The Earl of Lincoln and the enchanted willows….

This is a Yorkist fairy tale for Christmas. There is no proof that John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, fought at Bosworth, or about what really happened to the sons of Edward IV—until the recent amazing discoveries by Philippa Langley. The revelations of her new research came after I’d written this tale, which although it commences in the summer of 1485 and ends with the summer of 1487, is definitely for Christmas.

Seeing very strange, very unlikely creatures does indeed happen. When my daughter was given morphine in hospital, she saw a number of peculiar creatures crowding along the curtain rail surrounding her bed. They muttered together as they peered down, and she was convinced they were whispering about her. Whatever they were, she said they seemed very, very real indeed….

I can’t blame morphine or any other such thing for producing this story. My brain just works like this all the time! 😊

The summer sunshine was warm and the birdsong shrill as the two horsemen reined in by a willow-edged pool. All around them stretched the green expanse of Bestwood royal hunting park, at the southern edge of Sherwood Forest.

One rider was the Yorkist King of England, Richard III. He was careworn from the grief of losing his wife and son within a year and weighed by the struggle of trying to rule justly. At thirty-two Richard had reigned for barely two years and it hadn’t been easy.

He dismounted and looped the reins of his mettlesome black horse over a low willow branch. He wasn’t a big man, being of merely medium height and deceptively slender, but he had the physical strength and skills of a great warrior. His eyes were grey and steady, and his shoulder-length hair air was blown across his lean, handsome face by the playful breeze. He wore royal blue trimmed with black, and there was a heavy collar across his shoulders, with  pendant of the White Rose of York. But there was no need for jewels to mark him as a king.

A white squirrel suddenly bounded out of the trees and leapt to his shoulder. Richard smiled and put a hand up to stroke the little creature. “Meet Ratat,” he said to his companion, who was also alighting.

John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, Richard’s nephew, was twenty-two, athletic and roguishly good-looking, with tangled fair hair and a smile that made men like him, but which kindled a very different interest in the fair sex. He was the future Duke of Suffolk and more than simply the king’s nephew for he was also Richard’s heir, although it had yet to be formally announced. He wasn’t dressed for a meeting with his king, having literally just arrived from his many duties in Sheriff Hutton in response to his uncle’s urgent summons. The ride had been hectic, but he was eager to learn what would be expected of him in the imminent battle for Richard’s crown.

As he left his horse, a dappled grey stallion called Héraut which was a treasured gift from Richard, he looked at the squirrel in astonishment. “I’ve never seen a white squirrel before,” he said, taken with the creature’s pale, unusual beauty.

Richard smiled and fished in his purse for one of the shelled walnuts he’d brought with him. “I knew Ratat would come to greet us,” he explained, presenting the nut to the little creature’s eagerly outstretched paws.

Ratat’s razor-sharp teeth disposed of it immediately, scattering crumbs over the king’s immaculate shoulder. A second nut went the same way and then a third, before Richard smiled and raised a stern finger. “Not so quickly, sir.”

John was glad to see a smile on his uncle’s prematurely lined face. He loved Richard very much, and it had been heart-breaking to see him forced to endure one calamity after another. His only legitimate son, Edward of Middleham, had died suddenly, and then his queen, Anne Neville, had followed their child to the grave, leaving Richard alone. Their loss had cut right through the king, and on top of that he’d had to declare that his eldest brother Edward IV had committed bigamy thus leaving no legitimate heirs, resulting in Richard, the next legitimate male heir, stepping up to the throne. He’d been accused by some of murdering his nephews in order to wear the crown, but it wasn’t true. The boys were both safe and well. Then had come treachery, an attempted Lancastrian invasion by Henry Tudor, a rebellion by the treacherous Duke of Buckingham, and now a renewed threat of invasion by Henry Tudor, who was a nonentity of dubious Lancastrian blood. But it seemed the fellow was all the House of Lancaster could put forward.

John was anxious to learn what orders his uncle had for him, but instead Richard continued speaking of the squirrel. “He belonged to my dear wife, Anne. She thought that he made ratatatat noises when he was cross.” Richard remembered Ratat with Anne and their little son Edward one Christmas, when everyone sat by the fireside at Middleham Castle, listening to a storyteller. “I miss our Christmases together. We are all granted one great love, I think, and Anne will always be mine.”

And mine will always be Alicia, John thought, recalling the pretty, vivacious red-headed girl he’d wanted to marry. She would have loved Ratat, as she did all animals and they loved her. She was the daughter of one of his father’s lesser retainers and wasn’t considered prominent enough to be the future Duchess of Suffolk. They’d planned to defy parental disapproval by marrying in secret, but before that could happen she’d been killed in a riding accident, and he’d suffered the misery of witnessing the tragedy. Now he was married to someone else, but it was an empty match. He and Margaret were both in love with ghosts, and it would never change. They got on well enough, but love was absent. And so were children.

Richard continued explaining about the squirrel. “Ratat disappeared when Anne was taken, but now, suddenly, he has returned and attached himself to me. Wherever I go, he goes too. He explores as he chooses, but always returns to me. See? No collar or chain, yet he sits on my shoulder quite happily.”

“If he roams, isn’t there a danger you will leave without him?” John observed, striving to hide his restless need to know about the battle.

Richard laughed. “I can whistle very loudly. He always hears.” He fussed the squirrel. “The moment he was brought to Middleham, injured, Anne had to have him. He soon recovered from his injuries, but never left her again.” Richard glanced up at the willow. The breeze was riffling through its thin leaves, revealing their white undersides. “I was resting my horse here when word was brought of her fatal illness. Willows are both beautiful and baneful, are they not? Touched with magic, perhaps.”

John didn’t know what to say, for a painful memory of his own had stirred. Alicia had been killed because something startled her horse right beneath a willow…. Another stir of breeze whispered through the branches, and he shivered in spite of the warm August day

“John, I’ve summoned you because I realise now that Sheriff Hutton may not be secure enough, and therefore all my nephews and nieces must leave. God knows they’ve never been in danger from me, but if my confrontation with the Tudor upstart goes the wrong way, they’ll definitely be in danger from him. Except perhaps Elizabeth. The fellow presumes to promise to marry her and thus end the struggles of the past decades. How arrogant. Who does he damned well think he is? The Second Coming? England’s Great Saviour?” Richard looked away bitterly. “But I wish I didn’t wonder if he’s actually what Elizabeth wants. I’m arranging a good Portuguese match, but her enthusiasm for it is….peculiarly restrained. Is she that disloyal?”

John’s opinion of Elizabeth of York, the now illegitimate eldest daughter of the late king Edward IV, had become far from flattering. She wanted to be Queen of England and would marry Richard himself if he were so disposed. Oh yes, her uncle or not, she wanted Richard. But all she was to him was his niece, his brother’s daughter. He’d have found such an incestuous match completely abhorrent, but Elizabeth’s view of it was oh, so different.

Richard looked at him again, brushing fragments of nutshell from his rich silk shoulder and then promptly giving the squirrel another walnut with which to repeat the mess. “John, I must get to the point of telling you why I’ve called you here like this. It’s because want you to take everyone from Sheriff Hutton to my sister Margaret, your aunt the Duchess of Burgundy. I’ve made all the preparations.”

John’s hopes were dashed. He was devastated. “Me? Am I not to fight with you?”

“I don’t want us both to be lost.”

“But I have to be at your side, defending your cause, supporting you with my own life!” John was so stricken that he sank to his knees to implore. “Please, I beg of you, don’t send me miles away to skulk like a coward!”

Richard touched his shoulder. “Get up, do. You think it is easy for me to ask this of you? John, you will never skulk or be a coward. No one would dream ofthinking it. And although no one will know where you are, they will know it’s at my command. I want this because you’re my heir and you have to remain safe and well. And because I can trust you—and Francis Lovell—above all others to carry out my wishes to the final letter.”

John rose to his feet again. “I’m not your official heir. It’s only word of mouth,” he protested, trying desperately to make Richard change his mind. “If it ever came to rallying men to my banners, they may not—”

“They’ll flock to you because you’ll be the legitimate House of York and because I’ve chosen you. But it may not come to that. I don’t expect Tudor to triumph, I’m merely taking precautions. A ship is already waiting at Bridlington. Go to Prior Robert Bristwick of St Mary & St John of Bridlington Priory.” Richard crossed himself as he named the saints. “The priory has jurisdiction over the port and harbour of Bridlington and the prior has all the arrangements in hand. I’ve provided the financial means, including the acquisition of the best and swiftest available vessel. The caravel Trinity is apparently renowned for her speed and manoeuvrability, and for I’m assured she’ll outrun most comparable vessels. Tudor will have to have wings to catch up with her.”

John was too dejected to meet his eyes.

Richard continued. “If the news of me is bad, you are to act immediately. Be gone from Sheriff Hutton before there’s any chance of Tudor’s men arriving. Do you understand? The first thing he will do is send men post haste to secure your charges, especially Elizabeth and you. Dithering will be fatal.”

John nodded, still bereft of a voice. He stared at the stream, and the fronds of a broken willow branch dragging seductively in the current.

“I’ve assigned fast couriers and there are good horses at every stage,” Richard continued. “They will be available from the scene of the battle to Sheriff Hutton, and then on to Bridlington. Everything is covered. Nothing more can possibly be done to ensure the news—good or bad—reaches you at the earliest possible moment and can then reach Bridlington with all possible speed.” He waited for John’s response but there was none.

“John? Can I rely on you?”

At that John’s voice was choked. “Of course you can! There is no one more loyal to you. Whatever you command, I will do. But I don’t have to like it.”

Richard smiled. “If you’d liked this, I’d have been hurt most grievously.”

“I won’t let you down.”

“I know.” Richard came to hug him tightly. “As soon as Tudor’s disposed of, I’ll see you’re proclaimed my heir. I love you, John. You are the strong son fate has denied me.”

Ratat jumped from Richard’s shoulder to John’s, and the willow leaves, white and mysterious, whispered as another breeze sighed through them.

Toward the end of the month, when the awful news reached Sheriff Hutton of Richard’s cruel death at a place called Bosworth, John had already done all he could to make his cousins agree to leave, but in the end only two would accompany him, the sons of Richard’s late brother, King Edward IV. As for the rest of those at Sheriff Hutton, Elizabeth refused to go to Bruges, and so her sister Cicely and Edward, Earl of Warwick, refused as well. Now they were all three presumably in Tudor’s hands, and Elizabeth would be Queen of England, but not, John now knew for certain, with the king she’d really wanted. He’d seen her reaction to the news of Bosworth. She’d been stricken, completely. Close blood-tie or not, she really had loved Richard as she should not. Perhaps she remained at Sheriff Hutton because it was his castle and his presence still seemed to linger.

John had left with the two boys, obeying Richard’s instructions by going to Bridlington Priory, where he’d handed Héraut into the care of a young canon who’d promised to take every care of him. But it was  wrench, not only because he loved the horse but because leaving him behind was almost like forsaking Richard himself. It mattered little to John who might see his tears as he hugged the horse’s dappled neck for the last time.

The Trinity caravel left Bridlington on the night tide in calm weather, with a clear sky, a good following breeze, and an almost full moon and myriad stars to glint on the North Sea. The great central tower of the Augustinian priory rose proudly above the port, topped by an open crown was shone white in the moonlight. John had looked south and seen the haunting ruins of Kirkensea Abbey, which had been submerged some fifty years ago after weeks of torrential rain caused most of the low cliff upon which it stood to slide into the sea over the course of a single night. 

Once one of the largest, richest and most powerful Benedictine abbeys in Yorkshire, it had become an important place of pilgrimage because of the relics of Saint Trumwald which were in a magnificent jewelled shrine. When the landslip brought the abbey crashing into the sea, looters had stripped it of whatever they could find so that now it was a broken, deserted shell, abandoned by the Benedictine order that had founded it.

Now, as the caravel forged south-eastward, making for the Burgundy coast, it seemed the fugitives from Sheriff Hutton had eluded the Tudor completely and were set to land safely and then ride on to Bruges. But then everything changed. The breeze became a strong wind that suddenly wheeled around to drive from the north-east, strengthening into a gale that soon intensified into a terrible tempest. It made it difficult for the Trinity to hold to her course, instead driving her further to the south and the Humber estuary.

There was no longer a moon or stars, visibility was poor and the waves were becoming higher and higher. Then blinding lightning tore the sky open with blinding intensity, and a thunderclap seemed to shake the sea itself. The wind howled and the sea battered the caravel’s hull. She was taking on water over her gunwales as she was forced more off course and driven due south before the violent surge. The ship’s master ordered the reefing of the sails, but two sailors were blown from the rigging to their deaths and then the storm intensified to such a degree that it was all the crew could do to simply keep the caravel afloat.

John braced himself on the deck, keeping close the royal cousins in his charge. How could calm weather have suddenly become this raging, vengeful tempest? Had some idiot actually invited this storm from the north by whistling? Had the ship’s cat been lost overboard? But no, the black tomcat, inspiringly named Thomas, was trembling fearfully in the arms of the equally frightened Lord Richard. Cat and boy had become fast friends in the few hours they’d been together on the Trinity.

Lord Richard’s elder brother, Edward, once meant to become King Edward V of England, was made of sterner stuff than his small brother. But John knew he was just as frightened. They were all three.

The Trinity lurched violently in a particularly fierce gust of the gale and herhull strained. Everyone heard her timbers’ ominous splintering as they were stressed beyond endurance. Now the sea began to pour in at a frightening rate, and then the rudder snapped, leaving her helpless and at the storm’s mercy. She wallowed, turning beam on to the full bellow of the tempest. She was doomed and everyone on board knew it.  The master ordered the launching of the ship’s boat, a feat only accomplished with immense difficulty because of the danger of it being dashed it against the  heaving hull. Could anyone reach the boat without being flung into the water and drowned?

Leaving the rail and struggling to keep his balance as the deck tilted by what seemed like forty-five degrees, John ushered the boys toward the place where they must climb down the swinging rope ladder. Lord Richard had stuffed Thomas the cat inside his doublet, but the creature squirmed and hampered the boy as he struggled to climb down to the boat. Then the terrified cat leapt out and plunged down into the sea. The boy screamed and let go of the ladder into a futile effort to catch the cat. John reached down and managed to grab the boy, then with a superhuman effort he suspended the boy over the boat and dropped him into the waiting arms of two mariners. Thomas had disappeared beneath the thrashing waves.

Edward climbed down by himself, gripping the rope ladder as it slapped viciously against the hull. The boy had grit, John thought as he watched over the rail. His heart leapt to his mouth as Edward jumped from the ladder to the wildly bobbing boat and missed. Mariners reached down to pluck him from the sea, and when they did he had Thomas the cat by the scruff. The tomcat had surely just forfeit one of his nine lives! John couldn’t help thinking that if Edward had been legitimate, he’d have become King of England and there wouldn’t have been a King Richard III, instead there’d have been Lord Protector Richard, Duke of Gloucester. But Edward and his siblings were baseborn, and that was the fault of their father.

Now it was John’s turn, but as he began to descend the ladder there came the biggest wave anyone from the Trinity had ever seen. They’d heard tales of these monsters, but never encountered one….until now. The mountain of water cascaded over the stricken caravel, and the surge and suck of the vast volume of water forced her almost vertically on the gigantic swell. She was swamped, lurching so the ladder slapped almost dementedly against her hull. The ladder twisted, trapping and dazing John between it and the ship.

Somehow the caravel remained afloat as the wave engulfed her, so that those who would have followed him down, including the master, were left with no choice but to leap from the deck as close to the boat as they could. Most of them were hauled to safety and then, with John still caught up in the ladder and close to unconsciousness, the boat was pushed away from the dying vessel.

Another great heave of the dying caravel sent all manner of flotsam tumbling into the water, some of it almost knocking against John as the ladder jerked again and he was freed. He found enough wit to hold on tightly, but then a large boom torn from a mast knocked him into the churning waters. Within seconds the tempest drove him further away from the ship’s boat that could have saved his life.

The mountainous seas broke shrouds and stays and weakened masts, and the already damaged hull now caved in completely. Swallowing salt water, John managed to cling to the same boom that had struck him from the ladder. He heard the final death throes of the sinking caravel. The Lord’s Prayer was on his lips as he felt the undertow tugging at him, but somehow he managed to fling an arm around the boom and thread his hand into the rigging still attached to it, but then he knew no more as everything went black.

John opened his eyes drowsily. He felt muddled and not truly awake at all. It was still night, and he was warm and cosy in a pine-scented feather bed, curtained and canopied. Or was it the air itself that was so scented? Everything about the firelit room told him he was in a building that was several hundred years old. The wall paintings were in what he was sure was the Norman style, and the walls were hung with arras and hunting-scene tapestries with, he thought, King William Rufus. There was a good fire flickering in the large hearth of an immense fireplace that was much more recent than the rest of the room. Above it was a shelf was laden with greenery, and beyond the tall window he could see heavy snow falling outside, drifting down gently because there was no longer a tempest. Snow? In August?

An open doorway nearby led to a wide torchlit passage that had beautiful murals. Along it carried the smell of baking and sweet spices, and the sound of a young woman singing a Christmas song he didn’t recognise. All he could make out was the chorus. “Nowell, Nowell, Nowell….”

John’s lips parted. Christmas? It was Christmas? He looked again at the greenery placed all around. Holly, ivy, pine, bay tree and mistletoe, all decked with apples, pears, nuts, gold and silver bows and paper flowers. Yes, of course it was Christmas, but….how?

He heard a soft regular brushing sound nearby. Thunderstruck, he saw a rather familiar black tomcat on its hind legs, humming contentedly to itself as it applied a little broom to some spilled grain. Thomas? From the Trinity? No, that was impossible, but this cat had an identical white back paw.

Even more incredibly, nearby was an elderly swan with a pink satin bow on its head. It flapped its wings, causing a draught that made the fire glow more, then it hissed crossly as it made itself comfortable on the floor in front of the flames and tucked its head around to its back, between its wings. The broom-wielding cat ventured too close and the swan’s head jerked out again, with some vituperative hissing. The cat couldn’t have cared less and turned to wiggle its rear end rudely before continuing its task. Clearly the two didn’t like each other.

John stared and pulled his bedclothes up to his chin. He’d lost his wits and was seeing impossible things! Then, on the bed’s high footboard, he saw a large grey rat with only half a tail. It sat up on its haunches, its eyes shining and bead-like. The only such half-tailed rat John had seen before had belonged to King Richard’s son, Edward of Middleham, who’d named it Rollo. It had disappeared when its young master had died so tragically.

But this rat was unusual for another reason; John was sure it was smiling at him. As he looked it stood up on its hind legs and walked along the footrail to the curtains draped down at the corner of the bed. There it lowered itself by its front paws and he heard it jump down. The next thing it ran across the floor toward the passage, half-tail high and still on two legs.

Thinking he really had gone mad, John stared at the open doorway. Next he heard the rat squeaking excitedly in a nearby room, from where the delicious smell of baking seemed to emanate, and then a young woman’s voice. “Yes, yes, Rollo, there’s no need to shout for I can hear you. He’s awake? Oh good.”

Rollo? It was Prince Edward’s little pet? John closed his eyes, hoping that when he opened them again everything would be normal and totally unremarkable. But it wasn’t. The cat was still brushing and the swan still snoring.

Then there was a short rather cross little bark from a dog, and the woman responded. “No, Gerald, you are to keep that spit turning. I don’t want that batter cake to be lopsided because you are a lazy hound.”

As the unseen dog grumbled, John’s lips had parted in disbelief, not because of the dog’s almost human response but because he thought he recognized the young woman’s voice..

“Do as you are told, sir, or there won’t be any for you,” she declared, “but if you do your task properly then you shall have a double helping, I promise.”

At that there was silence, except for the immediate and decidedly spirited creak of a turning spit.

Brisk footsteps announced the woman’s approach, and John held his breath. She appeared in the doorway, pretty in a green kirtle, with red curls peeping beneath her pearl-beige coif.

“Alicia? Sweetheart?” he whispered incredulously. “But—”

“Hush now,” she interrupted as she came to the bedside and took his hand to raise the palm to her lips. Love shone in her memorable green eyes, and as his fingers closed around hers, it was as if she had never been taken from him.

Behind her he saw Rollo the rat peeping around the jamb. This was lunacy, John thought. Alicia had been dead these five years! As for these exceedingly odd creatures….

Alicia smiled at him, her eyes alight with the love he remembered. “I’m so glad you’re awake at last. All these years I’ve longed to be with you again. Especially at times like this, when I see others kissing beneath the mistletoe.”

It was hard to grapple with his utter bewilderment and confusion. “If….if it’s Christmas, have I been here since August?”

She smiled again, removing her hand from his in order to pat his pillow and see his head was more comfortable. “In a manner of speaking. Don’t fret now, for fretting will impede your recovery. The joys of Christ’s Nativity are almost upon us and we are to celebrate.”

“But—”

She interrupted. “You were found on the shore, still just alive, and we’ve saved you. Haven’t we Rollo?” She glanced around at the door, and the rat nodded.

It was too much. John closed his eyes tightly. “I can’t possibly be seeing anything! Not you, not a grey rat that walks on it hind legs, a cat that does the same and uses a broom, a bad-tempered swan that wears a pink bow, and even a dog in the kitchen turning a spit!”

Alicia laughed. “It’s not your wits, rather the drowsy syrup in the dwale you’ve been given. But you are not to mention the syrup because the Church believes poppy juice is from the Devil.” She crossed herself. “Whatever the truth, it makes the mind plays tricks.”

Delirium because of something he’d been administered? “Is that why I’m seeing you too?” he asked softly.

“Well, maybe there’s a little more to it, but you’re not ready to hear it all yet. You wouldn’t normally hear or see anything of this place, but you’re between worlds and the dwale is particularly strong.”

“In between worlds?” he repeated, his eyes wide.

She nodded. “You’ll learn more when the time is right.”

“I must be satisfied with that?” He longed to hold her again, kiss her….love her….

She nodded. “I fear so.”

“May I at least know where I am?”

“The storm blew the caravel off course to the south. You’re in Kirkensea Abbey.”

John blinked, having expected to learn he was somewhere from legends, or even Eden. He knew it wasn’t Heaven, but he certainly hadn’t expected it to be the remains of the lost abbey he’d seen from the deck of the Trinity. All he’d seen was a few broken walls, without a roof anywhere. Yet this chamber was not only complete but perfect too. He had to doubt what she said. “Kirkensea? But….it was washed away and destroyed completely by the sea years ago. I’ve seen what’s left!”

“Nevertheless, it’s where you are. Those of the House of York come to Kirkensea. It’s why I’m here. We have the abbey to ourselves. With God’s blessing, of course. And the Benedictines did abandon it, so we haven’t displaced them or any such thing.”

“We? Who do you mean?”

She nodded at the window. “Look.”

He gazed through the falling snow toward another brightly lit window across what seemed to be a narrow quadrangle. There were ladies, gentlemen and children in the chamber inside, with Christmas decorations and more greenery all around. They were all listening raptly to a storyteller, their faces aglow in the light of fire and candles. One lady was playing a lute, her flourishes clearly timed to fit the story, and they were all enjoying green gingers, comfits, a number of other tasty morselsand plentiful ypocras. Their brightly coloured clothes were rich and of one fashion or another, and they all seemed to be happy as befitted the season. It was one of the scenes that King Richard remembered so fondly, and which he’d so wanted to share again.

As he looked, a door opened and a middle-aged man wearing a stag’s head disguise looked in. He removed his stag mask and they all laughed and clapped. He grinned and then withdrew again.

“Who was he?” John asked.

“Your grandfather, the Duke of York.”

John stared, for he’d been a small boy when the old duke was killed in battle. He looked again at the other faces and was taken aback to recognise his uncle Edward IV asleep in a chair, his head back and mouth open. He was clearly snoring. Too much to drink as usual, John thought. Then he recognised Richard’s lovely blonde queen, Anne Neville, and their son Prince Edward of Middleham. And Lord Edward was with them, laughing at some shared joke! So Rollo really was his pet? And was that George of Clarence on the far side of the fireplace? With his wife, Queen Anne’s sister, Isabel? Oh, how King Richard would have loved to be here with them all….

Then another absence struck John. “Where is my other cousin, Lord Richard?”

“The Trinity’s boat capsized and only Lord Richard and the ship’s master were found alive,”Alicia explained. “Like you, they’d clung to a floating spar and were fortunate enough to be rescued by a Flemish balinger. They were both uninjured. The master of the Trinity saw Lord Richard safely to the duchess in Bruges.”

John was glad that at least one of his charges had been delivered, as his uncle had wished, even if he, John de la Pole, hadn’t actually completed the task. He’d tried, dear God he’d tried, but had failed Richard by not persuading the girls and little Warwick to leave Sheriff Hutton with him, and then by saving only one of the boys. He tried to take heart. If they’d all come, maybe more would have perished in the tempest. John could well imagine the capital Tudor would have made out of that. More murders to lay at Richard’s door.

Alicia spoke again. “There are many other members of your family here, John. If they were the nobility of York, or nobility who fought for York, then they have come here. It began late in the last century, when your great-great-grandfather, Edmund of Langley, the first Duke of York, was a very generous benefactor. He’s here too somewhere.” Then her mood changed to one of urgency. “John must never tell anyone of Kirkensea for it is a great secret, a sanctuary known only to those who are here. You know now because you have been trapped halfway between life and death. Do you understand?”

Just then someone passed between the two windows, staggering weakly through the snow. It was John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, still in his battle armour, The duke was descended from royalty on both sides of his family and was an avowed Yorkist who’d always supported Richard III.

The Howards and de la Poles had quarrelled quite seriously, but that didn’t matter as John watched in dismay as the badly injured duke made his unsteady way between the two windows. Bloodied and fatally wounded, he looked as if he’d somehow managed to reach this place on foot, all the way from the battlefield at Bosworth. He was cradling a limp spaniel in his arms.

John called out to him urgently, and must have been heard, but although the duke’s hollow, sorrow-filled eyes swung toward him, there was no glimmer of recognition. Then he’d gone into an unseen door, which John knew was there because within seconds Howard appeared again, this time in the bright chamber opposite. No longer garbed in armour, he wore the finest clothes, red velvet and a silver-grey doublet and he looked in better spirits that he had in some time. His equally restored spaniel leapt excitedly around him as he went to embrace Anne.

“What am I really seeing?” John asked Alicia quietly, for he wasn’t convinced it was all due to delirium.

“The Duke of Norfolk has passed over and is now one of us here at Kirkensea.”

“But I’m not?”

“Not yet.”

“Am I to join you all?” He wanted to be with them now! Be with her again, as was always meant to be.

She lowered her eyes. “Maybe.”

“Only maybe?” He felt suddenly cold.

Then another figure passed the window. It was King Richard himself, his golden armour hacked and blood-stained. His face was haggard and drained, and he was clearly in terrible pain. Ratat, his white coat marked with blood, was cowering on his shoulder.

John needed to go to the uncle he loved so much. “I must be with him!” cried, beginning to fling the bedclothes back.

“You cannot.”

“I can! I must!”

But Alicia put a restraining hand on his arm. “No. It’s forbidden. You are not one of us yet. Now is not your time and I am the only one permitted to talk to you. There is nothing you can do anyway, nor would he want you to. See? He is now one of us and is with his wife and son again.”

Alicia pointed toward the other window. Sure enough, as had happened with John Howard, now Richard appeared there, splendid in cloth-of-gold and rust-coloured velvet. He too was fully restored, healthy and no longer weighed down by the weight of sorrow and kingship. But above all he was happy again, his face alight with gladness as his little son ran to hug him. Anne rose too and allowed father and son a few moments together before hurrying to embrace them both. Ratat, clearly delighted, jumped excitedly from one shoulder to another, his white tail twitching wildly.

John was close to tears as he watched. He’d never thought he’d see his uncle smile like that again. Yet here Richard was, joyful again in this mysterious place.

Alicia smiled. “Be easy, John. Did you ever see a more wondrously festive Christmas? The searing cruelties of the past have gone and they can all be themselves again.” Then she laughed. “I wondered where Ratat had gone. He was with Queen Anne when she arrived, but then a few weeks ago he disappeared. I realise now that he was going back for King Richard.”

It was incredible….and yet logical too, John thought almost resignedly.

Alicia explained more. “Everyone who comes here brings a beloved creature or has one of our animals go to collect them, and I am here to take care of them all.” She smiled. “Because I love animals and know what they are thinking. They don’t always like it that I can read them so well, but they accept it.”

John held her gaze. “But I have no animal with me.”

“Not this time. Is there one in particular you would wish to have here with you? Héraut, perhaps?”

His beloved horse. Yes, of course! John smiled and nodded. “I already thought Rollo was Lord Edward’s rat—” He broke off as Rollo jumped up and down, squeaking, clearly signifying he understood everything. John smiled and then looked at Alicia again. “But, didn’t Lord Edward also bring Thomas?”

Thomas chirruped on hearing his name.

“Yes, he did. There is no reason why someone can’t bring more animals.”

“Who brought the swan?”

“Diana was injured by the Duke of Clarence’s barge near Westminster. The duke ordered her to be treated and saved, but it wasn’t to be, and when he….died….she came here to join him. That’s how it works. Special animals come to be with the lord or lady who mean a great deal to them. Sometimes it’s many years before it happens, but it always does in the end.”

Diana? What a name to give a swan! Not that Gerald was much better. “And Gerald the dog?”

“You gave me a puppy on the very day I died. Remember? I was holding him when my horse rolled on us both. Gerald came here with me.”

“And called him Gerald?”

She laughed. “I have no idea why, the name just came to me.”

“Did you name Diana as well?”

“No, that was the Duchess of Clarence. John, the poppy juice is only part of all this. You are poised between life and our eternity. But eternity is not for you just yet. You have to go back.”

“What will happen? Will the Lady Elizabeth marry the Tudor vermin?”

“Yes, she will. I know you think badly of her, but neither she nor any of your other cousins betrayed you.  The Tudor king will not know that you were responsible for Lord Richard reaching Burgundy safely. Nor will he know what happened to the Lord Edward. He believes they are both still alive and therefore a great danger to him because he has reversed Richard’s lawful declaration of their illegitimacy. He had to because he’d promised to marry Elizabeth. You, John, will one day raise another Yorkist army against him.”

“And defeat him?” John asked eagerly, his heart leaping.

“I’ve said too much already and will be sternly lectured by your great-great-grandfather Edmund when you’ve gone. He is in charge of everyone here, whether they’re monarchs or not.” She went to the fireplace, accidentally treading on the swan, which erupted from the floor with much flapping and hissing. Thomas the cat thought it hilarious, and almost bent double with what could only be cat laughter.

Alicia wasn’t impressed with the swan. “I’m sorry I trod on you, Diana, but it wasn’t that heavily, so do stop fussing. How many times have I warned you about flapping inside? You’re far too big, and last time you knocked Queen Anne’s book of hours from her hand and it was damaged. That is not acceptable.”

The swan shuffled guiltily and plumped down on the floor again, still chuntering in that way swans have.

“You’re surely the crabbiest old bird I’ve ever encountered,” Alicia declared, bringing a little folded blanket from the foot of the bed and arranging it over the swan. “No more grizzling now,” she instructed, tucking the blanket carefully.

Diana uttered a prolonged swan snort and pushed her head under the blanket, being very careful not to dislodge the pink bow of which she was clearly very proud.

Then Alicia looked at the tomcat, who was now helpless with laughter. “And you can attend to your own business, sir!”

Still sniggering, the tomcat quickly started brushing again.

John watched, bemused. It all seemed so very real, and yet it was the result of poppy juice in the dwale? Could he really be so delirious that he imagined all this?

Alicia brought a little bottle on the mantelshelf and poured a spoon of thick white liquid. “Now then, You’re to take this and then sleep again.”

“Am I not witnessing enough madness already?” he protested weakly.

“You must sleep, my love. It’s the only way to full recovery. Take it now.”

He did as he was told, and she returned the bottle to the mantelshelf. Then she hesitated. “I shouldn’t say this, but I have to. John, you must never drink at a spring by willows, because if you do….” She had difficulty continuing. “All willows are enchanted, and they will keep you close forever.”

“Which willows? Where?” John demanded, recalling Richard’s words. “Willows are both beautiful and baneful, are they not? Touched with magic, perhaps.”

“I cannot say, I only know I must warn you. Do as I say and you will live your allotted span and we will be together again here. Go against my warning, and….”

“And the willows will keep me forever?” he finished for her.

Bringing a tiny sprig of mistletoe from the mantelshelf. “This is for all the Christmas kisses we’ve been denied, John,” she said softly.

As she held it above their heads and bent to kiss him on the lips she felt so real, so warm and vibrant that she might never have been taken from him. He raised a hand to sink his fingers into the warm hair at the nape of her neck, a tender caress that had Rollo in fits of squeaky giggles, but which made Thomas sigh longingly, perhaps he remembered a particular little she-cat….

“Alicia—”

“Shh.”

She put a finger to his mouth, but he stopped her. “Will I really join you all here? Will I too be reunited with everyone? Especially with you?”

She drew away and her fingers pulled from his grip. “I will wait forever for you to come to me, John de la Pole. And we will be togetherbut only if you—”

“But only if I stay away from willows?”

She smiled and was leaving the room when she paused again. “There is one other thing you should know. When you next awaken it will be August again.”

Seeing how he looked at the Christmas greenery, she shook her head. “Do not be fooled by time, John, for it is always Christmas here. That is because we choose it to be so. It is a wonderful time, and we are always happy. There are no storms, no sorrow, no anxiety, and for us it’s always as if we’re all together for the first time. What could be better for the soul?” She held his gaze. “I love you, John de la Pole,” she whispered, then left.

John heard her light steps retreating along the passage. He wanted to follow her, but his legs were heavy and he felt drowsy, so he could only lie there in the enticing comfort of the feather bed. Thomas resumed his floor-brushing, and Diana snored loudly enough to jolt herself into wakefulness again. Annoyed, she voiced more from her considerable lexicon of swan abuse, and then returned her head beneath her wing.

John smiled at the thought of such unlikely companions. The dwale was what conjured them? Maybe. But it didn’t summon Alicia and her kiss, of that he felt certain. He could still taste the sweetness of her lips. Oh, how he’d loved her then….and how he loved her still.

A little scrambling sound on footboard, signalling Rollo’s resumption of his guard duty. John knew no more as he sank into a deep restorative sleep.

The dream that followed was not happy. He was on the sandy beach at Kirkensea, and the great abbey—whole and in its prime—rose on the low cliffs. As he looked he saw Alicia, her red curls streaming in the wind as she emerged from a doorway. She blew him a kiss, but as she went back into the abbey there was a terrible rumbling sound and he felt the beach tremble underfoot. Then the cliff  slipped, taking the stricken abbey with it toward the sea, which seemed to rise up to seize it. The waves boiled as the immense abbey fell apart and came crashing down. It seemed to be forever before the sea was calm again, and the only traces of the once-mighty abbey were several triple-tiered arches, a single small tower, heaps of masonry and the almost submerged remnants of old walls.

But he knew that somewhere, in another time that was somehow the present time too, it was still there, as magnificent as ever on its clifftop, and he, John de la Pole had been there with Alicia.

The next thing John knew he was kneeling before the elaborate shrine of St John of Bridlington in the chapel behind the high altar at Bridlington Priory. It was warm and bands of August sunlight poured in through the windows of the great nave beyond the chapel. A single trefoil window illuminated the jewelled shrine and he knew he’d been kneeling for some time. He was dressed to travel, and realised he was about to leave for Sheriff Hutton.

Someone coughed discreetly a little way behind him, and he looked around to see the canon into whose care he had entrusted Héraut.

“My lord of Lincoln? All is ready and it’s time.”

“I’ll come outside directly.”

“My lord.” The canon bowed low and began to withdraw.

John spoke to him again. “How am I here?”

The young man turned in astonishment. “My lord?”

“Just tell me what happened. Please.”

“Well, you were washed ashore during the great tempest. You’d clung to a boom from the Trinity caravel, and the townsmen carried you here to us. Don’t you recall anything?”

John felt foolish. “Sometimes it is a little hazy,” he replied, marvelling that he’d been found and saved in exactly the same way here as in Kirkensea.

“You were very fortunate to survive. And without any injury at all.  Almighty God smiled upon you.”

“Indeed He did.”

As the canon departed, John rose to his feet a little gingerly, expecting pain from all the bruises he’d suffered during the shipwreck, but he felt nothing. In fact, he was in perfect health….except for feeling disorientated. Everything seemed too fantastical to have happened, and yet it felt real. He felt very strange, as if he were still partly in that Christmas otherworld, and partly here, in what was his true life. He wasn’t supposed to remember anything, he realised that. The secret of Kirkensea was meant to be withheld until the moment death itself sent him there, but his mind would not—could not—surrender Alicia for a second time.

He emerged from the church into the dazzling summer sunshine. There was still a brisk wind—the remnants of the storm—and small white clouds raced across the blue sky. Seagulls wheeled and mewed overhead as he crossed to where his men and Héraut waited. 

When he’d mounted he paused to look out to sea again. White-capped waves churned, but in no way resembled the monstrous swells and breakers of the night. He crossed himself for all the men who’d forfeited their lives on the Trinity, and then turned Héraut to ride west to Sheriff Hutton and whatever fate awaited him there.

John, Earl of Lincoln, appeared to accept the reign of Henry VII, but was only biding his time, because on 16 June 1487, he led a rebel Yorkist army against the Tudor king. It was said that a week before the battle a black tomcat with one white back paw had attached itself to John, who seemed very pleased to have it close. But then John drank from a spring on the eve of the battle, not realising until too late that the spring was beneath a willow tree. As soon as he sipped the cool water the black cat ran off and didn’t return.

John was killed in the battle, although Henry had wanted him taken alive. The Earl of Lincoln was denied a proper burial, and with some of his captains was left in a shallow, unmarked grave in the willow grove by the spring. Willow osiers were driven through the dead men’s hearts, and great trees grew therefrom.

So, as Alicia warned and feared, John de la Pole did not join her at Kirkensea, but was kept by the willows.

But there is a happy ending. One hundred years later only one willow remained, that which imprisoned John. But then another tempest raged and the willow was uprooted. John was freed at last, and found Thomas, Ratat, Rollo, Diana and Héraut—who was nibbling the lush grass nearby—waiting to escort him home to Kirkensea, where it was always Christmas. Alicia ran to meet her great love, never having lost hope of being with him again