The Nameless Day by Sara Douglass

“Do you deny that you fornicated with the Lady Rivers in Lancaster’s residence in London?” Thorseby thundered.

Thomas dropped his hand from his face and straightened. He shot Margaret a look—she had the grace to redden, and drop her eyes away from his. “No,” he said softly.

“What?” Raby and Lancaster said again, then looked at each other.

Raby took a half step back, allowing Lancaster the stage.

The duke turned to Thomas. “Is this true?”

Thomas nodded.

“The Lady Rivers has further confessed to me that Thomas fathered her child,”

Thorseby said.

Lancaster shot a look at Raby, who was staring gape-mouthed at Margaret, then addressed Thomas.

“Do you admit to fathering the Lady Margaret’s child?” he said, enunciating each word very carefully.

His eyes bored into Thomas’. Admit it, and save my daughter’s pride.

Thomas hesitated, remembering Alice standing before him, desperate, Will you

acknowledge this child? she’d asked. No, he’d replied, and turned his back to her.

He remembered the night Margaret had come to his chamber, and how he had placed his hands on her belly, and felt the shape and movement of her child— his child—and recalled then the dream where he’d been unable to save his daughter, and Alice.

“Do you admit to fathering the Lady Margaret’s child?” Lancaster said again, as carefully as the first time.

Thomas glanced at Raby, who was staring intently at him, then looked to Margaret, and saw there the desperation in her eyes, as once he had seen the desperation in Alice’s eyes.

“Yes,” he said, and with that word he felt a great weight lift from his shoulders and he straightened imperceptibly. “Yes, I fathered Lady Margaret’s child.”

Margaret’s eyes grew huge, and Thomas saw tears glint in them, but it was Raby’s reaction which caught at his attention. A welter of emotions flitted across his uncle’s face: continued shock, surprise, pain, but, most of all, relief.

“You have dishonored my name and my house!” Lancaster roared at Thomas, making everyone flinch. The duke turned to face Thomas so that his face was hidden from Thorseby, and clapped a hand on Thomas’ shoulder.

“For this,” Lancaster whispered, his face losing its fury and showing only gratitude, “I will reward you well. I thank you, Tom.”

Then he raised his voice. “You have also dishonored the Lady Margaret. I insist that you—”

He got no further, for just as he spoke Margaret whimpered, and collapsed to the floor.

Joan Beaufort reacted instantly. She moved to Margaret’s side, and stooped beside her.

“Lady?” she whispered. “What ails you … is it the child?”

Margaret, her eyes wide with pain and fear, nodded, and Joan looked up at the group of men standing helplessly by.

“Her time has come,” she said. “I beg you. Someone send for a midwife.”

MARGARET PACED back and forth, supported on one side by Lady Raby, and the other by one of the town’s midwives, Maude Piston.

She could not believe the pain she was enduring, nor could she believe the platitudes her two companions fed her every time she moaned or wailed.

Margaret knew she was not doing well, nor was she being a good girl. Neither was the child ever going to slip out like a greased lambkin, nor was it all going to be over in a minute, sweeting.

No, she was being torn apart, and she was going to die in the tearing.

Margaret was also aware of the worried looks the Lady Raby (oh, if only she knew she was supporting her husband’s mistress!) and Maude shared over the top of her bowed head.

This labor was progressing badly, and all three women in the chamber knew it,

even if none of them spoke it.

After Margaret had collapsed in the guest hall, Raby had helped his wife walk Margaret to one of the private guest chambers in the friary.

Here Raby, doubtless feeling acutely the irony of the situation, had left his wife and Margaret, and Joan had done her best to keep Margaret cheered until Maude bustled in an hour later.

That had been twelve hours ago. And in that twelve hours, neither Joan nor Maude had left the chamber.

All Margaret wanted was some solitude. All she needed was to be left alone for half an hour to birth this child her way, but neither of the cursed women would go!

And, in the meantime, both she and the child were dying.

Margaret doubled over and screamed, tearing herself from Joan and Maude’s grip and falling to the floor.

THE SCREAM wailed through the entire guest complex, and Lancaster, Raby, Thomas and Thorseby, still in the hall, reflexively twitched at the dreadful sound.

“MY LADY!” Maude said, squatting down by the writhing Margaret. “My lady—you must get to your feet, the babe will never be born this way, and—”

“The babe is not going to be born anyway, you cow-faced harlot!” Margaret yelled, and then curled up into a tight ball about her belly, moaning and shrieking at the same time.

Joan took a step backward, unsure. What was wrong with the baby? Why wouldn’t it come forth? She locked eyes with Maude, but the midwife shrugged helplessly.

“We have to get her up,” Maude said.

Exhausted and emotionally drained herself, Joan stepped up and leaned down to take Margaret’s arm.

Just then Margaret gave a great groan, and blood stained the skirts of the linen shift she wore.

“She bleeds!” Joan said, freezing in the act of bending down. “Maude … what is there to be done?”

Maude looked helplessly at the blood, pooling in ever greater amounts about Margaret, then looked up to Joan.

“Fetch a priest, my lady,” she said tonelessly. “There is only that one thing to be done.”

Joan’s hands flew to her face, her eyes horrified, then she nodded, stepped around Maude and Margaret and left the chamber. Joan was in such a hurry, she did not close the door behind her.

Maude started to rise herself and, just at that moment when she was the most unbalanced, Margaret suddenly lurched up and shoved the midwife with all the

strength she could summon.

Giving a faint cry of surprise, Maude tumbled over, falling through the door into the passage outside.

She rolled over, and found herself eye to eye with a fierce-faced Margaret still lying on the floor of the chamber. Then, before Maude could react, Margaret somehow managed to get to her knees, and then fell forward with her arms outstretched, catching the edge of the door, and slamming it shut in Maude’s startled face.

There was a faint thump, as if something—Margaret, perhaps—had fallen against the door.

Maude scrambled to her feet, as much angry as she was concerned. What was the woman doing? Did she think to die unshriven?

Maude put her shoulder to the door and shoved, but it did not budge.

Grunting, Maude tried again.

Nothing.

Maude took a deep breath and tried one more time, putting all her not inconsiderable weight and strength into the effort.

The door did not move.

Instead, there was a further thump from the other side, as if something very heavy indeed had thrown itself against it.

Then a cry sounded, faint, but distinct, and Maude reeled away from the door.

It had sounded partway between the warbling of a bird and the growling of a cat.

Maude turned, and would have run, save at that moment Joan reappeared, this time with Raby, Thomas and Thorseby.

“Maude?” Joan said. “What… why…”

“She threw me out, the minx!” Maude said. “And now she lies blocking the door, and I cannot get in, and something … something … something is wrong!”

“What do you mean, ‘wrong’?” asked Raby.

“The birth is not going well,” Joan said quietly.

“Nay,” said Maude, “and it should, for that babe is barely seven-month along and should slip out with no trouble at all. But…”

“She began to bleed,” Joan said, looking at her husband. “Maude sent me for a priest.”

Raby groaned. “Oh, poor Margaret!” He looked at his wife. “She attended Gloucester’s wife when she died a-bleeding in childbed. Margaret was so scared the same would happen to her…”

Joan did not think to wonder why Margaret should have confided this to Raby, but merely took his arm, and bit her lip. “Someone must break that door down,” she said. “If only that Margaret may not die unshriven.”

“And have you nothing to say?” Thorseby said to Thomas, who was standing slightly behind Raby, staring at the closed door. “If you had not forced the woman to your bed, she would not even now—”

“Oh, hold your tongue!” Thomas snapped, then addressed Raby, ignoring

Thorseby’s furious face. “If we both put our shoulders to that door, uncle, we must be able to break it open.”

“Yes, yes!”

But just as they moved to the door, a scream echoed that sounded as if it had come from another world, or from the throat of a being from another world.