Margaret. Hand her your soul. You have no choice.
―I have me no choice,‖ whispered Neville, ―at that you are right…but I cannot choose
Margaret.‖
Bolingbroke‘s face shifted, his rage almost breaking through, then he swung away, and
climbed into the stand.
Catherine sent Neville one brief, despairing look, then she, too, climbed into the stand,
Owen Tudor close behind her. As Isabeau followed her daughter into the stand she glanced at
Neville curiously. A dishevelled noble the worse for drink, she thought, and dismissed him from
her mind.
Shaking, a hand clutching one of the wooden supports of the stand almost as hard as
Margaret clutched at the cart, Neville turned back to look into the square.
The angels were now, quite literally, shaking. Their forms jiggered and danced about, the
rims of their tightly-drawn hoods fluttering and flapping, although they generally kept their
places in the semi-circle at the front of the crowd.
They were having fun, and it showed.
Another clarion of horns, and again Neville jumped.
Bolingbroke was in the stand now, and he moved to its front. He pointed down at Joan,
now kneeling in her cage, still clinging to its bars.
―Witch and sorceress,‖ he said in his clear, carrying voice. ―Heretic and harlot,
bloodletter and drinker…so has this Joan, so-called Maid of France, been condemned by our
mother Church.‖ Bolingbroke glanced at the stand containing the clerics, and they all nodded
solemnly.
―People of France,‖ Bolingbroke continued. ―You think that Joan has worked for you,
worked in your favour, but in reality she has been a harlot of the devil, working towards your
eventual enslavement to the minions of hell. She is no earthly woman—for what earthly woman
wears men‘s clothes, and armour, and wields a lance? What earthly woman refuses the embrace
of a man, and refuses to bear his children? What earthly woman,‖ his voice had risen now to a
shout, ―can fly from the tops of towers and land a mile away? She is a witch, a sorceress, and her
contamination can be erased only by the purifying caress of the flames.‖
The crowd murmured, and shifted, disliking not so much Bolingbroke‘s words, but the
vile manner in which he spoke them.
―Men of France—‖ Bolingbroke called out again, but was prevented from continuing by
one of the angels, who now stepped forth, throwing his arms out wide.
Instantly, a great stillness fell upon the crowd, and Neville knew that the
angel—Archangel Michael—had ensorcelled the ordinary men and women into a dream state.
They might see, and might even remember, but it would be as a dream, not a reality.
Michael threw back his hood, revealing a bald cavernous skull only barely covered with
dead white skin.
As the hood of his cloak dropped, so the obsidian crown vanished, then reappeared about
the archangel‘s white-skinned skull as the hood folded about his shoulders.
Let us see who is the witch here, he hissed. And let us finally decide this battle, once and for all.
He turned slightly, holding out his hand, and Neville, sick to his stomach, his hands
trembling with his dread, stumbled helplessly forth into the clear space.
Thomas Neville, the archangel said, and the ranks of the angels about him took up the
refrain. Thomas Neville! Thomas Neville! Thomas Neville!
Neville wept, silent and despairing, not able to tear his eyes from Margaret, who was
rigid with terror.
Beloved brother, said Michael, one among us, now is the day, the time, and the hour
towards which for so many years all of us have walked.
Appalled, Neville realised that Michael was all but conducting a marriage ceremony: the
marriage of Neville‘s soul, as well as those of all mankind‘s, back into the fold of the angels.
To whom will you present your soul, Beloved? To whom will you join forever and ever
and for all eternity? Where is your whore, Thomas, who you love so deeply you will gift her your
soul?
The archangel paused. Not here?
Not here? whispered the throng of angels. Not anywhere?
Will you admit to inevitability, Thomas, Michael continued, and hand your soul back to
us, to your brothers?
The archangel grinned, and it was a horrifying thing. But perhaps you would like to try
Margaret, Thomas. Just in case we”re wrong. Just in case there is a chance she”s the right girl for you…
One of the other Archangels stepped forth and grabbed Margaret, who cried out. The
Archangel, Raphael, dragged her to stand close to where Michael and Neville stood.
Neville shuddered, feeling the weight of the angels about him, and the terrified eyes of
Margaret upon him.
So, Thomas, Michael said, whither goest your soul? To this Margaret—being all you
have to hand—or to us?
He stepped forward, so close now that Neville could feel the angel‘s cold breath on his
cheek.
Michael leaned closer yet, and lifted a hand to stroke softly at Neville‘s cheek. You are
one of us, Beloved. Fight it no longer. Accept it. Join your soul with ours.
―No,‖ cried Neville, wrenching away from the archangel‘s touch.
You have no choice, Thomas. You are one of us, one with us—
―No!‖
— and you must hand us your soul, and mankind with it.
He paused, and the ghastly rictus of a smile re-formed on his face. But you want to try,
don”t you? Go on, then. Try and give Margaret your soul. Try it. Try and give this falsity your soul.
Neville stared at Margaret, and took two stumbling paces towards her. She held out her
arms, her face—her entire being—beseeching him, and he ran to her, and grabbed her from
Raphael‘s grip, hoping that in touching her, something within him would give.
Give enough to enable him to hand her his soul.
She clung to him, wrapping her arms about him, sobbing almost uncontrollably, and
Neville‘s heart broke.
―Margaret…‖ he whispered.
She lifted her tear-stained face to his, and he bent to kiss her, and as he kissed her he
tried, he tried with every part of him, every fibre of his being, every piece of want and
desperation within him, to hand to her his soul…
And it would not budge. Every time he tried he felt as if he were being flung against a
rockface, and that rockface was the dark irk that had grown within him ever since he‘d learned of
her trickery in making him love her.
He tried to shove it aside, tried to move about it, but he could not…he could not…he
could not…again and again he dashed against it.
He broke down, weeping, and Margaret cried out again in terror, and slumped to the
ground.
Neville was dimly aware that Bolingbroke was on his feet in the stand, his face horrified.
He was shouting at Neville, but Neville could not make out the words.
About him the angels were closing in, laughing, gloating, knowing they had won.
You cannot deny our will, said Michael, nor the path destined for you. Come join with us, Thomas, join the brotherhood. It is so easy…after all, you only have to do…nothing.
Neville could feel their words pulling at him, feel their effect within him. Michael was
calling him home, and his soul was responding.
Michael screamed, and all the angels screamed with him, and Neville‘s soul screamed,
too, terrified and jubilant at the same moment.
―No,‖ Neville shouted, dropping to the ground beside Margaret and covering his ears
with his hands. ― No! ‖
There is no choice, Thomas. There never has been. Come home. Gift us your soul—
He could feel it within him, tearing loose, responding to the calls of the angels.
He screamed, but that only jerked his soul looser.
One more moment, and it would fly home…
―Tom.‖
Everything stopped, even, so it felt to Neville, the beating of his heart within his chest.
―Tom.‖
The voice came again. Deep. Calm. Loving.
And the voice of a woman.
Neville jerked, pressing his hands tighter to his ears, wondering what new trick this was.
―Tom.‖
The angels screamed, and it was the anger and fright contained in that sound that finally
made Neville lower his hands from his ears and look about.
A woman stood at the edge of the crowd.
NO, roared Archangel Michael, and all the angels roared with him. NO! NO! NO!
A woman, James standing a pace behind her, looking tenderly at where both Margaret
and Neville sat slumped on the ground.
Neville slowly rose to his feet, his eyes unable to move from this strange, compelling
woman. She was tall, and wondrously striking in appearance. Her hair was very dark, bound in a
crown about her brow. Her eyes were the deepest blue he had ever seen, almost violet, their
colour accentuated by her pale, fine skin. Her body was exquisitely formed, slim and graceful,
and with the round bulge of a five- or six-month pregnancy straining the front of her white robe.