Thomas turned to gaze downriver. This morning a ship would arrive from Sluys containing all of Bolingbroke’s household effects, including every one of the damned bundles and chests of correspondence, pleas, petitions and other bureaucratic minutiae that would bog down Thomas’ life.
He tried to summon a sigh of resignation, but such was his sense of happiness he could not even do that. If Bolingbroke did take the throne—and who could doubt it?__
then he would have halls full of clerks to take care of his bureaucratic cares. Thomas’ life would be full of better things.
Thomas wondered vaguely if—when—Bolingbroke would reopen war with France, and his spine tingled at the thought of war. Richard had collapsed with hardly a single arrow being fitted to the bow—God’s work, no doubt—and Thomas found himself hungering for the sounds and smells of battle.
Standing on the pier, his hand shading his eyes from the sun, Thomas drifted off into a pleasant reverie about the thrill of the battlefield.
A DISTANT shout jerked him back into an awareness of his surroundings. There … the Sluys ship.
Thomas paced back and forth on the pier as the ship drew close, earning himself several curses from the sailor who jumped across to tie the ship down.
“Thomas?”
His head jerked up in astonishment.
Margaret was waving to him from the deck railing. Beside her stood Mary, looking thin and pale, but smiling, and behind the two women stood Agnes, Rosalind in her arms.
Thomas’ mouth dropped open, unable to believe his eyes. Margaret and Mary had not been due to arrive for three or four days more yet… but here they were.
He couldn’t wait for the gangplank to be lowered. Seizing one of the dangling ropes, Thomas hauled himself up hand over hand until he could clamber onto the deck.
And there was Margaret, holding out her arms, her eyes shining with love, and her belly so bulging that Thomas had to step around it in order to enfold her in his arms.
“Margaret,” he said, and wondered how Paradise could be any improvement on this glorious day.
NEVILLE LEANED back and smiled at Margaret, then turned to take Rosalind from Agnes’
arms, tossing her in the air so that the child laughed delightedly.
Then he turned to Mary, standing back a pace or two.
“My lady,” he said, and kissed her hand. “We did not think to have seen you so soon.”
She smiled. “We could not wait, Tom. If there was a ship sailing for London, even if it were full of sheep, we would be on it.”
Neville looked at Mary with concern. She was very thin, and her skin had a grayish pallor that bespoke a deep sickness.
“My lady needed to come home,” Margaret said softly behind Neville, and he looked at her.
The anxiety he felt for Mary was mirrored in Margaret’s eyes.
Sweet Jesu! Neville thought. Mary has come home to die!
And he remembered the way Bolingbroke had looked at Catherine, and he wondered, and suddenly all the glory of the day was spoiled for him.
There was a shout from one of the sailors, and Neville looked up. A punt was being poled across the Thames from Westminster, a richly robed man seated within.
“Bolingbroke,” said Margaret.
Neville smiled again at Mary, and tried to keep his voice light. “Look, my lady, your husband comes to greet you.”
Mary looked, but she did not smile.
BOLINGBROKE LEAPED onto the pier from the punt just as Neville had escorted the women down the gangplank.
“Mary!” he cried.
But his eyes went first to Margaret.
“Mary,” he said again, striding to stand before her and kiss her hand before planting a dispassionate kiss on her mouth.
“My husband,” Mary said, “rumor has it that you have swept all England before you.”
“Ah,” Bolingbroke said, “England has merely seized its chance and I have only been its pawn.”
He finally turned to Margaret, kissing first her hand and then her mouth with considerably more warmth than he’d kissed Mary. None missed it, and Neville frowned, irritated with Bolingbroke that he should so slight Mary.
“I am glad to see you, my lady,” Bolingbroke said in a soft voice. “How goes the child?”
Margaret pulled away from him, a slight flush of embarrassment on her cheek. Why ask after my health, Hal, when your wife stands there so patently ill?
“Well enough,” she said. “Impatient to be born.”
He nodded, then finally turned back to Mary, asking after her health, and evidencing as much concern as any proper husband should. Servants had come down to the pier, and for a few minutes there was nothing but bustle as the women and Rosalind were escorted to the palace.
Just as the entourage reached the garden steps leading into the palace itself, Neville pulled Bolingbroke to a stop, allowing everyone else to enter the palace ahead of them. “Well?”
Bolingbroke grinned at him. “Parliament has decided that Richard is an unworthy king, and should stand aside from the throne. They shall send a deputation to him in a week or so, to ask him to resign.”
Neville’s face flushed with excitement. “And?”
“And what, my friend?”
Neville made a gesture of impatience. “Stop toying with me, Hal.”
“Well… Parliament has further declared the throne vacant, and there must be an election among Lords and Commons to decide who should sit it next.”
Now Neville smiled. An “election” was a pretty word that meant little. There was only one man whose name would be called. “And Richard?”
Something of the light in Bolingbroke’s face died. “He is to be imprisoned in Ponte-fract Castle.”
“What? He is not to be executed?”
“Execution of a king is a grave matter, Tom.”
Neville’s mouth did not even twitch at the pun. “If he is allowed to live then he will prove a lodestone for any dissatisfaction at your elevation, Hal.”
Bolingbroke did not reply for the moment, looking over the garden and across the Thames, his eyes eventually coming to rest on the great Westminster complex.
“There are many accidents than can befall a man.” He looked back to Neville, his eyes dark and shadowy. “I do not think Richard’s term of life imprisonment shall be an onerous nor an over-long one.”
Neville nodded. “My lord, I would like that I be—”
“Do not speak the words, Tom. But, aye, yours shall be the right. Margaret’s revenge shall not have a great time before its execution.”
It was a day of puns.
“IT IS over, Margaret,” Neville said later that night, snuggling next to her warm, soft body.
“We have won.” Sweet Jesu, it was good to have her in his bed again.
“We have won?” she said.
His hand traveled over the great bulge of her belly, tracing the contours of the child within.
“Aye. The Demon-King will shortly be no more. England—God’s cause—has won.”
She was silent a long time, thinking what she could say.
“We have all traveled further down the road,” Margaret said eventually, very softly, “but the journey is far from over.”
Neville did not reply. He was fast asleep.
PART SEVEN
Horn Monday
Seized with an insatiable curiosity, Pandora took the casket into her hands and lifted its lid.
Forthwith there escaped a multitude of plagues and sorrows into the world of mankind.
Pandora hastened to replace the lid—but, alas! The whole contents of the casket had escaped, one thing only excepted, and that was hope.
—Ancient Greek myth
CHAPTER I
Horn Monday
In tie second year of the reign of Richard II
(10th September 1380)
— I —
NEVILLE HAD SPENT the earlier part of the morning at weapon practice with Bolingbroke in the courtyard of Lambeth Palace, and the latter part playing with his daughter in her nursery chambers. Now, as he strode loose-hipped through the palace gardens, he looked for Margaret; he thought to spend the rest of the day with her as Bolingbroke had said he would be ensconced in Westminster consulting with officials of the Chancery.
Over generations, successive archbishops of Canterbury had built a series of superb interconnecting gardens about their palace on the banks of the Thames. All the gardens, some for herbs, some for flowers, some for fruit, were separated by tall trellises interwoven with climbing vines and flowers—walking through the gardens was at times like walking through a maze. Neville found himself lost on several occasions, but he did not mind, for this was a glorious, warm autumn day, and both the sunshine and the thought of coming across Margaret sitting quiet and still in some secret corner filled his soul with joy.
He almost began whistling again, but decided not to disturb the melodies of the birds who sang in trees and shrubs, nor the peaceful caress of the silent sunshine.
The paths were of shorn meadow grass, rather than the more usual gravel, and Neville’s footsteps made no sound as he strode along.