bear it.‖
Neville looked at the altar, his eyes fixed on the crucifix behind it.
How, Lord Christ? How do I free you?
He faced Mary again. ―I have been given a problem, Mary,‖ he said. ―Actually, several
problems, but there is one that perhaps I shall concentrate on first. First this solution presents
itself, then that, and then I find I cannot choose between them for worry that I might pick the
wrong one.‖
―And you would ask my advice?‖
―Aye.‖ He paused, thinking, then spoke again. ―A man begs me to free him. To me he
appears as if love incarnate, for he speaks of nothing but love, and thinks that love is the highest
thing a man or a woman can aspire to.‖
―Yes…?‖
―Yet others, beings of power and majesty, tell me that this man is evil incarnate…that if
he is freed to walk earth malevolence and disaster will follow in his footsteps.‖
―Beings of power and majesty?‖
Neville hesitated, then decided to tell Mary the truth. ―Angels, Mary. You have heard,
surely, that the Archangel Michael has appeared to me?‖
Mary nodded. She‘d heard the gossip about why Thomas Neville had left the Dominican
Order. ―You claimed to be following the archangel‘s orders in discovering some evil.‖ She
frowned. ―This man? This man you think is love, but the angels claim is evil?‖
―Aye. He is the embodiment of the evil the angels have sent me to destroy.‖
―But now you want to free him? Not to destroy him?‖
―Aye.‖
―Tom…to go against the wishes of God‘s messengers. Surely you must have
misunderstood this man? Surely he only presents a chimera of love and goodness to hide the evil
within?‖
Again Neville glanced at the crucifix. ―No. I believe that he does truly represent love,
Mary. The angels…the angels are cruel creatures…‖
―But they must be cruel, surely? Tom, I do not understand…why… how can you go
against the wishes of the angels? I cannot think that you could possibly want to let this man free
at all.‖
And yet again Neville glanced at the crucifix, and this time Mary did not miss his look.
―Have you prayed to Jesus Christ our Lord, Tom? Have you sought His guidance in this
matter?‖
―Mary.‖ Neville took both her hands between his own, holding them with the utmost
gentleness. ―Mary, it is Jesus Christ who the angels say is the embodiment of all that is evil.‖
―What? Tom, I do not understand. How can sweet Jesu embody evil?‖ Unbidden, a
memory surfaced in Mary‘s mind. A memory of…a dream, perhaps? A strange dream…a dream
of great grief, of loss. She frowned.
―Mary?‖
―Ah!‖ She jerked her head, as if waking herself out of some stupor. ―It is nothing.
Tom…I cannot believe that Jesus Christ our Lord embodies evil. I simply cannot. I will not. No,
it can”t be.―
Again Neville looked at her strangely, and Mary knew it was because of the slight note of
hysteria that had tinged her last words. Why so upset? It was not simply because the notion that
Christ embodied evil upset her genuine piety…it was almost as if the charge struck to the heart
of her being.
―Aye, how can he indeed…‖ Neville bowed his head, staring at Mary‘s hands between
his, thinking deeply.
Who could he trust, if not this woman?
―Mary,‖ he said finally, raising his face to hers, ―I have taken this single problem out of a
much larger one, and, as much as I am loath to trouble you with my burden, I think I will go mad
if I do not talk with someone about it. Mary, this will be difficult, unbelievable, and it will shatter much of what you believe. Mary, I do not…I cannot…‖
She pulled one of her hands free, and lifted it to his face. ―Tom, so often I am left untold,
and left out of people‘s plans and schemes and secrets. I do not care if what you have to tell me
shatters everything I hold dear, for to know that you hold me beloved enough to tell me…well,
that is recompense enough.‖ She smiled. ―I am dying, Tom. Who better to confess to than a
dying woman?‖
―Mary, I shouldn‘t have spoken…this is too great a burden…‖
―You are tormented, Tom.‖ Her finger stroked gently up and down his cheek. ―And I
have already lived through such torment that to hear a little more will do me no injury at all.‖
She hesitated, and frowned slightly, as if wondering what she herself meant by that. Then
her expression cleared, and she leaned forward and kissed Neville‘s cheek exceedingly gently.
―Confess all, Tom, and I shall take your secrets nowhere but to my grave.‖
On his cross in heaven, Christ writhed in torment.
But, strangely, his face was suffused with joy. “Thank you, Mary,” he whispered. “Thank
you. ‖
XIII
Monday 27th May 1381
—iii—
Margaret hovered in a half-sleep, too exhausted to take the final step to wakefulness. The
past few days had been appalling; a never-ending nightmare of tending the hopeless, of sponging
down corpses befouled with pus and blood and black faeces, of wondering how much longer she
could continue without retching out every morsel of food she had ever consumed, of praying
endlessly, over and over in desperate rote, that Rosalind and Bohun would remain safe in
Windsor. Every hour she would have to find a bucket of water and scrub her face and hands and
arms, trying to get the odour of death out of her skin. But it was a hopeless task. Margaret thought that the stench of the dying and of their foul fluids had so impregnated her flesh that she
would never, never be rid of their stink.
And her clothes. Her gown and under tunic were stiff with dried blood…and worse. Her
hair was hopeless: so solid with sweat that Margaret thought it was permanently matted. Perhaps
she would have to take shears to it and cut the tangled, dried mess off. It would be easier than
trying to clean and comb it.
As she slept Margaret had dreamed of tearing herself free of her clothes, throwing them
on a fire, and jumping into a delightfully cool pond of spring water. There she would scrub and
scrub at flesh and hair until everything—the encrustations, the stains, the lice and fleas, the
terrible, terrible stench—were gone and she was pale and clean once more.
To drift into wakefulness, realising that she still stank and that her soiled clothes still
clung to her, was a wretched experience.
Margaret lay a few minutes, eyes shut, trying to control her despair. She could hear the
moans and wails of the dying beyond the alcove, she could smell their stink, and she could hear the shuffling, exhausted feet of their carers.
Nothing had changed since she lay down to sleep, nothing had improved for the better,
and there was no hope that this day would bring anything but a continuation, and perhaps even a
worsening, of the horrible dying about her.
She moved very slightly, and winced. Every muscle ached—her neck, shoulders and hips
were especially painful.
―Sweet Jesu,‖ she murmured, then made a supreme effort and opened her eyes. If she
were feeling so sore and exhausted, then how was Mary coping? The woman had not complained
once during these past days, even though Margaret knew there were times when she had to bite
her lip to stop herself crying out with the pain coursing through her body. Mary permitted herself
to take enough of Culpeper‘s liquor to dull the pain, but never enough to completely dissipate it,
for that would fog her mind and send her to sleep. ―And how can I sleep,‖ she would say to
Margaret or Neville whenever they pleaded with her to rest, ―when so many need me?‖
Margaret could not deny that Mary‘s very presence did some good. Mary might not have
had the power to heal, or to ease pain, but she eased spirits and minds with her very presence.
That the Queen of England cared enough to spend her days and nights tending the ill gave more
comfort than almost anything else could have done—save the sudden and miraculous discovery
of a cure for the pestilence.
Finally, late last night, Mary had agreed to rest. Only for a few hours, but she would rest.
Once she‘d settled Mary on her bed, Margaret had almost collapsed with her own
exhaustion. Now she slowly blinked, accustoming her eyes to the light in the hall beyond the
alcove.
Sweet Jesu! It was mid-morning. She‘d slept for over ten hours.
And Mary hadn”t woken? Margaret swung her legs over the side of her bed and sat up,
twisting about to check Mary. Please, sweet Jesu, that she hadn”t died during the night…
Margaret stared for a long moment at the tangled, empty blankets of Mary‘s bed before
she actually realised that Mary wasn‘t there.