“He took me to the Field of Angels, Hal. Heaven, he called it.”
Again Bolingbroke waited.
“It was foul,” Neville said. “Foul.”
“In what way?”
“In every way, and yet in only one way. It was cold and barren and full of falseness, reflecting the coldness and barrenness and falseness of the angels’ souls.”
You could have told me earlier, Bolingbroke thought. Once I would have been the first one you would have rushed to.
Then he realised how unfair that was. It was gift enough that Tom should be telling him now.
“I have known since…well, since you gave me the casket, just how heartless the angels are. But to see them in their own world…”
Bolingbroke almost asked what the angels wanted, then bit his tongue. He knew what they wanted well enough.
Neville suddenly threw the brush into a corner of the stall, making the horse jump and snort. “He made me feel like a puppet.”
Bolingbroke had caught the horse’s head, and was now stroking its cheek, soothing away its fright. “The angels have ever been loathsome creatures.”
As he said that, Bolingbroke thought again about the strange, horrifying confidence that the Archangel Michael had in Neville. What was it? Why did the angels believe so implicitly in Thomas?
He opened his mouth to ask the question that consumed his nights and days, Which way will you choose, Tom?, but before he could speak there was a sudden rattle of hooves in the courtyard beyond, and both men’s heads jerked towards the door. Voices shouted, and Bolingbroke pushed past Neville and strode into the courtyard.
Neville entered the courtyard a moment or two after Bolingbroke. Some two score men had ridden in on horses close to dropping from exhaustion. Their captain was even now speaking urgently to Bolingbroke, so forgetting himself that he had rested his hand on the king’s shoulder.
Bolingbroke took no notice. He heard the man out, then nodded, thanked him, and sent him scurrying on his way.
Then he looked to where Neville was standing.
His eyes were wide with something that Neville thought looked surprisingly like loss.
The chamber which Bolingbroke had taken as his working chamber was alive with activity: shouted words, hands flung about, papers shuffled, men pacing back and forth, messengers running in and out. Most of Bolingbroke’s advisers were there, including Ralph Neville—Baron Raby and Earl of Westmorland; Thomas Beauchamp—Earl of Warwick; the youthful Thomas Mowbray—Earl of Nottingham and Duke of Norfolk; Michael de la Pole—Earl of Suffolk; and Sir Richard Sturry. All of them had been supporters during Bolingbroke’s rebellion against Richard, and all had been richly rewarded since.
Of course, the Earl of Northumberland had also been more than instrumental in supporting Bolingbroke, and had been richly rewarded as well.
But he was not here now, had not been at Bolingbroke’s court in many weeks, and this morning had brought the news that all of them had been dreading.
Horribly, the news was far, far worse than anyone could possibly have supposed.
“Well, it is no surprise, perhaps, that the Percys have proved so disloyal,” Suffolk was now saying. “Northumberland has ever been the turncoat, and Hotspur has ever been the ambitious one.”
Neville was standing behind a table covered with hastily unrolled maps, as well as the written reports of everyone from sheriffs to millers who had seen armies move this way or that. As Suffolk spoke, he happened to catch a glimpse of Bolingbroke’s face, and saw again that fleeting expression of sorrow in his eyes.
Hotspur, his childhood friend, and now his betrayer.
“We must move fast,” Mowbray said. “These reports are some days old. Sire…”
Bolingbroke grimaced, and looked about. Whatever pain had been in his eyes was now gone. “Of course we must move fast…but in which direction? Northumberland is moving in Yorkshire and Northumberland. Hotspur and his damned Scots alliance are on the move in Cumberland—no doubt in Lancashire by now—and Owain Glyndwr, by sweet Jesu’s sake, in the northern reaches of Wales.”
“They are all heading in one direction,” Raby said, moving to the table. He ruffled about a little, found the map he was after, and stabbed his finger down. “Shropshire. The city of Shrewsbury.”
“If they meet up, sire,” Neville said, feeling the weight of Bolingbroke’s eyes fall upon him, “then your task will be more than difficult.”
Everyone could see Bolingbroke struggle with himself, trying to deny it, but he couldn’t. Again he grimaced, and this time his pain was clear for all to see. “Scotland, Wales and the damned north of England, all arrayed against me. You are right, Tom. Raby, Nottingham, Warwick, Suffolk, Sturry…what numbers would Hotspur command?”
“If they all meet up,” Warwick said slowly, not wanting to say the words, “then he could well have over sixty thousand.”
“And currently? What does he command currently with just his men and the Scots?”
Raby again fidgeted among the reports. “Twenty thousand,” he said eventually.
“Then I prefer the twenty thousand to the sixty,” Bolingbroke said. “Our reaction must be three-pronged if we are to keep that sixty thousand separated. Raby, to you I give the most difficult of tasks—stop Northumberland before he can join his son.”
Raby nodded, his face grim, then looked at Neville. They shared a silent understanding born of long association and deep respect: Raby’s task would be horrendous, not just difficult. Not only would Raby have to ride hard and fast for the north, but his confrontation with Northumberland would bring with it all the accumulated bitterness of their long rivalry.
“Sire,” Raby said, and half bowed. “If I may have your permission to retire.”
“Go, go!” Bolingbroke said. Then, when Raby was halfway to the door of the chamber, Bolingbroke spoke again. “Ralph. May Christ ride with you.”
Raby nodded, once, tersely, then was gone.
“Warwick? Suffolk? I need you to deal with our Welsh upstart. Can you manage?”
Warwick and Suffolk exchanged glances, then Warwick looked back to Bolingbroke and smiled. He’d never liked the Welsh. “Oh, aye, I think we can manage.” He bowed, and both men left.
“And I,” Bolingbroke said, “shall to Shrewsbury.”
Once some order was restored, and men sent on their appointed tasks, Bolingbroke drew Neville aside for a quiet word.
“Tom, will you ride with me?”
Neville did not hesitate. “Aye.”
Bolingbroke sighed in relief, which surprised Neville, for he’d not realised how unsure of him Bolingbroke had been. “Thank you. Tom…”
He hesitated, and seemed to drift off into such a dream world that after a moment or two had passed Neville felt obliged to say something. “Hal?”
“I was thinking of Harry Hotspur, Tom, and of you and me. Of our wild childhood, of our friendship, and of the times we pledged to defend each other to the death. Even though I’d always known of Hotspur’s ambition, and even though I knew my father’s and my alliance with your uncle would undermine what friendship I had with Hotspur…this is still hard news to bear.”
“A crown always attracts ambition, Hal. You know that.”
Bolingbroke half smiled. “How polite you are. You want to say that perchance Richard felt as betrayed by me as I now feel betrayed by Hotspur.”
“It had never crossed my mind, sire.” Neville grinned.
Now Bolingbroke’s smile stretched into a genuine expression of merriment. “Will you ride as my friend, Tom?”
“Aye, Hal, I will ride as your friend. I think I will enjoy setting aside questions of love and angels and demons for a few hard days’ riding.”
“Would that we could set them aside for ever, Tom.” And Bolingbroke turned away.
IV
Wednesday 5th June 1381
—i—
As quickly as the pall and horror of pestilence had lifted from London, the shadow of major rebellion env
eloped it. The joy that people had felt at their miraculous escape from almost inevitable death vanished, replaced with yet more uncertainty.
When Hal Bolingbroke ascended the throne, most people assumed that England would settle into a period of stability. Instead, the opposite appeared to be happening. Uncertainty over the manner, even the actual fact, of Richard’s death spread whispered doubt about the legitimacy of Bolingbroke’s monarchy. These whispered doubts became the stronger with Exeter’s attempted coup during the Windsor tournament. Then, within moments, so it seemed, pestilence exploded through London and the immediate surrounding areas.
The black Dog of Pestilence, which no one had seen for some twenty years, once more stalked the lives of the innocent.
Now, Hotspur, and a rebellion the like of which the good people of England had never seen. An unholy—an abominable—alliance of the northern English, the Scots and the Welsh against the central and southern peoples of England.
Surely God had spoken? Surely this was the final word and judgement on the legitimacy of Bolingbroke’s tenure as king?
Bolingbroke did not waste a single moment of those days which followed news of Hotspur’s rebellion. From within the precinct of the Tower complex came the distant shouts of men, and the noise of horses being readied. Across the green meadows of East Smithfield adjacent to the Tower, where Wat Tyler had once made his fateful demands of Richard, spread the horse lines and encampments of thousands upon thousands of men-at-arms. Every day their numbers swelled as Bolingbroke called on the loyalties and obligations of nobles across southern England. Rumour had it that similarly large encampments of men and horses were building in Oxfordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire, waiting to join up with Bolingbroke’s main force as it passed through on its way northwest.
But as men and arms and horses gathered, so did the ordinary people of London. Unsure, troubled, questioning, people grouped in increasingly large crowds in the major streets and squares leading to the Tower, and stood in shifting, murmuring clusters outside the East Smithfield encampment. The markets were filled with housewives and tradesmen, talking not of the over-pricing of salted cod, or debating the qualities of the fine flannels of Belgium, but of the ever increasing troubles of Hal Bolingbroke.
Sin attracted sin, did it not?
Among them moved yet more friars—those Whittington’s watchmen were not able to detect and eject from the city—muttering of the dark evils that had enveloped England since Bolingbroke seized the throne from poor, young Richard, whose only fault was the naivety and impetuosity of youth. They talked of the strange deaths of Edward III and the Black Prince, of the highly convenient deaths of Gloucester and Lancaster, and of how they cleared the way for Bolingbroke to assume the throne.
Once Richard was removed and murdered, of course.
Evil now sat the throne of England, they whispered, nodding their heads sagely, and blessing all whom they encountered. Evil sits the throne of England, and until it be removed, until all traces of it are burned and destroyed, evil and its brother, despair, will multiply until all the good, God-fearing people of England have been crushed and destroyed.
The crowds grew, and their mood grew darker. Fair Prince Hal had long vanished from their memories.
Early Wednesday morning, Neville stood with several menat-arms on the stone causeway just inside the Lion Gate. Behind them, in the Lion Tower, one lion, two tigers and a crocodile roared and croaked, sensing the bleak mood of the crowds gathering in the courtyard beyond the Lion Gate.
No doubt the giraffe, a gift to Edward III from one of the Muslim sultanates seven years ago, would also have been whimpering and murmuring were it not for the fact it had died from the pestilence.
“They’ve increased three-fold since yesterday evening, my lord,” said one of the men-at-arms. His deeply seamed and browned face seemed impassive, yet when his eyes swung Neville’s way he could see that the soldier was gravely concerned.
“How quickly they forget,” Neville murmured, turning his gaze now on the people who crowded just beyond the gate.
“They have not forgot the pestilence, my lord,” said another of the soldiers, an almost gnome-like veteran of many battles, if the twisting scars on his left cheek and neck were anything to go by. “Not forgot the husbands and infants they saw tossed into the death pits. They have not forgot the stink of the rotting, nor the—”
“I understand!” Neville snapped. “Have you forgot how Queen Mary, ailing herself, further risked her own life to care for the dying?”
The soldier dropped his eyes, and then half-turned his face away. Neville had the feeling that, to this soldier at least, even the memory of Mary’s selflessness and mercy could not totally counteract the brooding misgivings of the moment.
He sighed. “Has the crowd done anything bar murmur and shuffle and stare?”
“Nay, my lord,” replied the first soldier.
“Not yet,” mumbled the gnome-like veteran.
Neville glared at him, then turned on his heel, mounted his horse, and rode back around the outer ward to the Garden Gate and so into the main complex of the Tower.
He arrived in Bolingbroke’s royal chambers to find that Bolingbroke was already well aware of the unrest. Bolingbroke had several captains with him, as well as the Bishop of London, the Lord Mayor Dick Whittington, one of Bolingbroke’s household lords, Owen Tudor, and the usual accompanying bevy of clerks, recorders, messengers and valets. Mary was there also, accompanied by several of her ladies.
Bolingbroke, dressed in a leather jerkin over his white shirt and hose, heard what Neville had to say, then nodded. “We ride out at dawn on the morrow and I cannot afford to leave London seething behind me.” He gave a short laugh. “Imagine being caught between Hotspur and the Butchers’ Guild of London, Tom.”
Neville barely managed a smile at Bolingbroke’s poor joke. The Butchers’ Guild was notorious for its feast day parade violence, and its efficiency in dismembering any who got in their way. At any given time it seemed that a quarter of the guild’s members were in prison awaiting trial for murder, another quarter were in the streets committing murder, yet another quarter were patrolling the streets with their hatchets and knives looking for an opportunity to do murder, and the final quarter were, reluctantly, in their workshops dismembering the already dead.
“We could try to disperse them, sire,” said Dick Whittington, who’d joined Bolingbroke in the Tower the day previously. “I have several hundred well-armed men on watch, and—”
Bolingbroke silenced him with a wave. “Nay, Dick, I could not countenance that. Not setting Londoner against Londoner. Instead, set your men to spreading word that I will address the good citizens of London this evening at dusk, outside the encampment in East Smithfield.”
Neville raised an eyebrow, both aghast and impressed at Bolingbroke’s course of action. To address the crowds was good, a courageous choice. But to pick East Smithfield? Where Richard had ordered mass murder? And where the crowds might think that Bolingbroke meant to use the soldiers in the encampment to do the same thing?
“My lord?” Mary was seated on a couch near the window, and now she rose with a helping hand from one of her ladies.
Bolingbroke turned, smiling politely but impatiently at her. Mary looked wan and far more wasted than she had in previous weeks. The neckline of her gown gaped at shoulders and breast, and it appeared that Mary’s arms barely had the strength to carry the weight of the gown’s heavy sleeves. Her breasts were so flat as to be non-existent, while her belly was swollen and, obviously, painful.
“My lord,” Mary said again, and Neville heard a worrying breathlessness in her voice. “Allow me to come with you. Please. I might do some good.”
Bolingbroke’s face flushed, and Neville realised that he was angry.
“Mary, my love,” Bolingbroke said, “I cannot allow it. You are too frail. Besides, the mood of the crowd is dangerous—”
“And that mood is why I should come with you
,” Mary said. Her own face had some colour in it now, and she tilted her chin determinedly. “I have a gentle voice and presence, and perchance I can soothe when—”
“When my words might only inflame? Think you that I cannot manage this on my own, Mary? Think you that you can save the day as you did at the tournament? Do you think me such an incapable king?”
“That is not what I meant, my lord, and well you know it.”
Owen Tudor, his compassionate face grave under its greying red hair, glanced about at the appalled and embarrassed faces of the others who were in the chamber, then spoke quickly before Bolingbroke could respond. “Your grace, madam, may I suggest something?”
Bolingbroke shot him a simmering look of anger, but waved his hand for Tudor to continue.
“I agree with my queen that she accompany you, sire, for she speaks well when she says that her presence might allay some of the more outward manifestations of anger. But, sire, you alone should speak, for this is not only your duty, but your right.”
Bolingbroke gave him another long, hard stare, then nodded. “You speak sense, my Lord Tudor, although I still fear for my queen’s safety.”
“Then I will ride at her side, sire,” said Neville quickly, before Tudor could jump in.
Tudor sent him an ambiguous look.
“So that I might watch over her for you,” Neville continued. “Will you trust me with her life?”
Bolingbroke stared at Neville, then again he nodded. “With you more than with anyone else, Tom.”
Then he turned aside, and began to speak of the preparations he would need to make for his evening’s activity.
Mary also nodded, first at Tudor, who smiled and bowed slightly, and then at Neville, clearly relieved at the adroit manner in which they’d managed to defuse the situation, and sank back down to her couch.
“Our queen shall surely be safe with you, my Lord Neville,” whispered Whittington in Neville’s ear.
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