“Can you feel them?” she whispered, then abruptly lifted his hand and placed it over his own heart. “Can you feel them in there?”
“Margaret—” His voice choked, and he began again. “Margaret, they will pay.
Dearly.”
“That will not take away the hurt, beloved.”
“It was necessary—”
“You are growing more and more into an image of your father, Hal! I wonder how you can bear it!”
“Lancaster is—”
“I am not speaking of Lancaster. I am speaking of your father, that beast who put you inside Blanche’s belly.”
“You go too far!”
“And you went too far today, Hal. I was hurt, and so was Mary. Have you spoken to her yet, Hal? Have you offered your wife an explanation for what happened?”
“Mary…” Bolingbroke said as if he had only just remembered her.
“Mary was there, Hal, and my rape has scarred her as it has me. And yet she put aside her own horror in order to soothe me. Hal, your wife cannot be ignored. She is a great woman, and it is a shame that you have so corrupted her in taking her to be your wife. Whatever you plan for her, Hal, I will not be a part of it. Not after today.”
CHAPTER VII
Matins, the Feast of St. Francis
In the first year of the reign of Richard II
(early morning Tuesday 4th October 1379)
THE CHAPEL WAS COLD and still, and Neville’s breath frosted around his bowed head.
He was on his knees before the altar, hands clasped tightly before him, eyes clamped tightly shut, shoulders and back stiff. Every so often a soft moan escaped his lips, followed by hurried, desperate, whispered prayers that, after a few minutes, stuttered into silence.
Neville was trying with every fiber of his being to hate, to loathe, and to despise Richard… but all he could do was to hate, to loathe and to despise himself.
All he could see behind his closed eyelids were the faces of Lancaster, Raby and Gloucester.
Sometimes, horrifically, Neville thought he could see the shadowy forms of Richard and de Vere taking frantic turns at Margaret’s body.
And somewhere, he knew, that casket lay waiting, hiding … laughing.
His hands clenched by his side, and he thought he must scream, if only to shatter the accusing silence of the chapel.
You did what you thought was right. I cannot ask any more of you.
Neville sprang to his feet, stumbling as his stiff muscles cramped, and turned around.
There, that soft glowing light, and the form of the archangel St. Michael, holding out his hands
as if in comfort.
“Is that supposed to console me?” he said. “Is it?”
You must be strong, Thomas. You cannot know the twistings that evil will place before you—
“I sent my wife to be raped … for nothing! For nothing!”
She means nothing! She served her purpose—is it your fault that you seized the wrong casket? At least you tried. You did the right thing.
“Then why am I so consumed with self-loathing if what I did was right?”
Thomas, you must beware of the temptations put in your way—
“Using my wife to secure the casket was a temptation! And look what it got me— nothing!”
Neville’s voice dropped to a whisper. “And look what it got her.”
Thomas—
Neville sank to his knees before the archangel, holding out his hands as if in supplication. “Is this why you chose me?” he said, and then Margaret’s words tumbled out of his mouth.
“Because I am cold enough to cast even the most innocent into the flames for God’s great cause?”
God’s cause must come first. You know that. Thomas, the casket still waits. You must not doubt now—
Neville’s face distorted in frightful agony. “Get away from me. Get away from me!”
Thomas—
“I am a man, angel. A man! I cannot sit apart and watch the suffering my actions have caused and blink as if such suffering means nothing. Get you gone from me, angel. Go!”
You are a man, Thomas? Ah, beloved, how you have misunderstood—
“Get you gone from me. Go!”
Neville did not wait for the archangel to respond. He lurched to his feet, sent the archangel one last, desperate, angry look, then ran from the chapel.
Michael had gone long before the door slammed behind Neville.
LATER THAT day, the Lancastrian household, including Raby and his wife Joan, and Bolingbroke and his household, departed for Kenilworth in Warwickshire. Gloucester would stay a while longer in London before traveling to Kenilworth via his own estates.
At dawn, Bolingbroke had sent the useless, and now somewhat broken, casket and its contents with two men back to Arundel, so that he might replace it in Westminster.
RICHARD, IF he’d even known of the casket’s brief loss, subsequently made no move against any of the men he might have suspected to be involved in its disappearance. It was, after all, a most useless casket.
CHAPTER VIII
The Feast of the Translation of St. Edward the Confessor
In the first year of the reign of Richard II
(Thursday 13th October 1379)
AS RUMOR OF Joan and of a possible resurgence of French pride continued to spread among the north and central regions of France, and as the heat and haste of the summer harvest season passed, men in their ones and twos, their tens and twenties, and in their hundreds, quietly laid down their hoes and rakes and picked up swords and pikes. They traveled until the gorge and walls of la Roche-Guyon rose before them, and there they pledged their loyalty to Charles and to his cause. Many of those nobles, and their retainers, who had not been murdered in the mud of Poitiers also came: some because they believed the rumors that Joan spoke with the voice of God; some, like Philip the Bad, came because they believed they could wrest some advantage from the situation.
If there was one thing all had in common, it was their determination to see the English hounded out of their beloved country once and for all.
Men and their weapons were not the only arrivals. The Avignonese pope, Clement VII, sent a deputation headed by the Archbishop of Rheims, Regnault de Chartres. This talk of holy virgins was all very well, but Clement thought it more likely this peasant girl was a witch intent on seducing the Dauphin for her own ends.
The pope in Rome, Urban VI, thought the rumors laughable, and merely called for more wine whenever the silly girl’s name was mentioned. If Charles wanted to surround himself with delusional peasant girls then that was his business.
Others, hearing the tales of Joan, merely sat back and watched carefully, waiting for the opportunity they knew welled out of every religious ecstatic movement.
CATHERINE STOOD at the parapets of the castle of la Roche-Guyon, looking at the camp that stretched for almost a mile down the gorge. So many men had now flocked to the Dauphin’s cause that the castle could not possibly contain them within its walls.
There was a step behind her, and Catherine turned and smiled. “Philip.”
He joined her at the parapets, and together they looked at the encampment.
“With such an army,” Philip said, “a man could conquer the earth.”
“It is not so great,” Catherine said. “Only some seven or eight thousand men. John had far more at Poitiers.”
Philip turned from the view and looked at her. “But John does not have what Charles does—
the holy maid, Joan. Her presence alone is worth twenty thousand.”
“Do you truly believe what she says, Philip? Do you worship her as a saint, or view her as an instrument of whoever has the strength to wield her?”
Philip was not sure quite what to make of Joan. The girl had an unmistakable aura of saintliness about her… but was that as a result of delusion, or of the hand of God?
“Do you truly believe Joan,” Catherine said softly, watching Philip’s face carefully, “when she says that God has chosen Charles in this battle?”
Still Philip did not reply. If he was not sure what to make of Joan, then he was absolutely sure that Catherine hated the girl beyond all measure. Why, he was not certain— jealousy, perhaps, that a peasant should so command her brother’s heart and mind. As for what Catherine hoped to accomplish with her hatred … well, that he did not know, either. All he knew was that Joan had, in a way, sent Catherine to his bed, and for that Philip thought he owed the girl a small amount of gratitude. Only a small amount… certainly not enough to sway his ambitions.
“It is difficult to believe that Charles could be God’s choice,” Philip finally said, “unless circumstance made him the only choice available.”
Catherine’s mouth twitched, but Philip did not see it.
“Not only are Charles’ knees weak and knock,” Philip continued, “but so is his entire nature.”