The Court of the Midnight King: A Dream of Richard III (51 page)

“I needn’t to remind you, I hope, of your promise not to use sorcery on my behalf?”

“I won’t break my promise unless you release me from it, sire,” she said tightly. “I only hope that your enemy has extracted a similar promise from any sorcerers on his side.”

“Sharp as ever.”

“Of course, there are none of my sisterhood among Tudor’s supporters. One of his first acts will be to destroy us. I’m sure he can’t wait. You may not approve of us, but you have protected us. You are our only hope of survival. Yet you won’t let us aid you in return?” She moved as close to him as she dared. Although Richard stood with folded arms making a barrier, all his attention was on her. “If Tudor wins, it will be the end of us, the sisterhood who tend the land. He has the support of churchmen who’ve been trying to destroy us for years. Henry the Sixth encouraged them; your brother Edward was kinder, but too lazy to forbid their attacks. I misread you. I thought you’d be on the bishops’ side, yet you have curtailed them. I don’t know why, but I’m grateful. But now they can’t wait for Henry Tudor to unleash them again.”

His eyes were deep, dark slots. “Kate, you have no need to lecture your king on this matter.”

“I’m not saying it for selfish reasons. I’m sorry there isn’t time to make you understand. Auset the Dark Mother is the land’s spirit, the heart of the earth that gives us food, life, everything…”

His eyes widened as if he did, after all, understand.

“The sweating sickness.”

“Sickness, discontent, betrayal. All symptoms of the disease. If we withdraw from her, she withdraws from us. Everything that afflicts your kingdom is the struggle of the Earth to be heard. If she isn’t nurtured, if she’s ignored, she’ll wither away.”

He turned from her. He swayed, but caught himself on the back of a chair. “If it’s blood sacrifice she wants, no doubt there will be many before the sun is high. Is that it – a sacrificed king, so that the land can heal?”

Her eyes blurred.

“That’s not what I said.”

Although Kate denied it, dread rolled through her. Perhaps that was exactly what the Dark Mother wanted. The spilled blood of a king, in payment for the desecration that was to come. Was that all Richard was, a sacrifice to hungry powers? She felt the Earth tilting beneath her, leaning towards an unwelcome dawn.

“I should be glad to debate this with you, Kate, if we were sitting in the garden of some palace on a summer’s evening, with nothing to disturb our peace. But I’m standing on the edge of an abyss and it makes me a poor philosopher. All I wish you to understand is that this battle must be decided fairly. That is, by my own strength or weakness, not yours.”

“I understand.” She swallowed the ocean of words that wanted to flow out. He was a warrior. In the face of battle, she would have no time for this, either. “I never intended to interfere, and I won’t.”

“I know your intentions are good.” The hint of a smile on his mouth was like light falling on her. “You’ve been the kindest of friends to me, although I’ve done nothing to deserve it.”

“I never gave you a chance to deserve it. I’ve been a thorn in your side.”

“The sort that only hurts if you tear it out.” He turned towards the tent flap. “Thank you for bringing Robin to me. I’m glad I saw him, if only once. If I win, bring him to me in Leicester. If not… keep him safe.”

His stance altered subtly, directing her to leave. He was saying goodbye. She stiffened, feeling desperate; hating to leave him, but knowing she must. He was a king steeling himself for a life or death battle and couldn’t afford sentiment. Even that small acknowledgement of friendship was more than she’d hoped for.

“All the blessings of the Dark Mother be with you,” she said. “Creator bless you and guard you.”

He nodded silent thanks. His whole life was in the strained pallor of his face. He stood on the lip of the abyss, calmly ready to leap in. He looked deathly yet radiant, like an immortal.

“Raphael told me something strange,” he said. “Even if my enemy wins the day, I’ll be avenged. My name will never be forgotten. I suppose even infamy is preferable to obscurity. I pray you remember me kindly, Kate; for few others will.”

She passed out of the tent and let the flap fall, cutting off her last sight of him. The night seemed immense; its cold breath filled her. She stood dry-eyed but breathing hard, as if the whole sky had crammed itself into her chest.

The steel curtain slams down. Richard is gone from us.

The end is coming and I’m afraid. I don’t want to live through it but I must. The image of that last battle-charge, that final rash gamble, his death-plunge. One night it actually wakes me up with a jerk, like that falling sensation just as you’re dozing off. I’m gasping in denial. No, no, don’t do it…

It’s over. Yet I can draw him back, into my mind, my dreams, my writing. Into my bedroom where he visits me with a dark, hot fever, but never with any answers.

Fin and I sit on her bed together, drinking. I am dreamy, idly describing the spiral paths of my parallel world. Fin is sharply analytical.

“Why am I so fascinated by him?” I ask. “It’s because of that streak of uncertainty. Because he’s not a saint.”

“Would you still love him if he were definitely guilty?”

I half-choke on my merlot. “Love?”

“Whatever you want to call it. Answer me. Do you, and do his adherents, need him to be innocent of child-murder so that you can love him with a clear conscience?”

“Well…”

“Which came first, the discovery of a terrible injustice followed by devotion? I put it to you that it was the other way round. Fascination first, and the quest to prove innocence after the fact.”

“Not guilty!” I say. “No, Fin, I’ve never tried to prove anything. Why should have been a saint, when none of his family was? Perhaps he was innocent, perhaps he made one terrible mistake. I don’t think I should tie myself in knots trying to exonerate him; just accept who he was. Only we don’t know who he was, really.”

“And that’s the attraction,” Fin agrees. “The mystery, the darkness. And why not?”

We clink our glasses in a toast.

In the next breath she says, “I know exactly who he is.”

“Oh?”

“You’re quite right in saying you can’t touch the real Richard. Your nocturnal visitor isn’t the real Richard. He is the other half of you.”

My mouth falls open. Light dawns. “Ah. My… animus?”

“Yes, but subtler than that. He is your daemon lover, my dear. The shadow-self in your soul. Your ideal lover, your inspiration, your muse. He visits your dreams and daydreams.”

“Relentlessly!”

“You’ve projected your daemon onto a real figure, as everyone does; but he’s all yours. It’s true, the daemon doesn’t always appear in a virtuous guise; he may be dangerous, a vampire or a charismatic villain that you can’t resist. That’s essential, because he’s trying to teach you something, to challenge as well as to delight. He inhabits the mysterious land of the psyche and shines the light of wisdom into the dark corners. Don’t reject him. He’s a messenger from your soul.”

I smile, thinking she is Eleanor to my Raphael. “I don’t want him to leave me, ever.”

“He won’t,” says Fin.

CATESBY

Rescue, my lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!

The King enacts more wonders than a man,

Daring an opposite to every danger.

His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,

Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death.

Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost!

Richard III Act V scene 4

At first the armour felt deceptively comfortable. The satin lining of Raphael’s arming doublet was an echo of luxury, sliding coolly against his skin as Will Shaw began to tie his armour onto him, plate by plate. He shivered a little, but within moments he was beginning to sweat, like a crab in its shell. The king’s pavilion was full of knights arming. Lovell, Catesby and Ratcliffe, Robert Percy and Robert Ashton and all the other men of Richard’s faithful household. William Catesby looked out of place in armour. He had the aspect of a lawyer, not a soldier.

When he’d finished, Will gave a lop-sided grin and patted his arm. “Raffel, y’look like St George.”

“Appropriate, as it’s a dragon coming to fight us.”

“Nah,” sneered Will. “A hatchling horned toad, maybe.”

Raphael was calmer than he’d expected. This felt nothing like the dream. There was an atmosphere of tense urgency but each moment was real and solidly placed in time. Nothing nightmarish, just a feeling of intense tiredness, and anxiety coiled so tight in his stomach that he felt weightless.

An air of chaos lay on the camp, an ill-omen. Henry Tudor’s side had armed earlier than expected. A short round priest was panicking that the bread and wine for Mass had been stolen, and the culprit would burn in hell for his misdeed. He trembled before the king, but Richard seemed unmoved. He looked straight into the priest’s eyes, his face grave and drawn. When he spoke the priest jumped, even though the voice was gentle.

“It doesn’t matter. There will be no Mass.”

There was a clamour of protest. William Catesby said, “Sire – if you go into battle without Mass, your soul…”

“And we can’t breakfast until we’ve heard Mass, either,” Francis Lovell added.

“There isn’t time. If I win, I’ll hear Mass after. If not, there is no point in appealing to God; my fate is decided.” Richard turned, beckoning his squires. Raphael thought the priest was relieved as much as mortified. He shrank away from the king. There was something terrifying about him in the grey dawn, as if he’d entered the hidden world and emerged a spectre.

Raphael thought that was exactly what had happened to him.

He and Will left the king’s tent and went to inspect the graylix. Other men had charge of them now; it was years since he’d handled them. The thought of their huge, dusty black heads and uncompromising faces, even their stench, stirred nostalgia.

Reaching the cages, he found their keepers distraught.

“We found seven of them dead this morning, sir,” said the chief handler, a gruff with round, pouched eyes. “Three and a half couple we’ve lost. Only one and a half couple left, and they’re grievous sick. Poisoned. There were scraps of meat left…”

“By the enemy?” Raphael’s tension flared into anger.

“I hope by the enemy. No one loves them, but I’m sure there’s none of our own side would harm them.”

“And how the devil did the enemy creep up to their cages? Who was on watch?”

“Me, sir. I’m sorry.” The keeper drew away, miserable. “I don’t know how it happened.”

“Someone slept who should have been watching.”

He remembered the beasts as they’d been yesterday, hauling upon their chains as, two by two, they preceded King Richard’s army out of Leicester. A sign of royal might, heraldic creatures brought to life amidst a mass of standard bearers, trumpeters, priests bearing banners and crosses. Now, nothing but meat.

The keepers looked on aghast as he went to the nearest cage and opened it. The graylix inside snarled but was too weak to attack. He saw the bloody foam on its mouth, the yellow, accusing eyes. The stench of its laboured breath was foul. Caressing the huge skull, he felt its fever-heat and shudders of pain.

“Get me a cross-bow,” he said. A boy obeyed. Raphael shot the graylix where it lay, ending its misery. He dealt with the other two in turn and then stood numb.

This had not been part of his vision.

“I’ll tell the king of this,” Raphael said harshly, and saw the men’s faces turn haggard. His own severity shocked him. “Whoever let it happen will pay.”

Richard was ready. His armour made him as bright as a leaping salmon, and he moved as if it weighed nothing. He was smiling. In that moment he looked invincible. As Raphael walked towards him, he saw Francis settle the king’s helmet onto his head. A gold coronet, encircled it, spiked with blood-drop rubies.

At that, a flash of fear went through him. Yes, this had happened before. This was all as it had been in the dream, every step, like a choreographed dance; and there wasn’t a single thing he could do to change the outcome.

A moment later the vision evaporated. No, this was real and nothing was pre-ordained… His head span with the paradox and he envied the men around him who’d never been so afflicted. Richard’s commanders surrounded him; Norfolk and his son Surrey, Robert Brackenbury, Richard’s nephew the Earl of Lincoln.

“Dick, must you wear it?” Ratcliffe was saying. His heavy face looked rough from lack of sleep. “It’ll mark you as a target for every enemy soldier on the battlefield.”

Richard’s face was serene yet dangerous. There was no arguing with him.

“It will mark who I am, and show that I’m not afraid to be so marked. I’ll fight and die a crowned king. One thing they’ll not say of me is that I was a coward. Raphael? What’s wrong?”

He didn’t want to trouble the king, but everyone was looking at him. He spoke quickly. “Our graylix pack is dead, your Grace. They were poisoned last night.”

Richard’s reaction was minimal. “The culprit?”

“Unknown.”

“Perhaps the same who left a note for the Duke of Norfolk, warning him not to fight for me.” He exhaled. “Another ill omen. A spy from the enemy or a traitor among our own, I wonder?”

Francis began, “If any are so treacherous, they should be…” but Richard spoke across him.

“There are many who might be. A grim state of affairs, isn’t it?” he said aridly. “Where’s George Stanley?”

“Held under guard in his tent,” said Francis.

“Have him brought to the battlefield, where I can keep close watch upon him. Have word sent yet again to Lord Thomas and his brother William, reminding them that I hold their son and nephew hostage as surety of their support. They know the rest.”

“Yes, sire.”

Richard’s face changed. Warmth softened the hard lines and he looked in turn at every man within the cloth-of-gold walls. “And my dear faithful friends, who have stayed with me to the last. Today will see either the end of my reign, or the beginning.”

When Richard’s gaze fell upon him, Raphael couldn’t speak. It might be the last time, the last quiet moment of friendship. The whirl of destiny was too great for his frame to contain. He must swallow the feeling, think only of practical matters. That he had all his weapons to hand, that his horse was properly caparisoned, that the cramping of his guts was not beyond control…

“Come then, gentlemen. To arms.”

###

A fresh sky held the promise of heat. From the summit of the hill, the king’s party held the advantage and a superb view of the landscape around them. There were villages tucked into folded fields, the spires of churches. Woodland spilled from the folds.

The hem of the hill dropped away towards a wide flat field with a marsh. Mist hung there, damp and mysterious. The marsh formed a barrier of sorts, protecting the king’s troops and limiting Tudor’s path of attack.

Richard’s horse was a grey charger called Fame of York, his favourite, a solid handsome stallion covered in smoky dapples, the mane and tail like rippled cloud. Housed in armour and heraldry, the charger appeared to be beaten from steel.

Raphael’s own mount was a liver chestnut called Red Briar, an intractable beast that pulled like an ox. Others thought him mad to take on the horse, but he’d always had an affinity for the wayward, the outcast. On a good day he could cajole the animal to go sweetly for him. Will Shaw was on foot beside him, in half-armour, looking bemused at their situation as if he couldn’t wait to get this over and find the nearest alehouse.

A large company of knights surrounded the king, steel and gold. The leopards and lilies of England flew bravely above them. The confidences Richard had shared with Raphael were gone with the dew. He was their commander, untouchable, a figure of burning silver.

The constant ebb of sound thickened the air; the clatter of armour, horses neighing and fidgeting. Below them on the forward slope of Ambion Hill stood the scarlet forest of the Duke of Norfolk’s army. Behind them was the vanguard under the Earl of Northumberland. They stood high above the enemy, but the narrowness of the hill forced Richard to place his troops in tandem, rather than spreading them in a more impressive array.

Raphael knew, at last, that nothing he’d seen in his vision mattered. Even if he’d seen every detail, it would make no difference. He could not tell Richard what to do. The matter was out of his hands. He looked up at the sky, relinquishing himself to fate.

“Any word from the Stanleys?” Richard asked. His visor was raised.

Raphael looked about, and could see two armies at a distance: their bristling lances, at least. To the north was Lord Stanley, whom Kate had so loathed. To the south, his brother William.

“They greet you well, sire,” said one of the heralds, looking uneasy, “and say that they come defensibly arrayed, as you asked, ready to do battle.”

“But on whose behalf?” Richard said grimly. Turning in the saddle, he looked back at his hostage George Stanley, Lord Strange, who stood on foot between his guards. His puppyish face was loose with fear, while Richard’s was hard, terrible. Raphael shivered, glad he was not in Lord Strange’s position.

He thought, would Thomas Stanley truly put his stepson, Tudor, before his king? Even before his own son? Is he insane?

Out across the marsh, Henry Tudor’s army approached. Raphael caught his breath. Seen through the marsh vapours where the sun hadn’t yet reached they were shapes in the mist. An army of the dead, moving through the blue and purple of the hidden world with a terrible, rustling thunder.

Richard looked upon the shooting-star banners of Tudor’s commander, the Earl of Oxford, and let out a thin breath, almost a hiss. Raphael saw other banners he knew; Sir John Cheyney the giant, Sir William Brandon, Jasper Tudor, Edward Woodville. The traitors were flaunting their badges for all to see. In the centre floated the green, white and red of Tudor’s dragon, unspeakably presumptuous.

“What makes him so arrogant,” Richard said quietly, “if not sure knowledge of treachery against me?”

Catesby cleared his throat. “I don’t see either Stanley rushing to reinforce him.”

“Well, that’s interesting. If Thomas Stanley sits on the fence any longer, it will cut him in half. Send word to him again to engage on our side on pain of his son’s death.”

“Look at them,” said Francis. “The finest ruffians Tudor could skim out of French and Norman jails. Queen Marguerite would be proud.”

The sun touched the enemy troops, turning an army of ghosts into a rabble of brigands. Even at this distance they looked rough and violent, with nothing to lose. The Earl of Oxford himself was visible in golden armour. Raphael felt icy fury to see them. As they wheeled around the fringe of the marsh and began to move face-on to Norfolk’s front line, he saw the counterpoise of a familiar struggle. Beasts shouldering forwards, handlers hauling them back.

“They have graylix!”

“So I see,” Richard answered, angry now. “And by what royal licence do they hold them?”

“Oxford’s?” Ratcliffe said gruffly.

“Long revoked, even before Barnet.”

The first cannon fire shook the ground. Raphael’s horse threw up its head and stood shivering. Sweat foamed on the dark coat. The crack of Norfolk’s guns began to fracture the air; bombards, serpentines, harquebusiers. All around him, horses were shying, knights manfully struggling for control. Sharp smoke drifted. Like a dull echo, Henry Tudor’s lines returned fire.

At such a range, little harm was done. Before the fire of slow unwieldy guns faded, the archers let fly. Arrows arced like a storm of deadly birds, wave upon rattling wave. Tudor’s retaliation formed an intersecting curve.

Raphael saw men begin to fall. His heart jumped to a higher rhythm. Now he was breathing fast. This was it, the final day, no going back. It might be his last hour. Richard’s last hour.

Screams. Graylix were charging in among Norfolk’s archers, causing havoc. He’d counted six couple while they were still on the leash. Arrows exhausted, the archers drew other weapons, swords, axes, billhooks. He could track the path of each graylix by the panicked eddies of men. He marked where each was slain when the movement ceased.

A trumpet brayed; Norfolk was sounding the advance. Lines of men began to descend upon the Earl of Oxford, but the graylix attack had weakened Norfolk’s front line and they were struggling to reform, the captains yelling themselves hoarse.