The Court of the Midnight King: A Dream of Richard III (44 page)

“I’m sorry,” Kate whispered. She meant sorry that she had coveted Richard, whispered with him in secret behind his wife’s back. At this moment she thought little of him, and less of herself.

“What for?” said Anne. Her energy was fading now, her voice weak. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for, Kate.”

“That… you’ve had so much trouble to bear in your life.”

“Well, who does not?” The queen gave a soundless laugh. “My father’s plan was for me to become queen, and his grandson king one day. God’s plan for me was rather different. Who am I to argue with the Almighty? Well, Richard is gone from me now, but he has to stay behind on the mortal plane so I will pray that he is happy, and gains all he desires. Will you pray for him also?”

“I don’t think Richard cares for my idea of prayer.”

Anne smiled. “I know about you.”

“Do you?” Kate went still, her mind frozen.

“He told me you summoned the storm that destroyed Harry Buckingham.”

“Oh, that. Don’t let’s speak of this now. Rest, your Grace.”

“I don’t judge you. Do whatever you must… only help him, Kate.” Anne drew a slow, shallow breath. “He is not perfect, but all he does is for the good of this land. He has been my rock. But Richard’s true passion lies elsewhere.”

“Where?” Kate turned hot and cold.

“With a contentious harlot of a mistress called England.”

###

The day Anne died, the sky turned black, as if it knew.

The moon passed across the sun, turning it to a jet disk that burned and flared with diamonds. Day turned to dusk, casting unearthly multiple shadows. Kate heard citizens beyond the palace walls, crying out in wonder and terror. Infected by their superstitious fears, she petitioned Auset for mercy.

Soon the inevitable sour rumours made their rounds. The eclipse was a sign from God, a warning of his black displeasure with King Richard III.

Anne lay in state within a bower of candles. The elementals that clustered around her made a blue glow, a melancholy but peaceful light. Quietly and firmly, Katherine stopped the priests from exorcising them. Lamenting monks stood discreetly in the dark corners of the chamber, filling the air with their mournful chanting and incense.

Richard came and stood looking down at his wife. His hands were folded, his face gaunt with grief. Kate wanted to comfort him. She longed simply to fold her arms around him, but it was unthinkable. Grim, regal, in mourning black from head to foot, he seemed as distant as the moon. She dared not even speak.

The king did not notice her. He wept.

He’s lost everything, she thought, his supporters, his son, his wife. Now Anne’s gone, I have no reason to stay here… yet how can I leave him, or Raphael?

The thought of Raphael made her heart even heavier.

Presently she left without sound, leaving Richard to pray alone. As she passed into the desolate corridor beyond, she collided with Elizabeth of York. She felt the well-fleshed warmth of Bess’s bosom against hers, caught her musky perfume.

“How is he?” Lady Bess whispered, tilting her head to indicate Richard. She was a handsome girl, this daughter of Elizabeth Woodville, ripe and full of life; the opposite of Anne. The opposite of me, too, Kate thought. Compared to Bess she felt old and thin. In colouring, build and personality, Bess had none of her mother’s imperiousness but a great deal of her father’s florid energy.

“Desolate,” said Kate. She’d never shown deference to Bess, and Bess had never seemed to notice.

“Naturally. It’s a shock to him even though he wanted… I mean, even though it was expected.”

“He did not want her to die,” Kate said brusquely. “You should know better than to listen to such evil rumours.”

Elizabeth bristled, her full lower lip protruding. “I am the last person to pay heed to such scurrilous nonsense.” Her voice fell. She reminded Kate of a boisterous, loving dog who would hurl itself at you, regardless of whether your own demeanour was hostile or welcoming. “Whatever enmity lay between my mother and my uncle, the king, is nothing to me. He has my heart. I cannot bear to see him suffering.”

“Don’t go in, my lady,” said Kate. Bess, again, did not notice her coolness. “He needs to be left alone with the queen, Creator rest her soul.”

Bess crossed herself. “Of course. But I’ll wait for him. Of all the people in this wretched court, I am the only one capable of consoling him.”

An unpleasant sensation trickled through Kate; irritation at Bess’s overflowing confidence, which was an excess of goodwill rather than arrogance.

“I only hope he may prove consolable.” She lowered her head, preparing to move away, when Bess touched her arm.

“Lady Katherine, would you stay and be my lady-in-waiting?”

Kate managed to swallow a gasp. “I’m honoured, my lady, but surely you have women enough?”

Bess gave a winning, almost pleading smile. “For my present station, but perhaps not for my future.” She looked meaningfully at the door to the chapel, where Richard stood in darkness. Kate felt like lashing out with a fist and knocking her down. “Besides, Anne liked you so very much; she said you were the best healer she ever knew, better than any physician, and that her sister Isabel would not have been without you…” Her round, lovely face flushed. “In her confinements.”

Kate looked down at her shoes, fighting an urge to laugh. Oh, lovely. Lady-in-waiting to Richard’s second queen. And yet it was the only way to stay near him…

Somehow she forced warmth into her expression. “My lady, are you likely to be married soon?”

“I hope so.” Bess clasped her arm and pulled her aside, standing so close Kate felt her warm breath. She was very voluptuous. And Richard was not made of ice. Only towards me, Kate thought, for a brief instant hating him so bitterly she could have seized a sword and slain him as he mourned. “I hope so. My mother says I was born to wear a crown, as she was.”

Kate could have said any number of things that would have got her banished from court instantly. So, for all your smiling charm, you will do anything to get a crown on your head; even bed your own uncle and dance on Anne’s grave? You are your mother’s daughter after all.

Perhaps disapproval showed in her expression. Bess hastened to justify herself.

“Lady Katherine, don’t mistake me. My mother’s motive is not mine. I’m his in heart, body and soul.”

“When did you fall in love with him?” Kate asked casually.

“I don’t know.” Bess chewed her lower lip, turning it rose-red. “I’ve always thought him handsome, haven’t you? There’s a light in him that people don’t notice because he’s quiet; not like my father!” She laughed, quickly stifling it. “But once you see that glow in him…”

“Yet people are saying he killed your brothers,” Kate said coldly,

Bess coloured. For a full ten seconds she said nothing.

“Do you know what they say of you, Lady Katherine? You’ve a reputation for stating things no one else would dare. My brothers were mortally ill. Lady Beaufort told me so herself. She’s a righteous, kindly woman who would not lie to me. She even mixed potions for good Dr Argentine to administer. People were trying to save them, not kill them; but the fever took them anyway, Creator rest their sweet souls.” She was close to tears, which took the sting out of Kate’s rage. “It was not Richard’s fault.”

“No,” said Kate. “And does he love you?”

Bess caught her breath for a quick answer, then paused with all her mother’s poise.

“I hope he will, once he has mourned his dear wife.”

“I suppose the devil you know is preferable to Henry Tudor.”

Bess gasped. “Lady Katherine, you are wicked! I’d rather throw myself in a cage of starving graylix than marry a man I’ve never met! I must have you with me. Please give me an answer.”

Dull mirth unfolded inside Kate like a scorpion tail.

“Of course I will serve you, my lady. I’m honoured.”

“You are a good, good person,” Bess said sweetly, and kissed her cheek.

Woodenly Kate walked away, too numb and tired to feel anything. As she reached the far doorway, she heard a voice say, “Bessie.”

She looked back and saw Richard emerging from the chapel. His harrowed face lifted with pleasure. He pressed his lips to Lady Elizabeth’s hand, while she curtseyed and simpered in return. Kate walked away.

###

After the dream of Richard soaked in blood, the visions began to torment Raphael in earnest. Almost every night, some mad pantomime awaited him: Richard as a character upon a stage, stooped and deformed yet loping about with terrifying, spidery energy. Richard with demonic eyes and a great mound upon his back, dripping poison into his wife’s mouth, despoiling his niece while grinding the skulls of her two brothers into the earth beneath his boot.

He saw a chronicler, who’d written reams in praise of Richard, tearing up his own words and replacing them with malicious condemnation… to please Richard’s enemies. Raphael knew what he was doing, and screamed in protest, but could not make himself heard.

Each morning woke exhausted, half-deranged. Somehow he struggled through his duties, dismissing the concerns of Francis Lovell, Will Shaw and others who remarked that he looked dreadful. Yes, literally, full of dread.

He broke his promise to Richard always to tell him of the dreams. How on Earth could he trouble the king with this catalogue of wild imaginings? Once or twice was acceptable, but every night? Richard would only conclude that he was mad, possessed, or even mocking him for some sinister reason.

Richard had important affairs of state, parliament and foreign policy to attend to. He had burdens enough. Raphael could do nothing but suffer in silence.

Worst of all was Kate.

Now she no longer had Anne to occupy her, she came to him every night, begging him to tell her what was wrong. He couldn’t. Talking made things no better; if anything, it made them worse. Her concern made him feel guilty and desperate, because he found no comfort, not even in her. The last thing he could do was to let her stay with him all night. Certainly he had no love to give her, not even lust. All his energy was swallowed by the dreams, trying to comprehend them, fighting them.

He began to fear sleep, and strove to stay awake, but lack of sleep for several nights made him more crazed. At last he succumbed, and had the worst vision of all.

He was standing at the end of a long throne room. A dark vault enclosed the space, with rows of colourless windows running along both sides. At the far end he made out the shadow-shape of the throne on its dais, and the monarch seated there.

Cold and wrung-out with fear, Raphael began to walk the length of the chamber. As he drew close, he looked up and saw the king gazing down upon him from the shadowy heights of the throne.

It was not Richard.

The face was gaunt and haughty. The eyes gazed disdainfully from under heavy yellowish lids. A ripple of mousy hair fell from under a heavy velvet cap. Long hands clawed at the arms of the throne.

Raphael looked up at this alien figure, and felt his mind fragmenting. “I have come to see the king,” he said. “Where is he?”

“I am the king,” said the stranger.

“No, you’re not. Where’s Richard?”

The usurper smiled. His teeth were like brown needles. Then Raphael saw people around him and knew them to be Richard’s enemies: Bishop Morton, Thomas Stanley and his brother William, the Earl of Northumberland, Elizabeth Woodville and Margaret Beaufort. They looked subtly different and their clothes were strange, yet he recognised them. They were all laughing at him. Sitting on the throne beside Henry was Lady Bess, in all her luscious beauty; his smiling queen.

“Where’s Richard?” he cried again.

“Richard is dead.”

“No.” Panic strangled him. In the dream he knew this to be true.

“Let me show you how he died,” said Henry Tudor. He lifted a languid hand, and Raphael was sent spiralling into the pounding rush of a battlefield.

All around him was the metal stink of armour and blood. An endless, impossible struggle to reach an armoured figure, with a gold coronet upon the helmet, who was battling as he fell under a deluge of blows.

And Raphael knew it was too late to reach him, but still he went on striving, anguish roaring from his throat, his own screams tearing him apart as he watched the last Plantagenet king fall, betrayed and butchered, and knew he could do nothing, nothing to save him.

Now I am terrified. Raphael’s torment and the impossibility of helping him leaves me distraught. I only catch flashes of what he’s experiencing, but it’s plain enough. Our past and his future.

This is the worst time yet. I avoid Fin, because I can’t share it even with her. I am frightened, depressed and grief-stricken. I can’t sleep. My dark lover Richard does not come; instead Raphael’s nightmares visit me by night and bring me sweating and gasping out of my tangled bed.

I switch on my desk light, sit down and try read. Still trembling but calmer now, I’m trying to work out what the date would be for them, how much time they have left. Not much. Months. What will become of Kate and her son Robin, if Henry VII’s cold gaze falls upon them?

In reality – my reality – Henry hunted down and slaughtered almost every one of Richard’s relatives, and on any pretext; from Richard’s natural son John to defenceless old women.

I look at pictures of old portraits, seals, letters, tombs. They put a flat, black and white distance between me and the immediacy of the situation. I try to convince myself of Fin’s words.

It’s over. It’s history.

One photograph shows two carved figures upon a tomb; Henry VII and his queen, Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Edward IV. Lying side-by-side they look handsome, peaceful and saintly.

Did this paragon, the mother of Henry VIII, really once come close to marrying Richard III? It seems incredible.

Again, every author differs.

Richard’s detractors portray Bess as a wilting victim, pursued by her ruthless, villainous uncle. Naturally she recoiled from Richard’s repellent advances and fled gratefully towards the hero, Henry Tudor.

His apologists show an ambitious and forward young woman who was infatuated with her uncle and urged him towards a marriage he never wanted. The impulsion was all hers. A fact to be flatly denied and buried later, since no such stain could be allowed to attach to the character of Henry’s queen.

Others say it was a relationship of mutual passion, consummated while Anne lay dying, and thwarted only by Richard’s own counsellors. It was they who advised him strongly against the match, saying that the country would never accept the incestuous union. Reluctantly he put her aside. And Bess became the woman scorned, her love curdling to savage hatred and vengeance.

Who can know the truth?

Then I sit thinking of poor Kate and her anguish if Richard turned, not to her, but to his niece. I don’t want to believe it of him.

And yet, as I sit looking at the stone effigies, there’s a streak of delicious eroticism in the idea that Bess of York, who lies in virtuous peace beside her Tudor husband, once adored his enemy: the ultimate forbidden lover, Richard.

I sit back from the book and notice that my face is soaked with tears. I feel calm now, as if a little of Kate’s goddess has woken in me.

I am going to try something – one desperate, heartfelt attempt to communicate.

I lie on the bed and began to meditate, slowing my breathing until I’m hovering on the edge of sleep. Trance or dream, I’m still not sure. The world turns green around me and I find myself in a place I recognise, that I have visited in reality; the same, but subtly altered in its etheric form.

I am floating through the underwater glow of a ruined church. Calm, and knowing exactly what must be said – as if Auset herself will speak through me – I wait.