The Crippled Angel Read online

  Raby guffawed loudly. “I shall aim with intent,” he said. “England could do with a few less Hollands. Now, where are those damn squires? I need my helmet!”

  When he’d left his uncle, Neville wandered as close as he could to Exeter’s tents without attracting unwanted attention. Sundry knights and nobles scurried about, most in full battle armour, all with tense expressions and narrowed eyes that darted this way and that.

  Neville stood behind the tent of a minor noble and chewed at his lip in thought. How many men did Exeter and his fellow Hollands have with them? Two or three hundred, no more. They wouldn’t have been able to bring any more without attracting undue attention.

  So, Exeter’s allies, then. Who were they likely to be? Northumberland? Northumberland had ever had his disagreements with Bolingbroke and his father, the Duke of Lancaster, and particularly with Neville’s own family. But Northumberland had too much to lose by turning against Bolingbroke, and far more to gain by standing at his side.

  So Northumberland was unlikely to ally himself with Exeter, and Hotspur, Northumberland’s son, who may very well have supported an Exeter bid to topple Bolingbroke, was still far in the north.

  There were, of course, a slew of lesser nobles who might support Exeter—Neville well knew that the wounds caused by Bolingbroke’s extraordinary rise to power had not yet healed—but Neville simply couldn’t see how they could hope to form a force strong enough to defeat Bolingbroke’s allies who were here in force; Raby and Northumberland, in particular, had huge escorts of men at the tournament.

  A movement to his left caught Neville’s eye and he turned, then frowned slightly at what he saw.

  None other than the Abbot of Westminster, striding out of Exeter’s tent and looking guilty enough to confess to Christ’s murder if someone should put a knife to his throat and ask him to say the words.

  The abbot disappeared down a narrow alley between rows of tents, and Neville hurried after him.

  After five minutes the abbot paused, looked about—causing Neville to duck behind a saddled destrier—then entered a small tent. In an instant he was out again, and a few heartbeats after his exit five Dominican friars hurried out, split up, and merged into the crowds.

  What was the abbot doing, consorting first with Exeter, then with Dominicans, of all people?

  Neville hesitated, then followed one of the Dominicans. The man’s hooded black figure made him easy to track at a safe distance in the otherwise gaudy multitude.

  The friar led Neville back towards the hordes of common folk who had come to watch the tournament. Now and then he would stop, catch the attention of a small group of men and women, whisper something, then move on.

  Neville’s disquiet grew, especially since the people the friar talked to remained agitated after the friar had moved on, and turned to talk to others within the crowd. He watched the Dominican work his way through the throng, thought about continuing his pursuit of him, then decided to ask some of the people what they’d been told by the friar.

  “My good man,” Neville said quietly to one man standing in a group of five or six others, “what did the friar tell you?”

  The man glanced at his fellows, licking his lips nervously, then looked back at this lord who had addressed him.

  “He said…” the man hesitated, “…he said that Richard our king is not dead, and that he will be riding to London within the week to reclaim his throne.”

  “What?”

  “It’s what he said.”

  “It’s not true, dammit! Man, believe me, Richard is dead!”

  But the group stared at Neville, shaking their heads, and looked about uncertainly.

  “Perhaps he still is alive,” one man said. “Why shouldn’t he be? Perhaps these stories of his death were false.”

  Neville opened his mouth to refute the lie one more time, then shut it as he suddenly realised what Exeter was going to do.

  “My God,” Neville whispered, and hurried off.

  Mary shifted a little on her cushions, trying to ease the agony coursing up and down her spine. Her face twisted, and she gasped.

  “Madam?” Margaret whispered, shocked by the whiteness of Mary’s face. She grabbed at Mary’s hand, then looked to Bolingbroke.

  He was already staring at Mary, and had taken her other hand. “Mary,” he said, “how bad is it?”

  “Bad enough,” Mary whispered.

  Margaret locked eyes with Bolingbroke. The fact that Mary had admitted her pain told her a great deal: Mary was in absolute agony. Nothing else would drive her to actually admitting discomfort.

  “Do something,” Bolingbroke hissed to Margaret, then turned to smile and wave at the people whose heads had turned to watch what was happening in the royal box. She is tired, no more.

  Margaret hesitated. “I have no more of the liquor,” she said.

  Mary tried to smile, and failed dismally. “I have been too greedy,” she said. “It is my fault.”

  Again Margaret locked eyes with Bolingbroke. I can do for her what I did for Lancaster in his final hours. Ease her pain.

  No! She will know that you are other than what you present yourself!

  And would that be so bad?

  Meg, do not go against my will. We will be finished here soon enough.

  Margaret dropped her eyes. I hope it is not your fate to die a lingering, painful death, Hal.

  “I will be well enough once we leave this place,” Mary said. “Do not fear for me, Margaret.”

  “It is difficult to avoid fearing for those whom you love dearly,” Margaret said, and her eyes filmed with tears.

  “I am suffering no more than those poor men below who have been trampled beneath horses’ hooves,” Mary said, patting at Margaret’s hand. Then she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Thank you for caring, Margaret.”

  Margaret took one of Mary’s hands in both of hers, and very, very gently rubbed its back with her thumbs. With Mary, as she had done with Lancaster, she should dig her thumbs in deeply to give the relief required for such pain, but if she did that, and eased Mary’s pain to a remarkable degree, then Mary would indeed suspect something.

  So Margaret gently rubbed, and the continual movement, with the slight power she put into it, managed to take the edge off Mary’s pain. It happened so gradually that Mary herself did not connect the very slight easing of her pain with Margaret’s rubbing.

  She merely thought the ease was due to Margaret’s love…which, in a sense, it was.

  After a few minutes Mary straightened her back a little, and lifted her head, suddenly becoming aware of the concerned looks being sent her way.

  Mary smiled, then waved her hand a little. “A bad moment, my good people,” she said. “Nothing else. See, I am quite well now.”

  And gradually those staring smiled, nodded, and returned their eyes to the tourney field before them.

  Once their attention was back on the field, Mary turned to Margaret, and kissed her cheek. “Thank you for your love,” she said. “It means so much.”

  Margaret blinked back her tears, and smiled, and would have spoken save that Bolingbroke leaned over and hushed them.

  “Quiet! The joust of the tournament begins.”

  Mary turned her head back to the field—its grass now all but torn up where it wasn’t littered with congealing pink mounds of sawdust. All but one jousting lane had been cleared away, and at either end of this single remaining lane sat two great warriors on their destriers: Exeter and Raby.

  Both men and their mounts were fully armoured: Raby in black armour emblazoned with the Neville device across breastplate and helm; Exeter in gleaming white armour, similarly emblazoned with his own heraldic devices.

  An official shouted an instruction, and both men slowly lowered their lances.

  Their destriers bunched beneath them, knowing that at any instant they would be sent thundering towards their opponent.

  A flag dropped, the crowd roared, and the destriers lumbered into movem
ent.

  Bolingbroke leaned forward in his chair, his face tense, one fist clenched. “Do me proud, Ralph,” he muttered. “Do me proud.”

  Raby and Exeter pounded towards each other, their bodies hunched over lance and shield, their heads swaying with the violent movement of their horses.

  They met in a grinding of metal in the centre of the field: sparks flew, horses grunted, but both lances slid off their opponent’s shield harmlessly as each passed the other, trying to pull up their destriers with hands laden with shield and weapon.

  Squires leapt to their masters’ aid, catching the destriers and turning them about.

  The crowd’s roar grew louder.

  Bolingbroke turned to say something to Mary, then stopped, his eyes fixed on Thomas Neville who had climbed the stairs into the stand and was now fast approaching the royal box.

  “Tom?” Bolingbroke said.

  Neville reached him, glancing at Margaret and Mary, and then to where Robert Courtenay stood with a group of armed men in the back of the stand, before bending down to Bolingbroke.

  “Treachery, sire,” he whispered. “I think Exeter means to—”

  He got no further, for just then Exeter and Raby met again in a clash of metal and horseflesh in the centre of the field. The grinding and screeching of lance against shield grew to almost unbearable levels, and then Raby’s shield toppled to one side, dragging its owner over with it.

  Exeter managed to drop his lance, grabbing a club that hung at his side. In a heartbeat he’d raised it on high, then smashed it into Raby’s helm.

  Neville’s uncle slid unceremoniously to the ground in a clatter of armour and a flailing of legs and arms. His horse skittered off, rolling its eyes.

  “Ralph!” Margaret whispered, half-rising. She had been Raby’s lover once, and had never ceased caring for him.

  “Hal!” Neville said, equally as urgently. “You are in danger—”

  Exeter ignored Raby struggling ignobly in his heavy armour on the ground, dropping the club and grabbing at his sword to wave it about his head. He turned to the gates that marked the entry and exit point of the tourney field, the vigour of his sword-waving doubling.

  Horsed and heavily armed men flooded into the tourney field—a thousand at the least—some liveried in the devices of Exeter, others in the devices of various other members of the extended Holland clan, and more yet in the liveries of the Earl of Rutland and the Earl of Salisbury.

  “Sweet Jesu!” Bolingbroke said, lurching to his feet as the seriousness of the moment suddenly hit him. Already other men—those of Bolingbroke’s personal guard, nobles and retainers of Northumberland and Raby and other noble houses allied with them—were rushing towards the tourney field. Sporadic fighting started where the two groups met, but the crowds of commoners, now lurching this way and that in terror, were so thick that it was hard for the king’s defenders to get close to the rebels.

  “Hear me!” Exeter screamed, turning his destrier about in tight circles as he addressed the crowd, and still waving his sword about his head. “Hear me! I come on behalf of Richard the King. Yes! Richard! He still lives. Richard lives and will be in London within the week to remove this monster from the throne!”

  The crowd’s noise swelled. Richard lived? Then several people shouted out: “Yes! Richard lives! We have heard it from men of God. Richard lives.”

  And then another shout, coming so fast upon those of Exeter and the crowd that Bolingbroke had not had a chance of speaking himself.

  The Abbot of Westminster, standing up from his place in one of the side stands: “Richard lives and shall come home to London to claim his rightful seat on the throne within the week. Believe me. The Church stands behind Richard!”

  The crowd pushed forward, shouting and screaming, the hours of high excitement now turned into a rebellious surge.

  “Give us Richard!” several people yelled, and soon the refrain was taken up by all around. “Give us Richard!”

  “Stupid yokels,” Bolingbroke said under his breath, his face bright red with fury. “Give them a refrain to yell, anything, and they’ll shout it from the rooftops until they are silenced only by the sword!”

  “Hal—” Mary said, trying to grasp his arm, but he twisted it away from her.

  “You must get out of here,” Neville said, checking to make sure that Courtenay and the score of armed men with him were now making their way towards the royal box. If they moved quickly, Bolingbroke and Mary still had a chance to move—

  “Seize him!” Exeter shouted, now waving his sword towards Bolingbroke.

  “Richard is dead!” Bolingbroke shouted. “Dead! How can you shout for him now when only months before you shouted my name in Westminster Abbey?”

  “He has misled you,” shouted the abbot and Exeter together. “Richard lives, and will shortly return to reclaim his—”

  “My good people,” said a soft voice, and, miraculously, all heard it.

  Mary, rising unbalanced and shaking from her chair. Both Margaret and Neville reached out hands to steady her, exchanging a shocked glance as they did so.

  “My good people,” Mary said again, extending her hands outwards, palms up as if in supplication. “Will you listen to me?”

  The crowd quieted, although murmuring still swelled up and down its length. Faces turned to Mary.

  “I am so distressed that you should be told such lies by those who have no respect for you,” Mary said, and tears ran down her cheeks.

  Now even the murmuring quieted, and the entire tourney field and its surrounds, packed with over fifteen thousand people, stared at their queen.

  “Richard is dead,” she whispered, and amazingly that whisper reached every corner. “Did I not weep over his still white corpse? Did I not swaddle him in his shroud as his mother once swaddled him as a babe?”

  Bolingbroke stared at her, incredulous. Mary had never seen Richard’s corpse, let alone spent hours weeping over it or swaddling it.

  But the crowd was staring at her enthralled—even Exeter and his band—and so Bolingbroke held both his tongue and his incredulity in check.

  “I think perhaps my Lords of Exeter and Westminster have been mistaken,” she said, gracing both men with a sweet smile. “Perhaps what they meant to say was that my beloved husband,” and now she smiled almost beatifically at a still incredulous Bolingbroke, “has arranged for Richard’s poor corpse to make its way in solemn procession back to London, to lie in state in Saint Paul’s, so that all Englanders may have a chance to say their farewells to their beloved boy-king.”

  She turned back to Exeter, staring at her from under the raised visor of his helm, then to the Abbot of Westminster, who was licking his lips and, patently, thinking furiously. “Is that not so, my lords?” Mary said. She folded her hands before her.

  The abbot glanced at Exeter. “Um, well,” he stumbled. “Perhaps we might have been mistaken—”

  “She lies!” Exeter screamed, now standing in his stirrups and brandishing his sword towards Mary. “She mouths nothing but foul lies! Richard lives, and he—”

  “Will you listen to this man befoul your beloved queen?” shouted Raby. He’d struggled to his feet when all attention had been turned towards Mary, and now he stood at Exeter’s stirrup. “How can any deny the beauty and truth of what our adored queen says?”

  As quickly as it had been engaged and manipulated by Westminster and Essex, the mood of the crowd now swung again.

  “Mary!” they screamed. “Mary!”

  “Fool,” Raby said under the screams of the crowd and, so quickly that none of Exeter’s close companions could stop him, slid the unscabbarded blade of his sword up into the gap between Exeter’s abdominal and hip plates.

  Exeter twisted, but it was too late. Raby leaned all his strength behind his thrust, and the sword tore through the stiffened leather beneath the plate armour and deep into Exeter’s lower belly.

  The duke grunted, dropped his sword, then slid off his horse—and f
urther onto Raby’s sword.

  Instantly, his supporters started to back away.

  Mary, who had not failed to notice Raby’s actions, clapped her hands, keeping the crowd’s attention on her. “My husband assures me Richard’s corpse will be back in London within the fortnight,” she said, “where you may all have the chance to view it and say your farewells. May sweet Jesu bless you all.”

  And yet again the crowd roared in acclaim, and did not notice Northumberland’s and Raby’s men moving through the rebels, seizing the nobles who had thought to topple Bolingbroke.

  Mary stood, waving and smiling, until order had been achieved. Then she said, “Beloved people, will you excuse me if I sit? I am so tired—”

  She got no further, for suddenly she sank down, her entire frame shaking with pain, and Margaret wrapped her arms about Mary’s shoulders, concerned.

  “Hal—” Neville said urgently.

  Bolingbroke turned to address the crowd. “I must take my wife home,” he said, “for she has been greatly distressed by the treachery Exeter forced her to witness. Will you perchance excuse your king and queen?”

  There were shouts of goodwill, then the crowd began to disperse.

  Neville finally relaxed. “Hal, you would be dead now if it were not for Mary.”

  Bolingbroke held Neville’s eyes, sharing both his shock and relief at the turn of events. Then, as one, both men looked down at Mary.

  She had fainted dead away, and Margaret and one of her other women were rubbing her hands and wiping her forehead with a soft cloth.

  “Sire,” Margaret said, “she must be returned to Windsor. Now!”

  Bolingbroke nodded, but it was Neville who spoke.

  “I will take care of it,” he said, then looked at Bolingbroke. “I think that you, sire, ought to make plans forthwith to bring Richard’s ‘poor corpse’ back from whatever pit you had it thrown in.”

  Bolingbroke’s mouth twisted. “Not before I have had a chance to deal with Exeter—if he still lives—and our trusty friend the abbot,” he said. “I hope you took good note of who else had taken Exeter’s part, Tom.”