“But recently, I find that my nights have been disturbed by dreams that are … are…”
Joan frowned, remembering the night she had gone to tell Charles that his grandfather was dead at the hands of the murderous English. She had seen Marie then, twisting in her sleep as if she lay with a man. “That are what, Marie?”
“That are of a most sensual nature,” Marie whispered. Her flush deepened. “Most holy maid, there is worse. What is most abhorrent, most sinful, is that my flesh quivers in delight at these dreams.”
Joan looked away, disappointed in Marie. She had hoped that the woman was truly virtuous despite her beauty, but to find she had the wretched soul of a whore was most disappointing.
She let go of Marie’s hands. “Do you dream of a man, Marie?”
Marie nodded jerkily, tears sliding down her cheeks.
“And whose face does he wear?”
“There is no face, only the weight and the thrusting of his body… and…”
“And?”
“And sometimes I sense a great golden hand,” Marie whispered. “A most beautiful golden hand. It rubs up and down my body. It causes such a great throbbing deep within me that—”
“Enough!” Joan said, appalled at Marie’s words. How could she intimate that St. Michael—
Joan’s thoughts skidded to a horrified halt. Marie had not “intimated” at all. Joan had done that all by herself. She remembered the feeling she had had that night as she watched Marie in her dream, the feeling that St. Michael was close …
No! No! It could not be so!
And yet the golden hand …
No! No!
“They are but dreams,” Joan said very calmly, taking Marie’s hands once more in her own.
“Perhaps demonic fabrications—”
Yes! That must he it! Catherine, perhaps, sending nightmares to confuse Joan’s weak-minded companion in the hope of confusing Joan herself.
“—and we must pray together that you have the strength to resist them.”
Yes, these dreams were Catherine’s demonry. Nothing else. Nothing else.
Marie’s face sagged in relief. “Thank you, blessed virgin, thank you!”
Catherine’s demonry . . . nothing else.
ST. MICHAEL came to Joan that night as she prayed. Hesitantly, lest she anger him, Joan told him of her suspicions regarding Catherine.
The demons will throw at you the most devious of impish tricks, Joan. You must he wary always.
A great peace came over Joan. “Yes, blessed saint.”
You must trust me, Joan.
“Oh, blessed saint, I do! I do!”
And yet you almost allowed the demon’s frightful treachery to trick you.
Joan hung her head. “I shall not do so again, beloved archangel.”
You are a good girl, Joan.
IN THE morning Joan asked Marie how she had slept.
Marie smiled. “I slept so soundly, blessed virgin, that I remember not a thing from the moment I laid my head down. I thank you for your aid and concern.”
Joan took the woman’s face between her hands and kissed it, relieved.
CHAPTER X
The Thursday within the
Octave of the Conversion of St. Paul
In the first year of the reign of Richard II
(26th January 1380)
— I —
NEVILLE SAT IN the chamber where resided Bolingbroke’s official life.The chamber had once been a spacious, light-filled room. Now it was crammed from floor timbers to ceiling plaster with chests, cabinets, stacks of documents, shelves packed with ledgers and accounts, diplomatic correspondence, manuscripts, maps, navigation charts, itineraries, architectural drawings, several engineers’ reports, star charts, astrological predictions, medical texts and diagrams, three half-built and two completed clocks, lists of masters and their specialties at the Florentine academies, two newly completed humanist texts and one commentary on the dialogues of Plato, one sack of a newly developed species of wheat grain, a smelly, oily wool fleece, five packets of vegetable seeds and several baskets of sweet apples and pears.
Bolingbroke’s interests and responsibilities covered virtually every sphere of human endeavor.
As on most days that Neville spent sorting through Bolingbroke’s responsibilities, today he spent as much time cursing Bolingbroke’s curiosity as he did sating his own. Bol-ingbroke had the most extraordinary contacts, especially within the new breed of intellectuals, the humanists and new scientists and mathematicians of northern Italy and Germany, and much of the material they sent into Bolingbroke’s household fascinated Neville.
Sometimes, however, Neville could find some of Bolingbroke’s attraction for the new slightly uncomfortable. Bolingbroke had, for instance, insisted that all of his household and estate accounts now be managed and written in the new-style Arabic system of numbering which included the recently adopted zero. There was no doubting that the Arabic system was much easier and far less cumbersome than the Roman numeric system… but Neville sometimes found himself grinning wryly when he used Arabic numerals himself. His old Dominican Order had been fighting the introduction of the zero for decades, claiming it was the mark of Satan for its representation of “nothingness.” Bolingbroke had merely laughed when Neville had reminded him of this, claiming that the Church only railed against the Arabic numeric system because the priests were upset it was the infidels who had developed the better and easier system of counting. Bolingbroke was even thinking of extending the use of this new-style numbering system within his household to dating as well, and that Neville found very difficult to accept. Calculating time around the constantly shifting feast days of the annual Christian religious cycle was cumbersome, yes, but it was a familiar and beautiful routine that he wasn’t sure should be replaced by cold, heartless numerals.
But worrying whether the days were given saints’ names or numbers was not what should be occupying his mind today. There were other numeric computations to set his mind to: Bolingbroke supported as diligently as he received, and this day Neville had to sort out the living expenses of several scholars at the Oxford colleges, one mathematician who worked at one of the Flemish academies and two somewhat eccentric London clockmakers-cum-astrologers-cum-marine-navigators whom Bolingbroke sponsored.
Neville sighed and laid down a report from one of the eccentric London clockmak-ers, which purported to have found a means to navigate the great western ocean via a mechanical apparatus which could tell both longitude and latitude. Neville thought the entire project highly unlikely—almost as bad as the underwater sailing machine one of Bolingbroke’s other pets had come up with last month—but it amused Bolingbroke and presumably kept the clockmaker from developing even more bizarre mechanical oddities which might prove more
dangerous than curious. Neville picked up a pen and allocated nine pounds for the eccentric’s household expenses in the coming year. That should be plenty enough to keep him warm and fed.
Neville was not alone in the chamber. Two clerks were kept busy at a far desk transcribing the continual correspondence that the life of a great noble generated, another scurried about from shelves to chests to cabinets finding what Neville needed to accomplish his task, while a somewhat nervy Robert Courtenay—turning a dagger over and over in his hand—stood by the door in case Neville required him to fetch anything from beyond the Savoy, and Margaret sat in a chair by the low-burning fire sewing up the seams of one of Neville’s shirts and keeping an eye on Rosalind playing at her feet with a large, plump tabby cat that was more than half asleep.
Neville put his pen aside and carefully folded up the report on the navigational aid, slowly running his hand over the creases to make sure it sat as flat as possible for storage, his thoughts far away. The room was warm and comfortable, it was more than pleasant having Margaret and Rosalind here as he worked, and some of these reports and documents he’d sorted through in the hour or two he’d been here had been more than intriguing… but, truth be told, Neville would much rather have been somewhere else.
The outcome of the world was being decided somewhere far away from this room— and yet here Neville was, reading of petty things that mattered neither here nor there.
He shifted irritably, and both Courtenay and Margaret glanced at him, but they remained silent, knowing the reason for his exasperation. Indeed, it was why, dagger in hand, Courtenay was shifting from foot to foot himself.
Parliament was even now meeting in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey. Lancaster, Bolingbroke, Raby and Gloucester had all gone, but there was no room for any of their attendants or retainers, and so Neville had stayed within the Savoy.
Sweet Jesu, but he would give his right arm to know what went on there now.
Richard was attending in order to present to Parliament his request for a new poll tax, so—as he said—he could finance a continued campaign in France. The last campaign, he would say, for surely we will have France on her knees by December!
But Neville knew that Parliament was not going to accept his explanation at face value. Many suspected that Richard wanted to raise the tax in order to finance a campaign to force the Irish to accept de Vere as their king.