Chapter 6
I
Bosworth, 1485
The green fields of Bosworth had transformed into a bloodbath.
Everywhere one looked, men in armor were murdering each other. Soldiers with blood and mud caked on their faces were cutting, stabbing, and slicing their way through the chaos. A knight tumbled from his horse with a lance embedded in his breastplate. Horses who had lost their masters galloped around in wild frantic fear, trampling many under their hooves. The clatter of blades striking on blades, and the howls and cries, pleas and prayers of injured and dying soldiers filled the air and reached all the way to heaven.
Amidst this all, a young Tudor soldier was ambushed by one of the Yorkies, and found himself crawling over the muddy grounds with his belly sliced open, backing away from an enemy that held hem at sword's end. Before he could start begging for his life, a shadow appeared, right behind his assaulter. A fluid swing of the sword, and the head of his enemy was severed from the shoulders. The headless torso dropped on its knees and slumped over, revealing the knight standing behind. His face was hidden behind the visor of his helmet. He did not wear the colors of the York king, but neither did he support the sigils of the Tudor army.
"Oh thank you! Thank you for saving my li-" The Tudor soldier abruptly stopped with his expressions of gratitude when the knight stuck his sword through his throat. As the dying young man gazed up at him with a white-rimmed puzzled look, the knight put his boot on his chest and pushed him away to retreat the bloody blade. Before the body of the Tudor soldier hit the ground, the knight was already spinning around, ready to take another swing at whoever was so unlucky to get near him.
"Raguel!" Someone shouted from behind.
Hesitantly, the knight lowered his sword. Grim focus dissipated from his stance when he recognized the man who had called out to him. "Lucifer? Lucifer, is that you?"
"It's been a long time my brother." Lucifer said, with a warm grin.
The knight took off his helmet, revealing a stern, determined face with short cropped auburn hair, angular features and a well-kept goatee beard. As he embraced his fallen brother, his eyes set on the strange looking man standing beside Lucifer. "Zambriem? Well I'll be damned! You're here as well?" He went over and embraced him tightly. "I can't believe my eyes. Did the old man set you both free?"
"No, not exactly." Lucifer replied, nimbly dodging an axe that was wielded in his direction. "We are on free footing without our father's permission."
"Ah." Raguel muttered, giving it a second of thought. "So you are fugitives."
"Indeed."
"I take that the others are looking for you."
"Undoubtedly." Lucifer replied with a roguish grin. "You are not going to tell on us, are you?"
"Me?" Raguel scoffed. "Right, do I look like I am still one of them?" He pointed with his thumb at his back. "They took my wings away a long time ago. Whatever bothers the hosts, it's no longer my concern. Duck!" Raguel thrust his sword forward. The blade flew mere inches away from Lucifer's head as he bend down just in time to remove himself from the direct line of attack. When he rose up again, Raguel was already busying himself with prying his blade out of a York soldier's ruined eyesocket.
"So you are not going to betray us?" Zambriem gazed worriedly at the blood dripping from his brother's blade.
"Of course not." Raguel patted him on his shoulder. "You are both safe with me." He promised solemnly.
"Speaking of safety, what is going on here? It's like a slaughterhouse. Which war are these humans fighting in at the moment?" Lucifer enquired.
"It's the war between the Yorkies and the Lancastrians. It's a big one. They will call it the war of the roses later on."
Lucifer shrugged and returned to him a most vacant stare.
"You have never heard of it?"
"I beg you pardon, but I have been out of touch with the world's events for a long time. I didn't have the opportunity to catch up yet. Anyway, It's probably like any other war these humans wage, all bloody and boring and to its core, rather pointless."
"Well, this one has been going on for ages, although this is going to be the final battle. That York king Richard, he really is a nasty piece of work." Raguel grinned. He had a very generous smile made him look gleeful and manic at the same time. "Excuse me for a moment." He swung around and decapitated another Tudor soldier who was about to charge at him with a lance. "The nobles on the York side won't want to continue after the dust settles." He added, after he had decapitated the poor sod and kicked the head away. "They were only fighting for him because he had them on a tight bloody leash."
"Is that so." Lucifer replied, suppressing a sigh, as he found that these finer details of local politics bored him. "Could we perhaps go somewhere else to talk? I find it rather difficult to carry on a civilized conversation when all around us these humans are hacking each other to bits."
"Oh." Raguel furrowed his brows in surprise, unable to comprehend how this violent place could not be everyone's cup of tea. "Alright. Guess I can always come back to make it to Henry Tudor's victory speech." He cleaned the blood form his sword with a handful of grass and sheathed it. "This way then my friends."
With one dismissive wave of his hand, he forced his will on the fighting men. The clashing troops parted like the red sea, allowing the three fallen angels to make their way through the brutal battle without so much of gaining a scratch on their skin.
"I know a nice place in London, a tavern that is build in 1612." Raguel proposed to the others. "We will go there around 1625. That's the best time to visit. That's when place is still buzzing with a merry mood and the bastard landlord doesn't yet water down his ale too much. We can sit down, have a few pints, and talk in private."
Stepping carelessly over and on the many corpses and would be corpses, and fully ignoring the horrors of axe wounds, cascading guts, and blinded and crippled men, they soon came to the edge of the battlefield. With a flick of his wrist, Raguel opened up the portal in time that looked like mirror of blue and white light, twirling violently in vortex form. All angels had this gift, and they used it frequently to cross through time and space.
Lucifer was the first to step through. He was greeted on the other side by the racket of a cheerful bar crowd, while his sensitive nose was immediately assaulted by a thick stench of wet ale-soaked straw, sweat, and day old puke.
"Let's take that table over there." Raguel said after he had crossed over with Zambriem. He was pointing out a cozy dark corner at the back end of the tavern. The three of them sat down at a wobbly wooden table on equally wobbly benches. If with a merry atmosphere, Raguel meant that there was a noisy, rowdy crowd eager to drink themselves to ruin, he had the place well-described. Lucifer could barely hear himself think.
"Hey sweetheart!" Raguel raised up his hand to get the attention of the barmaid. "Get us three strong ales, and one of your best edible cheeses." He spat on the floor and slapped her on her backside when she scuttled away to fix his order.
"Why did you do that?" Zambriem asked, visibly disgusted by his behavior.
"I am just blending in with the locals." Raguel explained. "They expect this sort of behavior around here. Wouldn't do it if we were in this place a couple of centuries later." He added, while he wiped his hand clean on his tunic. You never knew what you could get from these tavern wenches.
"What happens a couple of centuries later?" Zambriem asked.
"You both have not been venturing through the time stream much?" Raguel noted.
"I have done some traveling." Lucifer replied. "But it was mainly limited to these last couple decades and to the territories of France and England. Most of it was because I was looking for you and Zambriem."
"I haven't heard from you guys in ages. Not after the rebellion. What happened to you both?" Raguel finally dared to ask.
"I fear we were punished most cruelly by our heavenly father." Lucifer replied in a grave voice. "He had sent poor Zambriem to earth not only to suffer amongst the mortals, but he had also turned him into a tree. He's been spending most of human history in some sort of vegetated state. I doubt he was even aware of the passing of time. I found him in the north of France by following a girl who had become suicidal. I freed him from his nasty predicament only a few weeks ago."
"My poor brother." Raguel muttered, greatly saddened by this revelation. Although he did wonder how much of his old self had returned now that Zambriem walked free. He looked much distracted, gazing away from his companions at the table, and never meeting his brothers' eyes when he was addressed. It was if his physical body was here, but his mind and soul had been left behind in France.
"What about you Lucifer? What happened to you?"
Lucifer leaned forward, his face wearing a most cynical grin. "Our father tried to be tad more lenient with me." He pressed his lips into a thin white line before his continued. "He cast me into the chaoplasm. He imprisoned me in the last remains of the darkness that once existed before his creation of the universe."
"The chaoplasm?" Raguel mumbled, taken aback by the severity of their father's sentence. "But that is horrific. That place is devoid of anything, of life, of light. It is…"
"Without hope. Pure unadulterated desperation." Lucifer finished his sentence for him with a cold lingering stare.
"No wonder you didn't wait for him to let you out. Poor man, how you must have suffered."
"Dwelling for so long in that solitary place, I must admit, I came very close to insanity." Lucifer muttered, fluttering his eyes as he recalled the soul-destroying boredom and the crushing loneliness of that cursed place, of just having no one else to talk and listen to for eons and eons. It was enough to drive even an immortal and almighty being such as himself close to suicide.
"What about you?" Lucifer asked, forcing himself to snap out of these darkest of memories.
"Banishment to earth. I've been stuck in this ridiculous human vessel ever since. I guess I was lucky. Compared to what father had done to you and Zambriem, I really have no right to complain."
"And now you spend your days fighting for this tyrant king?" Lucifer enquired.
"Me? Oh don't be ridiculous! I don't fight for any of these disgusting mortals!" Raguel leaned forward, and whispered in a dangerously low voice. "I fight, because I like killing them."
Lucifer felt content, for he recognized in his brother's eyes the wrath that had been smoldering deep inside his brother's heart. Under this deceptively calm surface, Raguel was still very much the angel of vengeance.
"There is no other time in history when it's easier to cut them down by the hundreds without any real consequences than during a long bloody war." Raguel further explained with some delight.
"You still blame them for what happened to us then?" Lucifer opted most innocently.
"Of course humanity is to blame! They are the bloody cause of all of our misery!'
"Well, if we are reasonable and think about it, it was Lucifer who came up with the plan to rise up against our father. It had nothing to do with the humans." Zambriem mumbled with a sudden presence of mind that was very rare for him.
Lucifer shot a nasty look at Zambriem that was hardly noticed by his absent-minded sibling, but he did not need to worry. Raguel's mind was only following one rigid train of thought, and nothing could sway him from that path.
"Stop blaming our brother." Raguel told Zambriem. "It wasn't his fault that our father chose the side of these biped apes instead of his heavenly children. Think about it. We were his first borns. His most obedient children who followed his wise counsels without a shred of doubt in our hearts." He sucked in an angry breath of air and pounded on his chest. "We were his most loyal children. From all of his creations, we were the most deserving of his greatest gift, this free will that these foul humans squander away so easily with their pettiness and greed. When our noble brother Lucifer finally dared to request the same gift for us, did he reward us with what we most desired and most deserved? Did he treat us with kindness and understanding, when we dared to finally stand up to him to ask for our own autonomy? No! He punished us, labeled us as rebels, and cast us out of the silver city! He treated us like were lower than the lowest of his beasts!"
In his rage, he slammed his fists on the tabletop and almost knocked over the pints of ale that the barmaid had just brought over. "Face it Zambriem!" He raged. "Our father does not love us. He loves these humans. He has forgotten all about us. If Lucifer had not set you free, you will still be rooted to the earth with your branches to heaven, begging for his for mercy and never receiving it till the sun sets in the east and all of time has ended."
"We indeed have a most severe father." Lucifer concluded with a dramatic sigh after he had listened most contently to Raguel's fevered ramblings. He understood now that he did not need to do much to convince Raguel of the legitimacy of his goals. "You are right." Lucifer continued. "We have lost our father's love to these lowly insolent creatures that he had allowed to inherit the earth. But that does not mean that we are without hope." he leaned forward to Raguel, and his voice lowered to a whisper. "It does not mean we cannot regain our father's love."
"And how shall we do that?" Raguel scoffed.
"We are free, aren't we?" Lucifer leaned back and spread out his hands in a grand gesture. "Despite the horrible circumstances, we have endured. We are now even here on earth, far away from the restrictions imposed on us by heaven. In a sense, we have as much autonomy over our actions as these humans around us."
"Yes, yes I realize that, but what to you do with it?" Raguel asked, almost in desperation. It did not elude Lucifer the pure irony of the fact that the price that his brother had fought so hard to obtain, had been in a certain way granted to him by their creator. But now he had it, he did not know what to do with it, and instead of being grateful, he was actually burning with resentment. It was the way Raguel's mind worked. He simply could not justify his own existence without hatred. The desire for retribution was what kept the furnace of his heart alight.
"That's precisely what I asked myself, a few decades ago." Lucifer said with a smile dawning on his lips. "I found my purpose, and so did Zambriem, with a little help. The question is now, my dear brother, would you like to know yours?"
"Do I get to make these humans to suffer?" Raguel asked, without knowing, clenching his hands into tight fists.
"I could not imagine any way in which my ambitions could be fulfilled without catering to your most violent desires." Lucifer replied.
"Then I am all ears." Raguel smirked, downing his ale in one long gulp.
II
My unconsciousness lifted slowly, surfacing from a deep swamp into a dreamlike state that veiled my sense of reality. Long locks of dark hair dangled down. A woman's face hovered above mine. A women's hand, soft and warm, touched my forehead, and cooled it with a damp cloth.
I squinted my eyes at the female form and weakly waved her hand away. Is this Margaret? Am I back in my cell in the king's dungeons?
"Are you awake, dog?" The red queen whispered in my ear, sending my heart into a deep dark pit of despair. "You are just back in time." She grabbed my left arm and harked her long vulture-like talons through my flesh. "You're back in time to meet the devil!"
I cried out in pure terror and pulled away from her, turning my face towards the wall.
"You're ailing." Her voice was light, much younger then that of Margaret. It lacked the undertone of bitter resentment. I gazed at her once more, beads of fevered sweat dripping from my brows, and saw not Margaret, but a woman with a moon-pale face with a set of piercing green eyes, framed by long locks of black hair.
I kept my eyes fixed on her as she lifted my head, brought a cup to my lips and urged me to drink. Struggling, I still managed to take a mouthful, although swallowing was painful and the taste was vile.
"I know you." The bitterness of her brew clung onto my tongue and I sucked on it absentmindedly, while trying hard to stir my memory. I recalled images of a frosty night one Christmas many years ago. A servant girl searching for me in the snow, and finding me between the tangle of roots of the old oak tree. Then the elusive vision was gone and Margaret's face emerged and fused with the face of the young woman.
"No, not you." Shaking my head fervently to this most frightful sight. "You're not Margaret." I told her, squinting shut my eyes several times in the hope that the nightmare vision would disappear, but the demonic double-faced woman stubbornly remained.
"You should rest." She said, speaking with two mouths at once. "Sleep. You need to heal."
III
It took two days for my fever to die down. Another two more to be able recognize the world around me again. When finally I woke in the early morning of the fifth day, the sun was shining through a small window by my bedside, revealing the dust that lingered in the stagnant air of a small wooden cabin. The dark-haired woman was sitting with her back turned to me. She was tending a pot with a sour smelling brew that was slowly bubbling over crackling flames in the fireplace.
I stirred, struggled into an upright position, and ran a trembling hand over my sweaty face.
"You're awake?" She came and laid a hand on my forehead. Her touch was gentle, and cool against my skin. "Fever is completely gone. That's good news." She wiped her hand over the folds of her dress, and pushed a cup into my hands.
"Where am I?" I asked her, closing my fingers around the hot cup. It contained the same black liquid that she had given me during my fever. I recognized the smell, which was rather repellent.
"You're a guest in my house sir. I took you in after I found you in the forest. Do drink this before it gets cold."
Warily, I did as I was told. Now that I was more awake and my senses had somewhat returned, the liquid seemed even fouler than before. I could not refrain from skewing my face after swallowing it.
"Horrible isn't?" She said with a little smile. "Believe me its not going to taste any better if you leave it standing for too long."
She dipped two fingers in my cup and scooped out what appeared to be the remains of cooked beetles, which she threw in the fire behind her. The crushed insect shells made a brief hissing, then a popping sound when it hit the flames. I crinkled up my nose even more.
"Oh come on, its not poison." She said when she saw that I was still staring at the brew without my lips touching it. "I didn't spend so much effort on keeping you alive for the last couple of days, just to kill you now you are finally getting better. This helps to remove the toxins from your blood and will keep down your fever. So drink up."
I brought the cup back to my lips, and cautiously took a tiny tip. It was then that she tilted the bottom, pouring most of the content straight into my
mouth.
"There is a good lad." With a satisfied little smile she took the empty cup from my hand. "All gone now. You are off the hook for the next four hours."
I coughed up whatever part of the foul liquid had accidentally spilled over into my air pipe, and dried my chin with the back of my hand.
"Who are you?" I managed to ask between coughs.
"I am Ophelia, the daughter of Randel of York, the healer."
"Why did you bring me here?"
"Like my father, I am also a healer. You were injured, so I brought you here to heal." She said, seemingly not aware of my suspicion of her motives. "You were very lucky that I was on the road that night. Normally, I find the strangers who are so very unwise to venture out into these parts after dark, in a far worse condition after the wolfs have their way with them."
"Wait." My muddled mind still turned like wheels covered by a sticky viscous goo, but I was starting to put some of pieces together. I had noticed her voice, her black cloak and dress. "The hooded figure in the forest, it was you who saved me from being devoured by the wolves?"
"Yes."
"It was you? You were the archer who shot the black wolf dead? The vicious one with the green eyes?"
"Yes." She replied again in a matter of fact manner.
"And you set the beasts on fire and drove them back into the woods?" I added with astonishment.
"Yes." She raised her brows. "Yes, yes, yes! Why are you so flabbergasted?"
"Because…well, look at you. You're a woman. It can't be you." I blurted out, looking her up and down, taking in her willowy frame. "How could you draw a bow? Or-or fight off a pack of wolves?" I rambled, recalling the sweet perfumed ladies at court, dainty, delicate, and weak-willed, and absolutely rubbish at anything that concerned matters of warcraft, who fainted at the sight of a single drop of blood and handled swords like they were cradling babes with unusually sharp teeth. "Forgive me, but a woman does not have the courage nor the strength - "
My heart fluttered when I saw her pick up the bow that hung above the fireplace.
"You think I cannot shoot an arrow because I am not a man?" Calmly, she arched the bowstring and aimed two arrows at me at the same time.
"No please don't!" Before I could shrink back, she fired the shot. The two arrows pierced right through the wall behind me, each of them mere the length of an eyelash away from my neck.
"Want me to demonstrate again?" She asked rather cheerfully, as if she had not almost killed me, just to make a bloody point. Surrendering to this most frightful woman, I held up my hands and shook my head.
"Good." She said, she pulled out a chair and sat down by my bedside.
"Now it's your turn." She gazed straight into my eyes. I could see the tiny grey specks in her green irises, radiating from their black pupil hearts. "Who are you?" She asked.
Her question came so sudden that I did not know how to answer. My former, now very much deceased masters, had never bothered to ask anything, as long as I made them enough coin, they were happy to keep this nameless beast. In fact, I had been robed from the dignity of a name for so very long, and had no identity other then hog, or dog, or monster, that I could not even believe that another human being would be interested in my name.
Now this stranger who had saved my life was asking who I was and I could not even give her an honest answer in fear that it would put my life in danger.
"I am a soldier." I told her, struggling to invent a cover that seemed not too unbelievable.
"A soldier?" She arched her eyebrows.
"Why, you think I cannot fight because of this?" I held up my left hand, becoming too much self-conscious after noticing that she had been staring at my wretched arm, to not make a fuss about it.
"Oh no." She said, shaking her head. "If you can believe a woman can be an archer, of course I can believe you are a soldier."
I did not reply, but pressed my lips into a thin white line.
"How did you end up here?" She leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand. She had an amused look as if she was settling herself down for an entertaining tale.
"I was…I was trying to get home." This invention of lies did not come to me as naturally as it once did in the past. Lack of practice made for a poor performance. "I've been fighting in the south for a very long time. I was traveling with my two companions by carriage when we made the wrong turn and lost our way." A bitter taste filled my mouth when I recalled my two former masters, particularly when I had to associate the word "companions" with these two villains who had tormented for so long.
"When we entered an abandoned plague town by nightfall we were attacked by wolfs. They chased us till the cart slipped and flipped on its side. I was flung out and went over the cliff-side."
"Which one?"
"Which one what?" I asked with a pang of panic, not happy to be interrupted in my stream of thoughts. "I am not familiar with the name of the town."
"Which battle did you fight in? On which side?" She clarified.
"The battle at Bosworth." It was an unwise choice of course, but it was the first name that sprung up in my mind. "For the gracious king Henry." I hastened to add.
"Bosworth? The famous battle that has dethroned our late king Richard?" She looked much surprised. "That's a long way from here. You were traveling up north you say?"
"Uhm, yes, we were traveling to York." The peculiar way in which she reacted to my poorly fabricated lies was worrying me.
"You're from here?"
"That is correct."
"You certainly don't sound like a northerner."
"Well, neither do you." I snapped back, getting irritated.
"You're getting angry with me?" Her lips widened into a playful smile that only upset me even more.
"Is this some kind of interrogation?" I huffed. "Do you want to know if I am capable to repay you for your kindness, for saving my life? Is that what is troubling you?" I blurted out. It seemed only logical. Much to my own sorrow, I had learned that no kindness in this world came without a price. No doubt she was after a handful of coins or any other kind of advantage that she could gain from me.
"No, of course not, I would never ask for anything in return. A good deed is a blessing on its own. It's just – your story doesn't make sense." She stood up and went to a wooden chest that sat in the corner of the room.
"The morning after I found you, I went up the hill side and found the upturned wagon. I also found one of your friends. Or at least what was left of him. The bits the wolves had refused to eat." She took out items that appeared very familiar.
"Forgive me for scavenging. There is so very little what I can get nowadays in the surrounding villages with pestilence roaming these lands. It seemed a waste not to take what can still be used."
She held up a blackened kettle and several smaller pots that my previous masters had once used to cook their supper. "Cooking utensils are always welcome, so are tunics, plaids, good knives and swords." She showed me those too. They were all taken from the travel chests that I remembered were stored in the back of the cart.
"Tell you what, I also found this." She threw a rusty set of cuffs, chains, and a collar on the floor. The shameful trinity of my captivity.
"I went through his pockets as well." She added, and produced two leather poaches stained brown with blood that jingled heavy with coins when they landed on the floor boards. Blood money, earned with my suffering and debasement. "Your companion was quite rich, which seemed a bit unfair since I found you dressed in rags and in such horrible state. I mean, your wounds..." She came closer, her eyes studying the many angry red patches on my skin. "They are very peculiar. They're not cuts or fight wounds, the type of injuries that you would expect from fighting in battles…No…they look more like bitemarks." She gently ran her fingers over my bandages.
"And these." She pointed out the red ring of inflamed tissue around my neck that seemed to never heal. It was a cruel reminder of where the coarse collar used to scrape over my skin day and night. She took and turned over my hands to expose my wrists where similar sores were visible.
"You have a very poor taste in friends if you allow them to treat you like this." She said, almost knowingly.
My heart rate quickened, my throat narrowed till it was becoming hard to breathe. "What are you trying to prove?"
"That you are lying." She turned away and came back with a black iron fireplace poker in her hand. The very sight of it triggered a most disturbing memory. I was back in my first days of my incarceration. I was cowering on the floor, chained with my collar to a metal ring to the wall. Greybeard was waving an iron rod, threatening to give me a trashing if I didn't obey his orders. Just a few feet away stood my cage. Two dogs were chained up inside. Straining their bonds and baring their teeth, they were mad, vicious and angry.
"Get in there hog!" Greybeard lashed out, and brought the heavy rod on my back that was already covered by a patchwork of bleeding bruises. I whimpered and shrunk back, too terrified to move any closer to the vicious hounds.
"I said get in there! Or I shall beat that hideous hump into a sack of broken bones! Get inside!"
She swung down the poker and I immediately recoiled into a frightened, shivering ball, bracing myself for the pain to come. Instead, the heavy end came down on a lump of brown fur that was scuttling over the floor. It gave a brief rodent squeal when it was dispatched.
My response had startled her. "I was just trying to kill that rat." She skewered the flattened carcass and lifted it up to show it to me, but I could not bring myself to look at her, and cradled my head with my arms crossed over my chest.
"Rats bring the plague. I have to be careful to keep them out of the house." She tried to explain. Visibly alarmed by my distress, she threw the remains in the flames.
"I am sorry that I have frightened you." She said timidly. "Let me boil another potion to help you calm down your nerves."
IV
I woke from a dreamless sleep in the middle of the night. Moonlight entered the narrow window and illuminated the small space. The sparse silver light was just enough to reveal that the bed opposite to mine was unoccupied and that the wooden cabin, except for my own occupancy, was empty.
She must have been gone for some time. The embers in the fireplace were dying and I inhaled a lung-full of cooling air.
"Do you believe you can trust her?'
A voice whispering in the dark, and the air in the room suddenly turned much colder.
"Who speaks there?" I draped the blankets over my shoulders, wrapping it around tightly. "Is that you, my young nephew?" I asked, hopeful that it would be him. "I have missed you. I feared you have returned to your eternal sleep."
A white ghostly figure, as tall as a grown man, stood in the corner of the room. I could not yet see his features for he was facing away towards the wall.
"You're not my nephew Richard." I muttered, realizing this, my heart filled with icy dread.
"Indeed, I am not your brother's son. I am your cousin Buckingham."
He turned to look at me with a gaze that was devoid of life itself. Blood stains were still visible around the collar of his yellow tunic. It was the same one, I recalled, that he wore on the day of his execution. Where the axe had struck his neck, a neat thin line continued to weep blood.
"Buckingham." I whispered, recalling him in my many night terrors in which I endlessly relived my last dreadful moments before the battle. A dry lump was stuck inside my throat. "Why do you appear now in my waking hours?"
"Because circumstances do no longer allow me to speak to you in your dreams. Really, why Edward's son has granted you these peaceful nights knowing what evil you have once done is beyond my comprehension." He lamented. "So, I decided to come to you when the veils of sleep are lifted. I do miss our conversations."
"Are you a ghost?"
"Did you not murder me? Order my execution?" He said in an icy voice.
I nodded guiltily, covering my mouth with my trembling fingers.
"Then what-else can I be, but a ghost? My flesh and bones have already turned to dust."
"Do you seek revenge on me?"
"I already am avenged, Richard. You died, do you not remember? You died rather wretchedly." There was finally a smile on his face, though it was faint, and seemingly devoid of real joy.
"But if that is not what you seek, what cause do you have to haunt me now?"
"Oh don't say I am haunting you, I am here to advice you." His words suddenly slipped into a more soothing tune. "I want to be a good counselor to you, my dear cousin. I believed I once was when I was still breathing air. Do you trust her, my lord? This stranger? This wolf-slayer? This most unnatural example of womanhood? Do you trust her with your own life?"
"You mean that scary Amazon woman? Why shouldn't I? She has done me no wrong."
"None so far, but she cunning. She did not believe any of the lies you've spun."
"Even a drunkard with no more brain than a stone could have seen through my shallow lies. It has nothing to do with her."
"Then it appears to me that my lord is much out of practice." He said with mockery in his voice. "Your tongue used to be so full of craft it could sway even the most wary Christians martyr to sit in a pit with ravenous lions. Where has all that cold callous brilliance gone?"
"I was still very much afflicted by fever. Besides, she gave me very little time to think." I said grudgingly, then continued in a less certain voice; "She has been nothing but kind to me. She saved my life and had cared for me while I was life threateningly ill. I don't think she wishes me any harm."
"Yes, she cared for you, so did Margaret. Who first held you prisoner, and then began to torture you."
"She does not hold me prisoner." I insisted.
"Are you certain?" A half-smile crossed his stone-like mask. "My lord should try the door."
Weary and still weakened by my illness, I stepped out of bed on shaking legs. I tried to open the door, but found that it was indeed locked.
"She barred it from the outside." My dead cousin watched with some amusement how I putt my shoulder to the panel and tried with all my strength to dislodge it. "There is no use. You cannot get out."
"There is more." He added, noticing my growing distress. "I saw the woman mounting her horse and riding away earlier this evening, taking the road south. There is a garrison town following that road, only half a night's ride away." Buckingham's ghost crept nearer, his voice now a hoarse whisper in my ear. "I think she is going to sell you out to the king's men."
"But…why? W-why would she do that?" I stuttered.
"She knew that you were kept prisoner. Perhaps she suspects that you are a criminal, wanted by the law. There might a reward on your head."
My stomach filled with stones and the dread turned into blind panic.
"When she comes back in the morning, she may already have pocketed her thirty pieces of Judas silver with the men sent out on their way for your arrest." He added.
"Oh w-what should I do Buckingham?" I clasped my hands over my head in despair. "Please, I beg you, kind cousin, help me!"
"Kill her." He said in one ice-cold breath. "My lord, when she comes back, feign to be asleep. When she herself goes to bed to slumber, wait till she is sleeping soundly, then smother her. Take the coins that she had stolen from you and ride her horse hard to flee north."
"Yes, yes." I nodded, so very grateful to Buckingham that he was still sharp as a blade and willing to part with good counsel, while my own wits were unraveling at such frightening speed. Clever, faithful Buckingham, on which I could always rely, oh how I had wronged him in the past. "I shall do exactly as you say." I assured him. I searched the tiny cabin, rummaged through Ophelia's possessions, and soon found a dagger, which I slipped under a belt that I had made in haste of a cord that I had fastened around my waist.
"Prepare for tomorrow. Pack enough food to last at least for several days. You need more weapons, and warm clothing to survive the nightly winter frost."
I looted Ophelia's larder and stuffed stale bread, dried meats, and cheese into a rucksack. I also retrieved a tunic and a cloak made of sheep wool from her wooden linen chest, and found a pair of good leather boots underneath her bed.
"Don't forget to take the coins with you." Buckingham reminded me after I had put on the all the extra clothing. I fished out the two bags of coins that she had taken from my villainous masters, and stuffed this too inside the rucksack.
A burst of galloping hooves disturbed the night's silence and startled my actions to a halt.
"Is-is that her?" I asked.
Buckingham put his finger on his lips and slowly, turned to the window to check. "Just a lone traveler." He informed me. "Passing by."
"What shall I do now?" My mind had turned into a nervous nest of scorpions. I was unable to stop myself from fidgeting with my fingers, and was compulsively scratching open old scars. What if she returns immediately with the soldiers? What if I fail to notice her return? What if she doesn't return? Oh what if, what if, what if -
"Just wait my lord." Buckingham said. "Wait and have patience."
The fire had by now completely died down and the frosty winter cold was seeping into the cabin. I went to bed fully dressed, holding the rucksack against my belly, careful to keep it out of sight under the double layers of bed coverings. I was determined to stay awake, but as the long hours dragged on, sleep stealthily crept back into to my mind. When the first light came from the east at dawn, I had surrendered myself reluctantly to a dreamless slumber.
V
The next morning brought the loud calls of a most persistent cockerel. I thrashed out of bed, and found out that, much to my relief, her bed was still occupied. Almost soundlessly, I sneaked out of mine. She had turned her face away towards the wall. Locks of her dark hair and the tip of her pale upturned nose were just barely visible underneath a tangled bundle of blankets.
"Place your hand on her mouth and suffocate her." Buckingham whispered.
My hands trembled so much. It made me realize that I lacked the courage to follow my cousin's savage orders.
"You've killed before." He reminded me with a most accusing tone. By your own hands you have taken the lives of far nobler victims. There is even blood of your own blood on your hands. How come you've become so pathetically weak?"
"I can't! I just can't! I can't do it. Not like this!" I rambled.
"Then take the dagger, pierce her heart like you did with king Henry's heart. Let the bloody instrument guide your actions."
I took the dagger from my belt, and in my nervousness, I cut myself with the sharp end of the blade.
"Oh be silent coward conscience." I shut my eyes, and forced myself to regain my calm. The scorpions inside my head were now a crawling chaos of viciousness, stabbing each other with their venomous stings. If she stands in the way of my freedom and survival, I shall kill her. I shall kill her like I have killed all the others. I know no pity. I know no love. I know no fear. Let my heart turn to stone.
"Do it! Do it now, before she wakes!"
I raised the dagger with both hands and brought it down forcefully, stabbing into her warm living body right through the thin bed sheets.
My victim was feeble king Henry on the blood-drenched floor of his prison, blood erupting out of every orifice as my blade repeatedly punctured his guts, his lips finally silenced from all the vile curses he had spoken out against me.
It was lord Clifford, that loyal Lancastrian fighting dog who butchered my father and my younger brother Edmund, lying on the battlefield when I ran my blade across his neck, and exact my most satisfactory revenge.
It was gullible lord Hastings that unwise old fool, and stubborn supporter of my young nephew Edward's claim to the throne, dragged away from the council meeting to the executioner's block where I order the axe to fall upon his head.
I repeated this violent act incessantly right up until I ran out of breath. She did not cry out, nor did she struggle…and how strange it was that no blood came to bloom on the cover surface.
Alarmed, I upturned the sheets and discovered that her bed was unoccupied. The only victims of my malicious knife crime were a bundle of clothes and a ruined feather cushion.
Where had she gone?
I was sure that she had been here just a seconds ago. I had seen her with my very own eyes. Starting to doubt my sanity, I flung the bedding on the ground and even looked under her bed in cause she might have vanished underneath. I almost dropped the dagger in fright when the door of the cabin swung against the wall with a loud bang that resonated through my bones. The wind had blown it wide open. It brought in the sounds of human activity, coming from outside in the courtyard.
Like someone who had just discovered that he was wandering inside a dream, I ventured out. The sun was shining against a clear blue sky. Thaw dripped down from the rooftop and the barren branches. Somewhere, well hidden in the tree tops, a lone bird was singing. I inhaled a deep breath of cool winter air and stepped clumsily through the slush of softened snow.
I found Ophelia behind the dilapidated wooden shed. She was busy splitting firewood with an axe.
"You're up?" She said when she saw me standing there. "You look better today." She glanced at my outfit shortly before bringing down the blade again on a stubborn block of wood. "Did you retrieve those from the linen chest?"
Not knowing how to react to her, I sheepishly nodded my head.
"Glad they fit." Her green eyes fixed on the blade and the blood dripping from the cut on my hand.
"You are bleeding."
I turned my hand upwards and stared at the angry slash that went right through the lines of my palm. It had left bloody smear on the dagger's handle.
Oh how cruel was this sudden transition from single-minded violence to shameful and pitiful doubt. In my mind's eye, I saw the saintly king Henry, who pardoned me for my vile crime with the last breath parting from his lips. I saw Clifford, begging me for a merciful death, but his mournful pleas being ignored by my vindictive little heart. I saw kind and dutiful Hastings, who did what he believed was right, and by trusting me, paid for his kindness with the heavy price of own head.
To my horror, a flood of crimson started to gush out of the thin red line. It poured in a warm viscous wave over my trembling hands, washing both bright red, and dripped in continues streams from my fingertips onto mushy snow. I swallowed a cry and staggered back in distress. There was so much blood, so much of it sticking to my flesh like a second layer of skin, that I was sure that my hands would never be clean again.
"Give me that." Ophelia said, noticing the bewildered look on my face. "Give me the knife." She repeated softly, but urgently.
She was not angry, nor did she appear fearful or arduous or begrudging toward me. Her appearance was one of complete calm and kindness. It calmed me down, and when I looked again at my hands, the horrific flood was gone. Only the red angry line of my self-inflicted cut remained. I passed the dagger over to her, and bowed my head low while questioning my sanity and reasoning. She had been kind to me. She was not my tormentor, nor my enemy. Why did I listen to Buckingham? Why did I wish to do her harm?
Why had I never been able to see right from wrong?
She took me inside and wrapped my cut in bandages, which she soaked in a swig of strong spirit. To clean the wound, she said. I was sure that she had noticed the many holes that I had made in her blanket, bed linens and mattress, but she refrained from making any comments about it.
Instead she said. "What is your name?"
"M-my name?"
She wanted to know my name. Even after all the horrible things I had intended to do to her, she still wanted to know my name.
"You told me what you are, but not who you are. So what is your name?" She asked most patiently.
I could lie to her again, but no longer did I wish to.
"Richard." I said, and by confiding in her, a dark and heavy veil was lifted from my heart.
"My name is Richard."
TBC
