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

again. Dusk fell. The world turned blue and the denizens of the hidden world whispered around them. Kate saw their firefly eyes over her lover’s shoulder, and smiled.
    Eventually, forgetting themselves, they slept.
    Kate woke suddenly to a cold, dewy dawn and found herself looking at a stranger.
    They’d pulled their clothes back on for warmth and the night had not been cold, but now, without his arms around her, she was freezing. Her dress was soaked. Richard was kneeling, dishevelled and trying to lace his shirt with shaking hands. As she rose, he regarded her with a wary look, bordering on accusation. All enchantment had gone.
    Kate sat up in sharp dread. “Oh, dear Iesu, my mother will be going out of her mind.”
    He said nothing. He looked very young, grim and almost frightened.
    “Richard?” She tried to shift her dress to fall properly, shaking out the damp underskirts. “Are you well? You’re looking at me as if I were a ghost.”
    He took a deep breath. He was as white as the dawn. “I’ve remembered where I saw you before.”
    “Oh? Where?”
    “I think you know.”
    “Really, I don’t.”
    He rose, fastening his doublet and making a poor job of it. When she went to help him, he stepped back.
    “What have I done?” she said, frowning.
    “I should have realised.” His face took on the hardness she’d seen when he spoke of Earl of Warwick. “It’s obvious you’re a witch. I shouldn’t have been taken in.”
    “Taken in?”
    “I recognise this… otherworld. I’ve been here before. Yesterday was too beautiful to be real, and there were spectres all around us, demons in my dreams all night…”
    Kate’s face gave her away. What he said was true, at least in part.
    “It’s not what you think.”
    “You don’t deny it, then? No doubt you thought I was under your spell. Do you lie in wait to ensorcell any unsuspecting knight who happens to pass?”
    “Ensorcell you? Don’t flatter yourself! Great Goddess, you make me sound like Morgana lying in wait for King Arthur! Richard, don’t be angry. It wasn’t that at all.”
    “I thought this was beautiful and innocent. All deceit. They warn us against demonesses who lie in wait to tempt men into sin. I should have known. Iesu’s blood, what have I done?”
    He went to saddle his horse. She followed him. “I suppose your priests tell you the otherworld is evil. They know nothing.”
    “And I know too much,” he said. “It’s profane, outside the realm of God, full of horrors – and deceitful enchantments. The world is a battleground of light and dark and I won’t be dragged into the dark!”
    Kate stood hugging herself against the cold. She was hurt and offended. To her the hidden world was a place of wonder. Yet she couldn’t summon the strength to argue. If this was what Richard believed, she was unlikely to change his mind. The shock of what they’d done was setting in.
    Suddenly she wished he had been a lad like Tom, after all, and not this guarded, difficult nobleman.
    She couldn’t argue with Richard, because he was right. She’d asked Auset for a sign, and he’d appeared; but Auset had still given her a choice. Kate had drawn him into the hidden world and enchanted him.
    Other men might have been grateful.
    “You should know, I don’t make a habit of it,” she said tightly. “It was my first time.”
    He stopped buckling straps, and gazed at her across the bay’s saddle. His eyes were like ice. She began to hate him for looking at her like that.
    She added, “You must have realised.”
    The flicker in his eyes was guilt. Of course he realised. “How could you do that? Just – give yourself to a stranger?” he exclaimed.
    Kate arched her eyebrows. “How could you, gentle knight?”
    He was almost speechless. She imagined that, when he grew older, his severity would be frightening. “That’s different. That’s utterly different!”
    “Why?”
    “It’s obvious. How could you give a stranger your virginity,