The Crippled Angel. Sara Douglass

opposite path. Neville spent several hours each day with Mary—no doubt occasioning much gossip in court—talking, playing chess or, as now, merely sitting with her as he held her hand.

      Her condition had stabilised somewhat over the past five or six months. From what both Mary and Margaret had told him, Neville knew that the mass in her womb had stopped actively growing and had instead shrunk to a small, hard lump; Mary no longer exhibited signs of pregnancy, nor expelled blackened spongy portions of the growth. Nevertheless, it continued to suck at Mary’s vitality, and often to cause her great pain and discomfort.

      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