“Can no message be sent?”
Hal gave a short bark of humorless laughter. “Messengers have been sent night and day, to no avail.”
“Hal, there is something I should tell you.” Thomas needed to confide in someone
… if only to gain another pair of ears and eyes, and Hal had access to places and people that Thomas did not.
And who could he trust if not Hal?
“Yes?”
“It is about the demons.”
Hal now focused sharply on Thomas’ face.
“I fear we have badly misjudged their power and abilities. It seems that—”
“Hal! Tom!” Hotspur had reined his horse into a sliding half-rearing stop as they neared Smithfield, and was now calling back to them. “Why do you lag so! The games have already begun!”
He waved ahead to a field containing thousands of Londoners, scores of tents, and hundreds of leaping, waving standards and banners. In the open center of the field knights were already tilting to the cheers and cries of the crowd.
Hal reached out and touched Thomas’ arm. “Later, my friend. I think this neither the place nor time.”
When they arrived at the stand accommodating Lancaster’s retinue Thomas saw that both the Duke and Katherine sat throne-like chairs already, laughing and clapping at the display before them.
A few paces behind Katherine stood Margaret, still wearing the same lemon gown, but now with a dark blue cloak wrapped about her.
As Thomas watched, the cloak blew back, momentarily exposing her pregnant belly, and Thomas’ mind was instantly, frighteningly, reminded of how good it had felt when Odile had pressed her pregnant body into his, and how it had made his lust rise …
“Thomas,” Hal said. “Stop gawping at the ladies and dismount. There is a much
better view from atop the stand.”
CHAPTER SIX
After Nones on the Feast of the Nativity of
Our Lord Jesus Christ
In the fifty-first year of the reign of Edward III
(afternoon Saturday 25th December 1378)
— YULETIDE —
— I —
“YES? WHAT IS IT?” The Black Prince raised his head from the letter he was composing to his wife. Raby had entered his chamber, and was waving a letter of his own from one hand.
“My lord! It is a letter—”
The Black Prince sighed irritably. He was not feeling well, and would rather not have been disturbed.
“—from your lady wife, Joan.”
“What?” The Black Prince rose to his feet, stumbled slightly, recovered, then strode to meet Raby halfway across the chamber.
“A messenger brought it to the gates of the city, my lord,” Raby said.
The Black Prince glanced at the seal—it was indeed from Joan!—and tore the letter open. They had been in Bordeaux a week or more now, and even that short period had seen the prince grow bored. He missed Joan terribly, and wished he could have been with her for the festive season.
His eyes scanned the letter. “Sweet Jesu! Raby, Joan is on her way here!”
“What? Not true … surely?”
“True enough!” The Black Prince waggled the letter at Raby. “She left London as soon as Lancaster arrived, swearing she would spend Christmastide with me. It was to be a surprise, save that her ship put in at Blaye because the master had a toothache so sore he could not continue without having his decaying peg pulled.
Lord God, Raby, Blaye is only some twenty or so miles north of here! Joan is surely on the road already. Come, man! Let us meet her!”
And before Raby could object, the Black Prince had hastened from the chamber and was shouting for his horse.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Vespers on the Feast of the Nativity of
Our Lord Jesus Christ
In the fifty-first year of the reign of Edward III
(early evening Saturday 25th December 1378)
— YULETIDE —
— II —
CHRISTMASTIDE WAS THE BUSIEST time of year at any court—surpassed only by the funeral of a king and the coronation of his successor.
For Lancaster’s household the religious rites of Christmastide began with midnight Angels’ Mass in the chapel of the Savoy, continued with the Shepherds’ Mass at daybreak, and culminated in the Mass of the Divine Word at noon. Apart from a few guards, the entire household attended all three masses; even the cooks, for the evening Christmastide feast and revelries were to be held at Westminster in the great hall, hosted by King Edward. All three masses were marked with great joy, and joyous spirituality. Now, at the darkest time of the year, Christ had been born, signifying the eventual resurrection of the sun on the grim (yet, even so, joyful) festival of Easter. The solstice had occurred and winter was here, but so was the newborn Christ, and with Him, hope was born.
During the Mass of the Divine Word the chapel was filled with light—there were over three thousand lit tapers and candles, as well as the cold midday light that filtered down through the stained glass windows—incense, and the music of the choir. To one side of the altar a nativity scene had been set up under the alabaster statue of the Virgin Mary and the infant Christ: a crib, with a straw cow and ass set beside it. Lancaster, Katherine, Boling-broke and the immediate members of the household sat on richly decorated pews at the front of the nave. Thomas stood alongside one of the columns that separated nave from aisles on either side. Behind Lancaster’s family were a few score knights and their ladies, then a hundred or more men-at-arms, before the mass of servants who made up the bulk of Lancaster’s household. To either side of the nave stood sundry monks and friars who were not part of the choir, but were in some manner attached to the Savoy chapel or Lancaster’s household. Thomas studied them carefully, but could not see Wycliffe among them.
Margaret stood among the knights and their ladies. She glanced neither to her left nor to her right—she certainly did not appear to notice Thomas, who watched her carefully from time to time—but kept her eyes on the rood screen before the altar, her lips murmuring in prayer, her hands clasping a small prayer book.
Was she merely pretending, or truly devout?
Lancaster’s personal chaplain rose to deliver the Christmas homily, a righteous but generally torrid and baffling piece about the rigors of the true Christian life, and Thomas found his attention wandering.
A movement at the very rear of the chapel caught his eyes.
Wycliffe, standing in the shadows, watching Thomas as carefully as Thomas had been watching others.
The man nodded when he saw that Thomas had spotted him, and then melted back into the shadows.
Thomas went cold.
Tie demon dared show himself, even within God’s house, and during this most sacred of masses?
He stared toward the spot where Wycliffe had vanished, but he could not see him, and eventually he turned his eyes back over the rest of the congregation …
wondering….
THE BLACK Prince rode from Bordeaux with an escort of several hundred men.The city was deep within English-controlled territory, but he wished to take no chances with the life and health of his beloved wife. If luck were with him he would have her back by nightfall!
But luck was not with him at all. Almost as soon as Bordeaux was out of sight, the rainy weather disintegrated into a winter storm with driving snow and a wind that bit deep into the riders’ bones. The Black Prince tried to push on through the storm, but it was not possible, and he reluctantly agreed with Raby that it were best to shelter in the lee of a hill.
Had this storm hit Joan as well? Or had she taken the precaution of waiting for him in Blaye?
Within an hour the Black Prince was in desperate straits. His men had managed to light a small fire for him, and even managed to keep it going, but whatever warmth it threw out was blown away before it could reach the flesh of any who huddled about it. The prince had hunkered down on his haunches, blankets and cloaks thrown about him so that only his eyes and nose emerged from their woolen wrap.
Yet even that small glimpse afforded of his flesh told of nothing but disaster. The prince’s eyes were bright with some inner fever that ate away his strength, his flesh so pale it was almost transparent—Raby swore he could see the shape of the prince’s bones beneath its inadequate protection.
His form shook and trembled beneath the mound of blankets.
It was almost as if the storm was sucking the life force out of him with every gust.
Raby stood to one side (leaning, more like, in the strength of the wind), feeling utterly useless. He knew he should have persuaded the prince to wait in Bordeaux.
Lord Jesus Christ, the prince’s life was more important than that of his wife!