‘Edward!’ she called in a low voice. It came out croakily, barely audible. Edward, sire, your grace … your majesty? How did one address a king who had been dead for five hundred years?
Her fists clenched, she began slowly to climb the stairs, one step at a time, her eyes and ears straining into the emptiness.
‘Are you there? Georgie? Sammy?’
She reached the top and looked round. The landing was deserted; the door into her and Luke’s bedroom ajar. She moved towards it carefully, consciously avoiding the creaky board near the coffer chest with its pewter candlestick.
‘Is there anyone there? Georgie? Sammy?’ She could deal with them, her own brothers; little boys.
Her hand outstretched she pushed open the bedroom door and looked in. The curtains were half drawn and the room was almost dark. Outside, the rain streamed down the window panes, slamming every now and again against the glass with extra force.
She loved this room; it was beautiful, gracious, redolent with history, and yet cosy. She could see Tom’s discarded teddy in the corner; an old jumper of Luke’s still inside out on the floor where he had dropped it. She smiled affectionately.
Moving towards the bed, she rested a hand on one of the bedposts. The black oak turned and carved, was warm beneath her fingers and she stroked it gently. ‘Was it here? Did you lie together here?’ She spoke out loud without looking round. ‘She’s gone, my lord. No one else can take her place, not here. You and she belong together in another world.’
Her hand dropped from the bedpost and slowly she moved up the side of the bed, trailing her fingers on the crewel work cover. ‘I’m going to bury the effigies Margaret made of you both in the rose garden down beyond the lake.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘I’ll find a white rose, a rose of York to put there so you can rest in peace.’
She jumped at a sudden clatter in the corner of the room near the back window. The draught had stirred the curtain which had knocked a small wooden car onto the floor. Walking over to it, she stooped and picked it up. ‘Georgie? Sammy? Is this yours?’
There was no answer.
Slowly she turned round. The palms of her hands were wet; the small hairs on the back of her neck were tingling. Something in the room had changed.
He was standing near the front window.
Joss held her breath. Her stomach turned over with fear. He was tall; very tall and as she moved closer she could see the greying hair, the anguished narrow eyes, the strong chin, the broad shoulders, shrouded by a dark cloak and beneath it again the plate armour of a man who feared assassination in this house, the house of his mistress.
He was coming closer. Suddenly she was terrified; she had called him, but now she knew she could not control him. ‘Please,’ she murmured. ‘Please … no.!’ Again she could smell the roses.
He was coming closer still.
‘I’m not Katherine,’ she whispered desperately. ‘Please, listen to me. I’m not Katherine. Katherine has gone. She’s not here any more. Please, please, don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt my children or Luke – please – ’
She took a step backwards and felt the bed immovable behind her.
‘Please. We’ve cut the link. Your love was cursed. It was evil. Margaret made it happen. She tied you together and to this house with her magic, but we’ve released you; you can go. Please –’ she held her hand in front of her face. ‘Please. Go.’
He had stopped moving; for several seconds he seemed to be watching her then slowly he lifted his arm towards her. She shrank back with a whimper, but the bed stopped her as his fingers brushed her cheek. It was like the touch of cold wet leaves.
Katherine
His lips hadn’t moved but she heard the name inside her head. ‘I’m not Katherine,’ she sobbed. She retreated further, bending backwards away from him across the bed. ‘Please, I’m not Katherine!’
Katherine
She had ordered them to send for him.
Lying in the high bed as the contractions tore her apart she asked, then she begged, then she screamed for him.
It was her mother who told them to wait; who forbade them to go.
As her seventeen—year-old daughter’s belly had swollen with the king’s child Margaret had smiled and nodded and watched. The girl’s revulsion and panic were nothing out of the ordinary. After her milk sop husband had been removed – so easy a task, she blew him out like a candle – it was a matter of time only before she would grow used to her kingly lover, a man whose early stunning good looks had turned to corpulence in middle age; the man who, once so attractive he could have had any woman in England, was now enslaved by her – so enslaved that he would grant his little mistress’s mother anything she asked.
As she stood looking down at the bed where two frightened midwives were sponging her daughter’s sweat-stained face she smiled again and firmly shook her head.
Though he was only a few miles away he could not be summoned yet. He mustn’t see Katherine looking like this. She was ugly, she stank, she screamed and tore at the bed clothes shouting obscenities which might have suited a London tavern but which sounded bestial from the lips of a gently born girl of seventeen.
Let the child be born – the daughter, the precious pretty treasure who would captivate and hold her father’s affections, then he could come. Then he could shower Katherine, cleansed and rested and smelling of sweet flower waters and perfumes, with gold and jewels and fine silks, and bring his child ivory rattles and coral beads.
Katherine!