back to face him so that he could clearly see her face. “Yes.”
“And are you that woman?”
“Yes.” She paused, frowning a little. “Who else?”
“If you are of the angels, then how is it that Saint Michael has not told me of you?”
“Tom, hush, you will set Rosalind to a-crying all over again, even through these walls.”
“Answer me!”
“You cannot understand until you have the contents of the casket laid out before you.”
“You said to me earlier this afternoon that there was truth outside the casket as well … can you not tell me of that, at least?”
Margaret shook her head. “Tom, I am sorry, but there is further for you to travel, and more for you to understand before I can—”
“Then I can never love you.”
“I know that, and it is of no matter.”
Angry now because he had wanted to hurt her with those words and had not succeeded, Neville strode over to a pile of linens which sat on a flat-lidded chest, fiddled with them for a moment, then looked back at Margaret.
“How is it, when you say that you are of the angels, that Saint Michael so reviles you?”
“As there is dissension within God’s Church on earth, then so also there is dissension within the ranks of heaven.”
“The angels are divided? But that means that …”
“Evil has worked its vile way everywhere, Tom. Saint Michael has also said this to you. Now, this time, this age, will be the final battleground.”
“And your role in this?”
“You know my role, Tom. We spoke of it only moments past. My role is to tempt you. To test you.”
He stared, and then walked slowly over to her, holding her eyes the entire way. When he reached Margaret, he gently cupped her chin in his hand, then bent down and kissed her.
“Then you play your role well,” he said finally, shocked to find himself, as her also, shaking with the desire unleashed by that one kiss.
“It is what I am here for,” she whispered.
Neville momentarily closed his eyes, then drew away from her. He sat down in the chair, suddenly remembering that his head had been aching horribly for hours; now the pain in his temples flared beyond his ability to deal with it.
Margaret saw him drop his head into his hands. Silently she walked behind the chair, and placed her hands about his head.
He jumped, but allowed her to draw his head and shoulders back until they rested against the high back of the chair. Her fingers rubbed at his temples, and he drew in a breath of amazement and gratefulness as the pain ebbed away.
She lifted her hands away, and sat down on the carpet before him.
“Thank you,” he said, and she inclined her head, but remained silent.
Neville hesitated, but could not put out of his mind the way Margaret had looked at Bolingbroke this afternoon when they’d disembarked. “There is one more question I have for you.”
She raised her face back to him, and he drew in his breath at her beauty.
“Do you love Hal?”
“Yes,” she replied without hesitation. “But not as you think. When I first went to Raby’s bed in the English camp, Bolingbroke befriended me as much as so great a noble lord could befriend a minor lady. Raby treated me well, but not over-kindly. Bolingbroke saw that lack, and supplied the kindness. He is a compassionate man.”
Neville stared at her with an expressionless face, not willing to believe her.
“I have never bedded with Bolingbroke,” Margaret continued. “You and Raby only. Tom, if Bolingbroke had wanted me, if he had desired me, do you think he would have let Raby stand in his way?”
Neville finally allowed his shoulders to slump in relief. “No.”
“I needed to find my way to you, Tom,” Margaret whispered. “No one else.”
Neville slid off the chair to the carpet beside her. He buried a hand in her hair, and kissed her deeply, finally giving his desire for her free rein through his body.
If she had lied to him this night—and he did not believe she had, not with that rage of the angels he had seen in her eyes—then she had merely delayed her death. When he found the casket he would know all.
“I will never love you,” he said, “and I will not sacrifice the fate of the world for you, but that does not mean I cannot treat you as well as Raby, nor as kindly as Hal.”
And with that he drew her down to the carpet, sliding the woollen wrap from her body.
Margaret sighed, and wrapped her arms about him, mouthing a silent prayer of gratitude to Christ Jesus that both she and Rosalind were still alive, and that Tom had believed her.
All would be well … and perhaps Hal’s vile plan would not be needed. Perhaps Tom would love her without Hal’s hateful treachery.
Neville was lost in his passion now, his whole universe consisting only of their entwining bodies, and she moaned and held him tightly to her as their bodies joined.
And as Neville drowned in his lust, Margaret raised her head very slightly so she could see over his shoulder, and she sent a smile composed of equal parts triumph and implacable hatred at the archangel St Michael standing silent and furious in a golden column on the far side of the room.
The archangel screamed, a sound that reverberated through heaven and hell only, and vanished just as Neville cried out and collapsed across Margaret’s body.
“Sweet Tom,” she whispered, patting his back gently with one hand.
The Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
In the first year of the reign of Richard II
(Thursday 8th September 1379)
—i—
It was a warm blustery autumn day this feast of the birth of the Virgin, and the Londoners and their cousins from nearby villages and towns thronged the streets and marketplaces of the city. Priests stood on the porches of London’s parish churches, shouting reminders that this day all good Christians should be in the cold deep shadows of their churches’ bellies, praying for forgiveness for their too-numerous transgressions and pleading with God, Jesus and every saint in heaven that they might have even the remotest chance of salvation.
The people ignored them. Sweet Jesu, this was a feast day, and no one was going to waste it mumbling unintelligible prayers inside a frigid church. The autumn markets and fairs were in full swing: stalls groaned with the fruits of the summer harvest, flocks of geese and pigs squawked and squealed from their pens, landless labourers stood on boxes and shouted their availability to any landlord looking for cheap hired hands, and pedlars and quacksalvers sung the praises of their wares and cure-alls.
Buy my physick! Buy my physick! ’Tis a most excellent and rare drink, pleasant and profitable for young and old, and of most benefit to the hysterical woman with child. Use day and night, without danger, as the occasion and level of hysteria demandeth. This most wonderful of potions will also purge the body, cleanse the kidneys of the stone and gravel, free the body from itch and scabbedness, as well as all chilblains. It shall abate the raging pain of the gout, and assuage the raging pains of the teeth. It will expel all wind and torment in the guts, noises in the head or ears, destroy all manner of worms, and free the body from the rickets and scurvy. And that is not all! Why,