A sky-blue robe sat about her shoulders.
Her face…Neville blinked, knowing her face from…from…he gasped.
It was Mary. Mary Bohun…and yet not Mary Bohun. She was too tall, her hair and eye
colour too wrong, her health too startlingly good.
And yet it was Mary. The Mary who should have been.
She smiled, her face full of pity, and Neville suddenly remembered where he had seen
this face before.
It was the face of the woman who had knelt at the foot of the cross when Neville, on his
way from Kenilworth to London, had been graced with a vision of Christ.
And then, suddenly, the third option, the third path, opened up before Thomas Neville.
No wonder the angels had attacked her. No wonder they had called her whore.
No wonder they were so afraid of her.
Neville took a slow step forwards, his eyes riveted on Mary‘s face.
She smiled, and moved a little, almost suggestively, as if she knew the power of her own
body.
Mary…not Mary Bohun, but Mary Magdalene, the prostitute that Jesus had pitied, then
befriended, and then loved.
The woman the angels feared before all others.
Mary Bohun…Mary Magdalene…one and the same woman.
The third path, the third choice. Mary, who he had loved and respected without
reservation. Mary, who represented neither the angels nor the demons, for she was of neither, but
mankind.
The woman who represented mankind‘s salvation and freedom…freedom both from the
angels, and from the demons. Freedom for mankind…into their own destiny, whatever they
might make of that.
The whore to whom he could hand his soul on a platter.
Neville took another step forward, then another, and then Mary laughed and she ran
lightly to meet Neville. They met halfway across the square, their arms wrapping tight about
each other, their bodies hugging close, and Neville spun her about, laughing and crying at the
same time.
―Mary,‖ he cried. ― Mary. ‖
About them the world erupted. The angels were screaming, Bolingbroke was screaming,
and a sobbing Margaret still sprawled on the ground stared at Neville and Mary—but of none of
this did either Neville or Mary take any note.
―Lady,‖ Neville whispered, ―I beg of you, will you accept my soul?‖
―Gladly,‖ she whispered.
Hesitating an instant, but only because at this moment his love seemed too
overwhelming, Neville slowly bent his head to Mary‘s face, and kissed her.
Deeply and passionately, the kiss of a lover.
Her arms entwined about his shoulders, her hands buried deep in his hair, her body
pressed tight against his, Mary took his kiss deep into her being.
And Thomas Neville‘s soul slid easily, gratefully, lovingly and with the utmost joy into
her keeping.
He ended the kiss, and leaned back his head, and laughed with the sense of total freedom
that enveloped him. Mary, still clinging tight to him, joined in his laughter, and together they
spun about the cobbled square, laughing and dancing, surrounded by the throng of horrified
black robed angels.
Finally, panting with both breathlessness and joy, they came to a halt.
―I had thought that my being would collapse when I gifted my soul,‖ Neville said. ―Why
is it then that I still breathe, and feel, and move?‖
―Because,‖ said Mary, ―when you gift something wholly and completely and
unhesitatingly it returns to you doublefold.‖
Then she leaned up to his face and kissed him again, softly, but not lingeringly. ―Thank
you, Tom. For your friendship, for your love, and, above all, for your gift.‖
Neville‘s smile suddenly dimmed. ―Will I lose you?‖
―I must return to my husband, and you to your wife,‖ she said. ―But we will not lose each
other.‖
And with that she pulled out of his arms, paused, almost regretfully, then turned away
and walked slowly back to where James waited for her.
Neville watched her go, his being equal parts of sadness and joy.
Mary reached James, kissed him, then took his hand and turned back to face Neville.
She nodded.
Neville himself turned back to those staring at him.
The angels, their entire beings still and silent as they watched.
Their eyes flat. Unbelieving.
Margaret, on her knees now, her own eyes wide, but with disbelief and relief combined.
Bolingbroke, still furious, his fists clenched at his sides.
Catherine, watching from her chair beside Bolingbroke, weeping with joy.
Neville looked back to Archangel Michael. ―Enjoy your cold, bitter flowers for eternity,
Michael,‖ he said, ―but enjoy them without me, and without mankind. I have made my choice,
and I deny you.‖
And at that instant of denial, Neville felt the power of the angels flood through him.
I deny you, he whispered with his mind, and more power filled him.
Is this how Christ managed his miracles? he wondered in a tiny, distant part of his mind
as he stared unblinkingly, coldly, at Archangel Michael. Because in denying the angels he gained
their power?
But now was not the time to ponder such things, for Neville understood that this power
might not last long.
And so Thomas Neville smiled, cold and hard, knowing the vengeance he would exact on
the angels.
On his brothers.
He opened his mouth, hesitated, then spoke the incantation of Opening, the incantation
that all Keepers spoke when they wanted to open the cleft into Hell.
Michael‘s face opened in an horrific, but completely soundless, scream. He tried to tear
himself away from Neville‘s smile, but he could not, for he was trapped by the incantation.
―I deny you, and all yours,‖ Neville said. ―Go forth to your own creation, Michael, the
bitter fields of hell, and never trouble this mortal realm again.‖
There was a terrible grinding sound, and a fifty-foot-long rent appeared in the centre of
the square. Steam and sulphur rose from it in great loathsome gouts, and flames flickered high
into the air.
The angels screeched, twisting this way and that, but Thomas Neville, brother angel, was
speaking again, completing the incantation.
When it was done, he spoke each of the angel‘s names, knowing them as part of their
shared knowledge, and as he spoke each angel‘s name, so a tongue of flame twisted out of the
Cleft and enveloped the shrieking angel, dragging him down into hell.
Neville left Michael to last. ―Farewell brother,‖ Neville said. ―I embrace mortality—may
you embrace your new eternity. Farewell…Michael.‖
Michael surged forward towards Neville, his face twisting in his hatred and fury…but
just as his hands reached for Neville, so the flame enveloped him, dragging Michael screaming
into hell.
There was a moment left, only a moment, and Neville knew what he had to do in that
moment. He spoke one more word, and Wynkyn de Worde‘s Book of Incantations appeared in
his hands.
Neville stepped forward, and, as the Cleft started to grind closed, threw the book down
into hell.
There was a sudden surge of sulphurous flame, a shriek from beyond the Cleft as if this
was, indeed, the final indignity, and then the ground closed, and there was nothing left to remind
the watchers of what had just occurred save a faint odour of sulphur in the air.
There was a long moment, a long drawn-out gasp, an instant of silence, and in that instant
several things happened.
All power seeped away from Neville, and he felt himself mortal, and vulnerable, and felt
joyous in that mortality and vulnerability.
Freed from the angels.
Bolingbroke strode to the front of the stand, shouting: ―I will still have France, Neville.
Nothing you have done here this morning can stop that.‖
And after France, the world, Neville thought. He began to say something, but was
stopped by Mary, who had again walked forward.
This time, however, she did not look at Neville. She walked slowly and confidently to
within ten or fifteen paces of the stand where Bolingbroke stood, looking furiously down.
―You did not love me,‖ she said, ―when that would have been the easiest thing in the
world to have done.‖ Her face softened into regret as she saw shock spread across Bolingbroke‘s
face.
In that moment he had realised who she was and who she had been.
―France will eat you,‖ she said, her voice soft yet carrying easily, then she swung about,
and walked a little more slowly towards the cart which held the iron-caged Joan. Mary climbed
agilely onto the large wheel, and from there took a firm grip on the iron bars of the cage.
―Joan?‖ she said. ―Joan?‖
Joan, whom everyone had forgotten in the past extraordinary minutes, crept forward
towards the woman clinging to the side of her cage.
―I know you,‖ she said. ―You were the woman at the foot of Christ‘s cross. You were
kind to me. And you were the Queen Mary, who was kind to me also.‖
―Aye,‖ said Mary, ―I was both those women. Come here, Joan, and kiss me.‖
Wondering that she should be so blessed, Joan moved to the side of the cage, and leaned