Sara Douglass - The Wounded Hawk

It shall be in your hands soon, but beware, Thomas, for the only truth that matters lies inside its bounds. Listen not to what demons whisper in your ears.

“Aye,” Neville said again, his voice stronger.

Blessed Thomas, the archangel said, and then he was gone.

Neville stared at the place where the archangel had stood, then he turned to look at Margaret.

She quailed at what she saw in his eyes, but she forced herself to speak before he did, and she used every ounce of her willpower to keep her voice steady.

“All truth matters,” she said, “whether it lies inside Wynkyn’s damned casket or not.”

“Demon,” he said. His voice was shockingly expressionless.

Her eyes filled with tears. “No, I am not, and have never been. But only when you hear the truth will you understand that.”

There was an instant’s hesitancy in his eyes at her words, and it gave her the strength to continue.

“If you love your daughter,” she said, “then you cannot believe her mother a demon … for what does that make Rosalind?”

Neville blinked, and dropped his eyes from hers. “You plan my destruction. You would say anything to further your plan.”

“No,” she whispered, and the sadness in her voice made Neville lift his eyes back to her face. “No, I plan only for your infinite joy.”

Then the sails cracked and filled with wind as they rounded the bend in the river, and Roger Salisbury jumped to his feet and shouted as London hove into view.

“Tom! Tom!” Graceful and certain, Bolingbroke leapt down the steps at the Savoy’s river gate, laughing and waving. Light glimmered about his fair hair and in the brilliance of the sun it seemed that his grey eyes had turned to silver. “Ah, Tom, I have so missed you!”

Neville jumped from the side of the boat onto the wharf and embraced Bolingbroke as fiercely as Bolingbroke did him. “You affect the happy face well, my lord, for one who is shortly to be married.”

“Ah, Tom, those are not the words to speak when your own wife is so close.”

Bolingbroke turned away from Neville and held out his hand for Margaret who, with Rosalind now in Agnes’ arms, was proceeding from boat to wharf with caution.

“My Lady Margaret,” Bolingbroke said softly, and kissed her gently on the mouth.

Neville, who had taken a step forward, now halted, transfixed by the look on Margaret’s face as she stared into Bolingbroke’s.

It was an expression of the most immense and intimate love.

And it was the more horrifying because, although Neville could not see Bolingbroke’s face, the expression on Margaret’s made it apparent that the love was returned in full measure.

Terror swept through Neville, and this terror was the more frightful because he could not place the reason for its existence.

She thinks to use Hal against me, he thought, frantically trying to justify his fear. She thinks to use her arts as a whore to lure him into her —

“Tom,” Bolingbroke said, turning back to him, “you look as if you have all the fishes of the Thames roiling about in your belly.”

“We have had a difficult voyage,” Neville said, finally, managing to twist his mouth in a tight, unconvincing smile.

“Oh, aye, we have that,” Margaret muttered, and Bolingbroke shot her a sharp look.

Vespers, the Feast of the Translation of St Cuthbert

In the first year of the reign of Richard II

(early evening Monday 5th September 1379)

—ii—

Margaret?” Bolingbroke closed the door to the storeroom quietly behind him, and stood, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dimness. The soft, warm glow of the autumn twilight filtered in through the half-closed shutters of the high windows, but all Bolingbroke could see, initially, were the bulging outlines of sacks of grain stacked against the back wall, and kegs of ale cached under the windows.

Then she moved from the safety of a shadow and the golden twilight swirled about her, and Bolingbroke made a soft sound and stepped forward and gathered her in his arms.

“Meg! Sweet Jesu, I did not know if my message had come safely to you!”

She shuddered, her face still pressed into his shoulder, and he realised she had sobbed, silently.

He pushed her back so that he could see her face. “Meg? What happened?”

Margaret managed a small smile. “What, Hal? Do I not even receive a kiss of greeting?”

Exasperated and frightened for her in equal amounts, Bolingbroke planted a quick kiss on her forehead. “What happened?”

“The great archangel appeared to us as we sailed down the Thames.”

“Michael dared …?”

“Oh, aye, he dared.” Margaret’s face twisted in remembered anger and loathing. “He called me filth, and said I was an abomination.”

Bolingbroke drew her to him again and tried as best he could to give her comfort. “And Tom?” he whispered, and felt her stiffen.

“The archangel told him to beware of me, as I was that which he had to destroy.”

“We have always known that Tom would suspect you—”

“Aye, but Tom said that I was more useful alive than dead, and that I was no danger to him.”

Bolingbroke hugged her tight. “He does not love you?”

“No. I do not think he ever will.”

Bolingbroke was silent a long moment. “We cannot have that,” he eventually said, very low. “Thomas must love you. He must.”

Margaret sighed and drew back. “If he knew I was here now …”

“He will not know. I sent him riding to Cheapside, to the goldsmith crafting Mary’s wedding finery, and to supervise its return here to the Savoy. He will be gone an hour or more yet. Margaret, events move more swiftly than any of us had thought.”

“This Jeannette … this Joan of Arc.”

“We never planned for her existence, nor for her intrusions. Sweet Jesu help us if she manages to rally the French … ah! but I cannot speak of her now. This is one of the only times we will have together, Meg, and I must use it well.”

He let her go, and started to pace the narrow confines of the storeroom. “I had thought we would have two or three years yet, but now I think we shall have only a few months. A year at most.”

He stopped, and stared at Margaret. “He must love you before a year is out.”

“How? How? He thinks me filth! Lord Jesu, Tom will do whatever his beloved archangel tells him to do!”

Bolingbroke slowly shook his head. “Nay, I do not think so. Not completely. He has already denied the archangel’s wishes once when it came to your death—you know Wat told us that, when he brought the physician to your side in Lincoln, they interrupted the archangel’s fury over Tom not immediately sliding the sword into your body.”

Margaret almost smiled remembering Wat Tyler’s too brief visit to Halstow Hall. “Not immediately,” she said, “but one day, when it comes to the choice, then Thomas will slide it in.”

“Not if we can help it,” Bolingbroke said. “Sweet Meg, he is capable of love, great love, but he needs to be pushed.”

She made a dismissive sound. “I cannot believe that. He is too cold … too arrogant. Too sure of himself and his damned, cursed God.”

“Meg, I have known Tom for many, many years. I knew him as a boy—even before his parents died. Once he was softer and kinder, with a truly gentle soul, but then God’s hand descended … and Tom’s life became a living hell. First with the death of his mother and father, then with the horrific tragedy of Alice. That happy, gentle boy is still there, somewhere, and it is you, Meg, who will draw him out. He must trust enough to love again.”