“I struck a nerve, it seems,” Hal said, his tone lower now as he watched Thomas carefully.
“I do apologize, Tom.”
“Well,” Tom said, twisting his mouth into the semblance of a grin, “you can do just penance by describing to me the wondrous battle of Poitiers. Hmm?”
“Gladly, Tom! Ah,” Hal leaned back, his eyes alight, wiping his greasy fingers on his napkin, “Poitiers … such a great victory. Tom,” he leaned forward again, now talking earnestly, “our force was but small, and the French outnumbered us three to one …”
Hal continued to describe the battle, the largest he’d ever been in, waving his hands about in excitement as he did so.
“It was a carnage, Tom,” he finished, “conducted under the warm blue skies and to the accompaniment of hundreds of horns, flutes and pipes.”
Thomas nodded, draining his goblet of wine. Once I also would have reveled in the thrill of the battle, the victory of the slaughter, and the happiness of captured richness… but no longer. I have grown beyond that.
“Ah, Tom,” Hal said, gesturing to a servant to pour Thomas some more wine.
“Rolling out of a cold pallet to say Matins prayers in the dark hours of a winter’s morning does not quite compare, does it?”
“We all have made our choices,” Thomas said, instantly regretting the piousness of the tone he’d used.
“And yet there are still choices to be made, my friend,” Hal said in a soft tone that
was, stunningly, full of love.
Thomas stared at him, meaning to ask of what he meant, but just then a squire stepped up to Hal and whispered in his ear.
Hal turned back to Thomas. “Will you excuse me, Tom? It seems that Gloucester needs me to settle a dispute he has with Raby about the number of hairs in a horse’s tail.” He paused, grinning. “Methinks the wine is taking hold.”
And then he was gone.
Thomas stared a moment at the space on the bench, and then leaned on the table, not interested in talking to the men either side of him and knowing that they, in their turn, would have nothing to say to him. Not for the first time in the past few years, Thomas was grateful for the distance his clerical robes put between him and other men.
Servants set the next course on the table. Yet more fish—grilled, baked, roasted, minced—chicken, roasted swan, baked porpoise and jellied sparrows, accompanied by sugary pink sweets in the form of noblemen and their ladies.
Thomas sighed, picked up one of the sugary noblemen, and absently chewed. His eyes roamed up and down the tables, his thoughts drifting, wanting Hal to come back.
Then his eyes stopped, and the half-eaten sugar confection paused halfway to his mouth.
There, at the far table, sat the witch. She was grouped with several other minor ladies, most of them ladies attending the noblewomen in camp, others, like Margaret, whores to the noblemen. She sat demure, eyes downcast, wearing the same simple gray gown he’d seen on her the night he’d arrived. Her hair was bound in a long plait now, woven in and out with what appeared to be, at this distance, late daisies.
As he watched, she lifted a morsel to her lips, tasted it, then put it down, turning her beautiful face aside.
SO INTENT was Thomas upon the Lady Margaret Rivers he did not notice that two others watched her with similarly wary eyes. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and Baron Raby both sat silent, staring down the length of the tables toward her.
Eventually Lancaster turned his head and said something to Raby.
Raby replied, shaking his head and gesturing emphatically, then both men relaxed, and laughed.
Just then, musicians and mummers entered the space between the tables and there was cheering and laughter, and the entertainment began in earnest.
MANY HOURS later, close to dawn, when the feast was over and weary-eyed servants moved slowly between the tables clearing away the remains, Thomas stood in the gloom under one of the great knotted oak trees. Most of the torches had burned themselves out many hours previously, and now only a few flickered erratically to light the servants’ labors. He leaned against the tree trunk, his arms folded, his face calm and peaceful under the black hood of his cloak.
Hal had not returned to his side, and Thomas had spent the remaining hours of the feast—no one could leave until the royal party departed—drinking too much wine and overindulging himself on the sugar confectioneries and spiced meats. Sometimes he had listened to the conversations of those about him—sometimes they had, dutifully, and badly, tried to include him—and sometimes he had glanced toward the witch, but mostly he had simply sat, thinking about his position and fretting at the delays he continually faced in reaching England … in reaching Wynkyn de Worde’s book of secrets.
Finally, however, he had succumbed to the lethargy of the wine, and had simply let his thoughts drift until, eventually, he’d realized that not only had the royal party left, but so had the majority of the other guests.
The witch was nowhere to be seen.
Not wanting to go to bed so befuddled with wine—a more comfortable bed in his own chamber, now that he was back in some form of favor—Thomas had gone for a brisk walk along a nearby forest path. The trees were not thick, and the night well moonlit, and he felt no danger. Now, his head far clearer than it had been, he stood watching the servants stumble about in the grove, his mind reciting prayers—surely it must be Matins by now—his eyes largely unfocused, his body relaxed.
“Father, forgive me—”
Thomas jerked into full awareness, and turned about.
She stood there, her hands demurely folded before her, her head bowed.
“What do you here?” Thomas said.
Margaret lifted her head and stared at him with wide dark eyes from under the rough brown wool of her hood; she had donned a cloak against the descending morning frosts.
“I could not rest,” she said. “I needed to talk to you.”
“And what did you tell Raby when you climbed out of his bed? That you were off to find his nephew for some added comfort?”
“He has spent the night drinking with the Black Prince and King John. He has not needed me.”
“Then what do you here?” Thomas repeated, his entire body tense. “My lord …
Thomas—”
“You may address me as Brother Thomas, as is fit and proper.”
Her eyes flashed. “You called me a whore, Thomas. I can hardly be the one to think of the ‘fit and proper,’ can I?”
“Say your piece, then, and go.”
“I was married when I was sixteen,” she began, and Thomas moved irritably. “No, wait, I must say this—”
“I have no time for—”
“You must have time, Thomas, when it was your face that I saw, your body I felt, the night I lost my virginity!”
Thomas reeled back. “You are a witch!”
“No more than you.”
Thomas stared at her.
“I had nothing to do with that night!” she said urgently, weaving forward a little as if she wanted to touch him, and then thinking better of it. “I thought I lay with Raby, and then … then…”
She stopped, apparently distressed, and turned her eyes away. Thomas, watching her closely, thought she was either a fine performer, or was, indeed, entirely innocent.
When Margaret looked back at him, her eyes were filled with tears. “I am not a willing whore, Thomas. I was the dutiful wife for the ten years of my marriage. I followed my husband from shrine to shrine, from Jerusalem to Santiago, from Canterbury to Rome, always seeking—and never receiving—divine aid for his wasting sickness. He died in Bordeaux a little over four months ago. We had no money left. I was destitute. My plight came to Raby’s attention, and he offered me a solution. Share his bed, and he would see me safe home to England. He had no reason to think I was still a maid.”
“Thomas, I fought with my conscience, but I was tired, and hungry, and frightened. Raby was kind to me—you know what a personable man he is! And…
and, truth to tell, I was tired of remaining a maid for six-and-twenty years. I wanted to become a woman.”
“You let your lusts overcome you.”
She breathed deeply, her face pale, her eyes so large and black. Thomas wondered not that Raby had used every means possible to win her to his bed.
Something flitted across her face. Anger, perhaps, or resentment, “I let my lusts overcome me, yes … as did you.”
“What? I—”
“I was not the only one who spent the afternoon of Saint Kenelmus’ Day fornicating! As I lay with Raby, so you must also have lain with a woman!”
“Witch!”