Chapter 12

I

Have you ever been betrayed by someone you loved, Richard Plantagenet?

I am sure I have not.

But then, I am also almost certain that I have never truly loved anyone before. Not in my previous life. Not like this. Not like I have now.

That was why it hurt so much.

I was married once, but to speak hollow vows in front of the altar in the presence of a bumbling priest, and to share a bed with a woman who despises you, does not automatically equal love.

By the time I ordered my men to take her life, my wife had hated me with a passion.

Anne Neville was her name.

Sad, doe-eyed Anne.

She was Warwick's only surviving daughter, widow of a husband who was murdered by my own hands. Much like her sister, she had been a willowy and graceful creature, perhaps not a perfect beauty as her older sibling, but to me, heavenly nonetheless. When she was at her most distressed, I tried to win her with smooth, comforting words. Faking tears of remorse, I had literally prostrated myself at her feet. To my own bafflement, I was successful.

Perhaps, she was desperate. Perhaps she did not see any other way but to marry me to protect herself from her family's enemies at court. Maybe she felt abandoned, and did not want to be alone. Whatever her motives were to accept me, it could not have been love.

I told myself that I did not care. I certainly had good reasons of my own to put my own name under the highly profitable marital contract. Yet…

Yet I had tried to be gentle with her at our wedding night. It was the very first night that we were to spend alone together, and I was hopeful that perhaps, despite all that had happened, she still was willing to learn to love me as a wife would naturally love her husband.

Sadly, one look at my disrobed body and my hidden disfigurements, and she had cast her eyes away.

If she had not done that, if she had not rejected me with one single glance, it might have been possible for me to love her back. Instead, from that moment onwards, I was no longer gentle nor kind to her, but I turned our marriage into a living hell.

"Richard? Richard? It's me, Anne, your poor wretched wife."

I opened my eyes at the pace of a crawling snail, dreading what would come when I allowed the world to reclaim me again. I was lying in a small narrow boat, drifting in the middle of a wide river. My hands were tied behind my back. My feet were bound together at the ankles. The pool of dirty water that sloshed around my ankles in the bottom of the boat had soaked deep into my clothes, and I was shivered uncontrollably of the cold.

Lifting my head up, I saw Margaret, sitting quietly in middle of the vessel, facing me. She was running her dagger underneath her nails, drawing blood with the sharp tip with a far-way look in her eyes. Behind her, I just could make out the contours of a woman's back, clad in a dark dress and robe. With long determined strokes, she was paddling our boat downstream. The blades of the oars broke the water surface almost soundlessly. The water surrounding us was as grey as the sky above and as smooth as a mirror, making it hard for me to distinguish where the heavens ended and where the river began.

I did not need to see her face to realize that our boatman was Ophelia.

As I slowly began to recall what had happened, the memory of her betrayal stung my heart with a thousand rusted nails.

"Why are you so upset?" Anne's voice was hoarse as if it was mere second ago that she had felt her killer's hands tightening around her throat. She was sitting opposite to me at the back end of the boat. Her ghostly pale skin was in stark contrast to the fierce red of her royal burial dress. I shook my head violently, hoping to get rid of her. My mind must be faltering. I am seeing the ghosts of my past again, taunting me in broad daylight.

"How can you think that you were betrayed by your love? You don't even know the true meaning of it." Her eyes were filled with loathing as if death had only preserved and ripened her anger rather than put it to an end.

"It is true." I told her. "When you were still alive, I did not know love, but only because you knew none for me." I added reproachfully.

Anne's eyes flared up. She leaned forward, and brought her face so close to mine that I could feel her cold breath on my cheek.

"I have tried to love you!" She trembled with resentment of all the wrongs that I had done to her. "Honest to God, I have tried. But every chance of love you had you threw away. Every shred of human warmth you received you cut to pieces. You loathed yourself so much and had created a soil so poisonous, so poor in kindness and understanding, that our love never had a chance to grow." She took in a deep breath and composed herself. "I thought you knew." She lamented. "And now after your death, you believe that everything has changed?" A cynical smile spread over her lips. She gazed up at Ophelia.

"She tricked you. That wonderful saint woman who you worship so much, she had never loved you." Her words were cutting my heart in two, and I wished, oh how I wished that she would stop.

"She lied to you." She said, rubbing more salt into my wounds. "You realize that, now you know who she is? You understand, don't you?"

In my mind's eye, I saw once again how Margaret held up her cursed mirror, and how I was forced to look at my cadaverous self. "Oh you are just back in time!" She croaked with mad excitement, as her talon-like nails peeled away my skin. "Just in time to meet with the devil!"

Her face melted away like a wax candle that had been held too close to the flames, and became that of Ophelia, who laughed at me with all the maliciousness of a grinning skull. Wonderful, beautiful Ophelia, who excelled in everything, wolf slayer and miraculous healer woman, my impossible savior, whose kindness and boundless compassion had been the one celestial light in the darkness of my damned wretched soul. It turned out that the devil was excellent in his craft of deceiving hapless fools like me.

"My poor, clever husband." Anne murmured sarcastically.

Frightened out of my mind, I suddenly felt violently sick. I rolled to my side, and heaved up the content of my stomach over the wet floorboards.

II

The boat continued its silent journey, and glided through the curtain of mist while leaving a pointed trail over the mirror surface of the water, like an arrowhead splicing through the grains of wood. As we went further downstream, the river continued to widen till both shorelines were no longer visible to the naked eye. We came across a small island situated in the middle of the river. It was no more than an angular white rock that jutted out of the water like a lonely shark tooth. The top was covered by a thin layer of dark soil, with young green shoots and small trees clinging onto it with their shallow tangles of roots. A swarm of acrobatic swallows, like a dark restless cloud, danced around the misty air that surrounding this half hidden sanctuary.

It appeared to be our destination, and we were peddling towards the shore. The wooden bottom of the boat scraped over the pebble beach that snaked around the island, till we finally came to a jolted halt.

Margaret rose and cut loose the ropes around my ankles.

"Time to get up hog!"

She kicked me hard in my stomach. I struggled up, and tried to stand on my own unsteady feet. She allowed me to find my balance for a short moment, before forcing me to step out of the boat. Pink swirls leaked out of my leg wound as I splashed through the shallow water. Cold, exhausted, and in agony, I had to let Margaret half drag me on dry land proper. Ophelia did not wait for us, but ventured on, lifting the damp linings of her robe and dress as she stepped nimble over the wet cobbles, her cheeks flustered with the determination of someone whose heart was set on a certain goal.

We followed her, and went round the narrow band of shoreline till the entrance of a monstrously large cave was revealed to us. A hollow structure that resembled a cathedral cut out of rock, the roof of the cave was so far away above us that the imbedded stalactites were like a canopy made of tiny needles. The cave itself sat inside the island like a rotten cavity in an affected tooth. Swallows flew in and out of the entrance at their leisure. The high-pitched bird chatter and the frantic flapping of wings that echoed inside the cavern were almost ear-shattering. I stared up at the rough surrounding walls and saw that they were covered in white stripes of ancient bird shit, dripping down slowly from the countless of nesting places that were scattered all over the rock face.

"Villain. Oh villain!" Margaret cried out. "How dare you to wait standing on your feet in the presence of your betters! Down with you hog! Bend your stubborn knees!"

Margaret pushed me down. I gritted my teeth when fresh wounds tore open over the rough stony ground.

The mad witch herself bowed deeply like a dutiful servant to her lord. Still feeling the wounds from my recent betrayal, my heart rattled wildly inside my chest when the shadow of Margaret's supposed mistress was cast over my shivering wretched self.

"Look at me." Ophelia said in a low voice.

I kept my head bowed and fool heartedly kept staring down at the slow trickle of crimson that came from my leg. The blood pooled in the narrow groves between the stones.

"Richard, why don't you look at me?"

Slowly, I shook my head. "Who are you?" I thought I already knew the answer, but nevertheless longed to hear it, parting from her own lips.

"You know who I am." She replied with a wary smile, faking innocence. "You know me."

"You are the devil." There, I said it. Considering how I had always been the constant victim of deceitful, twofaced, hateful women, Anne Neville, Elizabeth Woodville, and Margaret of Anjou. Even my own mother, who had cursed me in the same breath with these treacherous harlots, how very fitting that I would finally lose my heart, soul, and sanity to the devil in female form.

"You are wrong. I am not the devil."

"If that is true, why is Margaret treating you like you are, prostrating herself at your feet? Why are you two conspiring against me?"

"Margaret is under an enchantment. When she looks at me, she does not see me. She sees my father."

"Your father?"

"I am sorry I lied to you." There was heartbreak in her voice. "I did not want to bring you here so soon. You are not ready, but the circumstances left me with no choice." She glanced over her shoulder at the back of the cave.

Footsteps echoed through the hollow cavern. A man appeared out of the darkness. Dressed in all black, his face was gaunt and narrow, his hair carried a shade of silver. His eyes, pale and grey, were the color of a dark winter day. They were framed by a heavy set of eyebrows that gave him a permanent fierce expression. The rest of his body was long and thin, and he walked with the grace of a long legged spider crawling over to a fly stuck in its web.

There was no doubt in my mind who this stranger was.

My heart rate quickened. I shrunk away in fear, covered my face with both my hands, and from the corner of my eyes, I followed the course of the devil between my trembling fingers.

He did not come for me, but went to the disgraced Lancastrian queen. Margaret herself was still kneeling over the coarse pebble ground. Her old ragged dress still was dripping with muddy river water, but her eyes shone bright with a rare clarity. She glanced from Ophelia to the thin tall man, returned her gaze once more to Ophelia, and then back to the man again.

"My gracious lord." She whispered softly in awe, prostrating herself at his feet as if she was a devoted priestess worshipping a pagan God. "I beg for your forgiveness. Somehow I did not recognize you in your true splendid form."

"No offence taken." The devil replied. "You followed Ophelia's orders to the letter. You could have not provided me with a better service."

"My lord, I brought him here to you just as you have requested." She gazed up at him most expectantly. "I dug him out of his grave, snatched him from death's jealous embrace, and have used your spells to breathe back flesh onto his bare bones. The unworthy soul of Richard Plantagenet is here for you to take. My part of the agreement is thus fulfilled."

"Yes Margaret. You have done all that you have promised." He crouched down beside her, cold grey eyes meeting those of the mad grievous queen. "So it's time that I honor my part of our agreement." He placed his hand on her forehead. His long spidery fingers gently shut her wary eyes.

Where his fingertips touched her eyelids her skin started to glow with the brightness of a weak candle, and quickly grew in strength till it was almost blinding.

"Margaret of Anjou." He called out to her in a voice that sounded like thunder in the mountains. "Your heart has been a furnace of revenge ever since you lost all that was dear to you. Let my light shine on your injured soul like gentle rain. Let it put out the destructive fires that have consumed your heart. Let it be the executioner of your grief, and cut away this sorrow that has taken your sanity."

He slowly lifted his hand and the glow slowly extinguished. His voice was now gentle, and forgiving. "I promised you peace, an end to your long suffering. I grant you that. I grant it to you with all my heart."

Margaret opened her eyes. A hundred expressions passed across her face, confusion, sorrow, and elation. A single tear rolled down her cheek.

The devil gently helped her up her feet. "Now go in peace, and let there be mercy in your heart again. It is in forgiving, that we are forgiven."

He glanced over his shoulder down at me, this doomed wretch who was still trembling at his feet. Margaret followed his gaze. I could not begin to comprehend what his dark sorcery had done to her, but all the malice and hatred that used to shimmer underneath her madness had completely vanished. Margaret gave me a look that was full of compassion. Still wary of her, I backed away when she approached, and flinched from the gentle touch of her fingers on my shoulder.

"Richard Plantagenet." She whispered, taking me into a loving embrace like that a mother would give her child. "I forgive you. I pray that heaven will restore you and make you forget your evils, and with it, that you would finally learn to forgive yourself."

With that said, she rose again. Her eyes were still shining and her chin was held up high when she strolled out of the cavern, carrying herself with the regal poise of the imposing queen she once was.

"What in the name of Jesus have you done to her?!" I cried out, hardly able to contain my hysteria any longer.

"I cured the Lancastrian queen of her grief." The devil replied most calmly.

"You bewitched her! You cast a dark spell on her that diseased her wits!"

"Oh nonsense! If that is the case, she would be raving mad by now, considering that she was not exactly sane to begin with."

I swallowed hard. "Are you going to do the same to me?" I asked with a voice that sounded far more vulnerable than I had wanted.

"No Richard of Bosworth." He replied calmly. "That was not my plan."

"W-who are you? A sorcerer of the dark arts? A demon who devours the souls of sinners? Some sort of fallen angel?" I was rambling, my mind fleeing from reason. "Are you Satan? Lucifer? Beelzebub? Who are you sir?! I beseech you, speak!"

"I can assure you, I am not the devil. If I was him, you wouldn't still be standing here, speaking to me like that."

"Margaret, s-she told me that she did the devil's biddings. You ordered her to bring me here to you. So you must be him!"

"I lied. Margaret's mind was damaged and extremely fragile. She lost her faith in god. I needed to tell her a story that suited her view of the world so she would agree to carry out her tasks for me." He gazed down, his stern piecing eyes fixed on mine. "I am Clemens, the angel of mercy. Richard Plantagenet, I am sorry for all that you had to go through, but it was all necessary to bring you here. I am in great need of your help."

III

Once, there was a dark winged angel named Clemens.

He was given the task by his heavenly father to watch over the Avernus, a golden box that was placed in heaven. He did not know what was held inside, and neither did his brother Raziel, a white winged angel who was charged with the same task.

Despite of this, they both carried out their work most dutifully. For many centuries, the hosts guarded the Avernus, keeping it safe from prying eyes and curious spirits, until one day, Clemens heard a voice, soft like the sound of a leaf falling from a tree, speaking to him.

"Why are you guarding this box?" It whispered. If the voice had a face, it would be smiling at him most wistfully. "Angel of mercy, don't you have more important things to do?"

"Such as?" The dark winged angel replied.

"Have you seen what has been going on down below?"

He replied that he had not. He was unsure where the voice came from, and was rightfully suspicious of it, although it also seemed a bit rude just to ignore it.

"Why don't you take a look?" The voice whispered again.

"I don't think I should do that."

"Oh why not?"

"I have a very important task at hand, given to me by my noble father."

"It's just one quick glance, it will not matter. It's not like the Avernus is going anywhere soon. Not with steadfast Raziel keeping his diligent eye on it."

"I am not going to do it. Stop wasting your breath."

It took centuries of subtle and persistent persuasion, but the little voice had patience. It had all the time in eternity to achieve what it's goal. It also knew that it had been very hard for the angel. It had been eons since he had focused on anything else but his assignment, and eons guarding the Avernus could be so devastatingly boring, even for an angel as old and as wise as Clemens.

"Just one peek then." Clemens finally said, more so to reassure himself than to acknowledge that he was listening to that relentless voice.

He took his eyes off the relic for just for one short second. In the whole of eternity, it was hardly a blink of an eye. He parted the clouds with an elegant gesture of his hand, creating a small gap to peer through, and watched how the events on earth on that one particular day unfolding with his own eyes.

What he witnessed was a vision of nightmares.

The heartbreaking misery, the callous maliciousness, the hateful injustice that sprang so naturally from the fountain of humanity, he saw it all in that one singe glance. It filled Clemens' mind with many troubling, unanswerable questions, and corroded his otherwise undoubting heart with a great overwhelming distrust. The angel of mercy would never be the same again, which was exactly what the little voice had wanted.

"Not very pretty, is it." It commented most sardonically. After that, it did not speak to Clemens again. There was no need to. The damage was already done.

A few thousand years later, Clemens battled Raziel over the possession of the relic, and the Avernus was accidentally opened. The angel of mercy finally came to know what had been kept hidden inside for all that time.

It was not the exactly the world saving answer that he had imagined and had so much hoped for.

IV

"Lucifer." The name parted from Clemens lips as if it was a curse.

I was still kneeling at his feet in the cave. I was cold and miserabe. My leg injury caused me much agony, and I was still fearing for my life. The whole strange account that this self-proclaimed angel had told me, was so confusing and seemed so impossible that I could hardly believe a word of it.

"It was Lucifer. He was kept inside the Avernus, and I set him free." Clemens said ruefully.

"What do you mean, you set him free?"

"After the rebellion, Lucifer was imprisoned by our maker." Ophelia tried to further explain. "He was banished to the chaoplasm, a vast nothingness between worlds. The Avernus that God ordered my father to guard was the only portal to that cursed place."

"But, isn't the devil supposed to be living in hell?"

"Hell is a folly, an invention of the collective human mind." Clemens replied. "But if it makes you feel any better, let me explain it in a way that suits your view of the world. Hell is empty and all the devils are here! I didn't know Lucifer was kept inside the Avernus. He tricked me. He spoke to me, kept whispering in my ear, putting treacherous ideas in my head that the relic contained something virtuous, a treasure that could lead mankind to salvation, but it was him. Only him."

"Father was banished for this from heaven by the other angels." Ophelia clarified. "He has been living here on earth ever since."

"They branded me a traitor." Clemens said with a great bitterness. "No matter how much I pleaded with them, the hosts were convinced that I had joined Lucifer's rebellion, and had become one of his secret disciples. So they cast me out, just like they did to all the others that had followed him."

"Are you truly an angel?" I asked most warily.

"I am a fallen angel." Clemens sighed deeply and shut his eyes for a moment, visibly irritated. "Which means I was an angel."

"But…if you really are a fallen angel, what does that make Ophelia? How could she ever be your earthly daughter?"

"When the hosts cast me down, the long fall from heaven burnt away my wings. My strong, beautiful wings, they used to carry me all the way up to my Father's throne." He cast his eyes regretfully up to the vaulted ceiling.

"When I awoke in the dirt, there was nothing left but two blistered stumps on my back, but some of the black feathers had survived the flames and were scattered over the impact crater. Although it was only a handful, they were all that remained of my old self. Despite my fall from grace, they were unmarked by my sins. They had remained good and pure."

Ophelia shot me a timid glance, and suddenly, I fully understood what the fallen angel was trying to say.

"I made Ophelia. I made my daughter from the earth that was soaked with my blood and the feathers that were left of my broken wings. I created her and breathed life into her lungs." He gazed at Ophelia with a little smile on his lips. "She is a tiny piece of heaven, a remembrance of all that what was once good and pure in me, turned flesh and blood. She is mercy in human form."

"So…Ophelia…she…she is not real."

Ophelia placed her hand on my cheek, trying to calm me down. "I really wanted to tell you everything, I swear."

I flinched away from her touch. "You lied to me. You lied! I cannot believe this. I have been such an idiot! I have placed my trust in a, in a…what?" A mirage of a woman, a magically conjured-up monster made of mud and discarded feathers? If she really was created by an angel, if she really was mercy in human form, how could she have been so cruel to trick me into loving her?

"Oh hush you fool!" Her father interrupted me. "She is human, just like you, and no less real than you are."

"W-what do you mean?"

"Richard, please." Ophelia begged. "Calm down and let him explain -"

"No I won't! I won't calm down!" I blurted out. "Please tell the bloody truth and stop playing with me like a cat would with an injured mouse! I cannot take anymore of this!"

"You are human now, but you have not always been." Clemens explained in a flat voice. "You were what was left inside the Avernus after Lucifer had escaped. A tiny piece of rock, blessed with an immortal light, pale in glow, like a star in the earliest hours of dawn."

"So I am…what? Like frail hope, clinging to the lid of Pandora's box after all the evil has flown out?" Somehow I was still able to force myself to speak these words in relative calm, but inside, I was screaming.

"That is quite an accurate interpretation.' Clemens commented, remaining completely oblivious to my distress. "Maybe you're not as slow as I think you are."

I had enough of this madness, and shook my head wildly as tears of shock started to sting my eyes. "I don't believe you! I cannot believe any of this!"

"Oh, foolish me, being too quick with my conclusions." Clemens commented dryly.

"I am not a thing!" I spat out in utter disgust, my cheeks flushed with great anger and anxiety. "I am a living, breathing, thinking human being! I am a man in charge of his own destiny!"

"Did you not hear me say that you are human?" Clemens replied, visibly annoyed. "Well, at least at the present moment you are." He added as an afterthought.

My eyes widened as I pointed a trembling finger at him. "Oh no, you are not going to do this to me! I have been ridiculed and vilified for how I look and what I am my entire life. Despite of that I clung on to my belief that I am still a man, like any other, despite of my deformities, similar to all of those who have tormented me so. You're not going to take that away! You're not going to reduce me into, into a pawn, - a mindless tool, a-"

"An abstract concept that brings optimism to the frightened, desperate masses, who are about to be exposed to the full wicked reign of my fallen brother's evil?" Clemens replied accusingly.

"I have nothing to do with this! I didn't let the devil out. You did!"

"Yes, I did, and now I want to correct my wrongs, but I need you. I need you to be calm and sane and clever, so stop being the complete opposite of everything I want you to be or I swear to God I will strike you down!"

There was the pledge of thunder and destruction in his words. It forced me to immediate silence and paralyzed me with fear.

"What did you do me?" I finally dared to ask. My world was slipping into madness, and I realized that his answer to my question could only make it worse, but I needed to know, angels and the devil be dammed.

"You must know that you were not safe." Clemens explained. "If I have kept you by my side in your true form, Lucifer and his disciples would have found you. So, like I had created Ophelia, I created you. I put your essence inside a vessel of flesh and bones. I hid you in a human form."

"When lady Cecily of York was pregnant with her 12th child, she was not well." Ophelia further explained. "Father sent me to attend to her. To preserve her unborn child, I disguised myself in my father's form and aided your mother at her sickbed. She was cured when we treated her with a potion."

"One that was made from the ground up dust of that shiny rock that was left in the Avernus." Clemens concluded.

"That's how I became human?" I blurted out. "You let Ophelia feed me to my own mother?"

"If you say it like this, it actually sounds a little disturbing." He commented pensively.

"That is because it bloody well is!" I snapped back. "Merciful Jesus! For the angel of mercy, you do show an alarming lack of empathy! Don't you understand this was a bloody evil act to condemn me from my very birth?!"

"We were not trying to harm you in any way. My father's potion saved your mother's life! It saved yours!" Ophelia pointed out. "Your mother's pregnancy was compromised from the beginning. Without our intervention, you both would have died."

My eyes widened in utter revulsion and disbelief. "Oh so if it wasn't for your divine intrusion, I would not have even been born at all! How absolutely convenient for you both! Do tell me this, and speak truthfully, did your witch brew turn me into this misshapen monster? If so, I really have something to be grateful to you for!"

"The way you are is the result of the way your father and mother are. You are the product of their genetic contributions, combined with the randomness of creation, like all living things." Clemens sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Why am I even explaining this to you? I very much doubt that you understand any of this…" He crouched down and studied my face. His grey eyes looked straight into mine. "Look I can see that you are angry. Angry is good, it is an improvement, far better then you being pathetic and scared witless. I have absolutely no use for your self-pity, but I can use your rage."

"What do you want?" I whispered. I was tired of this nonsense. Tired to be exposed to this whirlwind of heart-aching revelations. Tired to be alive. "Why did you bring me back and torment me so?"

"Like I told you before, I need your help. I let Margaret bring you back from the dead for this very purpose. I need you to help me to put the devil back inside his box."

A pause. Did I really hear what he just said?

"You want me to help you bring down the devil?" I sniggered at this utterly insane, most preposterous idea, but the giddiness quickly subsided when I saw Clemens nodding solemnly in response, wearing a brutally honest expression on face.

"You are mistaken. I cannot be of any use to you." I said, trying to reason with him. "You probably think that some kind of mystical power has been bestowed on me, but I can assure you, I truly have none."

"It's not about that." He replied calmly.

"But…I am no one, not even a man of any influence anymore! Just a worn out has-been king, a homeless beggar who needed to be saved by your daughter from a miserable live in slavery, that's all I am now. Even if I would agree to help you I simply would not know how."

"You think too little of yourself." Clemens said quietly. "And as for not knowing what to do, I can be your teacher. I am very good at it." He offered me a hand. "Rise up Richard Plantagenet, and let me lead your way."

TBC