The Wounded Hawk. Sara Douglass
swear to sweet Jesu,” Bolingbroke muttered as they turned their horses south onto the Strand from the gates of the Savoy, “that if I thought that most wondrous of physicks would also purge England of its most vile king I would swoop down on that abominable quack and purchase his entire stock!”
Neville laughed, even though the matter was serious. “I am sure,” he murmured, kneeing his horse close to Bolingbroke’s so that only he might hear, “that most of the dungeon keepers in this fair land will know the ingredients of a swift and certain poison. I would counsel a purchase from them, my friend, rather than from that pedlar of honey-water.”
Bolingbroke shot Neville a speculative glance. “You would condone murder to rid us of this demon, Tom?”
Before Neville could answer the crowds of people swarming along the Strand towards Westminster caught sight of Bolingbroke and his escort.
“Prince Hal! Fair Prince Hal!”
“Hal! Hal!”
A cry that turned into a roar swept along the Strand.
Hal! Hal! Fair Prince Hal!
Neville reined in his horse to come alongside the eight men-at-arms who rode as escort, allowing Bolingbroke to ride ahead and receive the acclamation of the crowds.
Bolingbroke had left his silver-gilt hair bare to the sunshine, and his pale grey eyes sparkled in his beautiful face as he stood high in the stirrups and waved to the crowds. If his head was bare, then the rest of Bolingbroke was resplendent in sky-blue velvets, creamy linens and silks, and jewels of every hue. From his hips swung a great ceremonial sword and a baselard dagger, both similarly sheathed in gold- and jewel-banded scarlet leather scabbards. As the roar of the crowd intensified, Bolingbroke’s snowy war destrier snorted and plunged, but Bolingbroke held him easily, and the roar and adulation of the crowds increased yet further with every plunge forward of the stallion.
In pagan days he would have been worshipped as a god, Neville thought, unable to keep a smile of sheer joy and pride off his face. Now they merely adore him.
A woman with a child in her arms stumbled a little at the edge of the crowd, and Bolingbroke kneed his stallion closer to her. He leaned down, taking her arm so that she might catch her balance, and the crowd roared approvingly.
The woman, flush-faced with joy that Bolingbroke should so care for her safety, held up her child, a girl of perhaps two years age.
Bolingbroke dropped the reins of his stallion, controlling the beast with his knees and calves only, and gathered the child into his arms.
Neville thought it a pretty trick, something to further strengthen the crowd’s approval, but he caught a glimpse of Bolingbroke’s face—the man was staring at the child with such love that Neville instantly thought that the girl might actually be his get from some casual affair.
He looked to the woman again. No, surely not… she was plain, and approaching middle age. She was not a woman who would catch Bolingbroke’s eye or fancy.
Neville gazed back at Bolingbroke, now planting a kiss in the child’s hair, and remembered how he enjoyed playing with Rosalind. Perhaps he merely loves children, Neville thought. Well, Mary shall give him some soon enough, pray God.
Bolingbroke now hefted the child, showing her to the crowd. “Is she not beautiful?” he cried. “Has she not the face of England?”
Now that was pure showmanship, Neville thought, grinning wryly.
Again the crowd roared and clapped, and Bolingbroke, with apparent reluctance, handed the girl back to her mother and took up the reins of his stallion, urging the horse into a slow, prancing trot down the street.
“Whither goest thou?” shouted a man in a rich country burr, and the question—and the burr—was taken up by the throng.
Whither goest thou, fair Prince Hal?
Bolingbroke waved for silence, and the close-pressing crowd consented to dull its adoration to a low rumble.
“I go to Westminster,” shouted Bolingbroke, “to receive the surrender of the French bastard king!”
The crowd erupted, and Neville burst into admiring laughter. Why, Hal would have them believe that he alone had taken King John on the battlefield, and then negotiated a treaty to see all of France quiver on its knees before even the lowliest of English peasants!
Bolingbroke swivelled in his saddle, sending Neville a quick grin, then he turned forward again, and spurred his stallion through the crowds who parted for him as if he were Moses.
Neville eventually managed to ride to Bolingbroke’s side as they cantered past Charing Cross and Westminster rose before their eyes.
“They would have you king!” he shouted above the continuing roar.
“Do you believe so?” Bolingbroke said, his eyes fixed on Neville. “Should we indeed reach for that vial of poison, Tom?”
And then he was gone again, spurring forward and waving to the crowds. Neville was left staring after him and wondering, as others already had, how high Bolingbroke’s ambition leapt.
If they did manage to destroy Richard—and wasn’t that what they truly planned?—then who else could take the throne? Who else? Who else was there to lead England to safety but Bolingbroke?
Richard had caused a table to be set under the clear skies beyond the porch leading into Westminster Hall. The Hall was closed, undergoing renovations to its roof (Richard would have a greater roof put on, so he might be the more gloriously framed), and so the treaty would be signed in the courtyard, where not only the noblest peers of the realm could witness, but also (suitably restrained behind barriers) the commons themselves of England.
Bolingbroke and Neville dismounted when they reached the courtyard’s perimeter, and monks from Westminster Abbey led them to their places in the ranks to the right of the table. Here stood the greatest of nobles and their closest of confidants, and Bolingbroke led Neville directly to his father’s side.
“My Lord of Lancaster,” Bolingbroke said formally, greeting his father with an equally formal bow. Katherine, Lancaster’s duchess, was not present: no wives were here, only the holders of titles and the wielders of power.
Neville also murmured Lancaster a greeting, bowing even deeper than Bolingbroke, but Lancaster gave him only a cursory glance before turning to his son.
“I wish Richard had taken my advice and had this cursed treaty signed under roof.” Lancaster, who looked even more tired and grey in the noonday sun than he had in the candlelit dimness of the Savoy, gestured at the table several paces away: it was strewn with damasks and weighted down with gold and silver candlesticks and a great golden salt cellar. “If the crowd doesn’t become unruly and upset everything, then no doubt a raven will fly overhead and shit on the treaty. John is being difficult enough about the signing … if his pen must perforce thread its way through a pile of bird shit then doubtless he will call the odoriferous mess a bad omen and refuse to sign.”
“At least a treaty is to be signed,” Bolingbroke said.
Lancaster sighed, his eyes still on the table. “Aye. But a treaty declaring Charles a bastard and Richard the heir to the French throne is worth even less than a pile of bird shit in real terms.”
“How so, my lord?” Neville said.
Lancaster turned and gave Neville the full benefit of his cold grey stare. “Do you think that even with this treaty in Richard’s possession the French will lie down and surrender a thousand years of proud history into his hands? Richard can wave it about all he likes, but unless he can enforce it with sword and spilled French blood then it becomes worthless in practical terms.”
“No Frenchman will accept it unless he be forced to do so,” Bolingbroke said.
“Aye,” said a new