“In those hours that you spent giving birth,” Neville said, looking down and smiling a little at the wrinkled, pink face of his sleeping son, “I talked long and gently with Mary. She spoke to me of Hal… and of Hal’s love for Catherine.”
“Tom—”
“Nay, do not speak. I have had enough of your and Hal’s words these past weeks. Mary spoke to me of how she hoped that, once she had died, Hal would find a wife who could be what he needed. A powerful, brilliant queen to match his splendor.
“And I began to think, my love, how convenient it would be for Hal if Mary died. Think of it, a brief, loveless but enormously enriching marriage that would, remarkably, be over in time for Hal to marry his true love … if Philip ever lets her go.”
“Tom, I know what you must—”
“And think what this new, powerful and brilliant wife would bring as her dowry, Margaret. Why, France!”
“Tom, stop it!”
“No! No! I will not ‘stop it.’ As I wiped away Mary’s tears, and made her laugh, I began to really think about all that has happened, Margaret, and I realized what a string of convenient deaths there have been in the past two years!”
“Oh, sweet Jesu… no!” Margaret whispered.
“Edward our king. His son, the Black Prince. Gloucester. Lancaster, curse it! And, soon, Richard. Everyone who has stood between Hal and the cursed throne has died before their time, Margaret.”
He paused, glaring at her with eyes brilliant with pain. “What hand have you had in that?
Mat?”
Margaret lay back against the pillows and closed her eyes.
“What?” Neville hissed once more.
“Lancaster was none of Hal’s doing,” Margaret said, looking at him once more. “Hal loved Lancaster. He would not have killed him.” She paused. “I am sure of it.”
“But the others?”
“Hal,” she whispered. “Not me.” She touched her smooth belly. “I contain that which generates, not destroys.”
“By Christ, woman,” he whispered. “Did not Hal love the Black Prince as well?”
She did not, could not, speak.
“Hal wants me to murder Richard,” Neville said after a long silence. “But I will not do it. Not now. Not even to revenge you, Margaret. In his own way, Richard has been raped as well.”
She nodded, accepting it. Somewhere deep inside her a great dark cave had opened up, and she felt that at any moment now she would fall headlong into it and be smashed to death within its craggy depths.
“I have no doubt that Hal will find someone else soon enough to do the ghastly deed But it will not be me.”
Neville sighed, and stood, and half turned toward the door, and Margaret knew that she had lost him completely.
He would take Rosalind, and the baby, and walk away from her, and then she would die, for there would be nothing left of life but this great, dark, yawning chasm …
But after hesitating a long moment, Neville turned back and sat on the bed, close to Margaret.
He lifted the baby into the crook of her arm.
“Margaret,” he said, “I do love you, but for that which is to come I need you to be my wife, not Hal’s sister. Do you understand what I am asking of you?”
She stared at him, not believing he was offering her this chance.
“Well?” he said softly.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Do you love me?”
“Yes.”
“Then that is all that matters,” he said, and touched her cheek with his fingers. He dropped his eyes to the baby in her arm.
“See the beautiful son we have made between us,” he said, and suddenly she was weeping in great, gulping sobs, and Neville leaned forward, and gathered Margaret and their son into his arms.
CHAPTER IV
Saturday 29th September 1380
MICHAELMAS
WESTMINSTER WAS CROWNED in light, and it seemed to Neville that England might never see a winter again. Leaves drifted from trees, and the waters of the Thames lapped cold and gray against the piers and piles of the shoreline, but the surrounds of the abbey and palace were bathed in sunshine and warmth and never-ending happiness.
The abbey forecourt was crowded with tens of thousands of cheering people, come to witness the enthronement of their beloved fair Prince Hal. Neville stood at the top of the steps at the abbey and stared down at the streamer-waving crowd, brilliant with merriment as the sunlight glinted from bright eyes and glanced off flushed cheeks. Neville was more than a little scratchy-eyed and irritable, for he’d had almost no sleep the past night, having stood and witnessed as a crabbed-faced Richard had been quietly removed from the Tower at midnight to commence his journey to Pontefract Castle.
Then, when he’d returned to the apartments he shared with his growing family, he’d sat for hours in the gloom, watching Margaret as she slept, Bohun sleeping cradled in his arms.
He’d looked down at his son from time to time, wondering what kind of a future he would bequeath him.
What choice would he make? Margaret, or mankind’s salvation?
But what if Margaret, and her and Hal’s cause, was mankind’s salvation.
Earlier this morning, having shared a brief breakfast with Margaret, Neville had escorted Mary and her ladies to the abbey precinct so that she could take her place with her husband. Mary had been so happy—chattering about Bohun—that she had made Neville smile too. She was also, somewhat surprisingly to Neville, excited about the day’s events. Today she would see her husband crowned King of England, and she would become his consort, his queen. As had the horse dealer two days ago, so this morning many people had laughed and waved to Mary as they’d made their way through Westminster, shouting her name with unfeigned joy.
Mary had looked the best she had for a long time, full of life and laughter and goodwill. When Neville had asked after her health, she’d told him quietly that the pain and gripes that had
plagued her belly for the past weeks had all but abated.
She turned momentarily from the waving crowds and smiled at him. “It was your care and laughter that chased away my cramps and aches, Tom. You gave me the gift of joy.” And then something in the crowd distracted her. “Oh! See? That woman has painted her face completely golden.”
And Neville could do nothing but smile at her happiness … and hope that Boling-broke did nothing to destroy it.
To Neville’s relief, even Bolingbroke had gone out of his way to make Mary smile. When Neville had escorted Mary into the chambers where Bolingbroke was being robed ready for the ceremony, Bolingbroke had greeted her kindly, and had made her laugh with a small jest.
Then Bolingbroke, Mary and Neville had talked a while about Margaret and the child.
Bolingbroke had sent Neville a few unreadable looks through the exchange, and Neville had delighted in the fact that Bolingbroke was no longer sure of him. In refusing to accede to Bolingbroke’s wishes to witness the birth of his son, Neville had taken a firmer grip on his eventual freedom of choice. They had tricked him into admitting his love for Margaret, but he would still choose freely.
Now he took a deep breath, flexing his shoulders and neck to relieve their stiffness, then looked into the cloudless sky, wondering if God and His angels were crowded above, looking down.
Neville had no idea what the future held. All he knew was that there would be trials ahead, forks in the path that he could not yet anticipate, much less prepare for… and that somewhere in his future rested that final decision on which the fate of the world would twist and turn.
Choose one way and God would triumph, choose another and the world would become a godless place …
Choose hate, or choose love?
Whatever else, Neville thought, it will never be that simple.
“My lord?”
Courtenay. Neville roused himself from his reverie, and looked about.
Courtenay was walking over to him from where he had been standing with a group of officials.
“My lord, they are calling us into the abbey. We must go.”
Neville nodded, then looked about, delaying yet one more moment.
Delaying just that one more moment the enthronement of the Demon-King.
But then Neville saw that Raby was beckoning urgently to them from the doorway, and there were signs that the formal procession from the abbot’s quarters into the abbey was about to begin.
Neville sighed, smiled at Courtenay, and walked into the abbey.
HE DID not see the black-robed Dominican standing five or six deep back in the crowd, staring with bleak-eyed animosity at Neville’s disappearing back, nor did he realize that the obsessive hatred that Thorseby nurtured in his heart for him would shortly help to envelop the realm in civil war.
None of this did Neville see or know, because he had thoughts only for Hal, and his own role in the battles ahead.