MUCH LATER that night Bolingbroke, Raby and Neville stood on a small hill, staring westward across east Yorkshire. They had ridden hard and fast that day, and were more than ready to lie down wrapped in their blankets before a fire, but there were also matters which needed to be discussed, and those privately.
“Can I trust him?” Bolingbroke asked quietly of Raby.
“Northumberland? For the moment, yes. But I do not know how long that moment will last.”
“Why did he change his mind?” Bolingbroke said, tugging his cloak a little tighter about his shoulders—this night air was already sharp with autumn.
“He has entertained doubts long enough, I think, and many a noble brow furrowed in concern when Richard stripped you of your hereditary lands. If Richard took from Bolingbroke, who would he take from next? But,” Raby gave a short laugh, “it was the insult to his daughter that tipped Northumberland into your hand, my lord.”
Neville noted his uncle’s deference. Bolingbroke might have once been a boy that Raby had cuffed about the ears in the stableyard, but tonight, on this hill, he was a man only weeks away from the throne of England.
“And Hotspur?” Neville said.
Raby shot him a sharp glance. “Hotspur does not totally agree with his father’s decision.”
“He has not joined with my army,” Bolingbroke said.
“Nay,” Raby said. “He has claimed some minor disturbance on the Scottish border that he must deal with.”
“I like this not,” Bolingbroke said quietly.
Neither did Neville. The Percys, and Hotspur in particular, could raise from the northern marches an army almost as substantial as the one which now rode behind Bolingbroke.
And Hotspur was an ambitious man. Ambitious enough for the throne if he thought it near enough for the snatching? Bolingbroke might be able to seize the throne from Richard… but could he hold it?
“He is more dangerous than Richard,” Neville said.
Bolingbroke nodded, his eyes distant. “It is a long time since we walked together as boyhood friends, Tom. A long, long time.”
He was about to say more when they heard the sound of hurried footsteps.
It was a sergeant-at-arms, puffing with the exertion of climbing the hill.
He bowed to Bolingbroke, then turned to Raby and murmured something about trouble within the horse lines.
Raby muttered a curse, then waved the man away. He bowed to Bolingbroke. “My lord…”
“You have my leave to go,” Bolingbroke said, then grinned. “Horses can be more trouble than wives, sometimes.”
All three laughed softly, and then Raby was gone, striding down the hill after the sergeant-at-arms.
Bolingbroke turned back to the west. “Somewhere out there lies Richard,” he said, and there was something hungry in his voice.
Neville stared at him, trying to make out his features in the dark night. “How soon will he hear?”
“About me? Not long, three or four days at the most, I think.” Bolingbroke gave a short laugh.
“How can he have been so foolish as to have thought his realm secure enough to embark on his Irish adventure? Ah, but I should not complain, for through his error Richard has handed me my heritage.”
Now Neville also looked to the west. There was little to see save the vague outline of distant hills against the starry sky. But somewhere out there, across the Irish sea, lay the Demon-King…
“I had thought him to have more cunning,” Neville said. “Richard has been more the silly youth than Satan’s emissary of ruin.”
“Do you think we should call off the chase then, my friend? Perhaps Richard would do better if he were to have the benefit of some good, fatherly counseling, or perhaps—”
“No! No. Richard must be …”
Bolingbroke turned to look at Neville, his eyes almost unnaturally keen in the dark. “Must be what, Tom?”
“He must be killed,” Neville said. “He is evil.”
Bolingbroke had half turned away, hiding the sudden gleam of his teeth as he smiled. “You have not spoken of demons, nor of de Worde’s casket, for many months, Tom. I had thought you lost in the pleasures of love.”
“Now is the time for war, Hal.”
“Aye, that it is. That it is. And when London is ours, my friend, then we will tear it apart searching for your casket. It is more than time that we freed the truth.”
Just then the moon floated free of the clouds, and Neville looked at Bolingbroke, standing in a shaft of moonlight. He remembered how on the night he had arrived in Chauvigny, when he had seen Bolingbroke standing under the moonlight, he had thought that Bolingbroke looked like a fairy prince. Now that impression returned to him, stronger than ever. Standing still and straight and strong in glinting chain mail and armored with the weapons of war, Bolingbroke looked nothing less than a king—even his bare head seemed crowned with light as his silver-gilt hair glimmered with the caress of the moon.
“You will be the king that England needs,” Neville said softly, and Bolingbroke tilted his head very slightly and smiled at him, making Neville’s heart clench in his chest with the sweetness of his love.
Suddenly, stunningly, both men’s faces were illuminated with a fiery radiance, and they jerked their eyes upward.
Two falling stars blazed across the heavens, flaring and sizzling in a brilliant cascade of blue and red and white.
Bolingbroke seized Neville’s arm in a tight grip. “A sign, Tom.’ A sign from the heavens.”
He dropped his eyes back to Neville’s face. “You and I, Tom, against everything that is evil.
Do you pledge it? Do you?”
Neville gripped Bolingbroke’s forearm with both his hands. “Aye, my lord. I pledge it. You and I against all evil.”
Bolingbroke glanced upward at the brilliant firmament again, then stared at Neville. “One day, Tom, one day I swear that I, or the issue of my body, will lead mankind into the stars.”
Overcome with emotion, Neville could only nod.
“This wounded hawk,” Bolingbroke whispered, “has taken win? into the heavens.”
CHAPTER II
Vespers on the Feast of the
Beheading of St. John the Baptist
In the second year of the reign of Richard II
(evening Wednesday 29th August 1380)
— CONWAY CASTLE, NORTH WALES —
RICHARD STARED out the window of the Keep, his eyes moving slowly over the empty fields of wheat stubble that stretched for miles.
Out there was his enemy… outside Chester, according to the latest reports.
Not far. Two days ride, at the most.
Cursed Bolingbroke! Richard grimaced, glad his back hid his expression from those waiting behind him. Well, this was one lesson he had learned well: magnanimity was all very fine, but not when a crown was at stake.
“I should have killed him when I had the chance,” he said softly, turning back into the chamber. “Not sent him into comfortable exile where he could plot at his leisure.”
Robert de Vere, leaning against the cold hearth, sent Richard a dark look, but said nothing.
They had barely landed in Ireland before the news of Bolingbroke’s treason reached them—
all hope of a crown on his own head would have to wait until they secured the one on Richard’s. They’d had to turn their army about in only a few days, not even waiting to re-provision the ships that had just disembarked them, and then had been forced to endure a nightmare three days stormy crossing of the Irish Sea to reach this godforsaken spot in northern Wales.
Only to hear that Bolingbroke had marched across England in less than two weeks, having met only the barest of resistance along the way.
God, once Richard bad put Bolingbroke away there would be hell to pay on the pan of those who had rushed to join fair Prince Hal’s side.
The door opened, and William Scrope, Earl of Wiltshire and commander of Richard’s army of Irish conquest, walked into the room. He bowed to Richard, and gave de Vere only the barest of nods.
“Well?” said Richard.
“The men need five days at the least to recover from the sea crossing,” Wiltshire began.
“We don’t have five days!” Richard snapped.
Wiltshire flushed slightly, forcing himself to take a deep breath before replying. He was a heavy-set, older man, completely bald above his gray beard, with thirty-five years of battle experience behind him, and a growing suspicion that Richard’s idiocy in embarking on this Irish foolishness in the first instance was going to prove the downfall of everyone in this room.
Particularly if Richard didn’t take the sensible road now.
“They are weak from seasickness, your grace,” Wiltshire said, in what he hoped was a reasonable voice. “They need to rest, and to get some food in them. Dammit”—Wiltshire instantly regretted the curse, but there was little he could do about it now—”their feet are wet, their swords rusted, and their spirits sullen. If you ask them to fight now—”
“If I say they fight, then they fight,” Richard said.