B008257PJY EBOK (31 page)

The ground was rising. They were nearing Tudor’s position. Men had been caught by surprise. They scattered, ran for their horses, tried to get into formation. Richard heard their cries; the shouted orders. Ranks closed around Henry Tudor. A mighty figure charged forward. It was the giant, Sir John Cheyney, nearly seven feet tall and three hundred pounds. Richard swung his battle-axe in an arc, made contact with a crash of steel. Cheyney’s horse reared; he lost his balance, fell to the ground. Another knight advanced to take his place. Richard raised his battle-axe again and brought it down on his helmet. Ratcliffe and Rob hewed their way to his side. All around him was the crash of metal. His ears throbbed with the screams of horses in pain, the cries of men, the thumping of his own heart. Ahead waved the standard of the Red Dragon borne by William Brandon. Ahead was Tudor.

He could see Tudor!

Tudor was on foot. He wore a breastplate but no helmet, and there was fear on his face. He recoiled, looked as if he were about to run. Oh, God, it felt so good to see the fear! Richard plunged forward. Brandon blocked his path with his sword. Richard whirled his axe. Steel crashed against steel. Brandon fell dead. Richard’s men were all around him now in a tight group, slashing their way forward.
Just a little further!

Shouts erupted; someone sounded an alarm:
All is lost! Save yourselves!
Richard paid no heed. Someone else seized Richard’s bridle. It was Ratcliffe. He was gesturing behind him. Richard turned. Through the narrow slits of his visor and the swirling yellow dust of combat, he saw the blood-red jackets of Sir William’s men. They were thundering down on them. Richard shook his head. He wouldn’t flee! He had to get to the Dragon before Stanley reached them. He spurred White Surrey forward. His men swung round to meet the onslaught. There was yelling, an ear-deafening crash of steel on steel. But even as Richard chopped through the masses of weapons, he realised that all around him his men were falling. All at once White Surrey gave a shrill, piercing scream and sank to his knees in the dust.
Oh, God, no, not White Surrey—!

He slipped from his saddle, swung his battle-axe wildly, desperately, cutting his way to Tudor. Someone grabbed his arm. He looked up. It was the young knight Clarendon. Conyers was with him, leading a fresh horse. He shook his head again.
Not while the Dragon lived!
He smashed onward with his battle-axe. Conyers and Clarendon turned to protect his back from Stanley.

Suddenly Richard found himself face to face with the Dragon.

For an instant he couldn’t move, he was so surprised. There was nothing fierce-looking about this beast. Tudor was thin-lipped, with a long uneven nose and lank, straggly brown hair. The most astonishing feature in his nondescript narrow face was his small grey eyes, which were strikingly pale and stretched wide in naked terror. He was more hare than dragon, this miserable worm, this lily-livered coward! Richard raised his axe. A terrible pain exploded in his arm, knocking the breath from his body. He whirled round, swinging his battle-axe with his left. Clarendon and Conyers had fallen. Red jackets were all around him.

“Treason!” he cried, thrusting for his life.
He’d almost had him!
But for Stanley’s treason, he would have had him! Rob, Ratcliffe, Kendall, Brackenbury; they were dead. Howard, Zouche, Ferrers were dead. And Tudor lived.

Tudor lived—

It wasn’t fair! He struck out blindly in all directions.
Virtue always prevails
. His own words, spoken with such bland assurance to Anne a lifetime ago, pounded in his head, mocking him.
Stand on your throne and tell your people that
, a voice yelled in his head.
Tell Stanley and Percy! Tell Rob and Howard and Conyers!

“Treason!” he cried. “Treason!” He saw the gloomy chamber at Ludlow, the candles that threw menacing shadows across the stone walls and illuminated the faces of his father’s kin. There was Salisbury, Warwick, young Thomas Neville, and his own brother Edmund. Andrew Trollope loomed over them, laughing; an earring in one ear. He heard his father’s voice, loudly, clearly, “Treason!” cried his father.

“Treason!” cried Richard, flailing about him against the masses of swords and spears pounding his armour. There was such pain, he couldn’t hold his battle-axe any longer; couldn’t stand. He was so tired; so very tired. He sank to his knees. “Treason!” he whispered. There was a roaring in his ears. Sweat poured into his eyes. He blinked, surprised it was red. Red was everywhere. Then there was no more red, only black, and he was cold, so cold. He laid his head down in the dust.

Through the shaking earth and the din of battle he heard music, distant at first; a familiar refrain, but too faint to recognise. His eyes shot open. What was this? How could this be? He tried to lift his head but some great weight kept him down. The music rose in volume and his heart lifted. It was the Song of the North, sung by a thousand voices, pure and magnificent, harmonizing more melodiously than he had thought possible. An exquisite warmth radiated through him; he listened enraptured.

Richard!

Joy exploded in his breast.
Where are you, Anne? I can’t see you—

I’m waiting for you in heaven, Richard. Ned is with me. Come, my love; it’s beautiful here.

I’m… coming… Flower-eyes.

Epilogue

“Thy shadow still would glide from room to room.”

Westminster Palace

February 11, 1503

Elizabeth shifted her weight on her prie-dieu and her eyes strayed to the coffer where she had hidden Richard’s portrait. It was hopeless. Her thoughts were not with God; they were with Richard. For some inexplicable reason, he felt so near at this moment, as if he would walk into the room in the next instant. Today the years had fallen away and the ache of the past had returned more acutely than ever before, maybe because today was her birthday, and birthdays always carried her back to her happy youth, to the beautiful days when the palace halls rang with her father’s laughter and life sparkled with golden warmth and the promise of endless sunny tomorrows. To when sweet Anne had welcomed her to court with a loving smile, and Richard had strolled with her in the snowy garden.

A sharp pain sent her doubling in agony. She clutched her abdomen and gasped. Her lady-in-waiting appeared at her side. Elizabeth shook her head, waved the woman back to the settle. She hesitated, retreated with reluctance. Elizabeth clasped her palms together and leaned her weight on the velvet-covered rail. There had been much difficulty with this birth, her seventh; a girl, born two weeks ago and dead only days later. She brushed a tear away. Fixing her eyes on the image of the suffering Christ hanging on the wall before her, she murmured fervent prayers for them all: her three dead babes and Arthur, her beloved boy who had died last year at seventeen, and taken with him what was left of her heart.

Then she whispered a prayer for Richard.

She had said Masses for his soul every day of these eighteen years since the black tidings of Bosworth Field were brought to Sherriff Hutton. Sometimes there was solace to be found. At other times, like now, prayer availed her nothing. She made the sign of the Cross and rose from the prie-dieu. She turned to her lady-in-waiting. “Leave me, Lucy.”

“But, my lady, you know I am ordered not to leave your side. What if you collapsed again? No one would know, and the King—”

“I am well enough,” interrupted Elizabeth. “Well enough, Lucy. Go, now. I’ll pull the bell cord if I need you.”

The lady in waiting hesitated. “What if you can’t reach it in—”

“I’ll pull the bell cord if I need you,” repeated Elizabeth firmly. The woman sank into a curtsy and withdrew. Elizabeth waited until the door thudded shut. She went to the coffer. Slowly, heavily, she let herself down, withdrew a key from inside her bodice, and removed the silver chain from around her neck. She opened the chest. Her treasured, worn copy of Richard’s
Tristan and Iseult
was where she had hidden it, safe in a false drawer at the bottom. Another spasm of pain rippled in her side. Leaning on the coffer, she gripped the book tightly in her hand until it passed.

She made her way past the tall traceried windows to the brocade-covered writing table in the corner and sat down in the carved chair. The sun poured into the chamber in long panels, fell across the table, bathing her in warmth. A sudden wind stirred the ivy on her bower. She closed her eyes and softly hummed an old tune from the past.

Aye, aye, O, aye the winds that bend the brier!

The winds that bow the grass!

For the time was may-time,

and blossoms draped the earth—

The song had haunted her all day, though she had heard it only once. It was Richard’s Song of the North, which he had sung to Anne on her deathbed.

Wine, wine—and I will love thee to the death

And out beyond into the dream to come…

Emotion threatened to overwhelm her. She blinked back the tears that stood in her eyes. Shouts drifted up from the garden, and she looked down, grateful for the distraction. Eleven-year-old Harry was playing football in the snowy court. She gazed at him, thinking of her beloved Arthur. Ginger-haired and heavy-set, Harry was nothing like Arthur, or like her, or like any on her side, not even in temperament. From babyhood he had been a difficult child, wilful and calculating, with quicksilver moods that turned him from cherub to fanged adder in an instant. Sometimes she thought Harry hated her. At nine, he’d stolen on her like a fox on prey and surprised her studying Richard’s portrait. Startled, she’d cried out and dropped the miniature. Harry had picked it up and handed it back to her. A look had come into his eyes; a look which was often there now, when he turned his gaze on her. She shivered despite the sun. She didn’t know what to make of Harry. Yet Harry, to his credit, hadn’t told his father—maybe because they liked one another even less.

She opened the book, careful not to spill the few grains of red earth that came from the field of battle. Even that was dear to her. Gently she traced Richard’s inscription with the tip of her finger:
Richard of Gloucester, Loyaulte me lie
.

“Richard…” she murmured, touching all that was left of him. He had such beautiful handwriting: strong, clear, each letter elegantly formed. Good that he didn’t know that day at Bosworth Field how it would all end: his body despoiled; his memory vilified; his friends and those of his blood hunted down and murdered. Lovable young Edward, George’s poor son, had died for his Plantagenet blood, and so had Richard’s own sweet boy, Johnnie, who was a bastard and no threat to anyone, save another bastard. By the time Henry was done, there would be nothing left of the pure strain. Even those who had loved Richard were dead, with the possible exception of Francis. He had disappeared after the first rebellion and no one knew what became of him.

The early years had been hard on Henry, filled with unrest, but he had survived. He was a born survivor. Jack’s rebellion of 1487 had failed, along with the succession of others launched from Ireland and led by a certain Perkin Warbeck who claimed to be her brother, Richard of York.

She drew a sharp breath. Dear God, she didn’t want Warbeck to be Dickon! Not even though he was said to have the same drooping eyelid as little Dickon, the same face and lineaments of body as her father! Meg had received him as her nephew and backed his invasions for six long years, but then Meg would support a bowl of porridge if it made trouble for Henry. She’d never learned why her own mother, Bess, had thrown her support to that first rebellion when she’d had so much to lose. Henry had banished her to a nunnery where she was carefully watched, and there she had died seven years later, in poverty. During these years, other princes of Europe had stepped forward to uphold Warbeck’s claim. James of Scotland had even permitted Warbeck to marry into his royal family.

No, she refused to believe it was Dickon! She couldn’t bear the thought of Dickon dying a traitor’s death at Tyburn: of being hung on the gallows, drawn apart, and cut into sections while still alive. It was too horrible. A dizzy spell sent her swaying in her chair. She held a hand to her head until it passed.

Aye, Henry had made his throne secure, had kept it longer with his iron fist than Richard ever could with his tender heart. What Henry lacked as a warrior, he made up for with a slyness of mind that did honour to his mentor, King Louis of France. A line from Malory echoed in her mind:
Catlike thro’ his own castle steals my Mark
. He had learned much from Louis; he was much like Louis. He even wore the same hat: a flat affair with a peak in the front… Henry hadn’t wished to wed her, if the truth be known. He’d delayed their marriage as long as he could, in part to be sure she didn’t bear Richard’s child. Henry was like that. Full of fears and secret suspicions, cold as a Northumberland winter. Even after all these years, she still recalled her revulsion at the first touch of his body on hers; the feel of his sweaty skin; the smell of his offending breath. In time, her repugnance faded, reduced to near indifference by familiarity. She was grateful for that small mercy.

She flipped to the back of the book where she had hidden Richard’s miniature portrait… Dark hair, wide sensitive mouth, strong square jaw. Eyes looking into the distance: earnest eyes, filled with terrible sadness. His last words to her echoed in the dark stillness of her mind:
You’ll change! You’ll forget me!
He had been wrong. She had neither changed nor forgotten. Nothing could remove him from her heart. Not time; not life. She would never forget a detail of his face.

She set down the miniature and drew the book to her. She remembered herself at eighteen, after Richard’s death at Bosworth, removing a pen from a sand cup, dipping it carefully into the ink and opening the flyleaf.
San Removyr
, she had written beneath his inscription. It was her motto, used only once in her life, when she was neither princess nor queen.
Without changing
. Only he would understand. She brought his portrait to her lips, implanted a kiss. It was said that he’d dreamed of triumph that last night before battle, but his triumph had not been of this world. She lifted her face to the bleak winter sky. “Richard, if you have been greatly hated, you have also been deeply loved—”