The Court of the Midnight King: A Dream of Richard III (5 page)

“Near as,” said another, jabbing at him as if he were a fledgling fallen from the nest. Harder they poked until he reacted, flinching. The boys shrieked their triumph. Raphael was too confused to be afraid.

“Any coins on him, weapons?”

“Nah.”

And then something happened, utterly bizarre, yet logical in his dream-state. A clamour began in the distance, like a hundred wagons trundling over cobblestones. One of the boys yelled, “The king’s coming! The king!”

Raphael flung his arms over his head. He’d committed treason. Of course King Henry would hunt him down, he and his terrifying wife, Queen Marguerite…

“Hoy!” A shout, loud and imperious, rang out a few yards away. “Leave him be!”

Raphael lay dazzled. Like a tortoise on its back he tried feebly to rise. The boys turned to see who had shouted and as they saw, a change came over them. Suddenly they were full of nervous bravado.

“Look!” one said, pointing at the road. “There he is, the king!”

“Shush!” said another. “Look at the jewels on this lord!”

It was a boy who’d shouted as he strode towards them. Raphael saw that he had a sword, clothes of rich dark velvet, a chain of shining gems set in gold. He was leading a glossy bay pony clothed in heraldry. Although he looked younger than Raphael’s tormentors, he fingered his sword-hilt and stood looking at them with calm, storm-coloured eyes. The eyes gave Raphael a vision: rain running over a standing stone in the dark…

“Leave him be,” repeated the young noble. He strode forward, fearless, as if no one ever disobeyed him.

The boys sneered nervously. “Who says?”

The lordling said nothing. He drew his sword only a hand’s width from its sheath and the bullies fled. They went whooping with exhilaration – as if they’d won, not run away – towards the noisy, colourful blur of the royal procession.

Raphael, though, could look at nothing but the child with ancient eyes.

The boy came forward and knelt on the grass, oblivious to dew and mud caking his splendid boots. His face was like fine ivory; Raphael was sure he was an apparition. Did angels appear as children? The boy grasped his hand – solid flesh, after all – and pulled Raphael out of the ditch. He swayed on shaking legs and promptly sat down again.

“What happened to you?” the boy said kindly.

“I don’t know,” whispered Raphael. “I can’t remember.”

The heavy gold collar around the boy’s neck glinted with sapphires and rubies. “Were you hit on the head?” he asked, as serious as a physician. “Is that why you can’t remember? Did those knaves knock you down and rob you?”

“No. They found me,” whispered Raphael. He wished his mind would clear. His sense of time was hopelessly entangled. The background was full of flashing movement and the soft thunder of horsemen. Dozens of voices, banners snapping.

“Are you ill? I was often ill as a child. I had such dreams.”

“Yes, dreams…” Raphael shuddered, mortified as the boy fingered his ragged doublet with long pale fingers.

“You’ve worn these same garments a long time, from the look of them.”

“I don’t know,” Raphael said, looking down at himself. How, in one night, had his clothes become so ragged and grey with grime?

“Look, here are my companions. They’ll help you.”

A handful of riders appeared behind the young lord. Raphael had never seen esquires so splendidly attired. He stared at their bright armour, shining horses, and the devices upon their surcoats.

The world had turned upon its head. Everywhere he saw the heraldry of Yorkists, not Lancastrians. And the white rose of York. Not the red rose, but the white.

The boy stood, calling out, “Ho! I’ve found a child, half-dead! Bring him some ale, quick!”

One of the esquires dismounted and hurried to obey, smiling. “Your Grace.”

Raphael stared at the cavalcade on the road, burning white and gold. His heart caught the rhythm of panic.

“Is the king going to kill me?” he gasped.

The dark eyebrows lifted. “You must have had a very bad dream. Of course he isn’t.”

“How do you know?”

“He’s my brother. I think he would have told me.”

Raphael coughed. “If you’re the king’s brother, I’m still dreaming.”

“You’re not, and I am. He’s just made me the Duke of Gloucester,” the boy said proudly. “Ask him yourself, if you like. I’m Richard. What’s your name?”

The procession flowed past at a rolling walk; a great array of lords, knights, esquires, followers. Children rang alongside, waving and shouting. A menagerie flaunted against the sky; swan and griffin, graylix and silver pard and bear, each sewn upon its own bright pennant. Heraldry dazzled him.

Leading the procession was a great banner, a joyful sunburst of gold. Among the leading riders was a splendid, tall man, his bronze hair ablaze like a halo. Raphael’s mouth fell open. Light burned his eyes. The Sun in Splendour. This was no grim ride to battle, but a victory progress.

Had he walked out of winter into full summer in one night?

The young duke knelt beside him, one arm round his shoulders, holding a flask of honeyed ale to his lips. Raphael took a swallow, gagging on its richness. Richard watched him seriously. Behind him, his esquires were murmuring and shaking their heads in good humour.

“What… what king?” Raphael asked stupidly.

“King Edward, of course. How can you not know that?”

“I – I don’t know,” he said miserably.

“I knew you were an angel who’s tumbled out of heaven,” said the child, smiling. “This proves it.”

In the edge of Raphael’s vision, the procession halted. He realised they had stopped for him – or, rather, to wait for the young duke. He was awash in memories, torn scraps of nightmare. Running, crawling. Brambles slithering beneath his palms, snagging painfully. Dead leaves pressing their patterns onto his cheek. An old woman, spooning milk into his mouth…

A man and woman in a solid round cottage. The man thatched and mended and built for a living; the woman was a weaver, her skin and clothes oily with lanolin. Half a dozen rosy-faced children, always yelling and bouncing around him. They called him lackwit, idiot, moon-gazer. A strange boy who couldn’t speak, but woke every night screaming.

So that was how he’d survived. In the abyss of winter he had walked from one settlement to the next. The impartial kindness of strangers had sustained him. He had sleep-walked through two seasons, not speaking, not thinking. Now the fog began to lift and the memories scalded like frostbite.

All that had brought him back to life was the face of this strange, graceful, dark-haired boy. His eyes, the grey-blue-violet of rain, held Raphael enthralled.

“Can you remember your name?” Richard seemed so fascinated by Raphael that he’d forgotten all else. “Try.”

“Raphael,” he managed. “I’m Raphael Hart.”

Richard continued his intense scrutiny. “My father had a knight called Hart.”

A taller fair-haired boy swaggered up behind, grandly dressed, all of ten years old and full of himself. He must be sweating hard under all that purple velvet and cloth-of-gold, Raphael thought. So warm, the day, and everything green. The last I remember was hard winter. I’ve lost my wits.

“Lamb’s blood, Dickon, get back on your horse,” said the older boy. “Only you could stop a royal procession to pick up a beggar out of a ditch.”

“He’s not a beggar, George. He’s ill.”

The fair boy took an exaggerated step back. He waved his hand in front of his face. “Then he could have the plague for all you know! Leave him. You can’t keep Edward waiting.”

“He won’t mind,” the dark one said mildly. “Where are you from, Raphael Hart?”

Raphael shook his head. His skull ached. Motes of memory leapt at him.

“I was in York,” he said. “I saw the heads above the gate. The Duke of York, and Edmund of Rutland… I saw Queen Marguerite ride in and mock them. All her men had red roses splashed upon them like blood.”

As he spoke, Richard’s face paled horribly. He looked, for the first time, like the child he was, and about to collapse. “That was my father, the Duke of York, and my brother Edmund.”

“Then my father died with yours at Wakefield,” Raphael whispered. “The Lancastrians killed my mother and brother a few days later. I ran away. I went mad. That’s all I know.”

“You have been ill a long time,” Gloucester said very softly. “That happened last December. It’s June. There have been other battles since. York has triumphed. Edward is King Edward the Fourth.”

“Thank the Creator,” said Raphael. Dry sobs heaved out of him. He felt like a shrivelled new-born creature dropped onto the earth, without identity.

“You’re safe now.” Richard clasped his hand, gave him a long, serious look. “Our fathers died together. We’ll never forget that.”

Abruptly he coloured, and jumped to his feet. A man, all in blue and gold with flowing brown hair, strode towards them, and as he came all the esquires bent their knees, as did the Duke of Gloucester and his brother George. Raphael suddenly wished the earth would gulp him down. Edward was a gilded giant, laughing, shedding radiance around him like manna from heaven. And Raphael could only sit open-mouthed and stare.

“What are you at, Dickon?” the king laughed. “Up, up.”

“He’s trying to heal a plague-ridden idiot he found in the hedge,” said George.

“He’s no idiot,” Richard said sharply. “His father was a Yorkist knight. The Lancastrians killed his family. He’s been ill, and didn’t know you were king.”

“Then I hope the good news returns him swiftly to good health,” Edward said heartily. “Go on with your ministry, give him every comfort.”

So Richard continued, while tears of embarrassment, grief and joy ran from Raphael’s eyes. Being found in this pitiful state before the new king, yet hearing that his father had been avenged – it was all too much to bear.

“Two months after Wakefield, York had its revenge. We won. And they took down the heads of my father and brother and placed the heads of the traitors in their stead.”

Raphael remembered then the words of the crow-haired child, her pale and sombre face. “Other heads will take their place.” Impossibly, she had known.

He saw a brief vision of a sour pink sky, grisly heads gawping at drunken angles, crows and petitmorts dropping through the bloody glare to peck indiscriminately at the heads of York or Lancaster alike. His head rang. He lurched to one side, throwing up bile over Edward’s fancy boot. When the faintness passed, he found Richard kneeling beside him, stroking his forehead.

“Sorry, your Grace. Sorry,” he rasped, shivering.

Edward crouched on muscular haunches and touched his cheek. “Worse has happened to me, lad. You are in truth a victim of Lancaster’s cruelty. I must make amends. Let me think.”

Raphael waited, looking sideways at Richard, whose gaze was on his magnificent brother. This couldn’t be happening. Here was the King of England and the two greatest dukes in the land, and he was the centre of their attention.

“I have it,” said Edward, rising.

“He could…” Richard began, but Edward was already walking away, signalling someone in the royal party.

Two esquires got Raphael to his feet. Edward returned with a wiry, upright little man, all in red velvet. He had the look of a terrier, Raphael thought, bright-natured, eager to please, smug.

“Here is Lord Lykenwold of Glastonbury,” said Edward. “William, here is a good Yorkist boy who’s fallen on unfortunate times. He is orphaned. He’ll make you a good pageboy, and in time a fine knight. A small token of my thanks for your steadfast service. What do you say?”

“I’d be honoured,” Lykenwold answered. He gave a deep bow. “I ask no reward from you, my liege, but I give you my most heartfelt thanks. The boy shall make a splendid ward.”

The deed was done.

Raphael found himself lifted onto a horse and carried off in the train of William Lykenwold. He caught one last glimpse of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, swept away into the river of the royal progress. Never to be seen again, except in the far distance.

Richard of Gloucester glanced back once, haloed by reflected glory. He was like a figure of jet against flowing gold cloth. Raphael stared, helpless.

After today, Richard had his heart forever. All Raphael wanted was to stay at Richard’s side, to serve him as loyally as his father had served the Duke of York. And he’d thought, for a few moments, that it would happen.

From the procession an exuberant, deafening roar peeled into the air. “God save King Edward!”

As I lie in that strange, seductive half-state between waking and sleeping, Richard seems to whisper, “You think you know me, but you don’t. No one ever can. Would you even dare to try?”

He’s so close to me – I can feel the softness of his hair, the velvet of his cloak, his warmth on my neck – but untouchable. If I try to encompass him with my mind he slips away and became a distant figure seen through layers of frosted glass. And yet he comes to me at night, dark and irresistible, urging me to pass through those layers and see him clearly. It is a challenge.

I get up and pass from velvety dreams to stark facts.

Here is the campus, spread out in formal squares with beautiful old buildings covered in red vines, trees everywhere in their autumn colours. An enchanted place, out of time. And here I am; one ordinary, wispy young woman, long mouse-brown hair, gold-rimmed glasses (fashionable for once), a bit shy and serious and slightly out of my depth. And now, with poor timing, under a spell.

I am in the library, wreathed in the mustiness of old books; supposedly studying the twelfth century. Books of the fifteenth stray into my hands instead.

Just as Fin’s friend said, Shakespeare played fast and loose with the truth; or rather, his sources had. Henry Tudor arrived to depose Richard on the most tenuous grounds, and it was a heinous matter, to overthrow an anointed king. The act must be justified. So the Tudor historians did so, by heaping every physical and mental deformity they could imagine upon Richard. In doing so, they made him immortal.

So, the bare bones. King Richard III, king for only two years, and yet up there among the most famous, certainly the most infamous, of all monarchs. Born in 1452 at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, youngest son of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, and Cecily Neville. The Duke’s claim to the throne, arguably stronger than that of the monarch, Henry VI, led to conflict. The wars between the rival houses of York and Lancaster – later known as the Wars of the Roses, but called at the time the Cousins’ War – shaped Richard’s life. He faithfully served his brother, Edward IV, helping him to win the throne. He became Duke of Gloucester and lord of the north of England. When his older brother, George, Duke of Clarence, was executed for treachery, this only emphasised Richard’s impeccable loyalty. Then, in 1483, Edward died prematurely. Richard struggled against the queen’s family, the Woodvilles, for control of his young nephew, Edward V. Within weeks, he had Edward V and his younger brother declared bastards and confined in the Tower.

Then he took the throne himself. The boys disappeared. In 1484 Richard’s own son died: the following year, his wife. His unpopularity grew, his supporters leached away. In 1485, Henry Tudor challenged him upon Bosworth Field and Richard lost his life: the last English king to die in battle.

At first, I am almost disappointed by the facts. I can’t find the glittering villain or anti-hero of Shakespeare’s creation. Instead I find a conscientious man, pious, unswervingly loyal to his brother Edward IV until Edward died. Then with the same single-mindedness he disinherited Edward’s sons and probably – possibly – murdered them.

At first he seems less interesting… then more intriguing than ever. Because the evidence is inconclusive, interpretations come in all shades and hues. I can’t stop reading.

One more recent author calls Richard a “puritan martinet” and suggests we should all be jolly grateful that Henry Tudor came along when he did. It seems a strange judgement upon a man who loved music and luxurious clothes, and who insisted on equal justice for everyone.

Other books speak of the betrayal of Richard III. The betrayal. And I read that he wasn’t an ambitious scheming malefactor after all. He was let down by those he trusted at every turn. Crucially, he did not kill his nephews, the princes. Even they were murdered by someone else with motives of their own.

Each book tells me something different. Each book tells me more about the author than it does about Richard III.

I cannot leave him alone. All the time I should be been reading for my next essay, I am drawn to him instead.

Richard, the ultimate wicked uncle.

Richard, the unjustly maligned hero.

The Tudors won, and the Tudors rewrote history to shine the best light upon themselves. Oh no, they didn’t, other historians say sternly. All the rumours and slanders against him were in place long before he died.

Lost in confusion, I emerge from the library with my arms full of books, dazed. I can’t force Richard out of my mind. He is there constantly, posing endless questions, answering none. I am obsessed; and it feels wonderful, delicious.

I walk to meet Fin at our favourite coffee shop and as I float through the lovely autumn-veiled misty cloisters of the campus, I suddenly see in my mind’s eye the gentle face of a young man. I know he is not Richard. He wears archaic clothing and snow blows hard around him. He is looking back over his shoulder, inviting me to share something no one else has ever seen. He looks desperate. There’s a woman with him, but she’s some way ahead so I see her less clearly. It’s only a flash, that first vision, but I feel the most incredible wave of excitement, of recognition.

It has begun. A story is unfolding, one not found in any book. It might hold an answer. Richard, who were you, who are you?