The Crippled Angel Read online

  A local midwife. A very normal, human woman.

  It meant that Margaret was considering giving birth in her human form, not her angel form. Was she now more human than angel? Had the angel-children lost almost as badly as the angels on that day Neville had handed his soul to Mary, to mankind, rather than to either Margaret or the demons?

  Was the cause of the angel-children dying with their king…dying with Hal Bolingbroke?

  Bolingbroke’s deteriorating condition was the other reason for Neville and Margaret’s trip to London. As Catherine prepared to give birth, so Bolingbroke prepared to die, and Neville had come to see his once-friend for the last time. This was something he both wanted and had to do, and Neville suspected that Bolingbroke had been clinging to life for months waiting for Neville’s visit.

  Now, it was time to let go.

  Hal and Catherine had taken up residence in the guest quarters of the monastery attached to Westminster Abbey. This was due less to personal preference than to the wishes of the Privy Council and great lords of England. A king was dying, his heir was about to be born, and both events were to be conducted under the watchful eyes of those men who would make up the Council of Regents once Bolingbroke was dead.

  At their head, virtual ruler of England ever since Bolingbroke’s return from France, was Ralph Neville, Baron of Raby and Earl of Westmorland, and now the most powerful man in the country.

  He had done well indeed from his connections with, and loyalty to, the Lancastrian faction.

  But, most powerful man in England or not, Raby was still a family man, and when Neville’s boat docked at Westminster’s wharf Raby was there to greet his nephew. He stepped into the boat, too impatient even for Neville to disembark, and embraced him warmly.

  Then he turned to Margaret, smiled, took her hand, and kissed her in a brotherly fashion on her mouth. “The queen has been asking for you, Margaret, desperate to hear of news of your arrival. She went into labour early this morning.”

  Margaret’s eyes widened, and she allowed Neville to help her from the boat where the palace chamberlain was waiting to escort her to Catherine’s side.

  As she walked away, Raby turned back to Neville, his eyes dark and sad. “And Hal has been asking for you, Tom. He has not long to live.”

  The chamber was dark and cold, and stank of death even though servants had set up sweet-scented braziers and burners about the room.

  Neville made his way slowly to the great bed, and to the gaunt and wheezing shape that lay upon it.

  “Tom? Tom, is that you?”

  Neville found it difficult to reply. Hal—or what had once been Hal (fair Prince Hal)—had wasted to such an extent he was now little more than skin-covered bone. His hair, once so beautiful, lay patchy and grey across his skull. His eyes had dulled so badly they were now virtually colourless. His skin was papery, so thin Neville could see the irregular beating of the blood vessels beneath.

  His condition, appallingly, reminded Neville of how Mary had died.

  “Tom?” A note of panic crept into Hal’s voice. “Tom, is that you?”

  “Aye, Hal, it is me.” Neville sat down on a stool by the bed and, with only the barest hesitation, laid his warm hand on Hal’s cold fingers as they lay on the coverlet.

  “You came.” Tears slipped over Hal’s lower eyelids and down his cheeks.

  There was a long silence. Neville did not know what to say. All he could see, all he could remember, was how glorious Hal had been in his prime. How godlike he’d been when he seized power from Richard.

  How beautiful…

  “It has all come to this, then,” Hal whispered, then jerked as he coughed.

  Black mud ran from a corner of his mouth, and Neville took a cloth that lay by a bowl of rosewater on a table to one side and wiped it away.

  Neville said nothing.

  “I had not realised about Mary,” Hal said once he had caught his breath. “I had not known.”

  “None of us did,” Neville said.

  “But you loved her.”

  “Aye. I loved her.”

  “Why? What was so special about Mary?”

  You fool, thought Neville. If you wanted an answer for why you now die, then it lies in that you still ask that question. He did not speak.

  “I should have loved,” Hal said after a very long silence.

  Neville’s eyes filled with tears. “Aye. You should have loved.”

  There was another lengthy quiet between them, the only sound that of Hal’s harsh breathing.

  Then, eventually, Hal coughed again, cleared his throat of his accumulation of mud, and spoke once more. “Tom…is Christ among us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where? Why do I not see him? Why has he not come to me?”

  “Because you did not love,” Neville said, hating the fact that he had to say it.

  Hal began to cry, great broken sobs that racked his weak body. “I tried so hard,” he said.

  “I know,” Neville said, crying himself now.

  “I wish I had loved.”

  “I know,” Neville said…and then realised there was no one listening.

  He sat there in the silence of death for what seemed a very long time.

  The door to the chamber opened, and the palace chamberlain came in.

  “My lord,” he whispered, and Neville turned about.

  “Yes?”

  “The king has a son. Will you tell him?”

  Neville hesitated a long moment. “The king is dead,” he said eventually. “He no longer cares.”

  Then he stood, took one long look at the husk of the man he had once loved lying on the bed, then turned and left the room.

  He walked from Westminster to Cheapside in London—the distance taking him well over an hour.

  By the time he’d walked past St Paul’s the bells of the parish churches in London had begun to peal in mourning.

  The city quietened under its pall of bells, and many shops closed for the day as working men and their wives thought to take themselves to church to pray for the dead king’s soul.

  But Neville knew that the door to one workshop at least would still be open.

  He found the carpenter’s workshop on the same laneway off Cheapside in which he had found it that day before they had left for Harfleur. The doorway stood open, as it had then, although now it opened under a newly painted sign: James Emery, Carpenter.

  James had settled down, it seemed.

  And, as the last time, a shadow lingered in the cool dimness of the shop.

  Except this time the shadow was Mary, not the carpenter.

  She smiled, a little sadly, as Neville hesitated under the lintel of the doorway.

  “Hal is dead,” she said, adjusting the weight of the infant wriggling in her arms.

  “Aye,” Neville said. He paused. “What happens now?” he whispered.

  She walked forward, allowing some of the light from the doorway to spill over her face. Her black hair was wound about her head in a heavy rope under a trailing lawn veil, framing the translucent skin of her face and her deep blue eyes.

  Neville’s breath caught in his throat: this beautiful woman, this Mary.

  How he loved her.

  “I should not have come,” he said.

  “You are wrong,” she said, and leaned forward to kiss him briefly on the mouth, “for it is good that you have come. James is waiting for us in the courtyard, and I have set out some bread and cheese and a jug of cider. Will you join us?”

  Then she looked down to the child in her arms. “See my son? James and I have named him Christopher.”

  Neville glanced at the child, but the baby did not interest him.

  “Mary—”

  “Come to the courtyard, Tom.” She turned, her movement lithe and unknowingly seductive, and led him through the workshop, the kitchen and storerooms behind it, and into the small, sunlit courtyard.

  James was waiting there, and he stepped forward and embraced Neville.r />
  Neville surprised himself at how fiercely he returned James’ embrace. “I should have come earlier,” he said as James finally stood back.

  James nodded. “Aye, that you should have.” His eyes, still as dark as Neville remembered them, were nonetheless very different. It took Neville a moment to realise what it was: James’ eyes were soft and humorous, unburdened by the cares that had once tortured him.

  “You are happy,” Neville said.

  “Aye, I am happy,” James said, indicating that Neville should sit on the bench on the opposite side of the trestle table covered with food and drink. As James sat himself, Mary put their son into his arms, and James smiled at the baby, finally lifting his eyes back to Neville.

  “How could I not be happy? I have my wife, and my son. Home with me. Finally.”

  Mary poured both her husband and Neville some cider, then sat herself and picked up a cup that she was already halfway through.

  “No one hunts us now,” she said softly. “Not the angels. Not the Roman soldiers. Not the priests. We can pick up our lives where once they had been interrupted.”

  Neville took a sip of cider, then allowed himself to relax in the sun, watching James play with the baby, and Mary watch her husband and son.

  “You were killed, too,” Neville suddenly said to Mary. “Soon after your husband died on the cross.”

  “Aye.” Mary’s face and body went very still as she remembered. “The soldiers, driven along by the hatred of the priests, came for me in the hour after they took down my husband’s body.”

  She stopped, and Neville suddenly, horribly, knew what she was going to say.

  “They stoned me to death, shattering every bone in my body.”

  “Mercy,” whispered Neville, and looked down unseeing at the rough wood of the table as he remembered Mary Bohun’s shattered, dying body. They stoned her? They stoned the most wondrous woman the world had ever known? And then…then they dared to build a Church of lies about both Christ and his wife?

  “It is why Hal’s Mary could not carry a child past six months,” she continued. “I was six months gone with Christopher,” she nodded and smiled at the baby squirming happily in his father’s arms, “when I died.”

  She turned her glorious eyes back to Neville. “And then my husband existed in torment within heaven, and I existed in torment without him,” her eyes filled with tears, “until this most remarkable of men loved me, and was my friend, and freed my husband.”

  “And now I think Tom more than half wishes he had not freed the husband,” James said, his eyes crinkling humorously and his voice filled with laughter.

  Neville stared at James, then at Mary, and then burst into laughter himself, all his sadness and regret gone.

  “And you and Mary?” he said. “What now?”

  They glanced at each other, and it was Mary who answered. “What now, Tom? Why, we raise our son, and any other children which bless us, and my husband works at his craft.”

  “We live and die as any, Tom,” said James. “We are a husband and a wife, and that is all that we are.”

  “Then you are to be envied,” Neville replied. He sampled some of the cheese that Mary had laid out, and discovered himself ravenous. “And the angel-children? Those such as Margaret, my wife?”

  “Their link with the angels is broken, Tom,” James said, passing his son back to Mary and helping himself to some of the bread and cheese that Neville was now munching down. “They will live out normal, mortal lives.”

  He paused, toying with some of the food, then continued. “You gave mankind control of his own destiny that day you kissed Mary. The link with the angels is completely broken asunder. They raven, trapped in hell, while mankind chooses his own path here on earth. What man chooses to do with his life,” he shrugged, “is now his own burden to bear.”

  Neville relaxed even more. “Then we are all but husbands and wives, living out our lives.”

  James smiled gently. “Aye.”

  Neville nodded, feeling happier than he thought he had ever felt before. “Margaret is expecting twins,” he said.

  Mary and James grinned delightedly. “When you next come to visit,” Mary said, “you must bring her.”

  Neville shot her a wry look. “I do not think she will come. But I will, if I may, and bring my children from time to time.”

  He looked up at the sky, realising that the light had thinned. Dusk was not far off. “I should go,” he said. “No doubt both my uncle and my wife wonder where I am.”

  They stood, and Mary and James escorted Neville back to the street door.

  The bells were still ringing, and their sound made Neville turn one more time to James. “What of the Church?” he said. “It is useless—there is no God…while you…”

  “No doubt it will continue for the time being,” James said, clearly not very interested. “Too many men have too many ambitions tied up in it. But eventually it will fail and fall into irrelevance. Neither you nor I should worry overmuch about it, Tom.”

  Neville studied James’ face, then he nodded. “And so I will not.” He took his brother’s hand, then kissed Mary on the cheek.

  “I am glad you are both contented,” he said, “and so shall I learn to be. I will go home to Halstow Hall, and raise my children, and learn to be a good husband for a wife who loves me very much.”

  He paused, introspective, then his mouth curved in a very small smile. “Somehow I do not think that her love will be a wasted thing.”

  “Love never is,” Mary said. “Go home and tend your garden, Tom.”

  Glossary

  For more information on characters and places, please visit: www.saradouglass.com/crucibworld.html

  AGINCOURT: Small village (approx. 180 kilometres) to the north-west of Paris.

  ARCHIBALD: fourth Earl of Douglas. His son is ARCHIBALD, Earl of Fife.

  ARCHIBALD: Earl of Fife, son of the Earl of Douglas.

  ARMOUR: the armouring of a knight was a complex affair, done in different ways in different countries and generations. Generally, knights wore either chain mail or plate armour or a combination of both, depending on fashion or the military activity involved. Chain mail was formed of thousands of tiny iron or steel rings riveted together to form a loose tunic (sometimes with arms); plate armour consisted of a series of metal plates fashioned to fit a knight’s body and joints—the full suit of armour was rarely seen before the fifteenth century. Helmets (whether BASINETS or the full-visored helms), mail or plate gloves, and weapons completed the knight’s outfitting.

  AQUITAINE: a large and rich province covering much of the southwest of France. Aquitaine was not only independent of France, it was ruled by the English kings after Eleanor of Aquitaine brought the province, as part of her dowry, to her marriage with Henry II.

  ARUNDEL, WILLIAM: Archbishop of Canterbury.

  AVIGNON: the French-controlled town which is the seat of the rebel popes.

  BALLARD, AGNES: maid to MARGARET NEVILLE and nurse to ROSALIND.

  BASINET: an open-faced helmet (although many knights wore them with a visor attached) that was either rounded (globular) or conical in shape. See also ARMOUR.

  BAVIÉRE, ISABEAU DE: wife of LOUIS, mother of CHARLES and CATHERINE.

  BEAUCHAMP, THOMAS: Earl of Warwick.

  BEAUFORT, HENRY: illegitimate-born son of JOHN OF GAUNT and his third wife KATHERINE SWYNFORD, Henry is the Bishop of Winchester.

  BEAUFORT, JOAN: illegitimate-born daughter of JOHN OF GAUNT and his third wife KATHERINE SWYNFORD. Now married to RALPH NEVILLE.

  BEAUREVOIR: a castle north of Paris.

  BLACK PRINCE: the now deceased first son of EDWARD III and his queen, PHILIPPA. The Black Prince was married to JOAN OF KENT, and was the father of RICHARD II.

  BOHUN: Son of THOMAS NEVILLE and MARGARET NEVILLE. Named after MARY BOHUN.

  BOHUN, MARY: heiress to the Hereford lands, titles and fortune, married to HAL BOLINGBROKE.

  BOLINGBROKE, HENRY OF (HAL)
: King of England, son of JOHN OF GAUNT and his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster.

  BORDEAUX: a port on the Garonne estuary in southwest France and capital of the duchy of AQUITAINE. Bordeaux was the BLACK PRINCE’s base in France (and in fact his son, RICHARD, was born there).

  CATHERINE: daughter of PRINCE LOUIS of france and ISABEAU DE BAVIÈRE, younger sister to CHARLES.

  CHARLES: King of France, grandson of his predecessor, the deceased KING JOHN, son of PRINCE LOUIS and ISABEAU DE BAVIÈRE. Older brother of CATHERINE.

  CHARTRES, REGNAULT DE: Archbishop of RHEIMS.

  CHATELLERAULT: a heavily fortified town some twenty miles north of Chauvigny.

  CINQUE PORTS: the five (thus ‘cinque’) important medieval southeastern ports of England: Dover, Hastings, Hythe, Romney and Sandwich. The barons of the Cinque Ports, as the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, were very powerful offices.

  CLEMENT VII: the man elected by the breakaway cardinals to the papal throne after they declared the election of URBAN VI void due to the interference of the Roman mob. Clement rules from Avignon while Urban, who refuses to resign, continues to rule from Rome.

  COOPER, WILL: apprentice physician to NICHOLAS CULPEPER.

  COURTENAY, SIR ROBERT: squire to THOMAS NEVILLE. See also SQUIRE.

  CULPEPER, NICHOLAS: physician to MARY BOHUN.

  D’ALBRET, CONSTABLE: commander of PHILIP OF NAVARRE’S army.

  D’ARC, JACQUES: sergeant of the village of Domremy, in the province of Lorraine, France.

  D’ARC, JOAN (JEANNE, or JEANNETTE): second daughter of JACQUES D’ARC. Known as the Maid of France for her visionary prophecies.