She whimpered, and recoiled so violently she would have fallen had not Mary had her in firm
hands.
As the women left the room Neville walked back to where Bolingbroke still stood staring at Richard.
Neville gave Richard a half-bow, his face twisted with hatred. “On this earth,” he said to Richard, “you are my monarch, and you control the fate of my earthly body, as that of my wife’s. But there is another life waiting, and in that one you will burn for an eternity for the suffering you have caused here this day.”
For the first time Richard allowed a small measure of discomposure to filter across his face.
Bolingbroke spoke, quiet and full of menace, “I have heard, Richard, that the gates of hell have lain open for many a year, and that Satan’s imps now crowd the face of this earth.
Beware they do not reach out and snatch you before your time is due,”
And with that he was gone, Neville at his shoulder.
WHEN THEY stepped outside, and the doors were closed behind them, Neville turned to Bolingbroke.
“Why threaten Richard with the armies of hell,” he said, “when he commands them?”
But Bolingbroke only shot Neville an unreadable look, and did not answer, and both men turned to where Mary had Margaret huddled against a wall and escorted them back to the pier where Arundel was pacing up and down with worry.
Margaret clung to Mary the entire way, stumbling occasionally as she wept silently, and she would not let either Neville or Bolingbroke touch her.
CHAPTER IV
After Nones, the Vigil of the Feast of St. Francis
In the first year of the reign of Richard II
(afternoon Monday 3rd October 1379)
— III —
CLOUDS HAD SCUDDED in over London and Westminster in the hour they’d been in the palace, and now the sky was heavy and ominous. Mary, murmuring nonsense words in a repetitive, soothing monotone, encouraged a stiff and unresponsive Margaret to take the step from pier into barge, and then the few extra steps to a bench. Once there, Mary snatched at a spare cloak draped over the bench and draped it about Margaret, pulling a heavy fold of the material over the woman’s face.
Then Mary wrapped her arms about Margaret and held her close, never ceasing her soothing murmurs.
Neville jumped into the barge after them. He hesitated, staring at Mary and Margaret, then wrenched his head to look along the barge.
There!
The casket lay half concealed under one of the benches, and Neville sat down above it. He leaned down, touched it as if to reassure himself, then glanced back to Margaret.
It was worth it. It was. Margaret would heal. After all, surely women were aware that sometimes their fleshly enticements would tempt men too far and that they must pay the price for their beauty “Oh, sweet Jesu,” Neville whispered, and rubbed a shaking hand over his face, disgusted at his attempts to justify away what Richard had done to Margaret. What he had allowed Richard to do to Margaret. “Sweet Jesu!” he whispered. “Sweet Jesu, sweet Jesu, sweet Jesu…”
He jerked one of his feet back against the casket, but this time contact with the casket imparted no reassurance, no easy remedy for the guilt that threatened to overwhelm him.
Surely there could have been another way to get the casket?
No. No, there hadn’t. This had been the only way, and the prize—man’s salvation from the armies of evil threatening to inundate Christendom—was worth one woman’s pain. It was . . .
it was . . . it was . . .
“It was,” he whispered. “It was … oh sweet Jesu, surely it was!”
Wasn’t it?
BOLINGBROKE HAD remained on the pier for a brief word with Arundel.
“My friend,” Bolingbroke said, grasping Arundel’s arm, “I do thank you. You and Slurry have surely proved your loyalty here today.”
Arundel nodded. “I must get back.”
“Aye. Arundel… take care of what lurks in the shadows. I cannot think what Richard will do once he discovers that casket is gone.”
“And you also. You are not staying long in the Savoy?”
“We leave in the morning. Sooner, if danger looms.”
They stared at each other, a silent reinforcing of their new bonds, then Arundel turned abruptly away and strode back along the pier toward the water gate.
After a moment Bolingbroke jumped down into the barge and spoke quick orders to the bargemen who picked up their poles and pushed the barge away from the pier.
Bolingbroke walked over to where Tom sat, ignoring the angry look Mary sent him.
“Well?” he said.
Neville took a deep breath, trying to will himself to believe that once he opened the casket and discovered its secrets his guilt would subside and Margaret would prove herself happy to have been of such service in heaven’s quest, then reached down and hauled the casket from under the bench.
It was not overly heavy, and slid easily enough.
Bolingbroke sat down on the bench and looked at the casket that stood between himself and Neville.
“It looks so innocent to hold such secrets, and such power,” he said.
“Aye,” Neville said. He reached down a hand, shocked to find it trembling, and placed it quickly on the rounded lid of the casket before Bolingbroke should notice.
Why did he not feel more joy, more sense of accomplishment and purpose now that he had the casket in “is possession?
He studied it carefully, focusing all his attention on it.
Why did not the angels sing?
Mary’s soft, soothing murmuring was driving Neville to distraction …
The casket… the casket…
As Bolingbroke had said, it seemed innocuous enough. Made of what appeared to be well-mellowed elm wood and banded with brass, it would have been unremarkable save for what Neville knew it contained.
The secrets of the angels. Truth.
The means to drive every demon scampering about Christendom back into hell.
Bolingbroke laid his own hand over Neville’s.
“We’ll open it in the Savoy,” he said. “It is too dangerous here.”
Neville nodded, and spent the rest of the barge voyage concentrating on the casket in a useless attempt to keep Margaret’s misery pushed to the back of his thoughts.
THEY DISEMBARKED quietly enough at the Savoy’s water pier, but Katherine, Lancaster’s wife, was in the herb garden to one side of the palace’s courtyard when they passed through the gate in the Savoy’s riverside wall.
Katherine, abused in her first marriage to Hugh Swynford, knew abuse in others the instant she saw it.
“Get my Lord of Lancaster!” she hissed to her husband’s chamberlain who had been conferring with her on some household matters. “Now!”
As the chamberlain ran off, Katherine hurried over to Mary and Margaret. She took one look under the flap of material that still covered Margaret’s face, then locked eyes with Mary.
“Richard,” Mary said, “and de Vere.”
Katherine’s face lost all its beautiful color—even her extraordinary burnished hair seemed suddenly to dull.
Very slowly she turned her eyes to where Bolingbroke and Neville, the casket carried between them, stood a pace or so behind the women.
There was nothing gentle in that look.
Footsteps sounded behind her, and Lancaster, with Raby and Gloucester at his side, emerged at a run from the outer door of the Savoy. Courtenay ran a few steps behind them.
Suddenly Neville’s world collapsed around him.
No! Not Raby! What would his uncle say seeing Margaret so ravaged?
Raby would never have done this to Margaret.
And Gloucester? What would he say?
Excuses tumbled through Neville’s mind, and he desperately grasped at every one of them, only to discard them in turn, knowing that in a very few moments his self-righteous preaching to Gloucester on the occasion of his duchess’ death was going to be thrown back into his face with a furious, condemning force.
Katherine turned to her husband. “Richard, and de Vere,” she said, and, as with Mary’s simple words to her, so hers needed to further explanation. Then she turned to Courtenay, and asked him quietly to leave. “Your mistress will be well,” she whispered, “but this moment is not for you.”
Courtenay looked between Katherine and Margaret, then saw Mary mouth the words, go, please. He bowed stiffly, and walked away, his face a mask of misery.
Lancaster, Raby and Gloucester looked at Margaret as they waited for Courtenay to disappear, and then, as Katherine had, slowly turned stony eyes to Bolingbroke and Neville.
“Whatever excuse you have can never be enough—” Lancaster began.
“Father. We have the casket!”
Lancaster’s stare, if possible, hardened into an even deeper fury, but for the moment he kept his rage unspoken, turning to speak quietly to Katherine and Mary. “Take her inside. Now.”
Katherine nodded, and she and Mary guided Margaret toward the doorway across the courtyard.
Lancaster waited until he could no longer hear their footsteps.