And that suddenly brightened her day considerably.
BOLINGBROKE WATCHED them go, then strode through the doorway into the Neville apartments. He completely ignored the small cries of shock from his wife’s ladies, still waiting at one end of the entrance chamber, and strode grim-faced into the birthing chamber.
No doubt this would give the palace something to gossip about for months to come.
The bedchamber had been cleared as much as possible: all chests, chairs and the one low table had been thrust against a far wall, and the bed pushed a little closer to the opposite wall. The window shutters were closed, and five oil lamps burned from wall sconces, bestowing a warm, golden aura on the room. A fire was roaring in the fireplace, and set on the hearthstones before it were two pails of water, a jug, a bowl and a pile of linens.
Three women—Margaret, Agnes and the statuesque blond figure of Elizabeth Ash-bourne—
stood just to one side of the bed.
Margaret was dressed in a linen shift which clung to her sweat-soaked body in great, wrinkled patches. Her face, staring at Bolingbroke, was flushed and running with sweat as well, with tendrils of hair that clung to forehead and cheeks.
It was also desperate.
“Hal?” she said. “Where is Tom? Has he not returned?”
He opened his mouth to reply, but stopped as Margaret writhed with a contraction.
“My lord,” said Agnes. ” Where is Thomas Neville?”
“He is gone to the gardens,” said Bolingbroke. “With my wife. He has decided it best if he does not—”
Margaret wailed, with misery rather than pain. “Where is he? Where? Oh, Jesu, Hal, I want Tom—”
“Mary has him,” Bolingbroke whispered. “Not you.”
And with that he turned on his heel and strode from the room.
“I DO thank you, Tom,” Mary said as they sat on a seat at the top of the lawn that swept down to the Thames. “But I do also regret that your consideration for me has kept you from your wife’s side.”
Their arms were still linked, and now Neville lifted her hand and held it in both of his. He felt profoundly grateful to her for providing him with the perfect excuse to defer his final judgment on Margaret and her kind to a day of his choosing, but at the same time he felt far more than mere gratitude. Mary was a wondrous woman in her own right, and had been as badly used by Bolingbroke in his ambitions as Neville had. “She has her ladies. I doubt she will miss me at all.”
“Were you truly going to attend the birth?”
“Aye. Margaret had asked me. But… I was having my doubts long before I came upon you in my apartments.”
“I so envy Margaret her children,” Mary whispered, and Neville looked at her.
“But you and Hal—”
Mary smiled, although her eyes were sad. “No need for pretense, Tom. I am ill. My womb is diseased and thus diseases me. I shall not be giving Hal the heir he needs.”
She nodded to where Westminster loomed across the Thames. “Look at it. That is Hal’s world, and Hal’s towering ambition. Not mine.”
“You are his wife,” Neville said gently. “The nation adores you.”
As if to give proof to his words, a horse dealer leading a string of thin yearlings along the river path looked up, saw Mary and Neville, and doffed his cap before waving it madly in the air.
“My Lady Queen!” he called, and the frenzy of his waving doubled.
Mary laughed with pure delight, lifting her free hand to wave back.
The horse dealer made an exaggerated bow, slapped his cap back on his head, and went on his way.
Mary looked at Neville with eyes gleaming with tears. “I do very truly thank you,” she said again, “for making me feel a wanted woman this fine day.”
Stunningly, tears pricked in the corners of Neville’s eyes as well. “You are most welcome, my lady,” he said, and lifted her hand yet again to his mouth.
The press of his lips on her hand lingered just a little longer than courtly politeness required.
She grinned. “My lord, would you have me believe that your only purpose in bringing me to these gardens was to find some privacy in which to ravish me?”
She was teasing, and Neville replied in like manner. “Ah! I have been discovered! And to think that I labored so long to engineer this time alone with you.”
Mary laughed, feeling much of the despondency of the past months lift. It felt wonderful just to sit and have this good-looking man enjoy her company… prefer her company to that of his wife’s.
“I feel so much better,” she announced, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed with a color that was not solely due to the sunlight.
In contrast to Mary, Neville’s face sobered as he watched her laugh. He found himself astounded and angry—again—in equal amounts. Astounded because now, as Margaret had so long ago, Neville realized what an astonishing woman Mary was; angry because Neville couldn’t believe Hal claimed to so love mankind he would lead them into a better (and Godless) world, but at the same time could ignore what was possibly his greatest asset—his wife.
“Hal does not deserve you,” he said, and his fingers clasped tightly about her hand.
MARGARET SCREAMED Tom’s name, but he did not come.
“It must be now,” Elizabeth Ashbourne cried, but Margaret swung her head violently from side to side.
“No! No! Tom needs to be here. We are ruined if he is not here.”
Agnes and Elizabeth shared a frightened glance.
“My lady,” Agnes said. “It will be now, or you will die. You must change. Now!”
Margaret shook her head again, but her two attendants could see her resolve weakening.
“Now,” said Agnes, and Margaret whimpered.
Then she tilted her head back against the pillows of the bed, arched her back in agony, and let out a strange, lilting cry, almost like the warbling of a songbird.
“Good girl,” said Elizabeth, and she and Agnes exchanged a look of utter relief.
Slowly, Margaret began to assume the form to which she had been born.
As she did so her pain eased, then vanished. But still she wept, crying out her husband’s name.
NEVILLE WAS still sitting with Mary on the bench overlooking the Thames when, two hours later, Agnes approached him.
She carried in her arms a tightly wrapped bundle.
“Your son,” she said, putting him gently into Neville’s arms.
The look she shot him was not so gentle.
“And Margaret?” Neville said.
“Well enough,” said Agnes.
Neville nodded. “Thank you, Agnes. You may leave us. Tell my lady wife I shall be with her shortly.”
Agnes took a deep breath, then stalked away.
“What a beautiful child,” Mary whispered, and Neville looked down at the baby.
He was beautiful, as beautiful as his mother, but with the Nevilles’ dark hair scattered in loose, damp curls over his head.
“A son,” Mary said, her eyes shining with joy for Neville and Margaret. “What shall you name him?”
Neville looked up at her, seeing not so much Mary’s face, but the suffering she’d been forced
to endure through Hal’s indifference. The choice was not difficult.
“Bohun,” he said. “For you.”
For an instant Mary did not react, then she lifted two trembling hands to her mouth, and stared at Neville.
He smiled at her, gently, then lifted the baby into her arms.
“TOM?” MARGARET opened her eyes and struggled into a sitting position.
“Hello, Margaret.” He sat down on a stool by the bed, their son in his arms.
“Why didn’t you come, Tom? Why?”
He looked up from the baby. “Mary needed me more than you—”
“Mary needed you? What right has Mary… ?” Margaret broke off, hating the strident shrillness of her tone. “What right has Mary to your time when your wife lay in childbed?” she finally finished more moderately.
He studied her, noting that apart from some faint lines of strain about her mouth and eyes she seemed well.
Not like most women who go through prolonged labor.
Well, she’d obviously lad an easier time with this birth than the last.
“When I arrived back at this palace this afternoon,” Neville said, “I had every intention of witnessing the birth of my son. But when I entered the outer chamber, and there saw my Lady Mary, suffering because she believed that you, like Hal, had now shut her out of your life, I felt her pain, and then I felt angered.
“You have your causes, Margaret, but sometimes I don’t think you care whom you hurt to achieve your ends. Mary has never deserved to be hurt, not in the way she has been by Hal, and today by you.”
Margaret began to weep silently as Neville spoke, and now she lifted a hand and brushed away her tears. “I had not thought of Mary,” she whispered. “Jesus Christ, forgive me.”