Sara Douglass The Wounded Hawk The crucible book two
CONTENTS:
Part One: Margaret of the Angels 11
Part Two: The Wounded Wife 107
Part Three: Well Ought I to Love 167
Part Four: The Hurtyng Tyme 259
Part Five: The Maid and the Hawk 339
Part Six: Dangerous Treason 393
Part Seven: Horn Monday 429
Part Eight: Bolingbroke! 453
Epilogue: Pontefract Castle 481
Glossary 487
PART ONE
Margaret of the Angels
I’ll father no gift,
No knowledge no thrift.
—Thomas Tusser,
Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie
CHAPTER I
The Feast of the Beheading
of St. John the Baptist
In the first year of the reign of Richard II
(Monday 29th August 1380)
MARGARET STOOD in the most northern of the newly harvested fields of Hal-stow Hall, a warm wind gently lifting her skirts and hair and blowing a halo of fine wheat dust about her head. The sun blazed down, and while she knew that she should return inside as soon as possible if she were to avoid burning her cheeks and nose, for the moment she remained where she was, quiet and reflective, her eyes drifting across the landscape. She turned a little, catching sight of the walls of Halstow Hall rising in the distance.
There lay Rosalind, asleep in her crib, watched over by her nurse, Agnes. Margaret’s eyes moved to the high walls of the courtyard. In its spaces Thomas would be at his afternoon swordplay with his newly acquired squire, Robert Courtenay, a likable fair-faced young man of commendable quietness and courtesy.
Margaret’s expression hardened as she thought of the banter the two men shared during their weapon practice. Courtenay received nothing but respect and friendship from Thomas—
would that she received the same respect and friendship!
“How can I hope for love,” she whispered, still staring at the courtyard walls, “when he begrudges me even his friendship?”
Margaret might be Thomas’ wife, but, as he had told her on their wedding night, she was not his lover.
Margaret had never imagined that it could hurt this much, but then she’d never realized how desperately she would need his love; to be the one thought constantly before all others in his mind.
To be sure, this was what they all strove for—to force Thomas to put thought of her before his allegiance to the Church and the angels—but Margaret knew her need was more than that.
She wanted a home and a family, and above all, she wanted a husband who respected her and loved her.
She wanted Thomas to love her, and yet he would not.
She turned her head away from Halstow Hall, and regarded the land and the far distant wheeling gulls over the Thames estuary.
These had been pleasant months spent at Halstow Hall despite Thomas’ coolness, and despite his impatience to return to London and resume his search for Wynkyn de Worde’s ever-damned casket. The angels had told Thomas that the casket held the key that would see the demons who thronged earth cursed back into hell. As an ex-friar and a cold, heartless man of God, Thomas was devoted to the archangel’s cause, and he was determined to discover the casket and work the angels’ will. Margaret needed, desperately, to crack the cold hard shell Thomas had built about himself when he’d turned to the Church after the dreadful suicide of his lover, Alice. She needed, desperately, to have Thomas love her before he found that casket.
And she had no idea how she could ever achieve it. Sweet Jesu knew how she had tried these past months.
There had been mornings spent wading in clear streams, and noon-days spent riding wildly along the marshy banks of the estuary as the herons rose crying about them. There had been afternoons spent in the hectic fields as the harvest drew to a close, and evenings spent dancing about the celebratory harvest fires with the estate men and their families. There had been laughter and even the occasional sweetness, and long, warm nights spent sprawling beneath Thomas’ body in their bed.
And there had been dawns when, half-asleep, Margaret had thought that maybe this was all there ever would be, and the summer would never draw to a close.
Yet this was a hiatus only, the drawing of a breath between screams, and Margaret knew that it would soon end. Even now hoof beats thudded on the roads and laneways leading to Halstow Hall. Two sets of hoof beats, drumming out the inevitable march of two ambitions, reaching out to ensnare her once again in the deadly machinations of the looming battle between the angels of heaven and the demons escaped from their imprisoning hell.
Margaret’s eyes filled with tears, then she forced them away as she caught a glimpse of the distant figure striding through one of the fields. She smiled, gaining courage from the sight of Halstow’s steward, and then began to walk toward the Hall.
Visitors would soon be here, and she should be present to greet them MASTER THOMAS Tusser, steward to the Neville estates, walked though the stub-bled fields at a brisk pace, hands clasped firmly behind his straight back. He was well pleased. The harvest had gone excellently: all the harvesters, bondsmen as well as hired hands, had arrived each day, and each had put in a fair day’s work; the weather had remained fine but not overly hot; the ravens and crows had devastated neighbors’ fields, but not his; and little had been wasted—like their menfolk, the village women and girls had worked their due, gleaning the fields of every last grain.
There would be enough to eat for the next year, and enough left over to store against the inevitable poor years.
The fields were empty of laborers now, but the work had not ceased. The threshers would be sweating and aching in Halstow Hall’s barns, separating precious grain from hollow stalk, while their wives and daughters swept and piled grain into mounds, before carting the grain from threshing court to storage bins.
Tusser’s footsteps slowed, and he frowned and muttered under his breath for a few minutes until his face suddenly cleared. He grinned, and spoke aloud.
**verse**
“Reap well, scatter not, gather clean that is shorne, Bind fast, shock apace, have an eye to thy corn, Load safe, carry home, follow time being fair, Give just in the barn, life is far from despair.”
**endverse**
Tusser might well be a steward with a good reputation, but that reputation had not been easy to achieve. He had made more than his fair share of mistakes in his youth: leaving the sowing of the spring crops too late, allowing the weeds to grow too high in the fields, and forgetting to mix the goose grease with the tar to daub on the wounds on sheep’s backs after shearing. He had found that the only way he could remember to do the myriad estate tasks on time, and in the right order, was to commit every chore to rhyme. Over the years—he was a middle-aged man now—Tusser had scribbled his rhymes down. Perhaps he would present them to his lord one day as a testament of his goodwill.
Well… that time was far off, God willing, and there would be many years yet to rearrange his rhymes into decent verse.
Tusser reached the edge of the field and nimbly leaped the drainage ditch separating the field from the laneway. Once on the dusty surface of the lane, he looked quickly about him to ensure no one was present to observe, then danced a little jig of sheer merriment.
Harvest was home! Harvest was home!
Tusser resumed a sedate walk and sighed in relief. Harvest was home, praise be to God, even though it had not been an easy year. No year was ever easy, but if a steward had to cope with a new lord descending upon his lands in the middle of summer…
When he’d commenced his stewardship of Halstow Hall eleven years ago, Tusser had been proud to serve as a servant of the mighty Duke of Lancaster… even if the duke had never visited Halstow Hall and Tusser had not once enjoyed the opportunity to meet his lord. But the duke had received Tusser’s quarterly reports and had read them well, writing on more than one occasion to thank Tusser for his care and to congratulate him on the estate’s productivity.
But in March preceding, Tusser received word that Lancaster had deeded Halstow Hall to Lord Thomas Neville as a wedding gift. Tusser was personally offended: had the duke thought so little of Tusser’s efforts on his behalf that he thoughtlessly handed the estate to someone else? Was the duke secretly angry with Tusser, and thought to punish him with a new lord who was to actually live on the estate? A lord in residence? The very idea! Tusser had read the duke’s news with a dismay that increased with every breath. No longer would Tusser have virtual autonomy in his fields … nay, there would be some chivalric fool leaning over his shoulder at every moment mouthing absurdities … either that or riding his warhorse at full gallop through the emerging crops.