The Crippled Angel Page 7

  “Aye,” Neville said. “And they were many more than I know you would like to think, Hal.”

  Then he bent down, and, with Margaret and the other ladies fussing about, gathered Mary into his arms.

  V

  Saturday 4th May 1381

  —iii—

  “Well?” said Bolingbroke, turning to face his chief advisers.

  They stood in the cool evening light in Bolingbroke’s private chamber: the king had allowed no servants in to light either the fire or the lamps.

  “Exeter will be dead by dawn,” Raby said. He was slumped wearily in a chair, still in the sweat-stained garments he’d worn under his armour. His face was drawn, sallow now rather than swarthy, and a dark bruise ran up one cheek. “His wound is bad.”

  Bolingbroke grunted. “And for that you have my thanks indeed. Westminster?”

  “Huddled praying in the chapel,” Neville said. “Surrounded by fifteen men-at-arms and enclosed by locked doors.”

  “You cannot have him killed,” the Earl of Northumberland said. “He is a churchman.”

  Bolingbroke’s face left them in no doubt what he thought of all “churchmen”. He turned abruptly, and strode away a few paces. “Then he shall rue the day he ever thought to raise his shrill little voice against me,” he said. “He’s finished.”

  Behind him, Neville, Northumberland, Raby and the other three men present—Bolingbroke’s Chancellor, John Scarle, and Sir John Norbury and Lord Owen Tudor, members of Bolingbroke’s household—exchanged glances. Bolingbroke’s mood had been vicious ever since they returned from the aborted tournament. Armed guards now surrounded and infiltrated every part of Windsor, and more were stationed in the fields beyond. Bolingbroke was taking no chances.

  And no one blamed him for that. Exeter’s plan, born of desperation, would have stood a very good chance of succeeding, had it not been for Mary’s quiet words…and the respect the crowd had for her. The cry that Richard still lived, appealing as it did to the English crowd’s sense of drama and intrigue, could have rallied the entire ten thousand behind him. Once the crowd was behind him, shouting his cause, then seeds of doubt would have grown in everyone else present. Was Richard still alive? Was he planning a return to London?

  Exeter had used the very same tactics against Bolingbroke that Bolingbroke had employed against Richard: the manipulation of dramatic words to turn loyalties. His voice wasn’t as sweet, nor his words as seductive, as Bolingbroke’s had been to Richard’s army outside Flint Castle, but still…

  No matter that the-very-dead-Richard would never stage a return to London—at least not alive. All Exeter would have needed to do was manage to place Bolingbroke under armed guard, and very soon Bolingbroke would have been as dead as Richard, and Exeter’s faction in control of England.

  “Rutland?” Bolingbroke said, still with his back to the group watching him. “Salisbury? And every other of the damned Hollands that thought to join with their cousin Exeter?”

  “In prison,” Raby said. “Under guard.”

  Bolingbroke spun about to face them. “They will hang in the morning.”

  “Sire—” Neville said.

  “Nay, do not try and dissuade me, Tom,” Bolingbroke said. “I cannot let them live. You know that. I need to send a message to anyone else—” he paused “—out there who might harbour the same plans and ambitions as Exeter.” No one said a word. All knew to whom he was referring. Hotspur. “As for Exeter’s retainers,” Bolingbroke continued, “and those of the other rebel lords, well…they shall receive pardons as evidence of my true mercy. I will not murder all of England in spite.”

  Neville shot Bolingbroke an unreadable look, but Bolingbroke chose to ignore it.

  “My friends,” Bolingbroke continued, “your advice, if I may. Who else do I need to fear? Who else should I guard my throne and England’s stability against?”

  Everyone studiously avoided looking at Northumberland.

  “The Dominicans,” Neville said. “There were several within the crowd this afternoon spreading word that Richard still lives. They were Exeter’s allies.”

  “So,” Bolingbroke said, looking at Neville with some speculation. “The Dominicans do not like me, and would like to unseat me. Can you tell me why, Tom?”

  Because you are a demon, Hal, and because they suspect it.

  “Many within the Church distrust you,” Neville replied, “especially since you directed that religious studies receive less emphasis in schools and universities in favour of the new secular humanism. And your reforms of the calendar…many priests view that as a turning away from God.”

  Bolingbroke shrugged. He picked up a piece of fruit from a bowl, and bit into it, keeping his eyes on Neville.

  “But you—we—have one bad enemy within the Dominicans. Prior General Richard Thorseby,” Bolingbroke said, spitting out a seed and tossing it into the grate.

  “Aye. No one has seen or heard from him since June last year when the rebels torched Blackfriars. I do not like that.”

  “Well,” Bolingbroke said, “no doubt he will turn up sooner or later, and no doubt with a renewed plan to see you incarcerated, Tom. But for the moment, I do not think the Dominican whispers are the worst—”

  “But these whispers that Richard is still alive?” Raby said.

  “I will return to those in a moment,” Bolingbroke said. “There is one worse potential traitor in England that I think we all need to discuss. Here. Now.”

  Northumberland slowly rose to his feet. His face was grave, his eyes hard. “You refer to my son, sire. Why do you not say it aloud?”

  Bolingbroke faced the earl, his own eyes as flinty as Northumberland’s. “He has refused to swear allegiance to me. He sits in the north with an army of twenty thousand behind him—and the ability to raise another twenty thousand—that he claims to need against the Scots. He looks south, and hungers. Combine all those facts, my lord, and I see a very real threat.”

  “He has done nothing wrong!” Northumberland said.

  “Save refuse to swear me allegiance and collect swords about his person in numbers the Scots do not warrant!” Bolingbroke shouted.

  “Sire,” Raby said softly, rising to place a cautionary hand on Bolingbroke’s arm.

  Bolingbroke shot Raby a furious look, then turned his gaze back to Northumberland. “Will you swear me Hotspur’s allegiance, my lord? Will you swear to me that your son will remain a good and faithful subject?”

  “Hal!” Raby barked. “That is enough. Northumberland saw you to your throne. Do not ask this of him now when—”

  “I am not a stable boy for you to so rebuke me,” Bolingbroke said, swinging back to Raby. “Remember who it is you address.”

  Then he spoke to Northumberland again. “Your aid has proved invaluable to me, Northumberland,” he said, “but do you have any idea how quickly my love and support of your house will fade if your son leads an army south?”

  “Why did I support you against Richard if I thought to then throw my son against you?”

  “Perhaps,” Bolingbroke said, his voice very low, his eyes furious, “you supported me against Richard so that eventually your son might have an easier path to the throne.”

  “Sire—” Northumberland growled, taking a step forwards.

  “This has gone far enough,” Neville said, and nodded to John Scarle, the Chancellor, who laid a hand on Northumberland’s arm, and whispered something in his ear.

  “Northumberland cannot swear Hotspur’s allegiance,” Neville said to Bolingbroke. “He cannot! Hotspur is a man grown, and must do it himself. Do not visit the son’s sin of omission on the father who has proved such a valuable ally to you.”

  Bolingbroke stared at Neville, then nodded, the muscles about his face and neck visibly relaxing. He looked to Northumberland, still standing, still staring furiously.

  “My lord, forgive me. This afternoon’s treachery has proved a great trial, and has made me snap at those I should trust before all other
s.”

  Northumberland waited a few heartbeats, then inclined his head, accepting the apology. Scarle tugged a little at his arm, and Northumberland sighed, and sat down.

  Gradually, the other men resumed their seats, and Bolingbroke took a sumptuously carved chair close by the unlit grate.

  “I must bring Richard’s body back to London,” he said. “Mary was right. The people must view it.”

  “Is it,” Raby said carefully, “in a state fit to be viewed?”

  Bolingbroke raised his eyebrows, assuming an innocent expression. “In a state fit to be viewed, Raby? Whatever do you mean? Richard died of a fever, not a vicious clubbing or a tearing to bits by dogs. Of course it is fit to be viewed. As fit as any six-month-dead corpse can be, of course.”

  He sighed. “No doubt the royal purse shall have to bear the cost of the candles placed about the coffer, and the mourning robes for the official wailers and weepers. Richard has ever been an expensive burden to England.”

  VI

  Saturday 4th May 1381

  —iv—

  She dreamed, and yet it felt unlike any dream she’d been lost in before, for in this dream she was both witness and participant.

  She dreamed of a woman, a woman on her knees atop a dusty, stony hill swept by a warm, fragrant wind. Above pressed a heavy, depressing sky; the atmosphere was hot and humid, and full of noiseless lament. In the distance was a walled city dressed in pale stone, and a roadway lined with people leading from the city gates to the hill where she knelt.

  The woman’s world had turned to grief. Her tears ran down her cheeks and dripped into the neckline of her white linen robe. Dark hair lay unbound down her back and clung in dampened wisps about her face. A cloak of sky blue lay to one side.

  Several yards away lay her husband, still and dead, his corpse battered and bloodied. He had been sprawled across a rock for the vultures to feast on.

  She reached out a hand towards him, wordlessly, now too exhausted and emotionally devastated to weep any more than she already had.

  How could it have ended like this? Why had people hated him so much?

  “Take her!” came a shout, and she jerked her head up at the same moment her hands slipped about her swollen belly.

  People—soldiers, several priests and a crowd of ordinary men and women—surged towards her, and she started to rise. But her foot caught on the hemline of her robe, and she tripped and sprawled on the dusty earth.

  She tried to rise again, desperate, knowing they meant her death, but she was too late.

  Hands seized her by the shoulder of her robe and by her hair, and dragged her to her feet.

  “Whore!” someone cried, and the entire crowd took up the accusation. “Whore! Whore! Whore!”

  “I am not,” she said, but her words were lost in the roar of the crowd. “I am not!”

  I am not a whore, but a queen, she wanted to say, not understanding why it was she thought that.

  But delusions were not going to help her or her unborn baby now.

  They dragged her forth, ignoring her pitiful cries for mercy, to where a long-dry well had been covered over. Men tore away the wooden beams that closed the well, exposing a thirty-foot drop.

  Then, still roaring their hatred, they threw her down.

  They stopped roaring soon enough to hear her body hit the rocks at the bottom of the well.

  A minute passed, then one of the priests grunted as he saw her limbs move slightly in their agony.

  “She lives still,” he said, bending and picking up a rock.

  All about him, those closest to the rim of the well bent down, and picked up their own rocks.

  Then they began, one by one, to pitch them down towards the woman.

  It took them most of the remaining hours of the afternoon to kill her completely, and before they were done they’d broken every bone in her body.

  Margaret sat by Mary’s bed, watching the woman’s chest rise and fall in shallow, slow breaths. Mary had been moaning in agony by the time Neville had carried her back to her chamber, and Culpeper, the castle physician, alerted to her need by runners who had come ahead, had been ready at hand. He’d given Mary a powerful infusion of monkshood, wild mushroom and opium poppy, which had eased Mary’s pain within minutes.

  It had also caused her mind to drift, and for almost an hour Margaret had sat holding Mary’s hand as the queen talked of things she could never have seen, and people she could never have met.

  Now, Margaret hoped, Mary had finally settled into a deep sleep.

  But just as Margaret was about to rise and go to her own bed, Mary’s eyes flew open.

  “Meg?” she whispered in a cracked voice. “Meg? Are you here?”

  “I’m right beside you, my sweet lady. I have never left.”

  “Where am I, Meg?”

  “Why, you are in your chamber in the Rose Tower, my lady.”

  Mary’s head slowly rolled back and forth and her eyes searched. “No, no. I cannot be. What is that wind? And that scent of sweet spice upon it?”

  “Madam—”

  “And why do I weep? Why do I feel such loss?”

  Margaret leaned closer and saw that, indeed, Mary did weep. Great tears rolled down her cheeks.

  Mary stared ahead, as if looking at someone. “Is he dead? Is he?”

  “Madam!” Margaret grabbed Mary’s hand between both of hers, and squeezed as tightly as she dared.

  Mary continued to stare ahead, then she gasped, and cried out softly. “No! No!”

  “Mary!” Margaret was beside herself, wondering what to do. Had the potion been too strong? Was it murdering Mary instead of aiding her? She half turned, meaning to wake the women who slept at the foot of Mary’s bed, but just then Mary whipped her head about on the pillow and stared at Margaret.

  “You are not all you would have me believe, are you, Margaret?”

  Margaret opened her mouth, not knowing what to say.

  Mary’s mouth grimaced in a frightful rictus, her breath odorous due to the potion she’d imbibed and the dryness of her tongue.

  “Margaret,” she whispered, “why do so many people lie to me?”

  And then, suddenly, she was asleep, and breathing easy.

  Her hand relaxed away from Margaret’s.

  VII

  Friday 17th May 1381

  “What clearer sign could you hope to have, my lord, than that of Exeter’s revolt?”

  The son of the Earl of Northumberland, Sir Henry Percy, commonly called Hotspur, slouched in the chair, staring at Prior General Richard Thorseby with dark, unreadable eyes. The Prior General had joined his household six months ago, just after Bolingbroke had himself crowned. And for six months the Prior General had been whispering and arguing and pleading: King Henry was an evil man who had murdered Richard and who would drive England into the mud of ignominy should he be allowed to keep the throne.

  And who else was to act if not Hotspur?

  “Exeter’s revolt lasted an afternoon, Prior General,” Hotspur said, “and ended in his death and those of his allies. I do not call that a ‘clear sign’.”

  “People resent Bolingbroke! The country will rise up against him if you lead!”

  Hotspur sprang out of his chair, snatching a pike from a surprised man-at-arms guarding the doorway of the chamber, and threw it down at Thorseby’s feet. “If you think the country so ready to rise, then lead it yourself!”

  Thorseby took a deep breath and composed his face. He folded his hands inside the voluminous sleeves of his habit and affected a righteous air, not realising that it only antagonised Hotspur further.

  “Bolingbroke must be overthrown. He is the devil’s spawn.”

  Trying to keep his temper, Hotspur strode to a shuttered window, unlatched one of the shutters, and drew it open. Outside there was nothing but cold, grey fog, with here and there the bare black branches of wind-blasted trees reaching into the low sky like the skeletal fingers of a corpse.

  Lord God, Ho
tspur thought, I do not know which I hate more—the damp climes of these northern lands, or the ever-whining voice of the Prior General.

  He stood a few minutes, allowing the still grey landscape outside to calm him, then he closed the shutter and turned back to Thorseby.

  “I can understand your dislike of Thomas Neville,” Hotspur said, “but why your sudden hatred of Bolingbroke? Do you profess to hate him, and thus beg me to dislodge him from the throne, only so you can once more claim Neville?”

  Thorseby took his time in answering. In truth, he did loathe Bolingbroke because of his protection of Neville…but that was not all. Sometimes, over these past few months, he’d had strange visitations from shadowy, cloaked figures who had whispered that they were the messengers of the angels, and it was heaven’s wish that Bolingbroke be torn down and destroyed. In his more lucid moments, Thorseby feared these shadowy, whispering visitors were but figments of his imagination. But these moments were few and far between, and generally Thorseby knew he had God, the angels and all of heaven behind him on this issue.

  Bolingbroke must go. Neville must be brought to justice. And Hotspur was the most logical instrument of God’s will.

  “Bolingbroke is an ungodly man,” Thorseby said, ensuring his face and voice remained calm and reasonable. “He murdered Richard and unjustly usurped his throne. He must be brought to justice. If my words do not persuade you, then be prepared. Soon God shall make His will clear with an unmistakable sign. You might not believe me, my lord, but you shall surely believe God.”

  “Oh, and what shall God do?” said Hotspur. “Send a plague of frogs? Turn the Thames red with blood? Strike dead the first-born son in every family?”

  “I should hope not the latter, my lord, if only for your sake.”

  Hotspur grunted.

  “I counsel you, my lord, to prepare your way now. Speak closely and secretly with those who will support you. Exeter was rash, stupid. He deserved to fail. But if you—”