“Ah, indeed, indeed . . .” Prior John collected his thoughts and addressed Richard. “We observe the vow of silence at the Mount, and our dinner hour is past, but this being a special occasion, I would be gladdened to partake a cup of wine with you as you sup, Your Grace.”
“We shall be delighted, Prior John,” Richard said.
The rooms filled with bustle and commotion as Catherine’s two ladies went to work settling in. Agatha picked up a ewer and poured water into a basin, and Catherine proceeded to wash, cringing with each icy dab. All the while, her gaze barely left Alice, who carried Dickon into the next room and laid him in his cot. She stood patiently as Agatha freshened the folds and embroidered hem of her tawny sea gown, straightened the flared sleeves of her square-cut bodice, and adjusted her low belt over her hips, but as soon as Agatha had secured her velvet headband and veil over her bound hair, Catherine tiptoed to her babe’s side and laid a kiss on his cheek. She arranged his blanket over him with a tender touch, careful not to awaken him before she left for dinner.
Outside, night was enfolding the world and the wind howled. Giant torches burned in the stone sconces set atop the walkways and their flames danced in the gusty wind. They filed into the chapel, their footsteps whispering reverently against the stone floor, and knelt before the gray marble of the reliquary of the Virgin’s milk. Catherine prayed for Richard’s success in winning back his father’s throne, but even more fervently she begged the Virgin for his safety, and the safety of her wee son, and her babe yet to be born, now five months in the womb. She lit a candle for her mother’s soul and murmured prayers for her father, her four brothers and six sisters, and a special one for her favorite siblings, William and Margaret, left behind in Scotland. She concluded her prayers and made the sign of the cross. Taking Richard’s hand, she left for the refectory, passing Agatha, who remained at her devotions.
The monks’ dining room was a beautiful chamber with windows along two walls. Though sparsely furnished with a long table, benches, and a few chairs, Catherine thought it radiated warmth and welcome. A great fire burned in the small hearth at one end, and from a large copper cook pot emanated the delicious aroma of vegetables and spices that sent her stomach growling with appetite. Beyond the glass, the sea was drenched in the blackness of night, yet the candles that were reflected in the panes cast a warm glow over the darkness outside.
They gave their cloaks over to the novice and took a seat at the rough-hewn table that was already spread out with thick crusty bread and pewter dishes. A monk stirred the soup, and the novice brought them wine from an earthen flask before moving about the room to complete the final preparations for dinner.
“I pray your journey was not overly strenuous, my lord,” Prior John said when he joined them.
“I fear it was difficult, Father,” Richard said, toying with his mug. “Almost as soon as we left Scotland, we encountered a storm and were forced to take shelter in Ireland. We expected to meet Sir James Ormond while in Cork. As you may know, he is—was—one of our staunchest supporters. But on our arrival there, we learned that he had been murdered.”
A silence fell. The prior leaned close and said, “Murder, terror, Byzantine torture—’tis all we’ve known since the bastard Tudor seized the throne.” He kept his voice low, by force of habit. “He has spies everywhere. One cannot be too careful, even here, in this bastion of the House of York.”
Richard nodded. “King James and I always spoke in whispers, yet it seemed to us that Henry knew our plans even before we knew them ourselves.”
“How was your reception in Ireland?”
“Waterford was hostile, but the people of Cork welcomed us—some for affection, others because they desired change. Tell me about England. How do they feel about us here in the south?”
“Without exception, the Tudor is hated. All he has brought us is fear and taxes. We pray daily for the restoration of your royal father’s line. When you leave here to march against the Tudor, you’ll see the truth of what I say. All Cornwall will rise up to join you.”
“The Cornishmen were cruelly punished for their revolt in June. Dare they rebel again?”
“Their defeat at Black Heath came at heavy cost, aye, but we are a stubborn lot. And you are made in your royal father’s image, God assoil his noble soul. They will flock to your banner.”
“In the north, they ran from me.” Richard’s tone was soft, almost a confession, and his gaze was averted. Catherine’s heart ached for him. She reached beneath the table and placed a gentle hand on his knee.
“If the Tudor is so hated, why did they not join me against him, Father?” he asked, voicing the question that had tormented him since the failure of his northern invasion.
“You came with Scotsmen. We hate the Scots more than we hate even Tudor, but King James did not consider that.”
“James was angry that my people spurned me. He punished them for it. I could not stop him—”
Catherine bit her lip, remembering Richard as he had looked when he’d returned from the invasion. From her high bower she’d seen him gallop up the steep slope of Stirling Castle in the rain with his few men. Flinging himself from the saddle, he’d disappeared into the tower and, moments later, burst into her chamber, disheveled, a look of such anguish on his face that her ladies fled as she and Richard stood and gazed on one another. Someone shut the door and Richard threw himself into a chair. He covered his face with his hands.
“What has happened?” she cried. “Dear God, why are you back so soon? Where is my cousin? Where is the king—tell me James is not dead!”
Richard did not reply. She knelt before him. He dropped his hands and met her eyes. “James is in England, butchering my people.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The invasion failed. They did not rise up for me. He grew angry and gave the order to slay the men and rape the women—he cut them down like animals. He burned their homes. I could not stop him—it was terrible—terrible, Catherine—”
When she finally learned the full narrative of what had happened on that fearful day, she knew Richard was no longer welcome in Scotland. He had to leave, and there was nowhere left to go, except to England to win back his throne. But Richard had been consumed with doubts after the invasion, and it was left to Catherine to persuade him otherwise.
“Never mind what happened! You have the makings of a great king, Richard, for you have a good heart and know what it is to suffer,” she said. “And make no mistake about it—your people are suffering under that tyrant. Only you can save them—England needs you, Richard!”
The thud of boots broke into Catherine’s thoughts and the memories fled. She composed herself and lifted her gaze to Richard’s retinue filing into the refectory. They were led by the old mayor of Cork, silver-haired John O’Water, who had been loyal to King Richard III and the House of York through its many battles for the throne. Almost at the same moment, Agatha and Alice, relieved of her babysitting duty by a monk, entered from the opposite passageway. Amid a crosscurrent of greetings, everyone distributed themselves around the table. Catherine gazed at them, their wee group from the Cuckoo, and the thought struck her hard that their band of supporters had thinned woefully.
They had been left with only a single ship after their little fleet was scattered by the storm off the coast of Ireland, and they did not know where the others had gone, or if they had even survived. Richard had hoped for good tidings, but so far they’d had no word, not even at Land’s End, where he had briefly disembarked to inquire about the rest of his party and set up his standard. He had been welcomed by the Cornishmen, and promises had been made, but his only true hope lay in the men of southern England rising up for him in great numbers to provide him with the army he so desperately needed.
Catherine had not worried about his prospects until recently. So certain had she been all along that the righteousness of his purpose would bring triumph in the end that nothing had shaken her faith until the storm at sea ha
d nearly claimed their lives—and even more important, the life of her precious son. So far she’d managed to keep her thoughts to herself. Richard had enough doubts of his own and needed all the reassurance she could offer, for much had gone against them since they’d set sail from the Scottish port of Ayr.
He will prevail, Catherine told herself. She had to believe that as strongly as she ever did—for everything in the world depended on it now. Around the table, the small party bowed their heads and the prior said grace. Then they spread their napkins, broke bread, and smiled at one another.
Catherine closed her eyes. Though she was weary from the day’s hard journey, she had trouble falling asleep. Waves pounded the rocks and the wind howled, reminding her of the tempest that almost sank their ship. The water had not been calm and silver then, but an angry white and frothing like milk. Memory carried her aboard the Cuckoo, and once more she stood peering through the open hatch. Drenched to the skin, his hair matted to his head, Richard shouted to her through the heavy rain, the thunderous roar of the surging sea almost drowning his words, “Go back, go back! Go—’tis not safe here—” In the cabin belowdecks, lashed to her bunk, she clung to her babe and gritted her teeth so that she would not cry out in terror as the vessel groaned, shuddered, and lurched, sending the bow headlong into the depth of the ocean in one breath, and lifting it up to the sky in the next. Men ran hither and thither overhead, and the creaking of boards and the clamor of their voices mingled together as if in a chorus drawn from Hell. She felt nauseous and dizzy; her stomach churned and she wanted to vomit. Coffers skidded back and forth across the plank floor and horn lanterns suspended from a beam in the ceiling swung wildly. Candles sputtered and went out, plunging the cabin into darkness. She heard Alice and Agatha weeping and moaning in prayer. Holy Mother of God, take not my babe this night—save us, dear Virgin! she pleaded silently as Dickon screamed in her arms. Let my babe live! Let him not die—
A hideous groan rumbled through the vessel and the ship shuddered violently. From above came the pounding of feet and the frantic shouts of men, “Save yourself! All is lost!” A fierce growling sound ripped through the cabin, then a hissing sound. The lumber was splintering, giving way—dear God, water was crashing through the hull! Water was everywhere; blackness was everywhere! She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see—and Dickon was gone—
Catherine bolted upright in bed, panting in terror.
Richard was asleep at her side. The monks were chanting their matins and the waves were crashing against the rocks. She had been dreaming. Relief swept her. Dimly, she wondered why the ship had broken apart in her dream, for if it had, they would not be here now. One thing for certain: it was a miracle they had survived. She sent a prayer of thanks heavenward.
A cold, fresh breeze wafted through the window cracked open for air.
She glanced at Richard. She could just make out his face in the shadows: the thick golden locks, smooth brow, and square jaw with its cleft chin. She let her gaze caress his mouth, bowed with humor even at rest, and linger on the cleft chin she so loved. If he had a physical flaw at all, it was in the dullness of his left eye, which was set lower than the right and had a droop in the crease of the upper lid. But this was the stamp of Plantagenet royalty. Two of his forefathers, Henry III and Edward I, had both borne the same mark.
Richard’s breathing was deep and even. That was good, for too often he slept fitfully and was awakened by evil dreams. She laid her hand lightly on his heart and its steady rhythm brought her as much comfort as the matins being sung to heaven in St. Michael’s Church across the court. She raised up on her elbow and gazed outside. The moon hung like a silver ball in the sky and the sea stretched to the horizon with the uncanny radiance that only moonlight could lend. She thought of Loch Lomond, where she and Richard had spent the honey-sweet early days of their marriage, enfolded by ineffable joy and untouched by the cares that were soon to descend on them. Even then she had known enough to see time as her enemy, and to resent each grain of sand that seeped through their precious hourglass.
Her husband’s peaceful form brought a smile to her face. She had loved Richard from the moment she first beheld him, and later she learned he’d done the same with her. So much had happened to them since that blessed day that she could scarcely believe it was a mere twenty-two months ago. In this short space they had met and married; she had borne one child, and now she carried another. She had shared with her husband the hope of success in claiming the throne rightly his, and had drunk with him the bitter cup of disappointment. Convinced that failure in the north would be erased by victory in the south, she had urged him onward when he’d wished to give up his dream. Then, abandoning kith and kin, she had sailed away with him through storms and disasters until they reached England.
Whenever she looked back, it almost seemed that time had altered its nature at the instant they met on that blessed day, the twenty-third of November in the year 1495, two days before her eighteenth birthday on the Feast of Saint Catherine. Striking from heaven like a bolt of lightning, it had borne her up and rushed her along on a glittering beam of light. With a clarity she knew time would never erase, she saw herself again in the courtyard at Stirling Castle, pearls in her dark hair, the king’s rich gift of a gown of crimson velvet, silk, and brocade adorning her tall figure. Once again she heard the blaring trumpets announce the royal arrival of King James IV of Scotland and Prince Richard of England . . .
The skies were blue as thistle, and the birds were atwitter at their first taste of sun in many days. Excitement pulsed through her as she awaited King Edward’s son, thought to have perished in the Tower of London at the hands of his uncle, King Richard III. Since her mother had been Annabella Stewart, sister to James II, and her father, George Gordon, Earl of Huntly, the most powerful magnate besides the king himself, she stood in the preeminent place of honor on the crenellated parapet overlooking the castle entrance, her heart pounding with anticipation as she craned her neck for a better view.
Ever since the news had blazed and thundered across Europe that King Edward’s younger son still lived, she had listened with rapture to the tidings about the handsome Yorkist prince. The stories of his life resembled an Arthurian legend and never failed to touch her heart, so filled were they with romance, danger, and melancholy. Taken from his native land as a child and hidden among strangers, the lost little prince had wandered from one land to the next as he grew into manhood. At the age of eighteen he had cast off his disguise and come before his aunt, Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy. She had acknowledged him to all the world as her nephew, the younger of the two princes in the Tower, and hailed him as King Richard IV of England.
From Margaret’s court the prince had gone to France, seeking King Charles’s support against the Tudor, Henry VII, who had usurped his father’s throne. But the Tudor mounted an invasion of France at a most inopportune time for Charles, and the French king was forced to make peace with England. As a condition of the treaty, Charles banished Prince Richard from his realm and withdrew his pledge of support.
From there the prince went with Maximilian, King of the Romans, to meet the pope while his Aunt Margaret tried to obtain the support of Spain for his invasion. But the Tudor had paid the pope to refuse his blessing, and Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain had just betrothed their daughter, Katarina, to Tudor’s son, Prince Arthur. While they, too, secretly acknowledged the wandering prince as the true King of England, they would not commit to helping him regain his throne. It was then that Margaret wrote Catherine’s cousin James, pleading for his assistance. James, taken with the inequity of Prince Richard’s predicament, agreed to make the prince’s cause his own.
And so it was that Catherine found herself in this shining castle drawn from the pages of Camelot with its pointed turrets and walls brightly painted with “King’s Gold” awaiting the arrival of the fabled prince. Bugles blew, and music flooded the air. Minstrels appeared, clad in brightly colored hose, their pipes trailing ribbons
of crimson, scarlet, and gold, and cheers erupted in a deafening roar, for King James and Prince Richard had ridden into view in the castle gateway.
Her glance touched on her cousin, King James. Though he was as handsome as any chivalrous knight from the tales of Camelot, he could not compete with the golden splendor of the young prince beside him. Clad in a white silk doublet, a furred cape around his shoulders, and a beaver hat on his sunny hair, Richard, Duke of York, cantered in on a pale war-horse, a hand resting on his hip, a smile on his lips. She gasped; he was the handsomest man she had ever seen.
Over the heads of the leaping musicians and dancers waving ribbons in the air, the prince lifted his head and their eyes met. In that instant, she heard no sound, took no breath, made no movement; she stood rooted to the parapet, and her heart, like a wild bird suddenly freed from captivity, took wing and flew to him.
During the ensuing weeks, day and night lost their measure and it seemed to Catherine that time had fractured into a thousand splinters of rainbow hues as it bore her along on its beam of light. An aura of mystery and romance clung to Prince Richard. He’d been to faraway places, and had met kings, doges, and popes, and the tales of his adventures mesmerized her.
At the dances that followed and the joust where Prince Richard asked to wear her colors, she lived in an enchantment not of this world. But when he told her that he loved her, and when her father blessed their match and King James bestowed his consent, she realized the full meaning of joy. Her only disappointment was that their wedding had to be postponed to the month of January, after Advent, for the season of Yuletide was upon them.
“I cannot wait—” Richard had whispered in her ear between hot, feverish kisses stolen one December night in a dark corner of the private royal garden.
“Neither can I!” she whispered back, burning with fire and faint with passion. “Tonight—meet me tonight—I’ll get away—somehow!”
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