The Court of the Midnight King: A Dream of Richard III by Freda Warrington Page B

fair boy took an exaggerated step back. He waved his hand in front of his face. “Then he could have the plague for all you know! Leave him. You can’t keep Edward waiting.”
    “He won’t mind,” the dark one said mildly. “Where are you from, Raphael Hart?”
    Raphael shook his head. His skull ached. Motes of memory leapt at him.
    “I was in York,” he said. “I saw the heads above the gate. The Duke of York, and Edmund of Rutland… I saw Queen Marguerite ride in and mock them. All her men had red roses splashed upon them like blood.”
    As he spoke, Richard’s face paled horribly. He looked, for the first time, like the child he was, and about to collapse. “That was my father, the Duke of York, and my brother Edmund.”
    “Then my father died with yours at Wakefield,” Raphael whispered. “The Lancastrians killed my mother and brother a few days later. I ran away. I went mad. That’s all I know.”
    “You have been ill a long time,” Gloucester said very softly. “That happened last December. It’s June. There have been other battles since. York has triumphed. Edward is King Edward the Fourth.”
    “Thank the Creator,” said Raphael. Dry sobs heaved out of him. He felt like a shrivelled new-born creature dropped onto the earth, without identity.
    “You’re safe now.” Richard clasped his hand, gave him a long, serious look. “Our fathers died together. We’ll never forget that.”
    Abruptly he coloured, and jumped to his feet. A man, all in blue and gold with flowing brown hair, strode towards them, and as he came all the esquires bent their knees, as did the Duke of Gloucester and his brother George. Raphael suddenly wished the earth would gulp him down. Edward was a gilded giant, laughing, shedding radiance around him like manna from heaven. And Raphael could only sit open-mouthed and stare.
    “What are you at, Dickon?” the king laughed. “Up, up.”
    “He’s trying to heal a plague-ridden idiot he found in the hedge,” said George.
    “He’s no idiot,” Richard said sharply. “His father was a Yorkist knight. The Lancastrians killed his family. He’s been ill, and didn’t know you were king.”
    “Then I hope the good news returns him swiftly to good health,” Edward said heartily. “Go on with your ministry, give him every comfort.”
    So Richard continued, while tears of embarrassment, grief and joy ran from Raphael’s eyes. Being found in this pitiful state before the new king, yet hearing that his father had been avenged – it was all too much to bear.
    “Two months after Wakefield, York had its revenge. We won. And they took down the heads of my father and brother and placed the heads of the traitors in their stead.”
    Raphael remembered then the words of the crow-haired child, her pale and sombre face. “Other heads will take their place.” Impossibly, she had known.
    He saw a brief vision of a sour pink sky, grisly heads gawping at drunken angles, crows and petitmorts dropping through the bloody glare to peck indiscriminately at the heads of York or Lancaster alike. His head rang. He lurched to one side, throwing up bile over Edward’s fancy boot. When the faintness passed, he found Richard kneeling beside him, stroking his forehead.
    “Sorry, your Grace. Sorry,” he rasped, shivering.
    Edward crouched on muscular haunches and touched his cheek. “Worse has happened to me, lad. You are in truth a victim of Lancaster’s cruelty. I must make amends. Let me think.”
    Raphael waited, looking sideways at Richard, whose gaze was on his magnificent brother. This couldn’t be happening. Here was the King of England and the two greatest dukes in the land, and he was the centre of their attention.
    “I have it,” said Edward, rising.
    “He could…” Richard began, but Edward was already walking away, signalling someone in the royal party.
    Two esquires got Raphael to his feet. Edward returned with a wiry, upright little man, all in red velvet. He had the look of a