Thomas swung about to stare at Margaret. She had sent no word?
Margaret made a helpless face. “My lord, my lady, I am so sorry. Roger … Roger died this past six months. In Bordeaux, where we rested after having visited Santiago de Compostella.”
Still shocked and angry that she hadn’t had the courtesy to let the Rivers know that their son was dead, Thomas still noted somewhat wryly that at least Margaret had now got her dates in correct order. Roger had been dead six months, and here she was with a seven-month belly. Jacquetta began to keen, a thin and grating wail that wove in and out of the men and horses crowding the courtyard. Sir Egdon, still staring at Margaret, put an arm about his wife’s shoulders and pulled her to him.
It muffled, but did not stop, the Lady Jacquetta’s wailing.
“The Lady Margaret also bears good news, my lord,” said Thomas, “for she is seven months gone with your son’s child.” My child, he thought, and now he did feel a stab of guilt at his denial. He vigorously pushed all thought of Alice from his mind.
Sir Egdon’s brow lined with suspicion. “I don’t believe it,” he said. Margaret winced.
“It was a miracle sent by God,” she said.
The expression on Sir Egdon’s face did not alter, and after a moment he motioned to the waiting servants to show his visitors inside and turned his back on his daughter-in-law.
SIR EGDON and Lady Jacquetta had never liked Margaret. She had not come from a good family—scarce anyone knew of her father and mother, who were reported to have died in an outbreak of pestilence in 1557—she hardly had a dowry
worth mentioning, she had no land to her name, and she was so beautiful that they knew she would prove temptation incarnate. She would be a husband’s nightmare.
Yet Roger had eyes for no one else. He’d seen her in York when he attended the Easter celebrations at York Minster over ten years ago. Margaret had been there with her guardian, an elderly woman of even less distinguished family than Margaret’s, and the girl had wasted no time in gaining Roger’s trust and love.
She’d been but fifteen, but the Rivers thought her more skilled in the arts of manipulating the hearts of men than the most-married widow.
But Roger had been ailing even then—he’d attended York Minster in the hope of a miracle—and neither Egdon nor Jacquetta could refuse him. Roger and Margaret had married but a half year later, just as Margaret turned sixteen years, and within a month she’d convinced her doting husband that the only way to find a cure for his worsening wasting sickness was to take to the road as a pilgrim.
For years they’d attended every shrine in England. Then, five years ago, Margaret had persuaded Roger to attempt the shrines of Europe.
Sir Egdon and Lady Jacquetta had never seen him since.
And now, never would.
They sat in the hall of their house, the fire blazing, Lord Thomas Neville to one side, and their daughter-in-law to the other. The meal—an abstemious affair of stringy rabbit and coarse-ground bread—had been left an hour or more ago, and it was now late at night.
Margaret was clearly tired, but the Rivers were in no mood to let her rest just yet.
They asked her question after question about their son, and about the child.
To each question Margaret answered apparently clearly and honestly, but Thomas could see that the Rivers’ suspicion of the woman had not abated.
“It puzzles me,” Sir Egdon said, the shadows flung by the fire scattering over his face, his eyes steady on Margaret, “that you took so many months to return home to England. Why?”
“There was war throughout France,” Margaret said, visibly rousing herself from lethargy. “Travel was difficult.”
“But why stay with the army?” Jacquetta said. Her tone clearly indicated what she thought about any woman that journeyed about with an army.
Margaret shrugged a little. “Baron Raby kindly vouchsafed me protection. And where better to seek safety than in an armed force of one’s own countrymen?”
Sir Egdon’s gaze never faltered. “I find it difficult to believe that the child is my son’s. He found it nigh impossible to sup at soup, let alone mount a woman.”
Margaret’s cheeks reddened. “It was a miracle,” she said. “How else can I explain it?”
Sir Egdon switched his gaze to Thomas. “Lord Neville … can you verify Margaret’s words?”
“Good sir,” Thomas said. “I act only as escort to Lady Margaret for my uncle’s sake. When I arrived in the English camp Lady Margaret was already there and, I believe, some months gone with child even then.”
“And in whose chamber did she reside?” Sir Egdon asked.
“She served our Lady of Gloucester.”
“Humph.” Sir Egdon shuffled about in his chair a little, then turned back to Margaret. “I wonder, Margaret, if you could tell us how …”
And so on it went, late into the night, so late it was almost Matins before Sir Egdon finally allowed his weary guest, his daughter-in-law and his wife to retire to their beds.
THOMAS LEFT the next morning after only a few hours’ sleep, impatient to reach Bramham Moor.
Just as he mounted his horse and swung its head toward the courtyard gate, a cloak-wrapped Margaret appeared in the doorway of the house, and hurried over to him.
Her face was white and her eyes circled with lack of sleep.
“Tom,” she said quietly once she had gained the side of his horse.
“Be careful what you say,” he responded as quietly. “Sir Egdon and his lady wife are not far behind you.”
She turned her head slightly. Her in-laws were standing a few steps out from the doorway, watching her.
“Do not leave me here,” she said, turning back to Thomas.
“Where would you have me leave you?” he said. “You have no com, and no friends.”
“They despise me,” she whispered.
“I’m not surprised,” Thomas responded, his tone hardening, “considering you did not bother to grace them with the news of their son’s death.”
“This is your child!” she hissed, taking a half step forward.
“Don’t expect me to acknowledge it,” Thomas said.
“You are a Neville born and bred, aren’t you? Did your uncle teach you that line when you were but a child at his knee?”
Another stab of guilt, and again Thomas had to push away the memory of Alice, whom he had also denied. He lifted his head and managed a smile as he saluted the Rivers. “Good day to you, sir, and to you, my lady. I thank you for your hospitality.”
And then, without another word, he signaled Wat Tyler at the head of his escort, and they trotted out of the Rivers’ courtyard.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nones on the Feast of St. Mathias
In the first year of the reign of Richard II
(midday Wednesday 24th February 1379)
— I —
IT TOOK THOMAS and his escort another ten days to reach Bramham Moor. A fierce storm closed in two days after they’d left Saxbye, and they’d been forced to shelter in a monastery guest house for three days. But once it had passed the weather turned clear, if frosty, and the party made good time.
In the initial week or two after leaving London, Thomas had found Wat Tyler’s presence disturbing. He did not quite know what to make of the man, and he did not know whether to trust or mistrust him. In Thomas’ youth and early manhood, when he had been such a part of Lancaster’s household through his close friendship with Bolingbroke, Wat Tyler had been a familiar face. It seemed as if he’d been with Lancaster as a sergeant-at-arms ever since either Thomas or Bolingbroke could remember, although he was but some six or seven years older than they, and he was one of Lancaster’s most trusted men.
As part of his duties to the duke, Wat had been one of the boys’ trainers in the skills of warfare. What Thomas knew of close combat with sword and knife he largely knew through Wat’s tutorship.
And when both Bolingbroke and Thomas had first ventured onto the battlefield, Wat had been there, gruff and reassuring during the bloodshed, loud and jocular during the drinking once the bloodshed was done.
But the Wat whom Thomas had met in Rome, and had then talked to at various times over succeeding months, seemed somehow different, and it was not only the views Wat espoused, or the heretical company he kept. Thomas was not sure if the difference was because Wat had changed, or because he had. Before he’d left London, Thomas would have sworn before God that it was because Wat had changed.
But now …
The fact was that since Thomas had abandoned his clerical garb in favor of the noble clothes he had once worn, he and Wat seemed to have fallen back into their easy friendship of years past. If Wat voiced any views that were critical of the Church or the established structure of society, then they seemed nothing but the ill-chosen words of a rough-edged and illiterate man of war.