The Nameless Day by Sara Douglass

Hotspur was almost as suspicious as his father. Not only had Raby secured a marriage which would almost guarantee him greater preferment, Thomas had also re-emerged as a potential rival. As boys, Hotspur and Thomas, together with Hal Bolingbroke, had been inseparable. They had formed a clique which defended itself against all outsiders.

But as the boys grew into men, matters changed. Hotspur had inherited his father’s ambition. One day he, too, expected to be Lord of the North. This brought him into inevitable conflict with Hal, who would one day succeed to the estates and titles of his father and would become a natural rival for power with Hotspur at the English court and Privy Council.

Thomas had removed himself entirely from the political and dynastic ambitions of Hotspur and Bolingbroke when he had taken holy orders. But now here he was again, not only back with his family estates, but also the goodwill and patronage of Lancaster and Bolingbroke, and three of the personal manors of the duke himself.

The friendship between Hotspur and Thomas was still there, but it was not as it had been. There was a coolness, almost a suspicion, that had not existed when they’d been mere boys dreaming of bedding their first girl.

Thomas learned as much from the Percys as they learned from him, and principally what he learned was that the father had ambitions for the son that extended well beyond the north. Edward had reigned for over fifty years and had been, apart from the early years when he’d been in his minority and his final months of senility, a strong ruler who had kept his nobles under firm control.

Could Richard do the same? Even with Lancaster behind him? It was notoriously difficult for any youthful king to retain a firm grip on power, and certainly not unknown for another high-ranking noble to try and seize power. Lancaster was loyal… but were the Percys?

As Hotspur eyed Thomas suspiciously, so also did Thomas watch Hotspur, and wonder …

THOMAS RODE into the Dominican friary outside Lincoln just after midday on Low Sunday, the first Sunday following Easter. The great festival of death and resurrection always heralded the onset of spring, and today was mild and clear. The snows and biting winds of winter seemed finally to have given polite way to flowers and tender grasses. The Percys and their retinue had ridden on into Lincoln; Thomas

and Margaret and their child would join them on the morrow to recommence the journey into London.

He dismounted his horse in the courtyard, and a lay brother, who took his mount from him, smiled and pointed to the gate leading to the friary garden when Thomas asked after Margaret.

Thomas thanked him, then turned and looked at the gate. It was high and of solid wood… and closed.

He hesitated, using the excuse of slowly drawing off his gloves, staring at the gate.

Beyond there she sat, his future wife, the mother of his child … and his potential nemesis.

But only if he allowed it.

Thomas took a deep breath, tucked the gloves into his belt, and walked over to the gate, unlatching it quietly and pushing it open.

At first he did not see her. The garden was extensive, laid out in large, raised rectangular beds containing vegetables and herbs. Fruit trees, staked berry shrubs and trellised vines bordered the walks and beds, breaking up the view and making the garden a series of rooms rather than an extended vista the eye could absorb in its entirety.

The sun shone down from almost directly overhead, so that anyone or anything sheltered within the garden’s arbours sat secreted within deep shade, and it was only when Thomas had closed the gate and walked a few steps down the main path that he saw Margaret.

She sat under a rose arbor, totally absorbed in the child she held nestled to her breast. Her hair was unbound, hanging girlishly over her shoulders, and she wore a very simple gown that would not have looked astray on a dairy maid.

Margaret’s head jerked up as she heard Thomas’ step on the path. For an instant her face registered total surprise, then she composed herself, and smiled as he stepped up and sat beside her on the bench.

“Hello, Margaret,” he said.

“Thomas,” she answered.

Now that he was close, and his eyes adjusted to the patterns of light and shade, Thomas realized that Margaret had regained her beauty and health. Her face had lost its gray sunken-ness and was full of color and vibrancy, and her dark eyes danced with merriment.

Thomas stared, his own face expressionless, and Margaret’s smile faded. Her eyes grew uncertain.

“I have no horns, Thomas,” she said softly.

Thomas continued to study her for a moment longer, then he dropped his gaze to Rosalind, his face relaxing into a smile for the first time. If Margaret had regained her health, then the change in the infant was remarkable.

Rosalind had lost all her scrawny redness, and was now plump and creamy-skinned. She was still small, very small for a baby almost two months old, but that she was healthy and had taken a firm grasp on life could not be doubted.

Thomas reached out a hand, and touched her cheek gently.

“See,” Margaret said, and drew the blanket a little way back from Rosalind’s head.

“She has the Neville hair.”

Thomas remembered that when she was born Rosalind had had a few strands of dark hair across her scalp. Now those few strands had increased and thickened into a cap of wavy black hair.

As his finger traced softly over her head, Rosalind twisted her head away from Margaret’s breast and blinked at him.

“She wonders who you are,” Margaret said, drawing the linen of her bodice closed over her breast and wrapping Rosalind a little more securely in her blanket.

Then she lifted the baby and placed her in Thomas’ arms.

As on the night he’d first held her, so now Thomas again was overwhelmed with the urge to protect and nurture the child. He held her close, and rocked her a little.

“She shall have a good life,” he said. “The sin of her begetting shall not stain her.”

Margaret bit back a tart answer. And do you mean by that the sin of her mother?

“She was born beyond marriage, Tom. Bastardy shall always stain her.”

“She shall not suffer for it. I will not allow it.”

“There are some,” Margaret said very softly, watching Thomas’ face carefully,

“who think she would be better dead.”

Thomas’ face jerked up to hers. Had she been more aware than he realized when he had talked to the archangel St. Michael?

“I will protect her, Margaret. I would give my life for her.”

Margaret smiled— would you give your soul, Tom? —and tilted her eyes back to her daughter. “She shall have a good life.”

“Aye,” Thomas said.

“And a long one.”

“Aye.”

Again Margaret regarded Thomas. “A long life for a beloved daughter is an easy thing to promise here among the roses,” she said, “but harder, sometimes, to accomplish in reality. Sometimes other loyalties intrude.”

Thomas felt discomforted, not wanting to ask Margaret to explain what she’d meant… the only image her words had conjured was the archangel, arguing the girl should die when Thomas had so desperately wanted her to live.

Better she die, Thomas, better for her, better for you.

St. Michael had implied that the giving and taking of Rosalind’s life was a test, a test to prove that Thomas served God before all others.

But how could her death serve God?

“It is no sin to love your daughter,” Margaret said.

“No,” Thomas whispered. “No sin.”

Then he sighed, and roused himself, turning the conversation. “Margaret… why did you lock out the midwife to give birth alone?”

“Guilt.” “Guilt?” “I have never forgotten the manner of Lady Eleanor’s death, nor forgotten that had I acted more suitably, she could yet be alive today.” “But—”

“No, let me finish. For me the birth was a test, a way for God to punish me, if you

like. If I was truly guilty of Eleanor’s death, then I should die, too. I locked Maude out so that God should have every opportunity to take me if He so willed.”

“I had not thought you the woman to so offer herself to God.” Sweet Jesu, that was as transparent a lie as ever he’d heard!

“Nevertheless…”

“There was a strange cry come out from the chamber where you lay,” Thomas said. “A cry as if of a beast of the woods, or even of something darker. Why lock us out, Margaret?”

“See!” she said, casting out her arm at the ground before them. “Does my shadow cast horns? Do I hide a forked tail beneath my skirts? I am no demonic fiend, Thomas. Believe me!”

She leaned closer, speaking fiercely. “If you think me a demon, or worse … then what does that make Rosalind?”