The Crippled Angel Read online

  Behind him rode a shining army—an army of a united and strong France.

  The Demon-King whimpered, trembled violently, then sank into the bubbling pool of black mud until he had completely vanished.

  “How can this be so?” Joan said.

  “All you have to do,” said the woman, now leaning forward and taking one of Joan’s hands in hers, “is to tend your sheep.”

  Joan frowned. “I do not understand.”

  The woman smiled, and kissed Joan very softly on the mouth. She began to speak, and she spoke without interruption for many minutes.

  At first Joan’s face twisted with horror, then it relaxed, and assumed a radiance born both of wonder and of hope.

  “I can do this?”

  “You are the Saviour of France,” said Christ, and he smiled with such tenderness and love through the haze of his own torment that Joan’s heart overflowed with the strength of her love and joy. “The path ahead of you shall be tiresome and often painful. You will doubt. But I—”

  “And I,” put in the woman.

  “—will always be there. We will not forget you. When you are at your darkest, then we will be there for you.”

  Much later Catherine came to Joan’s chamber, thinking to talk more of Marie’s child, and to use its birth to ensure Joan’s total alienation from the angels.

  What she found astounded her.

  Joan knelt before her window which she had opened to admit the dawn light. About her lay strewn the fragments of what Catherine recognised as Joan’s sword and angelic banner.

  “Joan?” Catherine said. “Are you well?”

  Joan lowered her hands which she’d had clasped before her. She rose and turned to face Catherine.

  For an instant, Catherine thought that the girl had tripped entirely into the murky waters of insanity, impelled by the truth she’d been forced to witness last night. But then she realised that Joan’s face was infused not with madness, nor even with her previous obsessive devotion, but with a peace so profound that Catherine’s eyes widened in wonder.

  “What has happened?” she said.

  Joan smiled secretively, although not in a sly manner. “I have found myself,” she said.

  Catherine indicated a small stool. “May I sit?”

  “Oh, yes. Forgive me. I should have asked you myself.”

  Then Joan, who sat on the edge of her narrow bed, tilted her head and regarded Catherine with a modicum of curiosity. “You have not come to gloat, have you?”

  Catherine shook her head, wondering what it was that had caused this great change in the girl over only a few short hours. When Joan had run from Marie’s birthing chamber, Catherine thought her close to breaking.

  “I had wondered,” Catherine said carefully, “if you might need someone to talk to.”

  “That was kind of you,” said Joan, knowing that was not quite the reason Catherine had come to her.

  Catherine hesitated, not sure what to say next. This was not the Joan she had expected to find.

  Joan spoke again, filling the uncomfortable silence. “How is Marie, and her daughter?”

  “They are well,” Catherine said.

  “For the moment,” said Joan, “but how will Marie venture forth into the world, an unmarried woman with a bastard child? I worry for her, and feel guilt, knowing how I deserted her when she needed me most.”

  “I have arranged for her a place as housekeeper in a small convent in Amiens. The sisters will be pleased to receive her, and both Marie and her daughter will be nurtured.”

  Joan’s mouth twitched. “If only they knew what they nurture,” she said, and then the amusement died from her face. “Tell me of the angels, Catherine, and of the misery they have visited on you, and on mankind.”

  And so Catherine took a deep breath and, as Hal Bolingbroke and Margaret had once talked to Thomas Neville, told Joan all she knew.

  When she had finished Joan looked sorrowful, but still composed. “We have all been grossly misused and abused,” she said.

  Catherine nodded, satisfied. “What will you do now?”

  Joan smiled, beatifically, as if at an inner vision, and Catherine wondered if she’d slipped back into her previous blind and obsessive piety.

  But the expression passed, and Joan spoke calmly and reasonably. “I had thought to return to my parents’ home,” she said. “I thought to devote myself to the tending of my father’s sheep.”

  “That’s a wonderful—”

  “But I have changed my mind,” Joan said, grinning slightly at the expression on Catherine’s face. “Oh, do not worry, Catherine. I have no doubt that I shall end my days watching over my father’s sheep in some blessed meadow, but there is still one small task left for me to do here first.”

  “And that is?”

  “To fit Charles for his rightful place, as King of France.”

  “You cannot still mean to accomplish that! Charles is a hopeless imbecile who—”

  “He will not always be so,” Joan said. “He merely needs an infusion of strength. I am that strength.”

  “Then we are still at odds.”

  Joan took Catherine’s hand. “Yes. We are. Indeed, our positions have hardly changed. You fight to replace Charles with…well, with whomever. And I fight to give him France. What has changed is that I now understand you, and in understanding you, I have come to a realisation.”

  “And that is…?”

  “I think that one day we will be friends. Even, I dare to venture, that we will fight for the same end.”

  Catherine opened her mouth to speak, but Joan continued quickly. “Am I not a prophetess? Then hear me out. In the end, I think we will both do what is right for France, and I think that we will both take the path that love demands of us, not those paths that previous blind allegiances have shown us.”

  Catherine chewed her lip, then nodded. “Should we still spat in public, Joan? Should I pull your hair every time you pass?”

  “Oh, indeed! Otherwise your mother will think the world has come to an end!”

  They both laughed, then Catherine rose, aiding Joan to rise at the same time. She kissed Joan’s cheek.

  “Be well, Joan.”

  “Aye,” Joan said. “I think I will be, now.”

  PART ONE

  Windsor

  In the meane time…certain malicious and cruel persons enuiyng and malignyng in their heartes…blased abrode and noised dayly amongest the vulgare people that kyng Richard…was yet liuyng and desired aide of the common people to repossesse his realme and roiall dignitie. And to the furtheraunce of this fantastical inuencion partly moued with indignacion, partely incensed with furious malencolie, set vpon postes and caste aboute the stretes railyng rimes, malicious meters and tauntyng verses against king Henry…He being netteled with these uncurteous ye unuertuous prickes & thornes, serched out the authors…

  Edward Hall, Chronicle, 1548

  I

  Tuesday 30th April 1381

  Lord Thomas Neville walked slowly through the gardens of Windsor Castle, heading for the entrance to the King’s Cloister. He narrowed his eyes slightly against the mid-morning brightness of the sun, enjoying its welcome warmth even though its glare made his eyes ache.

  Windsor Castle had long been favoured by the English kings, but since his coronation seven months ago Bolingbroke had made it his main residence. He’d not wanted to reside in Westminster, which he thought cold and uncomfortable; the Savoy was still in ruins; Lambeth Palace was unavailable now that the new Archbishop of Canterbury had moved in; and the only other truly regal palace in London was the Tower, which needed another few months’ worth of renovations before it could be suitable to use as Bolingbroke’s royal residence. So Bolingbroke had moved his court to Windsor, a solid day’s ride west from London.

  Neville raised his face slightly, staring towards the silvery stone walls of the castle, looking for the tall, graceful, second level windows of the Great Chamber. Ah…there they were, so afire with
the glare of the sun that no outsider would be able to peer through and intrude upon the privacy of the chamber’s occupants. Neville had no doubt that by this time of the day Bolingbroke would be settled with his advisers and secretaries and counsellors.

  And here Neville was in the gardens.

  “My Lord Neville! Morning’s greetings to you!”

  Neville jumped, silently cursing the sudden thudding of his heart. He squinted against the sun, then relaxed, nodding to the man striding down the garden path towards him.

  “My Lord Mayor,” he said, extending a hand. “My congratulations on your recent election.”

  Dick Whittington took Neville’s hand in a firm grasp, then indicated a nearby bench. “If you’re in no hurry, my lord?”

  Neville sat with Whittington on the bench, wondering what the Lord Mayor could want to say to him.

  “I am pleased to have this chance to speak with you, my lord, that I might ask after your lovely wife and children.”

  “Margaret? Why, she is well, as are Rosalind and Bohun,” Neville responded, surprised at the enquiry. Whittington hardly knew Margaret…

  “I have just come from the Great Chamber,” Whittington said, after a slight hesitation, “and an audience with our king—you know of his edicts regarding education, and clocks?”

  Neville nodded. Over the past months Hal had instructed that science and the new humanities were to receive a greater weight in schools at the expense of religion, while clock hours were to replace church hours of prayer in people’s daily lives.

  It was all, Neville knew, part of Hal’s not-so-subtle turning of his subject’s hearts and minds away from the religious to the secular.

  “Aye, well,” Whittington continued, “I needed to consult with his grace over some of the details of the new school curricula, and the appropriate fees the clockmaker’s guild can charge for the installation of clocks in all London’s gates and major steeples.”

  Neville shifted impatiently, wondering why Whittington was subjecting him to this pointless conversation.

  “My lord,” Whittington said, his eyes narrowing in what might have been amusement, “I am keeping you from your duties, and for that I apologise, but—”

  Ah, Neville thought, now we reach the heart of the matter.

  “—I admit to some curiosity, even some concern, over the fact that his grace now conducts his morning’s counsel…and you are not there to advise him. I remember those dark days when the peasant rebels set London afire, and murdered the great Lancaster. Then you and his grace were close confidants, brothers almost.”

  Then I did not know who, and what, Hal truly was, Neville thought, keeping the expression on his face a mixture of the vaguely pleasant and the vaguely impatient. Demon-King.

  “Hal is now king,” Neville said. “He has great lords and Privy Councillors, and even,” he allowed himself a small smile, “Lord Mayors to advise him. He does not need me so much.”

  “And the friendship has died along with Hal’s elevation to the throne? I ask,” Whittington hurried on, noting the surprise in Neville’s face, “because I care deeply for Hal, and I cannot think that he is the better man for the loss of your friendship.”

  “He has not lost my friendship,” Neville said, noting Whittington’s easy use of Bolingbroke’s Christian name. “We have merely grown distant with circumstances.” He did not say that what Bolingbroke had lost was Neville’s complete trust once he’d realised the depth of Bolingbroke’s lies and manipulations.

  “Hal did what he needed to gain the throne,” Whittington said very quietly. “England is the better land for his actions.”

  Now Neville stared outright at Whittington. What did he allude to? Bolingbroke’s rebellion against Richard, or the series of well-planned murders that ensured Bolingbroke was the only Plantagenet left to succeed to the throne?

  And if Whittington alluded to the murders…then what did that make the Lord Mayor? Man, or demon?

  “Who are you?” Whittington said, his voice still quiet. “Hal’s man, or the angels’?”

  Neville’s own question answered, he abruptly stood. “I am my own man, my Lord Mayor,” he said, knowing that would be the answer Bolingbroke most feared, and knowing Whittington would certainly report it back to the king. “And now, I will detain you no longer. I am sure London needs its Lord Mayor more than I do.”

  And with that he turned and strode away.

  As Neville disappeared into the building, Whittington looked to the windows of the Great Chamber, and shook his head slightly.

  Bolingbroke looked down from the window of the Great Chamber, catching the shake of Whittington’s head.

  His face hardened, his suspicions confirmed.

  Behind him droned on the voices of his advisers, debating the merits of raising the passport application fee yet again, but Bolingbroke heard none of it.

  Instead, his thoughts were full of Neville.

  Why was Archangel Michael so confident of Neville? How could he be so sure of him?

  “What is your secret, Tom?” Bolingbroke murmured. “What is your secret?”

  Neville blinked as he walked under the stone arch into the shaded walks of the King’s Cloister. There were a few people about enjoying the early spring air, but it was still relatively quiet.

  Neville nodded to two young lords whom he knew, then ducked into the stairwell that led to the royal apartments on the second level.

  He emerged in the upper gallery, but turned away from the door leading to the Great Chamber and to Bolingbroke. Neither did Neville so much as glance at the open door of the beautiful chapel that ran along the upper gallery at right angles to the Great Chamber.

  Instead, Neville walked purposefully towards the Queen’s apartments and the loveliest chamber in the entire castle complex—the Rose Tower.

  He paused at the door, nodding to the two guards standing outside, then walked through without any announcement…apart from Bolingbroke, Neville was the only person in the royal court (in the entire kingdom) permitted so to do by the lady within.

  Neville paused just inside the door, hearing it close softly behind him, and looked about.

  There were several ladies in the chamber, all grouped about the hearth, spinning and gossiping softly.

  Margaret was not among them, and Neville supposed his wife was still in their apartment with their two children.

  Mary lay on a couch set by the windows so that the morning light could fall upon her, and so that her gaze could in turn fall upon the awakening springtime outside.

  Neville smiled, knowing Mary regarded him from under her downcast eyelashes, and walked towards her. As he did so, he once more admired the beauty of this chamber, as he did every time he entered it.

  Bolingbroke’s grandfather, Edward III, had redeveloped and redecorated much of Windsor Castle, and the pride of his refurbishing was the Rose Tower chamber, which Edward had made his inner sanctum. The walls and domed ceiling were painted deep crimson, and covered with scattered stars. At regular intervals across this bloodied, starry night were brilliant green enamelled cartouches, each holding within its gilded border a single delicate rose. Now Edward was dead, as was his successor Richard, and Bolingbroke was king, but it was Bolingbroke’s wife Mary who had taken this most beautiful of chambers as her inner sanctum, and that, Neville thought as he knelt on one knee beside her couch, was only as it should be.

  “My lady queen,” he murmured, kissing her hand. “How do you this fine morning?”

  “The better for your presence, Lord Neville,” Mary replied, and smiled.

  Neville’s eyes sparkled with merriment. “My lady queen,” he said, continuing their playful formality, “may I beg your indulgence to rise from my poor knee, and perchance—”

  “Sit at the end of my couch,” Mary said, laughing now, “where, Jesu willing, you might cease your groaning.”

  Neville did as she bid, careful not to disturb the silken wrap about her, or to place any pressure near the
delicate bones of her ankles and feet. For a minute he did not speak, studying her face.

  Mary watched him unquestioningly, for this moment of silent regard was a normal part of their morning greeting ritual.

  “You have slept well,” Neville said finally.

  “Aye. My physician, Culpeper, has formulated a new liquor which allows me to forget my aches and moans for an hour more each night.”

  Neville’s merriment faded at Mary’s mention of her illness. Ever since her marriage to Bolingbroke, Mary had been wasting away from a growth in her womb. Sometimes she had a period of wellness that lasted as long as three or four weeks; more often she lay as she did this day, paleskinned with dark pouches under eyes shadowed with pain.

  And yet never did she complain, or moan about the injustice of life.

  Silently, Neville reached out a hand and took hers. If his relationship with Bolingbroke had slid from deep friendship into wary politeness, then his relationship with Mary had taken the opposite path. Neville spent several hours each day with Mary—no doubt occasioning much gossip in court—talking, playing chess or, as now, merely sitting with her as he held her hand.

  Her condition had stabilised somewhat over the past five or six months. From what both Mary and Margaret had told him, Neville knew that the mass in her womb had stopped actively growing and had instead shrunk to a small, hard lump; Mary no longer exhibited signs of pregnancy, nor expelled blackened spongy portions of the growth. Nevertheless, it continued to suck at Mary’s vitality, and often to cause her great pain and discomfort.