Julian Rathbone - Kings of Albion

At this moment a Yorkist knight came puffing up on to the crown of the hill and, seeing us and our predicament, assumed we must be enemies of the King and therefore friends of York, so cut us free.

He stood beside us as we rubbed our chafed wrists and ankles and, indeed, supported me for a minute or so, since my knees were buckling under me. We told him we hadn't eaten for twenty-four hours save a crust of bread, so he scouted about a bit and came back with bread and cheese and a canister of milk. Nice lad, for all that the surcoat over his breastplate was splashed with blood, not his own.

Now there was a sudden stillness over all the field for in the entrance of his tent stood King Henry, lean and gangly, pale, his head shaking and his fingers twining in and out in front of him as, no doubt, he considered, as best his fevered mind would allow, how to behave. Should he fall on his knees and beg for his life?

But no. It was the Yorkists who knelt, and such was the silence that even at that distance one felt one could hear the creak and clang of their jointed armour.

'Odd behaviour for the winners,' I muttered.

First they unbolted their visors and lifted off their plumed and absurdly crested helmets so when they now stood I could clearly discern the one I knew: Eddie March, yes, it was he, his light brown hair darkened with sweat, his face still red from the heat inside the helmet and the effort of fighting while shut inside a hundredweight or so of metal. The heraldic devices on his shield were similar to the ones on the King's banner: gold lions on red, quartered with silver lily flowers on blue. I wondered if there was some magic in this, or calculated insult, but forgot to ask about it until the reason for it became obvious.

On this occasion, before I could give the matter any thought, Warwick, dark, big, handsome, a man in his prime in contrast to Eddie, who was not yet eighteen, having made the obeisance due to the man who was still king, the Lord's Anointed, as they said, threw back his head and bellowed like a bull: 'So Where's the fucking Queen, then? And the bastard they call the Prince of Wales?'

At this point Ali, whose speech had been getting slower and slower, yawned and fell silent.

The rain had begun to ease as dusk gathered; the Burmese returned from the bushes and leapt into his lap. He tickled her under the chin.

I heard a doorlatch click and looked across the pool and into the verandah. His two wives, veiled in muslin but as lovely with rounded breasts and slim waists as their aunt, were coming towards us.

'Come back tomorrow, dear Mah-Lo,' said Ali, 'and we'll hear what had been happening to Uma.'

I create something of a stir as I walk through the countryside in my robes, for most people know and venerate the idol whose raiment I have assumed. 'Venerate' is not the right word, for she is more than a goddess, the mother of god. she is a familiar, a friend. There is a world of difference, I soon discover, between the way the dignitaries of the Church approach their icons and that pursued by the common sort. The former make obeisances, offer formal prayers, incense, magnificent jewellery, much of it real, and precious metals. Thus they hope to make these images remote and unapproachable, objects of awe, inspiring fear, even. Through these means the images become legitimators of their own authority and rule, justifications for the taxes and tithes they impose on the poor.

The latter, however, in spite of all this, endeavour to keep in their hearts the particularity of their most local image of the mother and therefore the particularity of the mother herself. The Virgin of Coventry is not the same as the Virgin of Nottingham or Walsingham: she is theirs alone, and no one else's, someone they recognise, can talk to and confide in, adore rather than worship, and who may be capricious, unreliable, but is part of their lives, is the reason why their crops grow, their wives are fertile and, when the time conies, their deaths repose in her arms.

And so, when they see her walking down the lanes, across the hills, on the banks of the river, through their fields and villages, wearing her high gold crown, her blue mantle, her black dress and the jewelled accoutrements of her goddesshood, they welcome her, with some solemnity, some awe, but mostly with a childlike desire to please her… and a childlike faith that she will sort out whatever problems are pressing them at this moment. In all this they share with the people of our own country a genuine religion unmediated by the contrivances of the bosses.

For my part I am, at this time, in a dazed and confused state of mind. Weeks of torture followed by months of deprivation of everything but life itself and the determination to live have left me weak in mind and body. I seem to float slowly but almost effortlessly across the ground, I hear a voice chanting in high, flute-like registers songs of love and gratitude to Parvati and hardly dare believe, it is so beautiful, that it is mine. The villagers strew cherry and apple-blossom petals in my path and moan with pleasure when I solemnly sway and turn and let them see my golden slippers as I dance to their wailing pipes, drums and tambourines, or signal the way to heaven with my twisting arms.

They feed me too: on cream and cheeses as the meadows fill with grass again; on last year's honeycomb, on fish, on bread, butter, coddled eggs and, as the month turns, waxy beans from wool-lined pods then peas, and salads made from sorrel shoots and hawthorn buds. And they are not surprised when I refuse the flesh of newborn lambs, rabbits, hens or pigeons.

I never outstay my welcome – or, rather, I never stay in one place long enough for the magic to wear off, in case what are human and woman in me become more evident than the goddess. And while their faith remains I can perform miracles. Old women on their death-beds rise up… or, if they do not, they sink into sweet, easy sleep with soft smiles on their faces; a young child, who in all his seven years has never said a word but grunts and mews, says the Hail Mary before lapsing back into meaningless splutters – or so his grandma tells us all; a man who fell out of an apple tree at harvest time and has not walked since hops out of bed to get a better view of me as I pass; and a pony that was almost lame walks almost straight when I ride on her back.

And through all this I prosper. The flesh gathers in my breasts and buttocks again…

At this point Uma leant back in her chair and gave her breasts, beneath her bolero, flame-coloured today, a proud and joyful shake. I have to remind myself that the mature lady who is talking to us was once the winsome creature, still in that borderline country between late girl and full woman, she is telling us about.

… my skin regains its creamy fresh smoothness, the shadows of pain and loss that lay round my eyes recede. I revel in the return of spring and summer, the heaped-up snow of hawthorn smelling like the cunts of virgins just at the moment when they take their first cocks between their lips, the drifts of parsleys and chervils beneath them, Solomon's seal with its white waxy testicles dangling below its fleshy leaves, then later the dog-roses, honeysuckles, and tall stands of foxgloves, meadows sheeted with golden buttercups…

Why are you looking so bored? You have heard all this before from Ali? I am sure he cannot speak of it all with the knowledge I have, or bring to it the love I felt… these northern springs. We have the glory of our gardens, fields and forests, but they do not change in the same way with the turn of the year, it is not the same glory. Grander perhaps, but not the same. You were not bored? The imagery I employed to describe the hawthorn smell? Well. Well. Take me as you find me. Never mind. I'll push on. Where was I? Getting better…