Free The Court of the Midnight King: A Dream of Richard III by Freda Warrington Page A

clad in bright leather and silver. What did this mean? Conquest? Theft?
    A handful of men stood about, as magnificent as dukes in violet, gold and green; and they were only the esquires, judging from the way they joked with Eleanor’s grooms. They all went quiet and stared as she rode into the yard.
    Katherine bristled. She’d meant to walk Mab around to cool her, but she couldn’t do so under their scrutiny and it would look peculiar if she rode away again. Tom was already there, waiting to take the mare from her.
    “Who are they?” she whispered.
    He shook his head, nervously excited. “Lady Lytton’s asking for you, my lady.”
    “Cool Mab down, will you?” she said, slipping from the saddle. The strangers bowed, but their stares burned with too much speculation. Unnerved, she swept away with head high, into the cool interior of the house.
    Inside, Martha and Nan intercepted her, and rushed her up the servants’ stairs to her bedchamber. Nan was guilelessly excited, Martha tense. They undressed her, sluiced her hot body with rose water and stuffed her into the best dress she had, a gown of deep blue velvet embellished with gold net. A hennin was pressed on her head, her black hair tucked beneath the structure of golden satin and lace-froth. The two little horns, Kate thought on seeing her reflection in a glass, gave her a devilish aspect. Her eyes looked storm-blue and furious. She was hardly the demure gentlewoman the visitors would be expecting.
    “Martha, who are they?” she asked for the third time. “Why must I be trussed up to meet them?”
    “Lady Lytton will tell you. It’s not my business.”
    “Don’t slide out of this. You must know!”
    “Your distant cousin,” Martha whispered, thin-lipped. “Thomas, Lord Stanley. But I didn’t tell you.”
    When Katherine entered the great hall, she found her mother entertaining in high estate – as high as they could manage. Four visitors sat in chairs around the fire as the table was readied for the noon meal. She’d thought their house luxurious, with its softly-faded glow of red and bronze, tapestries, and a firegrate the size of a small kitchen. Now, as a backdrop to the visitors’ glory, she realised how shabby it was. The tableware was dark with age and dented, and they had tapers instead of good candles. She noticed the mended patches of her mother’s brown velvet gown. All their finery was long sold, at first to finance the late Duke of York’s armies, later to support her mother’s waifs.
    “Here is my daughter Katherine,” said Eleanor, rising. “She shares my duties, ministering to the sick.”
    “A worthy cause of delay,” said one of the men as they all stood to greet her with chivalry.
    Eleanor projected an aura of grandeur, almost her priestess-self. Katherine felt foolish, annoyed and apprehensive. Her eyes blazed upon each man in turn. There was an older lord with black hair, a neat moustache and beard, his face narrow but handsome and pleasant enough. The younger one had unkempt curly hair and a rosy, eager face that shone in the firelight. They wore the finest cloth, cream and blue and red, slashed and shaped in fashions she’d never seen before. Gold chains hung upon them, bearing the white rose and other emblems. They dripped riches like honey from the comb.
    They’d brought a cleric with them; a bishop in dull earth-colours rather than ceremonial silver and saffron. He had a neat little face in a round head, a neck so short and broad that his double chin rested directly on his chest. His thin dark hair was oiled to a high shine. He smiled, appraising Katherine from small brilliant eyes like a polecat’s. Although his garb was modest, there were jewels on his fingers, and the Lamb badge on his chest was made of pearl and diamond, with rubies to represent the blood.
    He had a companion, a thin stooped priest dressed in ochre. His face was cadaverous, especially when he smiled.
    “Your daughter’s virtues, my lady, are