. As the countess had said, it was impossible to imagine Isabel seducing a stranger in order to avoid a political marriage. The family shame, Isabel banished to a nunnery… it could never happen.

Kate still turned hot with the memory of what she’d done. Nan’s words of reassurance proved true; under her full robes, she looked slim almost to the ninth month. Sometimes remorse seized her, then her self-possession would return. She would do what she must.

Richard of Gloucester had been part of this family. He’d been the Earl of Warwick’s ward until a year or two ago. Isabel and Anne knew him well. How would they view her behaviour, or his, from the strict cage of their lives?

Luckily, he’d gone to serve King Edward long before Kate arrived and was unlikely to return, given the animosity between Edward and Warwick. She was glad. The embarrassment of meeting him would have been excruciating.

Yet she sometimes imagined him walking these corridors, speaking courteously with Isabel or Anne… If ever they mentioned him, she tried not to listen, but it was hard not to notice that they couldn’t find a bad word to say about him. Their fondness for Richard made Kate faintly jealous.

“I want to please my father,” said Isabel. “And I do like George very much. But I can only wait, while they argue, and I am driven mad!”

###

The scarlet ship rose and fell. Lines of pain held Kate steady, like rope.

Isabel was running, her russet hair flying in front of Kate as they ran the length of the high gallery. Then she turned suddenly to hush Kate, and they collided in suppressed laughter, their slippers noiseless on the polished boards.

Below, in the crimson light of the great hall, stood the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence with a dozen armed men. Kate saw the earl rarely, and always from a distance. No sooner did he arrive than he was leaving again.

Warwick was a blood-red man. So Katherine saw him, with his flushed meaty face, his sharp narrow eyes always observing, needling, brooding. He wore burgundy velvets the colour of clotted blood, and huge rubies on his fingers. His badge of a great black bear made her think of raw meat being torn. Blood and meat. He laughed a lot, and snapped from laughter to rage in the same hard, loud voice. His face was big, with bushy eyebrows that swept up like curved swords on either side. Kate was nervous of him, so different from her own gentle father.

“He’s not as alarming as he looks,” Isabel assured her.

His charity and generosity were legendary. But as Kate saw him that day he was every inch the patriarch, the warrior-leader she’d imagined.

He was raging about Edward, harsh yet controlled.

“I put him on the throne, with my own sweat and wealth, and see how he repays me! Made a jackass of me with his marriage, dealing behind my back, removing my brother from his Chancellorship, a dozen other exploits of idiocy. He’s proved himself unfit to be king.” The voice fell to a purr. “He will presently recall that all he has, he owes to me. By then it will be too late. If I can make one king, I can unmake him and make another. He had better look to me, and tremble.”

All the men were talking at once. Warwick silenced them, raising one huge hand, resting the other George of Clarence’s shoulder. Kate couldn’t see much of the duke, only the top of his fair curly head and his taut, proud posture. “I can prove that Edward is a bastard, and that George here is rightful heir to the throne of England.”

“You can prove that the moon is the sun, my liege,” said one of the men – impertinently, Kate thought, but Warwick threw back his head and barked with mirth. Murmurs of conspiracy ran among them.

Isabel dug her fingers into Kate’s arm. Her eyes were bonfires. “He’ll do it. He will make George king!”

Kate stared at her, shocked. “Just a quarrel, your mother told mine.”

Isabel shook her head. “It has been more than a quarrel for a long, long time.”

“It’s treason, Bel. He can’t unseat the king.”

“Why not? He unseated mad old Henry.”

Kate wondered if Warwick, too, were not mad. “Then what?” she whispered.

“Then I shall be the Queen of England,” said Isabel.

Much had happened since then. Defying Edward, Warwick took George and Isabel to Calais and married them there. Next, he invaded England with an army. He won battles; Queen Elizabeth’s own father and brother were killed upon Edgecote Field; some said by George’s own hand. Edward, astonishingly, gave himself up as a prisoner to Warwick’s brother, George Neville, Archbishop of York. A crafty move. By placing himself under the protection of the Church, he avoided death in battle, or execution afterwards.

Katherine wondered where Thomas, Lord Stanley stood in all this. She wrote to her mother and received cryptic replies that all was well, he had not pressed his claim to their demesne. Too busy calculating which side to support next, Kate guessed.

Something astonishing thing had happened to Kate in those strange months. The news that Warwick held King Edward captive was unbelievable. Even the countess and her daughters were stunned. Then one day the castle was suddenly full of men and hounds and Warwick’s triumphant blustering. Kate found herself on an errand, the earl having instructed his wife to send someone, anyone, to take books to a private chamber.

Warwick’s men stood guard outside. Kate entered the room and there he was, the earl’s prisoner: King Edward.

Kate stood like dumb stone as she saw it was truly him, the caged king, so real she could smell his sweat. Even sitting in silence, he dominated the room. Not the ethereal gilded prince she’d imagined, but broader and heavier. His long legs were thickly muscled, the calves resting at casual angles. He had brown hair shot with gold, restless eyes, and the whitest, most charming smile she had ever seen.

“Hello, who’s this?” he said, standing up and dwarfing her.

“Katherine Lytton, your Grace.” Flustered, she went on one knee to kiss his hand, dropped a book and almost fell over her own skirts. As he helped her up, she suddenly wondered how many women those warm fleshy hands had touched. Hundreds, from what they said of him. The thought was repellent.

“Considerate of the earl to send me some entertainment.” He took the books from her and put them aside without a glance. Sitting down again, he indicated a footstool, and she sat, condemned to stay and make a gibbering fool of herself.

Then, to her horror, he said cheerfully, “Aren’t you the Katherine Lytton who had the nerve to defy my Lord Stanley and refuse his son?”

Her mouth dropped open, snapped shut. Edward grinned. “That was unfair of me. I’m sorry, my lady. I’m too fond of watching people fall over their own feet with shock.”

Words fell from her bone-dry throat. “I – I’m amazed that you should know about such a small matter, sire.”

“It’s not a small matter. I take a keen interest in all my subjects, and I never forget anything. I thought it made me quite a good king, but my lord of Warwick seems to disagree. So, the Stanleys are not good enough for you?”

Kate looked down, acutely uncomfortable. “I had my reasons,” she said in a small, tight voice, “your Grace.”

“And I applaud your bravery in upholding them.” She looked up and realised his amusement was warm, not malicious. “It takes rare courage to defy a scorpion like Thomas Stanley, believe me. You’re right; they’re not good enough.” Edward’s gaze travelled blatantly over her. “Still, his poor, poor son. He must have been demented at losing you.”

“He took it most graciously.”

“I’m sure, but still, George Stanley: the most miserable wretch in Christendom!”

“I doubt it.” Kate felt herself glowing ruby-red with embarrassment. “I was sent with books. Can I… may I do anything else to aid your Grace’s comfort?”

His eyes narrowed, cat-like, and his smile grew insinuating. “Most certainly you can. My lord of Warwick is proving a more generous host than I’d given him credit for.”

Kate suspected, for one ghastly moment, that she had indeed been sent to Edward for that reason. She was suddenly too shocked to be afraid of him.

“Would you talk to Anne or Isabel Neville like that?” she said coldly.

Her outrage, and something darker, must have reached her eyes. He actually paled, and sat up straight to look at her.

“Not while their father has several hundred armed men standing around the place pointing spears at me. But if I caught them on their own, and didn’t know them, of course I would. It’s a terrible habit,” he said, contrite. “Alas, my sense of humour grows coarse; blame it on the utter boredom of confinement. Please forgive me, Lady Katherine.”

She began to like him then.

“You are forgiven, sire.”

“Entertainment, then.” He sat back, resting one elbow on the chair arm. “Can you play the psaltery, sing, or both?”

“Passing badly.”

“I’m certain there’s no call for such modesty. Won’t you play for me?”

It could happen so easily. She would play a song or three; he would be entertained, and ply her with wine, and make her laugh; at some stage he would pull her onto his knee, and there would be nothing she could do without causing a scene. He was attractive enough. She suspected that she would enjoy it. And no danger of pregnancy, since…

She swallowed and glanced down at herself. Even now, there was nothing much to see. But afterwards, she’d have only the ashen knowledge that she was another conquest among hundreds. Such things never happened without consequences. Just to say she had bedded the king? He wasn’t worth it.

“I don’t think it would be a good idea, sire.”

“Is your singing that bad?”

“Truly appalling,” said Kate. “Would you like me to read?”

“No.” His smile softened, and he looked serious. “Just talk to me for a while. I promise to keep my hands in clerical mode.”

He rested them on one knee, fingers laced together. She laughed.

“So, am I still the king in your eyes?” he asked softly.

“Yes, your Grace.”

“But not in the eyes of your master, my once-dear friend.”

“The earl is not my master,” she replied. “I’m his wife’s ward, and his daughter’s companion. I am no one’s servant and my opinions are my own.”

Edward’s eyes were thoughtful. Warwick painted an increasingly elaborate picture of him as a lecherous buffoon, but the man who sat regarding her was no fool. His voice became confiding. “Katherine, I know your mother, Lady Lytton. She wrote, appealing for my help after your unfortunate experience with Lord Stanley. I met her in Northampton a few months ago with her friend, Friar Bungay.”

Kate was shocked. She hadn’t known, but it was something her mother might not want to reveal to her in a letter. “No one has told me the outcome.”

“I try to help everyone, so far as it’s in my power. And your mother is a special case. I know of her… affiliations.”