As Christmas approached, the remainder of Lancaster's army, now half its original size, staggered toward Bordeaux.
Once Matthew had been able to beg a horse from another knight so that Harry could ride. More often Matthew had to carry him. But they had not eaten in five days now, and Matt no longer had the strength to carry Harry for more than short distances. Mainly, he dragged, cajoled, and cursed his brother onward.
In a nameless village two days from Bordeaux, the English begged bread from door to door. "My brother is sick," Matthew told those who answered his knock. "Help me feed him." The villagers closed their doors to him and all the other soldiers.
On the 21st of December, the first vineyards surrounding Bordeaux came into view. Matthew even fancied he could glimpse the spire of St. Andre, shimmering in the distance—as ephemeral and wondrous as the Holy Grail.
"Look, Harry!" He pointed to the west. "We made it."
Harry blinked. All he saw was monotonous horizon, a dull sky. Didn't he have a holding somewhere near Bordeaux? Hadn't there been vineyards? A limewashed house? Fat horses and specially bred cattle? Or had he dreamed that?
"By tomorrow, we will be in Bordeaux. We will soak in a tub a fortnight, and stuff ourselves until our bellies swell like a pig's bladder."
Harry smiled weakly. "I am tired, Matt."
"But we survived."
Harry reached out and rested his arm upon his. Matthew looked down. His brother's hand looked like the skeletal renderings in Danse Macabre murals. What did the cadavers say to the young men they meet on a hunt: "What we were, you are; what we are, you will be."
Harry said, "You are the finest brother ever."
Matthew felt his hairs raise up along Harry's fingers, as if he were uttering a curse rather than a compliment. "Do not talk now. 'Tis almost over."
"I never doubted you." Harry said with that same exhausted curve of his cracked and swollen lips. "It is just... weary..."
That last night, the last night they would spend on the ground, they curled up beneath a full moon. A powerful wind rode the sky, bucking clouds across the moon's face. Tonight reminded Matthew of Cumbria, of the many times he had ridden out to race a similar wind and moon. He yawned. Legend told that the devil came from the north, but he had never seen him—not during his solitary rides, not even at Limoges. Or had he? Didn't he remember black-robed figures? Priests or demons? Smoke or an evil miasma? And there had been flames, he recalled that much. From burning cities or had they all tumbled into hell?
Sliding his arm underneath Harry, he fit himself against his brother's back and fell immediately asleep.
* * *
Matthew's eyes flew open. The moon now sailed overhead; its golden surface had long since bleached to white. What had awakened him? The camp was quiet, disturbed only by the occasional sound of a cough or labored snoring. Removing his arm from beneath his brother, he sat up. Harry's body settled deeper against the earth. He was quiet for once, without the panting breath or killing cough. Matthew looked down at him. Harry's eyes were closed. He looked so peaceful. Matthew knew he was dead.
"Harry?" Matthew felt his wrist for a pulse. The flesh was warm, but no heartbeat stirred the skin. He rolled him over. The front of Harry's breeches was stained, his urine not yet cold.
"Wake up, Harry. Do not die. Not now." Sliding his arms around his brother's waist, Matthew raised him up. Moonlight illuminated Harry's face—all shadows and planes. He looked a hundred years old. But he was not. He was only thirty-three.
"Bastard!" Matthew whispered. Harry's body arched backward. His head lolled back, the tangled hair brushing the ground. His exposed throat showed pale and vulnerable. "Another day, 'twas all I asked. Anyone can live for twenty four hours."
He dropped Harry, and rolled over on his back, beside his dead brother and stared up at the moon. No tears came. Harry had cried enough for them both.
"You were stupid, Harry. Why were you so stupid?" A sudden shudder convulsed Matthew. His brother was dead. His brother whom he loved. Matthew clenched his fists, clenched his teeth to keep from crying out. He groped for Harry's hand in the darkness. When he found it, his fingers tightened over the parchment-thin flesh, the knobby bones.
Matthew held his brother's cooling hand and waited for the morning.
Chapter 19
Cumbria 1374
In Bordeaux, a letter awaited Matthew. "Your father, we fear, is dying. Please return to Cumbria." The letter had been dated November 15—six weeks past. They'd been deep in the bowels of Auvergne at that time. Matthew had been remembering William. "My day is past."
He stared at the parchment. "Not you, too." Death was all around him. Matthew folded the letter and tucked it inside his soft linen chemise. Since arriving in Bordeaux, he'd eaten, bathed, shaved, and buried Harry. Now he must go home.
* * *
On the afternoon of the fifteenth day after docking at Southampton, Matthew glimpsed Cumbria's spires, the family banner flying in its rightful place. "Wait for me, Father," he whispered. "Do not make me come all this way only to view a grave."
His eyes burned from the dust of the road and lack of sleep. He was so exhausted he seemed to view the castle, everything through a haze. "Later I will rest," he told himself.
By the time Matthew and his small troupe reached Cumbria's drawbridge the numbness began to leave his senses. He spotted the familiar face of a sentry, watching from a tower flanking the drawbridge and called out, "Raymond? Is Father still alive?"
"And just who might your father be, sir?" Matthew knew he must look as wild-eyed and disheveled as one of those hermits haunting various bridges and forests, or madmen imprisoned in the fool's towers constructed in wayward places.
Others recognized him. One of his mother's maids, crossing from the outer bailey scurried back toward the keep, crying "He's home!", while a dozen other servants gathered round him. Hands reached up to help him down while his other knights eased themselves from their horses.
Matthew tried to make himself heard above the babble. "How is my father?"
"He is in the solar," said one of the grooms, taking Matt's horse. "He's been waiting."
Halfway across the inner bailey Matthew met his mother, who had raced from the keep. "Oh!" Sosanna's hand flew to her mouth. "My child!" she said, after drawing back from their embrace. "What have they done to you? Where is Harry?"
"Still in Bordeaux; I will tell you later. How is Father? What happened? Can he speak?"
"He had convulsions and for a time could not see. The doctors knew not what to do. No one did. He is better now, though he is often so dizzy he canna leave his bed. Nor can he keep down much food. More than once I was told to call Father Benedict, but I knew he would not die. Not until you came."
A double-edged sword, Matthew thought, climbing the solar stairs. If I had not returned, would Papa have lived forever?
Shutters remained drawn across the grisaille windows of his parents' chamber. The scent of burning wood from the chimney fire and the fresh herbs strewn atop the rushes ill-disguised the smell of death.
Matt approached the canopied bed. The bulky counterpane swelled around the shape of his father. Still impressively large. He looked down at William's face. His eyes were closed.
Matthew's heart leapt to his throat. Not after all this time. Had his father been unable to wait, after all?
"Papa?" His voice was sharp with fear. "Wake up, please. I am here."
William turned toward him. He did not look so very ill. He smiled. "I knew you would not forsake me." His voice might not be as forceful as it once was, but it was still not the voice of an old man.
Matthew tried to return the smile. "I was just a bit tardy." Sitting down on a bench positioned beside the bed, he took William's hand in his own. At the feel of his father's flesh, all the suppressed weariness, the emotions flooded over Matthew. He was home now; he was with his father. He could rest. He did not have to be strong or anything save what he was.
Vaguely
Matthew was aware that his mother had entered the room, that someone had added another log to the fire. Leaning forward, he rested his head upon the counterpane and closed his eyes. "Harry did not... last." He was so spent, he felt drugged. "It has been so long and awful, Papa. You cannot know."
Raising a hand William rested it atop his son's head. "Harry is dead?"
"Aye." He heard his mother gasp. I must comfort her, a part of him thought. Later. "He did his best, but the campaign was so brutal. Almost beyond endurance. I tried to bring him back to you. I tried so hard..." Matthew's voice cracked. Tears slid from beneath his closed eyelids, along the bridge of his nose, onto the counterpane. "'Twas right before we reached Bordeaux. After four months of hell, he could not hold out one more day..."
William's fingers curled in Matthew's hair. His father's touch was the last thing he remembered. Possessing no true idea of time, Matthew slid in and out of sleep. Had hours passed, or a few moments?
From the fog of exhaustion Matthew heard William say, "Call the priest now, wife. I am ready."
Chapter 20
Cumbria, London 1374-1375
After John of Gaunt returned from the Great March, he retired to Hertford. For ten months the duke abstained from political affairs. Though Englishmen considered the march a brilliant, even chivalrous feat—after all, Lancaster had covered over six hundred miles in four months and endured great hardships—no one could pretend it had resulted in any material gain for England. However, it had succeeded in driving the French back to the treaty table. They might have destroyed the duke's army, but at great cost to themselves and the surrounding countryside. The French could ill afford many more such victories.
John's brother, Prince Edward, and his father the king continued to deteriorate, and their condition weighed heavy on the duke. So painful to witness Prince Edward struggle through the million and one humiliations that accompanied a decaying body, and their father, well, John had not the words for that sadness. Out of all of His Grace's sons, many said that John most closely resembled him and when the duke was with his father, he felt as if he were watching a part of himself dying. It was heartrending to see the once mighty Edward III act more the child than a man, let alone England's ruler, complete with his puerile dependency on his ambitious mistress. And with nine-year-old Richard of Bordeaux probable heir to the throne, John often worried whether England even had a future.
When the duke emerged from his self-imposed retreat at Hertford, his foreign policy reflected the results of his contemplation for he had put aside his family's dream of a conquered France, their determination to place a member of the house of Plantagenet upon the French throne. He was clear-eyed about the dissolution of that particular chimera. Instead, he would re-double his pursuit of the crown of Castile. That goal, at least seemed attainable.
In the summer of 1374, plague returned yet again to England. Though outbreaks came closer together, they decreased in virulence. A measure of stability could even be associated with the pestilence's comings and goings. Like the smoke clinging over London's rooftops, like the flowing of the River Thames, Death was a certainty. Though capricious in its victims, its habits were predictable. It would kill some and ignore others. It would arrive; it would leave. For the survivors, life would continue.
* * *
Matthew remained at Cumbria. Each day he told himself he would begin the journey to London and his family, but he did not. He wasn't quite sure why he procrastinated. Perhaps he feared the questions Margery might ask about the deaths. What if she pressed him for details of the Great March, and tried to pry from him every scrap of information about Harry's passing? He imagined her look of sympathy as she expressed her sorrow over his father, and found it all somehow distasteful. He didn't want sympathy from Meg. He didn't know what he wanted.
Just to accept me without criticism or complaint or questions, he thought. But how can I expect that?
Now in addition to her condemnation of Limoges, she would have Harry's demise to ponder. What questions would she ask?
You were his brother, she might say. Why did you not take better care of him? Why did you not scrounge him more food, warmer clothes, better horses? Why could you not have found the words that would have stirred him to cling to life until you reached Bordeaux? A good brother would have known what Harry needed. A good brother would have stayed awake that last night so that Death could not steal him away right from your very grasp.
Is that what his mother felt, as well? He sometimes heard Sosanna weeping in the solar. Who did she mourn the most? When she looked at him, was she thinking, You killed my son? Harry would be alive today, would he not, if Matthew had not crafted his version of the life his brother should live, rather than the life Harry himself might have desired. What had he said? "Sometimes you did not listen so well."
Days stretched into weeks. Into months. Margery and Serill prodded the back of his mind. He knew how he should feel about seeing them, about being with them, about missing them, but he wasn't sure how he actually felt, or if he felt anything at all.
Though he had written Margery several times, his letters were stiff and formal, his excuses transparent. Save for the fact that he could not summon enough energy to leave, he had no compelling reason to remain in Cumbria. He certainly no longer considered it a haven. At first he'd been too exhausted to give much thought to anything beyond recuperating, but as his health returned, Cumbria had become a place of torment. Memories, especially of William, chased him everywhere. His father had seemed as indestructible as the stones of Cumbria Castle, and Matt still had a hard time accepting the fact that he was gone. Should he walk to the stables or the mews or any of the places so loved by William, Matthew could feel him nearby, always just beyond his sight. 'Twas like Poitiers, like the past—memories as ephemeral as moonlight, and just as unrecapturable. Daily, he would climb to the battlements, and stare for hours at the road that had brought him to Cumbria, the road he'd ridden so many times, always with such hope and confidence, always so certain of himself. But no longer. Sometimes Matthew thought he could not bear the pain, but more often he merely felt... frozen. He wondered whether he was trying to punish himself by staying in Cumbria, or trying to flail his dead emotions back to life with memories.
Each time Matthew received a letter from Margery, his conscience pricked him, and he made vague plans to ride south. Often, especially at night, he missed her so he would spend restless hours pacing the chamber, vowing that tomorrow he would head for London. But somehow he never did. He had a dozen excuses, most of them consisting of some variation of the weather or the state of his mother's health.
I cannot travel during the spring rains, or the summer heat, he would tell himself. I cannot leave until Mother has fully recovered from her grief.
But Matthew knew he provided little comfort for Sosanna. How could he when he could hardly bear to be in her presence? Sometimes he would catch her staring at him and wonder whether she wished he had been the one to perish, for Harry had always had a way of teasing her that left her laughing and flustered, and he'd always been so thoughtful and deferential.
A far better son than I was.
And when Sosanna tried to reminisce about William, Matthew would cut her off, only to spend the rest of the day silently castigating himself for his cruelty.
I am all she has left. She grieves for them as much as I do and yet I turn her aside with sharp words and angry looks. Increasingly, Matthew felt himself of little use to her, or himself, or to anyone.
Finally, staying at Cumbria became more painful than leaving, and in the fall of the year Matt rode for London.
* * *
"Lyard is an old horse and cannot pull a cart:
He shall be put out to grass with holly as his food
Barefoot, without his shoes, there shall he go.
For he is now an old horse, and may not work again."
As Serill recited the poem, he hobbled along the pebbled path of Warrick Inn's garden on the stilts
Uncle Thurold had fashioned him. Margery sat in one of the garden's many turf seats, hemming one of her son's shirts, and enjoying the fragrances from the herbs and flowers, the songs from the caged birds, and the warmth of the September afternoon.
"Can you not think of another poem?" Margery asked. "Lyard is too sad, do you not think?" Thurold was always teaching Serill nursery rhymes and songs with double meanings which irritated her. She repeatedly warned him to stop, but he never listened.
"Uncle Thurold says Lyard is his favorite." Serill enjoyed his uncle, who brought him clay animals and wooden windmills, and played games like "Who Can Jump Highest?" and "Run, Sheep, Run."
"While that Layard could pull, so then he was loved," The four-year-old continued in a sing-song manner.
"They gave him provisions, and he provided work.
Now he cannot do the work that once he used to do.
They give him plain pea-straw and take away the corn."
"That is enough!" Margery said sharply. "I told you I do not want to hear that nonsense."
Conventional wisdom held that children were just miniature adults, and could be made to behave exactly like grown-ups, if only they would. If a child refused to behave properly, he was supposed to be beaten into compliance.
Mayhap my lack of discipline is why Serill does not act like any adult I know.
But she preferred to live with an unruly child rather than a bruised one.
While Serill switched from reciting to humming, Margery finished the hem on his shirt and reached for another one. Over time, Thurold and Margery had reached something of a truce. When Thurold was in London he lived and worked at the Shop and they visited often, but Margery forbade him to talk about Matthew Hart. He generally respected her wishes, though he felt free to continue criticizing the nobility as a whole, and the Duke of Lancaster in particular. According to the parade of Thurold's friends who drifted through the shop, John of Gaunt was the devil incarnate. They laid everything from bad harvests to government corruption to the swindlers in the stocks at Lancaster's feet. Margery didn't know how much of it might be true, but since the duke was Matthew's lord, she finally added John of Gaunt to the list of forbidden people.
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