Kings of Albion

by Julian Rathbone

  Uma smiled sweetly at her hands, spread like a cup in her lap, and Ali went on.

  As I say, perhaps the saddest moment on the trip for me was parting with Brother Peter, whose company I had shared now for more than a year. I tried to persuade him to stay with us, to come back to the lost city of paradise with us, heaven on earth, the City of Victory, Vijayanagara.

  'Ali, I would like to, but however beautiful and wonderful it is, however gloriously content the inhabitants are, I would always be a stranger.'

  'Peter, I have been a stranger wherever I am, all my life. It's no bad thing.'

  'Precisely. You are used to it. But I am used to these two cloisters, my library, my fish-pond, my cat. I am used to the English countryside through which each summer I make my peregrinations and preach, using what I have thought out during the winter months. It's a routine, but sufficiently interesting not to be dull. I am too old to change it.'

  We embraced, then he pulled back.

  ‘I shall miss you, Ali. I have learnt much from you. Not least that across the world, amongst Muhammadans, Buddhists, Hindus, whatever, as well as Christians, there are people like us who have moved on to a more mature, wiser, more solemn religion based on being not becoming, living not dying, joy not pain. It is wonderful that this community exists, each…' he searched for the word '… atom in it separated from the rest, there are so few of us, but reaching out and touching, so one day we may envelop the world, which will become a better place as a result. Damn it, I'm sermonising.' And he embraced me again. 'Ali, thank you.'

  He pulled the bell-rope that hung against the wall beside the outer double door. We heard the jangle distantly behind the walls.

  'Be off with you now.'

  I walked back to my friends, who had already crossed the rebuilt bridge. I turned once. Peter was still at the door, a familiar, short, dumpy figure. He waved, then reached up and gave the rope a second yank, more impatient than the first. The bend in the road and river took us out of sight.

  Ali wiped a tear from his eye.

  'The Bishop's men were waiting for him. They burnt him a month later, a week or so before we left.'

  For a moment his garden seemed to hold its breath. Then the cat stirred, a bird flew across an angle from one eave to the other. The fountain began to tinkle again. Ali sighed, drew in a second breath and went on.

  The first thing we did, once we got to London, was scout along the south bank to the east looking for a vessel that might take us to the north coast of Africa or, anyway, into the Mediterranean. Since we were now down to three people with little baggage this proved to be no great problem – we found a caravel taking on cloth and ingots of copper, preparing to sail in a day or two.

  Very little problem? Baggage? That put the Prince instantly in mind of what he had forgotten for nine months – his damned crossbows. Anish and he had the first serious falling-out I had seen between them as they argued about whether or not the infernal engines had been left at Alderman Dawtrey's house or had gone with them to the Tower. It scarcely mattered: they were in neither place now. We spent a week looking for them, eventually tracing them to Clerkenwell Fields, outside the walls, where the army was camped, and there we found a group of soldiers being taught their management by a Genoese mercenary. There was no question of them being released: they had already proved their worth when the cannon failed at St Alban's.

  What soon became clear was that Prince Harihara had no intention of leaving without them. We went to Baynard's Castle for an audience with Eddie, the King, already a changed man, not exactly haughty but busy, and the best we could get out of him was that Prince Harihara could have them all back just as soon as the Queen had been beaten, once and for all, scotched like a snake, stamped on like the poisonous spider she was. The army was to begin its move north in a day or two.

  "That's all very well,' said the Prince, once we were well clear of Baynard's Castle and walking back down Thames Street, 'but supposing she wins? We're going north with them and that's final.'

  Well, we did what we could to persuade him to write them off, but he'd have none of it. They were the nucleus of a unique collection, he said. Anish and I threatened to stay behind while he went after them, but when he said that he'd give what was left of our store of jewels, even the kurundams, to get them back, we thought it wisest to fall in with his wishes.

  Which is why and how we got to be on the field of the most terrible battle I have ever seen. But. first, Uma must bring us up to date with what had been happening to her.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  I was, you remember, at the cross in Market Square, Hereford, mourning my lost love, my poor dead love. Eddie recognises me, of course, as readily as I recognised him.

  'Let the dead bury the dead," he says, and holds out a gauntleted hand towards me.

  Ilook down at Owen's head. It's grey now, like lead, drained. The eyes are slits of white between almost closed lids. The hair seems thinner than I remember it when he lay on my breasts and I ran my fingers through it. The cold and the stillness of death have twisted his lips into an obscene rictus. This is not Owen Tudor. This is a thing. Let them do with it whatever they want – it's not mine any longer. I blow out the last candle-flames, stand and suddenly feel the cold. I have a shawl which i pull round my shoulders – it's useless and I begin to shiver like an aspen leaf in a breeze.

  I follow him a step or two, then turn and go the opposite way. One of the three women who helped me with the candles falls in with me and takes me to her house. Her name is Gwynnedd. She is the widow of a knight who died in an earlier battle. For safety and comfort she has chosen to dwell in town rather than out in the Marches where his small manor house had been in effect a fort.

  She makes me eat some old bread wanned in hot milk and puts me in her bed. When she sees I will not sleep she comes and sits beside me.

  'Why did you help me.' I ask, 'with the candles? And the other ladies too?'

  Gwynnedd pauses, reaches out to a chest covered with an embroidered cloth, picks up a needlework ring and begins to sew as she speaks.

  'Owen ap Maredudd ap Tewdyr was the Wizard. The King. The King of all Britain and the high priest of the old religion. He carried the most royal blood of any in these islands. He was descended in the direct line from the King of the first of our race, he who came with the bronze celt, the war-axe of our tribe, copper and gold. His name was Brutus and he was the grandson of Aeneas, the son of Priam of Troy, who founded the Roman race. Empires are in our blood.'

  'Are you yourself of that blood, then?'

  'Yes. A cousin.'

  I look more closely at this woman, whom I had taken to be nothing out of the ordinary. Gwynnedd is of middling height, and at her age – in her late forties, I suppose – would not instantly attract attention, her face being lined with pain and grief lines, her breasts slack, her hips broad. But there is fire, passion there, and dignity too, the compact strength women have when there is not much left to do but hold on and help those who still must struggle with the tricks life, and men, play on us.

  'And why are you so ready to help me? What you have done might well bring danger to you.'

  'You are the Marry Gyp. We knew of you before you came. We have heard of your journeys round Coventry and your trials, even of your miracles, the stories of which are already much exaggerated.'

  Here she gives a shy little smile, the conspiratorial smile small girls share when they know more than they are meant to know.

  'Still, you are the Marry Gyp, and you have been Owen's lover. That is enough. But we hope, too, you might have been impregnated by him. If that is so then perhaps your child might take the place of that dull grandson of his and become the leader of the British nation, the peoples who live west of the Severn and the Dee.'

  But here, as I explain to her, I have to disappoint her. Until now I have done those things women do to ensure conception cannot take place. The blood on my petticoats is not Owen's from where I had wiped my hands of it, as
might be supposed, but menses just beginning to flow.

  'Well, never mind. We already know, from casting runes, that you will make it possible that Owen's blood will flow in a line of monarchs. That much is certain. If you choose the destiny the goddess has prepared for you.'

  I think this all through for a bit. Then with determination swing my legs off the bed.

  'I'd better get back to Eddie, then, if I'm to have a say in how things turn out. You must help me.'

  When I turned away, showing that I would not follow him, he walked on. I knew therefore that I must not pursue him. He must find me. For that to happen I must put myself in his way, but by such means as will make him think it is he who is the hunter.

  This is not difficult to arrange. It is known Eddie will go as quick as may be to London, or rather St Alban's, to support Warwick, and that his first stop on the way will be Gloucester where more newly recruited troops wait to join him. There are two roads between Hereford and Gloucester, one by Ross-on-Wye and one by Ledbury. His army will split, and all we have to do is be sure we know which of the two he will take. Gwynnedd soon discovers he is going by Ross-on-Wye. She lends me a pony and her man to show me the way – I would say to look after me too, but he is fifty years old and can scarcely walk, though he can ride. Any man younger and fitter has already been pressed into the army.

  We reach the forested hill that overlooks the river Wye above Ross, and I hide in a thicket where the old man ties me to a silver birch tree that grows amongst the brambles. Eddie, as befits a king, is riding at almost the front of his troops and we hear them clattering, thumping, trudging up the other side, the squeal of the cannon wheels and the carts not far behind. The old man lets the squadron of twenty knights in front of the King go past, then bursts out of the wood. Almost one of Eddie's minders chops his head off there and then, but stays his hand long enough.

  'My mistress,' he screams, 'she is in the thicket. Even now three ruffians are raping her. Help, help!" and so forth.

  Well, Eddie may be a king, but he's still a teenager. Spurs to Genet's flanks, a leap over the ditch, his sword out, he almost gallops past me, but a low bough nudges the gold circle he now wears round his unvisored helmet, and he reins in for a moment.

  'Help, help!' I call, and he hacks through the undergrowth and finds me. He looks down at me.

  'So, Mistress Uma. you are not so proud now.'

  'My lord, I never was,' I reply, letting him see my bosom, which I have left exposed as if my gown has been ripped from it, one breast bleeding a little from the bramble I have dragged across it. 'I was grieving.'

  'Do you still grieve?'

  'For Owen Tudor, no.'

  'For whom, then?'

  'For the death of chivalry that has left me thus bound in front of a youth who should know better.'

  Well, he laughs at that. He knows it's trickery, but he remembers the ship from Calais to Dover and thence to London; he remembers the nights in Alderman Dawtrey's loft, and as his bodyguard rides up he leaps down and unties me, remarking that, with a little ingenuity, which he knows I have, I should have been able to free myself.

  'Not, my lord, with those two ruffians molesting me.'

  'Your servant said three," and he laughs again.

  That night, at Gloucester, we return again to what Lord Clifford and Lord Scales interrupted so annoyingly a year and a month ago.

  I delight him. Oh, yes, I delight him. Were I a man and the memory of my dead lover so fresh in my mind I doubt I could so deceive him, but for a woman, as any whore will tell you, it is not a problem, and before long he is mine again.

  My curiosity overcame me.

  'Lady Uma,' I asked, 'just what means did you use to so ensnare a prince?'

  She looked me coolly in the eye. 'Mah-Lo, those Ingerlonders know nothing of the many and varied delights that a woman can bring to a man in bed. All I had to do was suck his cock and stick my finger up his bum. And the one thing I was sure of, and it was part of my plan, was that once I was out of his life he would not wive until he had found a woman who would do as much.' 'And did he?'

  'Of course. I do not need to be told these things, I know them. He married me in secret when I threatened to withhold these and other subtler delights. Once he's convinced himself I'm not coming back he'll do it again. I suspect she will be, or may already be, a certain Elizabeth Woodville, a widow of wonderful beauty by their standards having hair like Welsh while gold. Since she is a commoner, and her family were slighted by both Eddie and Warwick when we were all in Calais, and she was widowed at St Alban's where her husband was killed fighting for the Queen, she will be trouble. Bad trouble.'

  She said all this with a gleeful certainty.

  'How can you be so sure?' Ali asked.

  'Never mind.'

  'And meanwhile you married him?' 'Why do you sound so incredulous?'

  Once we reach London he installs me in Baynard's Castle, the large fortified house in the corner between the river and the west walls of the city, which his family have used for three decades and where he now lives like a prince, receiving embassies as if he is already crowned, remitting taxes and borrowing money instead from the burgesses, withdrawing privileges from their foreign rivals, and so on. He summons Parliament and they proclaim him King Richard the Second's rightful heir, declaring the three Henrys descended from John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, all to be usurpers.

  They want to crown him there and then, but this he refuses, though he goes to Westminster Abbey and sits on the throne while the regalia of kingship are carried before him. He will not take on the full panoply of monarchy until, he says, the death and desecration of his father are avenged.

  I am known only to his intimates and soon I tire of being thus kept secret. I withdraw my favours, refuse to delight him with my tricks. He asks what I want. I tell him I desire to be acknowledged, I want to be his queen. He says he durst not do this until his enemies are vanquished for to do so would cost him the support of some of the most powerful magnates, the Earl of Warwick himself, perhaps. This, I say, I can understand, but for my own satisfaction, and safety too perhaps, he must marry me in secret.

  But where? And who will perform the ceremony?

  The answer is obvious. I have by then a couple of maids and I send one to Brother Abraham in the churches of St Benet Sherehog and St Pancras, and after a little to-ing and fro-ing it is all arranged. Brother Abraham unites us according to Christian and more ancient rites, on the holiest, most sacred spot in that city. We return to Baynard's Castle and there I remove the tampon of natural sponge, soaked in oil and vinegar…

  "The children, twins, who are even now playing with their ayla in the hack rooms while we converse here?'

  'Yes, Mah-Lo. They were born in Egypt on our way home, as Ali will tell you.'

  'So when King Edward dies, one of them should be King of Ingerlond.'

  'It is not a destiny I would wish on anyone. Hut perhaps when those distant savages at the end of the world have civilised themselves, it will be an option their descendants might care to look at. Now, let me hurry on to the close of their story, for soon I must take them home.'

  I go north with Eddie and the army. It is clear that before long there will be a battle. He fears for my safety, and it is almost the only sign he gives of having any doubt of the outcome. He leaves me in Pontefract Castle where I make an ally of a child of eight or nine, and I think I should tell you about him. For he with Elizabeth Woodville, is a likely tool. Because of these two I am sure it will be the Tudors who will reign before long in Ingerlond.

  Eddie has two younger brothers. He fears leaving them too far behind him: so many have changed sides during these wars, it must have crossed his mind that anyone back in London, hearing perhaps the Queen had gained a victory or even a lying rumour to that effect, might seek favour with her by having them murdered. They are left with me at Pontefract. One is twelve years old, a light-headed, chancy lad, easily swayed, called George. Forget him. It is the othe
r whom I make my slave, who will revenge me for the death of Owen.

  He is a twisted, warped boy, in mind as well as in body. He has one leg longer than the other, and something of a hunch on his back. I surmise that a lot of the time, maybe all the time, he is in pain. Such afflictions fester in a lad's soul. But he is also physically strong for his age.

  On the day before the battle I meet them, during a brief warm sunny spell, in the castle garden.

  George goes off on his own, tossing a ball and catching it in a cup which seems to please him. The younger sits on a bench and I sit beside him. Presently I notice a bag hanging from his belt. It squirms and flicks, as if something is alive and kicking inside it.

  'What have you got there?' I ask.

  'A baby rabbit,' he replies. 'My dog caught it this morning. They are so stupid when they are young – it thought my dog wanted to play with it and it would not run away.'

  Petrified. I think, but do not say so. 'What are you going to do with it?'

  'Pull its legs off". Maybe first its ears.'

  'You won't kill it first.'

  'No. Why should I?'

  I shrug. He senses a dare in the air.

  I let out the rabbit and do exactly what he has boasted he will do. He takes an ear in each of his fists, and yanks them in opposite directions, each held in his small fist. The rabbit screams. What the boy is doing requires a great deal of effort. At last one ear comes away in his hand. He fears the coney will escape. So now he takes its hind legs and yanks them apart. I suspect he shows some interest in the beast's genitalia. Soon he has it in several pieces, some of which, the larger ones, still flap as if there were life in them.

  'This is no worse than the things the public executioner does to traitors,' he says.

  'You look askance, Mah-Lo. Haw I upset you? Remember, I am Kali as well as Parvati.'

  Anil suddenly this normally beautiful woman used the finger and thumb of each hand to pull down the corners of her eyes and stretch her mouth into