The Feast of the Translation of St Cuthbert
In the first year of the reign of Richard II
(Monday 5th September 1379)
—i—
The Thames was quiet—most ships and boats had put into harbour so their crews could devoutly mark the feast day—and its grey-blue waters lapped gently at the side of the small sailing vessel as it passed Wolwych on the southern bank. One more turn in the river and the great, smoky skyline of London would rise above the cornfields and orchards spreading beyond the marshy banks.
Neville sat impatiently on a wooden bench in the stern of the vessel.
They had ridden from Halstow two days past and had taken ship in Gravesend at dawn today, leaving several men from Roger Salisbury’s escort with the horses to follow more slowly by road. The roads leading towards London from Kent and the other southern counties were crowded with merchant and grain traffic at this time of year, and the wheels and hooves of this traffic churned up the soft surface of the roads until they were nigh impassable in places. The Thames provided the faster and smoother course, and Salisbury had offered no objection when, the previous evening, Neville had suggested they complete their journey via the river; not only was it faster and more commodious, the river was safer and they could dock directly at the river gate of the Savoy rather than ride through the dust-choked London streets.
Margaret sat by Neville’s side, Rosalind asleep in her arms. She was content and fearful in equal amounts: content because the river wind was cool and soothing as it whispered across her face and through her hair; fearful because of the inevitable travails and treacheries ahead. She glanced at her husband. He was fidgeting with a length of rope, his body leaning forward slightly, his eyes fixed on the river ahead.
Margaret shuddered and looked to where Rosalind’s nurse slouched, dozing against a woolsack. Agnes Ballard was a homely woman in her late thirties who, three months previously, had in the same week lost her infant son to a fever and her husband to the savagery of a boar. Struggling to cope with her tragic loss, Agnes had been weepy-eyed with gratefulness when Margaret had suggested she wet-nurse Rosalind, replacing the nurse who had originally accompanied Margaret and Neville from London and who had wanted to return to her home. Agnes also acted as maid to Margaret herself, and Margaret enjoyed Agnes’ motherly attentions almost as much as she believed Rosalind did. Agnes was a simple woman (but not so simple that she did not harbour her own strange secrets), but she was honest and giving, and she allowed Neville’s occasional impatient or ill-meaning remarks to pass straight over her head.
Beyond Agnes, towards the prow of the vessel, sat Robert Courtenay with Roger Salisbury, who was laughing quietly with the remaining men of his escort and the three crew. They were rolling dice, and sharing a flask of wine between them.
Margaret shifted slightly, adjusting Rosalind’s sleeping weight in her arms, and hoped the flask contained only weak drink. Her mouth quirked a little as she imagined the stratagems of angels and demons alike drowning uselessly in the mud of the Thames if the drunken crew lost control of the sails and tipped everyone out.
Who would arrive to save us, she thought, as we flailed about? Would both the minions of heaven and hell shriek in a horrified chorus at the careless ruin of their conspiracies?
“At what do you smile?”
Margaret jerked out of her reverie and looked at her husband. “I was hoping Roger will not let the crew get too drunk, for it would be a disaster if the boat overturned.”
Her arms tightened slightly about Rosalind as she spoke, and Neville did not miss the movement.
He laid his hand on her arm. “There is no danger, Margaret. Nothing can—”
Margaret gave a low cry of terror, and gathered Rosalind so tightly against her breast that the baby awoke and cried out with protest.
Neville frowned, opening his mouth to speak, and then realised that Margaret was staring at something in the water on her side of the vessel.
He looked, and his breath caught so violently in his own chest that it felt as if his heart had stopped.
Beneath the rolling surface of the river spread a great golden glow.
Neville jerked his head around to look across the deck. The glow spread underneath the vessel to radiate an equal distance beyond on its other side.
“Tom!” Margaret said.
“Hush!” he said, and his hand gripped her arm tighter. “Hush!”
He looked towards Agnes, and to Courtenay Roger and their companions beyond her.
Agnes continued asleep, and the men were still engaged in their dicing as if nothing at all supernatural was gathering beneath the boards of the boat.
“Saint Michael!” Neville whispered, and Margaret whimpered and twisted about as if she wanted to jump overboard.
“Be still!” Neville said, moving his hand to her shoulder. Then he twisted a little himself so that he could stare directly into her terrified eyes.
“If you are as innocent as you have always claimed yourself to be,” he said, very slowly and carefully, “then why now do you fear?”
Sweet Jesu, why did he make it so easy to hate him? “I can have no innocence,” she hissed, a spark of anger stirring within her, “when you allow me none!”
As Margaret spoke the glow coalesced, first directly under the keel of the vessel, and then seething up through the timber to form a fiery column not two paces away. The column assumed the spectral shape of the archangel, and then his voice thundered around them.
You are corruption made flesh, Margaret. An abomination which should never have been allowed breath.
Agnes and the men continued their respective activities—only Margaret and Neville were blessed with the angelic presence.
Margaret’s lips curled at the archangel’s words. If the archangel had whispered sympathies to Margaret, he would have destroyed her, but his hatred only served to transform Margaret’s terror into fury.
Her face twisted in loathing. “If I am corruption made flesh,” she said, “then I am truly my father’s daughter!”
The archangel’s face took on a terrible aspect and his arms spread wide—impossibly wide, for it seemed to Margaret and Neville that they stretched from bank to bank. He hissed, and the sound was that of the wind of divine retribution.
Filth!
“I may be the daughter of filth,” Margaret said, her eyes locked onto the archangel’s face, “but I choose not to tread the path of filth!”
“Margaret!” Neville was unsure of the meaning of the exchange between St Michael and Margaret—did Saint Michael accuse Margaret of demonry, or merely of the charge of being the daughter of Eve, the burden that condemned all women?—but he was appalled at Margaret’s words and the anger she displayed towards the archangel.
“Divine saint,” Neville said, finally letting go of Margaret’s shoulder and sinking to his knees before the archangel. “Forgive her words, for—”
Do you not know what she is, Thomas?
Neville did not reply.
Do you not know? She is that which you seek to destroy, Thomas.
Still Neville did not reply, and he lowered his gaze to the planking before him.
What does she here at your side, Thomas? Why have you not killed her, as her issue?
Finally, Neville raised his eyes back to St Michael. “She is useful to me.”