Arundel led them to the doorway of a small atrium in the southernmost part of the palace complex. Inside the atrium, three doors led, in turn, to the lesser hall, the Painted Chamber, and the complex of private apartments known collectively as the Queen’s Chambers.
Where, now, Richard had made his nest.
The atrium was cold and comfortless. Guards stood at each of the three doors; all stared with hard eyes at the newcomers.
Arundel walked over to the two guards standing by the door leading to the Queen’s Chambers.
“The Countess of Hereford and her lady companion wish an audience with the king.” Arundel grinned easily. “I can assure you they carry no weapons save for their feminine charms.”
Mary squared her shoulders and held the guards’ stare; a wan and tight-faced Margaret kept her eyes averted.
One of the guards disappeared, reappearing in a few moments.
“My ladies,” he said, and stood back so that they might pass through the door.
As Margaret followed Mary through she turned and sent Neville a look of such stark terror that he took a half-step forward, stopping awkwardly as Bolingbroke caught at his arm.
And on that look, the fate of the world turned.
THE DOOR closed behind them, and Neville was left staring at its blank, wooden face.
“Tom!” Bolingbroke whispered. “Tom!”
Neville took a deep breath and forced himself to turn away from the door.
It would he all right. Margaret would he safe. They would not he long.
Then the door which led to the Painted Chamber opened, and Sir Richard Sturry walked into the atrium.
“My lords!” he said, as if surprised. “Sweet Jesu smiles upon me indeed. His Grace has asked me to transfer back to the abbey some of the registers he has been studying, and I have been wringing my hands at the thought of finding someone—or four or five someones—to aid me in this endeavor.”
He beamed, and threw out his hands. “And here stand my Lords of Hereford and Arundel, and Lord Neville, complete with an able-bodied contingent of men-at-arms. My Lords, may I…”
Bolingbroke smiled. “My men are yours for the asking, Sturry. I cool my heels in this frigid chamber awaiting my sovereign’s pleasure, but there is no reason why they should suffer along with me. Take them if you will, that they may keep warm with some godly work.”
Sturry positively beamed. “This chamber is cold and heartless, is it not? Why not await Richard’s pleasure in the Painted Chamber? I am sure his men,” he half bowed at the sergeant-at-arms, “can fetch you from there if need arise.”
The sergeant opened his mouth to protest, but Arundel spoke first.
“I will vouch for my Lord of Hereford and Lord Neville,” he said. “There shall come no harm from their waiting in the Painted Chamber.”
The sergeant closed his mouth, thinking it over. Arundel and Sturry were trusted confidants of the king, and Arundel a privy councillor besides.
“Very well,” he said.
Bolingbroke thanked him politely, and motioned his men to follow as he joined Arundel and Sturry.
Neville fell in behind, but not after one more glance at the door through which Margaret had vanished.
“MY LADY of Hereford,” Richard said, rising from his chair before the fire. He had been drinking heavily, for his mouth was moist, and the wine cup he put on a table to one side wobbled alarmingly as his hand shook and almost dropped it to the floor.
Mary, Margaret a pace behind her, sank into a deep curtsey before Richard.
“And my Lady Neville,” said Robert de Vere from where he sat on the side of a heavily draped bed. “How fortuitous.”
“What do you here, Mary?” Richard asked, his eyes on Margaret as both women rose to their feet.
“Your grace,” Mary said, “I come to speak on behalf of my husband. If you have heard that he plans your destruction, then you have heard lies. No, pray allow me to speak my piece!”
Richard inclined his head, his eyes darting once more to Margaret.
“My Lord of Hereford is your true subject, your grace. His ambitions are only for your rise in glory and majesty. Please, your grace, my husband begs that he be allowed to sink to his knees before you and pledge again his loyalty and homage. He waits outside, in hope that you will acquiesce.”
Richard was silent, toying with a broad ribbon dangling from one of his sleeves. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, his eyes now intent on Mary.
“Please, your grace,” Mary said. “I beg you as a woman who wants only to see her husband reconciled with our sovereign. My Lord of Hereford will do anything to prove to you his loyalty.”
“Anything?” de Vere said, now rising from the bed and walking forward to join them.
Mary jerked her eyes to de Vere, then looked back to Richard.
“There is nothing he would deny you,” she said. “Nothing.”
Richard smiled. “Nothing?”
And from the expression on his face Mary suddenly realized that she and Margaret were in horrifying danger. There was no one in the room save for them and the two men. There was no aid, and no hope of aid, for the stone walls were thick, and the solid oak door tightly closed.
“Nothing?” Richard said again, this time spitting the word out with no attempt to conceal his malevolence.
Mary opened her mouth, but could not speak.
“Nothing?” Richard said, and seized her arm.
Mary gave a small shriek, but as Margaret stepped forward Richard twisted Mary’s arm, forcing her aside and almost to her knees.
“Nothing,” Richard said, and threw Mary completely to the floor as he grabbed hold of Margaret.
“No!” she cried, but it was too late.
STURRY LED them into the Painted Chamber and directly up to the dais.
“See!” he said to a somewhat harried-looking clerk. “I have found some men to help us.”
The clerk blinked at him.
“To help us move the chests his grace has indicated back to the abbey library,” Sturry said.
The clerk frowned. “I was not aware that—”
“Ah,” Sturry said. “I think you were not here when his grace spoke of this. My Lord of Arundel… when was it precisely?”
“Yesterday,” Arundel said to the clerk. “While you and your helpers were at Vespers service.”
“Oh.” The clerk shrugged, then sighed. “As if my life was not difficult enough already. Well, then, what needs to go?”
Sturry ummed and ahhed, moving along the trestle tables covered with chests and piles of documents and rolls of registers.
Once he had moved out of the clerk’s direct line of vision he raised inquiring eyebrows in Bolingbroke’s direction.
“Where?” Bolingbroke whispered to Neville.
Neville cast frantic eyes along the table closest to the edge of the dais. It was on this one, somewhere, but had Richard caused it to be moved … ?
No.’ No! There it was!
He nodded very slightly in its direction, and Sturry moved along and placed a hand on it, raising his eyebrows yet again.
Neville nodded.
Sweet Christ, he could hear it singing out to him—
“NO!” MARY struggled to her feet, so aghast at what was happening she had almost managed to convince herself that she was trapped in some nightmare, and that all she needed to do to stop this abomination was to wake up.
“No!” Mary said again, but Richard turned aside from Margaret for an instant and struck Mary a stinging blow to her face.
“If you interfere, you mewling child, then I shall ensure that all your husband kneels before is the executioner’s block!”
“Mary!” Margaret said, her voice full of her pain and fright. “Don’t—”
“Good girl,” de Vere said from behind her, and then both he and Richard had Margaret in their strong hands, and they hauled her over to the table.
“You’re wasted on that dour-faced friar you married,” Richard said, sweeping away the ewer and wine cups that stood on the table. “Wasted.”
He slammed her across the table’s surface, and then laughed as she cried out in fear.
“THIS ONE,” Sturry said, patting the top of the casket, “and… this”—he touched another directly beside it, then turned to the table immediately behind him—”and these three.”
“Good,” said Arundel, and clicked his fingers at the men-at-arms.
They came forward, and Neville tensed as one of the men lifted the casket—his casket—and walked down the steps to the floor of the chamber.
Neville hurried after him, unable to tear his eyes from the casket. Finally… finally …
“IT IS a good day,” Richard said in gasps between bouts of thrusting, “when I shall not only see Bolingbroke on his knees before me, but finally manage,” he paused, moaned, then resumed his dialogue with an effort, “to ride Neville’s beauteous wife.”
Margaret hardly heard his words. Her eyes were tightly closed, her hands balled into tight fists at her sides, and her body so rigid that her back was arched almost completely off the table. Her entire universe consisted only of Richard’s repugnant, agonizing rape; like Richard’s gasping, her breath rattled harshly in her throat, but for very different reasons from his.