The Court of the Midnight King: A Dream of Richard III (58 page)

“Everything I said yesterday. I will not repent or convert. They must take me as I am, or not at all.”

“They shall.”

“What if they revile me?”

“They will love you,” he said with a confidence that touched her. “People know a kind and good soul when they see one, Kate. Perhaps through that love there will be reconciliation, and they will look less harshly upon me. A new beginning. That’s what we were shown in the hidden world. I won’t let you go until you say yes.”

“We’re already married in the hidden world,” she said.

“Well, we shall have to do so again in public, with some pomp and ceremony, to make it official.”

“You understand, don’t you?” she said firmly. “I’m a high priestess, an avatar of the goddess. That’s how you’re joined to me; not just as man to woman, but as the king to the land.”

“Yes,” said Richard. “To bring back strength to the land, which, God knows, she sorely needs. I know it won’t be easy, Kate, but all I can do to make you happy, I shall do. Only please give me a clear answer.”

She took a long breath and said, “Yes.”

###

In Eleanor’s presence, Richard became king again. He acquired the gravity of kingship as if gathering up a trail of garments he’d discarded on his way to the cave. He was immaculately dressed: the last man to have swum naked in the river, or caressed her daughter in the grass while the sun dried their skin. He wore a dark jacket glinting with jewels, a soft velvet cap on his polished hair. His men at arms waited discreetly in the background. Richard was again magnetic yet untouchable.

Katherine noticed lines of dried mud on his boots, and smiled to herself.

“Union between the outer and inner worlds,” Eleanor said thoughtfully. Kate noted that she and Richard spoke to each other as respectful equals. “A chance to bring the Motherlodge into the light. So that we can follow our path freely and without persecution?”

“That’s what I hope.” Richard looked sombre. “I shall have a glorious battle on my hands.”

“The Church.”

His eyes narrowed, gleaming. “Our plan is not designed to please the Pope. He’s been leaning on the priesthood for years to abolish the Motherlodge across Europe.”

“If in the end you bow to him, this is all for nothing.”

“I’ll not bow to him,” said Richard. “The difficulty will be to bring the bishops to heel. The last thing I want is yet more conflict.”

“Goddess,” Kate breathed, and put her head in her hand. “That’s the exact danger. That we’ll push too hard and give them the very excuse they need to crush us. It’s impossible, isn’t it?”

“Hard,” said Eleanor, “but not impossible. If anyone can effect this, love, it’s you.”

Richard said softly, “I don’t want to break with the Pope, but if I have to, I will. The joining of the king of the outer world to the queen of the hidden realm must be seen as a natural and desirable outcome. However, the change will require you to coax them gently, Kate, not me to force them. And you will.”

“Thank you for your faith.” She made herself sit tall and upright like a queen, squaring her shoulders for the impossible responsibility.

Richard sat forward and said to Eleanor, “My lady, would you be so kind as to send for your village priest?”

“Of course, your Grace.”

While Eleanor went aside to speak to Thomas Copper, Kate leaned close to Richard and whispered, “Why do you want the priest?”

“To ask if he can marry us today.”

A delicious mixture of fear and excitement coiled through her. “Why the hurry?”

He put his lips to her ear. “Because I want to lie with you tonight, and it would not be seemly to do so under your mother’s roof unless we are married.”

“I see.”

His hand tightened on hers. “And so that you can’t change your mind. Tomorrow I must set out to London. I’m not going without you.”

Her memory roused. “Oh, Richard…”

“Yes, Kate?” He smiled at her.

“Do you remember the elemental I took from you, that was feeding upon your strength?”

He looked startled, as if he’d expected her to speak of the wedding or the journey. “I can’t imagine why you choose this moment to remind me, but yes.”

“Anything may emanate an essence of itself. Rocks, earth, fire, water, illness and death, weather, even an atmosphere of joy or anger. Usually such elementals dissipate in their own time, but if they become powerful enough, they are half-sentient.”

“With no more wit than a horned toad, you said.”

“I was wrong.” Kate was so eager to tell him that she felt she was making no sense. “There was one close to you, working for your enemies. Dr Fautherer.”

“What?” His voice hardened.

She told him what she’d seen on the battlefield. “He appeared human, but was not. Once you won the day, he had no more reason to exist. I saw him vanish.”

“If not human… what was he?”

“I don’t know where he came from, or where he went,” she said, soft against his shoulder. “But I believe I know what he was. The pestilence of rumour. He was created, or at least infected by, that malevolence. He magnified evil tales and fed upon them.”

He took this in thoughtfully and did not contradict her.

“Are you suggesting that Margaret Beaufort and Bishop Morton worked sorcery against me?”

“More than that. I don’t think they were powerful enough to create him. Rather, he was naturally attracted to them. Fautherer was the embodiment of all the forces that worked against you. The face of all those cruel tongues and vile rumours.”

She felt him breathe in and out. “Then there must have been something of me in him too. The tales weren’t all without foundation.”

“But I’m trying to say that since that Fautherer is gone, there’s hope for us. We cheated fate, so the curse is lifted. There may be a new beginning after all.”

Richard gave a quiet laugh, and kissed her.

“And that aside from the fact that it will not be a Tudor who commissions the history books, but a Plantagenet.”

###

Dawn found Katherine in her mother’s herb garden, gathering a posy to take back to Richard. She’d left him asleep, but the soft bloom of morning enticed her outside with the promise of dew and birdsong. She needed time alone to think over what had happened. To believe it.

She thought, idly, that it would be pleasant to have a daughter. Essential, in fact. She needed a daughter as Richard needed a son. Her own heir to the hidden world.

She saw a man on horseback in the distance, riding towards the house. She watched as he came closer. Then he saw her, leapt from the saddle and came running across the wet grass.

Raphael. Kate stood idiotically frozen with the flowers in her hand as he reached her, his brown hair flowing back over his shoulders.

“Kate,” he said. “Thank God I’ve found you. Everything I said to you – please pardon me for it. I wasn’t myself.”

He seized her hand and pressed it to his lips.

“Raphael, it’s all right.”

“I meant to be formal,” he said. “Courteous. But when I saw you just now… I still love you. Forget everything I said. Marry me.”

Her flowers fell to the grass. She let out a breath, a sob of pain.

“Raphael… love, it’s too late. I’m already married.”

“You can’t be.” His face fell with disbelief. He shook his head. “Married when? How?”

Kate felt close to falling apart. “You must know Richard is here?”

He said nothing.

“You probably heard gossip that I was with him, the night after the battle.”

He averted his face. “Yes, I heard. I didn’t want to believe it.”

“Is that why you came here? He asked me that night. I fled. Can you imagine me, swanning about like Queen Elizabeth with a crown on my head?”

“I can, actually.” Raphael gave a grim half smile.

“Thank you,” she said thinly. “Well, he came after me and now it’s done. I’m sorry.”

“That was fast work. When?”

“Yesterday, in our village church. We had the Christian ceremony inside, and the old ceremony in the meadow beneath Mag Tor…”

“Richard stood in a pagan circle, and jumped the broomstick with you?” Raphael laughed, incredulous.

“He did. All the village came.” She thought of the amber sunset flooding the church, the gorgeous warmth of the evening, the wreath of flowers they’d placed upon her hair. The village would talk of it forever more. King Richard had married Lady Lytton’s daughter in their tiny church. Perhaps the event would pass into legend, like Edward’s secret wedding to Elizabeth Woodville.

“Ask my mother if you don’t believe me.” She glanced up at a leaded window, glittering in the first rays of sunlight. “Ask him.”

All the fire went out of Raphael. He met her eyes, bleak and calm. “Would it have made a difference if I hadn’t come too late? If I hadn’t gone to Nottingham?”

“No, love.”

His shoulders dropped. “This is my fault.”

“That you and I parted?” She frowned. “Oh, Raphael. We can’t help how we love. I know how Richard is. He’s never still, and if there are more battles, he’ll insist on being in the thick of them. The idea of being his queen terrifies me. But I can’t let the fear stop me. He has an heir again, a reason to live. We might do some good.”

“Well.” He went quiet. When he spoke again, he was formal, dignified. “I’m glad for you, Katherine. Your Grace.”

“Gods, don’t call me that.”

“I must, from now on.” He smiled sadly.

“Won’t you come in?” She took his hand. “Come in and see him.”

He hesitated, then said, “No.”

“But you must. You’re his knight, as dear to him as I am. Why not?”

He began to walk away. Desperate, she ran after him and stopped him. “I’ve so much to tell you…”

She told him about Fautherer, but when she’d finished, he acknowledged her words with a nod, and went on his way again.

“Where are you going?” Kate was distressed, but Raphael only shook his head.

“Bear Richard my heart’s love. I said farewell to him before the battle.”

###

Raphael walked steadily, following the ancient path. Around the circle of the churchyard, out along the river bank towards Old Mag Heads; mounting the treacherous shale hillside towards Mag Tor.

His fervour had burned away. For a time he’d raged at himself. That he’d been so stupid as to lose Kate, that Richard whom he’d loved and served all his life had thanked him by stealing her. He couldn’t stay. Couldn’t return to London with them. It would make him demented to see them together, the raven-haired king and queen of witches with their beautiful grey-eyed son between them. Prince Robin.

A storm roiled through him. What should he do? Roar, take a heavy sword and slash every tapestry within Lytton Hall to shreds? Slay Richard, then Kate, and then himself?

No. The storm passed. Some wayward instinct had taken him to Nottingham, when he could have stayed in Leicester and tried to win her back. In fact he had cleared the way for Kate to follow her heart.

Three times widdershins he walked around Mag Tor, looking all the time at the tumbled stack of rocks above him, entreating the primitive stone goddess for protection. Then down the narrow track into the trees. The woods swallowed him, blue-green as an ocean.

The oaks parted in a series of veils. He strode through a world that seemed a little harsher and colder than the one he’d left. He barely recognised the battlefield, but knew where he was. Even cloaked in different vegetation, the landscape was all too familiar.

His path ended at a small standing stone that drew him as if it marked the centre of creation. He saw a young woman there. She was placing a white rose at its foot, her head bowed. Her long pale brown hair covered her. As he approached, she stood up with white roses falling out of her lap, and waited for him.

She was the muse of his visions.

They met and embraced without a word. She greeted him with a kiss full on the mouth. His desolation eased.

“My angel Raphael,” she said, stroking his face.

“I found you,” he answered. “My lady… your name?”

“August.”

“It sounds like the name of a goddess. The month of death and rebirth. Do you know what has happened?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling. “I’ve seen everything. But you know what happened here, also?”

Together they stood with their arms around each other and looked at the mournful stone, the white rose stems scattered upon it. The sight of it stopped him breathing. He’d lived both lives, both paths at once; one where Tudor was dust, and this…

“I think they’ve put the stone in the wrong place,” he said.

“Without a doubt,” she answered. “It doesn’t matter. The thought is there.”

“I wanted to see a world where he died,” Raphael said after a time. “To know how the emptiness of my visions felt.”

“To torment yourself?”

“No, to see if I could endure it. I knew that night in his tent would be the last of our friendship. As in that world, so in this. If he’d died, would Kate and I fallen into each other’s arms and comforted each other? I devoted my whole life to averting his death, and in return he took her from me.”