for you.”
She raised her face back to him, and he drew in his breath at her beauty.
“Do you love Hal?”
“Yes,” she replied without hesitation. “But not as you think. When I first went to Raby’s bed in the English camp, Bolingbroke befriended me as much as so great a noble lord could befriend a minor lady. Raby treated me well, but not over-kindly. Bolingbroke saw that lack, and supplied the kindness. He is a compassionate man.”
Neville stared at her with an expressionless face, not willing to believe her.
“I have never bedded with Bolingbroke,” Margaret continued. “You and Raby only. Tom, if Bolingbroke had wanted me, if he had desired me, do you think he would have let Raby stand in his way?”
Neville finally allowed his shoulders to slump in relief. “No.”
“I needed to find my way to you, Tom,” Margaret whispered. “No one else.”
Neville slid off the chair to the carpet beside her. He buried a hand in her hair, and kissed her deeply, finally giving his desire for her free rein through his body.
If she had lied to him this night—and he did not believe she had, not with that rage of the angels he had seen in her eyes—then she had merely delayed her death. When he found the casket he would know all.
“I will never love you,” he said, “and I will not sacrifice the fate of the world for you, but that does not mean I cannot treat you as well as Raby, nor as kindly as Hal.”
And with that he drew her down to the carpet, sliding the woollen wrap from her body.
Margaret sighed, and wrapped her arms about him, mouthing a silent prayer of gratitude to Christ Jesus that both she and Rosalind were still alive, and that Tom had believed her.
All would be well … and perhaps Hal’s vile plan would not be needed. Perhaps Tom would love her without Hal’s hateful treachery.
Neville was lost in his passion now, his whole universe consisting only of their entwining bodies, and she moaned and held him tightly to her as their bodies joined.
And as Neville drowned in his lust, Margaret raised her head very slightly so she could see over his shoulder, and she sent a smile composed of equal parts triumph and implacable hatred at the archangel St Michael standing silent and furious in a golden column on the far side of the room.
The archangel screamed, a sound that reverberated through heaven and hell only, and vanished just as Neville cried out and collapsed across Margaret’s body.
“Sweet Tom,” she whispered, patting his back gently with one hand.
The Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
In the first year of the reign of Richard II
(Thursday 8th September 1379)
—i—
It was a warm blustery autumn day this feast of the birth of the Virgin, and the Londoners and their cousins from nearby villages and towns thronged the streets and marketplaces of the city. Priests stood on the porches of London’s parish churches, shouting reminders that this day all good Christians should be in the cold deep shadows of their churches’ bellies, praying for forgiveness for their too-numerous transgressions and pleading with God, Jesus and every saint in heaven that they might have even the remotest chance of salvation.
The people ignored them. Sweet Jesu, this was a feast day, and no one was going to waste it mumbling unintelligible prayers inside a frigid church. The autumn markets and fairs were in full swing: stalls groaned with the fruits of the summer harvest, flocks of geese and pigs squawked and squealed from their pens, landless labourers stood on boxes and shouted their availability to any landlord looking for cheap hired hands, and pedlars and quacksalvers sung the praises of their wares and cure-alls.
Buy my physick! Buy my physick! ’Tis a most excellent and rare drink, pleasant and profitable for young and old, and of most benefit to the hysterical woman with child. Use day and night, without danger, as the occasion and level of hysteria demandeth. This most wonderful of potions will also purge the body, cleanse the kidneys of the stone and gravel, free the body from itch and scabbedness, as well as all chilblains. It shall abate the raging pain of the gout, and assuage the raging pains of the teeth. It will expel all wind and torment in the guts, noises in the head or ears, destroy all manner of worms, and free the body from the rickets and scurvy. And that is not all! Why, this most wondrous of physicks also increases the quantity and sweetness of milk in the breasts of nurses!
“I swear to sweet Jesu,” Bolingbroke muttered as they turned their horses south onto the Strand from the gates of the Savoy, “that if I thought that most wondrous of physicks would also purge England of its most vile king I would swoop down on that abominable quack and purchase his entire stock!”
Neville laughed, even though the matter was serious. “I am sure,” he murmured, kneeing his horse close to Bolingbroke’s so that only he might hear, “that most of the dungeon keepers in this fair land will know the ingredients of a swift and certain poison. I would counsel a purchase from them, my friend, rather than from that pedlar of honey-water.”
Bolingbroke shot Neville a speculative glance. “You would condone murder to rid us of this demon, Tom?”
Before Neville could answer the crowds of people swarming along the Strand towards Westminster caught sight of Bolingbroke and his escort.
“Prince Hal! Fair Prince Hal!”
“Hal! Hal!”
A cry that turned into a roar swept along the Strand.
Hal! Hal! Fair Prince Hal!
Neville reined in his horse to come alongside the eight men-at-arms who rode as escort, allowing Bolingbroke to ride ahead and receive the acclamation of the crowds.
Bolingbroke had left his silver-gilt hair bare to the sunshine, and his pale grey eyes sparkled in his beautiful face as he stood high in the stirrups and waved to the crowds. If his head was bare, then the rest of Bolingbroke was resplendent in sky-blue velvets, creamy linens and silks, and jewels of every hue. From his hips swung a great ceremonial sword and a baselard dagger, both similarly sheathed in gold- and jewel-banded scarlet leather scabbards. As the roar of the crowd intensified, Bolingbroke’s snowy war destrier snorted and plunged, but Bolingbroke held him easily, and the roar and adulation of the crowds increased yet further with every plunge forward of the stallion.
In pagan days he would have been worshipped as a god, Neville thought, unable to keep a smile of sheer joy and pride off his face. Now they merely adore him.
A woman with a child in her arms stumbled a little at the edge of the crowd, and Bolingbroke kneed his stallion closer to her. He leaned down, taking her arm so that she might catch her balance, and the crowd roared approvingly.
The woman, flush-faced with joy that Bolingbroke should so care for her safety, held up her child, a girl of perhaps two years age.
Bolingbroke
