Westminster Palace, Spring 1441
Westminster Palace, Spring
ROGER BOLINGbrOKE COMES to court at Westminster, bringing rare books from the Bella Court library for the king’s tutor, and visits me in my rooms – the queen’s rooms – as a courtesy before he goes back to Greenwich.
I gesture that he may sit beside me, close enough to speak and not be overheard.
‘I will come back to Bella Court in a few weeks,’ I tell him.
‘Is there anything that needs to be done?’
He shakes his head. ‘Canon Southwell will hold a mass in his church at Haringey,’ he tells me. ‘It will be a funeral mass. That’s the end of it.’
‘The end?’
‘The coagula: sealing the ritual into time and earth. The puppet will be interred, with honour, deep in the ground, and our work is done. God’s will is done.’
‘Amen,’ I say. ‘And when . . .’ I let the question tail off.
If the king is to die, then it is better for us if it is sooner than later.
The Beauforts are hard on our heels; they never stop increasing their influence, and Owen is at the king’s side night and day.
We may be beloved, the country united behind us as we defy France and demand war; but at any moment, a storm can overthrow the king into sobbing despair, or he can fall totally silent as if becalmed.
We twist like weathercocks in the gales that blow through him: he could storm us into exile, we will only be secure when he is dead.
Bolingbroke bows his head. ‘Thank God, we have changed everything. We have changed the future. And it will be soon.’
He gives me a strange feeling: like dread, like excitement.
‘Soon,’ I repeat.