‘His son will remain in custody until his loyalty is proved.’
The Duke of Norfolk, silent until this point, finally spoke up. ‘He is one of the few advantages we may yet field in this battle. His loyalty belongs to the King. This posturing proves nothing.’
‘This “posturing” will be our undoing,’ snapped Northumberland.
‘Be still, Northumberland.’ The King’s voice was soft, but commanding. The man fell silent, glowering. ‘Continue, boy.’
‘Tudor is in session with his commanders. They have set up camp some two and a half miles from here.’
‘The ground is ours.’ Norfolk was confident in this. ‘They will be forced to fight uphill through the mire while we rain arrows upon them.’ His spark of optimism did not catch among the gathering, but guttered and died.
‘Tudor’s magi...’
The very utterance of the forbidden word drew sharp intakes of breath from everyone present, and the messenger foundered slightly, aware that he might well have transgressed. The men turned to look at Richard, who did not move, bar to crook a finger indicating the youth should continue. He did, cautiously.
‘Tudor’s magi plan to maintain the weather tonight. The storm will not hinder his forces, and he believes that come dawn, the men will have lost the will to fight and will throw down their arms rather than face death.’ He ran his sweating hands down the sides of his stained, muddy tunic. Richard remained leaning back in his chair, most of his face hidden in the shadows. ‘The ground—forgive me, my Lord Norfolk—is not ours at all.’
Norfolk set down the goblet of wine that he had barely touched. He leaned forward on the table for a moment, looking around at the expressions on the faces of those gathered. Then he gave a deep, lusty sigh. ‘They are probably right.’ He leaned back again, folding his arms across his chest. ‘Unless we can do something to disarm Tudor before it happens, this war is over.’ He shook his head and ran his fingers through his beard. ‘The battle is lost.’
‘No,’ said Richard aloud, drawing looks from the commanders. ‘No. I will not let this thing happen. The Battle of Bosworth will go down in history as a victory for the house of Plantagenet, not as a defeat. Tudor must not be allowed to take the throne.’ He closed his hand into a fist and pounded it down on the table again.
‘Those who came before me fought for this throne, and for this crown that I wear. I will not betray their sacrifices and their legacy because of one man!’ As he spoke, his voice rose in pitch until he was screaming. For the young messenger, it would be the last sound he would ever hear.
Richard drew the dagger he wore strapped to his shin and threw it, with easy grace and deadly accuracy. It embedded itself in the boy’s chest and the young man let out a startled cry of pain. Blood drooled from the puncture wound and he pitched forwards onto the straw floor of the pavilion, landing on the hilt and driving it further into his flesh. He thrashed a few times, his limbs twitching in the final throes of death, and then he lay still.
‘Get out.’
Richard’s tone left no room for question or argument. Those who had declared their loyalty unto death left, one by one, stepping around the stiffening corpse of the unfortunate messenger. Not one of them knew the boy’s name. Not one of them cared.
The Duke of Norfolk was the last to leave. He studied his King wordlessly for several moments. Richard raised his head and looked Norfolk right in the eye.
‘If you have something to say, then say it,’ said the King, rising from his seat and moving to get a goblet of wine from the end of the table. ‘Otherwise, begone, before I have your head.’
‘What do you plan to do, sire?’ The duke asked his question.
‘That is my business.’ Richard poured the wine, watching the dark fluid slosh into the steel goblet like blood. He raised it to his lips and took a drink. ‘Go and rest now, while you can. There is a battle to be fought on the morrow.’ Richard stared into the goblet, but Norfolk continued to linger. He had not given his loyalty to Richard without reason, and to see him so concerned tapped a rare wellspring of sympathy. He sought to offer encouragement with a few careful words.
‘Understand, sire, that those of us who fight for you do so with every ounce of strength in our bodies. This horror that you fight so hard to destroy... this gift of magic... by the end of tomorrow’s battle, it will be driven into the mud. Tudor’s head will become the trophy it should be, and this sorry business will be past. Your reign will continue.’
‘Past, perhaps,’ said Richard, without looking at Norfolk. ‘But not forgotten.’ He finally raised his head and there was such determination in his eyes that Norfolk took an involuntary step backwards. ‘Fetch Mother Sewell. I wish to speak with her.’
SHE WAS A toothless old hag, her mumblings barely audible, bent practically double with age and nameless aches that twisted her fingers into painful claws. The young woman who brought her to the command tent did so with care and obvious respect. Richard looked the girl over as she entered with eyes made appreciative by two goblets of wine. For all his alleged cruelty and visible deformities, Richard had never wanted for mistresses. There were some advantages to being the King of England, and a bevy of beauties clamouring to bear his bastards was just one of them.
But tonight, rutting was far from his thoughts.
The old woman sat down on one of the chairs with obvious difficulty, grumbling quietly at the pain in her knees as she did so. The pretty young thing who had brought her fussed over her for a while, ensuring she was comfortable, and then dropped a low curtsey to the King before retreating.
Richard set down his wine and considered Mother Sewell. She had been in his service for six years, during which time her advice had proven invaluable. And she was the closest thing to magic that he tolerated in his court.
He moved back to the table, pausing briefly to kick the corpse of the dead messenger over and retrieve his dagger. He took a seat next to her and leaned forward, briefly resting his head in his hands. Then he sighed heavily.
‘I need to know, Mother Sewell,’ he said, his words slurring a little. ‘I need you to read the omens and weave the threads of the future into something that will give me victory tomorrow.’
She mumbled something incomprehensible in response, but Richard didn’t bother demanding she speak up. He’d given that up a long time ago. Mother Sewell made herself understood only when it suited her. She was quite mad—of that there was little doubt— but her advice and her visions had proved invaluable. Time and again her premonitions had saved the King’s life, or spared him humiliation during diplomatic negotiation.
Mother Sewell leaned forward on the table and held out a gnarled hand. With obvious difficulty, she uncurled her stiff fingers until her palm was as flat as it could be.
‘The price, Richard.’ He did not comment on the familiarity; Mother Sewell said what she wanted to say when she wanted to say it. And she was perfectly understandable when she wanted something. Richard sneered only a little as he drew the blade of the blood-stained dagger across his own palm. A line of deep scarlet welled up in the wake of the blade, and the King clenched his hand into a fist, hissing at the stab of sudden pain. Holding his hand above Mother Sewell’s, he watched as the blood dripped slowly into her open palm. Five. Six. Ten drops of blood.
‘You smell of fear, Richard, son of Richard. Is it death that you fear?’ She brought up the finger of her other hand and smeared the King’s blood in rings on her liver-spotted skin.
‘No. I do not fear death.’ His response elicited a deep cackle and he scowled, snatching his bloodied hand back. He took up the water pitcher and poured the slightly brackish fluid over his hand, washing clean the self-inflicted injury. There would be another scar on his palm come the break of day, but if Mother Sewell guided him well, the price would have been worth it.
‘What do you see?’
‘Patience,’ was her infuriating reply. ‘You must be patient. The skeins of fate twist and converge. Teasing free a
single thread is no simple task.’ There was a faint lilt to her accent; she had been born in the valleys of Wales.
The gnarled, bent forefinger of her left hand continued to trace the King’s blood across her palm, and then she let out a low moan, as if she were in terrible pain. Richard did not start at the noise; he had witnessed her reading his future often enough.
‘The seed of Tudor will sit upon the throne,’ she said.
‘Not whilst I draw breath,’ Richard snarled instantly, his hand instinctively closing around the hilt of his dagger. ‘Is defeat certain, then, witch? Will he take my crown?’
Mother Sewell looked across at Richard, her rheumy eyes not meeting his, but looking somewhere across his left shoulder. ‘His forces will slaughter yours. Their magic will prevent your victory. Before the sun has set tomorrow, the House of Plantagenet will be no more. The Tudors’ light will rise in the east and the day of your family will be done.’
Her words chilled the blood in his marrow and he shook his head. ‘This cannot be,’ he responded. ‘There must be something that can be done.’
Mother Sewell looked at him then. Her cataracts caught the flickering candlelight and she gave a toothless grin. Her crooked finger jabbed into her bloody palm.
‘Indeed there is,’ she said. ‘I see it plainly enough.’
‘Tell me. What must be done? How can I rid myself of this wouldbe usurper?’
‘The answer, Richard, son of Richard, is the one you already know.’
The King’s heart began to pound painfully in his chest and he reached for his wine. He took a long drink and the silence stretched out for an eternity.
‘Speak the name of my mistress, King Richard. Taste the possibilities.’ Mother Sewell’s voice was like a fly buzzing around his head. He yearned to reach across to her, to grab her by the neck and slam her skull into the table. It was a primal urge that filled him simultaneously with bloodlust and a terrible, terrible shame.
‘I... cannot.’ He put the goblet down, attempting to hide the dreadful shaking that had started in his hands.
‘Speak the name, Richard. You know it is your salvation. Speak the name.’ For such a frail creature to hold such command in her tone made Richard sensibly wary.
What she asked of him, thought Richard, was something that could not be undone. Once the word was spoken, it could not be unsaid or taken back. Once that dreadful name was uttered, then he was going to a place from which there could be no return. For good or ill, he would be sacrificing everything in the name of victory.
Three syllables. That was all it would take to condemn him.
He drew a deep, shuddering breath as though it would be his last. The word, when it left his lips, came tinged with anticipation, fear and more than a little regret. All the years of keeping the knowledge secret, of guarding it more closely than even the crown that Henry the Second had taken so many years before, crumbled into dust.
‘Melusine.’
The word left his lips as a whisper, but it seemed to him that he might just as well have shouted it from the top of Ambion Hill.
‘Again, Richard.’ The old woman’s coaxing permeated the shroud of horror that he felt drawing in around him. He closed his eyes and drew a deep, deep breath. The word came again, stronger this time but with just as much hesitance as the first.
‘Melusine.’
Richard had not thought it possible to grow colder than he was right now. On this August night, when the night outside the pavilion should have been balmy and pleasant, the unnatural rain conjured by his foes drummed down. It crept beneath the edges of the canvas, turning earth and straw into a sucking slurry. It was the kind of rain that seeped into everything, that drove your spirit from you. Since they had set up camp, none of them had been truly warm.
But now, Richard’s veins were like ice.
‘Speak the name again, call to her.’ Mother Sewell’s voice was completely clear now. Gone was the broken rasp. Gone was the stuttering madness. The King watched the old woman with growing horror as the cataracts melted from her sea-green eyes. The wrinkles smoothed from her ancient skin, the liver-spotted complexion replaced by something both less and more hideous.
‘Melusine.’
Coarse, steel-grey hair lengthened and coloured before his eyes as the old woman’s body straightened from its arthritic stoop. The hair was a blaze of copper, tresses that curled around a face of ethereal beauty. The full lips curved into a sensuous smile as the demon Melusine spoke through a human form once more. The air around Mother Sewell squirmed with energy and Richard found it difficult to breathe. His skin itched as though he were crawling with insects and he saw the sodden earth of the pavilion come alive with writhing worms and bugs as they blindly strove to flee.
‘What have I done?’ Richard let out a terrible moan of despair and his head dropped forward into his hands. Dark blood began to drip from his nose; the gore spilled from the dead messenger began to blacken and crackle as something pushed its way into the world of men.
‘What you have done, Richard Plantagenet, is claim your rightful victory.’ Melusine—he could no longer see this beautiful, awful creature as the old woman—rose from the seat with feline grace and moved towards him. ‘You need the means to defeat Tudor. I can grant you that.’ Her fingers tickled across the back of his neck and he shuddered in response. Her touch invoked too many emotions. Too many things that confused him. Soft, warm flesh; sweet breath; hot iron; the rough hide of a reptile. He pulled away and she laughed, honey-sweet and alluring. She remained behind him, where he could not see her, and that unnerved him even more.
‘I cannot let him win. He cannot take the throne.’ Steely resolve crept back into Richard’s spine and he sat up straighter. ‘He has magic on his side, and we cannot hope to match that on the open battlefield. If the bastard only fought with men and steel, we could take him and his army and bury them in the mud before noon.’
‘It is a shame your family chose to turn their backs on the gift of the magi,’ she said, trailing her fingers across his neck once again. ‘You could have been more than this. You could have taken the known world by now.’ She clicked her tongue against her teeth in a loud tutting noise. ‘But you will do. I can see the thirst for victory burns bright in your breast.’ She placed a hand on his breastbone. ‘I feel the beating of your heart as it strives for victory.’
‘Then give me what I want. Give me what I need to make England mine again.’
‘What is your request, my little king?’ She was mocking him, and Richard had never taken well to such things. His hands curled into tight fists. ‘What is your request?’ She leaned forward until her lips brushed his ear. ‘And more importantly, what will you give me in return?’
The ice in his veins burst into flame, and a near-insatiable lust drove through his twisted body. His initial revulsion at the demon’s presence melted away under the searing need for victory and the desperate desire to serve her. And only her.
He knew in that instant the answers to both of her questions. Turning in his seat, he stared into the raging depths of her oceanic eyes, tumultuous and perilous. He stared into them and was lost in their depths. He gave her the answer.
‘I will give you anything.’
‘Of course you will,’ she said. ‘You are hungry for power, Richard. You dare where Henry Tudor would not.’
‘You... petition my enemy?’
‘His ambition was a small thing, just power for his magi. But such power is easily taken, it will be his downfall. You have the sense to see what our union can bring.’
Yes, screamed that inner voice. Death. Destruction. Carnage on an unprecedented scale. Richard quelled the voice. He had passed the point of caring a long time ago now. The only way he could go was forward. His eyes met hers.
‘Name your price.’
‘I will give you the knowledge to conquer all before you, and your family line will become... gifted,’ she replied. ‘With the blessings of my blood. Your line will grow
beyond the understanding of men, your might unchallenged. Down the generations, each first-born son will be greater, stronger, and mightier. And in time will come a pure vessel. He will be unmatched in all ways, a perfect soul to usher in a new age, a conqueror of nations and master of all. Many generations from now, one of your line will be the greatest, strongest king this country will ever know.’
After she had spoken, she leaned into him and her lips met his. His brief second or two of anguished ecstasy gave way to pain as she bit through the tender skin of his bottom lip, drawing blood.
‘You offered this to Tudor?’ Richard reached a dazed hand to his lips and stared at the blood that came away.
‘He refused. He wants nothing for himself. His sense of honour will be the one thing that damns him. Do we have an understanding, Richard Plantagenet?’
He had no choice. Deep, very deep in his soul, the last light of Richard the Lionheart’s ancestral fire sputtered and faded forever. He nodded, once.
‘Done,’ she said in her dulcet tones. ‘Shall we seal the deal, my king?’ She leaned in and kissed him again, revelling in the taste of his blood.
Richard had no power to resist her. And the entire time she was taking her fill of his lips, the whole time she lapped up the blood she’d drawn from his flesh, he could not lose the image of the bent old hag that she actually was. The thought turned his stomach, but the deal was sealed. The battle, come tomorrow, would be won. Without his magic, Henry Tudor would become a stain on the history books. He’d be remembered only for his defeat.
Finally sated, the demoness stood back. ‘Bring the corpse,’ she said. ‘It contains blood enough still for the ritual.’ She did not wait for a reply, simply strode out of the tent into the deluge. Richard, weakened and dizzy from drink, blood-loss and her sudden absence, leaned down and scooped the corpse of the messenger boy into his arms and, ducking through the canvas, stepped out after her.
DAWN.
There was little birdsong in the damp morning air. The rains had stopped two hours past midnight, bringing some relief to the beleaguered army, but the ground remained sodden. The grey reaches of the night would soon give way to pale morning sunlight.
Heirs of the Demon King: Uprising Page 2
