Jocelyn Hawkins—now a part of Neville‘s household—chatted happily to one side.
The master of the boat shouted a curse at one of the men manning the sails, jerking
Neville from his reverie. He turned from his spot at the front of the boat and made his way back
to Margaret.
―You do not feel ill?‖ he asked, sitting down beside her and taking her hand.
―Nay. I shouldn‘t have worried about the water voyage so much.‖ She smiled, and patted
her abdomen with her free hand. ―I think the gentle motion of the river has sent these two to
sleep.‖
At that moment Rosalind shrieked as Bohun pulled at her plait.
―More‘s the pity,‖ Margaret continued, her mouth twisting wryly, ―that it hasn‘t subdued
our older children in the same manner.‖
Neville smiled, but said nothing. He lifted a hand and tucked away a tendril of Margaret‘s
hair that had escaped from beneath her simple lawn headdress. These past months since their
return from France had been good for them.
The peace of Halstow Hall had been good for them.
They had settled down to a contented country life—overseeing the harvests and their
tenants (Neville had freed every one of his peasants from the last vestiges of their feudal bonds
on his return), listening to Thomas Tusser‘s increasingly execrable rhymes and Robert
Courtenay‘s gentle laughter, watching their children grow in the sun and wind, making new
children.
Making a life and a marriage for themselves without the ambitions and uncertainties and
hatreds that had previously consumed them.
They never talked about what had happened in the square that day Joan had burned. They
never talked of Mary, or of what Neville had given her.
To do that would have been to destroy everything they had managed to build over the
past eight months.
Within half an hour their boat had passed under London Bridge and was heading for the
southern curve in the Thames that would take them to Westminster and the purpose of their visit
to London.
Both a life and a death awaited them.
Catherine was due to give birth within the next week or so, and she had asked that
Margaret be present. At that Neville was not surprised—this would be the birthing of a new
English monarch unlike any before.
And yet…yet…Neville had the faintest suspicion that since the events in the castle
courtyard of Rouen the unusual powers and abilities of the angel-children were fading. A week
or so ago Margaret had mentioned, so very casually as if it were of no matter, that she thought
she would use the services of a local midwife to birth the twins.
A local midwife. A very normal, human woman.
It meant that Margaret was considering giving birth in her human form, not her angel
form. Was she now more human than angel? Had the angel-children lost almost as badly as the
angels on that day Neville had handed his soul to Mary, to mankind, rather than to either
Margaret or the demons?
Was the cause of the angel-children dying with their king…dying with Hal Bolingbroke?
Bolingbroke‘s deteriorating condition was the other reason for Neville and Margaret‘s
trip to London. As Catherine prepared to give birth, so Bolingbroke prepared to die, and Neville
had come to see his once-friend for the last time. This was something he both wanted and had to
do, and Neville suspected that Bolingbroke had been clinging to life for months waiting for
Neville‘s visit.
Now, it was time to let go.
Hal and Catherine had taken up residence in the guest quarters of the monastery attached
to Westminster Abbey. This was due less to personal preference than to the wishes of the Privy
Council and great lords of England. A king was dying, his heir was about to be born, and both
events were to be conducted under the watchful eyes of those men who would make up the
Council of Regents once Bolingbroke was dead.
At their head, virtual ruler of England ever since Bolingbroke‘s return from France, was
Ralph Neville, Baron of Raby and Earl of Westmorland, and now the most powerful man in the
country.
He had done well indeed from his connections with, and loyalty to, the Lancastrian
faction.
But, most powerful man in England or not, Raby was still a family man, and when
Neville‘s boat docked at Westminster‘s wharf Raby was there to greet his nephew. He stepped
into the boat, too impatient even for Neville to disembark, and embraced him warmly.
Then he turned to Margaret, smiled, took her hand, and kissed her in a brotherly fashion
on her mouth. ―The queen has been asking for you, Margaret, desperate to hear of news of your arrival. She went into labour early this morning.‖
Margaret‘s eyes widened, and she allowed Neville to help her from the boat where the
palace chamberlain was waiting to escort her to Catherine‘s side.
As she walked away, Raby turned back to Neville, his eyes dark and sad. ―And Hal has
been asking for you, Tom. He has not long to live.‖
The chamber was dark and cold, and stank of death even though servants had set up
sweet-scented braziers and burners about the room.
Neville made his way slowly to the great bed, and to the gaunt and wheezing shape that
lay upon it.
―Tom? Tom, is that you?‖
Neville found it difficult to reply. Hal—or what had once been Hal ( fair Prince
Hal)—had wasted to such an extent he was now little more than skin-covered bone. His hair,
once so beautiful, lay patchy and grey across his skull. His eyes had dulled so badly they were
now virtually colourless. His skin was papery, so thin Neville could see the irregular beating of
the blood vessels beneath.
His condition, appallingly, reminded Neville of how Mary had died.
―Tom?‖ A note of panic crept into Hal‘s voice. ―Tom, is that you? ‖
―Aye, Hal, it is me.‖ Neville sat down on a stool by the bed and, with only the barest
hesitation, laid his warm hand on Hal‘s cold fingers as they lay on the coverlet.
―You came.‖ Tears slipped over Hal‘s lower eyelids and down his cheeks.
There was a long silence. Neville did not know what to say. All he could see, all he could
remember, was how glorious Hal had been in his prime. How godlike he‘d been when he seized
power from Richard.
How beautiful…
―It has all come to this, then,‖ Hal whispered, then jerked as he coughed.
Black mud ran from a corner of his mouth, and Neville took a cloth that lay by a bowl of
rosewater on a table to one side and wiped it away.
Neville said nothing.
―I had not realised about Mary,‖ Hal said once he had caught his breath. ―I had not
known.‖
―None of us did,‖ Neville said.
―But you loved her.‖
―Aye. I loved her.‖
―Why? What was so special about Mary?‖
You fool, thought Neville. If you wanted an answer for why you now die, then it lies in
that you still ask that question. He did not speak.
―I should have loved,‖ Hal said after a very long silence.
Neville‘s eyes filled with tears. ―Aye. You should have loved.‖
There was another lengthy quiet between them, the only sound that of Hal‘s harsh
breathing.
Then, eventually, Hal coughed again, cleared his throat of his accumulation of mud, and
spoke once more. ―Tom…is Christ among us?‖
―Yes.‖
―Where? Why do I not see him? Why has he not come to me?‖
―Because you did not love,‖ Neville said, hating the fact that he had to say it.
Hal began to cry, great broken sobs that racked his weak body. ―I tried so hard,‖ he said.
―I know,‖ Neville said, crying himself now.
―I wish I had loved.‖
―I know,‖ Neville said…and then realised there was no one listening.
He sat there in the silence of death for what seemed a very long time.
The door to the chamber opened, and the palace chamberlain came in.
―My lord,‖ he whispered, and Neville turned about.
―Yes?‖
―The king has a son. Will you tell him?‖
Neville hesitated a long moment. ―The king is dead,‖ he said eventually. ―He no longer
cares.‖
Then he stood, took one long look at the husk of the man he had once loved lying on the
bed, then turned and left the room.
He walked from Westminster to Cheapside in London—the distance taking him well over
an hour.
By the time he‘d walked past St Paul‘s the bells of the parish churches in London had
begun to peal in mourning.
The city quietened under its pall of bells, and many shops closed for the day as working
men and their wives thought to take themselves to church to pray for the dead king‘s soul.
But Neville knew that the door to one workshop at least would still be open.
He found the carpenter‘s workshop on the same laneway off Cheapside in which he had