woman said in a soft, mocking voice.
This only drove Henry to greater rage. “Succubus. A demon who feeds on the souls of men. You will not have my brother, devil!”
Her smile fell, darkening her expression. “You have just enough intelligence to do harm. And more than enough ignorance.”
“I’ll kill you. I can kill you where you stand.”
“You will not kill me. Arthur is so much mine that without me he will die.”
She’d made Arthur weak and subsumed him under her power. If that tie between them was severed—
Catherine’s heart pounded. She could not stop them both. They would not listen. No one ever listened to her. “Henry, you must not, she is keeping Arthur alive.”
“She lies.”
The woman laughed, a bitter sound. “If Arthur dies, Henry becomes heir. That reason will not stay his hand.”
But Henry didn’t want to be king. He’d said so …
Catherine caught his gaze. She saw something dark in his eyes.
Then she tried to forget that she’d seen it. “My lord, wait—”
The woman lived in shadow—was made of shadow. She started to flow back into the hidden ways by which she came, moving within the stillness of night. Catherine saw nothing but a shudder, the light of a sputtering candle. But Henry saw more, and like a great hunter he anticipated what the flinch of movement meant.
With a shout he lunged forward, driving the spear before him.
The woman flew. Catherine would swear that she flew, up and over, toward the ceiling to avoid Henry. Henry followed with his spear, jumping, swinging the weapon upward. He missed. With a sigh, the woman twisted away from him. Henry stumbled, thrown off balance by his wayward thrust, and Angeline stood behind him.
“You’re a boy playing at being warrior,” she said, carrying herself as calmly as if she had not moved.
Henry snarled an angry cry and tried again. The woman stepped aside and took hold of the back of Henry’s neck. With no effort at all, she pushed him down, so that he was kneeling. He still held the spear, but she was behind him, pressing down on him, and he couldn’t use it.
“I could make you as much my puppet as your brother is.”
“No! You won’t! I’ll never be anyone’s puppet!” He struggled, his whole body straining against her grip, but he couldn’t move.
Catherine knelt and began to pray, Pater Noster and Ave Maria, and her lips stumbled trying to get out all the words at once.
The prayers were for her own comfort. Catherine had little faith in her own power; she didn’t expect the unholy creature to hear her words and pause. She didn’t consider that her own words, her own prayer, would cause Angeline to loosen her grip on Henry.
But Angeline did loosen her grip. Her body seemed to freeze for a moment. She became more solid, as if the prayer had made her substantial.
Henry didn’t hesitate. He threw himself forward, away from Angeline, then spun to put the spear between them. Then, while she was still seemingly entranced, he drove it home.
The point slipped into her breast. She cried out, fell, and as she did Henry drove the wooden shaft deep into her chest.
The next moment she lay on the floor, clutching the shaft of the spear. Henry still held the end of it. He stared down at her, iconic, like England’s beloved Saint George and his vanquished dragon.
There was no blood.
A strangeness happened—as strange as anything else Catherine had seen since coming to England. With the scent of a crypt rising from her, the woman faded in color, then dried and crumbled like a corpse that had been rotting for a dozen years. The body became unrecognizable in a moment. In another, only ash and dust remained.
Henry kicked a little at the mound of debris.
Catherine spoke, her voice shaking. “She said she was keeping Arthur alive. What if it’s true? What if he dies? I’ll be a widow in a strange country. I’ll be lost.” Lost, when she was meant to be a queen. Her life was slipping away.
Henry touched her arm. She nearly screamed, but her innate dignity controlled her. She only flinched.
He gazed at her with utmost gravity. “I’ll take care of you. If Arthur dies, then I’ll take care of you, when I am king after my father.”
Arthur died in the spring. And so it came to pass that Henry, who had been born to be Duke of York and nothing else, a younger brother, a mere afterthought in the chronicles of history,