The Crippled Angel

This was not the work of the pestilence, but of the ordinary, everyday squalor of the poorest of London’s citizens.

  “Madam,” Neville said, reading the horror in Mary’s eyes and watching as one gloved hand flew to cover her nose and mouth, “we do not have to stay. We can send aid without having to enter ourselves. Let me—”

  “No.” Mary shook her head. “I will go in. I promised. But, oh, Tom, such squalor! I never knew…”

  He shrugged. “Welcome to London’s bleak heart, madam.” He turned to the men-at-arms, directing several of them to take watch about the courtyard, several others, including Courtenay, to guard the entrance to the alley, and two more to make their way back to the Tower to make sure Bolingbroke knew where they were.

  “No,” Mary murmured.

  “He has a right to know, madam,” Neville said, and Mary sighed, and acquiesced.

  “Mary?” Jocelyn called softly from a doorway on the northern side of the courtyard. “Hurry, please!”

  Then she disappeared inside.

  Mary locked eyes first with Margaret, then with Neville, then walked towards the doorway.

  “Culpeper,” she said, “ensure that you come with me.”

  Culpeper sighed, but he followed Mary, Margaret and Neville inside.

  As they entered the building, several round, pale faces appeared at some of the upper windows, their eyes and mouths opened wide and glistening in faint light.

  VI

  Friday 24th May 1381

  —ii—

  Emma lay curled in a foetal position on her bed. Suffering coursed through her. She burned with fever, and wanted nothing more than to toss and turn to try and seek in such movement some relief from its raging, but buboes filled her armpits and groin, and any movement made them sear with such torment that Emma would shriek in agony.

  She was dying, and she knew it.

  In itself the pain did not cause Emma the greatest distress. Instead, the knowledge that she would die alone (Jocelyn had been gone twelve hours or more, and the fact that she was gone gave Emma some hope that her daughter had escaped this death pit of a city) and unshriven, condemned to the fiery, tormented pits of hell because no priest was present to hear her confession, was making Emma’s final few hours of life pitiful in the extreme.

  This was hell in waiting.

  Jocelyn’s fate also weighed heavily on her mind. Her daughter was too young to be able to care for herself. She would be cast into servitude, or perhaps snatched to be sold into slavery to the Moors. Worse, the criminal underworld of London would find her, and force her into prostitution. Jocelyn was young and fair, and some noble would pay many gold pieces to be able to rob her of her virginity.

  Emma wept silent, wretched tears that coursed down her cheeks. Jocelyn would suffer no matter what happened: either the pestilence would seize her and condemn her to an agonising death in a gutter, or men would seize her, and condemn her to a life of whoring for every man that had coin enough to pay for her.

  And, as Emma well knew, once Jocelyn grew older and lost her youthful bloom, that meant every man who came her way, fat, ugly, scabbed or otherwise. Anyone, if just to keep some food in her mouth. Anyone, if only to keep alive.

  There was a sound, but in her state of fevered agony and despair, Emma paid it no attention. There were always sounds: men, bending over you; rats, scampering past your pillow; the even-more-wretched-than-she, scraping fingernails against closed doors; and always, always, the censuring bells of St Paul’s, ringing out their judgement, hell awaits, hell awaits, hell awaits…

  The sound came again, and Emma moaned, for surely it could mean only more misery. Who now? Harrison, come to claim next week’s rent? Some backstreet boy, come to steal her pitiful belongings? Someone from the watch, perhaps, come to poke her to see if she were dead yet?

  Soon her corpse would be tossed onto one of the creaking death carts. Soon she would be cast down into the blackness of a plague pit.

  Is this all that life was?

  “Jocelyn tells me that you are Mistress Emma Hawkins,” said a soft voice, and Emma felt someone sit carefully on the edge of the bed, “and that you are her mother. She has asked me to aid you.”

  Emma tried to open her eyes, but they were gummed closed. “Who…?” she croaked, blindly reaching out a hand.

  “Shhh,” the voice said, and then Emma heard it whispering to someone else in the room. Who? Jocelyn? Was Jocelyn here?

  Emma sobbed, unable to bear the thought of her daughter witnessing her miserable, tormented death.

  “Shhh,” the soft, gentle voice said again. “Here.” And a blessedly cool and moist cloth was wiped tenderly across her face, wiping clean her eyes, and trickling moisture into her dry mouth.

  Emma caught at the cloth between her teeth, sucking as much moisture out of it as she could. She heard the voice again, speaking quietly to someone, asking for water.

  There were footsteps, not hurried, but quick, and then the woman on Emma’s bed had slid one hand beneath her neck, raising her head forward and pressing a goblet to her lips.

  The water was cool, and like nectar from heaven.

  Emma drank greedily, and the woman withdrew the goblet. “Not so fast, Emma. You will make yourself ill.”

  Emma made a small sound. “Ill? Madam, can you not see my condition? Am I not ill enough already? Give me more water, please, I beg you.”

  And Emma finally managed to open her eyes, and see her saviour.

  A face swam before her, and Emma had to blink several times to bring it into focus. A woman with a gentle face—gentle because its bearer, too, suffered. Wan but clear skin. Huge, kind, hazel eyes. Soft honey hair coiled under the finest of lawn headdresses. And the sweetest of mouths, curled in a smile so loving that Emma thought her heart would break.

  “Blessed Lady,” she whispered. “Blessed Mary!”

  A shadow passed over the woman’s face, then it cleared, and she smiled all the sweeter. “Nay, Emma, just a poor woman such as yourself. And my name is Mary—you must have recognised me from the day of my marriage.”

  Emma frowned. Not the Blessed Mary? But her name was still ‘Mary’? Then she remembered. She remembered a bright and sunny day, and a crowd about St Paul’s. She remembered fair Prince Hal, riding to his wedding. And she remembered the girl that he had wed, the modest Lady Mary Bohun.

  And this woman wore her face.

  The Queen of England sat on her bed, and wiped her brow?

  “Madam,” Emma whispered, “what do you here?”

  Mary indicated the several people standing about her in the cramped room: a handsome nobleman, black-haired and bearded, frowning at her; a noblewoman, beautiful beyond belief, and standing at the queen’s shoulder; a red-haired thin man with a ridiculous bundle tied under his nose…he looked vaguely familiar, and Emma fleetingly wondered if she had serviced him sometime.

  And there, staring at her from behind the beautiful woman’s skirts, was her daughter, Jocelyn. Emma tried to smile at her, but failed.

  “I and my friends,” said the queen, “are here to aid you, Emma. I had come with my retinue from Windsor to do what I could for my poor people of London, when your lovely daughter, Jocelyn,” and she held out her hand, and drew Jocelyn forth to stand at Emma’s bedside, “begged me to aid you. I would not refuse her, nor you.”

  “Madam,” whispered Emma, “please leave me! You will die if you stay. I am so hideous. Oh, see, see how hideous I am! Go! Go! I do not want to be the one to kill you.”

  Mary leaned forward and placed her free hand on Emma’s mouth. “I would be honoured to think that, in aiding you, I might myself die, Emma. You are not hideous, but beautiful.”

  “You do not know what I am!”

  “A whore,” Culpeper put in. “I can smell it about this hovel.”

  The expression of sweetness in Mary’s face did not alter, nor even flinch. “You are a beautiful woman, a mother, and you are in need,” Mary said. “I care not what you are, or what you m
ight have been, or what sins you think weigh down your soul. Emma, you are dying, but I can ease you into that dying, and it will be my great honour to do so.”

  Again the tears trickled down Emma’s face. She could not believe that this woman—this wondrous, noble woman—could sit there and look upon her with no judgement or loathing in her face.

  “If you have love within you, and mercy to give,” Emma said, “then give it to my daughter, not me. Jocelyn needs a protectress—”

  “Say no more, Emma. I shall take Jocelyn into my household, for I think she shall make the best of companions, and ensure her future, but that does not mean that I should therefore abandon you. I do not ask such prices. Now, Jocelyn, sit here by your mother, and wipe her face and brow thus. Yes, good girl. Emma, I will return in a moment. I need to talk to my physician.”

  And Mary rose, smiled, and turned away.

  Both Neville and Margaret instantly put arms about her, for she swayed as she stood.

  She thanked them with a nod and smile, and it was a measure of her own weariness and discomfort that she allowed their arms to stay about her.

  “Culpeper,” she said, “what can you do for this woman?”

  Culpeper looked at the queen, then, with increasing incredulity, at Emma lying on her bed. “Do for her, madam? I can do nothing for her. See, she is close to death. Why her mind does not wander with such a fever, I do not know, but I can only think that—”

  “Thank you,” Mary said, “but I believe there is something you can do for Emma. What of the potion that you mix for me? Will it not ease this woman’s agony?”

  Again Culpeper’s eyes slithered from the queen to the dying woman, then back to the queen. “But, madam, I have so very little, and you need—”

  “My need is inconsequential compared to this poor woman’s,” Mary said, and her tone was like steel. “And you can find new herbs enough at any one of the city’s hospitals or apothecary shops to mix a new batch. Now, where is it?”

  Sighing, and setting his face into the most injured of expressions, Culpeper withdrew a vial from a pocket inside his cloak.

  “Good.” Mary took the vial, then turned to Neville. “Tom, will you shrive this woman? Cleanse her soul so that she may attain salvation?”

  Neville glanced at Emma. “I am no longer a priest, madam,” he said, “but it is the comfort and the words that matter, not the vehicle that utters them. Yes, I can shrive and comfort her.”

  He was rewarded with beautiful, grateful smiles from both Margaret and Mary.

  “It is only love that matters, Tom,” Margaret said. “Only that, and I think love is something that Emma has in full.”

  Neville held her eyes for a long moment, then gave her a small smile in return.

  “Madam,” he said to Mary, “I will need to shrive her before she takes that potion. She must remain clear-headed. Margaret, will you fetch me a bowl of fresh water? Or,” he glanced about their surroundings, “a bowl of as clean water as you can manage.”

  He turned to Jocelyn, squatting down beside her mother, so that he could look her in the eye. “My dear,” he said, “I must speak with your mother now. Will you wait with your queen? And can you find her a stool so that she might rest?”

  Jocelyn regarded Neville with huge solemn eyes, then she nodded, turned, and did as he asked, finding a stool in the outer room, and dragging it back into her mother’s death room for Mary to sit upon.

  As Jocelyn moved away, Neville rose, than sank down again on Emma’s bed. After the briefest of hesitations, he took both the woman’s dry, chapped and feverish hands in his.

  “Emma,” he said in a gentle voice, “I spent many years as a Dominican friar before,” he smiled, and glanced at Margaret, “I met a woman who led me astray from my vows.” His smile and the light, teasing nature of his voice took all potential sting and retribution out of his words. “I no longer wear my robes, or adhere to my vows. Nevertheless, would you like me to hear your confession, and shrive you of your sins?”

  “Can I be shriven?” Emma asked. “I have so many sins, and, as the physician said, I am nothing but a common whore. How can you forgive such as me?”

  Thomas Neville said nothing for a long moment. Instead, his thoughts cast back to those days when he’d renounced all whores, when he’d hated them beyond all reason…when he’d hated all women beyond reason.

  He remembered the whore in the streets of Rome who had cursed him, and told him that one day he would hand his soul on a platter to a whore. You will offer her your eternal damnation in return for her love!

  And then he remembered what Jesus Christ had said to him on the hill of Calvary. Love saves, it does not damn.

  Jesus Christ, God of the Demons.

  And yet what would he rather do here? Damn this woman into God’s hell for her sins (for men’s sin in lusting after her? For the angels’ sins in lusting after women?), or save her into Christ’s world of love?

  What should he do?

  He remembered Alice, his mistress, and her horrible death because he had refused to acknowledge their child. Then he had run from love, fearing it. He remembered what Margaret had done for Lancaster, and to where Lancaster had gone. A field of lilies, under a clear blue sky, and the empty cross sitting atop the flowered hill. He and Tyler had gone home, to love, Bolingbroke had said, and Neville knew his choice was the easiest of all to make.

  “Have you loved?” he said.

  Her brow creased, as much in pain, Neville thought, as in reflection. “Yes, of course,” she said. “I loved my parents, and they me. My grandmother adored me, and I her. And,” her eyes shifted to where Jocelyn sat on the floor by Mary’s feet, “I love my daughter, and she loves me.”

  Neville smiled. Emma had loved, and was loved, and she would be saved because of it.

  If I had not learned to love, dared to love, Neville thought, then I would have damned myself for all time.

  Then a stranger, and far stronger thought occurred to him. If the angels have never loved, and refuse to love, then do they exist in hell, and not heaven?

  Neville suddenly realised his thoughts were drifting off, and he collected himself, remembering what Margaret had said to Lancaster. Now, Neville repeated those words for Emma. “Then what a blessed life you have had, and what love you have given. Your grandmother, your parents, your child have all had of you what they should: your love and your care. You have had from them the same love and care. Embrace your passing with joy, Emma, not with thoughts of sin.”

  “But—”

  “You have been loved,” Neville said firmly, his hands tightening about hers, “and you have loved. Is there anything else?”

  Emma stared at him, blinking her tears away. Very slowly she smiled.

  So deeply was everyone concentrating on Emma and Thomas Neville that without exception they all jumped when the voice spoke from the doorway.

  “Well said, Tom. There is nothing else, indeed.”

  And Hal Bolingbroke, King of England, walked into the already crowded and close chamber.

  VII

  Friday 24th May 1381

  —iii—

  Emma blinked, and smiled, for she recognised him, but did not otherwise fuss. Too much had happened already this night, and she was too close to her own death to be bothered overmuch by the King of England’s entrance into her mean chamber.

  Bolingbroke paused by Mary long enough to lay a hand on her shoulder and nod a greeting, then walked to Emma’s bedside to stand by Neville.

  “This is Mistress Emma Hawkins,” Neville said softly, his gaze remaining on Emma’s face. Then he raised his eyes to Bolingbroke. “Your queen is come to aid the Londoners in their horror, your grace, and she is here to witness Emma’s passing into—” he stopped, unsure of what she might be passing into. Heaven as guarded by the angels, certainly not, and ever more certainly not the angels’ construction of hell.

  “Her passing into love,” said Bolingbroke, and, leaning down a little, touched Emma
’s swollen face. Boils and pustules now disfigured it, blowing up the flesh about her mouth and eyes.

  “Thank you,” whispered Emma, and Bolingbroke nodded, then moved away. He whispered something to Culpeper, who vanished, returning a few minutes later with several more stools he’d purloined from the dwelling next door.

  Neville rose from the bed and helped Culpeper arrange them about the confined space. Mary moved to a stool at the head of Emma’s bed, Margaret sat on the bed itself beside Emma, Jocelyn with her, while Bolingbroke, Neville, and a now resigned Culpeper sat on several stools arranged a little back and about the bed.

  Mary and Margaret took turns wiping Emma’s face with damp cloths, while Jocelyn held her mother’s hand and silently wept.

  Time passed.

  “You came quickly,” Neville eventually murmured to Bolingbroke.

  “I was on my way from the Tower when I met your men-at-arms approaching the bridge,” Bolingbroke replied.

  Neville raised his eyebrows in silent query.

  “Whittington and I,” said Bolingbroke, “thought to walk the streets of London. We could not bear to think that the Londoners suffered while we waited out the pestilence locked in the silence of the Tower.”

  “You are not afraid?”

  “Of the pestilence? Nay. It cannot touch us.” Bolingbroke’s steady pale grey eyes caught Neville’s brown ones. “Not my brothers and sisters of the angel-children. This is a pestilence designed to punish the ordinary men and women who supported me. The louder they cheered, the more violently they die.” He looked back to Emma. She’d drunk the potion that Margaret had fed her drop by drop, but even so she still moaned. “The pestilence also serves as a means to turn the people against me. It is not a good omen with which to begin a reign, Tom.”

  Neville thought of the horrors God had visited on the Egyptian king and his people in order to force him to free Moses and the Israelites. “Sweet Jesu,” he whispered, “what else might we expect?”