by Karen Harper
“You know that is not true, Will. We are not here because I keep Anne from him. It does not matter to Anne that I am here. She thinks if she would come to live at the palace the walk to the royal bed is too short. She fears she would lose him then and her power would be gone.”
“We all fear that, dear wife. And now all my careful planning, my work to earn the Carey way back has gone for nothing thanks to the meddling of the greedy Bullens!”
She wanted to hit out at him, to grab that constant bitter look from his face and smash it, but she controlled herself and touched his slumped shoulder. “I think you are over-reacting, reading too much into the fact His Grace did not choose to take you to Eltham for the summer. He only took one fifth of the court and only four of ten Esquires. Does that mean that the other six are all in disfavor? I think not.”
“I think not,” he mocked. “Is that your clever reasoning or Staff’s?”
“Please, Will, try...”
“I am trying, madam. But he took Stafford, did he not? He took six of the twelve Gentlemen Ushers, our dear Staff included. The king is unwise to favor him because he is a fine sportsman and it amuses him to have someone who will challenge him, stand up to him at tennis or butts, and tell him the truth.”
He shrugged her hand off his shoulder and rose to face her across the tall-backed chair. “When I heard that His Grace had said he would take Staff, I told myself that it is because Staff is dependent on him and has no country seat to flee to, as do others. But Stafford told me he inherited a farm and manor at Wivenhoe near Colchester from a great aunt while we were rotting away at Plashy last year. It is that terrible little place with the ghosts, I think. So you see, he has a place to go and one not so far at that.” He squinted to see her clearly even though she stood so close. The hour was still early, but he had managed to work himself into a heavy sweat. “Did you know that Stafford has lands now, Mary?”
She sat in the narrow windowseat and leaned against the protruding wooden sill. “He told me.”
“Yes, he would have. How foolish of me to ask.”
“The king knows we have Plashy to go to, or even farther into the country to the parklands if we really thought to flee London by a good distance. And, Will, everyone knows that Wolsey built Hampton here on this stretch of river because the air is so healthy and the water supply...”
“Is that why four died here of the sweat last July? Everyone knows that well enough. Oh, you have no worries, I realize. Little Catherine is safe at Hever with your mother and Anne, Stafford is off at Eltham, though I am certain you will miss his company, and you—well, the Bullens live charmed lives anyway. That is rather obvious!”
She sighed and her eyes stung with tears which did not fall. Yes, she missed Catherine, but she was old enough to visit her grandmother at Hever. She and Anne had always treasured their visits to Rochford Hall in Essex. But she was deathly lonely without Staff, their talks, their joy, their lovemaking far into the long nights whenever they could steal time together.
“I will not flee to Plashy, Mary. It would be like being in wretched exile again, and I will never admit defeat by going back there. Plashy came from my clever marriage to a Bullen. I admit that. But our lives are here now. When the Carey name is restored, I shall have other fine lands on which to build a manor. Someday the manor at Durham may be mine again. It was never this damned hot at Durham!”
“Times change. People change, Will. Perhaps we can never go back to what was.” She lifted her gaze to the distant gardens greatly gone to riot in the heat and not well tended by the unsupervised gardeners during these dangerous times. It reminded her of the wild gardens at the north edge of Hever across the stone wall where the flowers bloomed totally free and uncut.
“Anyhow, we are not going to Plashy and we are not going to Hever to live off your father’s funds and be near that scheming sister of yours. Little Catherine can visit, but we are not going and that is final. I have been thinking, however, we can visit Eleanor at Wilton if only for several weeks. We would be within close call should they return here unexpected and, besides, I need to talk to Eleanor. She understands.”
Mary bit her lip to keep from a sharp retort. Eleanor, Eleanor. If only there was no such thing as incest between a brother and sister, Will could marry his beloved Eleanor. Perhaps, when the Careys earned their way back, they could ask for a royal or papal dispensation and marry each other. Then she would be free to go off with Staff. How desperately she wished for it!
“I do not plan to go off to Wilton, so if you must go, I shall remain here,” she said when she could trust her voice.
“I decide where we go or do not go, madam!”
“I am not going, Will. Go if you must.”
“You would like that. You would like to have me away. Perhaps you could ride alone to Eltham then, alone and unencumbered, to your dear father. Maybe the king would be glad to see his golden Mary, you are hoping, not to mention Stafford. Staff would be there waiting, Mary.”
“Leave me be, Will! I am sick, sick to death of your bitter hatred. I did not choose this marriage! I am not the one who chose to desert our bed at Plashy. I did not even choose to be born a Bullen, but I am. Please, please, leave me alone!”
“I suppose you did not choose to love Stafford either, Mary, to light up like a torch when you see him, to laugh at his jibes, to smile at him across the room.” He put his hand to the door latch and hesitated.
She stood and the morning sun from the window behind her made her mussed blonde hair appear to have a strange halo around it. “No, my lord. God forgive me, I never chose that. It just happened.” She faced him squarely across the room, her chin held high. There was a strained silence. Still he hesitated at the door.
“Then God forgive you, Mary, but the Careys never shall.” He went without looking back, but he did not slam the door as she had expected. It stood ajar and the dim hall was all she could see beyond.
The morning wore on and she did not stir from the sequestered room. The brick walls kept the heat out until late in the afternoon even though the window faced south. If Will had not been in such a heated rage, he would have realized it was cool here and not fume so about the heat of the day. She and Nancy sat talking and she embroidered while the girl darned the silken stockings she could no longer afford to give away when tiny holes appeared in the heels. They ate some fruit for lunch and drank a bit of tepid malmsey. The afternoon stretched on peacefully, and she did not think anything of Will’s long absence until his man, Stephen, came looking for him.
“But you say his horse is here yet, Stephen?”
“Aye, milady. He threatened to go to the priory at Wilton, but he has not done so, unless he thieved a horse. I shall find him along the river perhaps, though it is not like him. But who can he find to talk to around here, since the queen’s household be at Beaulieu and the king’s at Eltham?” He nodded his sandy head and backed through the door with his cap in his hands.
He probably intended to punish her by staying elsewhere, she thought. He need not. She regretted her words and actions already, but that could not change the truth. Perhaps if she were not here as though she were awaiting him, he would come back sooner. “Let’s sit out by the fountain for a bit, Nancy.”
“But it be turned off now. Remember? Anyhow, my lady, we might get overheated and you know that is one sign. There be plenty of myrtle and rose leaves in the drawers, but we have no sapphires to stem the start of it if the curse should come here.”
“I know, Nance. But we are far into July and a good stretch from pesty London. I forgot the fountain is off. We shall just sit in the shade. Maybe there is a tiny breeze off the river as yesterday.”
“At least the river flows toward London and not from it to bring the stench of death. Hundreds are dyin’ the drovers say.”
They had only begun their slow stroll under the trimmed yews when Stephen’s voice floated to them in the still, stifling air. Already she knew the day was much too warm, and they w
ould have to turn back.
“It’s Stephen, lady, yellin’ and wavin’ at us.” They both squinted down the lane of sunsplotched yews.
“Come on, Nance. He wants us, yet does not come to fetch us. I warrant my lord has come back in a huff.”
The closer they got to Stephen, the more disturbed Mary became, and she picked up her skirts and ran even though she felt the beads of sweat begin to trickle down her temples and between her breasts. When they had nearly reached him, he turned and loped ahead throwing the words back over his shoulder.
“The lord, Lady Mary. He got overheated, I think. But the thing is, lady,” he blocked her as she reached for the latchkey to their chamber, “though he be sweating, he has the shakes bad, too.”
Mary’s heart lurched. “Dear God! No!” Nancy drew back with a little gasp. Mary quickly shoved the door open as if to push away her growing dread.
Will sat slumped, curled over the table drinking wine in sips. His ragged breathing filled the quiet room. He stared at her almost unseeing, his eyes glazed.
So great a change in such a little time, she thought, panicked. It cannot be. “Will? Do you have a bit of a fever? Please, Will, get in bed, and I will sponge your face. A little sleep and all will be well. You are overtired, and your anger has exhausted you.” She touched his arms to help him rise. His shirt was sopping wet and stuck tight to his clammy body.
“I am not going to bed. I need rest—here—and some cooled wine, not this hot stuff. Tell Stephen to see to it in the cellars.”
Stephen snatched the pitcher and was gone before Mary even looked up at him.
“Yes, my temper got the best of me,” he got out between pants for breath. “I should have gone to Wilton. The thing is, I have stomach pain too, and it would be too hard to ride with it. I shall go to Wilton tomorrow.” He clenched his fists around the empty goblet and groaned. “I may ride to see our old home at Durham again. I would like to see Durham.”
Mary wrang out a cloth in the washbasin and sent Nancy to fetch fresher water. “Tell no one anything,” she whispered to the frightened girl and squeezed her arm in warning.
“Is it the sweat indeed, lady?” she mouthed.
“I pray God it is not. Go on and hurry!”
“Will, come on. We must get you to bed where we can care for you so this, this fever, will pass.”
“Yes.” He lifted his tousled head weakly from his hands. “Yes. I feel suddenly exhausted. I have worked too hard for His Grace. But, Mary, you must not let me sleep. People who sleep never wake up again when they have the sweat. Only this is not, cannot, be the sweat. I have not been in a city in weeks.”
He leaned on her and his weight was tremendous. How foolish she had been to send Stephen and Nancy on errands. She staggered toward the bed nearly dragging him, and they fell on it together. She sat only to rise immediately, but he grabbed her wrist.
“Just because you love him, Mary, you will not let me die?” His wide eyes tried to focus on her face but they wandered and everything swam before him.
“You will not die, my husband. I will not let you die.” But his head had already dropped back on the pillow and he panted in short gasps with his mouth open.
She swung his feet up onto the bed and covered him with a thick blanket from the chest. She stood frozen for a moment. Her mind raced, pouring over the advice and remedies she had heard discussed in whispers these past years. This was impossible. It could not be happening to Will.
She pulled her fur robe from the storage chest and scattered crushed lavender leaves, in which it was entombed for summer storage, all over the floor. The person must be made to sweat the poisons out, to sweat profusely, she remembered. Where were those servants?
With deadly outward calm she began to bathe the sticky sweat off his face. Dearest God, it was the sweat indeed, for he smelled of old closed-up rooms. That was one sure sign, Lady Weston had said, the smell of old closed-up rooms, like death.
Nancy was back with fresh water and fruit and Stephen tiptoed in with wine and sticks of wood under his arm. She remembered instantly. “Yes, Stephen, we must have a fire. We must drive out the poisons. And when you get it going, you must see if there are any doctors who remain, though I heard Her Grace took the last with her. Hurry, Stephen.”
“But he is asleep already, lady. We must not let him sleep,” Nancy’s voice came from behind her.
“I think it is early yet, and he will need his strength.”
“My sister said once they sleep they never wake, lady.”
“Hush, girl, and fetch the myrtle and rose leaves for the sheets.”
Mary marvelled at her own control in the next hours. She was sharp with the servants, but as the room became an inferno in the late afternoon sun with the fireplace roaring, they all dripped sweat and spoke no more. She kept Will awake as best she could, but he wafted in and out of consciousness even though his stomach and head pain increased.
“The whole room is spinning,” he whispered dazedly. “Is Eleanor here yet?”
A new fear grew in her like an ugly gray mushroom. “Eleanor, my lord? No, Eleanor is not here yet.”
“You have not sent for Staff to marry, have you?” he nearly shouted, then fell back on the bed exhausted.
Tears coursed down her face. “No, of course not, my lord. Rest. Do not fret. I am here. I will care for you.”
The stench of the room enveloped them now, smothering the sweeter scents of the medicinal myrtle, rose, and lavender from the fur robe in which she desperately wrapped him. He sucked the special powdered wine hourly through a goose quill Stephen brought as the night wore on. Yet he sweated out all the liquid and never had to urinate. She sent Stephen and Nancy to sleep in the corridor within call and kept the fire burning herself. Maybe they could escape from the smell and they would not hear his tortured ravings of his lost name and his accusations of the Bullens and his wife. In the waves of heat, she stripped to her soaked shift and began to bathe his face again when his eyes shot open and he seized her wrist weakly.
“Is that His Grace calling me? I have to go. He is wanting me to come to him.” He feebly tried to move aside the heavy covers but could not. “Is it night, Mary?”
“Yes, my dear lord. It is night.” She gently sponged his forehead.
“Then he must be calling for me. It will anger him if I do not come and we will lose everything, my dear love.”
“You must rest, Will. I am here. I will not leave you.”
“Oh, my dearest Eleanor, we will lose everything we have worked for!”
Tears flowed down her cheeks to mingle with the sweat which already stung her eyes. His love was for his sister and his cause. He had never loved her and it was her fault. She had been a terrible wife to him. He could have loved her. He gave her two beautiful children. She had hurt him so with five years of shaming his treasured name with the king while he was sent here and there on trumped-up missions. And now, with Staff, whom he had once trusted and even idolized a bit...Was that her fault too?
“Dearest God, I have sinned greatly,” her lips said and she bowed her head in utter exhaustion and hopelessness. They said the sweat was sent as a curse from God to sinners. But why Will and not the sinner?
“You look beautiful, Mary.”
Her eyes opened and she stared at him through a heavy mist.
“In dresses for revels or in your shift, so beautiful. Maybe the king will summon you to him tonight and not me.” His trembling lips tried to smile. “Then you can try to save the Carey lands again.” He made a weak attempt to clear his throat of its roughness, but only wheezed. “Is Eleanor here yet?” he asked again. “She will want to go to Durham with me, even though you do not.”
She gave up fighting to keep him conscious, for the pains increased in his head and stomach and shot him wide awake when he tried to doze. She sponged him still, and held his fluttering hands in hers, and quoted Bible verses to him for her own comfort as much as his, but he constantly interrupted and asked
for water or his sister.
Near dawn she called to Stephen for more wood and in utter terror at Will’s shallow pained breathing sent the disheveled Nancy for a priest. The girl could find no one of the cloth, not even at the friary outside the grounds, which served the royal chapel. She returned breathless and teary-eyed as the first glimmer of light permeated the gray room.
“There is no one, lady, no one. I am sorry. Everything seems so deserted.”
Will stared up at the new voice and managed a wan smile. “I knew she would come. I knew she would come if I called her.”
Mary pressed his trembling, cold hand between hers. “Yes,” she choked out, “yes, she came, my lord. Rest now. All is well.”
He narrowed his eyes and they seemed to focus momentarily on Mary’s bent head. “I am sorry, Mary,” came the quiet words. His head dropped back suddenly, and his eyes stared beyond her.
“I am sorry too, my dear lord. Can you not forgive me?”
She raised her hand to sponge his forehead, but the words went unheard. With the first light of the new day upon his face, Will Carey died.
Stephen and some husky groom had put the wrapped corpse on a table board and carried him to the chapel yard for burial after a stunned Mary and silent Nancy had washed and reclothed him. Victims of the sweat must be buried immediately so their decay would not send the rampant poisons into the air, especially in the summer months when it was most virulent. There was no one to give them permission, to bury him on chapel grounds, but Mary sent Stephen and two others there to dig the grave anyway.
The next day Nancy found a kind, old chaplain on the outskirts of Kingston to come the five miles to recite over the grave and give the last rites posthumously, as was allowed for any plague victim. They stood in a tiny circle around the sunken fresh grave two days after his death. Mary still felt it was unreal. She felt nothing but a vast, gnawing emptiness.