SARA DOUGLASS

THE WOUNDED HAWK

The Crucible: Book Two

The Wounded Hawk is for Diana Harrison who first opened the way into parallel worlds across my kitchen table one damp afternoon in Bendigo (our way aided, as always, by a few good glasses of wine).

Contents

Cover

Title Page

PART ONE Margaret of the Angels

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

PART TWO The Wounded Wife

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

PART THREE Well Ought I To Love

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

PART FOUR The Hurtyng Tyme

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

PART FIVE The Maid and the Hawk

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

PART SIX Dangerous Treason

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

PART SEVEN Horn Monday

I

II

III

IV

V

PART EIGHT Bolingbroke!

I

II

III

IV

EPILOGUE: Pontefract Castle

Glossary

About the Author

By Sara Douglass

Copyright

About the Publisher

PART ONE Margaret of the Angels

Ill father no gift, No knowledge no thrift.

Thomas Tusser,

Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie

I

The Feast of the Beheading of St John the Baptist

In the first year of the reign of Richard II

(Monday 29th August 1379)

Margaret stood in the most northern of the newly harvested fields of Halstow Hall, a warm wind gently lifting her skirts and hair and blowing a halo of fine wheat dust about her head. The sun blazed down, and while she knew that she should return inside as soon as possible if she were to avoid burning her cheeks and nose, for the moment she remained where she was, quiet and reflective, her eyes drifting across the landscape.

She turned a little, catching sight of the walls of Halstow Hall rising in the distance. There lay Rosalind, asleep in her crib, watched over by her nurse, Agnes. Margaret’s eyes moved to the high walls of the courtyard. In its spaces Thomas would be at his afternoon sword play with his newly acquired squire, Robert Courtenay, a likeable fair-faced young man of commendable quietness and courtesy.

Margaret’s expression hardened as she thought of the banter the two men shared during their weapon practice. Courtenay received nothing but respect and friendship from Thomas—would that she received the same respect and friendship!

“How can I hope for love?” she whispered, still staring at the courtyard walls, “when he begrudges me even his friendship?”

Margaret might be Thomas’ wife, but, as he had told her on their wedding night, she was not his lover.

Margaret had never imagined that it could hurt this much, but then she’d never realised how desperately she would need his love; to be the one thought constantly before all others in his mind.

To be sure, this was what they all strove for—to force Thomas to put thought of her before all else—but Margaret knew her need was more than that. She wanted a home and a family, and above all, she wanted a husband who respected her and loved her.

She wanted Thomas to love her, and yet he would not.

She turned her head away from Halstow Hall, and regarded the land and the far distant wheeling gulls over the Thames estuary. These had been pleasant months spent at Halstow Hall despite Thomas’ coolness, and despite his impatience to return to London and resume his search for Wynkyn de Worde’s ever-cursed casket.

There had been mornings spent wading in clear streams, and noon-days spent riding wildly along the marshy banks of the estuary as the herons rose crying about them. There had been afternoons spent in the hectic fields as the harvest drew to a close, and evenings spent dancing about the celebratory harvest fires with the estate men and their families. There had been laughter and even the occasional sweetness, and long, warm nights spent sprawling beneath Thomas’ body in their bed.

And there had been dawns when, half-asleep, Margaret had thought that maybe this was all there ever would be, and the summer would never draw to a close.

Yet, this was a hiatus only, the drawing of a breath between screams, and Margaret knew that it would soon end. Even now hoof beats thudded on the roads and laneways leading to Halstow Hall. Two sets of hoof beats, drumming out the inevitable march of two ambitions, reaching out to ensnare her once again in the deadly machinations of the looming battle.

Margaret’s eyes filled with tears, then she forced them away as she caught a glimpse of the distant figure striding through one of the fields. She smiled, gaining courage from the sight of Halstow’s steward, and then began to walk towards the Hall.

Visitors would soon be here, and she should be present to greet them.

Master Thomas Tusser, steward to the Neville estates, walked though the stubbled fields at a brisk pace, hands clasped firmly behind his straight back. He was well pleased. The harvest had gone excellently: all the harvesters, bondsmen as well as hired hands, had arrived each day, and each had put in a fair day’s work; the weather had remained fine but not overly hot; the ravens and crows had devastated neighbours’ fields, but not his; and little had been wasted—like their menfolk, the village women and girls had worked their due, gleaning the fields of every last grain.

There would be enough to eat for the next year, and enough left over to store against the inevitable poor years.

The fields were empty of labourers now, but the work had not ceased. The threshers would be sweating and aching in Halstow Hall’s barns, separating precious grain from hollow stalk, while their wives and daughters swept and piled grain into mounds, before carting the grain from threshing court to storage bins.

Tusser’s footsteps slowed, and he frowned and muttered under his breath for a few minutes until his face suddenly cleared. He grinned, and spoke aloud.

“Reap well, scatter not, gather clean that is shorne,

Bind fast, shock apace, have an eye to thy corn,

Load safe, carry home, follow time being fair,

Give just in the barn, life is far from despair.”

Tusser might well be a steward with a good reputation, but that reputation had not been easy to achieve. He had made more than his fair share of mistakes in his youth: leaving the sowing of the spring crops too late, allowing the weeds to grow too high in the fields, and forgetting to mix the goose grease with the tar to daub on the wounds on sheep’s backs after shearing. He had found that the only way he could remember to do the myriad estate tasks on time, and in the right order, was to commit every chore to rhyme. Over the years—he was a middle-aged man now—Tusser had scribbled his rhymes down. Perhaps he would present them to his lord one day as a testament of his goodwill.

Well … that time was far off, God willing, and there would be many years yet to rearrange his rhymes into decent verse.

Tusser reached the edge of the field and nimbly leapt the drainage ditch separating the field from the laneway. Once on the dusty surface of the lane, he looked quickly about him to ensure no one was present to observe, then danced a little jig of sheer merriment.

Harvest was home! Harvest was home!

Tusser resumed a sedate walk and sighed in relief. Harvest was home, praise be to God, even though it had not been an easy year. No year was ever easy, but if a steward had to cope with a new lord descending upon his lands in the middle of summer …

When he’d commenced his stewardship of Halstow Hall eleven years ago, Tusser had been proud to serve as a servant of the mighty Duke of Lancaster … even if the duke had never visited Halstow Hall and Tusser had not once enjoyed the opportunity to meet his lord. But the duke had received Tusser’s quarterly reports and had read them well, writing on more than one occasion to thank Tusser for his care and to congratulate him on the estate’s productivity.

But in March preceding, Tusser received word that Lancaster had deeded Halstow Hall to Lord Thomas Neville as a wedding gift. Tusser was personally offended: had the duke thought so little of Tusser’s efforts on his behalf that he thoughtlessly handed the estate to someone else? Was the duke secretly angry with Tusser, and thought to punish him with a new lord who was to actually live on the estate? A lord in residence? The very idea! Tusser had read the duke’s news with a dismay that increased with every breath. No longer would Tusser have virtual autonomy in his fields … nay, there would be some chivalric fool leaning over his shoulder at every moment mouthing absurdities … either that or riding his warhorse at full gallop through the emerging crops.

Good Lord who findeth, is blessed of God,

A cumbersome lord is husbandman’s rod:

He noiseth, destroyeth, and all to this drift,

To strip his poor tenants of farm and of thrift.

Thus it was, that when Lord Thomas Neville had arrived with his lady wife and newly-born daughter, Tusser had stood in the Hall’s court to greet them with scuffling feet and a scowl as bad as one found on a pimply-faced lad caught with his hand on the dairymaid’s breast.

Within the hour he had been straight-backed and beaming with pride and joy.

Not only had Lord Neville leapt off his horse and greeted him with such high words of praise that Tusser had blinked in astonishment, Neville had then led him inside and informed him that Tusser’s responsibilities would widen to take in Neville’s other estates as well.

He was to be a High Steward! As Tusser strode along the lane back towards the group of buildings surrounding Halstow Hall, he grinned yet again at the memory. As well as Halstow, Tusser now oversaw the stewards who ran Neville’s northern estates, and the second estate in Devon that Lancaster had deeded Neville. Admittedly, this necessitated much extra work—Tusser had to communicate Neville’s wishes and orders to the northern and Devon stewards, as well as review their estate books quarterly—but it was work that admitted and made full use of his talents.

Why, Tusser now had the opportunity to send his verses to his under-stewards! Thus, every Saturday fortnight, Tusser sat down, ordered his thoughts, and carefully composed and edited his versified directions. He was certain that his under-stewards must appreciate his timely verses and homilies.

Tusser tried not to be prideful of his new responsibilities, but he had to admit before God and the Holy Virgin that he was not completely successful.

Not only had Neville praised Tusser’s abilities, and handed him his new responsibilities, but Neville had also proved to be no fool meddling with Tusser’s handling of the estate. He had a deep interest in what happened to the estate, and kept an eye on it, but he allowed Tusser to run it in the manner he chose and did not interfere with his steward’s authority.

Neville was a good lord, and surely blessed of God. And his wife! Tusser sighed yet again. The Lady Margaret had an agreeable manner that exceeded her great beauty, and Tusser rose each morning to pray that this day he would be graced with the sweetness of her smile.

Aye, the goodness and grace of God had indeed embraced Halstow Hall and all who lived within its estates.

Tusser turned a corner in the lane and Halstow Hall rose before him. It was a good building, built of stone and brick, and some two or three generations old. Originally, it had consisted only of the great hammer-beamed hall and minstrel gallery, kitchens, pantries and larders, and a vaulted storage chamber that ran under the entire length of the hall, but over the years Lancaster had caused numerous additions to be made, even though he had never lived here. Now a suite of private chambers ran off the back of the hall, allowing a resident lord and his family some seclusion from the public life of the hall, and new stables and barns graced the courtyards.

The sound of horses behind him startled Tusser from this reverie, and he whipped about.

A party of four horsemen approached. Tusser squinted, trying to make them out through the cursed sun … then he started, and frowned as he realised three of the four riders were clothed in clerical robes.

Priests! Cursed priests! Doubtless come to eat Halstow Hall bare in the name of charity before moving on again.

Priests they might be, but Tusser had to admit to himself that their habits were poor, and they showed no glint of jewels or gold about their person. The lead priest was an old man, so thin he was almost skeletal, with long and scraggly hair and beard.

His expression was fierce, almost fanatical, and he glared at Tusser as if trying to scry out the man’s secret sins.

Evening prayers will be no cause for lightness and joy this night, Tusser thought, then shifted his eyes to the fourth rider, whose appearance gave him cause for thought.

This rider was a soldier. Sandy hair fell over a lined, tanned and knife-scarred face, and over his chain mail he wore a tunic emblazoned with the livery of the Duke of Lancaster. As the group rode closer to Tusser, still standing in the centre of the laneway, the soldier pushed his horse to the fore of his group, pulled it to a halt a few paces distant from the steward, and grinned amiably at him.

“Good man,” said the soldier to the still-frowning Tusser. “Would you be the oft-praised Master Tusser, of whom the entire court whispers admiration?”

Tusser’s frown disappeared instantly and his face lit up with pride.

“I am,” he said, “and I see that you, at least, are of the Duke of Lancaster’s household. Who may I welcome on Lord Neville’s behalf to Halstow Hall?”

“My name is Wat Tyler,” said the rider, “and, as you can see, I am a sergeant-at-arms within good Lancaster’s household. I ride as escort to my revered companions,” Tyler turned and indicated the three priests, “who know your master well, and have decided to pass the night in his house.” Tyler grinned even more as he said the last few sentences. “Perhaps you have heard of Master John Wycliffe,” he nodded at the fierce-faced old priest, “while his two godly companions,” now Tyler could scarcely contain his amusement, “are named John Ball and Jack Trueman.”

Tusser bowed slightly to the priests, narrowing his eyes a little. He was well aware of John Wycliffe’s reputation, and of the renegade priest’s teachings that the entire hierarchy of the Church was a sinful abomination whose worldly goods and properties ought to be seized and distributed among the poor. Many of Wycliffe’s disciples, popularly called Lollards for their habit of mumbling, now spread Wycliffe’s message far and wide, and Tusser occasionally saw one or two of them at the larger market fairs of Kent.

The steward stared a moment longer, then he smiled warmly. “Master Wycliffe. You are indeed most welcome here to Halstow Hall, as are your companions. I am sure that my master and mistress will be pleased to greet you.”

“The mistress, at least,” said a voice behind Tusser, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Margaret walking down the laneway to join him. He bowed, and stepped aside.

Margaret halted, and looked carefully at each of the four men. “I do greet you well,” she said, “and am most happy to see you. My husband I cannot speak for.”

Wycliffe and Tyler smiled a little at that.

Margaret hesitated, then indicated with her hand that they should ride forward. “Welcome to my happy home,” she said.

Thomas Neville was anything but happy to welcome John Wycliffe and his two companion priests into his home. He had just finished at his weapons practice with Courtenay, when he heard the sound of hoof fall entering the courtyard.

Turning, Neville had been appalled to see the black figure of John Wycliffe walking beside Margaret, two other priests (Lollards, no doubt) close behind him, and Wat Tyler leading the four horses. As he watched, Tusser, who’d been walking at the rear of the group, took the horses from Tyler and led them towards some stable boys.

Margaret said nothing, only halting as Neville strode forward.

“What do you here?” Neville snapped at Wycliffe.

Wycliffe inclined his head. “I and my companions are riding from London to Canterbury, my lord,” he said, “and thought to spend the night nestled within your hospitality.”

“My ‘hospitality’ does not lie on the direct road to Canterbury,” Neville said. “I say again, what do you here?”

“Come to enjoy your charity,” Wycliffe said, his voice now low and almost as menacing as his eyes, “as my Lord of Lancaster suggested I do. I bear greetings and messages from John of Gaunt, Neville. It is your choice whether you decide to accept Lancaster’s goodwill or not.” Wycliffe paused. “It is for a night only, Neville. I and mine will be gone by the morning.”

Furious at being trapped—he could not refuse Lancaster’s request to give Wycliffe lodging and entertainment—Neville nodded tightly, and indicated the door into the main building. Then, as Margaret led Wycliffe and the two other priests inside, Neville directed a hard glare towards Tyler.

“And you?” he said.

Tyler shrugged. “I am escort at Lancaster’s request, Tom. There’s no need to glower at me so.”

Neville’s face did not relax, but neither did he say any more as they walked inside. Wat Tyler and he had a long, if sometimes uncomfortable, history together. Tyler had taught Neville his war craft, and had protected his back in battle more times than Neville cared to remember. But Tyler also kept the most extraordinary company—his escort of the demon Wycliffe was but one example, and Neville felt sure he knew one of the other priests from somewhere—and Neville simply did not know if he trusted Tyler any longer.

In this age of demons incarnate, who could he trust?

Margaret very carefully washed her fingers in the bowl the servant held out for her, then dried them on her napkin. Finally, she folded her hands in her lap, cast down her eyes, and prayed to sweet Jesu for patience to get through this dreadful meal.

Thomas was not the sweetest companion at the best of times, but when goaded by John Wycliffe, as well as two of his disciples … Margaret shuddered and looked up.

Normally, she ate only with Thomas, Robert Courtenay, and Thomas Tusser in the hall of Halstow. Meals were always tolerable, and often cheerful, especially when Courtenay gently teased Tusser, who always good-humouredly responded with a versified homily or two. Tonight their visitors had doubled the table, if not its joy.

They had eaten before the unlit hearth in the hall, and now that the platters had been cleared, and the crumbs brushed aside, the men were free to lean their elbows on the snowy linen tablecloth and indulge the more fiercely in both wine and conversation.

Margaret sighed. Under current circumstances, and with current company, religion was most assuredly not going to make the best of conversational topics.

Neville toyed with his wine goblet, not looking at Wycliffe, who ignored his own wine to sit stiff and straight-backed as he stared at his host.

Margaret knew that Wycliffe, as well as his companions, John Ball and Jack Trueman, were enjoying themselves immensely.

“So,” Wycliffe was saying in a clipped voice, “you do not disagree that those who exist in a state of sin should not be allowed to hold riches or excessive property?”

“The idea has merit,” Neville replied, still looking at his goblet rather than his antagonist, “but who should determine if someone was existing in a state of—”

“And you do not disagree that many of the higher clerics within the Church are the worst sinners of all?”

Neville thought of the corruption he’d witnessed when he was in Rome, and the sordid behaviour of cardinals and popes. He did not reply, taking the time instead to refill his goblet.

Further down the table, Courtenay exchanged glances with Tusser.

“Over the years many men have spoken out about the corruption among the higher clergy,” Margaret said. “Why, even some of the saintlier popes have tried to reform the worst abuses of—”

“When did you become so learned so suddenly?” Neville said.

“It does not require learning to perceive the depravity rife among so many bishops and abbots,” Tusser said, his eyes bright, and all three priests present nodded their heads vigorously.

Neville sent Tusser a sharp look, but the steward preferred instead to see his lady’s smile of gratitude. He nodded, satisfied that he’d made his stand known, and resolved to say no more.

“You can be no defender of the Church, Lord Neville,” said one of the priests, John Ball, “when you have so clearly abandoned your own clerical vows to enjoy a secular lordship.”

Neville transferred his hostile glare to Ball. He had remembered where he had met the man previously—at Chauvigny, in France, where the priest had openly mouthed treasonous policies. The man was in the company of Wat Tyler then, too.

“Perhaps,” Ball continued, before Neville could respond, “you found your vows of poverty too difficult? Your vows of obedience too chafing? You certainly live a far more luxurious life now than you did as a Dominican friar, do you not?”

“My husband followed his conscience,” Margaret said, hoping she could deflect Thomas’ anger before he exploded. She sent Wycliffe a warning look.

“We cannot chastise Lord Neville for leaving a Church so riddled with corruption,” Wycliffe said mildly, catching Margaret’s glance. “We can only commend him.”

“Then why do you not discard your robes, renegade?” Neville said.

“I can do more good in them than out of them,” Wycliffe said, “while you do better at the Lady Margaret’s side than not.”

Neville looked back to his goblet again, then drank deeply from it. Why did he feel as though he were being played like a hooked fish?

“My lord,” said Jack Trueman, who had remained silent through this exchange, “may I voice a comment?” He carried on without waiting for an answer. “As many about this table have observed, the dissolution and immorality among the higher clerics must surely be addressed, and their ill-gotten wealth distributed among the needy. Jesus Himself teaches that it is better to distribute one’s wealth among the poor rather than to hoard it.”

There were nods about the table, even, most reluctantly, from Neville, who wondered where Trueman was heading. For a Lollard, he was being far too reasonable.

“But,” Trueman said, “perhaps there is more that we can do to alleviate the suffering of the poor, and of those who till the fields and harvest the grain.”

“I did not realise those who tilled the fields and harvested the grain were ‘suffering’,” Neville said.

“Yet you have never lived the life of our peasant brothers,” Trueman said gently. “You cannot know if they weep in pain in their beds at night.”

“Perhaps,” Wat Tyler said, also speaking for the first time, “Tom thinks they work so hard in the fields that they can do nothing at night but sleep the sleep of the righteous.”

“Our peasant brothers sleep,” Wycliffe put in before Neville could respond, “and they dream. And of what do they dream? Freedom!”

“Freedom?” Neville said. “Freedom from what? They have land, they have homes, they have their families. They lack for nothing—”

“But the right to choose their destiny,” Wycliffe said. “The dignity to determine their own paths in life. What can you know, Lord Neville, of the struggles and horrors that the bondsmen and women of this country endure?”

Neville went cold. He’d heard these words before from the mouth of the Parisian rebel, Etienne Marcel. And what had those words brought but suffering and death?

“Be careful, Master Wycliffe,” he said in a low voice, “for I will not have the words of chaos spoken in my household!”

Courtenay, very uncomfortable, looked about the table. “The structure of society is God-ordained, surely,” he said. “How can we wish it different? How could we better it?”

“There are murmurings,” Jack Trueman said, “that as do many within the Church enjoy their bloated wealth at the expense of the poor, so, too, do many secular lords enjoy wealth and comfort from the sufferings of their bondsmen.”

“Do you have men bonded to the soil and lordship of Halstow Hall, Lord Neville?” Wycliffe asked. “Have you never thought to set them free from the chains of their serfdom?”

“Enough!” Neville rose to his feet. “Wycliffe, I know you, and I know what you are. I offer you a bed for the night begrudgingly, and only because my Duke of Lancaster keeps you under his protection. But I would thank you to be gone at first light on the morrow.”

Wycliffe also rose. “The world is changing, Thomas,” he said. “Do not stand in its way.”

He turned to Margaret, and bowed very deeply. “Good lady,” he said, “I thank you for your hospitality. As your lord wishes, I and mine shall be gone by first light in the morning, and that will be too early for me to bid you farewell. So I must do it now.” He paused.

“Farewell, beloved lady. Walk with Christ.”

“And you,” Margaret said softly.

Wycliffe nodded, held Margaret’s eyes an instant longer, then swept away, his black robes fluttering behind him.

John Ball and Jack Trueman bowed to Margaret and Neville, then hurried after their master.

Furious that he could not speak his mind in front of Courtenay and Tusser, Neville turned on Tyler.

“And I suppose you walk with Wycliffe in this madness?”

Tyler held Neville’s eyes easily. “I work also for the betterment of our poor brothers, so,” he said, “yes, Tom, I walk with Wycliffe in this ‘madness’.”

“How dare you talk as if Wycliffe works the will of Jesus Christ!”

“Wycliffe devotes his life to freeing the poor and downtrodden from the enslavement of their social and clerical ‘betters’. Is that not what Jesus Christ gave his life for?”

“You will bring death and disaster to this realm, Wat,” Neville said in a quiet voice, “as Marcel did to Paris.”

Tyler’s face twisted, almost as if he wanted to say something but found the words too difficult.

Then, as had Wycliffe, he turned and bowed to Margaret, thanking her in a warm and elegant fashion, and bid her farewell. “Go with Christ, my lady.”

“And you, Wat.” Margaret turned her head slightly as soon as she had said the words, fearful that Thomas should see the gleam of tears within their depths.

Would this be the last time she ever saw Wat?

Wat Tyler stared at Margaret one more moment, then he, too, turned and left the hall.

II

The Tuesday before the Feast of SS Egidius and Priscus

In the first year of the reign of Richard II

(30th August 1379)

Mycliffe, Tyler and the other two priests were gone by the time Neville arose at dawn. Although Neville was grateful they had departed, he felt useless as well. He would, by far, have preferred to put Wycliffe under some form of detention before he caused any mischief … but to do so might well be to anger Lancaster, and that Neville did not want to do.

So he’d had to let the demon—as he had no doubt Wycliffe was—escape.

Neville set about his morning tasks, hoping they would consume his mind, but instead, his temper became shorter as the day wore on. He was useless stuck here in the wilds of Kent! When would Hal call him back to court?

The only thing that calmed his mood was when, in the early afternoon, he joined Margaret and Rosalind in their solar. Neville loved his daughter, and always made the time to spend an hour at least playing with her each day.

He strode into the room, greeting Margaret perfunctorily—not noticing her wince—and lifted Rosalind from her arms.

Neville grinned and ruffled the black, curly hair that Rosalind had inherited from him. She was strong now, and of good weight and size for her almost six months of age. She had recovered well from the trauma of her birth … perhaps it was her good Neville blood, Neville thought, for his entire family was of hearty stock and robust determination.

Margaret watched him with sadness. Her husband looked to Courtenay for friendship, and to his daughter for love, but to her … what? She took a deep breath, controlling her emotions, and then tilted her head as she heard a noise outside the door.

Neville glanced at her, irritated by the solemnity of her expression, then turned to the door as Courtenay strode through.

“My lord!” Courtenay said. “We have yet more company!”

He got no further, for a handsome man dressed in Hal Bolingbroke’s new livery as the Duke of Hereford pushed past Courtenay.

Neville’s eyes widened, for he recognised the man as Roger Salisbury, a young knight of noble family who had worked in Hal’s entourage for some time.

Roger Salisbury stopped several steps into the solar, and bowed.

“My Lord Neville,” he said, and was interrupted from further speech by Neville.

“Bolingbroke wants me,” he said.

“Aye, my lord. I bear greetings from my Lord of Hereford, and am to inform you of his wish that you return to his side in London within the week.”

Neville turned back to Margaret. “At last! I thought Bolingbroke had forgotten me!”

He stepped over to her and gently lowered Rosalind into her care. “I shall miss her,” he said, and did not notice the sudden humiliation in Margaret’s eyes.

Salisbury cleared his throat. “My Lord of Hereford also wishes that the Lady Margaret and your daughter ride with you.”

Neville’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Margaret is to ride with me?”

“Indeed, my lord,” Salisbury said. “Bolingbroke—” he lapsed into informality, for although Hal was now Duke of Hereford, he was familiarly known as Bolingbroke “—is to take the Lady Mary Bohun to wife within the month, and it is her wish that your lady wife serve at her side.”

Neville’s mouth twisted. “Mary Bohun does not know the Lady Margaret exists,” he said. “The wish is Bolingbroke’s alone.”

He paused, and in that pause allowed his suspicions their full malevolent flood. Why did Hal want Margaret within his household? Surely it would be better if she and Rosalind stayed within the safety of Halstow Hall? There was no need for Hal to want Margaret back, as well as him, unless … no, no. It could not be … And then there was Richard … in London, Margaret would be so close to Richard’s animal lusts … too close …

“Richard …” he said without meaning to put voice to his thoughts.

Salisbury looked at Neville. Bolingbroke had told him that Neville would fear for Margaret’s chastity around a king who had already made clear his desire for her.

“Bolingbroke,” Salisbury said carefully, “has stated that the Lady Margaret will enjoy the full protection of his household. She will come to no harm under my lord’s roof.”

Maybe not from Richard, Neville thought. But from Hal? Hal has made it plain enough to me that he wants Mary only for her lands. Does he now want the woman he does desire back under his roof?

“My lord husband,” Margaret said, rising. “You have told me previously that Lancaster thought I could do well to serve his wife, the Lady Katherine. But now that you have taken service with Bolingbroke, instead of his father, it is natural that I should serve Bolingbroke’s wife instead.”

Neville looked at her closely, but finally nodded his agreement to something he fully realised he had no choice in.

“Very well,” he said, silently vowing that he would ensure Margaret came to, nor caused, no harm.

III

The Feast of the Translation of SS Egidius and Priscus

In the first year of the reign of Richard II

(Thursday 1st September 1379)

Richard Thorseby, Prior General of the Dominican Order in England, sat at his desk in the dark heart of Blackfriars in London, slowly turning a letter over and over in his hand. His eyes were unfocussed, his sharp-angled face devoid of expression, and his equally sharp mind fixed on a memory of the previous Lent rather than on the contents of the letter …

The Dominican friary in the northern English city of Lincoln. The Lady Margaret Rivers, tearfully confessing that Brother Thomas Neville was the father of the bastard child in her belly. Neville himself, his behaviour, dress and conduct advertising to the world his blatant abuse of every one of his vows. And John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, humiliating Thorseby and allowing Neville to escape Dominican discipline.

In the months since, Thorseby had never forgotten his affront, nor had he relaxed from his intention of bringing Neville to Dominican justice. Indeed, what had once been intention had now become obsession. Thorseby would move heaven and earth, if need be, to bring Neville to penitent knees.

Or worse.

But how to do so? Lancaster and his son, Bolingbroke, were powerful men, and Neville enjoyed their full support. If the arch-heretic, John Wycliffe, could escape the Church’s justice through Lancaster’s protection, then there was little Thorseby could do about the less-heretical problem of Thomas Neville. (Thorseby’s personal sense of insult would sway no one to attack the Lancastrian faction on his behalf.) For a time, Thorseby had thought he might be able to use the long-ago deaths of Neville’s paramour, Alice, and her three daughters, to his advantage. Surely Alice had well-connected family who would be pleased to see Neville brought to account for her death? Even her cuckolded husband could be useful.

But Alice’s family and husband proved disappointing. They were all dead: her parents, her sister, and even her husband, who had succumbed to a wasting fever while on a diplomatic mission to Venice four years previously. The family who were left—distant cousins—simply did not care overmuch … and certainly didn’t care enough to take on Lancaster and Bolingbroke.

“I will see you humbled yet, Neville,” Thorseby murmured, then blinked, and looked down at the letter in his hands.

It had arrived an hour ago, and was a summons to Rome where there was to be an Advent convocation of the Dominican Prior Generals. Normally, such a summons would irritate Thorseby; travel through Europe in November and December was never the most pleasant of pastimes, especially when the Advent and Christmas season was so busy here in England. But now such travel would give Thorseby the perfect opportunity to meet with those who had known Neville in the months when he had apparently decided to abandon completely his Dominican vows.

Somewhere in Europe lay the evidence that would enable Thorseby to extract Neville from Lancaster’s protection. Someone must have seen something that would damn Neville for all time; witnesses to a foul heresy, perhaps.

If there was one thing that Thorseby had learned from his Inquisitor brothers, it was that disobedience never goes totally unnoticed and unremarked upon.

Thorseby very carefully refolded the letter and put it to one side. He paused, briefly drummed his fingers on the desk, then leaned forward, picked up a pen, and began to compose the first of several letters he would send out later that evening.

Whatever he’d said to Neville, neither Wycliffe nor his companions had any intention of travelling to Canterbury in the near future. Tired and, on Wycliffe’s and Tyler’s parts, saddened by their inadequate farewells to a woman both loved in different ways, they’d moved directly from Halstow Hall south to the port city of Rochester.

There, as arranged, they met with several other men—two craftsmen and another Lollard priest—in a quiet room in an inn.

“Well?” Wycliffe said as he entered the room.

“Ready,” said one of the craftsmen. He indicated a stack of bundled papers. “Several hundred, as you requested.”

“Show me.”

The craftsman took a single large sheet of thick paper from the top of one of the piles and handed it to Wycliffe. Tyler, Ball and Trueman crowded about him, trying to read over his shoulder.

Wycliffe relaxed, then smiled at the three men he’d come to meet. “Very good. Wat?”

Wat was already shrugging off his distinctive livery, changing into the clothes one of the craftsmen handed him. Within minutes, he’d lost all appearance of a hardened sergeant-at-arms (save for his face) and looked more the prosperous farmer.

“You have mules for these men?” Wycliffe said.

“Yes,” the priest replied.

“Good.” Wycliffe turned to Tyler, Trueman and Ball. “My friends. You shall have the most troublesome of days ahead of you. Be careful.”

Then he smiled, the expression lightening his normally harsh face. “Remember, when Adam delved, and Eve span—”

“Then,” Wat finished for him, “there were no gentlemen!”

All the men broke into laughter, and, with that laughter were the seeds of revolution watered.

IV

The Feast of the Translation of St Cuthbert

In the first year of the reign of Richard II

(Monday 5th September 1379)

—i—

The Thames was quiet—most ships and boats had put into harbour so their crews could devoutly mark the feast day—and its grey-blue waters lapped gently at the side of the small sailing vessel as it passed Wolwych on the southern bank. One more turn in the river and the great, smoky skyline of London would rise above the cornfields and orchards spreading beyond the marshy banks.

Neville sat impatiently on a wooden bench in the stern of the vessel.

They had ridden from Halstow two days past and had taken ship in Gravesend at dawn today, leaving several men from Roger Salisbury’s escort with the horses to follow more slowly by road. The roads leading towards London from Kent and the other southern counties were crowded with merchant and grain traffic at this time of year, and the wheels and hooves of this traffic churned up the soft surface of the roads until they were nigh impassable in places. The Thames provided the faster and smoother course, and Salisbury had offered no objection when, the previous evening, Neville had suggested they complete their journey via the river; not only was it faster and more commodious, the river was safer and they could dock directly at the river gate of the Savoy rather than ride through the dust-choked London streets.

Margaret sat by Neville’s side, Rosalind asleep in her arms. She was content and fearful in equal amounts: content because the river wind was cool and soothing as it whispered across her face and through her hair; fearful because of the inevitable travails and treacheries ahead. She glanced at her husband. He was fidgeting with a length of rope, his body leaning forward slightly, his eyes fixed on the river ahead.

Margaret shuddered and looked to where Rosalind’s nurse slouched, dozing against a woolsack. Agnes Ballard was a homely woman in her late thirties who, three months previously, had in the same week lost her infant son to a fever and her husband to the savagery of a boar. Struggling to cope with her tragic loss, Agnes had been weepy-eyed with gratefulness when Margaret had suggested she wet-nurse Rosalind, replacing the nurse who had originally accompanied Margaret and Neville from London and who had wanted to return to her home. Agnes also acted as maid to Margaret herself, and Margaret enjoyed Agnes’ motherly attentions almost as much as she believed Rosalind did. Agnes was a simple woman (but not so simple that she did not harbour her own strange secrets), but she was honest and giving, and she allowed Neville’s occasional impatient or ill-meaning remarks to pass straight over her head.

Beyond Agnes, towards the prow of the vessel, sat Robert Courtenay with Roger Salisbury, who was laughing quietly with the remaining men of his escort and the three crew. They were rolling dice, and sharing a flask of wine between them.

Margaret shifted slightly, adjusting Rosalind’s sleeping weight in her arms, and hoped the flask contained only weak drink. Her mouth quirked a little as she imagined the stratagems of angels and demons alike drowning uselessly in the mud of the Thames if the drunken crew lost control of the sails and tipped everyone out.

Who would arrive to save us, she thought, as we flailed about? Would both the minions of heaven and hell shriek in a horrified chorus at the careless ruin of their conspiracies?

“At what do you smile?”

Margaret jerked out of her reverie and looked at her husband. “I was hoping Roger will not let the crew get too drunk, for it would be a disaster if the boat overturned.”

Her arms tightened slightly about Rosalind as she spoke, and Neville did not miss the movement.

He laid his hand on her arm. “There is no danger, Margaret. Nothing can—”

Margaret gave a low cry of terror, and gathered Rosalind so tightly against her breast that the baby awoke and cried out with protest.

Neville frowned, opening his mouth to speak, and then realised that Margaret was staring at something in the water on her side of the vessel.

He looked, and his breath caught so violently in his own chest that it felt as if his heart had stopped.

Beneath the rolling surface of the river spread a great golden glow.

Neville jerked his head around to look across the deck. The glow spread underneath the vessel to radiate an equal distance beyond on its other side.

“Tom!” Margaret said.

“Hush!” he said, and his hand gripped her arm tighter. “Hush!”

He looked towards Agnes, and to Courtenay Roger and their companions beyond her.

Agnes continued asleep, and the men were still engaged in their dicing as if nothing at all supernatural was gathering beneath the boards of the boat.

“Saint Michael!” Neville whispered, and Margaret whimpered and twisted about as if she wanted to jump overboard.

“Be still!” Neville said, moving his hand to her shoulder. Then he twisted a little himself so that he could stare directly into her terrified eyes.

“If you are as innocent as you have always claimed yourself to be,” he said, very slowly and carefully, “then why now do you fear?”

Sweet Jesu, why did he make it so easy to hate him? “I can have no innocence,” she hissed, a spark of anger stirring within her, “when you allow me none!”

As Margaret spoke the glow coalesced, first directly under the keel of the vessel, and then seething up through the timber to form a fiery column not two paces away. The column assumed the spectral shape of the archangel, and then his voice thundered around them.

You are corruption made flesh, Margaret. An abomination which should never have been allowed breath.

Agnes and the men continued their respective activities—only Margaret and Neville were blessed with the angelic presence.

Margaret’s lips curled at the archangel’s words. If the archangel had whispered sympathies to Margaret, he would have destroyed her, but his hatred only served to transform Margaret’s terror into fury.

Her face twisted in loathing. “If I am corruption made flesh,” she said, “then I am truly my father’s daughter!”

The archangel’s face took on a terrible aspect and his arms spread wide—impossibly wide, for it seemed to Margaret and Neville that they stretched from bank to bank. He hissed, and the sound was that of the wind of divine retribution.

Filth!

“I may be the daughter of filth,” Margaret said, her eyes locked onto the archangel’s face, “but I choose not to tread the path of filth!”

“Margaret!” Neville was unsure of the meaning of the exchange between St Michael and Margaret—did Saint Michael accuse Margaret of demonry, or merely of the charge of being the daughter of Eve, the burden that condemned all women?—but he was appalled at Margaret’s words and the anger she displayed towards the archangel.

“Divine saint,” Neville said, finally letting go of Margaret’s shoulder and sinking to his knees before the archangel. “Forgive her words, for—”

Do you not know what she is, Thomas?

Neville did not reply.

Do you not know? She is that which you seek to destroy, Thomas.

Still Neville did not reply, and he lowered his gaze to the planking before him.

What does she here at your side, Thomas? Why have you not killed her, as her issue?

Finally, Neville raised his eyes back to St Michael. “She is useful to me.”

Useful?

“She will draw out other corruption so that I may see it for what it truly is, and so that I might destroy it.”

Corruption is drawn to you anyway, Thomas. You know the foulness seeks to destroy you, before you destroy it.

“She is useful. She is a woman, after all.”

Then make sure you do use her, Thomas, but do not allow her to use you. Remember the price if you fail.

Neville gave a low, confident laugh—and, in that instant, Margaret truly did hate him. How could she ever have wanted him to love her?

“They think to trap all mankind into eternal damnation,” Neville said to the archangel, “by forcing me to hand her my soul on a platter, blessed saint. But there is no danger. I cannot possibly love her.”

She breathes, Thomas, therefore she is a danger.

“She is no danger,” Neville said, with such horrifying confidence that Margaret had to shut her eyes and force away her hatred of him. If she allowed herself to hate him, then the angels had won here and now … and was that why Michael had chosen to show himself before both her and Thomas? To force her into hatred of her husband?

The archangel’s vision swept over Margaret, and what he saw on her face seemed to satisfy him.

Good, he said. Thomas, Joan has taken her place, and soon you will take yours. Danger surrounds both of you, but you must endure.

“The casket …” Neville said.

Is in London. It cries for you, it screams to you … do you not hear it in your dreams?

“Aye,” Neville whispered.

It shall be in your hands soon, but beware, Thomas, for the only truth that matters lies inside its bounds. Listen not to what demons whisper in your ears.

“Aye,” Neville said again, his voice stronger.

Blessed Thomas, the archangel said, and then he was gone.

Neville stared at the place where the archangel had stood, then he turned to look at Margaret.

She quailed at what she saw in his eyes, but she forced herself to speak before he did, and she used every ounce of her willpower to keep her voice steady.

“All truth matters,” she said, “whether it lies inside Wynkyn’s damned casket or not.”

“Demon,” he said. His voice was shockingly expressionless.

Her eyes filled with tears. “No, I am not, and have never been. But only when you hear the truth will you understand that.”

There was an instant’s hesitancy in his eyes at her words, and it gave her the strength to continue.

“If you love your daughter,” she said, “then you cannot believe her mother a demon … for what does that make Rosalind?”

Neville blinked, and dropped his eyes from hers. “You plan my destruction. You would say anything to further your plan.”

“No,” she whispered, and the sadness in her voice made Neville lift his eyes back to her face. “No, I plan only for your infinite joy.”

Then the sails cracked and filled with wind as they rounded the bend in the river, and Roger Salisbury jumped to his feet and shouted as London hove into view.

“Tom! Tom!” Graceful and certain, Bolingbroke leapt down the steps at the Savoy’s river gate, laughing and waving. Light glimmered about his fair hair and in the brilliance of the sun it seemed that his grey eyes had turned to silver. “Ah, Tom, I have so missed you!”

Neville jumped from the side of the boat onto the wharf and embraced Bolingbroke as fiercely as Bolingbroke did him. “You affect the happy face well, my lord, for one who is shortly to be married.”

“Ah, Tom, those are not the words to speak when your own wife is so close.”

Bolingbroke turned away from Neville and held out his hand for Margaret who, with Rosalind now in Agnes’ arms, was proceeding from boat to wharf with caution.

“My Lady Margaret,” Bolingbroke said softly, and kissed her gently on the mouth.

Neville, who had taken a step forward, now halted, transfixed by the look on Margaret’s face as she stared into Bolingbroke’s.

It was an expression of the most immense and intimate love.

And it was the more horrifying because, although Neville could not see Bolingbroke’s face, the expression on Margaret’s made it apparent that the love was returned in full measure.

Terror swept through Neville, and this terror was the more frightful because he could not place the reason for its existence.

She thinks to use Hal against me, he thought, frantically trying to justify his fear. She thinks to use her arts as a whore to lure him into her—

“Tom,” Bolingbroke said, turning back to him, “you look as if you have all the fishes of the Thames roiling about in your belly.”

“We have had a difficult voyage,” Neville said, finally, managing to twist his mouth in a tight, unconvincing smile.

“Oh, aye, we have that,” Margaret muttered, and Bolingbroke shot her a sharp look.

V

Vespers, the Feast of the Translation of St Cuthbert

In the first year of the reign of Richard II

(early evening Monday 5th September 1379)

—ii—

Margaret?” Bolingbroke closed the door to the storeroom quietly behind him, and stood, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dimness. The soft, warm glow of the autumn twilight filtered in through the half-closed shutters of the high windows, but all Bolingbroke could see, initially, were the bulging outlines of sacks of grain stacked against the back wall, and kegs of ale cached under the windows.

Then she moved from the safety of a shadow and the golden twilight swirled about her, and Bolingbroke made a soft sound and stepped forward and gathered her in his arms.

“Meg! Sweet Jesu, I did not know if my message had come safely to you!”

She shuddered, her face still pressed into his shoulder, and he realised she had sobbed, silently.

He pushed her back so that he could see her face. “Meg? What happened?”

Margaret managed a small smile. “What, Hal? Do I not even receive a kiss of greeting?”

Exasperated and frightened for her in equal amounts, Bolingbroke planted a quick kiss on her forehead. “What happened?”

“The great archangel appeared to us as we sailed down the Thames.”

“Michael dared …?”

“Oh, aye, he dared.” Margaret’s face twisted in remembered anger and loathing. “He called me filth, and said I was an abomination.”

Bolingbroke drew her to him again and tried as best he could to give her comfort. “And Tom?” he whispered, and felt her stiffen.

“The archangel told him to beware of me, as I was that which he had to destroy.”

“We have always known that Tom would suspect you—”

“Aye, but Tom said that I was more useful alive than dead, and that I was no danger to him.”

Bolingbroke hugged her tight. “He does not love you?”

“No. I do not think he ever will.”

Bolingbroke was silent a long moment. “We cannot have that,” he eventually said, very low. “Thomas must love you. He must.”

Margaret sighed and drew back. “If he knew I was here now …”

“He will not know. I sent him riding to Cheapside, to the goldsmith crafting Mary’s wedding finery, and to supervise its return here to the Savoy. He will be gone an hour or more yet. Margaret, events move more swiftly than any of us had thought.”

“This Jeannette … this Joan of Arc.”

“We never planned for her existence, nor for her intrusions. Sweet Jesu help us if she manages to rally the French … ah! but I cannot speak of her now. This is one of the only times we will have together, Meg, and I must use it well.”

He let her go, and started to pace the narrow confines of the storeroom. “I had thought we would have two or three years yet, but now I think we shall have only a few months. A year at most.”

He stopped, and stared at Margaret. “He must love you before a year is out.”

“How? How? He thinks me filth! Lord Jesu, Tom will do whatever his beloved archangel tells him to do!”

Bolingbroke slowly shook his head. “Nay, I do not think so. Not completely. He has already denied the archangel’s wishes once when it came to your death—you know Wat told us that, when he brought the physician to your side in Lincoln, they interrupted the archangel’s fury over Tom not immediately sliding the sword into your body.”

Margaret almost smiled remembering Wat Tyler’s too brief visit to Halstow Hall. “Not immediately,” she said, “but one day, when it comes to the choice, then Thomas will slide it in.”

“Not if we can help it,” Bolingbroke said. “Sweet Meg, he is capable of love, great love, but he needs to be pushed.”

She made a dismissive sound. “I cannot believe that. He is too cold … too arrogant. Too sure of himself and his damned, cursed God.”

“Meg, I have known Tom for many, many years. I knew him as a boy—even before his parents died. Once he was softer and kinder, with a truly gentle soul, but then God’s hand descended … and Tom’s life became a living hell. First with the death of his mother and father, then with the horrific tragedy of Alice. That happy, gentle boy is still there, somewhere, and it is you, Meg, who will draw him out. He must trust enough to love again.”

“And how am I to accomplish the impossible?”

Bolingbroke drew in a very deep breath, took both Margaret’s hands in his, and spoke low and soft for many minutes.

When he’d finished, Margaret stared at him, her eyes wide. “I cannot!”

“We must move quickly,” Bolingbroke said. “Margaret, I am sorry that it must be with such abominable trickery—”

“Trickery? Trickery of whom, Hal? Tom … or me?”

“Margaret—”

“And how can you ask such a thing of me? Have I not already suffered enough?”

“Meg—”

She jerked her hands out of his. “You’ll tread anyone to the ground to achieve your ambition, won’t you? Me … Tom … and now,” her voice rose, became shrill, “this Mary Bohun! Why marry her when you know your heart is pledged to another?”

Bolingbroke tensed, his eyes narrowing.

“Our entire cause is tied to you marrying another,” she said. “Will you tread Mary Bohun into the ground when she has outlived her usefulness?”

“You know why I need to wed Mary,” Bolingbroke said. “She is the sole heir to the Hereford family’s vast estates and her lands shall strengthen my position. I need that strength now, Margaret. The inheritance she brings will bolster my position against Richard—”

“And what if Mary gives you an heir? Do you truly want to dilute your blood with that of—”

Bolingbroke sighed. “She won’t.”

Margaret arched an eyebrow. “You will leave her a virgin? But won’t that compromise your claim to her lands?”

“I will make a true wife of Mary—I can do that for her, at least.” Bolingbroke paused. “Margaret, when you come to Mary, when you attend her, look deep into her eyes, and see the shadows there. You will know what I mean.”

“She is ill?”

Bolingbroke nodded.

“How fortunate for you,” Margaret said.

“It is not of my doing!” Bolingbroke said.

“Be sure to tell her of your ambitions and needs on your wedding night, Hal. Be sure to tell her that you expect her affliction to be of the most deadly nature. And timely, no less.”

“You have no right to speak to me thus!”

“I have every right!” Margaret said, close to tears. This had already been an appalling day, and Hal had made it so much worse than he needed to have done.

He reached out a hand, his fingers grazing her cheek. “Margaret, be strong for me. I do not need your womanly weeping, or your reminders of what is right and what is not. We’ve come too far for that.”

His hand lifted, lingering a moment at her hairline, then it dropped. He hesitated, as if he would speak more, but then he brushed abruptly past her and left the room.

Margaret put a trembling hand to her mouth, fought back her tears and leaned against the door, giving Bolingbroke the time he needed to get back to his apartments.

Finally she, too, left.

Lady Mary Bohun was also staying in the Savoy, chaperoned by her mother, Cecilia, and later that evening, in the hour before a quiet supper was held in the hall, Bolingbroke introduced his betrothed to her new attending lady.

Margaret, composed and courteous, curtsied gracefully before the Lady Mary, who stared at her a little uncertainly, then patted the stool beside her chair, indicating Margaret should sit.

Margaret fought the urge to glance at Hal, and did as Mary requested.

Mary gave an uncertain smile—this Margaret was so beautiful … what was she to Hal?—then leaned forward and spoke quietly of some of the lighter matters at court.

Margaret responded easily enough, but kept her eyes downcast, as she should when in the presence of such a noble lady.

Bolingbroke watched carefully for a minute, then turned and grinned boyishly at Neville, who had returned from the goldsmith’s in the past hour.

“And now that we have disposed of the ladies,” Bolingbroke said, “perhaps you and I can have a quiet word before we sup.”

Bolingbroke had a suite of eight or nine chambers set aside for his personal use in the Savoy, and the chamber he now led Neville into was part of his office accommodation. Its furniture—two tables, two wooden chairs, three stools, several large chests and innumerable smaller ones, and a great cabinet standing against a far wall—was almost smothered in vellum rolls containing legal records, and several large volumes opened to reveal columns of figures written in the new Arabic numerals, and half-folded papers drawn with everything from maps to diagrams of the inner workings of clocks.

From the ceiling joists hung a variety of strange mechanical contraptions. Neville would later learn that two of them were the fused skeletons and internal organs of clocks, one was the result of the strange and unsuccessful mating of a clock and a crossbow, one was something Bolingbroke had been told could predict thunderstorms by measuring the degree of anger within the air, one was a strange hybrid abacus, and one sparkling collection of brass and copper cogs and wheels and shafts did nothing but bob and tinkle pleasantly whenever there was movement within the air.

Bolingbroke looked apologetic as he gestured about the room. “I have several clerks who try to keep my affairs in order … but as you can see, Tom, I need you badly.”

Neville ducked as he almost hit his head on the hybrid abacus. “Lord Saviour, Hal. What lies buried amid this mess?”

For an instant, amusement glinted in Bolingbroke’s eyes, only to be replaced with a look of abstracted and irritated worry. “What lies here? Bills, receipts, reports, petitions, memorandums from at least four working committees of Commons in which, apparently, I am to take an interest, lists of passports issued in the past five months, accounts of lambing and harvest from sundry of my stewards, digests of legal debates from the Inns of Courts, summaries of—”

“Enough!” Neville threw up his hands, then he turned to Bolingbroke and laughed. “What sin have I committed, my friend, that you so burden me with minutiae?”

“Minutiae is the oil which smooths the English bureaucracy, Tom, surely you know that, and the bureaucracy is determined to see to it that every nobleman in England is to be kept out of mischief with an excess of the mundane. A memorandum is as vicious a weapon as has ever been invented. Far better than the axe.”

Neville shook his head, then let the amusement drain from his face. “It is good to be back, Hal.”

Bolingbroke grasped Neville’s hand briefly. “And it is good to have you back. Tom, we need to talk, and it has nothing to do with this mess.”

“Aye. Richard.”

“Richard, indeed.” Bolingbroke moved to a table, swept a portion of it free of papers, and perched on a corner. “He moves fast to consolidate his horrid hold on England.”

“Hal, the archangel Saint Michael appeared to me as we sailed towards London.”

Bolingbroke’s face tightened with shock. “What did he say?”

“That the casket is in London, and that it screams to me. That I am to be surrounded by lies, but that all lies will be as naught once I read the truths that the casket contains.”

“It is certain that Richard holds the casket,” Bolingbroke said.

“Have you learned anything?”

“About the casket? No.”

“About Richard, then.”

Bolingbroke grimaced in distaste. “Do you remember, years back, when you were still at court, that the boy-Richard scurried about with Oxford’s son?”

“Robert de Vere? Yes … he was a lad some few years older than Richard.” Neville idly scratched at his short beard, remembering some of the gossip that had spread about the two boys. “De Vere was probably the one who first taught Richard how to piss standing up.”

“Undoubtedly ‘dear Robbie’ taught Richard to do a great many things with his manly poker other than to piss with it. Well, now de Vere struts about as the Earl of Oxford … his father died some two years past,” Bolingbroke grinned slightly, “while you were ensconced in your friary. He also managed to wed Philippa, Hotspur’s sister.”

Neville raised his brows—that wedding and bedding marked an important (and potentially dangerous) alliance between the houses of Oxford and Northumberland.

“De Vere has left his wife at home in his draughty castle and is now back at court and in the king’s great favour.” Bolingbroke’s grin faded, replaced with a look of contempt. “Rather, de Vere gifts the king with the benevolence of his patronage. It is said that not only will Richard not make a single decision without consulting de Vere—sweet Jesu, Tom, if de Vere said that black was white then Richard would believe him!—but that the two men share an … unnatural … relationship.”

Neville stared at Bolingbroke. “You cannot mean that they still practise their boyhood follies!”

“Oh, aye, I do mean that. Their hands are all over each other in those hours that they’re not all over some poor woman they’ve had dragged in from the alleys behind St Paul’s.”

Neville was so appalled he had to momentarily close his eyes. Saint Michael had been right to say that the English court was corrupted with evil. Soon Richard would have the entire court—nay! the entire country!—dancing to his depraved tune.

“I must find that casket!” Neville said.

“Aye,” Bolingbroke said. “And it must be in Westminster. Where else?”

“And how can I—”

“Patience, my friend. I called you back not merely to witness my forthcoming nuptials and to take care of this mess,” Bolingbroke waved his hand laconically about the tumbled muddle of papers and reports around them, “but because Richard himself will shortly present me—and thus you—with the excuse to haunt the halls of Westminster.”

Neville, who had turned to stare in frustration out a small window looking over the river wall of the Savoy, now looked back to Bolingbroke. “And that excuse is …?”

“Do you remember the terms the Black Prince—may sweet Jesu watch over his soul—set for John’s repatriation back to France?”

“Aye. Charles was to pay … what? Seven hundred thousand English pounds for his grandfather’s ransom?”

Bolingbroke nodded.

“And, as well, both John and Charles had to be signatories to a treaty of peace that recognised the Black Prince as heir to the French throne … disinheriting Charles completely.”

“Exactly.” A small pile of papers on the table next to Bolingbroke toppled over with a gentle sigh, scattering about his feet, and Bolingbroke kicked them aside impatiently, ignoring Neville’s exasperated look.

“But,” Bolingbroke continued, folding his arms and watching Neville carefully, “circumstances have changed. Edward is dead. The Black Prince is dead. A young and untried man now sits on the throne. We may have trod the French into the mud of Poitiers, but now we have no tried war leader to press home the advantage.”

“Not even you?” Neville said very quietly.

Bolingbroke ignored him. “My father has no taste for spending what time remains to him leading rows of horsed steel against the French, and, in any case, his talents have always been in the field of diplomacy rather than the field of battle. Northumberland is also aging,” Bolingbroke’s mouth quirked, “although I hear Hotspur is keen enough to take his own place in the vanguard of England’s hopes in France.”

And you? Neville thought, keeping silent this time. Where do your ambitions lie, Hal?

“So Richard must needs rethink the terms of treaty,” Bolingbroke said. “This he has done—doubtless with de Vere’s advice—and his new terms meet with John’s approval. Or, more to the point, John has grown old and addled enough not to truly care what he signs any more.”

“What are the terms?”

“The demand for £700,000 has gone. Instead, Richard has settled for secure access to the Flemish wool ports for our wool merchantmen—John will agree to remove whatever naval blockade he still has in place.”

Neville shook his head slightly. The Black Prince would simply have smashed his way through the French blockades … Richard had, in effect, paid the French £700,000 to remove them.

Bolingbroke watched Neville’s reaction carefully. “But Richard has not backed down on his claim to the French throne. In two days time King John will sign at Westminster a treaty that recognises Richard as the true heir to the French throne.”

Neville raised his eyebrows. Maybe the £700,000 had been worth it, after all.

“And,” Bolingbroke continued very softly, “Richard no longer demands that Charles co-sign. Instead, he has a more powerful French signatory, someone who he hopes will virtually guarantee him an ironclad claim to France.”

“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

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.

Rosalind shrieked, but Neville took no notice. “Unless you convince me, now, that Rosalind does not bear the blood of demons in her, then yes, I will so murder her! And you after her!”

Margaret tried to take Rosalind back from Neville, but could not force his arms away from the child. “You love your daughter! You cannot do her to death!”

“Did you not say yourself this afternoon,” Neville whispered with such malevolence that all the blood drained from Margaret’s face, and she ceased, for the moment, her efforts to rescue her daughter, “that I could not think you a demon, for what would that make Rosalind? Demon you are, Margaret, I know that now, and demon-spawn I would rather kill than allow myself to love!”

“No! Stop!” Desperate, Margaret tried another argument. “Bolingbroke would not allow you—”

“Hal will believe whatever I tell him!”

Rosalind was now screaming and twisting in Neville’s arms and Margaret, standing frantic before them, realised that Neville meant—and believed—every word he said. Oh, why had she spoken so rashly this afternoon?

And Hal. Hal would murder Thomas if he laid a hand to either Rosalind or herself, but Thomas did not know that, and would never believe it until the moment he saw Hal’s sword coming for its revenge.

“My lord? My lady?” Agnes had come from the inner chamber at the sound of Rosalind’s screams, and now stood in the middle of the room, wringing her hands helplessly.

“Get out!” Neville snarled at her, and Agnes fled.

“Please …” Margaret tried yet again to take Rosalind from Neville’s arms, but he had the girl tighter than ever. “Please, Thomas, you fought so hard for Rosalind’s life the night she was born—”

“And how would you know that, witch, for I thought you unconscious?”

“Thomas—”

“I want the truth, for I am tired of living wondering if your lies will kill me.”

“And will you recognise the truth if I say it?” Margaret said, frightened and desperate for Rosalind’s life well before her own.

“Aye,” Neville said, staring steadily at Margaret. “I will.”

Margaret fought to calm herself. “Well, then, I will speak of truth to you, but only if you give Rosalind into Agnes’s care. I will not speak to you until she is safe.”

Neville hesitated, then nodded. “Agnes!” he called, and the woman walked hesitantly through the doorway.

Margaret tried to smile reassuringly at her, although she knew that her face must still be frozen in a rictus of fear, then reached for the child.

Neville let Rosalind go, although he kept his eyes intent on Margaret as she took the girl, soothed her for a moment, then handed her to Agnes.

“Our thoughtless cross words have disturbed her, as they have you,” Margaret said to her maid, “and for that I apologise to you both. Please, take her, and keep her safe.”

And, please Jesus, keep her safe from her father should he come storming into that room!

Agnes, hesitant and still afraid, took Rosalind, now considerably quieter after Margaret’s soothing, and walked as quickly as she dared into her own chamber.

The door closed with a bang behind her, and Margaret allowed herself some measure of hope.

She would tell Tom as much truth as she dared, but would that be enough? Would he believe it?

If he did not, and carried through his threat, then all would be lost.

If he did believe her, then she and hers would be almost certain of victory.

But why did victory always come at such cost? What was so “victorious” about the suffering that must necessarily be expended along the way?

Then she gasped in pain, for Neville had taken her wrist in a tight grip. He pulled her closer to him, and twisted her arm again until she cried a little louder.

“The truth,” he said.

“And what truth does pain buy you, Thomas?” she said, her face contorted with the agony now shooting up her arm. “Truth is only of value when it is given freely.”

“Ah!” He let her go and Margaret lurched away, tears in her eyes as she massaged her bruised wrist.

She stopped before the fire, gathering her courage, then turned back to Neville. “Ask what you will.”

“Are you a demon?”

“No,” she said in a clear tone, holding his stare without falter.

He narrowed his eyes. “Are you a mere woman, as all other women?”

“No,” she said.

“Then if you are not demon, and you are not mere woman, then what are you?”

“I am of the angels.”

“What?” Neville took a step backward, his mind almost unable to recognise the meaning of the words she had spoken. “What do you mean?”

“I can explain no more—”

Neville’s shocked look dissolved instantly into one of murderous anger, and he turned and strode towards the door to Agnes’ chamber.

“No!” Margaret ran after him, grabbed his arms with both her hands and twisted him about. “You want the truth? Then listen to it!”

Now she was angry, and more than anything else that persuaded Neville she might indeed be speaking truth: fear would have only mouthed desperate lies.

“Saint Michael said that the only truth that matters lies locked in Wynkyn de Worde’s casket, and in that the angel himself spoke truth. The truth of what I am telling you lies in that casket! But, Thomas, the truth within the casket also encompasses such a vast horror that for me to boldly throw the words of it in your face now would be to destroy you. Saint Michael once told you that you had to experience for yourself, rather than be told, did he not?”

“Aye,” Neville said, “he did.” He could not now take his eyes from Margaret’s face even had he wanted to, for in her rage at him he could truly see the rage of the angels shining from her eyes.

“And thus,” her voice was quieter now, and her grip not so painful about his arms, “whatever answers I give to your questions will be ‘proved’ only when you read for yourself the contents of the casket. But you,” she lifted her right hand and laid it flat against his chest, “can freely choose whether or not to believe me here, tonight, in this chamber.”

“Then I place not only my life in your hands, but also the fate of Christendom.”

Yes, Thomas, you do.

“Yes, Tom, that you do. Into the hands of … what was it you have called me? Ah yes, into the hands of a whore.”

She walked back to the fire, and stood with her back to him as she stared into its flames.

“Margaret, those were the words of a foolish man.” All he could see, even though her face was now averted, was the rage of the angels in her eyes. He could not deny that angel rage, nor disbelieve it. It was not only Neville’s awe of the angels that made him give credence to her words, but something buried deep within him, so deep he could not see it or admit it, made him desperate to believe that she was anything but a demon.

“Oh, aye, they were that.” Still she did not turn about.

Neville remembered how the Roman prostitute had cursed him.

“Margaret, is it true what I have been told, by angels and demons alike … that the fate of Christendom will hang on whether or not I hand my soul on a platter to a woman?”

She turned back to face him so that he could clearly see her face. “Yes.”

“And are you that woman?”

“Yes.” She paused, frowning a little. “Who else?”

“If you are of the angels, then how is it that Saint Michael has not told me of you?”

“Tom, hush, you will set Rosalind to a-crying all over again, even through these walls.”

“Answer me!”

“You cannot understand until you have the contents of the casket laid out before you.”

“You said to me earlier this afternoon that there was truth outside the casket as well … can you not tell me of that, at least?”

Margaret shook her head. “Tom, I am sorry, but there is further for you to travel, and more for you to understand before I can—”

“Then I can never love you.”

“I know that, and it is of no matter.”

Angry now because he had wanted to hurt her with those words and had not succeeded, Neville strode over to a pile of linens which sat on a flat-lidded chest, fiddled with them for a moment, then looked back at Margaret.

“How is it, when you say that you are of the angels, that Saint Michael so reviles you?”

“As there is dissension within God’s Church on earth, then so also there is dissension within the ranks of heaven.”

“The angels are divided? But that means that …”

“Evil has worked its vile way everywhere, Tom. Saint Michael has also said this to you. Now, this time, this age, will be the final battleground.”

“And your role in this?”

“You know my role, Tom. We spoke of it only moments past. My role is to tempt you. To test you.”

He stared, and then walked slowly over to her, holding her eyes the entire way. When he reached Margaret, he gently cupped her chin in his hand, then bent down and kissed her.

“Then you play your role well,” he said finally, shocked to find himself, as her also, shaking with the desire unleashed by that one kiss.

“It is what I am here for,” she whispered.

Neville momentarily closed his eyes, then drew away from her. He sat down in the chair, suddenly remembering that his head had been aching horribly for hours; now the pain in his temples flared beyond his ability to deal with it.

Margaret saw him drop his head into his hands. Silently she walked behind the chair, and placed her hands about his head.

He jumped, but allowed her to draw his head and shoulders back until they rested against the high back of the chair. Her fingers rubbed at his temples, and he drew in a breath of amazement and gratefulness as the pain ebbed away.

She lifted her hands away, and sat down on the carpet before him.

“Thank you,” he said, and she inclined her head, but remained silent.

Neville hesitated, but could not put out of his mind the way Margaret had looked at Bolingbroke this afternoon when they’d disembarked. “There is one more question I have 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.

VII

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 dropped the reins of his stallion, controlling the beast with his knees and calves only, and gathered the child into his arms.

Neville thought it a pretty trick, something to further strengthen the crowd’s approval, but he caught a glimpse of Bolingbroke’s face—the man was staring at the child with such love that Neville instantly thought that the girl might actually be his get from some casual affair.

He looked to the woman again. No, surely not… she was plain, and approaching middle age. She was not a woman who would catch Bolingbroke’s eye or fancy.

Neville gazed back at Bolingbroke, now planting a kiss in the child’s hair, and remembered how he enjoyed playing with Rosalind. Perhaps he merely loves children, Neville thought. Well, Mary shall give him some soon enough, pray God.

Bolingbroke now hefted the child, showing her to the crowd. “Is she not beautiful?” he cried. “Has she not the face of England?”

Now that was pure showmanship, Neville thought, grinning wryly.

Again the crowd roared and clapped, and Bolingbroke, with apparent reluctance, handed the girl back to her mother and took up the reins of his stallion, urging the horse into a slow, prancing trot down the street.

“Whither goest thou?” shouted a man in a rich country burr, and the question—and the burr—was taken up by the throng.

Whither goest thou, fair Prince Hal?

Bolingbroke waved for silence, and the close-pressing crowd consented to dull its adoration to a low rumble.

“I go to Westminster,” shouted Bolingbroke, “to receive the surrender of the French bastard king!”

The crowd erupted, and Neville burst into admiring laughter. Why, Hal would have them believe that he alone had taken King John on the battlefield, and then negotiated a treaty to see all of France quiver on its knees before even the lowliest of English peasants!

Bolingbroke swivelled in his saddle, sending Neville a quick grin, then he turned forward again, and spurred his stallion through the crowds who parted for him as if he were Moses.

Neville eventually managed to ride to Bolingbroke’s side as they cantered past Charing Cross and Westminster rose before their eyes.

“They would have you king!” he shouted above the continuing roar.

“Do you believe so?” Bolingbroke said, his eyes fixed on Neville. “Should we indeed reach for that vial of poison, Tom?”

And then he was gone again, spurring forward and waving to the crowds. Neville was left staring after him and wondering, as others already had, how high Bolingbroke’s ambition leapt.

If they did manage to destroy Richard—and wasn’t that what they truly planned?—then who else could take the throne? Who else? Who else was there to lead England to safety but Bolingbroke?

Richard had caused a table to be set under the clear skies beyond the porch leading into Westminster Hall. The Hall was closed, undergoing renovations to its roof (Richard would have a greater roof put on, so he might be the more gloriously framed), and so the treaty would be signed in the courtyard, where not only the noblest peers of the realm could witness, but also (suitably restrained behind barriers) the commons themselves of England.

Bolingbroke and Neville dismounted when they reached the courtyard’s perimeter, and monks from Westminster Abbey led them to their places in the ranks to the right of the table. Here stood the greatest of nobles and their closest of confidants, and Bolingbroke led Neville directly to his father’s side.

“My Lord of Lancaster,” Bolingbroke said formally, greeting his father with an equally formal bow. Katherine, Lancaster’s duchess, was not present: no wives were here, only the holders of titles and the wielders of power.

Neville also murmured Lancaster a greeting, bowing even deeper than Bolingbroke, but Lancaster gave him only a cursory glance before turning to his son.

“I wish Richard had taken my advice and had this cursed treaty signed under roof.” Lancaster, who looked even more tired and grey in the noonday sun than he had in the candlelit dimness of the Savoy, gestured at the table several paces away: it was strewn with damasks and weighted down with gold and silver candlesticks and a great golden salt cellar. “If the crowd doesn’t become unruly and upset everything, then no doubt a raven will fly overhead and shit on the treaty. John is being difficult enough about the signing … if his pen must perforce thread its way through a pile of bird shit then doubtless he will call the odoriferous mess a bad omen and refuse to sign.”

“At least a treaty is to be signed,” Bolingbroke said.

Lancaster sighed, his eyes still on the table. “Aye. But a treaty declaring Charles a bastard and Richard the heir to the French throne is worth even less than a pile of bird shit in real terms.”

“How so, my lord?” Neville said.

Lancaster turned and gave Neville the full benefit of his cold grey stare. “Do you think that even with this treaty in Richard’s possession the French will lie down and surrender a thousand years of proud history into his hands? Richard can wave it about all he likes, but unless he can enforce it with sword and spilled French blood then it becomes worthless in practical terms.”

“No Frenchman will accept it unless he be forced to do so,” Bolingbroke said.

“Aye,” said a new voice behind them, “and do not think, my bright young Lord of Hereford, that English swords will not force French pride to its knees in the near future.”

All three men turned and stared at the newcomer.

“My Lord of Oxford,” Lancaster said, with no bow and no respect in his voice, “how pleasing to see you here. But also how passing strange, for I thought that surely you would have been at Richard’s side.”

Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, lifted a corner of his mouth in a well-practised sneer. He was a man of some twenty-five or twenty-six years, of the broad chested and shouldered physique that often softened to fat in later years. His face, however, did not suit his body: it was narrow and suspicious, with a sallow complexion and scarred along cheeks and nose by a childhood pox. Yet this was an arresting face, for his dark eyes and full-lipped mouth were of startling beauty, and invariably made any who met him for the first time wonder if perhaps he had stolen both eyes and mouth from some poor beauteous corpse and somehow incorporated them into his otherwise fox-like features.

“And will you lead our fine English knights and archers to so humiliate the French?” Bolingbroke said.

De Vere simpered, the expression challenging rather than coquettish. “Why, dear Hal, I much prefer the comforts of home fires and the sweet meat of our home-bred wenches. Perhaps,” and his face suddenly, violently, darkened into outright threat, “you might like to lead the charge? Unless your father cannot bear the thought of you spitted on some French count’s lance, of course. Well? What say you, oh brave one?”

Neville suddenly realised that the crowd’s cheers for Bolingbroke must surely have been heard by de Vere … as most surely also by Richard, and he wondered if the same thoughts had occurred to them as had to him.

How high did Bolingbroke’s ambition fly?

And how much danger did that place Bolingbroke in?

“Richard must surely be pleased that the treaty is finally to be signed,” Neville said, succeeding in deflecting de Vere’s attention from Bolingbroke to himself.

“Ah … Neville, is it not?” Some of the threat died from de Vere’s face. “I have heard from Richard that you have recently gained yourself a most beautiful and alluring wife. She has brought you no dowry or riches, to be sure, but then,” now nastiness filled de Vere’s face, “sometimes the heat of the bedsport can compensate for almost anything, is it not true?”

“Enough!” Lancaster said. “De Vere, you speak with the utmost vileness on occasion, thinking yourself high above those who outrank you both in birth and in manners. You have favour only because you are Richard’s current pet. Be wary you do not discover a dagger in your back the day that favour dies!”

“And you,” de Vere said, “should watch out for the dagger in your back, for I think it not long in the coming!”

And with that he was gone, shoving his way through the assembled nobles as they found their way to their seats.

“Father!” Bolingbroke said, making as if to go after the Earl of Oxford.

“No!” Lancaster grabbed his son’s arm. “Leave him! He is obnoxious, but of no account.”

“How can you say that?” Bolingbroke said. “How dare he so threaten you!”

Lancaster smiled sadly. “The world has changed,” he said. “My father and brother are dead, and nothing is as once it was. Perhaps we should just accept it.”

Bolingbroke opened his mouth again, but Lancaster waved it shut. “No. Say it not, Hal. Not today, for I am too weary. Come, let us find our seats … Tom, I believe there is a place for you to stand behind us. Come, come, leave de Vere’s unpleasantness behind us.”

Once the nobles were seated, their retainers and men-at-arms ranked behind them, and the crowds who had rumbled out of London to witness the public humiliation of the French restrained as best could be behind wooden barriers and sharp spears and pikes, a clarion of trumpets sounded, and the monarchs of England and France appeared in magnificent procession from behind a row of screens masking the entrance to the palace complex.

Or, rather, Richard, with Isabeau de Bavière on his arm, proceeded in magnificent procession. King John of France sulked and shuffled his way towards the table, his eyes occasionally darting to the sky, almost as if he were waiting for a sympathetic raven to deposit an excuse not to sign the treaty now spread out on the table before them.

The crowd roared and every bird atop the spires of Westminster Hall, Abbey and Palace fled into the sun to finally alight far away on the banks of the Thames.

John descended into a black fugue; his last chance to avoid signing the treaty was fluttering away.

Traitor birds!

If John had slipped further towards his dotage, then Richard had moved from youth to man in the few months since Neville had seen him last.

Kingship sat upon him well. He still affected his cloth of green, almost as if he never wanted (or wanted no one else) to forget that gay May Day of his coronation, but now it had been augmented with enough jewels and chains of gold that he seemed to outrival the sun itself for power and glory. His face was more mature, harder … more knowing and far more cunning, if that were possible.

Every step of his green-clad legs radiated confidence, every slight movement of his crown-topped head bespoke the power that he commanded.

Richard was king, and no one would ever be allowed to forget it.

On his arm Isabeau de Bavière walked straight-backed and proud. She was aging now, but Neville thought he had never seen a more beautiful or desirable woman. She was grey-haired and wrinkled, and her delicate form very slightly stooped, but her eyes were of the clearest sapphire, sparkling in the light, and her face … her face was so exquisitely fragile that Neville thought a man would lust to bed her simply so he could prove to himself (as to his fellows) that he could do so without breaking every bone in her body.

The English crowd, both men and women, instinctively loathed her on sight. Women catcalled, and men roared lusty words, exposing themselves until guards struck them where it was most likely to sting and forced them to cover up again.

Isabeau cared not. She had endured insults all her life and yet none had touched her. Men and women both had scorned her, yet she had lived out her days manipulating kings and popes alike. She was a woman of her own mind, and free to indulge her ambitions with the wealth of a husband she had managed to drive beyond the bounds of sanity (Isabeau had never been slow to recognise the potential of the well-trained-and-aimed lust of a peacock). Isabeau de Bavière was a woman both beyond and out of her time.

She lifted her free hand and elegantly waved to the spitting, roaring crowd.

Lancaster groaned, and cast his eyes heavenward.

Only a few paces away now, Isabeau de Bavière turned her eyes to Lancaster and sent him a swift, conniving look that had Neville wondering if Lancaster himself had ever succumbed to her charms. Why was it that Lancaster had called off the proposed marriage between Catherine of France and Bolingbroke … had Isabeau sent him a carefully worded warning about possible incestuous complications?

Suddenly Neville had to repress a laugh. He had an image of all the highest nobles and princes of Europe furtively counting dates on their fingers and wondering if they were possibly responsible for Charles or Catherine.

Had all Europe shared in the making of King John’s soon-to-be-declared-bastard heir?

The laugh finally escaped, and of all who shot Neville looks, Isabeau de Bavière’s was the only one that included a glint of amusement.

And so, with the sun shining, the wind gusting and the crowd roaring, Isabeau de Bavière leaned over the creamy parchment that contained the words which made the Treaty of Westminster and signed away her son’s self-respect.

Then she leaned back, held out the quill for the frowning, pouting King John, and laughed for sheer joy at the beauty of life.

VIII

Compline, the Feast of the Nativity

of the Blessed Virgin Mary

In the first year of the reign of Richard II

(evening Thursday 8th September 1379)

—ii—

In the evening, Richard hosted a celebratory banquet in the Painted Chamber to which all the nobles who had witnessed the signing of the treaty were invited together with their womenfolk who had been excluded from the more serious business.

Neville and Margaret both attended the evening, not as invited guests, but in their capacity as attendants to great nobles.

The evening was a splendid affair: Richard proved the most generous of hosts, de Vere behaved with the utmost gentility, Isabeau de Bavière shone with the brilliance of the evening star at Richard’s side, and no one minded that King John had refused to attend.

The talk among the guests was of many things, although most topics were generally concerned with the treaty and the current situation in France. Could Richard enforce the treaty? And what was the now-formally-declared-bastard Charles doing? The latest intelligence had him still ensconced in la Roche-Guyon, dithering about what to do and how to take advantage of the sudden deaths of Edward III and the Black Prince. Once the Black Prince had abandoned Chauvigny, Philip the Bad had left Chatellerault and rejoined Charles at la Roche-Guyon, no doubt to keep a closer eye on the Dauphin and see what advantage he could wrest from the situation. Rumour also spoke of this Joan of Arc, and her spine-strengthening effect on the Dauphin. What if Charles did rally the French behind his banner, and. did manage to retake all English holdings in France? Would Richard counter such a move, or sit fuming on his throne in Westminster waving about his useless scrap of a treaty?

The Abbot of Westminster had been sharing Bolingbroke’s plate and cup during the banquet, but when the dishes were removed, he excused himself saying he had matters within the abbey to attend to.

As soon as he’d gone, Bolingbroke waved Neville to take his place.

Bolingbroke checked to make sure that the man seated to his left was engaged in conversation elsewhere, then leaned close to Neville and spoke quietly.

“Richard is to send Isabeau de Bavière to Charles with a copy of the treaty. It is a good plan, for it may further demoralise Charles … and Isabeau’s black witchcraft may act to counter this saintly—” Bolingbroke spoke the word with utter loathing—“Joan we hear so much prattle of.”

Neville glanced at the High Table. Isabeau de Bavière was leaning back in her chair, her brilliant eyes glancing about the hall, her mouth curled in a small smile … perhaps in contemplation of the pleasures of deceit.

“Isabeau is merely a woman rather than a witch,” Neville said, “and one who has been clever enough to make her weakness a powerful weapon for her ambition.”

“Tom! Are these admiring words for a woman I hear you speak? This is not like you at all. Ah, I think marriage has mellowed you.”

Neville’s face took on a reflective aspect at the indirect reference to his wife. “Hal … you know I have suspected Margaret of demonry.”

Bolingbroke’s own face became very careful. “Aye.”

Neville’s eyes lost focus as he remembered what had passed between him and Margaret several nights previously. “She is not what she seems,” Neville said slowly, “and she has lied to me on many occasions.”

Bolingbroke was now very, very still, his eyes fixed solely on Neville’s face. What had happened?

“I could bear it no longer. I confronted her the night we first arrived in London. Sweet Jesu, Hal, Saint Michael told me she had to be destroyed!”

“What happened, Tom?”

Neville gave a small humourless laugh, and, focussing his attention on Bolingbroke, suddenly realised how tense the man was.

“I threatened to kill both her and Rosalind,” he said, “if Margaret did not replace all her lies with truths. Lord Saviour, Hal, I think I would have done it, too, I was so beside myself with anger and doubt.”

He shook his head. “I cannot believe that I was so out of my mind that I would threaten Rosalind’s life.”

Bolingbroke was pale. “You threatened to kill a child? Tom, tell me what happened!”

Neville met Bolingbroke’s eyes. “I was angry with Margaret, not only because I thought her a demon, but because I thought she might be your lover.”

Bolingbroke stared incredulously, then erupted in loud and completely unfeigned laughter, surprising Neville, who had expected any of a hundred different responses but not this.

People glanced at them, and Bolingbroke managed to bring his laughter under control, although tears of mirth slipped down his cheeks and his face went stiff with the effort to keep his chortling muted. “I cannot believe you thought … I … and her Nay, nay, Tom, never fear that!”

Although Neville’s doubts regarding Margaret and Bolingbroke were finally and completely laid to rest, he now felt slighted on her behalf that Bolingbroke should prove so immune to her charms.

“Margaret is a very beautiful woman,” he said.

“Oh, aye, aye!” Bolingbroke continued to chortle, wiping away the tears from his face with a hand. “But … I … she …” He stopped, took a deep breath, and finally managed to gain complete control of himself. “Tom, I do beg your indulgence and forgiveness for any slight you felt I delivered to your wife. Margaret is truly an utterly desirable woman, but she is your wife, as she was once Raby’s woman, and I have too much love and respect for you, as I did for Raby, to even consider her a possible companion for bedsport. But tell me, what did she say to your other charge? That she was a demon.”

“She spoke strangely,” Neville said, “but with such a heavenly anger in her eyes that I was forced to believe every word she spoke.”

“And …?”

Again Neville focussed his gaze on Bolingbroke’s face. “She told me she was not a demon, but was also not a mere woman. She said she was of the angels.”

Any merriment still remaining in Bolingbroke’s eyes and face vanished completely. “And what else did she tell you?” he said softly.

Neville told Bolingbroke what had passed between them, and also detailed for Bolingbroke, as he had not done previously, the curse that Neville had heard from both Roman prostitute and demon. “Hal,” he finished, “she had such a look in her eyes that I was forced to believe her.”

“Such a look?”

“A look that I have seen only in one other being’s eyes—Saint Michael’s. She spoke truly when she said she was of the angels.”

Bolingbroke considered a long while before he spoke again. “Then Margaret is a remarkable woman indeed. Tom, even though she has told you she has been sent to provide the temptation to test you, can you truly resist her?”

“I must,” Neville said, “and I will. I shall regard her and treat her with the respect and pity she deserves, but I will not love her. She understands this.”

Bolingbroke reached out a hand and placed it on Neville’s shoulder, forcing Neville to look directly into his eyes.

“And when the pyre is lit, Tom, will you truly be able to throw her on it? Will you? Will you?”

Neville met Bolingbroke’s stare easily. “Margaret’s honesty has proved a blessing, for I can see that she is resigned to her fate and is prepared to sacrifice herself so that mankind will be spared Satan’s rule. Can I sacrifice her? Yes, I can, for both her sacrifice and my strength will surely see her live with the angels for eternity.”

“You couldn’t allow her to die the night she gave birth to Rosalind, though, could you?”

“That was different! She needed to live so that she might fill her proper—” her sacrificial “—role later!” And that was why I prayed so hard for her that night, Neville told himself. It was!

Bolingbroke drew back with shock and sorrow in his eyes. “Then God has a magnificent champion in you, Tom. No wonder the heavens rejoice in your very name.”

Neville nodded, taking Bolingbroke’s words as a compliment. “But the casket … the casket.” He shot a glance to the High Table where Richard was now leaning towards Isabeau de Bavière, engaging her in a conversation that had both their faces lit with amusement and their eyes dusky with lust.

Well, and it was surely no surprise that Isabeau de Bavière would tempt the boy-king into her bed. Or was it Richard who seduced Isabeau?

“We can do nothing until Richard summons us to his presence,” Bolingbroke said, barely restrained frustration and anger evident in his tone. “And at present the Demon-King is amusing himself by withholding that summons.”

Isabeau stretched out her arm and admired both its firmness and the brilliance of the gems in its armbands and finger rings. In the candlelight the gems glittered and sparkled, and their glow lent further sheen to her ivory skin.

Apart from her jewels, Isabeau de Bavière was utterly naked.

Women moved with silken whispers in the shadows about her, folding her clothes, pouring rosewater into a tub so that she might bathe away the sweat of both banquet and Richard. Isabeau’s mouth curled in silent memory: Richard had not even pretended decorous behaviour, escorting her behind the curtain that separated his bed from the High Table on the dais in the Painted Chamber and forcing her to its mattress even as diners were still exiting the hall.

Isabeau lowered her arm and sighed. Perhaps age was finally claiming its own, for she had found her bedsport with Richard a nauseating affair, and had risen and pulled down her skirts as soon as he’d rolled off her.

“I shall present my son with your kindest felicitations,” she had said, and then left him to return to her own chambers in Westminster’s palace.

“Madam?” one of the women said, sinking into a deep curtsey before her.

Isabeau sighed again and peered at the woman—girl, really. Who was she? Richard sent her new ladies every few days so that she might not form a close bond with any of them and perhaps subvert them to her own interests, and Isabeau found it difficult to recall names and faces. Ah yes, now she remembered …

“Mary, is it not?” she said. Her voice was deep and melodious and heavily accented with the dulcet cadences of her native country.

“Mary Bohun,” the girl said, finally looking up at Isabeau. She flushed, as if Isabeau’s nakedness disconcerted her.

“And I would hazard a guess,” Isabeau said, smiling, “that this Mary Bohun is a virgin.”

“But soon to be wed,” said another woman, now stepping from the shadows into the circle of candlelight that surrounded Isabeau.

“Who is this?” Isabeau said, not liking to be so interrupted.

Mary Bohun’s flush darkened, but she maintained her composure. “This is Lady Margaret Neville,” she said of Margaret, who had now sunk into her own curtsey before Isabeau. “She is one of my attendants, sent to serve with me this night, and also one of my closest confidantes.”

Isabeau studiously ignored Margaret, who had a beauty that was, disconcertingly, almost as great as her own.

“And so you are to be wedded and bedded, my dear,” Isabeau said to Mary. “And to which noble will fall the pleasure of inducting you into womanhood?”

“My Lord of Hereford,” Mary said. “Hal Bolingbroke.”

Isabeau’s face went still, then she affected disinterest with some considerable effort that did not escape Margaret’s attention.

“I have seen this Bolingbroke from afar,” Isabeau said, now reaching for a vial of cream on the chest beside her and fiddling with its stopper. “He is fair of face, and struts as if he has the virility of a bull. If I were you, my dear, I should eat well at your wedding feast, for I believe you shall need the energy for the night ahead.”

Isabeau put the vial of cream back on top of the chest with a loud crack and leaned close to Mary. “No doubt he’ll bruise you, and make you weep, but at least you shall have the blood-stained sheets in the morning to prove to your maids and, subsequently, to court gossip, that you are now truly the obedient wife and that you are well on your way to proving yourself yet another willing brood mare for the Plantagenet stallions.”

Isabeau sat back, a look of utter malice on her face as she stared down at the shocked Mary. “You are not a particularly desirable woman, Mary, and doubtless poor Bolingbroke shall have to call other faces to mind in order to rouse himself enough to accomplish your bedding. Never mind, Bolingbroke shall be happy enough the next morning, knowing that for his efforts he has won himself untold wealth with all the lands that fell under his control the instant he smeared your virgin blood across the sheets.”

Mary continued to stare at Isabeau’s face a moment longer, then she rose silently, her face ashen, and walked away.

“That was a cruel and unnecessary thing to say, madam,” Margaret said to Isabeau. “And spoken out of nothing but maliciousness!”

She, too, rose, but instead of immediately leaving Isabeau to her circle of candlelight and spiteful thoughts, leaned close and spoke so low that no one but Isabeau could hear.

“If you return to Charles’ camp, then tell Catherine that Bolingbroke takes Mary to wife. Tell Catherine!”

Margaret turned to go, but Isabeau’s hand whipped out and seized her sleeve with tight fingers. “And who are you to so issue me orders?”

“I am Catherine’s friend and soulmate,” Margaret said. “And you know, as well as I, that Catherine needs to know of Bolingbroke’s plans.”

Something in Margaret’s gaze, perhaps contempt, perhaps even pity, made Isabeau drop her hand.

“Send the girl Mary back to me,” she said, and sighed. “She is but a child, and I may have misled her. Perhaps it is not too late to undo the damage I have wrought.”

IX

Ember Saturday in September

In the first year of the reign of Richard II

(17th September 1379)

Ember Saturday in September was Feversham’s most important market day of the year. Men and women from all around the Kentish countryside made their way to the town, not only to market their wares, but their labour as well. The autumn agricultural markets were the best time for itinerant labourers to try to garner themselves a year-long work contract with one of the wealthier landlords or free farmers.

By Terce, a huge throng of people crowded the marketplace. Goods spilled over trestle tables and hastily erected stalls. Pigs, cows, horses and sheep jostled in small pens or tugged at their tie lines; dogs barked; geese, chickens and ducks squawked and honked; and the mass of people shouted, laughed, argued and prodded at the goods for sale.

A goodly proportion of the crowd, however, was edging away from the marketplace towards the church set at one boundary of the square.

There, a dusty, ragged priest with long, tousled hair was nailing a broadsheet to the church door. A sheaf of duplicate broadsheets ruffled in the light breeze at his feet.

As he nailed, the priest shouted out an abbreviated version of the contents of the broadsheet:

“Did God create both lords and bondsmen? Nay! He created all men equal! Why should you be the ones to live in draughty hovels and eat coarse bread while your lords live in castles and eat white bread, and rich clerics live in corrupt luxury? How is it they claim our lot is in the dirt and the freezing rain, while they wear fine furs and drink good Gascony wine? Truth is kept under a lock, my friends, and it is time to set it free!”

The priest had finished nailing the broadsheet to the door, and now picked up the pile of loose copies at his feet, turning to hand them out to the crowd jostling for position. He knew that few of them could read, but on a busy market day like this, the few that could would, within a short space of time, share the contents of the sheet with thousands of people.

“We all know how corrupt the Church is,” the priest continued to shout, “for have we not for generations witnessed the sins of the abbots and bishops? Has not good England laboured under the yoke of the Roman—”

“Or French!” someone in the crowd yelled, and there was general laughter.

“—Church for centuries? Why should we listen to fat bishops and foreign popes who say that unless we pay another penny, and yet another penny again, we shall not achieve salvation? Is salvation something to be purchased, my friends?”

The crowd mumbled, and then roared. “No! No!”

“Salvation is yours through the sacrifice of sweet Jesus Christ,” the priest yelled, his arms waving about emphatically now that he’d handed out all the broadsheets. “It is His gift! There is no need to pay the Church for salvation!”

The roar swelled again—the priest had touched a raw nerve.

“And what of your lords? Do they also not wallow in wealth while you grovel in the dirt? Do they not tax you until you cannot feed your children so that they can have their pretty tournaments and wars?”

There was a movement on the edge of the crowd, and the priest saw it. Soldiers, on horses.

“Who wears the face of Christ in this unhappy world of pain? Not the fat clerics, no! Nor the greedy lords. You wear the face of Christ, my friends, every one of you, through your hard work and poverty!”

The soldiers had pushed their horses very close, and the priest’s face began to gleam with sweat. Not through fear of being apprehended—he had always expected this—but through a desperation to preach to the crowd as much as he could before the soldiers reached him.

“The goods of both Church and lords belong to you, the face of Christ on earth! Not to bishops and dukes who care more for silks than for the thin cheeks of your children!”

People began to shout, some to voice their agreement with what the priest said, others to yell their anger at the now close soldiers.

“My name is John Ball,” the priest screamed, now directing his voice towards the soldiers, a few paces distant. “John Ball! I am not afraid that the corrupt lords and bishops should know it! My name is John Ball and I am the voice of the people, and of Christ, who weeps for the people!”

The was a huge surge of sound, and the soldiers pounced, seizing John Ball by the back of his robe and hauling him kicking and screaming atop one of their horses. One of the soldiers rode his horse close to the church door, and tore down the broadsheet.

“Let him go! Let him go!” the crowd shouted, and the twenty soldiers had to lash about with their swords and push their horses forward to fight their way free.

“It is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s men!” someone in the crowd shouted, and the throng screamed and pushed and pummelled. “Christ damn the Archbishop of Canterbury! Christ damn the Archbishop of Canterbury!”

John Ball, now held firmly across the saddle of one of the men, nevertheless managed to raise his head and yell one last defiant message to the crowd. “When Adam delved, and Eve span—who then was the gentleman?”

And then the soldiers were free, pushing their horses into a hard canter, and there was left only the swelling, murmuring crowd, passing the broadsheets to those who could read out loud.

“What did you know of this?” Lancaster said, throwing the broadsheet down on the table before Bolingbroke.

“My lord,” Bolingbroke said, then hesitated, picking the broadsheet up as gingerly as if it were gunpowder.

Lancaster’s furious eyes swung towards Neville, who stood just behind Bolingbroke’s shoulder. Neither of the two younger men were sitting. They had been summoned into Lancaster’s presence just a few minutes before.

“My lord,” Bolingbroke said again. “I had known that Master Wycliffe and several of his men were travelling through Kent—”

“And you had not informed me? Sweet Jesu, Hal, why not? And why not stop them? Do you think I would be pleased to have men known to be of my household engaged in such seditious activities? Ah! Wycliffe has gone too far this time.”

Neville knew he was going to earn Lancaster’s anger for not informing him personally of Wycliffe’s visit to Halstow Hall, but all he felt for the moment was relief. Lancaster had finally seen the danger in nurturing the demon Wycliffe, and now, perhaps, would go to the lengths necessary to stop him.

“I only found out myself a few days ago,” Bolingbroke said. “I had thought to gather greater intelligence before informing you.”

“My lord,” Neville said. “This is my error, not my Lord of Hereford’s. The day before Salisbury came to Halstow Hall to summon me back to London, I received a visit from Wycliffe, accompanied by Wat Tyler—”

Lancaster sprang out of his chair. “What?”

“—and two Lollard priests, John Ball and Jack Trueman. My lord, I do beg your forgiveness, but they told me they travelled at your pleasure towards Canterbury. I had not thought to comment further on it to you.”

Lancaster muttered an obscenity, moving to stare out a window before turning back to the other two men. “And now Wycliffe and Tyler and the other two are roaming about the south-east, tacking sedition to every wall they can find? No, do not answer that, I do not want to hear the affirmative!

“Well,” he sighed, and rubbed at his beard, thinking, “at least Ball is incarcerated in my Lord of Canterbury’s prison and is, for the moment, the lesser problem … unless he decides to implicate my entire household in treason.”

“My lord,” Bolingbroke said, stepping forward, “he surely will not do that!

“Does anyone know where the other three are?” Neville said.

“Wycliffe, yes,” Lancaster said. “Tyler and Trueman, no. Good Master Wycliffe is in Rochester, where he has been some few days. I have sent men—forty trusted men-at-arms—to fetch him away.”

“You will not bring him back here, my lord!” Neville said.

Lancaster glanced at him. “No, I won’t have him within shouting distance of London, Tom. He goes to my manor of Lutterworth in Leicestershire where he can contemplate the sins of the world in its walled herb garden. As for Tyler—what has gotten into the man?—and Trueman … they have vanished into the labouring population of Kent. Word is out for their apprehension, but I know Wat better than most men, and if he doesn’t want to be found …”

“And Richard?” Bolingbroke asked softly.

Lancaster actually looked relieved. “The three of us in the room are the only ones who know of Wycliffe’s involvement, and that of Wat Tyler. Those two are the only ones publicly associated with my household. The broadsheets, thank God, are unsigned, and do not mention Wycliffe’s name, or the name of any of my house. As far as John Ball is concerned, my Lord of Canterbury has agreed to hold him without public comment for the moment.”

Neville relaxed a little. Simon Sudbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was heavily indebted to Lancaster for supporting Sudbury’s election to the archbishopric some years ago.

“So we must hope Tyler and Trueman cause no disturbance that might come to the king’s ear,” Bolingbroke said.

“Aye,” Lancaster said. “That we must.”

John Ball huddled a little deeper into his thin robe, closed his eyes against his dreary, dirty cell and prayed to Jesus Christ for strength.

Then footsteps sounded outside the door, and Ball’s eyes flew open.

A key rattled in the lock, and the door opened.

One of the guards stood there, carrying a bundle of warm clothing and a bag of food.

“From a friend,” the guard said, tossing both clothing and the bag of food to Ball. “A good man, a former sergeant-of-arms of mine. He said to tell you to be strong and of good cheer, for when the time comes, yours shall be the voice to strike the match.”

Ball nodded, then, as the door closed and locked, once again closed his eyes, this time to thank Christ for the love of a man known as Wat Tyler.

X

Vigil of the Feast of St Michael

In the first year of the reign of Richard II

(Wednesday 28th September 1379)

The Black Prince’s victory at Poitiers had crippled French pride and determination. Not only had the cursed English ground French pride into the mud, but King John had been captured, and the flower of French nobility had been lost to either the arrows of English longbowmen or the ransom demands of English nobles.

And then, out of all of this calamity, God in His boundless goodness sent hope to the virtuous French in the sweet form of the miraculous virgin, Joan, and judgement to the vile English in the simultaneous deaths of both Edward III and his warrior son, the Black Prince.

At the darkest day, when the French were stricken with defeat, God had opened the door for a Gallic triumph.

Now, Isabeau de Bavière was determined to slam it shut in His face.

“And so, my darling boy,” Isabeau said, enjoying every moment, “I did so sign away your heritage and your throne. It was but truth, and I was bound to speak it some day. Here,” and she held out the copy of the Treaty of Westminster to Charles, who stared at it pallid-faced and tormented.

Isabeau stood there with her arm extended just long enough to make the moment intensely uncomfortable, then she let the treaty flutter to the floor.

“Well,” she said, “no matter.”

She stepped past her son and smiled maliciously at the gathering standing behind Charles in the hall of la Roche-Guyon. “Why the surprise over all your faces? Have you not called me the harlot and whore behind my back for decades? Well, now I confess it.” Isabeau threw apart her arms in a dramatic gesture. “I am so the whore and harlot! ‘Twas indeed the Master of Hawks—oh, how I wish I could remember his name!—who put Charles inside me with his peasantish vigour and odious onion breath. And … see!”

Isabeau clasped her hands together before her face, and turned back to Charles as if enthralled by the very sight of him. “Has my son not inherited his father’s penchant for the stables? I swear before God he’d be far more comfortable atop a dung heap than standing in this grand hall. And … see!”

Now Isabeau whipped about and stared at the girl, Joan, standing thick and dark in men’s clothing to one side.

“Has he not also inherited his father’s taste for peasant company? His companion betrays him, for my son prefers the stench of peasants to the sweet spice of nobility.”

Charles’ face was now so white that he looked as if he might faint. In contrast to bloodless cheeks, his pale blue eyes were brilliant, brimming with tears of mortification.

His mother, his hateful mother, had never so publicly, nor so successfully, humiliated him. All those whispered rumours now being flung into his face with a devastating, ruthless candour.

He was the son of a peasant—how could anyone now gainsay it?

His eyes jerked to the treaty lying on the floor. All France—and England!—must be laughing at him. He trembled, and started to wring his hands. Every argument Joan had used to sustain his courage was lying on the floor along with that treaty … lying on the floor with his whore-dam’s laughter washing over it!

“Madam,” Joan said, glancing at Charles as she stepped forth. Her face was serene, but her demeanour was that of the stern judge. “It is you, not your noble son, who produces the stench in this hall. You lie for profit, and to further your own ambitions. Before God, you know it was Louis who fathered Charles on you. Admit it, or damn your soul.”

Isabeau’s haughty expression froze on her face. Her eyes widened, her mouth pinched, and her hands clenched at her sides.

She tried to stare Joan down, but the girl’s serene, confident gaze did not waver, and eventually it was Isabeau who looked away.

She saw that Charles was gazing at Joan with an expression almost of fear.

Useless, hopeless man, Isabeau thought. He wants nothing less than to believe me, not Joan. To believe Joan would mean he might actually have to do something about regaining his realm. No doubt he thought it would never go this far.

“Look at him,” said Isabeau softly. “How can anyone here believe he was sired by a noble father? He is the very image of wretchedness. How can you want him as your king?”

Having regained some of her courage, Isabeau looked back to Joan, who she saw was still wrapped in her damned self-righteous serenity.

“I swear to God, Joan,” Isabeau said, “that he must give you good satisfaction in your bedsport, for I cannot imagine why else you champion the cause of such a dullard.”

Joan smiled very slightly, very derisively, but it was Charles who finally found some voice.

“I have not touched her, madam!” he said, his voice horribly shrill. “Her flesh is sacred … I … I would not dare to touch her.”

“Are you telling me you haven’t slept with her?” Isabeau said, arching one of her eyebrows. “What ails you, boy?”

Charles’s hitherto wan cheeks now mottled with colour, his flush deepening as he saw every eye in the hall upon him.

His mother’s mouth curled mockingly.

“You must surely be weary after your journey,” Charles stammered, desperate to get her out of his presence. “Perhaps you should rest before our evening meal. Philip!”

Philip, King of Navarre, stepped forth from the huddle of nobles who had stood and watched open-mouthed through the entire scene. His dark, handsome face was reflective, but he smiled and bowed before Isabeau with the utmost courtesy.

“Perhaps you could provide my mother with escort to her chamber,” Charles said, and Philip smiled, and offered Isabeau his arm.

“Gladly,” he said.

As they left the hall Joan turned to Charles. “My very good lord,” she whispered urgently, “you must not believe what she says.”

“I am the get of a peasant,” he mumbled miserably, then looked around. “See? They all believe it!”

“The Lord our God says that you are the get of kings!” Joan said, exasperated with the witless man.

“I am worthless … worthless …”

Joan laid her hand on his arm—an unheard of familiarity, and not missed by some who watched—and leaned close. “You are the man who will lead France to victory against the cursed English,” she said, her tone low and compelling. “Believe it.”

Charles sniffed, staring at her, then looked about the hall.

One of the nobles stepped forth—Gilles de Noyes. “You are our very dear lord,” he said, and made a sweeping bow, “and we will follow you wherever you go. We know that your mother lies, for does not the saint by your side tell us so?”

One by one the others stepped forward and made similar assurances, and Charles finally managed to regain some little composure.

Joan smiled again at him, relaxing a little herself, and nodded her thanks to de Noyes.

De Noyes had, by now, thoroughly warmed to his theme. “My sweet prince,” he said, “you will be the one to lead us through fields of blood and pain and into victory!”

Fields of blood and pain? Charles swallowed, and then started as Joan leaned down, seized the Treaty of Westminster, and tore it to shreds.

Weary and sad at heart, Isabeau lay upon her bed and tried to dull her thoughts so that she could, indeed, sleep.

But this afternoon’s events kept sleep a long, long way distant.

Isabeau had thought that Charles would quiver and wail when presented with the treaty which formally bastardised him. Then, having seized the proffered escape, Charles would scurry away to whatever hidey-hole he found comfortable in order to avoid the laughter of his fellow Frenchmen.

True, Charles had quivered and quavered and flushed and wailed at the sight of the treaty and the sound of his mother’s derision … but he had not scurried away. And why not? Because that damned saintly whore had not allowed him to escape! He danced to her tune now … and that made Isabeau almost incandescent with rage.

How dare that peasant bitch control her son!

If it hadn’t been for Joan’s presence, Isabeau knew she could have persuaded Charles to stand aside from his pathetic fumble for the throne.

But, no, that damned saintly whore had shoved her Godly righteousness so far up his spine that Charles had actually managed to remain on his feet …

Sweet Christ Saviour. If Joan hadn’t been there, Isabeau knew Charles would have bolted for the door.

Whore! Isabeau had a great deal to lose if this treaty did not bring Richard the French throne, and she had the feeling that Richard would prove the most appalling of enemies should he be crossed.

And what of Philip? In the short while she had had to speak with him, Philip had appeared almost as seduced by the whore’s aura of saintliness as Charles was. But was that merely Philip’s wiliness, or was it true awe? Isabeau had known Philip a very long time, knew how he lusted for the throne of France as much as did the English king, and knew him for the conniving, treacherous bastard that he was.

Isabeau de Bavière had always liked Philip.

She sighed and then turned over, angry with herself that she could not sleep.

How could she convince Charles that he was, indeed, the son of a Master of Hawks? How could she undo him, and further her own cause?

Suddenly, all thoughts of Charles and Joan flew from her mind as, panicked, she lurched into a sitting position.

Someone had entered the room.

Isabeau squinted, damning the maid for closing the shutters against the afternoon light, and cursing her thudding heart for fearing the entrance of an assassin.

“Madam?”

Isabeau rocked with relief. “Catherine.”

Catherine walked into the chamber, and Isabeau slid from the bed, tying a woollen wrap about her linen shift. There was a fire burning in the hearth, and Isabeau indicated that they should sit on a chest placed to one side of its warmth.

For a minute or so she sat and studied her enigmatic daughter, knowing that Catherine was also using the time to study her.

Catherine. Isabeau had never quite known what to make of her … especially given the unusual circumstances of her conception. Catherine was not a beautiful woman in the same manner that Isabeau was, but she was striking nevertheless with her pale skin, dark hair and the blue eyes she’d inherited from her mother, and she had a form that most men would be more than happy to caress.

But, form and face aside, Catherine was an enigma, although Isabeau suspected her daughter had the same depths of ambition and strength that she had.

What was she now? Eighteen? Nineteen?

“Nineteen,” said Catherine, and Isabeau jumped slightly, and smiled slightly.

“I had forgot your disconcerting habit of reading my thoughts,” she said.

“I was not reading your thoughts at all, madam, but whenever you screw up your brows in that manner I know you are trying to recall either my name or my age and, as you have already spoken my name, then you must have been wondering about my age.”

“Ah.” Isabeau was not in the slightest bit put out at the implied criticism in Catherine’s words. Then, because Isabeau had never been one to waste time on womanly gossip, she went straight to the heart of the matter. “I am wondering what you do here at la Roche-Guyon, Catherine. There must surely be more comfortable palaces to wait out the current troubles. You are, perhaps, another of this peasant girl’s sycophants?”

Catherine gave a wry smile. “I am here, madam, because I have nowhere else to go and because for the time being my fate is linked to that of Charles—”

Isabeau made an irritable gesture. “Don’t be a fool, take charge of your own fate.”

Catherine ignored the interruption. “And as to what I think of Joan …” she gave a bitter laugh. “She shall ruin all our lives should Charles let her prattle on for much longer.”

“But surely,” Isabeau said with some care, “she should be commended for her devotion to Charles’ cause?”

Catherine looked her mother directly in the eye. “You and I both know, madam, that France will be ruined if Charles ever takes the throne. He is truly his father’s son.”

Isabeau hesitated, then nodded. “Aye, he is that. I regret the day I ever let that breathing lump of insanity get him on me.”

“Ah, the truth of the matter. Not the Master of the Hawks, then?”

Isabeau waved her hand dismissively. “A subterfuge only. Over the years I have made good use of my reputation for harlotry.”

“And so you sold Charles to Richard for … how much, madam?”

“A castle here, a castle there, a stableful of lusty lads … you know the kind of bargain I drive, Catherine.”

Isabeau stood up, pacing to and fro in front of the fire before she stopped and looked at Catherine.

“My dear,” she said, in a voice so gentle Catherine could hardly believe it was her mother speaking. “You and I have never been close and we have never talked as we do now. You were always so much the child.”

“I have grown in the year since last we spoke.” Isabeau had never taken much interest in her children, and Catherine had been raised in a succession of castles and palaces far from her mother’s side.

“Oh, aye, that you have. Catherine, I have sold Charles because I want France to live. I—as you do, I suspect—want France to have a king who can lead it to glory, not some pimple-faced toad afraid of his own shadow.”

“And so you want to hand it to Richard? I have heard but poor reports of him.”

Isabeau sank down to a pile of cushions on the floor before Catherine. The firelight flickered over her face, lighting her eyes and silvering her hair.

“I have opened the door, my dear, for the right man to fight his way through to the throne,” she said very quietly. “And I do not think that man will be Richard.”

Catherine stared at her mother for what seemed a very long time.

“You have come from the English court,” she said eventually. “What news?”

Isabeau dropped her eyes and fiddled with a tassel on her wrap. “I have a message for you from a Margaret Neville,” she said.

Catherine leaned forward. “Margaret? What message?”

Isabeau raised her head and looked her daughter directly in the eye. “She told me to make certain that I passed on to you the latest gossip.”

“Yes?”

“Hal Bolingbroke is to take Mary Bohun, the flush-faced virgin heiress to the Hereford titles and lands, as his wife on … why, on Michaelmas. Tomorrow.”

Catherine reacted as if she’d been struck. She reeled back, her face paling save for two unnaturally bright spots in her cheeks. “I cannot believe it!” she whispered.

“But you must,” Isabeau said, “for I spoke with the little Mary-child myself.” She grinned. “Poor Mary. She dreads her wedding night whereas you would have lusted for it more than Bolingbroke.”

Catherine’s eyes had filled with tears, and Isabeau regarded her with suspicion. “I did not know you had lusted for him, Catherine. Why so shocked?”

“There had been talk … some time ago … of a marriage between us.”

“There is always talk and there are always negotiations that never eventuate into actuality. You know that as much as any other noble-bred girl. And, truth to tell, Bolingbroke did not fight very hard to ensure the success of the negotiations. He was somewhat indifferent. But I can see that you managed to take a fancy to him, at the least. A shame, for you shall never have him.”

Catherine’s face tightened in anger, and Isabeau smiled, well pleased.

“You shall never have him,” she said again, “unless you fight for him, and make him want you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I know the Plantagenet princes very well.” She smiled. “Very, very well. Well, at least the older generation of them. But, come what may, all the Plantagenet princes are the same—they lust for power—and for the women they cannot have. I do not think Bolingbroke any different.”

“And …”

Isabeau shrugged elegantly. “Mary will not suit him. All can see that. She has not the fire to earn his respect. One day, Catherine, he will regret very, very much not having fought for you.

“My dear,” Isabeau leaned forward and took her daughter’s hands in hers, “make him fight for you now!”

“But he will soon have a wife!”

“Ah! You tie yourself down with such pettinesses! God above, Catherine, you can bring him France!”

“But with Mary as wife—”

“A wife? Of what matter is that? Wives come and go … and I have a feeling that Mary Bohun is so vapid she will catch a chill and die with the first touch of an autumn fog. Mary can be disposed of when the time comes, but in the meantime, she will provide a good power base so that eventually Hal’s lusts and ambitions can straddle the Narrow Seas.”

Isabeau’s teeth glinted momentarily. “And while you wait, there is no reason why you can’t make him sweat … and further our own cause to dispose of this Joan.”

Catherine, who had been fighting despair and hope in equal amounts in the last minutes, now eyed her mother warily. “Explain.”

“You said that Joan will ruin all our lives should she be allowed to prattle on for much longer. But I do not think myself wrong to say that most in this castle think her a mouthpiece of God?”

Catherine made a wry face. “I think most follow her about sweeping up the discarded skin she scratches off her neck and ears to keep as holy relics. Men flock to this castle as news of its saint spreads. And of all within this house of fools, Charles is the greatest fool of them all!”

“But what of Philip?”

“What of Philip?”

“What does he think? Does he have a collection of sacred dandruff tucked away under his pillow?”

“Who knows what he thinks?”

“I think we must learn what he thinks,” Isabeau said carefully, “for he might yet prove our greatest ally. And I think you the perfect woman to secure his secrets.”

“No,” Catherine whispered, trying to pull her hands out of her mother’s grip.

But Isabeau was surprisingly strong for her seeming fragility, and she kept tight hold of Catherine. “Don’t be such a fool! I said before that you should control your own destiny. Don’t let others do it for you! Bolingbroke uses people as he wants for his own devices, Catherine. Don’t let your womanhood stop you from doing the same.”

“Philip will think to use me to gain the throne for himself.”

“Of course! I would expect no less from him. But, Catherine, don’t you see? If Philip thinks he might have a chance at the throne through you then he will turn against Joan! One day, somehow, we can use him to destroy her, and once she is gone …”

“Then Charles fails.”

“Aye. He will never have the strength to fight for his inheritance on his own.”

Catherine took a deep breath. “I would have liked to have saved myself for—”

“Oh, stop prattling on about saving yourself!” Isabeau laughed in genuine amusement. “You’ve been listening to those pious priests and dimwitted nursery maids again. Enjoy Philip, for he will be good for you and to you.”

“Are you sure this is not a task you want to take on yourself, mother?”

“I think it is time for you to take wing and fly, child. Besides, yours is the body and womb that will gift a strong man the throne of France, not mine. Not any more. I have bequeathed you that power, Catherine. Use it.”

When Catherine had gone, Isabeau sat back and let her thoughts drift.

In many ways Catherine disconcerted her, but most of all Catherine disconcerted Isabeau because she should not exist.

Catherine was conceived one winter when Isabeau was being held captive in a stronghold of the Duke of Burgundy’s—the duke had thought to ransom her back to King John until he’d realised after four months that John would not pay a single gold piece to have his daughter-in-law returned. Finally, the duke had been forced to release Isabeau with much grumbling and cursing.

Catherine was not Louis’ daughter. Indeed, everyone assumed that Isabeau had consoled herself during her capture with a guard, or perhaps a cook.

But only Isabeau knew the truth. During those four months she had bedded no man. When, some two weeks before the Duke had finally released her, Isabeau had realised she was pregnant she was beside herself with fear.

What sprite had fathered this child on her? What imp would she give birth to?

Not wanting to know the answer to either question, Isabeau had taken every potion and herb she knew of to try and rid herself of the child in her womb. But it would not be shifted. Isabeau had gone into her birthing chamber terrified, thinking the child would kill her in its release from the womb.

But the birth had been easy, surprisingly painless, and Isabeau had recovered quickly. The child, Catherine, had been as any human child, and gradually Isabeau had convinced herself that perchance she had imbibed too much wine one night and had consoled herself with a foul-smelling guard after all.

And yet sometimes, as she did this day, Isabeau felt strong enough to admit to herself the truth.

Catherine was not the child of any mortal man, and she had not been put in her womb through any mortal means.

XI

The Feast of St Michael

In the first year of the reign of Richard II

(Thursday 29th September 1379)

—Michaelmas—

—i—

Neither Mary’s mother, Cecilia, nor Bolingbroke, had spared any expense to adorn Mary in the finest garments possible.

And yet what a shame, Margaret thought as she carefully buttoned Mary into her wedding dress, that they did not pick something more suitable for Mary’s shy and subtle attraction.

The dress was of heavy damask, deep red in colour, and weighted down with pearls and gems that encrusted its bodice and cascaded down its full skirts and fancy sleeves. Its colour and decoration was too overwhelming for the modest Mary, and its cut too close and too cruel, for it served only to further flatten Mary’s small breasts and boyish hips.

The costume was too alive for her. Margaret could almost hear the sly whisperings of that sickening imp deep within Mary’s being. Surely the blood-red vitality of this gown would tempt it forth the sooner?

Margaret shuddered, then regretted her lapse instantly.

“Is something wrong?” Mary asked, trying to twist her head about to see what Margaret was doing.

“No. There, you are fastened in. Now, let me see that your hair is properly secured.”

Margaret sat Mary down on a stool and busied herself with the woman’s elaborate hairstyle; that it had taken Cecilia, Margaret and two other women half the morning to fix properly. Mary’s long, thick honey hair had been bound in two plaits which had been wound above her forehead. A veil, of the same rich colour as her dress, had then been laid over the crown of Mary’s head, and painstakingly pinned in place with jewelled hairpins. Then a broad circlet woven of gold and silver wires, with beautiful pale-green peridot stones gleaming within its twists and turns, was placed over both plaits, dropping low about Mary’s head to cover both her ears and holding the veil in place. The lower length of the veil was left to flow freely to halfway down Mary’s back.

The effect of both dress and headdress was stunning—or, at least, it would have been had Mary both the colouring and the regal bearing to set it off.

But Catherine would have worn it perfectly …

Margaret forced all thought of Catherine from her mind. Isabeau would have told Catherine by now—but what could Catherine do? Nothing … nothing.

And Hal. Margaret could understand the why of this marriage. It would serve him well in terms of power. But could he truly afford to alienate Catherine in this manner?

“My ladies?” A page appeared in the doorway. “It is time.”

Bolingbroke had chosen to be married not in the Savoy’s chapel, nor in either the abbey or St Stephen’s chapel in Westminster, but in St Paul’s in the west of London. It was a calculated choice, for Bolingbroke meant this to be a marriage in which the people of London could participate. The marriage would be a union between Mary Bohun and Hal Bolingbroke, and a cementing of the already strong marriage between Bolingbroke and the English commoners.

In that the Londoners loved Bolingbroke all the more for choosing St Paul’s, it was a fortunate choice. In another aspect, however, it was an appalling one.

Richard (accompanied as always by Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford) would also be attending.

At noon a great procession started from the Savoy; leading the way were Bolingbroke and Mary, Bolingbroke seated astride his great, prancing snowy destrier, Mary seated far more demurely on a chestnut palfrey mare led by a page.

Behind them rode, side by side, John, Duke of Lancaster, and Richard, who had arrived at the Savoy from Westminster by barge some hours earlier that morning. Behind them rode several peers of the realm, the Earl of Westmorland, Ralph Raby (who had made the trip from Sheriff Hutton the week previously), and Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, among them. In the group behind the great nobles rode Thomas Neville with several other of the noble attendants of the leading dukes, earls and barons.

It would be a relatively short ride from the Savoy to St Paul’s, taking perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes at a walk. From the Savoy’s gates the procession turned north-east on the Strand. A cheer went up from bystanders, for the Strand was a busy highway, and Bolingbroke smiled and inclined his head, acknowledging the cheers of the crowd.

From his vantage point just behind the leading riders, Neville could see Richard’s back stiffen.

They proceeded slowly along the Strand, passing the Inns of Court on the right. These, the great legal schools and courts of England, occupied the old buildings of the Knights Templar.

Then another, greater building arose like a great black crow hunched over its piteous prey: Blackfriars, the home of the Dominicans in London. Indeed, the analogy with the ravening crow was apt, because Blackfriars had grown so large that it had actually consumed that part of London’s wall which stretched from Ludgate down to the Thames.

Neville had to repress a shiver. Was the Prior General of England, Richard Thorseby, in there somewhere, still plotting his downfall?

A shadow fell over Neville, and he started before realising that it was the gloom cast by the height and breadth of Ludgate. He looked up at it looming above him and imagined he could hear the cries for mercy from the prisoners held within its dank dungeons.

He shook himself. What was he doing? This was a joyous day!

The instant he’d thought that, Bolingbroke and Mary, leading the procession, passed from under Ludgate’s shadow onto the wide street that led to St Paul’s, directly ahead.

The cathedral’s courtyard was crowded with Londoners, and as Bolingbroke and Mary appeared a great roar went up.

Hal! Hal! Fair Prince Hal!

And Neville, watching closely, saw Richard tense even further before shooting de Vere a dark glance over his shoulder.

Hal! Hal! Fair Prince Hal!

The crowd parted to allow the procession through, and as Bolingbroke and Mary halted, attendants rushed forward to hold their horses’ heads.

Neville himself dismounted, throwing the reins of his horse to a boy who stepped forward, and moved quickly to Bolingbroke’s side.

Margaret, who had been riding a gentle palfrey in a group a little further back from Neville, also dismounted with the aid of a page and walked to attend Mary.

As Bolingbroke dismounted, Neville made sure that Bolingbroke’s tunic—the same rich bejewelled red as Mary’s gown, although his hose and cloak were of the purest white—was straight and that his ceremonial sword and dagger had not snagged his cloak.

“Be wary, my lord,” he whispered, “for the crowd’s acclaim has Richard glowering at your back.”

Bolingbroke turned, smiled and bowed slightly to Richard, then turned back to face the cathedral while all about him tumbled the thunder of the crowd and the pealing of what sounded like the bells of most of the churches of London.

“Do you think Richard would dare stick the dagger in my back here?” Bolingbroke said.

“I think he merely makes note of the need to hone it,” Neville said, and then fell silent with the rest of the crowd as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury, appeared at the top of the steps leading into St Paul’s and held up his hand for quiet.

Bolingbroke and Mary moved forward, Mary on Bolingbroke’s left. Mary stumbled very slightly, and Bolingbroke smiled gently at her, and held out his hand. She took it, and together they mounted the steps to kneel before the archbishop.

“Brethren!” Sudbury said in a loud voice that carried over the entire courtyard. “We are gathered here, in the sight of God, and His angels, and all the saints, and in the face of the Church, to join together two bodies, to wit, those of this man and this woman—”

Sudbury looked down on Bolingbroke and Mary, then continued, “—that henceforth they may be one body; and that they may be two souls in the faith and the law of God, to the end, that they may earn together eternal life; and whatsoever they may have done before this.”

Now Sudbury lifted his gaze and addressed the crowd. “I charge you all by the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, that if any of you know any cause why these persons may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, he do now confess it.”

There was a silence. Margaret, thinking of Catherine, bit her tongue lest she should betray herself (and everything she and her brethren had worked towards), but even as she felt the words must explode from her there was a voice raised from the crowd.

“I do declare that the wrong bridegroom kneels before you, my Lord Archbishop.”

Richard.

“I swear that it would be best that I wed the lovely Mary so that Bolingbroke will not gain the strength with which to topple me from the throne.”

An utterly horrified silence fell over the crowd. Bolingbroke, half rising from his knees, turned and stared down at Richard, who was grinning insolently up at him.

Neville made to step forward, as did several other men, Lancaster and Raby among them, but just then Richard held up his hand.

“A jest only,” he said, and laughed. “I thought to bring some levity into this most sombre of occasions.”

Another silence, then de Vere giggled, and a soft swell of forced laughter ran through the crowd.

“Continue, my good archbishop,” Richard said, waving his hand. “Let us see Bolingbroke happily wedded to all this lady has to offer.”

Neville closed his eyes momentarily and took a deep breath. Sweet Jesu, what else would this demon do to ruin the day?

Bolingbroke sank slowly to his knees again, his face stiff and expressionless, then turned back to face Sudbury, murmuring a quick word to Mary, who looked shocked and distressed.

Sudbury himself was flushed, and had to take several breaths before he was ready to continue.

Richard, meanwhile, happily grinned to any who happened to meet his eye.

Few did.

“Henry,” Sudbury said, “wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife …”

The speaking of the vows continued without further interruption, although most eyes, at some point or other, darted to Richard’s grinning face, wondering what he might do next.

Once Bolingbroke had made his vows, Mary spoke hers in a clear voice, and then Sudbury blessed the ring—a great ruby set in heavy twisted gold.

Another error, thought Margaret, for that ring will never sit well on Mary’s tiny hand.

Bolingbroke then took the ring and looked Mary in the eye. “With this ring I thee wed, and this gold and silver I thee give: and with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly chattels I thee honour.”

Then he slipped the ring on the thumb of Mary’s left hand, saying, “In the name of the Father—”

A great flock of pigeons rose from the buildings surrounding St Paul’s, the roar of their wings filling the air.

Bolingbroke moved the ring to Mary’s index finger, saying, “—and of the Son—”

Margaret looked up to the sky, and the sun broke through the shifting grey and black cloud of pigeons, sending a shaft of light upon Mary.

Bolingbroke now moved the ring to Mary’s middle finger, saying, “—and of the Holy Ghost—”

There were people present there, that day, who swore ever afterwards that a tremor ran through the ground beneath their feet as Bolingbroke spoke those words.

Finally, Bolingbroke slipped the ring onto Mary’s fourth finger, sliding it firmly into position.

“Amen,” he said, and the pigeons screamed, for at that moment a hawk flew into their midst, seizing a large snowy-white bird, and rose skyward shrieking in triumph.

And as the hawk shrieked, Bolingbroke glanced again at Richard, and this time his face was as full of triumph as was the hawk’s cry.

Margaret brushed out Mary’s hair, and hoped that this night would go as well for her as the rest of the wedding ceremony and feast had gone. After Bolingbroke had slipped the ring onto Mary’s finger, Sudbury had blessed them, and the archbishop, bridegroom and bride and all the invited guests had then moved into St Paul’s to hear the nuptial mass. Once that was done (and it had been a tedious two hours, indeed), the procession had wound its way back to the Savoy, the cheers of the crowd even louder this time, if possible, and sat down to a sumptuous wedding feast in the great hall.

Now was beginning the last rite that would see Mary move legally from girl to woman, and ensure Bolingbroke could cement his claim to the lands and wealth she brought as dowry: the consummation.

Mary was withdrawn and clearly apprehensive, but Margaret (and Mary, come to that) knew she was fortunate that the ancient custom whereby six lords of the Privy Council would stay within the bedchamber to witness the consummation had finally lapsed into abeyance. Bolingbroke and Mary would be allowed privacy for their sexual union, but they had yet to endure the formal blessing of the bedchamber—with a naked Bolingbroke and Mary lying patiently beneath snowy bedsheets pulled up to their shoulders—and then, in the morning, an inspection of the sheets by three privy lords to ensure that, firstly, a sexual union had taken place and, secondly, that Mary had been a virgin when she’d come to Bolingbroke’s bed.

Bolingbroke was a powerful peer of the realm, an heir to the throne, at least until Richard could get himself one of his own body, and the Privy Council would want to be certain that any child that slipped from Mary’s womb had been fathered by Bolingbroke.

Margaret had spent a great deal of the evening blessing the fact that she’d married a minor noble and hadn’t had to endure some of the more intrusive aspects of the marriage rites tolerated by the peers of the realm.

There, Mary’s hair was done, and Margaret could tell from the movements and murmurs behind the screen where Bolingbroke was being assisted by Neville and two valets, that it was time to put Mary to bed.

“Come,” she whispered, bending down to where Mary sat before her. “Do not be afraid. Bolingbroke is a glorious man, and there is many a woman in London tonight who will be envying you.”

“Look,” Mary said, and held out her hands. They were shaking slightly.

“Well then, when you and Bolingbroke are finally left in peace, tell him that you fear, and he will be kind. Come, my lady, the archbishop and guests await outside.”

Mary rose hesitantly, just as Bolingbroke emerged from behind the screen, Neville at his shoulder.

Margaret’s and Neville’s eyes met, then they each removed the light robes that covered the shoulders of Bolingbroke and Mary and held back the sheets as they slid naked beneath.

One of the valets moved to the door of the bedchamber, and the archbishop, Richard, de Vere, Lancaster and Katherine, and some fifteen other great nobles filed in. There were grins and winks and a few whispered ribald words, but the gathering generally behaved itself as Sudbury raised his hand and blessed the marriage bed.

Margaret thought that Richard might say something more to disturb the mood of the day, and looked over to him.

Richard, as de Vere who stood by his side, was paying the ceremony no attention at all.

Instead, both men were staring at Margaret.

XII

The Feast of St Michael

In the first year of the reign of Richard II

(Thursday 29th September 1379)

—Michaelmas—

—i—

Catherine hesitated in front of the door, then opened it boldly without knocking. Philip, as naked as the day he’d slid from his mother’s womb, was just lowering himself to the similarly naked body of the woman he had pinned to his bed.

“Sweet Jesu in heaven!” Philip said, and leapt to the floor on the far side of the bed, leaving the woman, abandoned, to cover her nakedness as well as she could with the bed coverings.

Catherine grinned, then composed her face and spoke to the woman, whom she vaguely recognised as a laundress attending la Roche-Guyon.

“You may dress yourself and leave,” she said. “His grace will not require your return.”

Disconcerted, the woman looked to Philip who had donned a loose shirt and was now struggling into a pair of hose. “Do as she says,” he said, and the woman scrambled from the bed, hiding her breasts with her hands, and ran over to a far corner where her dress lay puddled.

Philip finally managed to get his hose on and stood up straight, looking at Catherine, still standing just inside the doorway.

“Sweet Jesu, Catherine, what do you here?”

Catherine remained silent, inclining her head towards the hurriedly dressing laundress, and then stepped aside as the woman sidled past her and out the door.

Catherine closed the door, and then bolted it. “I have come to speak with you,” she said.

Philip had walked over to a table and poured himself some wine from a ewer. Now he held the ewer up to Catherine, his eyebrows raised.

She nodded, and he poured her a cup of wine and passed it to her as she joined him.

“Talk could have waited until morning,” he said softly, his gaze intent on her face as he sipped his wine.

“It suited me to come tonight.” She drank her wine, then handed the cup back to Philip, making sure that their fingers touched as he took it from her.

“Beware, Catherine,” he said, even more softly than previously, “for you play a dangerous game.”

His words disconcerted Catherine, not for their meaning, but for the tone of concern which underpinned them.

She had the strangest feeling that the concern was genuine.

“We all play a dangerous game,” she said, turning her back to him and walking towards where the embers of a fire glowed in a hearth. “France is in turmoil, and Isabeau has once again cast doubt on Charles’ legitimacy.”

“Who will listen to the words of a woman whose memory changes according to the price offered?” Philip walked up behind Catherine, and placed his hand gently on the small of her back.

It was a test. Move away from me now and I will know you do not have the heart for the game.

Catherine tensed very slightly—which could have meant anything—and then leaned back against his hand, which meant only one thing.

Philip drew in a deep breath. So.

“Perhaps,” Catherine said, then briefly closed her eyes as Philip’s hand slowly caressed her back. “But France needs a strong man on the throne, and whether fathered by Louis, the Master of the Hawks or the ever-cursed peacock, Charles does not have that strength.”

“And you do?”

Catherine turned within the semi-circle of his arm so that she faced him. “I am a woman, and you know Salic Law—I cannot take the throne.”

Philip’s hand was harder now, and pulled her closer towards him. “But …”

“But I can do my best to make sure that a strong man does sit on the throne.”

Philip’s hand, as his entire being, stilled. “What are you here for, Catherine?”

“I am here to propose an alliance between us,” she said, “cemented with the sweat of our bodies.”

“Sweet Jesu!” Philip said, then abruptly spun away, moving back to the table where stood the wine ewer. “What is your price?” he said over his shoulder.

“That you be loyal to me, that you cleave only unto me, that you protect me, that you respect me.”

Philip toyed with the wine ewer a while, then put it down and walked back to Catherine. He lifted a hand and took her chin between gentle fingers; his face, so dark and handsome, was unreadable. “Then be my wife.”

“No,” she said, and his fingers tightened very slightly. “I will bed with you, and walk by your side. I will be your partner in your ambitions, and I will support you.” Her voice softened, and became very quiet. “I will give you any child that comes of my body from our union. But I will not be your wife.”

His eyes narrowed, deeply suspicious. She wanted to use him for some greater plan that she would not yet elucidate. Yet, in her own way, she was also being honest with him … and with what she would give him—her partnership in his ambitions, and any child that came of her body—she would give him everything he needed to seize the throne.

Perhaps, in time, she would attempt to betray him, but for the moment …

His hand dropped from her chin, and as it did so, Catherine turned around and lifted the thick plait of her hair over her shoulder, exposing the line of fastenings down the back of her gown.

She did not speak.

Philip hesitated, then lifted his hands to her neck and slowly began to undo the hooks. When he reached the last one, just above the swell of her buttocks, he gently folded back the now-loosened fabric of her gown.

She was wearing no garments beneath.

He slid his hands around her waist and over her belly, and gently pulled her back against him. Her skin was warm and very, very soft.

“From this point,” he said, “there can be no going back. Leave now if there remains the slightest doubt.”

In answer, Catherine lifted her own hands and placed them over his beneath the material of her gown. She slid them up until they cupped her breasts, and then jumped very slightly, surprised at the sensations that flooded through her as he caressed them.

“I have no experience,” she said. “I do not know what to do.”

Philip repressed a smile, sure that these words were something Isabeau had taught her: they will inspire him to greater heat, my dear, for what man can resist being the one to induct a girl into the experience she lacks?

Then his smile died. Isabeau was a very wise woman.

“Then let me show you,” he whispered, and slid the gown completely from her body.

It was a night of discoveries, and of unthought of marvels. Catherine had expected many things of Philip the Bad, but not the tenderness and respect and patience he showed her. They talked and laughed and were silent in turns as first he explored her body, and then encouraged her to explore his. Everything was new and wondrous for Catherine. She adored Philip’s body, surprised not only by the manner and degree in which his flesh reacted to hers, but how, in turn, hers responded to his. There was no discomfort, no pain, only the discovery of new planes of sensation and of existence; no sense of loss, only the indescribable sense of how two bodies, two souls, could merge into one.

There was one moment, one moment that she thought she would remember all her life. Philip was over her, and deep inside her. He lifted his head and shoulders back from her a little distance, his face gleaming with sweat, his dark hair falling over his forehead.

“There is only you,” he said, and somehow that touched Catherine so deeply that she began to cry, and Philip leaned back down to her again, and kissed away her tears, and cried himself.

She woke very slowly from a deep sleep. It was dark, dark night, but Philip’s gently breathing body was curled against hers and she was not alone any more.

She was not alone any more.

So much of her life had been spent alone, always fatherless, and often motherless as Isabeau abandoned her time and time again.

Bolingbroke had not fought for her … but Philip—treacherous, untrustworthy Philip—had given her this night honesty and something that was so close to love that there might be no difference at all.

She sighed and stretched slightly so that she might feel Philip’s body rub against hers. She was filled with immeasurable content. Tonight, Bolingbroke lay with Mary Bohun, and Catherine could have spent this night weeping in her bed, but she had done what Isabeau had suggested and taken her fate in her own hands.

In doing so, Catherine had discovered in Philip something of infinite value … and perhaps, of infinite danger.

Could Hal ever compete? How strong was he?

Her movement had wakened Philip, and now he stirred.

“Catherine.” A hand cupped one of her breasts, and she gave a low laugh and rolled close against him. “Of what do you think?”

Catherine grinned in the dark and leaned over to kiss his mouth. “I was considering my fortune in this past night. Few women, whether peasant or noble lady, are ever conducted so sweetly over the threshold from maidenhood into womanhood. You did not have to act so tenderly, and yet you chose to do so. For that I thank you.”

“I could not act otherwise with you, Catrine.”

The unexpected endearment drew fresh tears to her eyes, and she drew in a shaky breath.

He touched his fingers to her cheek. “And I had not thought to spend the entire night wiping your tears away. Perhaps I have not been as gentle as you imagine.”

She smiled. “Then you must distract me from my pain, your grace.”

“And how may I do that?”

She laughed as his hand stroked down her flank. “May I ask you a question?”

He gave a mock groan. “If you must.”

“I was wondering, my King of Navarre, if you have ever bedded my mother.”

His hand abruptly stilled, and after a moment he propped himself up on one elbow. “Why do you ask?”

“I was curious only, Philip, for I know how well she regards you. I do not mind if you answer with a yea.”

Philip was silent, thinking, then decided to answer honestly. “No, I have never lain with her.”

He gave a short laugh, remembering. “When I was a young lad, perhaps thirteen or fourteen years, I lusted after her madly, and put her face to every one of the peasant girls I managed to persuade to lie down in the grass. When I grew older, and had occasion to know her better, I grew to like and respect her too much to become one of the tally marks on her tapestry frame.”

Catherine reached up a hand and cupped his cheek in its palm.

“Then my mother has suffered a great loss, because I think she has been looking for you all her life.”

“And I think,” he said softly, gazing down at the planes of her face now that his eyes had become accustomed to the faint light in the room, “that both you and I, my sweet maid, have gained a great deal more than we thought this night.”

“Aye,” she whispered.

And Hal has lost a great deal, she thought, as Philip’s mouth closed gently and sweetly over hers.

Three other people lay awake that night of Michaelmas. Three other people who shared Catherine’s night of wonder.

Wat Tyler, deep in the south-eastern counties of England where he worked his secret business, paced the streets of the small village where he’d put up for the night.

He was furious both with Catherine and with Bolingbroke.

Subtlety would never work, not now that Catherine had lain down with Philip. Etienne had been right all along—the thunder of revolution in the streets was a sounder means to accomplish their ends than Bolingbroke’s pretty subtleties.

Margaret lay next to her sleeping Tom, tears of joy and envy-sliding down her cheeks. She had not thought Catherine would do this—and what she had done would threaten everything they had fought so hard for—but Margaret was glad Catherine had found some measure of happiness at last … and what happiness she had found!

Bolingbroke also lay awake, Mary silent and still beside him.

He was beyond fury. An awareness of what Catherine was doing had come to him as he had turned to Mary when the door closed behind the last of their well-wishers.

As Philip had laid hand to Catherine, so Bolingbroke had laid hand to Mary.

As Philip’s mouth had claimed Catherine’s, so Bolingbroke’s had claimed Mary’s.

As Philip had entered Catherine’s body, so Bolingbroke had entered Mary’s.

As Catherine cried out in laughter and wonder, so Mary had screamed in pain and fear.

And as Catherine had caught Philip more closely to her, so Mary had fought, unsuccessfully, to push Bolingbroke from her.

Bolingbroke had known Mary was fearful, and had meant to be kind and patient with her. But, as awareness of Catherine’s actions came over Bolingbroke, blind fury, and an even worse jealousy, had swept through him and his hands and body became hard and unforgiving, and every one of Mary’s fears had been realised.

He had tried to comfort her, afterwards, but what could he say?

What could he say?

And so they lay there, Bolingbroke and his wife, through that long night of Michaelmas, each wondering what lay ahead for their loveless marriage.

And that deep-buried imp chuckled, and peeped into the future, and saw the merry mischief it could make.

XIII

The Feast of St Jerome

In the first year of the reign of Richard II

(Friday 30th September 1379)

Bolingbroke had waited only for the first stain of dawn in the east before he rose from his marital bed. As soon as he had dressed there came a tentative knock at the door and Margaret entered, her eyes studiously averted from Bolingbroke.

“My Lady Neville,” Bolingbroke said in a harsh voice, as Margaret gathered up a robe for Mary.

She finally looked at him.

He could say nothing about Catherine in front of Mary, but he needed to lock eyes with Margaret, if only to share his silent anguish and anger.

She returned his stare evenly. What did you expect? Did you think she would sit on her hands and weep and wait?

The skin about Bolingbroke’s eyes tightened. “My lady wife requires your comfort, Lady Neville,” he said. “It seems that I have discomforted her during the night.”

And with that he was gone.

As soon as the door closed behind him Mary put a trembling hand to her mouth, and Margaret sat down on the edge of the bed and gathered her into her arms.

Neville found Bolingbroke in the courtyard of the Savoy at weapons practice just as the bells of Prime rang out over London. The city was waking into life: barges plied the river, the cries of the fishermen and coal merchants drifting soulfully over the palace walls; carts and hooves rattled down the Strand moving produce into the markets; whores drifted into shadowy rooms to sleep off their night’s labours just as priests flung open the doors of London’s parish churches to face the sins of the city.

Neville halted in the shadows of an archway and watched.

Bolingbroke was dressed in a fortified leather tunic that hung down over his thighs, and thick studded gloves. A chain mail hood hung over his head, flowing over his shoulders and upper chest. In his hands he had a great sword, and with this sword he was trading blows with a sergeant-at-arms. Or rather, he seemed intent on murdering his sergeant-at-arms, who was clearly tiring.

Even as Neville moved forward from the shadows, the man slipped to the ground, and Bolingbroke stepped forward and raised his sword in both hands.

His face was twisted, his eyes blank.

“Bolingbroke,” Neville said softly, seizing Bolingbroke’s wrists in both his hands. “Cease. This man is not your enemy.”

Bolingbroke tore himself free, the sword clattering to the ground, and whipped about to face Neville.

His eyes were furious. He began to say something, then he visibly fought for control, finally forcing the fury from his gaze.

Bolingbroke took a deep breath. “William,” he said, half turning to face the sergeant-at-arms, “I do apologise to you. I meant no harm.”

The man managed a half smile, but his hands were shaking as he sheathed his sword. “If you one day direct that anger at the French, my lord, then I do not mind being the near-murdered target of your practice.”

“Well, one day, please Jesus, maybe I will,” Bolingbroke said, and nodded a dismissal at the man.

“And that day may be closer than you think,” Neville said as William walked away.

“What? What news?”

“Hal, your father sent me to find you. Richard has called a council of the great lords currently in London. We have an hour.”

Bolingbroke stared at Neville, then muttered a curse and ran for the door.

The courtyard of the palace of Westminster was clogged with horses, men-at-arms, pages, horse-boys, valets, squires, and ill-tempered nobles shouting for their attendants.

What could Richard want?

Although the Lords of the Privy Council were to be present at Richard’s hastily-called meeting, this was not a gathering of the Privy Council itself, for many more lords were to attend.

Bolingbroke and Neville dismounted from their horses, throwing their reins to the men of their escort. As they shouldered their way through the throng they saw Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, disappearing through the palace entrance way and, directly behind him, Thomas Brantingham, Bishop of Exeter.

They vanished inside in a flurry of scarlet and blue cloaks.

“Sudbury and Brantingham?” Bolingbroke muttered. “What is happening. Ah, look, there is my father!”

John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, had emerged from a side entrance and was now only a few paces from Bolingbroke and Neville.

“Father?” Bolingbroke said.

Lancaster’s face was grey—but grey with anger and frustration rather than illness. “Richard has decided to take personal control of government,” he said, and held up his hand for silence as Bolingbroke spluttered. “He is eighteen, and his grandfather had taken personal control at the same age. He has a right … and the Privy Council has nodded their collective age-addled heads.”

“But why?” Bolingbroke said.

Lancaster gave his son a bleak look. “Why not? Hal, Richard has the right to rule on his own. My regency would not last forever.”

“He is to keep you as a councillor, surely.”

Now Lancaster’s look was even bleaker. “Nay, Hal. Richard is determined to cast off the chains of past monarchs … and apparently I am the greatest weight of them all.”

Bolingbroke and Neville shared a look, but Lancaster interrupted before either could speak. “There is no good to be done idling about here with our questions. Come, let us hear what our king has to say.”

Richard was to meet with his lords in the Painted Chamber. When Bolingbroke and Neville entered, they both noted that the hall had been somewhat modified since they’d last seen it. Richard’s bed had gone from the dais at the top of the hall—he had apparently moved to one of the apartments adjoining the Painted Chamber, possibly the Queen’s apartments which were empty of a Queen—and the space was now occupied by several trestle tables cluttered with boxes, maps, small chests and several score documents. Neville instantly thought the scene bore a remarkable resemblance to Bolingbroke’s disordered office, which Neville still had to succeed in bringing under some degree of control.

Several large tables had been placed end to end in the centre of the hall to form one long table, chairs drawn up about it. To each side stood groups of nobles, murmuring between themselves, some sipping from cups of wine.

Some faces were apprehensive, others confident.

A loud laugh sounded, and Bolingbroke’s and Neville’s eyes jerked to a group of three men standing close to the dais.

Robert de Vere, Henry Percy the Earl of Northumberland, and his son Hotspur.

All three were huddled companionably close, and de Vere had his arm about Hotspur’s shoulders.

The laugh had come from both de Vere and Hotspur, and they were staring straight at Bolingbroke.

“This is a bad business,” said a voice, and Lancaster, Bolingbroke and Neville turned about.

Ralph Neville—Thomas’ uncle and Baron of Raby and Earl of Westmorland—had joined them, and now he nodded to the three men standing before the dais. “Those three have an uncommon bond today. Why, I wonder?”

“De Vere is married to Northumberland’s daughter, Philippa,” Neville said. “Perhaps …”

Raby’s eyes had not left the three men, who were returning his stare with more than a little insolence. “There is more,” he said. “I think those men have traded something of greater value than a little woman-flesh.”

Neville looked back to the group, wondering what their alliance could mean for his uncle. Raby and Northumberland were rivals for power in the north of England … and now that Richard was apparently freeing himself of Lancaster’s influence, and Raby was so closely allied to Lancaster’s house and star, it boded nothing but evil that Northumberland and Hotspur now stood so smoothly with Richard’s favourite.

Of course it boded nothing but evil! Richard was freeing himself from all influences who could stay his hand, and allying himself with all those who, for the sake of their ambitions, would condone any devilry he chose to mouth.

“Ah,” Lancaster said. “There’s Gloucester. Hal, Ralph, we should join him.”

They walked over to where Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, and Lancaster’s youngest brother, stood with several of his attendants. Gloucester greeted his brother, nephew and Raby warmly, and even nodded civilly enough to Neville, apparently forgetting that Neville had once spoken harsh words to him when Gloucester had blamed Margaret for his wife’s death in childbirth.

“The little imp has won himself some new friends,” Gloucester said, nodding over to the Percys and de Vere, all still watching Bolingbroke and Lancaster.

“De Vere?” Lancaster said. “Aye, that he has, and I believe that it bodes—”

“My lords!” cried an attendant by the side entrance. “I give you your king!”

And there was Richard, striding into the hall and smiling at the assembled lords. His lean body was clad in tight-fitting black—a colour he now apparently preferred to green—and he wore no jewels or insignia of office save for a small circlet of gold.

Richard has dressed appropriately for whatever grim tidings he bears, Neville thought.

As the lords bowed, Richard walked to the throne set at the head of the tables and sat down, indicating that the lords, too, should take their places.

Neville moved slightly back as Lancaster, his brother Raby and Bolingbroke all sat midway down the table—

They should have been close to the king’s right hand, Neville thought.

—while their noble attendants, Neville among them, stood two or three paces behind the backs of their chairs.

“My lords,” Richard said, slowly raising his head and staring about the table, “it has now been some months since my beloved grandfather and father died—”

Why not state the truth, demon? Neville thought. They were murdered. He stared at Richard with hard eyes, and for one heartbeat Richard’s own gaze flickered his way and met his stare.

“—and, as is right and fitting, there has been a period of mourning and stillness as we honour their passing.

“But now my father and grandfather’s age has passed, and a new and fresh king sits upon the throne of England. I have been content to stay my hand during these months of transition, but now I must lift it—”

There was a collective drawing of breaths in the hall. What did he mean? Who were to lose their heads, and who to have preferments added to their purses?

“—and break free from the governorship of tutors and regents,” Richard looked directly at Lancaster, “who thought to keep me restrained within the bounds of childhood.”

“Your grace,” Lancaster said in a tight voice, “there was never ‘restraint’ intended. You came too suddenly to the throne without the training and consulship that we thought would be yours during the years of your father’s reign. We—”

“I was nevertheless restrained,” Richard said. “Furthermore, in past weeks I have well noted that some men,” and still his eyes were on Lancaster and his immediate companions, “have thought to gain for themselves a public notoriety and fame that they could well use against me.”

Here it comes, Neville thought, the dagger in Bolingbroke’s back. Nay, the dagger in the back of all associated with Bolingbroke and his father.

Again Richard’s eyes flickered Neville’s way before casting themselves restlessly about the assembled lords.

“I have thought myself in some danger,” he said softly. “Moreover, I have thought England in some danger. Therefore, listen you to these my decisions.

“Lancaster, you are removed as regent. I wish you good health and long life, but I have thought to surround myself with counsellors I can the more easily trust.”

Now the sharp intakes of breath about the table were clearly audible. Some men may have silently applauded, for Lancaster’s fall in favour would surely see the rise of their own influence, but all wondered at Richard’s arrogance that he so easily cast aside, and so publicly humiliate, the most powerful man in England.

“As with regents, so with all the major officers of government,” Richard continued. “My Lord Archbishop of Canterbury,” he nodded at Sudbury, “shall be my new Chancellor, and my Lord Bishop of Exeter,” now he nodded at Brantingham, “shall hold the office of Treasurer.”

Sweet Jesu, Neville thought, the imp has such confidence that he surrounds himself with the great men of the Church. Then his eyes fell on both Sudbury and Brantingham. Or are they great men of the Church? Is it possible they be demons, too?

Almost as if in reply, Sudbury shot Lancaster an apologetic, almost embarrassed, look—the two had been close allies for years. Neville revised his suspicions of Sudbury; if nothing else the man had obviously not yet told Richard about the subversive John Ball within the dungeons of Canterbury prison. If he had, Lancaster would be in the Tower.

“And to replace Lancaster at my side, as dearest friend and most trusted confidant, I appoint Robert de Vere my Chamberlain and,” Richard paused, and looked about the table with amused eyes, “also gift to him the castles and lands of Oakham and Queenborough—”

The sound of murmuring could clearly be heard about the table.

“—as well the castle of Berkhamsted, and create him the Chief Justice of Chester and North Wales—”

The table fell silent as many of the lords stared at Richard with horror.

“—and create him, as token of my love and trust, Duke of Ireland.”

The table erupted. Duke of Ireland? Many men spoke harshly—others, thinking to ally themselves with the new favourite, spoke words of congratulation—but no one spoke more volubly than Gloucester.

He sprang to his feet and slammed his fist down on the table.

There was instant silence.

“Your grace,” Gloucester seethed, “this preferment is beyond reasoning! You have created a man—”

“Who can counter the ill will of my uncle Lancaster!” Now Richard also was on his feet, and all Neville could think of was that Gloucester had very probably signed his own death warrant here this day.

“Lancaster bears you no ill will!” Gloucester said. “None! Had he done so, do you think he would have allowed you to so easily gain the throne? Don’t you realise, you silly pasty-faced youth—”

“Gloucester!” Now Lancaster was on his feet, trying to get Gloucester back into his chair, preferably with his mouth shut.

“Do you not think that I haven’t seen what my uncle and his beloved son are doing?” Richard yelled. “Did you not hear the screams of the crowds for their beloved ‘fair Prince Hal’ yesterday?” Now Richard’s face was twisted with hatred. “I will not nurture rivals at my court!’”

He stopped, breathing deeply to regain control of himself.

The entire table was still and tense. Lancaster had finally managed to get Gloucester back into his chair, while Neville had moved forward very slightly towards Bolingbroke, who sat stunned and disbelieving, staring at Richard.

Who could have thought that the demon would move so quickly to consolidate his power?

“You are fortunate, my fair Prince Hal,” Richard said, “that I do not commit you to the Tower for your treasonous thoughts.”

“Your grace,” Bolingbroke said, and all listening marvelled at the calmness of his face and voice, “I nurture no treasonous thoughts, nor ambitions that do not include you as my king and lord. I pray you believe me.”

“Then you must endeavour to earn my trust, Bolingbroke, for I cannot think but that you secretly yearn for my title and honours, and plan to use both Lancaster’s and Hereford’s lands and riches to seize them.”

The hush about the table was now extraordinary both in its depth and in its anticipation.

“Sire,” Bolingbroke said in a very quiet voice, “I went down on bended knee before you last May Day and pledged you my homage and allegiance. What have I done since that you now think me a traitor?”

Richard held Bolingbroke’s stare a long moment before he answered. “I move only so that you may never become a traitor, Bolingbroke,” he said. “Thank the sweet lord that you still have both your lands and life.”

Bolingbroke leaned back in his chair and looked away. He was pale with fury, and a muscle twitched in one cheek.

And had Richard thought he could do it, Neville realised, then he would indeed have deprived Bolingbroke of both lands and life. But Lancaster and his faction are still too powerful, and Richard must bide his time like a hunchbacked spider lurking in the shadows behind his web. Thank sweet Jesu Richard does not know of John Ball, and that Wycliffe is now safely silenced within the walls of Lutterworth!

Richard tore his gaze away from Bolingbroke and spoke for a few minutes of some other, minor, administrative appointments. Then …

“I have received a request for aid,” he said, and rose from his chair and ascended the dais, searching for a parchment which he finally located. He made a great show of perusing it, then spoke again, raising his voice so that he could clearly be heard around the table.

“This request I am disposed to regard kindly, for it could well rebound in England’s favour. Count Pedro of Catalonia has requested my assistance in some small domestic dispute he has with his bastard half-brother, Henry.”

Here Richard shot Bolingbroke another smouldering look, as if to imply that all relatives named Henry were bound to act treasonably sooner or later.

“Henry has apparently seized control of Pedro’s lands and revenues. Pedro needs help to get them back. I, and my chief advisers,” Richard indicated de Vere, Northumberland, Hotspur, as also Sudbury and Brantingham, “have decided to send a force into Catalonia in order to—”

“Your grace, this is madness!” Now Raby was standing, and Neville had to suppress a small groan and a desire to tackle his uncle to the floor. Was everyone he needed to aid him in his quest for the casket about to alienate themselves completely from influence?

“Any action in Catalonia,” Raby said, “is bound to remove forces from the south of France, where we need them most—”

“Westmorland, you will sit down!” Richard snapped. “Your advice on this matter is not sought.”

“More to the point,” Lancaster said, “Catalonia is under the overlordship of the King of Aragon. He will not be amused to think that England is sending an armed force into what he considers his own—”

“And your advice is most certainly not sought!” Richard said. “Pedro has the potential to be a good ally if handled correctly—”

At that remark a number of men about the table had to avert their eyes and bite their lips to keep the smiles at bay.

“—and if handed aid when he requires it.” Richard paused. “My Lord of Northumberland’s son. Hotspur, will lead the Catalonian expedition.”

Neville’s gaze shot to Hotspur. No wonder be had been so free and friendly with de Vere! But Hotspur? To lead such an expedition? He was brave, true, but young for a campaign that was going to need the delicate skills of a diplomat as much as the sword skills of the warrior.

“Your grace, England can ill afford the cost of such a venture.” Now Sir Richard Sturry, a trusted councillor of the dead King Edward, rose to his feet. “Already we are in considerable debt from our continued war with France—”

“All solved with the Treaty of Westminster,” Richard said, and waved Sturry back into his seat. “We can … and we will… afford this mission. It is time I make my mark, not only on England, but on Europe.

“My lords.” Richard now looked about the hall, and managed a small smile. “I think I have concluded my business for this day.”

Many of the Lords rose slowly to their feet as a sound of murmuring filled the hall.

But Neville was unable to tear his eyes away from Richard.

The king was standing behind one of the trestle tables on the dais, his eyes on Neville, a sly grin on his face …

… and his left hand resting on a small, brass-bound casket atop the table!

“Sweet Jesu,” Bolingbroke whispered as he joined Neville. “There it is!”

PART TWO The Wounded Wife

Thus, dear sister, as I have said before that it behooves you to be obedient to him that shall be your husband, and that by good obedience a wise woman gains her husband’s love and at the end hath what she would of him.

The Goodman of Paris to his wife, 1392

I

Before Matins, the Feast of St Melorius

In the first year of the reign of Richard II

(1 a.m. Saturday 1st October 1379)

For the past two hours small boats had slipped silently through the waters of the Thames, sliding to a brief halt at the wharf of the Savoy and depositing their cloaked and hooded cargo before continuing into the night. The men who jumped from the boats and then ran as quietly as they could up the steps to the river gate muttered their names urgently to the man standing there, before taking his murmured directions to dart into an underground storage chamber.

In all, Neville greeted some sixteen men, among them some of the mightiest nobles in England. When the last man arrived, Neville walked with him down to the storage chamber dimly lit with flickering torches.

As Neville closed the door behind him, and sat down on a keg, a deep silence fell over the shadowy room.

This was sheer danger. More than dangerous, for all the men gathered in this room knew that their alliance was as fragile and ephemeral as a spider’s web.

The betrayal might as easily come from within as without.

John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, stood by a stack of ale kegs, his brother Gloucester to one side, Bolingbroke to the other. Close to him sat Ralph Neville, Baron of Raby and Earl of Westmorland. These men trusted each other, but were desperately unsure of the others.

And yet had not the others sought them out?

Gathered about in the rest of the room were some of the greatest lords in England. Richard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey and, Lancaster and his brethren had thought, one of Richard’s most trusted Privy Councillors. What was he doing here?

Less surprising was the presence of Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham and Duke of Norfolk. He had once been a close friend of Richard’s—they were of an age, and had grown up together. But now Nottingham had been rejected in favour of de Vere, and Nottingham’s resentment was widely known among the flower of England’s knighthood.

Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, was no surprise at all: he had never been close to Richard, and, as with Sir Richard Sturry who sat close by him, had been publicly vocal in expressing some reservations regarding Richard’s actions. Both these men had spoken brief words of support to Lancaster and Bolingbroke as they’d stalked from the Painted Chamber yesterday afternoon.

There were others, too, earls and dukes, as well as ordinary knights, men who were profoundly disturbed by Richard’s actions of the past day, just as they had been disturbed by de Vere’s rapid rise to favour in the past few months.

“My lord,” Sturry broke the silence, and rose and gave Lancaster a slight bow as he spoke. “You are in mortal danger. You should—”

Lancaster halted him with a wave of his hand. “Richard would not dare to physically move against me.”

“My lord, your very power is enough to make him move,” Sturry said. “Perhaps not this week, or even this year, but once Richard feels he has consolidated his hold …”

Another brief silence, then Neville spoke. “My lords, I agree with Sir Richard that my Lord of Lancaster must beware of Richard’s ire, but I think my Lord of Gloucester in the more immediate danger. As,” he paused very briefly, “my Lord of Bolingbroke.”

There was a murmur of agreement about the room, and heads nodded.

“It would be better if both my brother Gloucester and my son Bolingbroke removed themselves from Richard’s immediate vicinity,” Lancaster said. “Perhaps my entire family should, for a time. Christmastide is approaching, and it will be easy to remove myself and mine to Kenilworth, citing the holy celebrations as cause enough.”

“And while we are all busy saving ourselves,” Mowbray said, “what do we do about de Vere? Well? Richard has made this man powerful beyond belief! Who knows what else he will give him in the next few months. My lords,” Mowbray leaned forward, his hands on his knees, his angry eyes scanning the room, “I have heard rumour the ‘Duke’ of Ireland will not be enough for Richard’s toy. Our king plans to invade Ireland and create de Vere King of Ireland!”

“He wouldn’t dare!” Gloucester said.

“Nay?” Mowbray said softly. “And who among us thought two days ago that de Vere would be greeting Saint Melorius’ Day as Duke of Ireland? Not to mention his other preferments.”

“Richard will move against Lancaster and all his allies,” Neville said. “He must if he wants to establish his own power as king. To do that he needs to build a coterie of powerful men who owe him their livings. De Vere is the first, but we all know there are many other men who will be willing to turn against Lancaster.”

Again, silence, as men nodded their heads. Lancaster was the most powerful man in England, and he had long been resented. Now that the new king had so publicly turned against him, those men who had long nurtured their jealousy would flock to Richard’s cause.

“It may have helped, ‘fair Prince Hal’,” Arundel said to Bolingbroke, “if you had not so successfully whipped up the London mob’s adulation on your wedding day. Lancaster is threat enough to Richard, but you are worse. You stand to inherit all your father’s power … and the common’s adoration as well. You are a threat beyond imagining.”

“My Lord Arundel,” said Bolingbroke, stepping forward so that his face was lit by a nearby torch. “I confess myself surprised to see you here, and to hear you speak such words of concern for me. You are one of Richard’s most trusted councillors. Why have you allowed yourself to stand closeted so deep with some of Richard’s worst enemies?”

Arundel nodded, acknowledging Bolingbroke’s distrust. “Richard is driving England into the ground. His expedition to Catalonia will be more ruinous than you know. Richard has no intentions of confining the expedition’s field of action to Catalonia—he intends to launch a new drive into the heart of France.”

“But that would be madness!” Lancaster said. “We still have to rebuild our strength and resources, and replenish the coffers, after my elder brother’s fateful death.”

“Exactly,” Arundel said, “and Richard has determined the perfect way of raising finances for this folly. When Parliament meets in January, Richard intends to push for a new poll tax to raise the funds and repay the crown’s debts.”

“But the commons cannot afford a new tax,” Bolingbroke said. “Sweet Jesu, they are taxed enough as it is. There will be unrest as we have never seen.” He paused, and Neville knew that both Bolingbroke and Lancaster must be thinking of the still-at-large Wat Tyler and Jack Trueman, both of whom would surely use the bitterness caused by a new tax to create havoc. “Richard will be busy enough contending with war at home just as much as war abroad. And to send Hotspur abroad to lead this expedition … Lord Christ, Richard invites failure!”

And that, thought Neville, was nothing but resentment and jealousy speaking. Bolingbroke does not want Hotspur basking in the glory he will achieve if the expedition is successful.

“My heart is with England,” Arundel said, locking eyes with Bolingbroke, “and Richard will tread England into the dust. God in heaven, potentially he has another fifty years of life ahead of him. Bolingbroke, if you are for England, then I am for you and yours.”

Bolingbroke’s mouth quirked. “I am a wounded hawk, Arundel, fluttering defenceless about the ground. Richard will see to it that my wings be permanently crippled.”

Now Arundel rose to his feet and moved to Bolingbroke.

Stunningly, he dropped to one knee before him. “I am your man, Bolingbroke. Test me with what you will.” He raised his face and stared into Bolingbroke’s. “But be assured that there are men, not only in this room, but across England, who will offer their own lives to ensure that one day you will soar again.”

For Neville, as for every other man present, Arundel’s actions and words drove home the realisation that Lancaster was a finished man. Powerful he might be in terms of lands and wealth and the ability to raise arms, but Bolingbroke was the man who was going to inherit all that wealth and power and the love of men besides.

If the opposition to Richard grew so great that it coalesced about one man, then that one man was Bolingbroke.

It was in that single moment that Neville realised Bolingbroke’s life would follow one of only two paths: one path led to the executioner’s block, the other to the throne of England. It was total annihilation, or total victory.

And every other man in the room knew it, too.

Bolingbroke nodded, accepting Arundel’s words—

He has known this all along, thought Neville.

—and addressed the room.

“Your advice? What do we do now?”

“Wait,” said Sturry. “As Richard does not have the ability to move against you, so you do not have the ability to—”

“No!” Lancaster put his hand on Bolingbroke’s shoulder and pulled him back. “This talk is of treason and I will not have it in my house. Richard is young, and misguided. He still has my loyalty—”

Bolingbroke whipped about and faced his father. “Then you are a fool, father. Richard is not ‘misguided’, he is England’s death!”

Gloucester and Raby exchanged glances. “These are hot and hasty words thrown about the room,” Gloucester said, “and tempers need to cool before we commit to any action. My brother Lancaster is right to say that our family should repair to Kenilworth for the winter. The castle is well fortified, and even if Richard should be hasty enough to lay siege to it, we shall be safe.”

“And Parliament may not grant Richard’s request for a new poll tax,” Raby said. “Do we speak hot words for nothing? Does Richard merely need a year or two to settle down?”

Bolingbroke shot Raby a black look, but Raby ignored it. “We wait out Christmastide,” he said, “and for the moment we do nothing to further aggravate Richard. In fact,” and now it was Raby who shot Bolingbroke the black look, “it might not be the worst of actions to publicly pledge your loyalty to him, Hal. Richard needs to be appeased … and that will work as much to your favour as it does to his.”

Bolingbroke made as if to object, then a thoughtful look came over his face, and he nodded. “You speak wisdom, Ralph, as does my Uncle Thomas.”

“Then let us finish,” Lancaster said. “It will not be long before dawn tints the sky, and none of you dares be seen leaving the Savoy. Neville? Will you escort my lords one by one back to the wharf?”

It wasn’t until well after dawn that Neville had a chance to have a quiet word with Bolingbroke. They needed to plan to recover the casket.

“It must be soon,” Bolingbroke said, “for father is planning our removal to Kenilworth within the next week.” He shuddered. “I confess, Tom, it will be good to leave London for the moment.”

“I must have the casket—”

“Yes, yes, but, Christ Saviour, Tom, it is in Westminster. But do not fret, Raby’s words have given me cause for thought.”

Bolingbroke lapsed into silence. “And Arundel’s offer to be tested can be used to your advantage,” he said finally. “Tom, I have a plan, but it will require the utmost courage—”

Neville nodded and began to speak, but Bolingbroke hushed him.

“—and it will require the courage of our wives. Are you prepared to risk that?”

“You are?” Neville said.

“Aye.”

Still Neville hesitated, then finally he nodded. “Then, yes, I am prepared to risk them. I must, if it will mean I finally achieve possession of the casket.”

Something flared in Bolingbroke’s eyes, and Neville was not sure whether it was triumph or extraordinary pain.

“Then let me explain …” Bolingbroke said.

II

Sext, the Vigil of the Feast of St Francis In the first year of the reign of Richard II (late morning Monday 3rd October 1379)

—i—

They came to Westminster by small barge, rather than on horseback, because it would be less awkward spiriting the casket away.

It would also be faster.

And safer.

Robert Courtenay, subdued because Neville had ordered him to remain behind, had waved them farewell from the Savoy’s river gate, and now they slipped silently, almost secretively, round the great bend in the river which would bring them to Westminster. Several men-at-arms sat in the stern of the barge with the two men who poled it through the choppy river waters. Bolingbroke, Mary, Neville and Margaret sat close to the bow, on wooden benches made comfortable with soft cushions and draperies.

Everyone was tense. Bolingbroke sat with his head steadfastly down, as if fascinated with the planking of the barge. Margaret sat white-faced, her hands clasped tight in her lap, terrified of an encounter with Richard.

Neville glanced at her from time to time, torn between his desperate need to achieve the casket and an almost equally desperate worry about what Richard might do to Margaret. Would she be safe? With Richard? Hal had said it would not take long to get the casket—not with the aid they had waiting for them in Westminster—and Mary and Margaret would not be placed in danger for long.

For an instant, Bolingbroke raised his head and locked eyes with Neville, then looked away.

We need Mary and Margaret to distract Richard, Neville reasoned with himself, even as he fretted over his concern for Margaret. Why waste time on disquiet? Margaret knows the stakes … she knows the risks.

But each time Neville closed his eyes he thought he could see a gigantic spider scurrying across a shadowed chamber, wrapping Margaret in its loathsome legs as it bore her to the floor.

No! Cease such fancifying! Bolingbroke was right … they would take but a few minutes to seize the casket, and Margaret would be in no real danger. All would be well. This afternoon he would have the casket, and the truth would be in his hands. Richard would have a day or two more of life only.

And so Neville leaned back against the side of the barge and tried to convince himself of this fact: Margaret would come to no harm, all would be well, and by this evening, tomorrow at the latest, the demons would be sent scurrying back to hell.

Mary, although she recognised the tension in the others, did not realise the full extent of the deception of the day. All she knew was that Richard had turned against her husband, who had done no wrong, save that he was more golden and glorious than the king. As Richard would not see Bolingbroke, Mary understood Bolingbroke’s request that she entreat an audience with her sovereign so that she might beg Richard to allow her husband to pledge his steadfast loyalty. It was a shame her husband’s pledge could not be more public, but there would be no public opportunity before the entire Lancastrian household moved to Kenilworth. Private must do, and there would surely be witnesses enough.

Margaret accompanied her in her capacity as her attendant gentlewoman, and Mary was heartily glad she had Margaret’s support.

She had no idea of Margaret’s terror.

When they docked at Westminster’s pier, Bolingbroke stepped out, aiding first Mary and then Margaret from the barge. There was no time for speech, hardly time even for thought, but Bolingbroke gave Margaret’s hand a brief squeeze as she stepped from barge to pier: a futile, hopelessly inadequate gesture of support.

She turned her head and would not acknowledge him, and Bolingbroke wondered if she would ever speak to him again.

This is such a pivotal, critical day, he thought, and from it we hope to achieve victory. But is victory worth the pain that will be visited on Margaret?

And then Bolingbroke thought of what awaited them if this day failed—the torments of hell everlasting—and he hardened his heart, and turned away from Margaret.

Arundel was waiting for them by the water gate leading into the Westminster complex, and as they approached he spoke quietly to the guards, who raised their pikes and allowed Bolingbroke’s party through.

Bolingbroke raised his eyebrows at Arundel, and the earl nodded.

“We have done all we can. Come, if we delay longer the king will depart for his afternoon’s hunting.”

They walked briskly along a westerly path before turning south along the west wall of the great hall. Most of the old roof had gone, and the hall was now exposed to the elements. Craftsmen and others scampered over the great ribs of the new roof, working desperately against the inevitable onset of the autumn and winter rains.

No one, save one or two of the men-at-arms, spared the activity a glance.

Arundel led them to the doorway of a small atrium in the southern-most part of the palace complex. Inside the atrium, three doors led, in turn, to the lesser hall, the Painted Chamber, and the complex of private apartments known collectively as the Queen’s Chambers.

Where, now, Richard had made his nest.

The atrium was cold and comfortless. Guards stood at each of the three doors; all stared with hard eyes at the newcomers.

Arundel walked over to the two guards standing by the door leading to the Queen’s Chambers.

“The Countess of Hereford and her lady companion wish an audience with the king.” Arundel grinned easily. “I can assure you they carry no weapons save for their feminine charms.”

Mary squared her shoulders and held the guards’ stare; a wan and tight-faced Margaret kept her eyes averted.

One of the guards disappeared, reappearing in a few moments.

“My ladies,” he said, and stood back so that they might pass through the door.

As Margaret followed Mary through she turned and sent Neville a look of such stark terror that he took a half-step forward, stopping awkwardly as Bolingbroke caught at his arm.

And on that look, the fate of the world turned.

The door closed behind them, and Neville was left staring at its blank, wooden face.

“Tom!” Bolingbroke whispered. “Tom!”

Neville took a deep breath and forced himself to turn away from the door.

It would be all right. Margaret would be safe. They would not be long.

Then the door which led to the Painted Chamber opened, and Sir Richard Sturry walked into the atrium.

“My lords!” he said, as if surprised. “Sweet Jesu smiles upon me indeed. His Grace has asked me to transfer back to the abbey some of the registers he has been studying, and I have been wringing my hands at the thought of finding someone—or four or five someones—to aid me in this endeavour.”

He beamed, and threw out his hands. “And here stand my Lords of Hereford and Arundel, and Lord Neville, complete with an able-bodied contingent of men-at-arms. My Lords, may I …”

Bolingbroke smiled. “My men are yours for the asking, Sturry. I cool my heels in this frigid chamber awaiting my sovereign’s pleasure, but there is no reason why they should suffer along with me. Take them if you will, that they may keep warm with some godly work.”

Sturry positively beamed. “This chamber is cold and heartless, is it not? Why not await Richard’s pleasure in the Painted Chamber? I am sure his men,” he half bowed at the sergeant-at-arms, “can fetch you from there if need arise.”

The sergeant opened his mouth to protest, but Arundel spoke first.

“I will vouch for my Lord of Hereford and Lord Neville,” he said. “There shall come no harm from their waiting in the Painted Chamber.”

The sergeant closed his mouth, thinking it over. Arundel and Sturry were trusted confidants of the king, and Arundel a privy councillor besides.

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