The Court of the Midnight King: A Dream of Richard III (15 page)

Raphael reeled away, and at the same moment had to defend himself again.

The fighting went on, lumbering, inescapable. Battle cries fragmented into shrieks of anguish. The world closed down to an amorphous grey sphere where one man after another, as desperate as himself, tried to kill him; and yet – thanks more to their ineptness than to his own skill – reeling, sweating, he was still on his feet.

Shapes resolved in the murk. Raphael, alone for a moment, saw Lord Lykenwold on his black destrier, assailed by three Lancastrian foot-soldiers. He swung wildly to either side of the saddle, using an axe almost as big as himself. One man fell, clutching his face with bloodied hands. Raphael shoved past knots of fighting men to go to his aid, too late. Lykenwold was unhorsed. Raphael saw him fall, his armour dented, and blood escaping through the joints. He heard the dull clank of blows raining upon his lord even after he’d fallen. The Lancastrians cheered.

A rush of disbelief seized Raphael. He raised both sword and axe and ran yelling at his lord’s killers. One engaged Lykenwold’s esquire but the remaining two were ready for him. They had the hard faces of veterans. As Raphael planted his feet and swung at them, he was ready to die.

A dark bulk leapt in from the side. It took down the first Lancastrian and tore out his throat with a horrible crunch of bone and tendon. The second man saw the graylix and backed away, his halberd lowered as if to spear the beast. The trembling point made figures of eight on the air.

“Come on, then, you bastard,” he snarled.

The graylix sprang clear over the weapon and brought him down. Its weight crushed breath out of the man’s chest and his screams were weak and muffled, swiftly cut short. The graylix was still chewing a rag of flesh as it came towards Raphael. He saw that it was Tyrant.

The beast circled him, its face turned towards him, proving to Raphael that what everyone believed of graylix was wrong. They were capable of loyalty. Tyrant had avenged Lykenwold and protected his handler.

The graylix’s presence made a space around him. Raphael ran to his lord, raised the visor and found the bright eyes staring at him, lifeless in blood-drowned sockets. He recoiled, fighting for breath. Three of Lykenwold’s surviving esquires shouldered him aside and made to carry their lord’s corpse from the field. They were grim with shock.

“And get that thing in harness!” snapped one, tilting his head at Tyrant.

Raphael had no chance. As he sheathed his sword, Lykenwold’s horse bolted straight at him in terror. By reflex, Raphael dropped his axe and caught the reins. The destrier was immensely strong. He couldn’t hold it, and was dragged along for a hundred yards.

By the time Raphael brought the horse to a halt, a hush lay around him: nothing but soaked grass, grey trees and wreaths of mist. He’d lost his bearings. He held the reins and did his best to calm the horse as it swung in circles, eyes wild, moisture flying from its rippling mane. It responded to Raphel’s touch as he stroked the soft muzzle. Such a relief to be out of the fray. He could barely stand from exhaustion. The idea of going back in was unbearable. He could hear trickling water, faint voices. This fog was driving him mad. To drink fresh running water, then to mount and flee…

He was not as far from the field as he’d hoped. Vague in the murk, a knot of battle captains were nearby with a white boar banner. A knight came running towards him as if his full armour weighed nothing. The armour was made of bronze scales, dewed with condensed fog. As he reached Raphael, breathing hard, he put up his visor to reveal a savage, grim face.

The knight was Richard of Gloucester.

He spoke urgently, panting. “The horse?”

“Yes, take it, your Grace,” said Raphael. Richard was already mounting. The destrier plunged and leapt about despite Raphael’s attempts to hold him steady.

“Exeter’s fighting like a graylix,” Richard said quickly. “I won’t let him push us down into that gully.”

Raphael was sure Richard hadn’t recognised him. No time to ask. As the duke settled in the saddle and took control of the horse, the fog thinned briefly and revealed, where the meadow fell away into the steepness of the valley, a dip in the ground half-concealed by bushes. Three figures there, a friar and two women kneeling before a huge rock. Sunlight washed the tableau. The three had their eyes closed, mouths moving in a whispered spell. A spring issued from the rock. Set into a niche above it was an idol: a grotesque stone goddess, fat and powerful

Mist appeared to be exhaling from the spring – if not from the mouth of the goddess-figure herself. The illusion roused eerie dread within Raphael; and even more strongly, dismay that Richard had witnessed the ritual. No one was meant to see it.

Then one of the conjurers opened her eyes, and stared straight at Raphael. Her eyes were bright violet-blue. He knew her – and was certain that she recognised him.

Thick fog closed in again, concealing the sorcerers from sight.

Raphael looked at Richard. The young duke’s face was severe and he gave Raphael a brief glance as he slammed down his visor.

“God keep you,” he said. Then he was away, the magnificent black horse leaping off its haunches and kicking up clods of earth. In seconds, his silhouette turned from dark to white in the fog veils.

Raphael ran after him. Every fibre of his body protested. He was staggering with tiredness. Revulsion rose sourly in his throat and his sword felt too heavy to lift; but if Richard would not give up, neither would he.

Tyrant reappeared to shadow him and seconds later he was in the thick of battle again. Beyond fear, he was intent only on following the white boar banner. The fighting had gone on for over two hours and men were falling on both sides, from fatigue if not from wounds. Raphael pushed on and found Will Shaw, still in action; shaken, exhausted but not beyond a few sardonic quips.

Mounted, Richard rallied his fractured lines into a solid force. And at last, Exeter’s onslaught began to collapse. His men were falling back, fleeing.

Close to Richard, Raphael gained a rise in the ground and saw, as if through watered milk, the spread of the battlefield. An astonishing sight as thousands of men clashed in shining waves. Banners swayed back and forth. Messengers from King Edward reached Richard, and news spread through the ranks: Warwick’s ally Oxford had overlapped Lord Hastings’ flank – as Richard had overlapped Exeter’s – and put Hastings’ forces to flight, pursuing them into Barnet. In the centre, Edward and Clarence held firm against Montagu, but Oxford was returning to add his weight to the Lancastrian side.

“Raffel, look at that!” said Will Shaw.

If King Edward believed this fog to be worse luck for the enemy, it seemed he had occult knowledge. Sunlight silvered helms, spear tips and standards, while soldiers waded through shoulder-high vapour. The battle had shifted on its axis. Montagu’s men were now positioned where Oxford had expected Edward’s to be; and Oxford, not realising, launched his attack upon the wrong side.

In the haze, Oxford’s star banner was readily mistaken for Edward’s sun. Montagu and Oxford, allies, turned blindly upon each other.

“They must each think the other has turned traitor,” said Raphael, when the fight didn’t cease. He was drunk with tiredness, mouth and throat and lungs on fire.

“That’s it, it’s over!” Will said gleefully. “The day is Edward’s!”

Raphael had bent down to clip a chain onto Tyrant’s harness when he felt a jag of fire searing his arm. Black and red stars sparked on the fog. He glimpsed the sheen of armour and weapons, the flutter of a Lancastrian surcoat as the mounted knight who’d struck him down fled the field. Stones flew from the horse’s hooves and spattered him like vicious rain as he fell.

###

A young lad, Friar Bungay’s servant, came skidding into the hollow to tell the sorcerers the news. The battle was nearly over. Warwick’s armies had collapsed and were retreating in disarray.

Kate kissed her mother, leaped to her feet and ran into the mist. She’d seen Raphael – or at least, a young man who looked uncannily like her memory of the boy. She must find him. Also, he had seen them at work. She knew Eleanor would ask her to silence him.

Minutes later, she wished she hadn’t set out. The mist was still treacherous. She could hear men shouting, some in terrible distress. Nervously she skirted the edge of the field, keeping her distance from the flitting shapes and sounds. As she angled towards Wrotham Wood, silence enveloped everything. The pale broth was full of writhing spirits that seemed to beckon and reach out with smothering arms… but not to her.

Footsteps shook the ground. Kate froze. A man was running in her direction, so close she could hear his laboured breath. He came out of the chill whiteness; a big man, lumbering in his armour. His surcoat was torn, his helmet gone, his face crimson.

The Earl of Warwick.

His gaze clipped her. There was a flicker in his eyes, recognition or dumb fear, but he didn’t pause. She stood dazed as he staggered past and vanished into the sheltering grey woods.

Twenty yards behind him came a score of Yorkist foot soldiers. They ran nimbly and their swords were drawn.

Half a minute later, a cry echoed through the woods: a single, anguished bellow.

###

Pain brought Raphael awake. Less sharp than the pain that had felled him, but somehow deeper, more sickening. He lay in a dark chamber with tallow-light flickering off the walls. A thick odour of sweat, blood and damp stone filled the room but he’d been breathing it so long that it was only a tang in the back of his throat. Raising his head, he found himself in what appeared to be a monks’ dormitory with rushes strewn on the floor. Daylight gleamed red through oiled cloth over a tiny window. Three other men lay on pallets, their limbs wrapped in reddened bandages. Two were grumbling to each other, the third lay silent. Against the far wall, a friar sat chanting from a prayer book. He looked like a tiny lichen-coated statue.

Raphael shifted. The pain in his left shoulder took his breath away and speared his arm, which now rested in a sling. He tried to piece together the battle… Surreal chaos. Meeting Richard of Gloucester on the edge of the hollow where sorcerers lurked, and giving Richard his dead lord’s horse…

The grinning face of Will Shaw loomed over him. Raphael reached up with his good hand and grabbed his arm. “Lykenwold’s dead,” he said.

“Yes, Raffel,” Will said gently, the grin extinguished. “But you’re all right, eh?”

“I think so. And you?”

“Not a scratch. Born lucky, me.”

“And the graylix? Tyrant?”

“He’s fine, the old bastard. Three out of eight’s not so bad. I got ’em back in cages. No-one would even ask, except you.”

“You can’t tell me you don’t have a little respect for them, Will.” Raphael’s throat felt rusty.

“Well. Never mind that. You’ve got a visitor. Says he’s been looking for you all day.” The thick mousy eyebrows flicked up in dramatic astonishment.

“Who?”

Will slipped away without answering and another man came out of the shadows and sat on a stool beside his pallet. Raphael started. The visitor was Richard of Gloucester, looking as worn-out and dispirited as Raphael felt. A gentle, ghost-like face smiled down at him, grey eyes tired amid the sooty darkness of brows and lashes. He looked serious, even when he smiled. Thick sable hair exaggerated his pallor. He sat with his elbows on his knees, a coat thrown loosely over his shoulders and hanging open over his doublet. Only the richness of the coat – burgundy and black with a device of roses sewn in white and silver – made him look out of place.

“Iesu’s blood, Raphael, it’s really you. I knew I recognized you on the field.”

“Your Grace.” Raphael was overcome, couldn’t find anything sensible to say. He tried to rise, but the fire in his shoulder made him gasp.

“No. Rest.” The duke put out a quick hand to stay him. “They tell me you took a bad blow, but not an open wound. That bodes well. I hope you’ve been well-tended; if not, these friars will answer to me.”

Raphael had only a hazy memory of being carried here, his armour being stripped from him. He wondered if he were delirious with fever. It wouldn’t be the first time. He blinked, but Richard was still there. A white boar badge shone on his shoulder. “Thank you, my lord, but I’ll be fit to get up as soon as this pain eases.”

“I hope so.” Richard looked intently at him. “Gods, the day was bewitched.”

“In Edward’s favour.”

“It would appear so. I came to thank you for the horse. I can’t claim it saved the day but it certainly helped, more than you can know. I’m sorry about your Lord Lykenwold.”

The grey eyes cut into him and Raphael dropped his gaze, awkward and still half-choked with pain. “He was a good man.”

“I’d hate to think that Edward had sent you to a lord who ill-treated you.”

“He didn’t.”

“I’m glad, because I’ve often thought about you. The angel in the hedgerow.”

Raphael could barely answer, without sounding an idiot. He managed to say, “I never forgot. I didn’t expect a duke, however kind, to remember me.”

Richard gave a long, slow sigh. “Raphael, my brother has won the day, but at great cost. I’ve seen sights today I never thought to see. Half my esquires, my dear friends, were cut down around me. The Earl of Warwick is dead. Edward commanded him to be taken alive, but the command never reached the hot-blooded Yorkists who pursued and slaughtered him. I was fighting against him, I know, but that makes his death even less bearable.”