Catherine amended.
Philip thought for a while. “Could it be that she is devil-inspired rather than God-blessed?”
“It is what I have feared all along,” Catherine said.
“What should we do?” Philip said. “Throw open the door to Charles’ chamber and expose her evilness for what it is? Sweet Jesu, perhaps even now Joan has her mouth clamped about—”
“Nay, sweetheart. For the moment we do nothing. But at least we have seen for ourselves the extent of sweet Joan’s lies. One day, Lord Christ willing, we will be able to use this night to our advantage.”
“Others should witness this,” Philip said. “Not just us.”
Catherine nodded, and Philip faded silently away.
THUS IT was that when Joan wended her way back to her own chamber, there were five sets of eyes that watched from the gallery: Catherine, Philip, Regnault de Chartres, and two of his clerics.
“You were right all along,” the archbishop said, once Joan had gone. “What shall we do?”
“Wait,” said Catherine, “and observe.”
CHAPTER VIII
The Second Sunday after Epiphany
In the first year of the reign of Richard II
(15th January 1380)
LANCASTER AND HIS PARTY, which included his son Bolingbroke, Neville, Raby, and Gloucester, as well as the immediate retainers of all the nobles, left Kenilworth on Plough Monday, traveling hard and fast for London. None of their womenfolk was with them. Raby’s wife, Joan, had traveled northward instead, taking their newborn son home to Raby’s castle of Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire. Katherine had accompanied her daughter to make sure both Joan, and Katherine’s grandson, were safely settled.
Mary, accompanied by her ladies, whose number included Margaret, would travel to London within a week. Neither Bolingbroke nor Neville was sure they wanted their wives in London where they would be too close to Richard and to any potentially dangerous political maneuvering, but Mary and Margaret had insisted, and neither of their husbands had refused them.
This time, Neville swore, he would take far better care of Margaret.
The Lancastrian party traveled hard and fast, and there was little banter or talk on the journey. Consequently, Neville spent a great deal of time wrapped in his own thoughts.
These thoughts were principally to do with Margaret, and what had taken place between them at Kenilworth.
Now that Neville was physically distant from her—her soft, warm, sensual body— he began to fret about what he’d done.
Had he gone too far? Had he betrayed St. Michael and God by admitting his love for a woman who he knew was placed here on earth to tempt him away from God’s true path? Did it display weakness or strength that he had done so? Would his love for Margaret compromise what he knew he must eventually do?
Everything had been so much simpler when he’d been Brother Thomas and not Husband Thomas.
Everything had been so much simpler when he had kept his love for Margaret at bay.
Sweet Jesu, have I done the wrong thing? Have I perjured my soul, and mankind’s salvation, by admitting my love for Margaret?
Neville’s doubts became greater the further they traveled from Kenilworth. He became surly, snapping at everyone, including Bolingbroke and Courtenay.
By the fourth night, when they drew into a wayside inn, everyone avoided him as much as possible.
Neville dismounted from his horse, stamping about as he slid off its saddle and cloth, then snapped hard at Courtenay when he finally came to take his master’s horse away to the stable.
“You have no call to so bite at Courtenay!” Bolingbroke said behind Neville, who swung about to face him.
“He was slow—”
“He was as fast as he possibly could be, Tom. Sweet Christ, man, what ails you? A tooth?
Griping in the guts? A twitch in your ear? Whatever it is, see to it that it’s gone by the morning!”
And then he stalked off.
Neville stared after him, bitterly resentful that he’d been so publicly humiliated… then he saw Courtenay emerging from the stable.
Sweet Jesu, I have been no more humiliated than has Robert.
He walked over. “Robert, I am sorry. I’ve been ill-tempered and thoughtless.” Courtenay stared at him, then his face relaxed into a smile. “You have had much on your mind, my lord.”
Neville grinned ruefully. “And you are quite the diplomat. I shall keep my bile under better control from now on, Robert, for you are not the man I should be snapping at.” The only man he should be snapping at, Neville thought as he entered the inn, was himself. But, sweet Christ above, how was he going to resolve his fears?
THAT NIGHT, as Neville lay awake fretting and worrying in the dormitory he shared with several others of their party, a sudden strange peace swept over him.
For an instant Neville thought that he had slipped unknowing into sleep and dream, then he realized that this was no dream at all. It was as if another power had claimed him, for Neville felt himself being physically lifted from the chill dormitory and pulled into another world.
Strangely, he felt no fright or concern at all.
HE BLINKED, startled by the sudden feel—the sudden reality—of ground beneath his feet, and looked about. He was standing on a hill swept by a warm, fragrant wind but clouded by a heavy, depressing sky. In the distance he could see a walled city dressed in pale stone, and a roadway lined with people leading from the city gates to the hill on which he stood.
Neville turned his face from the distant city and looked before him. He was standing in front of a cross.
At its foot a woman crouched, weeping softly, and smearing bloodstained dirt over her face and neck in ritualized grief and mourning. She was young and dark-haired, and, even kneeling as she was, Neville noticed her statuesque build. She moved slightly, her pale linen robe pulling about her body, and Neville saw that she was five or six months pregnant.
Neville’s breath caught in his throat, and his heart thudded. For a long minute he could do nothing but stare at the woman weeping and grieving at the foot of the cross, then, very slowly, he raised his eyes.
An almost naked man gazed down at him from the cross. He had been vilely nailed to the wood, through his wrists and ankles, and a crown of thorns hung askew on his bleeding brow.
His loincloth was darkly soiled with the blood that had crept down his body.
Yet, even so cruelly pinned, the man smiled down on Neville with such overwhelming love that Neville’s breath caught in his throat.
He dropped to his knees, unable to drag his eyes away from the man on the cross. As he did so, the woman crept back a few paces.
“Thomas,” Christ whispered, and then coughed, a trickle of blood oozing past his lips. “Why do you doubt?”
Neville could hardly speak, nor hardly knew how to explain what tormented him. Eventually he spoke simply, knowing that Christ already knew what was in his heart. “I love a woman, and I have told her so. Yet I also know that if I love this woman, and that if I hand her my soul for her love, then mankind will be doomed.”
Christ groaned, then wept, and Neville wept with him, loathing himself that he should so add to Christ’s agony.
“Thomas,” Christ said eventually, “am I not sacrificing myself for love? Am I not dying for love of mankind? Am I not handing you my soul on a platter for the sake of love?”
From the corner of his eye, Neville could see that the woman looked at him with deep pity.
Something about her made Neville take a second, more careful, look. There was something familiar about her face, as if he should know her, but he did not: her face was that of a stranger, and Neville dismissed the woman and looked back to Christ.
“I have loved this woman,” Christ said. “And now I die for her. Would I hand her my soul on a platter? Thomas … Thomas … is that not what I do now?”
Neville’s weeping deepened in its intensity, appalled that he had so offended the dying Christ.
“Does my love damn mankind?” Christ whispered.
“No! No! Your love is mankind’s salvation!”
“Aye,” whispered Christ. “Aye. What can I say, Thomas, to make you understand? Why can you not embrace the truth? Love does not doom … it only saves. How can you have misunderstood this? How can you have allowed yourself to be so wrapped in lies?”
Neville wept and held out his hands in supplication, and the mingled blood and sweat from Christ’s body dripped onto his palms.
Love saves, Thomas, It does not damn. How can you have misunderstood this?
Neville lowered his head, unable to gaze any more upon the suffering Christ. How could he have misunderstood so badly?