At least it was warm. Thomas picked himself up, brushed off the worst of the wet and dirt, and asked one of the men in the kitchen where Bolmgbroke was.
Having been directed up the narrow stairs that led to the guest apartments, Thomas asked his “companion” men-at-arms to wait in the kitchen for him—they agreed readily enough—and started up the steps. He met Bolingbroke’s valet halfway up, and the man pointed him to a door just beyond the top of the stairs.
Thomas stood outside it for a moment, straightening his robe and wishing he’d thought to shave before he came over, then knocked.
Bolingbroke’s voice sounded indistinctly, and Thomas opened the door, stopping in disbelief the instant he saw who sat with Bolingbroke before the roaring fire.
Margaret, her eyes startled, the needlework she’d been stitching lying on her lap.
Thomas looked across the other side of the fire. Bolingbroke was settled comfortably into another chair, a glove turning lazily over in his hands.
What? Had the witch found herself a new protector?
“Thomas!” Bolingbroke stood up. “I am glad you have come to visit the Lady Rivers. She has much improved since her troubling ride.” “I—”Thomas said.
“My lord,” Margaret said to Bolingbroke. “I, too, am glad the friar has come, for I have need to talk with a priest.”
“Ah.” Bolingbroke took his cue and bowed slightly in Margaret’s direction. “When you take your leave of Brother Thomas, could you direct him to my rooms?”
Margaret nodded, and smiled slightly, and Bolingbroke crossed the room to where Thomas still stood by the open door.
“My friend,” Bolingbroke stopped close to Thomas and spoke softly. “I am more than glad you came. The Lady Rivers has been ill, both in body and spirit, and thinks that she has offended you.”
Thomas, his face set and ill-tempered, opened his mouth to speak, but Bolingbroke forestalled him.
“We both know she carries Raby’s child,” Bolingbroke said, “and that his child will be your kinsman or -woman. Lady Rivers deserves your respect for that, as well as for her nobility and virtue.”
“Virtue?” Thomas hissed, and Bolingbroke grabbed his arm.
“Keep your voice down! You will treat her with respect, Thomas, for she is not the only person, man or woman, who has lost her way in this troubled world of ours.
She is troubled, not malicious. She deserves guidance, not condemnation!”
And with that he was gone.
Thomas would have liked nothing better than to have followed him, but fully realized that Bolingbroke was likely to march him straight back in here.
Damn her! How bad she managed to get her claws into Hal’s clean soul?
Margaret stood as Thomas approached, but he waved her back into her chair.
“As ill as you are,” he said, “I would not like you to exert yourself on my behalf.”
He sat down opposite her. “You wanted to see a priest?”
“I needed to talk with you,” she said, and her voice and gaze were steady. “I need to know why you regard me with so much loathing.”
“What? You know why I—”
Margaret leaned forward, dropping her needlework into a basket by her side. “You think me guilty of demony, don’t you?”
Thomas was shocked into silence for an instant. Then…
“And how—what—do you know of demony, my lady?” he said softly.
“I have heard rumors of what entrapped the Black Prince and his party when you rode back from meeting with Philip the Bad.”
“How? No one was to speak of that!”
Margaret smiled cynically. “The three men-at-arms who accompanied you—”
“Were isolated on their return and—”
“Had many hours during which to speak to their companions on the ride back before they were isolated! Lord Jesus Savior, Thomas, the entire camp knew of the demons before we began the ride here!”
She leaned back in her chair, her face pale and frightened now. “You think me party to demonic witchcraft, do you not, Thomas?”
He did not answer. Margaret’s face worked, and she briefly covered her eyes with a trembling hand.
“I ask you again,” she finally said, “why, if you believe in your own innocence that day you planted this child in my belly, you cannot also believe in mine. Why cannot I be a victim of sorcery also, instead of its engineer?”
“I will never acknowledge that bastard as mine,” Thomas said, after a lengthy silence.
“Of course you won’t,” Margaret said, “because a Dominican friar could never admit to an afternoon spent in sorcerous fornication, could he!”
“I wish the child were Raby’s!” she continued as Thomas stared at her. “I wish so with every beat of my heart, for then the child would have been conceived in some measure of regard and respect instead of the narrow-minded hatreds you have so embraced. Did the Church teach you such blindness, Tom, or has it been a part of your nature always?”
Whether it was her words, or the distraught expression on her face, Thomas shifted uncomfortably, wondering if it was true that she might, indeed, be as innocent as he.
“If there is witchcraft,” Margaret said in a low voice, “then we both share it. If there is guilt, then we both share it. If… if there is innocence, then we share that as well. Thomas, believe me, I beg you, I am as innocent as you… I have been used as poorly as you have been used.”
Thomas dropped his eyes and studied his hands clenched tightly in his lap. He hated it that her words made sense.
“If there are demons,” she said, almost in a whisper, “then I swear before God and all His saints that I am not one of them, nor one of their pawns. I am only Margaret, a poor Godfearing woman left to carry a child whom no one will acknowledge.”
There was a long silence, then Thomas raised his eyes. “Where will you go to bear the child?”
Her mouth worked. “My lord Raby tells me that my ‘husband’s’ child will be born at Rivers House in Bratesbridge, Lincolnshire. Roger’s parents reside there.” She shifted uncomfortably. “They will doubtless be curious to learn that their son, who for ten years was too weak to bed me, somehow managed to arise from his death throes and get this child.”
“Raby will no doubt—”
“Raby will not acknowledge the child, nor acknowledge the fact he bedded me for months before I arrived back in England. Raby will provide no support nor benefit to the child. As you once told me, he has sons and bastards enough without this one.”
“I am sure that he will do something to—”
“No! No, he will not. He cannot.”
“What do you mean?”
She arched an eyebrow. “Have you not heard?”
“What?”
“My Lord of Raby has bargained for the Lady Joan Beaufort’s hand in marriage.”
Thomas was so shocked he could not immediately speak. Joan Beaufort was Lancaster’s bastard daughter by his mistress, Katherine Swynford. Suddenly Lancaster’s interest in removing Margaret from Raby’s bed became obvious: as a doting father—and all knew how Lancaster doted on both Katherine and their bastard offspring—he would not want a former mistress of Raby’s to embarrass his daughter by flaunting her swollen belly and demanding recompense.
No, all would deny that Raby had ever set eyes on the obviously demented Lady Rivers.
But why would Raby want to negotiate a marriage with a bastard, even one fathered by so important a man as Lancaster?
“Lancaster plans to wed Katherine once we have returned to England,” Margaret said, watching the emotions play over Thomas’ face. “His children by her, Joan and Henry, will be legitimized in return for surrendering any claim to the throne.”
Thomas breathed deeply, trying to expel his shock. So… Lancaster loved Swynford enough to make her his wife. Well, both were aged now, and Lancaster already held enough land and power that he could afford to flaunt expectations and marry a penniless woman.
“How do you know all this?” he asked finally.
“Some from Raby, but not much—only that he wanted me and my belly gone from his life. The rest I heard from his valet, keen to make me realize that his master had no intention of making me his wife.”
Thomas nodded. Valets almost knew more of their master’s lives than their masters did themselves.
And the rest of her tale also rang true, if only because it would be too easy to prove false.
“Margaret… will the Rivers accept the child? Will they welcome you?”
“You are not the only one to distrust me, Thomas.”
“What shall you do?”
“Do you care?”
“I will not be trapped by this child,” Thomas said, but as the words came out of his mouth, Margaret saw deep emotion, almost fear, in his eyes.
“I will not ever use this child to trap you, Thomas,” she said, very gently.
There was a long silence.
“I do not believe you,” Thomas said finally, his voice even softer than hers had been, and he rose, and left the chamber.