The Crippled Angel (13 page)

Sunday 26th May 1381

—ii—

“
H
ow long has it been, archangel?” Neville said. “I thought you had forgot me.”

The archangel smiled, but it was a cold, hard thing. “Forget you? Never, Thomas. You have always been at the forefront of my thoughts.” His voice was strong, and strangely melodious, as if it were underscored with the music of bells.

“And yet—”

“And yet I have left you to the lies and manipulations of the demons? Yes, that I have. And you know
why
, Thomas…don’t you?”

“So I could see the lies and manipulations for what they were.”

“Yes. Margaret and her ever-damned brother have shown themselves for what they are. Cursed manipulators, destroyers, murderers.”

“Your children.”

The archangel smiled. “Yes. My children. But this place of stench and suffering is not the right place to discuss this,
Thomas. Will you come with me now? Into the Field of Angels?”

Neville hesitated, not willing to leave what remained of the earthly realm, even if it
were
a place of stench and suffering. “Am I dead?”

“No. You cannot—” the archangel broke off, and a sly expression slithered over his features. “But I go too fast. Thomas, you are not dead, and you will not die this day. I invite you into the Field of Angels as a guest only. You may leave when you wish.”

If you wish.
The qualifier hung in the air between them.

Neville hesitated, then gave a curt nod.

“Then discard your clothing,” Archangel Michael said, “for it will corrupt Heaven with its mortal stench.”

Neville did as he was commanded, unbuckling his sword belt and letting it slide to the floor, drawing his tunic and undershirt over his head and dropping them at the foot of the nearest bed, then stepping out of his boots, hose and under-drawers. He turned away as he disrobed, strangely uncomfortable that the archangel demand he be naked.

When Neville turned back to face the angel, slowly letting the final article of clothing slip to the floor, Archangel Michael allowed his black eyes to travel infinitely slowly up and down Neville’s naked body, as if assessing. “You have no scars,” he remarked. “Your body is very beautiful, indeed. Strange, perhaps, for a man so committed to war.”

“I have always healed well,” Neville said.

And yet again the sly expression slithered over the archangel’s face. “Of course you have,” he said, turning to walk towards the doorway. “Follow me.”

Neville followed the archangel, the silvery light beyond the door growing stronger with every step closer they took. As he walked he allowed himself to study the archangel’s body as the archangel had so recently studied his. It was almost impossibly beautiful: muscles strong and rippling beneath unflawed skin, sinuous movement that combined both masculine and feminine qualities, limbs so well-shaped that they seemed as perfect as marble carvings.

I am
very
lovely
, said the archangel in Neville’s mind, and Neville found it impossible to disagree with him.

Then, abruptly, they were through the door, and Neville left the mortal world behind him.

Archangel Michael had led him into what appeared to be an infinite gently undulating field of multi-coloured flowers. The flowers were such as Neville had never seen before. They were massive, almost grossly so, reaching upwards on leafless thick stems to thigh height. Their colours were over-rich—tawdry—and their texture was heavy and fleshy. They gave off a scent which hung so intense and cloying in the humid air that Neville felt slightly nauseated by it.

The field was dotted with hundreds of stumps of long-dead trees, the wood grey and split.

Above all hung, not a sky, but a heaviness of silvery light.

Everything about the Field of the Angels seemed to Neville to be false and oppressive. He had an almost panicky urge to cover his genitals, only managing to keep his hands at his side with considerable effort.

This was heaven?

They walked forward, and as Neville stepped into the field of flowers he brushed against some of the gaudy blooms.

They were cold, and brittle, as if made of ice, and they shattered as he touched them.

Neville jumped, then walked more carefully, trying his best not to touch these strange, counterfeit flowers.

Or were they perfection, and the soft, gentle blooms of earth the lie?

The archangel led Neville further into the Field of Angels, and as they walked angels in the hundreds rose from their hiding places among the brittle flowers. They were all made as Archangel Michael: the white-marbled bodies, impossibly beautiful, with chiselled features dominated by their black eyes and crisp white curls.

None of them was winged.

“Wings are but a figment of the mortal imagination,” said the archangel, now walking at Neville’s side. “We are not so
flawed that we need wings to fly.” The archangel’s voice was thick with sarcasm.

Neville nodded, but did not respond, working to keep both his thoughts and his face bland although every nerve in his body was at screaming point, every muscle knotted and fearful, and every thought jumbled and confused.

This is heaven? This?

The other angels, their black eyes fixed on Neville’s every movement, sat down on the tree stumps, one angel to each stump. There they crouched, legs drawn up, arms locked about their knees, only their eyes moving as Michael and Neville walked through the field.

Neville thought they looked a little like the gargoyles he’d seen so many times crouching at the top of cathedrals and churches.

As the gargoyles crouched on churches, so the angels crouched in heaven, looking down, watching, watching, watching…

Desperate to keep his mind away from the imagery that flooded it, Neville addressed the archangel some two paces ahead of him. “You told me the demons were from hell,” he said. “Foul creatures that needed to be destroyed. But I find that instead they are the by-products of your lust, begotten on the bodies of unsuspecting women. They are not minions of Satan at all, they are heaven’s
children
! How can I condemn them for that?”

“I do not ask that you condemn them for that,” the archangel said, “only for what they are.”

He stopped, turning about to face Neville. “You
know
them for what they are. Trouble-makers at best—need I mention Wat Tyler’s name?—and cruel, manipulative murderers at worst. Hal. Margaret.”

“They are not—”

“What?
Not
cruel, manipulative murderers? How did Margaret and Bolingbroke trap you into loving her? Not through reason, Thomas, but through the cruellest of manipulations. How did Bolingbroke gain the throne of England? Through a series of well-timed and oh-so-well-planned
murders. There was
nothing
haphazard about the blood Bolingbroke spilt on the way to his crowning achievement.”

The archangel’s mouth curled a little at his pun, then he went on: “Thomas, nothing about your task is pretty or tasteful. If left to their own devices, Bolingbroke and his kind will destroy the peace of the current order. Mankind will be thrust into chaos. You can stop that. Choose between them or the angels. Choose one way, and the demons will overrun earth and turn it to their will. Choose another, and heaven will triumph.”

Neville moved a little, then flinched as he felt the cold caress of the false flowers against his body.

If he moved too quickly, if he made the wrong move, would they slice into his flesh?

“The demons speak of love,” he said. “The freedom for individual men and women to choose their own destiny, the freedom to love. They say that mankind’s salvation is not your way, but theirs.”

The archangel’s fists clenched at his side, and about them several other angels moved from their crouches to stand watchful by their tree stumps. “Love? Love is weakness.”

Love does not damn, it only saves.
Neville clung to Christ’s words, trying desperately to keep his face neutral. Everything about this horrible, cold, oppressive place made him think only of escape.

“For the mighty, perhaps,” Neville said, and this seemed to appease the archangel, for he relaxed.

“For all,” Michael said. Then he laughed, and its sound was as brittle and dangerous as the flowers that surrounded them. “And yet the demons have chosen the most easy of tests for you!”

Easy for you, perhaps
, Neville thought, and then he jumped, for suddenly a patch of flowers to his right vanished, and in their place crouched the beautiful young whore of Rome, who Thomas had thrown to the ground in a fit of temper.

She stared at him with hate-filled eyes. “I curse you, Friar Thomas!” she cried. “One day one of my sisters will seize
your soul and condemn you to hell for eternity. A whore will steal your soul. Nay, I pray to the Virgin Mary, that you will
offer
her your soul on a platter. You will offer her your eternal damnation in return for her love.”

The apparition vanished; in its place was Archangel Michael’s ice-sharp voice. “And on your choice rests the fate of mankind. If you condemn yourself for love, then you condemn mankind.”

And then the archangel’s voice changed, becoming infused with triumph. “But how can you ever choose for Margaret? How? You might love her…but the test, the choice, demands unconditional love. There can be no place for hesitancy, even for an instant, for then all would be lost. Do you love Margaret unconditionally, Thomas? Do you? Do you?
Do you?
”

Neville was aware that all about the entire assembly of angels had risen from their stumps and were now crowding about him. He could hardly breathe, the air was so thick with angels…

“No,” he whispered. “She tricked me into loving her. I do nonetheless love her, but she tricked me. I was the one raped, not her. There is and will always be that single hesitancy. It is not…”
Oh sweet Jesu, he did not want to say these words, but they were the truth, and the combined will of the angels was forcing the truth out from the very pit of his soul
“…it is not an unconditional love.”

Archangel Michael screamed with laughter. “And when it comes to the test, will you hand her your soul on a platter, Beloved? Will you? Will you? Will you?”

And all about, Neville heard the whispers:
Will you? Will you? Will you?

“No,” he said, his words now barely audible. “I want to, but I cannot.”

Archangel Michael’s face contorted in a horrible grimace of ecstasy, and about them in the field the angels erupted in exultation.

Margaret loses! Margaret loses!

“You see,” said Michael, now speaking in a warm and reasonable tone, “you are unable to do anything but tell the truth. That is your blood speaking. You have been well bred indeed.”

Bred to our standards
, came the whisper of the angelic assembly about Neville.
Bred to be one among us.

Unmindful of the pain caused by the shattering of the cold, brittle flowers with his movement, Neville sank to his knees, covered his face with his hands, and wept.

“Let me show you our prize,” Archangel Michael said, “for I think you deserve some cheer.” He and Neville, now back on his feet, were still within the field of false flowers. The other angels had retreated to crouch on their tree stumps, their backs now to Michael and Neville.

Neville felt very cold, as if his very soul had been reduced to a state near to that of the flowers. He knew now what he wanted to do—free mankind from the grip of the angels—but he also knew (
No. No! He only feared it. He still had a choice, he still had a choice. Please, sweet Jesu, please let me still have a choice!
) that he could not do it. He could not hand his soul to Margaret.

Not with that single dark irksome doubt contained within their love.

That single hesitancy.

Archangel Michael began to walk forward very slowly, and Neville followed, as if he had no control over his muscles.

“We had no thought for our issue,” the archangel said, “until
he
was born.”

Neville had to think a moment, trying to work out what the archangel referred to. “Jesus,” he said finally, remembering what Hal and Margaret had told him.

“We had not realised how dangerous, how malicious, how destructive the imps could be until
he
began his depraved campaign to win mankind’s soul over to his cause.”

Neville did not respond, keeping his eyes ahead. There was a smudge on the horizon now, and he realised they
walked towards a small hill. He concentrated on that hill, trying not to think about what the angels had forced him to confront.

He had no choice. None. His love for Margaret was not unconditional enough.

“He was frightful,” said the archangel. His speed had picked up a little now. “We had to do something. We created hell—such a wonder! And we enlisted the talents of special men, true men, to aid us.”

Neville nodded, not needing to answer. The Select with their book of incantations, thrusting down the angels’ issue into hell each year on the Nameless Day.

“We keep
him
trapped up here, though.”

“Why?”

“He is a Master Trickster. Too dangerous to allow contact with others of his kind.”

“And then you constructed the Church,” Neville said. “To further limit the damage.” They were very close to the small hill now. The hill was barren of flowers, apparently nothing more than a heap of dirt and gravel, and Neville could see that there was a cross atop it. He concentrated on the cross, and on the figure of the man fixed to it, and it gave him back some of his strength.

He no longer felt naked, and he moved more confidently.

“Yes,” said Archangel Michael. “
His
word had spread too far. It was too seductive, winning men and women away from their duty to us. Frightful. Dangerous. So we took his word and made it our own.” The archangel laughed. “We took his offer of freedom and made of it a prison.”