A Thoughtful Retelling of Richard III - a Blog Tour and Book Excerpt for "The Traitor's Son"

BOOK EXCERPT

April 1471: Dawn on Easter Day, Barnet Heath. Eighteen-year-old Richard of Gloucester, brother of Edward IV, takes confession and prepares for his first taste of battle.

They wake, those who have dared sleep, to a grey and muffled world. Overnight, heavy mist has fallen, and the air of early dawn is like a breath of winter. Beneath his coif, Richard’s hair sticks to his skull like goose grease, his cheeks sore and clammy. Worse is the effect of the sodden grass; wet and slimy under his arming shoes, as he drags himself to his feet. Not only does York give battle in the holiest seasons, he reflects, but we’re cursed each time with the most malevolent of weather.

Chaplains pick their way through the waking men, balancing the Host on patens. After brief confession, each man receives the Eucharist, bowing his head in receipt of a blessing. To Richard alone, the king sends one of his royal chaplains, Richard Martin; chasuble creased and grubby from travel. Kneeling on the damp earth, Richard’s heart begins to pound.

Confiteor Deo omnipotenti…

This may be his last confession—but trifling sins, long confessed, are as nothing to the festering desire for vengeance that has lodged in him since childhood, and for which he can never truly feel contrite. It has always felt that to forgive would be to forget; to disregard the pain inflicted upon his family; to reduce the atrocities of Ludlow, the tragedy of Sandal, to things banal and mundane, as if they had travelled beyond those scarred landscapes to pleasanter realms without a backward glance. But none of them have, and none of them shall, until the enemy is crushed.

Martin elevates the Host, voice flat, hurried and detached.

The wafer cleaving to Richard’s palate gradually dissolves. Crossing himself, he wipes moisture from his cheeks and rises in a cacophony of clanking steel.

Martin signals a final blessing, then vanishes, piecemeal, into the growing mist. Richard feels alone, disjointed, severed from the world. In his sudden desolation, he’s beset by a need to draw his people close. These boys, these men, are his friends. And not merely his friends, they’re those with whom he may be sharing his ultimate morning on earth. He recalls the priest with a sudden yell.

‘Father, minister to my squires also. And shrive them.’

‘If it please Your Grace, the king bade me minister to you expressly—’

‘Minister to my squires and shrive them.’

Before Martin can object, he calls the squires forward, bids them kneel at his feet.