She needs you. She needs you! Go. Go! ‖
Neville took one more look at James‘ face, then ran for the door.
VII
Tuesday 20th August 1381
—iii—
Mary and Margaret stayed many hours with Joan, sometimes talking, sometimes just
sharing a companionable silence. By dawn, Mary was exhausted, and her pain too difficult to
control, even for Margaret‘s use of her powers, and so she and Margaret called for the guards
and said their farewells to Joan, promising more aid once Hal had gone to his war.
The two men with their thick blanket sling returned, gently positioning Mary between
them, and returning her once more into the grim narrow windings of the passageways leading
from the dungeons into the higher levels of the castle. Margaret walked a step or two behind, one
hand constantly raised and hovering behind Mary‘s back, as if she might be able with that one
hand to prevent a disaster if the two men should slip and lose their grip on their precious bundle.
She felt exhausted, drained, her muscles aching and her head throbbing. But if she felt
this weary and aching, then how much pain must Mary be enduring? Margaret prayed they
reached the upper levels in good time, and that when they entered Mary‘s chamber it would be to
find that Culpeper had managed to discover an even stronger mixture of his dark, dangerous
herbs that might serve to ease Mary‘s agony.
They ascended the narrow, winding stairs—the men stepping carefully, and with the
utmost slowness, lest they slip on the damp stones and dislodge Mary from their care. The
journey seemed to be taking hours, although Margaret knew they‘d really only taken a few
minutes to reach this point. Mary tried to keep quiet, but Margaret heard her sharp intakes of
breath every time the men inadvertently jostled her, and could only imagine the pain she
endured.
―Mary…‖ she said as they reached the top of the stairwell.
―I am well enough, Margaret,‖ came the reply, but Mary‘s voice was tight and strained.
We should not have come, thought Margaret. This was too much.
But now that they‘d reached the main levels of the castle the men made good and smooth
time. They hastened through the main hall, populated at the moment by only a few sleeping
men-at-arms and hunting hounds, then up yet another winding, but mercifully not so steep,
stairwell. Mary‘s chamber was at the top of this stairwell.
Another few minutes only, thought Margaret, and then we shall be well.
Yet her hand hovered closer than ever to Mary‘s back.
Just as they reached the final few steps before the top of the stairwell, both of the men
exclaimed softly, slowing to a complete halt.
―What is it?‖ said Margaret, her voice harsh with concern.
―My lady…‖ said one of the men…and then he screamed, flattening himself against the
wall of the stairwell.
As he did so an explosion of golden light filled the space before the group. Margaret had
time for only one, brief, appalled look at what stood there— an archangel, his arms raised above
his head, his hands clawed, his face misshapen with hate, his entire being hurtling down the stairs towards the group—before the man who had screamed fell against her, knocking her
against the wall and momentarily stunning her as her head hit stone.
Bitch-whore! the archangel screamed. Do not think that this time you will thwart our will!
And then the archangel‘s scream was subsumed by something far more
horrifying—Mary‘s shriek of terror as the archangel enveloped her and her two bearers in his
heavenly anger.
Both the men dropped the blanket in an instinctive action to shield their faces with their
arms.
The archangel pushed them to one side, reaching for Mary.
Whore-bitch! he screamed again.
―Mary,‖ Margaret cried, reaching out through the confusion of falling bodies, trying to
move herself so that as Mary fell Margaret might serve as some protection against the sharp
edges of the stairs.
Mary shrieked, a formless plea for mercy.
The archangel roared, grabbed Mary by the hair and by the shoulder of her gown…and
hurled her down the stairwell.
Now too horrified to even cry out, Margaret grabbed for Mary, but the archangel had
tossed her high above her head, and all Margaret could do was turn and watch…
…as Mary‘s body bounced down the stone stairwell, disappearing around the gentle
curve of the interior supporting wall.
Each time Mary bounced, Margaret could hear bones snap and break.
There was a sudden, stunning stillness. Margaret glanced above her—the two men were
moaning, half unconscious, slouched on the steps, and the archangel had vanished—then
whipped her head downwards again as a thin wail of the most horrifying suffering came from the
base of the stairwell.
―Mary,‖ Margaret whispered, sliding and stumbling down the stairs. Her vision kept
blinking in and out—her head throbbed abominably from the blow it had taken—and on at least
two occasions Margaret blacked out momentarily as she slid downwards, but eventually she did
make it to the foot of the stairs…and when she did, when she reached the final steps above the
bottom of the stairwell, she came to a complete halt, blinking her eyes, trying desperately to
believe that what she saw lying before her did not exist.
It could not exist, because for this degree of suffering to exist must surely mean the world
was at an end.
Mary lay in a twisted nightmare on the flagging about two paces distant from the final
step. Her head was contorted to one side, almost as if her neck had been wrung; her arms and
legs lay at unnatural angles; her body was twisted back upon itself in a manner that suggested her
back was snapped in two in more than one place.
Her body, as the floor beneath her, was wet with blood, and her robe, once such a pristine
smooth silkiness, had peculiar little bumps in it.
Horrified, Margaret realised jagged bits of bone poking through Mary‘s flesh had raised
those otherwise innocuous bumps.
One gleaming, white piece had actually punctured both Mary‘s flesh and her robe, jutting
out a half-finger‘s length from her left shoulder.
But the most appalling thing of all was that Mary was completely conscious, completely
aware of what had happened, and of the lingering torment in which she had been doomed to die.
Her eyes, wide and tortured, stared directly into Margaret‘s.
―Margaret,‖ she whispered, and in that one word managed to convey both her suffering
and her plea for Margaret to somehow, impossibly, make it all better.
Her mouth agape, her face white with horror, Margaret crawled forward on her hands and
knees until she reached Mary‘s side.
She kneeled in a pool of Mary‘s blood, and held out shaking hands before her.
She did not know what to do with them. She wanted to touch Mary, but could not, for any
touch would double her suffering.
Lord Christ, how were they going to move her?
Margaret‘s mouth worked, and her eyes filled with tears. The tremor in her hands
increased so dramatically she had to hold them against her chest in an effort to keep them still.
―Mary…‖ she managed, then lifted her head and stared uselessly about the hall as people
in their ones and twos began to walk towards Mary and Margaret. They approached slowly,
hesitatingly, their steps leaden with horror.
―Help us,‖ Margaret whispered, her tears overflowing her eyes and streaming down her
cheeks. ―Help us!‖
Mary, still conscious, whimpering in both shock and the horrifying knowledge of her
condition, had not once taken her eyes from Margaret‘s face.
―Help us,‖ whispered Margaret one last, hopeless, time.
VIII
Tuesday 20th August 1381
—iv—
― hilip is gathering an army together above Paris,‖ said Thomas Beauchamp, the Earl
of Warwick. ―There can be no doubt that he will move soon.‖
―Philip is not a man to be underestimated,‖ the Earl of Nottingham said, watching
Bolingbroke‘s face carefully.
Bolingbroke heard the note of caution in Nottingham‘s voice, and raised his head from
the map he was studying. He nodded an agreeance at Nottingham, observing the young man‘s
slight shoulder-slump of relief.
―He has much experience,‖ Bolingbroke said, once again studying the map, and tapping it
with his fingers. He had gathered his commanders together at dawn in order to discuss their next
move…which Philip looked like forcing on them.
He stood up and moved away from the map table. ―Culpeper,‖ he said, summoning the
physician forward from where he stood by the door. ―How goes this flux? The latest reports I had
were that the flux had virtually run its course. Is this true?‖
―The scourge is indeed almost gone, your grace,‖ Culpeper said. ―There are a few men
suffering still, but not badly. Only two score men were newly infected once we left Harfleur. In a
few days those that are still abed will have recovered enough to fight.‖
―We may not have a few days,‖ Bolingbroke muttered, then waved a dismissal at