Queen's Pleasure

by Brandy Purdy

  Many nights I passed sitting up in bed, sewing partlets and yokes to fill in the low-cut square bodices of my gowns, so no trace of my malady would ever show. Sleepless, by candlelight I embroidered delicate flowers and sometimes even healing herbs upon the fine white linen, like feverfew and chamomile blossoms, but no more hearts—entwined, inflamed, or impaled by Cupid’s dart—or true lovers’ knots; that girl didn’t exist anymore.

  Sometimes I did indeed pull the covers up over my head, even though I lay tense and wakeful underneath, until dawn, when I at last drifted off to sleep again. I was afraid that, as he often did, the gray friar would step out of the stone walls and come to me, to stand a watchful and alert sentinel beside or at the foot of my bed. Though I knew hiding from him was senseless; cowering beneath the covers wouldn’t keep him away. I was apt to see him at any moment, day or night, and even when I hid, I could still feel his presence in the cold and prickly sensation up and down the nape of my neck and spine. But I was scared that one night he would come to stand at the foot of my bed and lower his hood to reveal what the darkness hid and show me the true face of Death.

  Often I wondered who he was. Had he perhaps served in the infirmary and tended the monks who were ailing and dying, keeping an alert vigil by their beds, comforting and praying as they breathed their last? Or was he guilty of some heinous sin, some horrible crime that damned his soul and barred the gates of Heaven against him forevermore? Sometimes I wondered if I had gone mad, as I was the only one who could see him. To everyone else the phantom friar was just a legend, just another ghost story to tell while sitting ’round the fire on a dark night for the thrill a little fright can give. But, to me, he wasn’t just a story; he was very real indeed.

  And then he came to me, as though he had been blown in by the March winds, the only one who might have been able to save me—Dr. Kristofer Biancospino. At first I was sorely afraid of him; he was a foreigner, born of an Italian father and an Arab woman, olive-skinned with piercing, deep-set, obsidian black eyes, and raven-wing hair, sleek and swooping over his brow, and a sharp nose and chin. My mind always wanted to picture him in a jeweled and feathered turban, resplendent in oriental robes of jewel-colored silk and damask—ruby, emerald, sapphire, amethyst, and topaz—with golden pointy-toed slippers that turned up at the tips, though I never saw him in anything but plain, elegant, but severe black. He looked, at first glance, dangerous and harsh, a haughty patrician medical man with a long list of impressive credentials who could never conceive of caring being a part of the physician’s art. At first, he reminded me of a more exotic version of Sir Richard Verney; they had the same dark hair and eyes and the same sharpness of features, noses as sharp as knives when seen from the side. But I was wrong, so very wrong. He never babbled or blundered, flushed or fidgeted, or stammered trying to find the right words, nor was he hard-hearted or brutally blunt but matter-of-fact; his honesty never faltered or hid like a bitter almond inside a coating of colored sugar. His fingers never fumbled with embarrassment or incompetence when he examined and tended me. Nor did he use humor and jests to try to cajole and distract me and make the truth seem less grim. There was no nonsense about him; he was, in all ways, confident and steady, efficient and brisk. And yet ... there was comfort in those hands, the way they moved over my body, so sure what to do, never hesitating. And instead of disdain, arrogance, or self-importance, I saw in his dark eyes deep wells of kindness. He was not at all the frightening and sinister man I took him for at first glance.

  The first time he examined me, when I bared my breast to his scrutiny, I turned my face away, tears filling my eyes, and clutched a perfumed handkerchief to my nose, humiliated and angered by the stink of the vile, disgusting discharge oozing out to stain the linen dressing that covered it. It wasn’t fair! People were supposed to rot after they died, whilst I had been condemned to have my flesh decay even as I still lived, and to smell always this foul, rotting rancidness that no perfume could ever fully conceal; it was always there, like a whiff of manure beneath the roses.

  Gently, he peeled the dressing away and, taking a bottle from his bag, tipped it over a folded square of linen and began to cleanse my breast with a sharp-scented liquid that felt strangely good even as it tingled and stung. “A cleansing wash, an astringent,” he explained. “I shall write out the recipe before I leave. Have your maid do this for you every morning and night, each time the dressing is changed, and apply a hot towel for half an hour afterward.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” I nodded and said softly, still avoiding his eyes.

  He paused then and took my face gently between his hands and turned it so I had no choice but to look at him.

  “Do not be afraid or ashamed,” he said. “Do not turn away from me, or away from yourself.” As he resumed his examination, he continued speaking as his fingers gently prodded the swollen, distorted lump, feeling it move like a rotting fruit trapped beneath my skin. “You are still beautiful. Do not be alarmed, I tell all my patients this—you are more than this.” He cupped my breast carefully in his hand. “Much more! I have seen this malady many times, many, many, many times, afflicting women everywhere—rich and poor, young and old, slim and stout, virgins, wives, and whores, godless and devout—and I can say, with complete confidence, it is nothing you have done that has drawn this disease to you. Many women despair and in the throes of their suffering think that it is somehow their fault and search their lives for some sin or transgression to account for it, when there is in truth none. Some even look to point the finger of blame at their vanity, the low-cut dresses, or the carnal pleasures they enjoyed, but, in truth, it is none of that. I have seen virgin spinsters who spent their whole lives modestly covered in high-necked gowns and never knew the touch of a man succumb to it. It is a disease that strikes down some and spares others; it has no respect for beauty, wealth, titles, and prestige, nor piety and good works either. It is not like a man who prefers a certain type of woman; this cancer is random and without mercy. In France and Italy it is called ‘The Nun’s Disease’—though no one knows why, it is seen tragically often in convents. When I was a young man studying medicine in Italy, and also when I was in France, I attended many such cases. I have charted its course from its first appearance to the agony and devastation of its final stage. We are old adversaries—cancer and I.”

  “Did they ...” The word die stuck in my throat, and I could not say it, so instead I asked, “Were you able to cure them?”

  “In some cases I bought them more time. I was able to slow the disease’s progress or banish it temporarily, but at great cost, and I do not speak of money, but ...” He sighed deeply and closed his eyes for a moment. “For some it cost more than the cure was worth, some found the remedy to be worse than the malady, and, for those who survived the cure, the disease took a holiday and came back after a time, sometimes months, sometimes a few years, later; only one was able to live out her life without it ever revisiting her. But, for most of my patients, I could only give a respite from their pain.”

  When he had finished speaking, I could only nod. I did not trust myself to speak, and, in truth, I did not know what to say. I had known all along that I was doomed. So I nodded and murmured, “Thank you, Doctor. I understand.”

  “Come now, my beautiful patient, it is not time for tears yet.” He reached up and with his own handkerchief wiped my eyes. “I do not give up easily, not without a fight, and neither should you. Now, shall we begin?”

  “Yes.” I nodded and added softly, “Thank you, Doctor.”

  He prescribed a potent white powder of opium poppies, to be mixed with wine to mask its bitter, burning taste, to help me with the pain, though he cautioned it might bring confusion and strange dreams, both waking and sleeping, and even as it dulled the sharp edge of pain, it would also dull my mind. He also prescribed an elixir for cooling fever, and recommended ginger suckets, which I already knew of and used, to help quell the nausea, both before and after eating. “The weaker you get, the stronger th
e cancer gets,” he explained. “You must think of it as your nemesis, your foe, your enemy, a very powerful one who is the emperor of all ailments, and fight it with everything you have, armed with what weapons I can give you.” He wrote out recipes and careful instructions for Pirto to follow in a daily regimen of treatment, and, when I thought he was done, paused and added a hot poultice for my ribs and back, when I told him of the sharp pains that now beset me in these parts, and he urged me to leave off my stays. “No more tight lacing,” he admonished. He prescribed a strengthening tonic that I should take daily and forbid me strenuous exercise, absolutely no dancing or horseback riding, even if I felt like it, and if I must travel—“and I do not recommend it now,” he said in a grave and serious tone—I must do so only by litter, carried by men at a slow walk, taking the utmost care not to jar me. “I do not wish to alarm you,” he continued, “but you must know, as this disease progresses, it can eat into the bones, suck the life out of them, if you will, and leave them brittle and vulnerable to fractures and breaking. I had one patient whose spine snapped as she was walking across her bedchamber, and another who broke a finger opening a letter.”

  I gasped and felt dizzy and light-headed at these words, more afraid for myself than ever, trapped in a body that was apt to break all apart even as the cancer did its evil work upon my breast.

  Dr. Biancospino took my hand. “I know it is frightening, but I would be most remiss if I did not tell you. You are a woman formerly accustomed to leading a busy, vigorous life, taking an active part in the management of a large estate, I am told, and I know you must miss being that woman, but to try to ignore this, to go on as if nothing were wrong, you would risk doing yourself great injury.”

  I said I understood, thanked him, and promised to do exactly as he said. And when I told him of the hemlock pills Robert had given me, and still continued to send, along with other medicines, Dr. Biancospino merely shook his head and said, “I think I have something better.”

  He took from his bag a mortar and pestle and various powders and asked Pirto to bring him water. While he measured out the powders, he cautioned me not to mix the remedies he prescribed with those recommended by others, even if they meant well and had only the best intentions; combining the wrong ingredients or ingesting too much of any one of them could be extremely dangerous or even deadly. “And no more bleeding and purging,” he said firmly. “With this particular malady I think they do more harm than good and only increase weakness and lethargy.” Then, as he added the water and began to stir the mixture, creating a thick white paste, he bade me sit, bare to my waist, on a high stool before him. And from his bag he took a brush, just like an artist might use—I had seen Lavinia Teerlinc wield similar ones, albeit more delicate and smaller—and, with slow, steady, almost sensual strokes, he began to paint my afflicted breast with the white paste. “It may sting a little,” he cautioned, “or even burn—some ladies have more sensitive skin than others—but that is a good thing; that is how we know the medicine is working.” As I watched it harden, hiding the ugly mottled flesh and drying up the seeping discharge beneath a shell that made me feel as if my breast were turning into marble, he explained that it was a mixture of lime, hemlock, and belladonna and said that he would instruct Pirto in its preparation so that she could apply it fresh for me each morning.

  For the first time since I realized that I had cancer, I felt as if hope hadn’t entirely forsaken me. But it was only, I think, that I wanted so much to believe. I tried to deny it, to pretend and ignore it, when I continued to worsen, to hide beneath the balm of the medicines Dr. Biancospino gave me, bittersweet elixirs that made me feel as if I were floating just below the surface of a placid river, the water either warm or cold, whichever my feverish or chilled body most wanted, hiding from the pain that lurked above, waiting to lunge and grab and sink its fangs back into me.

  It was getting harder and harder. Every day I felt my energy, my strength, slipping further away, and myself falling, fainting feebly into the arms of lethargy even though I tried to hold on, tried to fight it. Every moment I was awake, a part of me wanted only to sleep. The least little movement could bring an excruciating burst of pain, as if Death himself reached out his cold, skeletal hand to squeeze my heart and steal my breath away or land a hammer blow against my bones. I began to suffer pains in my shoulders, an aching, almost unbearable pressure, as if someone endowed with great strength were standing behind me, pressing with all his might, bearing down upon them. And sometimes I had similar pains in my hips, chest, and back. Sometimes I thought pain had stealthily, one by one, replaced all the bones that made up my spine; it seemed to be made of pure pain now. I was also often troubled by headaches, when I had hardly ever had them before. My eyes were now glad of the gloom inside Cumnor, as I shrank from the sun I had once so dearly loved to be out and about in; now it made my eyes ache as if it were piercing them with needles of molten light. I had to turn my face away, squeeze my eyes shut tightly, and fight with all my might the urge to sink down right where I was, weak and weary, and go to sleep even as the pain thrummed all along the length of my body from top to toe like a plucked lute string.

  Some days getting out of bed was just too much for me, though I tried faithfully every day, as Dr. Biancospino said I should, telling me it was good for me to sit up, put on my pretty clothes, and stir myself a bit. To lie abed would only weaken me more and invite bedsores, he said; it was better to keep moving, albeit with all due caution and care. And I always tried to do just that, to dress and be up and sitting in my beautiful flowered chair beside the fire on the days when Dr. Biancospino came to call. I wanted him to see how hard I was trying, and the vain woman in me wanted him to see me looking my best. Sometimes I even dared to venture outside, to sit on a bench in the park, just to get away from the stale odors of the sickroom, the fever sweat, chamber pot, and medicines, and the perfume that tried to mask it all, though as time passed, those days became fewer and rarer, going up and down the stairs hurt so much, like knives of agony stabbing into my ribs and back, and by the time I reached the top, or bottom, I was breathless and exhausted, and it took all the will I had to go on.

  Finally a day came when Dr. Biancospino admitted it too, that all his remedies had been in vain, like a sliver of ice tossed into a pot of boiling water in an attempt to cool it.

  It was a Saturday—I remember it well—a gray and dreary day that typified this dismal, cold, wet summer. I had declined an invitation to join the other ladies for cards; just the thought of their catty chatter and the thrusts and jabs Mrs. Forster and Mrs. Oddingsells aimed at each other was more than I could stand. I was sitting by the fire, just letting the day pass by. I had put on a pretty dress and hood of pale pink brocade shimmering with silver threads and frills of delicate silver lace, and I had a beautiful pale yellow shawl the color of fresh-churned butter that Robert had sent, embroidered with brightly colored fruits, flowers, birds, and animals, which I never tired of looking at.

  When Dr. Biancospino arrived, I was stroking the arm of my chair and admiring an intricately embroidered pale pink flower with a cherry red heart, embellished with golden and silver threads that glimmered in the firelight. Dr. Biancospino drew up a stool and took my hands in his. He met my eyes and said that it was time for him to speak boldly of a more aggressive, but very dangerous way in which we might attack my cancer—a procedure most would consider more barbaric butchery than surgery, as it would result in lifelong pain and the most drastic and permanent disfigurement, if the shock of the knife cutting or an infection afterward did not kill me. He described it to me, and I forced myself to listen, even though I felt sick and faint with horror. I wanted to run away from his words, I didn’t want to hear them, I didn’t want to think about what he was describing, but I hadn’t the strength to run, and there was nowhere to run to. I had to sit, listen, and face the truth. And he was right, it made perfect sense; if the disease was to depart, so too must the infected breast. So I braced myself, my fingers d
igging hard into the arms of my chair, and forced myself to listen as he described the procedure. The patient was made to lie flat upon a table, bound with leather straps, then large, new, and well-sharpened fishhooks attached to a series of ropes, strung overhead as pulleys, were inserted into the diseased breast, and the ropes pulled to lift it up, off the chest. The surgeon then, as quickly as he could, cut away the diseased breast and cauterized the wound with hot irons. The pain was excruciating, even with a potion to dull it, and many never left the table alive; the pain caused their hearts to stop, and those who did live often succumbed to fever and infection within a few days’ or weeks’ time. The rare ones who survived had pain and disfigurement replace cancer as their constant companion until Cancer came back to take the life he had already staked a claim to when he first marked their breast.

  “I have myself performed this operation but rarely, and only upon six women,” Dr. Biancospino said gravely. “Two died upon the table, one survived three days, the other a day short of a fortnight, only to die in an inferno of festering pain and fever. One lived for another four years before the cancer returned; the other is still alive—for now—but she lived to dance at her daughter’s wedding and hold her first grandchild. I will not lie to you, Amy, if you agree to gamble with your life, the dice are not loaded in your favor, and I cannot predict—I cannot even hazard a guess—whether you will win or lose, or if you win time, how much.”

  “I understand,” I said softly, grimacing as I levered myself up from my chair and walked across the room to stand before the beautiful Venetian looking glass Robert had sent me, its silver frame a-bloom with golden buttercups.

  I stood there for a long time, staring at myself, so thin and pale and wan, remembering the Amy I used to be, rosy-cheeked, plump, round, and robust. I remembered a time when Robert had called me his “gold and pink alabaster angel” when I used to wait for him in bed, longing and ready for his embrace, with my golden hair spread across the pillows, and my nakedness tantalizingly veiled in a bed gown of pale pink lace. If I submitted to this surgery, I could never again take sensual delight in being a woman; I could never give or receive carnal pleasure, lest the lover recoil in horror at the sight of the ugly, scarred, sunken hollow where my left breast had once been, with the right one beside it as a reminder of the creamy pink-tipped dessert to delight a lover it used to be. This was my only chance to live, but was it worth taking—was it a life worth saving? The cancer had already ravaged my body, spoiled my beauty, stolen my flesh, and sapped my vitality. Was what Dr. Biancospino’s knife would do any worse? My sore and oozing breast was not fit to be seen; it was an object to arouse disgust, not desire. Would a scarred and sunken crater on my chest be any less so? But what did I have to live for? What did I have to hope for? Everything that mattered to me was already gone. Robert would never love me again; he would never renounce the Queen and come back to me; he wanted me dead or divorced. And what other man would have me as I was now or if I submitted to and survived the surgeon’s knife? My beauty was gone, and I didn’t have that magical, magnetic confidence like Elizabeth that sometimes allows plain or ugly women to attract admirers. I didn’t even have a fortune anymore. When Robert married me, I was a Norfolk heiress, with three manors and a flock of 3,000 sheep, apple orchards, and fields of barley. Now all I had left was me, a tired and damaged, disease-ravaged woman eight years past twenty who had failed at everything in a woman’s life that matters.