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“Who?”
“Isabeau de Bavière.”
“What? Charles’ whore mother?”
Bolingbroke laughed. “Aye. Dame Isabeau will formally declare Charles a bastard. Her memory has become clearer, it seems, and she is now certain that it was the Master of Hawks who put Charles in her.”
“And what price did Richard pay for the return of her memory?”
“A castle here, a castle there, a stableful of willing lads … who truly knows? But enough to ensure that Isabeau will swear on the Holy Scriptures, and whatever splinters of the True Cross the Abbot of Westminster scrapes up, that Charles is a bastard, and that leaves Richard, as John’s great grand-nephew, the nearest male relative.”
Neville grimaced. “John must rue the day his father gave his sister to be Edward II’s wife.”
“I swear that he has spent his entire life ruing it. And the inevitable has come to pass. John must sign away the French throne to a distant English relative.”
“What of Catherine?”
“Catherine?”
“Aye, Catherine … Charles’ sister.” Neville wasn’t sure why Hal was looking so surprised—he must surely have considered her claim. “Is Catherine a bastard as well? Or did John’s son Louis actually manage to father her on Isabeau? If Catherine is legitimate, then, while she is not allowed to sit on the throne herself according to Salic Law, her bed and womb will become a treasure booty for any French noble who thinks to lay claim to the throne.”
“I am sure that Louis never fathered that girl,” Bolingbroke said. “No doubt her father was some stable lad Isabeau thoughtlessly bedded one warm, lazy afternoon.”
“And if she’s not bastard-bred?” Neville said, watching Bolingbroke as carefully as Bolingbroke had been watching him earlier. “We all know who will be the first to climb into Catherine’s bed.”
Bolingbroke stared stone-faced at Neville, then raised his eyebrows in query.
“Philip is with Charles’ camp, Hal. You know that. And you also know that Philip’s lifelong ambition has been to reach beyond Navarre to the French throne. You’re wrong to suggest Richard is the only close male relative to John—Philip thinks he has the better blood claim. The instant word reaches France of the treaty, Philip will be lifting back Catherine’s bed covers with a grin of sheer triumph stretching across his handsome face.”
“Catherine would not allow it.”
“Why not? She has ambition herself and she will need to assure her future. Philip would be one of the few men in Christendom who could guarantee her a place beside the throne.”
Bolingbroke abruptly stood up. “Whatever. I thought you more interested in de Worde’s casket than a young girl’s bedding.” He walked to the door. “In three days time I will be called to Westminster as witness to the signing of the treaty. You will come with me, and together we can spend our spare hours haunting the cellars and corridors of the palace complex … the casket must be there somewhere! Now,” Bolingbroke grabbed the door latch and pulled the door open, “we shall collect our women and we will join my father and his lady wife for supper in the hall … they will surely be wondering where we are.”
“Hal, wait! There is one other thing!”
Visibly impatient, Bolingbroke raised his eyebrows.
“A few days before we left Halstow Hall, Wycliffe, Wat Tyler and two Lollard priests, Jack Trueman and John Ball, came to visit.”
All impatience on Bolingbroke’s face had now been replaced with stunned surprise. “What? Why?”
“To irritate me, no doubt.” Neville paused. “Wycliffe said he was on his way to Canterbury, intimating it was with the leave of your father. Thus, Wat Tyler as escort.”
Bolingbroke slowly shook his head. “As far as we knew, Wycliffe had gone back to Oxford. But he is in Kent?”
Neville nodded, and Bolingbroke frowned, apparently genuinely concerned.
“I must tell my father,” he said, then corrected himself. “No. I will make the enquiries. There is no need to disturb my father.”
Then, with a forced gaiety on his face, Bolingbroke once more indicated the door. “And now, we must return to our women, Tom!”
And with that Bolingbroke disappeared into the corridor as Neville, thoughtful, stared after him.
Cecilia Bohun, dowager Countess of Hereford, gasped, and her face flushed.
“Madam?” Mary said, leaning over to lay her hand on her mother’s arm.
Cecilia took a deep breath and tried to smile for her daughter. “I fear you must pardon me, Mary. I—”
She suddenly got to her feet, and took three quick steps towards the door. Collecting herself with an extreme effort, she half-turned back to her still-seated daughter.
“Before we sup … I must … the garderobe …” she said, and then made as dignified a dash to the door as she could.
Margaret did not know what to do: what words should she say? Should she say anything? Did the Lady Mary expect her to go after her mother? Would the Lady Mary hate her for witnessing her mother’s discomposure?
“Margaret,” Mary Bohun said, “pray do not fret. My mother will be well soon enough. It is just that … at her age …”
Grateful that Mary should not only have recognised her uncertainty, but have then so generously rescued her, Margaret smiled and nodded. “I have heard, my lady, that the time of a woman’s life when her courses wither and die is difficult.”
“But we must be grateful to God if we survive the travails of childbed to reach that age, Margaret.”
Margaret nodded, silently studying Mary. She was a slender girl with thick, honey-coloured hair and lustrous hazel eyes. Not beautiful, nor even pretty, but pleasant enough. However, unusually for a woman of her nobility and inheritance, Mary was unassuming far beyond what modesty called for. When Margaret had first sat down, she thought to find Mary a haughty and distant creature, but in the past half hour she had realised that, while reserved, the woman was also prepared to be open and friendly with a new companion who was not only much more lowly ranked than herself, but whose reputation was besmirched by scandal; Mary must certainly have heard that Margaret’s daughter was born outside marriage, even if she had not heard of Margaret’s liaison with the Earl of Westmorland, Ralph Neville, while in France.
Margaret also realised that Mary was, as Hal had suggested, tainted with a malaise; deep in her eyes were the faint marks of a slippery, sliding phantom, the subterranean footprints of something dark and malignant and hungry.
Margaret shuddered, knowing that an imp of ruin and decay had taken up habitation within Mary. Giggling, perhaps, as it waited its chance.
Having seen that shadow, Margaret knew that Mary’s slimness might not all be due to abstemious dining habits, or the pallor of her cheeks not completely the result of keeping her face averted from the burning rays of the sun, and that the lustrousness of her eyes might be as much due to an as-yet unconscious fever as to a blitheness of spirit.
Mary’s affliction was as yet so subtle, so cunning, that Margaret had no doubt that Mary herself remained totally unaware of it.
Yet how like Hal, she thought, to have seen this affliction and to have realised its potential. And how sad that this lovely woman was to be so used. Treasured not for her beauty of character, but for the speed of her impending mortality.
“My lady,” Mary said, frowning slightly, “why do you stare so?”
Margaret reddened, dropping her eyes. “I am sorry, my lady. I was … merely remembering my own doubts on the eve of my marriage, and pitying your own inevitable uncertainties.”
As soon as she’d said those words, Margaret’s blush deepened. What if Mary had no uncertainties? What if she chose to view Margaret’s words, as well as her staring, with offence?
“My lady,” Margaret added hastily, “perhaps I have spoken ill-considered words! I had not thought to imply that—”
“No, shush,” Mary said. “You have not spoken out of turn.”
She hesitated, biting her lip slightly. “My Lady Margaret … I am glad that you are to be my companion. I shall be grateful to have a woman close to my own age to confide in.”
Mary’s eyes flitted about the chamber to make sure that the several servants about were not within hearing distance. “You have been a maid, and now are married with a child. You have undertaken the journey that I am soon to embark upon.”
Margaret inclined her head, understanding that Mary was uncertain about her forthcoming marriage. Well, there was nothing surprising about that.
“My lady,” she said, “it is a journey that most women embark upon. Most survive it.”
If not unscarred, she thought, but knew she must never say such to Mary.
“My Lord of Hereford,” Margaret continued, “will no doubt be a generous and loving husband.”
Again Mary glanced about the chamber. “Margaret, may I confide most intimately in you, and be safe in that confidence?”
Oh, Mary, Mary, be wary of whom you confide in!
“My lady, you may be sure that you shall be safe with me.”
Even as she spoke the words she initially thought would be lies, Margaret realised that they were true. Whatever Mary told her would be repeated for no other ears.
Mary took a deep breath. “Margaret … the thought of marriage with Bolingbroke unsettles me greatly. He is a strange man, and sometimes I know not what to make of him. I wonder, sometimes, what kind of husband he shall prove to be.”
Margaret briefly closed her eyes and sent a silent prayer to Jesus Christ for forgiveness for the lie she knew she now must speak.
“My lady,” she said, smiling as reassuringly as she could, “your fears are but those of every maid approaching her marriage bed and who fears the unknown. Rest assured that my Lord of Hereford will surely prove the most loving of husbands and one that most women would be more than glad to have in their beds.”
Mary’s eyes searched Margaret’s face, and she began to say more, but was interrupted by the opening of the far door.
“Mary! Margaret!” Bolingbroke strode into the chamber, Neville at his shoulder. “Supper awaits! Come, cease your girlish gossiping and take our arms so that we may make our stately way to the hall where my Lord and Lady of Lancaster await us.”
When Margaret gave her arm to Mary to aid her to rise, she was shocked at the tightness of Mary’s grip.
VI (#ulink_d8ad77a2-aee6-5954-aaf0-c4b8cd9dbd48)
After Compline, the Feast of the
Translation of St Cuthbert
In the first year of the reign of Richard II
(deep night Monday 5th September 1379)
—iii—
Neville was late back to the chamber he shared with Margaret. Lancaster and Bolingbroke had kept him for several hours after supper had ended, discussing and debating the treaty about to be signed in Westminster. Neville had been disturbed by Lancaster’s appearance: he seemed tired and listless, as if trying to advise and guide Richard had brought him years closer to his grave.
And what was surprising about that? Lancaster, a godly man, was doubtless worn down in trying to deal with Richard’s demonry.
When Katherine had interrupted their talk, gently insisting that Lancaster needed his bed, Neville had not been sorry—for his own sake as much as Lancaster’s. It had been a long day, full of emotion and surprises, and Neville badly needed sleep. His head ached abominably and his limbs were heavy and cumbersome with weariness.
He halted outside the closed door to his chamber, resting his head gently on its wood as his hand lightly grasped its handle. As much as he needed to lie down and close his eyes, he knew even that would be denied him for an hour or so.
As yet, Margaret and he had not had a chance to talk privately … and, after this afternoon’s confrontation with the archangel, Neville needed to talk with his wife.
He did not know what he wanted to say to her, nor even what he wanted to hear from her, but something needed to be said, for Neville did not think he could lie down by her side this night with the afternoon lying between them.
With what the archangel had said.
An abomination …
He straightened, then opened the door, closing it softly behind him as he entered.
Hal had made sure they received a good chamber, light and airy. There were several chests for their belongings (and yet not that one casket Neville so desperately sought), a wide bed generously spread with linens and blankets, clean, woven rush matting spread across the timber floor, and oil lamps that burned steadily from several wall sconces. In the far walls the wide windows were shuttered close—the river night was chill, even in this early autumn—and, into the side wall close by the bed, a fire flickered brightly in the grate.
Margaret sat on her knees by the hearth. She was dressed simply, in a loose wrap of a finely-woven ivory wool, her bronze-coloured hair undressed and left to flow freely over her shoulders.
Rosalind lay asleep in her lap, and as Neville entered Margaret raised her face and gave him an uncertain smile.
Then she looked to Agnes, folding clothes into one of the chests. “Leave us for the moment, Agnes. You may return for Rosalind later.”
Agnes nodded, bobbed a curtsey to both Margaret and Neville, and left via a door which opened into a smaller chamber where she and Rosalind would sleep.
Neville pinched at the bridge of his nose tiredly, not knowing where to start, or even what to do.
Margaret inclined her head to a chair standing across the hearth from her. “Tom, sit down and take off your boots. You have borne the weight of the world long enough for one day.”
“Aye.” Neville sank down into the chair, sliding his boots off with a grateful sigh. “And yet the day still weighs heavily on me, Margaret.”
Margaret dropped her face to her daughter, running a finger very lightly over the sleeping girl’s forehead. “As it does me, my lord.”
“Margaret …”
She raised her face and looked at him directly. “Why hate me so much? What have I done to deserve that?”
“Margaret, I do not know what to make of you—how can I interpret this afternoon? Saint Michael tells me to kill you; he says you are filth, an abomination which should never have been allowed to draw breath. He says you are that which I must destroy.”
“And yet you do not kill me, nor our daughter. You do not because you think to use me, to draw demons to your side through my presence. At least,” Margaret held his gaze steadily, “that is the excuse you make to Saint Michael.”
He was silent.
“What demons have I drawn to your side, Tom?”
Still he was silent, and she could not know that his mind had flickered back to Wycliffe’s brief visit, and to the priest’s patent respect for Margaret.
“Or have I,” she continued very quietly, “drawn to you only those who are best able to aid you in your fight against evil? Without me you would be still trapped inside the Church. Without me you would not have Lancaster and Bolingbroke as your strongest allies. Without me you would not have the means you now enjoy to fight against demonry.”
“And what is the demonry that now surrounds me, my love?”
Her face set hard at the sarcastic use of the endearment. “Who else but Richard? Richard is demonry personified. Doubtless Richard now holds this casket you search for so desperately.”
Neville leaned forward. “You trap yourself, Margaret. You have always known more than you should. My dear, tonight I will hear the truth or, before Jesus I swear that I will take Rosalind from your arms and dash her from the window, and then you after her!”
“You would not harm your daughter!” Margaret’s arms tightened about Rosalind, but to no avail, for Neville sprang from the chair and snatched the child away.
