But not to any mortal extent.
Neville wondered what Bolingbroke thought about this.
Bolingbroke and Mary no longer shared the same bed, both claiming that her illness made it impossible for Bolingbroke to sleep well. Bolingbroke had moved to chambers in a distant corner of the royal apartments, where he made no secret of occasionally sharing his nights with an accommodating lady of the court. Mary shrugged away her husband’s unfaithfulness, and from the few words she’d said to him about it, Neville knew that she was secretly glad to escape the burden of her husband’s sexual demands. She was not bitter, nor angry, and spoke of and to her husband with the greatest respect and good humour.
Neville thought her a saint, but he was unsure about how Bolingbroke regarded Mary’s continuing grip on life. As a man (as a man-demon), Bolingbroke loved and lusted for another woman, Catherine of France. As a king, he lusted for the day he could hold a male heir in his arms.
Mary stood in the way of both lusts, and showed no sign of moving into the waiting pit of her grave any time in the near future.
Mary’s hand tightened very slightly around his, and Neville wondered if she somehow not only could read his thoughts, but thought to offer him comfort instead of asking it for herself.
Then the door to the chamber opened, breaking the spell between them.
A guard entered. “The Lady Margaret Neville,” he said, bowing in Mary’s direction, “with her children.”
Mary let Neville’s hand go, then smiled. “Let her enter,” she said, and the guard bowed once again and opened the door wide.
Margaret walked through the door, her seven-month-old son Bohun nestled in her arms. Directly behind Margaret was her maid, Agnes, with Margaret’s two-year-old daughter Rosalind tugging at one of Agnes’ hands as she looked curiously about her.
Both Margaret and Agnes sank into deep curtsies. Then Margaret took Rosalind and walked to where Mary and Neville sat. Agnes retired to a stool in a corner by the hearth to await her mistress’ pleasure.
Margaret glanced at her husband as she approached, then smiled warmly at Mary. “How do you this day, madam?”
“Well, thank you, Margaret. I think that perhaps you and I can walk a little about the gardens this afternoon. It shall be a beautiful day.”
“Gladly, madam.” She started to say more, but then Rosalind broke free from her grip and scampered over to Mary, clambering up on the couch and cuddling in close to the woman. Margaret half reached out to grab her away, then saw the expression on Mary’s face and dropped her hand.
“Do not let her hurt you, madam,” Margaret said.
Mary’s face had lit up as Rosalind snuggled into her body, and now she lifted her eyes to Margaret, and laughed a little. “What? This child? Hurt me? Nay, how can love hurt?”
Again Margaret felt her eyes sliding towards Neville, who she knew was regarding her steadily.
“You are so blessed in your children,” Mary said in a half whisper. One of her hands slowly stroked Rosalind’s shining dark curls. Then she looked at Margaret again. “And in your husband.”
Now Margaret could not help but look at Neville. He smiled slightly, but she could not entirely read the expression in his eyes, and so she looked away again.
When they left the Rose Tower Margaret handed the two children into Agnes’ care and asked Neville if he would walk a while with her in the cloisters.
He linked an arm with hers, and together, slowly, they strolled about the sunlit flower beds, their bodies moving in unison, their hips occasionally bumping through the thick folds of their clothes.
“Mary seems well,” Margaret eventually said.
“Well enough for a dying woman,” Neville responded, his eyes once more on the glittering windows of the Great Chamber.
“Tom…”
Neville pulled her to a halt, and turned her so that their eyes could meet. “What is troubling you, Margaret?”
She gave a harsh laugh. “How can you ask that? My fate rests in your hands; the fate of my kind, and of humankind, where you decide to gift your soul. Of course I am troubled, for I do not think I know you any more.”
He studied her a moment. “And?”
“And?” Margaret took a deep breath. “And…you once said you loved me, but now I do not know. You spend so much time with Mary—”
“You think that I love Mary? No, do not answer that, for of course I love Mary.”
Margaret’s eyes suddenly filled with tears.
“I do not covet her flesh as a man is wont to covet a woman’s flesh,” Neville continued, “for I am lost in my covetousness of your flesh.” He ran the fingers of one hand gently down her neck, and his eyes down the sweet curves of her body. “And I do not love her in a courtly fashion, for I could not imagine composing verse to any love but you. I love her as goodness personified—I do not think there can be any person living as good as Mary. And I love her because she is trust personified.”
“Trust personified?”
Neville’s hands were on Margaret’s shoulders, firm and resolute. “I trust Mary as I trust no one else,” he said. “For of all people walking on this earth, I think she is one of the few who cannot be anything but what she appears. Mary has no secrets, and no secret plans.”
Margaret lowered her gaze. “You have not yet forgiven me for what I—”
“And Hal,” Neville put in.
“—did to you…with Richard.”
Neville’s expression tightened at the memory of how Hal and Margaret had stage-managed her rape by Richard, then coldly manipulated Neville’s guilt to force him to admit his love of her. “I have forgiven you, Margaret,” he said, and his hands loosened their grip on her shoulders. “And I still swear my love for you, and for our children. But I walk with open eyes now, and, yes, that makes a difference to how I see you…and all yours.”
He does not trust me, Margaret thought, wishing not for the first time that she hadn’t agreed to Hal’s plan. “I am your wife, Tom,” she said, reminding him of the promise she’d made to him the day Bohun had been born. “Not Hal’s sister.”
Neville smiled gently, and touched a thumb to her cheek, wiping away the tear that had spilled there.
“Of course,” he said.
II
Friday 3rd May 1381
The great hall at Windsor was not so grand nor so large as the great hall at Westminster, but it was imposing enough and, when it was lit with thousands of candles and torches as it was this night, it shimmered with a delightful fairy light all its own. May had arrived with all its attendant ritual and games and seasonal joy, and Bolingbroke had organised tonight’s feast to mark the commencement of his spring court. Thick sprigs of early spring flowers hung about pillars and beams, the scent of the flowers combining with that of the freshly laid rush floor to delight the senses of the guests. Servants had erected trestle tables in a long rectangle down the centre of the hall, and now they groaned under the weight of their linens, their gold, silver and pewter ware, and the initial dishes of the feast. The entwined harmony of lively chatter and music from the musicians walking up and down the aisles wound its way to the roof beams and then back down again, echoing about the hall.
The feast was proving an auspicious start to the weekend of tourneying that lay ahead.
Neville and Margaret sat with his uncle Ralph Neville’s wife, Joan, and her mother, Katherine, the Dowager Duchess of Lancaster, on the first table to the right of the High Table. Their placement was an indication of the king’s high esteem. As Baron Raby and Earl of Westmorland, Ralph Neville himself sat with the king and queen at the High Table on the dais. Sharing the High Table with Bolingbroke, Mary, and Raby sat the Abbot of Westminster, Henry Percy Earl of Northumberland, and John Holland Duke of Exeter and Earl of Huntingdon.
The Abbot’s presence at High Table was no surprise. Not only was he the senior ranked churchman present, but the Abbot of Westminster was the man who’d crowned Bolingbroke as King Henry of England. To
not seat him at High Table would have been a grave insult to both man and Church.
As the Abbot’s presence was no surprise, neither was that of Ralph Neville, the Earl of Westmorland, and Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland. The combination of the power and influence of both these northern nobles had been pivotal in allowing Bolingbroke to raise the army needed to wrest the throne from Richard. But while Raby was an old family friend, taking as his second wife Bolingbroke’s half-sister Joan, the Percy family’s loyalty had once been with Richard. Northumberland’s allegiance to Bolingbroke was still relatively new, and thus relatively fragile—and made the more fragile because Northumberland’s son, Hotspur, had yet to swear allegiance to Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke had gone out of his way these past months to keep Northumberland happy, and to heap upon him (as Raby) those preferments both men deserved for their part in bringing Bolingbroke to the throne.
Bolingbroke had not ascended the throne via the smooth transition of father to son. Instead, Bolingbroke had wrested the throne from his cousin, Richard, taking England to the very brink of civil war in so doing. For long months England’s nobles had been divided between those who’d supported Richard’s right to hold the throne, and those who’d supported Bolingbroke’s right to take it from Richard. In the end, Bolingbroke’s faction had prevailed, but the wounds were still open, particularly since the December reports of Richard’s untimely death due to a sudden fever while incarcerated at Pontefract Castle.
Thus the inclusion of John Holland Duke of Exeter and Earl of Huntingdon at High Table. Exeter had not only been one of Richard’s closest supporters, he was also Richard’s older half-brother: Richard and Exeter shared a mother, the beautiful (and sexually adventurous) Joan of Kent, who had been married to Sir Thomas Holland before the Black Prince seized her (she’d also had a bigamous marriage to William Montague, but fortunately there’d been no children from that union). Over the past six months Bolingbroke had worked assiduously to gain the acceptance and eventual support of those nobles who’d originally supported Richard. Bolingbroke had ostracised none of them, and had presented many of them with good preferments, appointments, and, on occasion, an advantageous marriage.
Yet Bolingbroke still sat the throne uneasily. Only rarely could allegiances be changed overnight, and Bolingbroke never truly knew what the smile on a courtier’s face truly meant: allegiance, or hidden treachery.
Tonight, however, any concern about allegiances was well hidden behind smiles and courtly conversations. Mary was looking better than she had for several weeks. Her face was still pallid, but her eyes shone brightly, and her thin hands were steady as she accepted delicacies from the plates of her husband, on her left, and Raby, to her right. Bolingbroke engaged her from time to time in courtly conversation, but most of his attention was given to Northumberland, Exeter and the Abbot, who were all seated to his left.
Those whose allegiance he was most unsure of received his most gracious smiles.
Thomas Neville, watching the interplay from his spot close to the High Table, smiled himself at Bolingbroke’s efforts. Doubtless he thinks to ensure the country behind him before he embarks on his campaign of world conquest, he thought, and his smile faded a little.
It was a pity for Bolingbroke that Richard had died under such shadowy circumstances—and Neville had no doubt that Richard’s death had been an expeditious murder rather than an unfortunate fever—and not nobly in the course of battle. Neville remembered how Bolingbroke had won the support of Richard’s army outside Flint Castle with golden words rather than with bloodshed, and now he wondered if perhaps Bolingbroke hadn’t miscalculated. Perhaps he should not have called a halt to what brief battle there had been before Richard had taken a blade in the throat. Perhaps…
“Your thoughts must be all-consuming,” said a voice to Neville’s right, “for they have surely taken your attention from the feast spread before us. And such a feast!”
“Forgive me,” Neville said, smiling as he turned to face his dining companion, John Montagu Earl of Salisbury (and relative of the William who had bigamously bedded Richard’s mother, Joan). Montagu was another noble who had backed Richard—the damn hall was packed with them!—and doubtless Bolingbroke was hoping that Neville could charm Montagu as the king was doubtless charming Holland. “I was merely wondering what had so caught the abbot’s attention.”
Montagu glanced at the High Table: the Abbot of Westminster, Bolingbroke, and Holland and Northumberland had engaged in a lively conversation that had the Abbot’s cheeks a bright red with excitement.
“Our king’s plans for Westminster, perhaps,” Montagu said.
“Aye. Rumour has it that the abbot is excited at the thought of Parliament finally moving out of Westminster Abbey’s chapter house!”
Montague laughed easily, although the fingers of his right hand toyed nervously with his knife. “Your Hal has wasted no time making his mark upon the land,” he said.
Neville’s smile did not slip at Montagu’s usage of “your Hal”. “Parliament needed somewhere new to sit,” he said. “The Chapter House was too crowded, and the abbot had spent the past fifteen years complaining of the rowdiness of both Lords and Commons.” He broadened his smile with a little effort. “He claims his meal times to have been quite ruined.”
“But to give Parliament the use of Westminster Palace…” Montagu said. His knife was now making irritating rattling sounds as it jiggled against the side of his pewter plate.
Neville shrugged. “The palace was cold and draughty, and of little use for the family that Bolingbroke hopes to have surround him.”
“And faint hopes of that,” Montague said in an undertone, shooting a glance towards Mary.
“It is understandable, perhaps,” Neville continued, “that he should want to refurbish the Tower instead, and make of it not only a palace fit for a king, but a warm home as well.”
“But to give Saint Stephen’s to Commons!” Montagu said, and his hand finally stopped playing with his knife as he fixed his dark eyes on Neville.
Ah, Neville thought, the crux of the matter. Parliament would now sit in Westminster Palace and, for the first time, the Houses of Lords and Commons would be permanently divided. The new home of the House of Commons was to be the supremely beautiful St Stephen’s Chapel, where Lancaster had married his Katherine, but Lords…Lords…Neville’s smile finally lost its forced thinness and blossomed into a mischievous grin.
“Commons is the much larger house,” he said, “and Saint Stephen’s can accommodate them easily.”
Montagu remained silent, now staring at his knife.
Neville fought to stop himself from laughing. “But of course, I can understand that many among the lords might be, ah, disgruntled, that they shall from henceforth sit in…the kitchens.”
It was the merriment of the nation. Although Westminster Palace had several large halls, most were currently entirely unsuitable for permanent habitation by the House of Lords. The Painted Chamber’s floor was almost rotted through, and needed replacing, while its foundations were dank with rising damp. Repairs were desperately needed. White Hall had, for over fifty years, been divided up into sundry chambers for clerks and officials of the Chancery, and it would take a generation not only for all the brick partitions to be pulled down, but for suitable storage space to be found for all the rolls and deeds of government bureaucracy, not to mention all the grumpy Chancery officials. The Great Hall of Westminster was reserved for ceremonial occasions and the daily activities of the King’s Bench, as various other legal courts.
That left the kitchens which were, in actual fact, a good choice. The great hall of the kitchen was of a similar size to the Painted Chamber, was solidly built, well lit, and, by virtue of being a kitchen, was well heated with five great hearths; and now that the palace was no longer to be used as a residence, the huge kitchen complex would no longer be needed. Once the cooks, dairy maids and butchers were moved out and the hall scrubbed, it would actually make a very
good home for the House of Lords.
It was just that it was a former kitchen! While many lords accepted it in good humour—their new home would be far more commodious and comfortable than the cramped Chapter House—many grumbled about it, feeling the location a slur. The beautiful St Stephen’s went to Commons, while the lords got the kitchens…
At least the people on the streets of London and, presumably, the fields of England, have something to smile about, Neville thought.
Then, before he could speak again, the Abbot of Westminster rose to his feet, his cheeks now a deep-hued crimson (although whether with excitement or drink, Neville could not tell), and called a toast to their handsome young king, and all in the hall rose, and raised goblets towards Bolingbroke.
Much later, Bolingbroke rose, extending his arm to Mary. She rose herself, but her action was decidedly unsteady, and Bolingbroke’s eyes flew to Margaret at Neville’s side.
Margaret murmured in concern, and moved about the tables towards Mary in order to help her.
Bolingbroke’s eyes locked with Neville’s, and he tilted his head slightly.
Neville nodded, understanding. Making his apologies to both Montagu and to Katherine, Lancaster’s widow, he moved quickly and silently into the pillared aisles behind the tables.
“More wine, Tom? Surely you cannot have yet drunk yourself into stupidity.”
“Thank you, sire,” Neville said, taking the goblet that Bolingbroke extended.
“Hal,” the king said. “Call me Hal, Tom, when we are in private like this.”
Neville had left the hall and walked quickly to Bolingbroke’s private apartments as Bolingbroke said his goodnights to both his guests and to Mary. He’d waited almost half an hour in the antechamber to Bolingbroke’s suite before the king had entered, dismissed all his attendants with an impatient wave of his hand, and nodded Neville through into the inner bedchamber.