The Crippled Angel Page 8

  “Do not tell me how to wage a war, Thorseby.”

  Thorseby closed his mouth, raising his eyebrows slightly as if a schoolmaster rebuking his wayward pupil.

  Hotspur picked up a letter that he’d been reading before Thorseby had come in. It was from his father, Northumberland, now back in his northern stronghold, and it contained many interesting statements and yet more interesting suggestions and promises. Hotspur’s father had grown somewhat tired of Bolingbroke, it seemed, especially since Bolingbroke had proved himself so willing to doubt Northumberland after Exeter’s attempted rebellion. A word here, a frown there, and so easily did allegiance shift. Hotspur pretended to peruse the letter for a few minutes, then he folded it carefully, and put it down again.

  “If any man wishes to challenge Bolingbroke,” he said, “he will need more than swords behind him.”

  Thorseby smiled, small and cold. “I am a powerful man in my own right,” he said. “The Dominican family will stand behind you. Already my friars have been whispering, preparing the way for God’s will as expressed through you.”

  Thorseby’s Dominican ‘family’? More like a murderous flock of black crows, thought Hotspur, and shivered slightly at the thought of the great winged beasts swooping down on him through the cold, grey mists.

  “If God sends me a sign,” Hotspur said, “then I will move. Until then, I merely watch.”

  “And plan.”

  Hotspur hesitated, but only slightly. “And plan. Begone, Thorseby, for I think to warm this chamber with your absence.”

  PART TWO

  The Dog of Pestilence

  Lady Mary stood all skin and bone,

  Sure such a lady was never known:

  This lady went to church one day,

  She went to church for all to pray.

  And when she came to the church stile,

  She sat to rest a little while.

  When she came to the church-yard,

  There the bells so loud she heard.

  When she came to the church door,

  She stopt to rest a little more;

  When she came the church within,

  The parson pray’d ‘gainst pride and sin.

  On looking up, on looking down,

  She saw a dead man on the ground;

  And from his nose unto his chin,

  The worms crawl’d out, the worms crawl’d in.

  Then she unto the parson said,

  Shall I be so when I am dead?

  Oh yes! oh yes! the parson said,

  You will be so when you are dead.

  Traditional English nursery rhyme

  I

  Tuesday 21st May 1381

  —i—

  The nave of St Paul’s in London was crowded with people but, strangely, nevertheless completely hushed. Many had queued patiently in the courtyard since many hours before dawn, hoping to be among the first admitted inside.

  To see.

  Two days ago King Richard’s corpse had arrived in London from Pontefract Castle in West Yorkshire. One hundred men-at-arms had accompanied the coffin on its black-draped bier, protecting it from the curious, subdued, close-pressed crowds. Behind the men-at-arms came nineteen hessian-wrapped and ash-painted professional mourners, one for each year of Richard’s life. They had accompanied the corpse to St Paul’s where six of the men-at-arms had carried it inside, the cathedral’s doors closing promptly behind them.

  The dean and his monks had spent two days preparing both display and corpse. That amount of time had set tongues a-wagging all the faster. Why did they need so long? Was it proving hard to stitch up the dagger holes? Or to smooth his poison-ravaged face with flesh-coloured wax?

  But now St Paul’s and Richard’s remains were thrown open to the inspection of the curious, and the Londoners had flocked to the occasion in their thousands.

  Richard lay in an open, solid oaken coffin, its joints well sealed with wax and other substances, set on its bier before the altar. Candles and incense surrounded the bier save for a space directly before the coffin where a single person could step close for a quick viewing.

  To one side stood an ever-changing guard of several priests and friars, there to ensure that the individual’s viewing was only quick, and that he or she did not attempt to snatch a lock of the dead king’s hair, or a scraping from under his fingernails to sell at a local relic market.

  Dick Whittington stood in line with everyone else, and was as curious as everyone else. Whittington was no fool, and had understood very well that Bolingbroke could not have allowed the former king to survive as a lodestone for every disaffected person in the kingdom. Nevertheless, he thought, it was a shame that Bolingbroke couldn’t have arranged for Richard to fall off a horse in front of a score of impartial witnesses, or arrange his drowning in a swollen river as Richard and his party were attempting to cross. The rumours sweeping London ever since news of Richard’s death had ranged from the bizarre to the almost certainly correct: Lancaster’s ghost had so terrified Richard one dark night he had fallen down dead (or Lancaster’s ghost had set fire to Richard, or flayed him, or torn off his genitals and eaten them, leaving Richard to bleed to death); a band of Scottish soldiers had infiltrated Pontefract Castle in an attempt to kidnap Richard and make him their king, but had mistaken Richard for a guard, killed him, and then kidnapped the guard and installed him on the Scottish throne; Richard had choked to death on a frog which had taken up residence in the damp castle; Richard had pined to death over his lover, Robert de Vere; Bolingbroke had sent a band of assassins to Pontefract to murder Richard by means most foul.

  Worse were the rumours that Richard was not dead at all, and that news of his death was only an official attempt to disguise the truth—that Richard had escaped Pontefract and was even now riding on London with an avenging army of tens of thousands behind him.

  God had anointed Richard, therefore would God allow Richard to be so destroyed? And if Richard were truly murdered, would God allow his murder to go unpunished?

  The truth, Whittington thought, as he slowly shuffled forward a few places in the queue, was that the Londoners, as many other among the English, were starting to feel a trifle guilty about their role in Richard’s downfall. They had abandoned Richard with an indecent haste, supporting “fair Prince Hal’s” counterclaim to the throne. While Richard had been festering in Pontefract, awaiting his murder, they’d been crowding about Westminster Abbey, shouting Bolingbroke’s name as if it were a charm against evil.

  Now they were here in their droves, impelled not only by curiosity but by guilt.

  Starting to get impatient, and finding that his joints ached greatly in the chill damp of the cathedral’s nave, Whittington craned his head, trying to see how much longer he might have to wait. The queue appeared to stretch for some thirty or forty persons before him, but the priests standing about the coffin were making sure that people were moving briskly, and not loitering too long over Richard’s open casket.

  No one showed any signs of wanting to loiter, however. Perhaps, Whittington surmised, the stench was putting off even the most guilty or ardent of viewers.

  Loiter they might not, but Whittington noticed that every man and woman who turned aside from the coffin had pale faces as they crossed themselves, halting briefly for the blessings of the priest. And they were quiet as they walked away, not pausing to whisper or gossip.

  Some drew their wraps tighter about themselves, and looked nervously over their shoulders with darting eyes.

  All left the cathedral as quickly as they could.

  Whittington’s curiosity grew, and he fidgeted impatiently.

  The queue ahead of him was moving very quickly now. Perhaps only some four or five stood between Whittington and his turn at a viewing, and Whittington’s head craned all the more. He could see a little into the open coffin over the shoulders before him—there was a heavy drape of a richly embroidered material over most of Richard’s body. Whittington could see a pale blur of a face, and it
appeared that Richard’s skeletal arms and hands were crossed over his chest, clutching a gold crucifix.

  He shivered suddenly, feeling as if a winter frost had dug deep into his bones.

  The people ahead of him visibly shivered, too, and hurried the faster, bending only briefly over the coffin.

  Then, finally, it was Dick Whittington’s turn, and he stepped forward. A priest murmured in his ear, “Hurry! Hurry!”, and the stench of hot incense and cold decaying flesh assaulted his nostrils, making his stomach roil.

  He stepped up to the coffin, and peered in.

  Richard’s remains were horrible to behold. His flesh had shrunk close to his bones, his skull was sparsely dotted with a few clumps of dry hair, his eyelids had gummed closed over sunken eyeballs. His nose was a thin ridge only barely covered with the remnants of flesh—in one spot cartilage had poked its way free.

  His desiccated lips were frozen into a horrible rictus, showing yellowed, slimy teeth. Behind them loomed something huge and horrid—his swollen, blackened tongue.

  Whittington tore his eyes away from Richard’s face and looked to where his skeletal hands clutched a crucifix. The fingers were clasped so tightly about the cross that in places the flesh of Richard’s hands had rotted into the chain, and then reformed about it; the crucifix had become part of Richard’s flesh.

  “Move on!” came the whisper from a close attendant priest, and Whittington looked one last time at Richard’s face…

  …and screeched in terror. Richard’s eyes had opened, revealing black, glistening orbs. They rolled in Whittington’s direction, and, as the Lord Mayor stared, horrified, the dead king’s lips moved: Murderer! Murderer!

  Whittington tried to move, but couldn’t. Richard’s eyes held him locked in place.

  Murderer! Murderer!

  There was a clink, and Whittington realised that Richard’s finger bones had clicked as his hands moved about the crucifix.

  Whittington, Whittington, what do you think? Shall I rise from my grave to my throne again?

  Whittington’s face contorted, and he physically wrenched himself away from Richard’s rolling eyes. He stumbled back, almost falling, then turned about, his breath coming in great, gasping gulps.

  He realised no one was looking at him—Why? Why? Had no one seen what he had? Had no one wondered at his strange reaction?—then realised that everyone was staring at a richly cloaked and garbed man walking slowly up the clear space of the centre of the nave.

  Gold glinted about his brow.

  Bolingbroke.

  Whittington stumbled further away from the coffin, staring at Bolingbroke.

  Bolingbroke had no eyes for anything but the coffin. He strode forth slowly but purposefully, his eyes fixed on the bier and what lay on it.

  Don’t go near it! Whittington’s mind screamed. Don’t go near—

  “Sire!” he gasped as Bolingbroke approached. “Sire!”

  Bolingbroke ignored him. His steps quickened, the heels of his boots ringing across the flagstones, the hem of his cloak fluttering out behind him.

  Every eye in the cathedral followed Bolingbroke up to the coffin, to this meeting of kings.

  Bolingbroke stepped up to the bier, put his hands firmly on the edge of the coffin, and peered inside.

  The only indication of what he saw within was a very faint tightening of the muscles along his jaw line.

  Whittington could feel the corpse roiling about within, feel the hate and injustice and vengeance reaching up to seize Bolingbroke by the throat. He wanted to rush to Bolingbroke’s side and tear him away, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t so much as twitch a muscle.

  This was between Bolingbroke and Richard alone.

  Something spattered on the stones beneath the bier, and Whittington’s eyes looked down, as did everyone else’s in the cathedral save Bolingbroke’s, who kept his eyes firmly on whatever was happening within the coffin.

  Fat drops of thick, black blood oozed from the joints of the coffin, soaked into the material covering the bier, then dripped onto the flagstones where it pooled in a mess of foulness.

  The entire cathedral took a great breath of mixed fear and awe.

  The corpse bled in the presence of its murderer.

  Bolingbroke’s face twisted, and he lifted his hands and stepped away from the coffin.

  He looked to the priests standing frozen to one side. “Take this coffin and its contents and burn it,” he said. “Richard was ever adept at fouling up the realm.”

  He started to say something else, to address the crowds present, but as he opened his mouth, a low, vicious growl interrupted him.

  Everyone’s eyes, now including Bolingbroke’s, swept to the open doors of the cathedral, from where the sound emanated.

  There stood a hound of such vast size that most instantly assumed it was of a supernatural origin.

  Richard’s soul, perhaps, come to exact its vengeance.

  The hound stalked forward, its legs stiff with fury, its hair raised along its shoulders and spine. It was entirely black, its body covered with weeping sores. Its head it kept low, its yellow, unblinking eyes fixed on Bolingbroke, fetid strings of foam dripping to the floor from its snarling snout.

  Bolingbroke moved his cloak slightly away from the sword he wore at his hip, but made no other movement.

  The hound’s snarling increased both in volume and in viciousness. As it progressed up the centre of the nave, the very path Bolingbroke had just walked, the hound lowered its body until its belly almost scraped the flagstones, creeping now, rather than stalking.

  Its eyes shifted slightly from Bolingbroke to the coffin behind him.

  Bolingbroke stepped to one side.

  All down the nave, as the hound crept past, people shrank back, making both the sign of the cross and the sign against evil. Many clutched charms, some whispered hasty prayers, all wished they had chosen some other time to view Richard’s corpse.

  The hound was now close to Bolingbroke.

  The king took another step away. The hound ignored his movement. Its attention was all on the coffin, and on the spreading pool of black, clotting blood beneath it.

  Slowly, slowly it crept closer, growling all the while, until its head was under the bier.

  Then, suddenly, it lowered itself completely to the floor, gave a small yelp, and lapped at the blood.

  As it did so, the sores that covered its body swelled and then burst, scattering great gouts of pus over the floor.

  Someone in the crowd screamed: “It is the black Dog of Pestilence!” There was a shocked silence, then someone else screamed, formlessly, terrified, and suddenly there was panic as people stampeded for the doors.

  The Dog continued to lick at the pool of blood, and its sores continued to swell and burst.

  Whittington forced himself forward, and grasped Bolingbroke’s arm.

  “Sire. We must away. Get away from the Dog!”

  “It is already too late,” Bolingbroke said softly, and Whittington was not surprised to see tears rolling down his cheeks. “Too late.”

  He turned and looked Whittington directly in the face. “The pestilence has returned. Sweet Jesus Christ help us all.”

  Then he pulled away from Whittington’s grip and walked down the nave and out the doors.

  The Dog of Pestilence continued to lap.

  II

  Tuesday 21st May 1381

  —ii—

  Margery Harwood lived with her husband William and their three children in a comfortable house on Ironmonger Lane off Bishopsgate Street. Margery was proud of her house—she spent an inordinate amount of time polishing, sweeping, washing and straightening—but her pride in her house formed only one part of her general satisfaction with life. She and William had emigrated to London when they were just married, and Margery pregnant with her first child. They’d come from a small village just east of Gravesend, where there was little prospect for an ironworker of William’s calibre. So to London they had come, and if
the first years establishing William’s business were hard, then all the effort had been worthwhile. Now Margery was in charge of a house of ten rooms, a pantry, cellar and wine store that was stocked with far more goods than those of her neighbours, and three servants and a cook. William not only had a thriving business, but he also had five apprentices, as well as two guildsmen, working under him. Margery and William’s children—three sons, praise be to God!—were healthy, and well ahead of their classmates at the guild school in learning their sums and letters. Their future was assured. Life was good.

  Margery was in the kitchen at five of the clock that afternoon when everything fell apart. She’d been busy all day, supervising her servants as they cleaned out the cellar in preparation for the crates of spring-fresh vegetables that would soon fill it, consulting with the cook about that evening’s fare, and then helping her to strip the eels and baste the vegetables for William’s favourite pie, and thus Margery had enjoyed no free time at all in which to stand in her doorway and gossip with the neighbours.

  She had no idea of what had happened at St Paul’s that day, and, by virtue of the fact that her home was tucked right at the end of Ironmonger Lane, a reasonable distance from Bishopsgate Street which was itself on the far side of London from St Paul’s, she’d heard none of the fuss that had carried up and down most of the city’s main thoroughfares. Both William and her sons had yet to come home, and in any case, Margery wasn’t expecting them for another hour or so.

  So when the scraping at the kitchen door came, Margery merely muttered her displeasure at the interruption, told the cook and the kitchen girl that she’d see what was about outside, wiped her hands on her apron, and walked to the door that opened into the kitchen courtyard.