The Court of the Midnight King: A Dream of Richard III (21 page)

A line indented Richard’s forehead. “Francis fears you are unwell.”

“I am perfectly well, your Grace.”

“Not tempted to gorge yourself on the feast?”

The corner of his lip curved up. Raphael knew he meant the extravagance of Edward’s court. “No, my lord. I should be ill for certain.”

“Wise,” said the duke. “Beware of my family.”

Images of Henry’s murder flashed into his mind. “Yes?”

“They will probe you to see if you’re persuadable or useful; to test whether you might spy on me for them. You’ve gone white.” He leaned forward. “What is it, Raphael? Understand this about Francis; he’s no tell-tale. I don’t know why he thinks you’re troubled, but he told me out of kindness and concern, nothing sinister.”

“It was only a dream,” Raphael blurted.

Richard sat back, his chin resting on curved fingers. “What dream?”

He listened without comment, without expression, as Raphael miserably told him everything. Then he sat twisting his sweaty fingers together, waiting for the sky to fall.

“This has been preying on your mind?” Gloucester asked tonelessly.

“It was so real!”

Richard breathed slowly in and out. “Let me tell you what actually happened. When Henry was told of his son’s death, he didn’t react; they weren’t sure he’d even understood. Later, however, he asked for wine, which was not his usual habit. In the night, his warders heard a sound, a soft thumping. Going in to Henry, they found him dashing his head against the wall. It took two men to stop him. Almost at once he fell insensible. He did not wake again. By morning he was dead, Creator bless him, and I think it was a mercy for us all, most especially for him.”

Raphael couldn’t speak. He was certain that Richard would dismiss him from his service. The lord he loved now thought he was mad. Tears squeezed from his eyes but they were for Henry, not for himself.

Then Gloucester leaned forward and spoke again. His voice was different, not much above a whisper but fierce with emotion.

“That is the official version,” he said. “I cannot say it is untrue. But you are thinking, aren’t you, as all men will think, that it’s a hellish coincidence that the night Edward returned to the Tower, the night of his victory, was also the night Henry died? He’ll trouble us no more. All evening, Anthony Woodville and others were whispering in Edward’s ear, ‘Finish him, and he’ll trouble us no more.’ Edward listens to them too often, and if he was persuaded this time, he can hardly be blamed. It’s a vile act, to murder a blameless old man. But what else is there to do with a deposed king?”

“Are you saying that Edward…”

“Well, which version seems the most probable?”

Raphael could not, dared not answer. At long last Richard sighed, a tired hiss through his teeth. “I hate the court,” he said.

Raphael looked up in surprise.

“I refused to take part,” Richard went on. “I don’t want to know what happened. However, since I still sup with Edward and love and serve him, that makes me equally culpable. I can’t condemn you for a poisonous dream, Raphael. What have your thoughts to feed on here, but poison?”

“Please pardon me, your Grace. I would not dream such evil of you for the world.” He looked straight into Richard’s eyes. “But I couldn’t lie to you.”

“And the trouble is that your dream was not a total lie; rather a stark revelation of the darkness in our hearts. How shall we be judged for killing a saint? We didn’t want to damn our immortal souls, but by the Lamb, we wanted Henry dead. Are you a prophet, dear friend?”

Raphael felt a strange, thrilling shock that Richard called him friend.

“No. Just a victim of too much hippocras.”

The duke’s lips shifted into a slight smile. “Well, never be afraid to tell me what’s in your heart. If you have any more dreams, Raphael, I trust you’ll tell me? In fact, I lay an obligation upon you to do so.”

These three brothers, the king and the two dukes, were possessed of such surpassing talents that, if only they had been able to live without dissension, such a threefold cord could never have been broken without the utmost difficulty.

Croyland Chronicle

Katherine came through the door into the courtyard and leaned in the archway, looking at the rain. Drops skimmed her face, dampening the ends of her hair. She turned her weary face to the sky and let the grey rain fall. The sky was weeping for her.

Perhaps it would be a blessing to enter a nunnery, she thought. A woman could order her own life, and not be brought constantly to childbed, eventually to die there. Her mother had taught her secret ways to avoid pregnancy – the forbidden wisdom of Auset – the little cups of bark or oiled seed husks that could be inserted, the herbs that worked without poisoning. Yet when Kate had offered these to Isabel – now the mother of a thriving boy and girl – she’d been horrified.

“It’s unholy magic, contrary to the laws of the Church,” she’d said, frowning and speaking very low. They were concealed in an alcove behind a thick velvet curtain, although there was no one to overhear. “I know you’re trying to help, Kate, but how could you think I’d use such things? You’re outrageous. I love my children, why should I bar their entry to this life? I’ll bear George as many babes as I may; I’ll prove myself just as much a woman as that Elizabeth Woodville, who farrows incessantly like a sow!”

Kate had rarely seen her so angry. “You are not a sow, and it’s not a competition.”

“Nevertheless… I couldn’t.” Yet a shadow passed over Isabel’s brow, and Kate felt rueful for having tempted her. “Let us forget that this talk ever took place.”

Without expression Kate answered, “I’ll not mention it again, Bel. If you wish to farrow like a sow, spawn like a fish or lay eggs like a duck, I am here only to help.”

That set Isabel laughing. She was never angry for long. Although a mother and a duchess, she still loved to curl up on a window seat with Katherine to whisper and laugh.

Kate remembered her framed against the tall leaded windows with her head tipped back against the glass and her red hair spilling over the dark blue velvet of her gown; weeping for her father the Kingmaker. Even then she hadn’t been sad for long. She had demanded Kate in her arms to bring her comfort and, eventually, sad smiles again.

Isabel had been so full of life. The richly decorated corridors of Warwick Castle still echoed to her footsteps. The flying fox-tail of her hair – No more would it lead Kate into mischief.

The flame of life had burned too bright and fast in her, like fever.

For months, Kate had worked with Ankarette, Isabel’s chamber-woman, to save her. At the birth, Kate had been her surrogate as always, taking the burden of Isabel’s pain, sweating and crying out with her. Ankarette was the midwife, watching over them both.

Isabel’s labour had not been long this time but the boy had come too fast, tearing something inside her. For all their efforts, Isabel sank into blood-fever. Her husband had fretted and paced and raged, as if his anger could change anything.

But Ankarette’s experience, their combined herbal knowledge and Kate’s desperate appeals to Auset, Mary and even to Almighty God were of no avail. Just before Christmas Isabel slipped away, pale and blue, holding Kate’s hands. Her child survived her to the first day of the new year.

Afterwards, Ankarette held Kate to her vast bosom and crooned like a mother. “Ah, well, this is the gamble of life. I’ve seen it a hundred times. God protects the noble woman no better than the common, and these Neville girls are not strong.”

“She was my best friend,” was all Kate could say.

Ankarette Twynyho was a well-to-do widow who’d attracted the Queen Elizabeth’s favour and served her for a time, then been sent – in a generous gesture on the queen’s part – to attend Isabel. Although not a member of the Motherlodge, she was sensible and motherly and had seen everything in her time. Yet for all their skills, they couldn’t save Isabel.

Now Isabel lay in her tomb. Katherine had viewed her body as she lay in state; a sleeping princess in a bower of candlelight.

“What good is it?” she said to herself, leaning in the doorway, hugging herself with her hands tucked under her arms. “Dark mother Auset, why do you let such things happen to your daughters?”

“I’m away, then,” said Ankarette, emerging from the corridor behind her with a large bundle. She wore travelling clothes: a thick wool cloak and a wimple of white cloth. “Here’s my lad, come to take me home.”

Peering through sheets of rain, Kate saw a carriage on the far side of the courtyard, with a drenched horse between the shafts, and an equally drenched young man holding its bridle. “Why don’t you wait until this lets up?”

“Oh, it’ll stop in its own time. I want to be away from here.” Ankarette stopped, breathing heavily as she hefted the bundle on her knee. “Where will you go, dear?”

Katherine started. For seven years and more, her home had been where Isabel was, wherever George of Clarence took them.

“I don’t know.”

“Come with me, if you like. We’ve a nice little manor in Somerset. I’ll be glad to retire there, after all this time.”

Kate looked at the rain, and sighed. “Thanks, Ankarette, but I’ll stay here a while. The duke may need my comfort.”

The widow pulled a face, her chin drawn back. “I bet he will. You be careful, girl, or you’ll be warming his bed with no thanks for it, and kicked out as soon as he finds some hapless heiress to marry him.”

Kate exclaimed in disgust. “I meant spiritual comfort! Gods, good mother, I’d rather marry that drowned horse over there than bed the duke! What do you take me for?”

“A wise one,” said Ankarette, chuckling. She patted Kate’s shoulder, and turned to walk away. Katherine came to her senses, ran after her, and carried her bundle to the carriage.

With the kindly widow gone, Warwick Castle seemed as quiet as a tomb. Everything had changed. Anne had lived with them for a time, but she was long gone, remarried and living in the north. Her marriage to Prince Edouard had been wretched but brief. Tewkesbury had made her a widow. George of Clarence had dealt the death blow, so it was rumoured. Kate thought it interesting that he’d slain her husband then taken her into his custody, for those actions gave him control of Anne’s vast inheritance. He had no legal rights over her, but that didn’t stop him. Named his ward, she was in effect his prisoner.

Soon a bitter argument had raged over Anne Neville – a time Kate remembered with stabbing pain.

Richard of Gloucester proved to be Anne’s only champion. He’d long wanted to marry her. Of course Anne’s wealth was an irresistible lure, but it seemed their affection for each other was genuine. An inevitable union, given their rank, but George refused to let his sister-in-law go. Isabel’s share of the Warwick estates were not enough for him; George wanted everything. God forbid his brother should seize half.

He even stooped, ridiculously, to hiding Anne in a friend’s house, disguised as a maid. But Richard found her, the marriage took place, and George was left to sulk and moan about the terrible injustice done to him.

Kate had deliberately kept out of the way. Whenever Richard visited Clarence’s London house, she would go out, or closet herself in her chamber. Their arguments were spectacular: from the far end of the house she would hear them raging, and put her hands over her ears.

Above all, she had no desire to see Richard and Anne together. If she never saw them, she could pretend nothing was happening. Thus, by cunning, she avoided ever meeting Richard. If he knew Kate was there, she doubted that he was interested.

After all, she barely knew the Duke of Gloucester and cared nothing for him. Nor had she ever grown close to Anne, who was shy, dutiful and pious. Their union should not have mattered. But when Raphael wrote, describing their romance in amused and glowing terms, she’d been so enraged that she’d torn up his letters and thrown them in the fire.

Anyway, those matters was long over. Richard and Anne lived at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire, their childhood home, ruling the North in the king’s name. They had a son called Edward. Raphael had gone with them and still wrote sweetly to Kate, at least once a month. She was slow to answer, had little to say.

The fact that Richard was married meant nothing. It maddened her that any reminder still felt like a poison-dipped blade in her heart.

The countess, Anne Beauchamp, was gone too. She’d fled into sanctuary after her husband Warwick’s death, emerging eventually to live with Anne and Richard at Middleham. Kate hadn’t seen her for years. Without Isabel, the heart of Clarence’s household was gone, its lifeblood washed away in fog and rain.

Now Ankarette had gone too, Kate missed her. She wondered if her friend would serve Queen Elizabeth again. Impudently, she’d once asked, “What is the queen really like?”

“Elizabeth.” Ankarette gave a wry chuckle.”She’s not as terrifying as many think. A proud woman, ruthless, but frightened sometimes. She’s achieved the highest station, and therefore has everything to lose. That’s why she makes a show of arrogance, to hide her fear. It’s in her interests to keep people afraid of her.”

“My mother said the same to me,” said Kate. “‘We must keep them afraid, but not so afraid that they destroy us.’”

“I confess I shouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of her.”

“Is it true she once had a man executed for insulting her?”

Ankarette’s kind face clouded. “Lord Desmond. The charge was treachery. The worst is that they slew his two little boys, too, who never hurt a soul.”

“Was that the queen’s fault or a misunderstanding?”

“You ask too many questions.”

“Our tradition doesn’t see the world in plain terms of good and evil,” Kate replied.

“I was lucky that she liked me,” Ankarette said. “However, truth is I wasn’t sorry when she sent me to Duchess Isabel. Elizabeth made for hard work.”

Contrary to Ankarette’s warnings, after Isabel’s funeral Kate barely saw George of Clarence. He was in and out of the castle, bustling, conferring with his men-at-arms. The few times she glimpsed him, he looked crimson-faced, preoccupied; perhaps drunk. He barely spared her a glance. When he did, venom spat from his eyes. She was glad he kept out of her way.

Kate spent her time in the nursery with Isabel’s surviving boy and girl and their nurses. She heard that Anne Neville wished to take care of her sister’s children, and Kate thought they’d be better away from here. There was tension among the staff. Never the happiest of households, George’s servants feared his temper and capricious demands. But Kate had decided long ago to stand up to him, and he seemed to respect her for it.

Sometimes she would start from a reverie, and think she was late attending Isabel – only to remember, with falling heart, that no one was waiting.

Winter was miserable. Kate decided that when the weather cleared she would return to her mother. The thought unnerved her. Although they exchanged affectionate letters, for years she’d avoided visits and awkward conversations with Eleanor, difficult meetings with the woman, Jenny. The rosy fledgling in Jenny’s care was not Kate’s, and yet he was – but no one must know. Although she wanted to see him, it was easier to not to.

Kate had learned to be ice-cold, pragmatic. Could she bear to go back, to see him growing, his father’s face echoed beautifully in his as a constant reminder? The thought seared her. She drew a breath. Perhaps she should force herself.

From the moment of his birth he’d been a reward, not a punishment. She was so lucky. Although she couldn’t claim him, the fact that he was alive and healthy was good fortune enough.

She packed her belongings, then sat down on a window seat, with winter sunlight dappling her, to write to Eleanor.

Then she heard a commotion below her window.

Hooves on stone, men’s loud voices, the clatter of armour, saddlery, spears. She jumped. For a horrible moment she thought the castle was being invaded. Peering down into the bailey, she saw a troop of eighty men in Clarence’s livery. She was relieved, until she saw in their midst a woman in a linen headdress – the unmistakable, ample form of Ankarette Twynyho.

Ankarette rode a bay cob, but – dearest Dark Mother – there were ropes tied around her wrists.

As Katherine stared she saw armed men dragging the widow from her horse. Ankarette cried out, stumbled to her knees on the courtyard stones and was jerked to her feet again. She shook visibly as George, in yellow and gold finery, stepped out of the castle and strolled towards her.

Without a word, he slapped Ankarette hard across the cheek. Then he spat into her face. Kate screamed.

She ran to her chamber door, down the spiral stairs to the outside, only to crash hard into the breastplate of one of Clarence’s bodyguards. The man seemed huge in the darkness of the stairwell. She fought him as he bundled her back up the steps.

“Take your hands off me! You’ll be sorry you manhandled me – what’s happening? Let me past!”

“My lady, I’m sorry,” the man said hoarsely. As they re-entered her chamber she saw that his face was grey and haggard. He put up his big hands to ward her off; a gesture of apology. “The duke’s order is to detain you in your private chamber. Pardon me, I beg you. I daren’t disobey him. He’s mad with grief over his wife.”