do you this day, madam?‖
―Well, thank you, Margaret. I think that perhaps you and I can walk a little about the
gardens this afternoon. It shall be a beautiful day.‖
―Gladly, madam.‖ She started to say more, but then Rosalind broke free from her grip
and scampered over to Mary, clambering up on the couch and cuddling in close to the woman.
Margaret half reached out to grab her away, then saw the expression on Mary‘s face and dropped
her hand.
―Do not let her hurt you, madam,‖ Margaret said.
Mary‘s face had lit up as Rosalind snuggled into her body, and now she lifted her eyes to
Margaret, and laughed a little. ―What? This child? Hurt me? Nay, how can love hurt?‖
Again Margaret felt her eyes sliding towards Neville, who she knew was regarding her
steadily.
―You are so blessed in your children,‖ Mary said in a half whisper. One of her hands
slowly stroked Rosalind‘s shining dark curls. Then she looked at Margaret again. ―And in your
husband.‖
Now Margaret could not help but look at Neville. He smiled slightly, but she could not
entirely read the expression in his eyes, and so she looked away again.
When they left the Rose Tower Margaret handed the two children into Agnes‘ care and
asked Neville if he would walk a while with her in the cloisters.
He linked an arm with hers, and together, slowly, they strolled about the sunlit flower
beds, their bodies moving in unison, their hips occasionally bumping through the thick folds of
their clothes.
―Mary seems well,‖ Margaret eventually said.
―Well enough for a dying woman,‖ Neville responded, his eyes once more on the
glittering windows of the Great Chamber.
―Tom…‖
Neville pulled her to a halt, and turned her so that their eyes could meet. ―What is
troubling you, Margaret?‖
She gave a harsh laugh. ―How can you ask that? My fate rests in your hands; the fate of
my kind, and of humankind, where you decide to gift your soul. Of course I am troubled, for I do
not think I know you any more.‖
He studied her a moment. ―And?‖
―And?‖ Margaret took a deep breath. ―And…you once said you loved me, but now I do
not know. You spend so much time with Mary—‖
―You think that I love Mary? No, do not answer that, for of course I love Mary.‖
Margaret‘s eyes suddenly filled with tears.
―I do not covet her flesh as a man is wont to covet a woman‘s flesh,‖ Neville continued,
―for I am lost in my covetousness of your flesh.‖ He ran the fingers of one hand gently down her neck, and his eyes down the sweet curves of her body. ―And I do not love her in a courtly
fashion, for I could not imagine composing verse to any love but you. I love her as goodness
personified—I do not think there can be any person living as good as Mary. And I love her
because she is trust personified.‖
―Trust personified?‖
Neville‘s hands were on Margaret‘s shoulders, firm and resolute. ―I trust Mary as I trust
no one else,‖ he said. ―For of all people walking on this earth, I think she is one of the few who
cannot be anything but what she appears. Mary has no secrets, and no secret plans.‖
Margaret lowered her gaze. ―You have not yet forgiven me for what I—‖
―And Hal,‖ Neville put in.
―—did to you…with Richard.‖
Neville‘s expression tightened at the memory of how Hal and Margaret had
stage-managed her rape by Richard, then coldly manipulated Neville‘s guilt to force him to
admit his love of her. ―I have forgiven you, Margaret,‖ he said, and his hands loosened their grip
on her shoulders. ―And I still swear my love for you, and for our children. But I walk with open
eyes now, and, yes, that makes a difference to how I see you…and all yours.‖
He does not trust me, Margaret thought, wishing not for the first time that she hadn‘t
agreed to Hal‘s plan. ―I am your wife, Tom,‖ she said, reminding him of the promise she‘d made
to him the day Bohun had been born. ―Not Hal‘s sister.‖
Neville smiled gently, and touched a thumb to her cheek, wiping away the tear that had
spilled there.
―Of course,‖ he said.
II
Friday 3rd May 1381
The great hall at Windsor was not so grand nor so large as the great hall at Westminster,
but it was imposing enough and, when it was lit with thousands of candles and torches as it was
this night, it shimmered with a delightful fairy light all its own. May had arrived with all its
attendant ritual and games and seasonal joy, and Bolingbroke had organised tonight‘s feast to
mark the commencement of his spring court. Thick sprigs of early spring flowers hung about
pillars and beams, the scent of the flowers combining with that of the freshly laid rush floor to
delight the senses of the guests. Servants had erected trestle tables in a long rectangle down the
centre of the hall, and now they groaned under the weight of their linens, their gold, silver and
pewter ware, and the initial dishes of the feast. The entwined harmony of lively chatter and
music from the musicians walking up and down the aisles wound its way to the roof beams and
then back down again, echoing about the hall.
The feast was proving an auspicious start to the weekend of tourneying that lay ahead.
Neville and Margaret sat with his uncle Ralph Neville‘s wife, Joan, and her mother,
Katherine, the Dowager Duchess of Lancaster, on the first table to the right of the High Table.
Their placement was an indication of the king‘s high esteem. As Baron Raby and Earl of Westmorland, Ralph Neville himself sat with the king and queen at the High Table on the dais.
Sharing the High Table with Bolingbroke, Mary, and Raby sat the Abbot of Westminster, Henry
Percy Earl of Northumberland, and John Holland Duke of Exeter and Earl of Huntingdon.
The Abbot‘s presence at High Table was no surprise. Not only was he the senior ranked
churchman present, but the Abbot of Westminster was the man who‘d crowned Bolingbroke as
King Henry of England. To not seat him at High Table would have been a grave insult to both
man and Church.
As the Abbot‘s presence was no surprise, neither was that of Ralph Neville, the Earl of
Westmorland, and Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland. The combination of the power and
influence of both these northern nobles had been pivotal in allowing Bolingbroke to raise the
army needed to wrest the throne from Richard. But while Raby was an old family friend, taking
as his second wife Bolingbroke‘s half-sister Joan, the Percy family‘s loyalty had once been with
Richard. Northumberland‘s allegiance to Bolingbroke was still relatively new, and thus relatively
fragile—and made the more fragile because Northumberland‘s son, Hotspur, had yet to swear
allegiance to Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke had gone out of his way these past months to keep
Northumberland happy, and to heap upon him (as Raby) those preferments both men deserved
for their part in bringing Bolingbroke to the throne.
Bolingbroke had not ascended the throne via the smooth transition of father to son.
Instead, Bolingbroke had wrested the throne from his cousin, Richard, taking England to the very
brink of civil war in so doing. For long months England‘s nobles had been divided between those
who‘d supported Richard‘s right to hold the throne, and those who‘d supported Bolingbroke‘s
right to take it from Richard. In the end, Bolingbroke‘s faction had prevailed, but the wounds
were still open, particularly since the December reports of Richard‘s untimely death due to a
sudden fever while incarcerated at Pontefract Castle.
Thus the inclusion of John Holland Duke of Exeter and Earl of Huntingdon at High
Table. Exeter had not only been one of Richard‘s closest supporters, he was also Richard‘s older
half-brother: Richard and Exeter shared a mother, the beautiful (and sexually adventurous) Joan
of Kent, who had been married to Sir Thomas Holland before the Black Prince seized her (she‘d
also had a bigamous marriage to William Montague, but fortunately there‘d been no children
from that union). Over the past six months Bolingbroke had worked assiduously to gain the
acceptance and eventual support of those nobles who‘d originally supported Richard.
Bolingbroke had ostracised none of them, and had presented many of them with good
preferments, appointments, and, on occasion, an advantageous marriage.
Yet Bolingbroke still sat the throne uneasily. Only rarely could allegiances be changed
overnight, and Bolingbroke never truly knew what the smile on a courtier‘s face truly meant:
allegiance, or hidden treachery.
Tonight, however, any concern about allegiances was well hidden behind smiles and
courtly conversations. Mary was looking better than she had for several weeks. Her face was still
pallid, but her eyes shone brightly, and her thin hands were steady as she accepted delicacies