So the Penteneys could keep control of the Fairfield lands and all, Joliffe thought. Nurse was only being practical, but something under her voice made him ask again, “You don’t favor the marriage, though?”
“It makes sense from all the ways it should make sense.” She gave him a hard look and added, “To men anyway.”
“But not,” he said gently, meeting her look, “to any woman who can understand what the true cost is going to be to Kathryn.”
The nurse regarded him with pursed lips, then gave a curt nod, approving of him as well as agreeing with what he had said. “The only present mercy is that I doubt she understands yet, and won’t until it’s too late for weeping over, poor lamb. Still, there’s good chance the men-folk won’t have it all their own way.” She gave Joliffe a heavy wink. “My Kathryn knows her own mind about things, she does, and when the time comes they think to rule and run the Fairfield lands for her, she’ll maybe surprise them with what she wants to do for herself. Giles! That’s not what bread is for! Where did you learn that?”
She rose and bustled away to stop his happy throwing of wadded bread pellets at another child before anyone else took up the sport. Joliffe hastily finished his share of an herb custard, gulped the rest of his ale, stood up, and taking his lute, strolled around the children, singing a nonsense song that diverted them through the rest of their meal. Then he put his lute aside and set them to a run-and-chase game that tired them enough that they sat willingly down again for him to tell them another story.
He was to the point where the hero was about to face the dragon when a Penteney servingman came hurriedly out the rear door and along the path toward Nurse, again sitting on the bench. He might only have been coming for the trays, but something more than that was in his haste. Without faltering in the story, Joliffe kept half an eye on him and, indeed, the man ignored the trays and said something to Nurse that brought her to her feet. Joliffe looked openly toward her. “I have to go in,” she called. “Can you see to them on your own?”
He nodded back that he could—it was a good thing she hadn’t asked if he wanted to, because he didn’t; he disliked being so badly outnumbered—and she hurried away with the servingman.
He spun the story out as long as he could, thinking she would soon be back. The hero took longer than usual to triumph over the dragon and was trying to decide if he would take the rescued maiden home to her father the king and marry her, or go on his adventuring way and leave her to get home by herself, when one of the boys protested, “That’s not the way the story goes!” Joliffe deliberately set up a merry quarrel with him over it, drew the other children into the argument, and soon had them all laughing. But his sense was growing that something was wrong. The garden was too far removed from the hall and yard for him to hear anything for certain, but the nurse did not return, nor anyone else come out of the house, and he only hoped someone would remember him and come to his rescue, because even the long midsummer’s twilight was not going to last forever. What would he do if darkness came and he was still here with the children?
He started a circle game with much chasing of the children by each other. His thought was that if he was going to be worn out soon, best they be, too, and they were hard at it and he was standing aside, cheering them on, when Piers came into the garden. He did not look nearly so jaunty as when Joliffe had last seen him. His face was strained and white, and Joliffe took a few backward steps, putting more distance between himself and the children so that when Piers came to his side, he could demand, low-voiced enough to be unheard by anyone else. “Piers, what is it? What’s wrong?”
Keeping his own voice low but his fear showing, Piers said, “They’re sick. Everyone in the hall. Horribly sick and throwing up.”
“Everyone?” Joliffe demanded, not letting his face do anything but smile. The children had to be kept playing and unfrightened, no matter what fear was gibbering up inside himself. “Bassett and the rest and servants and all?”
“N . . . no.” Piers was more shaken than Joliffe had ever seen him. “No, not them. They’re helping. But everyone who was feasting. Almost everyone. They’re all cramped over in pain and throwing up. Joliffe, if it’s plague . . .”
“I’ve never heard of a plague that started with throwing up,” Joliffe said strongly. Which did not mean there was not one. Or a new one. But plague did not bear thinking about and he said, “It sounds like the food has done it, that’s all.”
But that wasn’t all. In the hot weather food could go off easily enough and sicken anyone who ate it, even kill them, God forbid; but two days ago someone had left a dead body in the Penteney’s yard. That had been a deliberate making of trouble for the Penteneys. What if this were a deliberate poisoning, to make more trouble?
But if Basset, Rose, and Ellis were all right then it wasn’t so bad as it might be, and he said to Piers, “There’s no one dead?”
“No. But they’re all throwing up. There’s mess everywhere and . . .”
“Yes, fine.” Joliffe did not particularly want to hear more than that about it. “Can you stay here? I’m going to need help with this lot.”
Fresh air and being away from the hall were rapidly returning Piers to himself and color to his face. “I’m not going back in there, sure,” he said, and together they were able to keep the children busy until, when the first stars were pricking out, Nurse came into the garden again. Seeing her, Joliffe went to meet her, leaving Piers showing how to do a cartwheel. Her white wimple, veil, and apron were moth-pale in the gathering dark and so was her face when he was near enough to see it.
“How goes it?” he asked quietly, quickly. “I’ve heard what’s happening.”
“It’s bettering.” Her voice shook a little. “The worst seems passed but, dear St. Frideswide, it was terrible for a time.” She shuddered. “Twenty people all sick as sick could be, all at the same time. None of us could move fast enough to keep up. The hall . . . it’s not good . . . everyone . . .”
She needed a strong drink of something to steady her, but Joliffe had nothing to offer but distraction and said, “I’ve kept the children as best I could, but it’s getting late for them. They’re tiring.” Not to mention that so was he.
“The children. Yes. I’ve come for Giles and the Lovell children. The others . . . we’ve sent for everyone’s servants to come help them home. They’ll take the children, too. Could you take them to the foreyard to wait there? Not inside. It’s . . . not good there. Do you know the way around without going inside? Yes, of course you do. You came that way . . .”
Her upset was overflowing into too many words. Joliffe gently told her to wait where she was, then brought Giles and the Lovell children to her and led the other five away to the back garden gate and out and around to the foreyard, Piers bringing up the rear, helping to keep it seeming like a game. In the foreyard lanterns glowed yellow beside the front door and at the gateway to the street, holding back the blue dusk for the bustle of people coming in and going out. Some of those coming out were not bustling, though, but leaning on servants’ arms or walking with the carefulness of invalids unsure of their strength.
One of the little girls with Joliffe and Piers saw her mother and ran forward, calling gladly, and was taken into the circle of servants helping their master and mistress homeward. The other children were shortly sorted away to their families, too, and the last of the guests were going out the gate and Joliffe was wondering how long he and Piers would have to wait before Basset came out with the key to the barn, when Lord and Lady Lovell rode in with a haste that showed they had heard at least something of what had happened here, but not enough to relieve their alarm for their children.
Mistress Penteney must have been just inside the house, seeing her guests away, because she came out to meet them as they dismounted, saying as she came—for them and, probably purposefully, for anyone else to hear—“Everything’s well, my lord, my lady. Something in the food, no more. Your children had no part in it. They’re complet
ely well and are being put to bed.”
Joliffe heard Lady Lovell’s gasp of relief from ten yards away and saw the urgency go out of Lord Lovell, letting him draw back into his dignity and ask, “But everyone else? Your family?”
“It’s passing off, whatever it was, God be thanked,” Mistress Penteney said.
Lady Lovell laid a hand on her arm. “But you?” she said. “You’re not well either, are you?”
Mistress Penteney was surely not, Joliffe belatedly saw. It was the lanterns’ glow that gave her face any color besides the darkness shadowed all around her eyes, as if she had missed days of sleep. Besides that, she had surely been gowned for tonight’s feast as richly as for last night’s but now her hair was barely covered with only a simple coif and she must have taken off her many-yarded gown because she was in only a plain-fitting, tight-sleeved under-gown, its cream-colored skirts spattered with dark stains. But she said, “I’m not so bad as most. I’d eaten only a little of what must have done it. It’s my husband who . . .” She broke on a small sob.
Lady Lovell made reassuring, questioning sounds and Mistress Penteney said, unshed tears edging the words, “He’s past the worst, I’m certain. He’ll be well. But it was . . . very bad for a time. Very bad for everyone.”
Lord Lovell began, “If it would be better we went elsewhere tonight . . .”
Mistress Penteney began a quick protest to that, but Lady Lovell said even more quickly, “Of course not. We’ll stay right here as we meant to. We don’t want to unbed the children, for one thing, and for another our folk can help with whatever needs doing. You’ll let them, won’t you, Mistress Penteney.” Stating, not asking.
Without sounding pathetically grateful, Mistress Penteney assured her that she would, and was still thanking them as she led them inside.
“That’s saved the Penteneys from some rumor-mongering,” Piers said at Joliffe’s side.
“It did indeed,” Joliffe agreed. As it was, the Penteneys were going to be the center of unstoppable swirling rumors and ill-reports, but if Lord and Lady Lovell had deserted their house matters would have been even worse, which Lady Lovell surely knew, so blessings on her good sense and good heart. But where were Basset, Rose, and Ellis? “Go in,” he told Piers, “and find out what’s keeping the others.”
“You go in,” Piers said indignantly. “I’ve been in. You take your turn.”
“I’m not leaving you wandering loose out here.” Nor did he want in the least to go inside himself. “Go on.”
Piers met that piece of cowardice with a glowering stare. For not being Ellis’s son, he could assuredly look like him sometimes, Joliffe thought, clapped a hand on his shoulder, said, “We’ll go together then,” and propelled him toward the door.
No one hindered them. A last pair of guests were making their unsteady way to the door and servants were trudging into the great hall and out with basins and washbuckets and mops. Joliffe and Piers had to stand aside for a maid coming out with her arms wrapped around a bundle of white tablecloths before they could go in, finding a sorry change from last night’s grace and show. Squalor and chaos were more the words tonight, and the smell did not bear breathing.
The Penteney servants were making what haste they could at clearing and cleaning. Whatever had happened, it had not happened to them and so this was not the hopeless mess it might have been. But where were Basset and the others?
Mistress Penteney, probably having seen the Lovells to their chamber, came from the screens passage and started across the length of the dais toward the door to the parlor. She was hurrying but the habit of a lifetime held even now and she swept the hall with a practical look as she crossed it, seeing what was being done. Among other things, she saw Joliffe and Piers and beckoned sharply for them to come to her. They readily did, but it was Piers whom Mistress Penteney wanted, saying, “Lewis needs you,” as she took him by the arm and pulled him toward the parlor.
Joliffe, because nobody said not to, followed them and found this was where the Penteneys had retreated. They were all there, and Simon and Lewis, and also—less understandably but to Joliffe’s relief—Basset, Rose, and Ellis. Like the hall, the room and everyone in it had lost all semblence to last night. Master Penteney was seated in a chair, bent over almost double, holding his head in his hands, his face hidden. Mistress Geva, with her headdress gone and her hair falling loose from its pins, was huddled in another chair, pale and clinging to Master Richard who, looking none so well himself, was leaning over her, an arm around her shoulders, his free hand stroking her hair while he murmured something to her.
Kathryn, white-faced and disheveled, was sitting near one end of the long, backed bench, huddled against Simon who had an arm around her waist, his other hand holding one of hers in comfort and support despite he was huddle-shouldered and taut-faced himself, like someone who had lately seen too much awfulness. They were both looking at Lewis at the seat’s other end, half-lying into the corner of it. He was mostly out of Joliffe’s sight beyond Basset and Ellis standing close in front of him, but Matthew was there, hovered close behind him with hands wrung helplessly together.
Rose, just setting down a pitcher and turning away from the table with a goblet in her hand, sent a swift look at Joliffe and Piers that told she was relieved to see them, but it was to Geva she went, saying with all gentleness, “Drink some of this, my lady,” holding the goblet to her lips. “Just a little. It will help.”
By then Joliffe had sorted out that Basset and Ellis were, low-voiced, reciting from Abraham and Isaac, which startled him a little, until he realized it must be for Lewis’ss sake, to calm and quiet him. But Mistress Penteney interrupted them, pushing Piers forward, saying, “Here he is, Lewis. Here’s your Piers.”
As Basset and Ellis shifted aside, Joliffe had his first clear sight of Lewis. It was not a good one. His round face was clay-colored, under-shaded with gray, and he was drawing breath in labored, shallow, panting gasps. But he reached eager hands toward Piers who—after a frightened look at Ellis and Basset—went in reach, letting Lewis grab hold of his hand.
Feebly pulling him closer, Lewis gasped, “Piers. They’re doing. The play. Do Isaac. For me.”
Piers, wide-eyed with in-held fear, looked over his shoulder at Ellis.
Ellis stepped to his side and said firmly, “Rise up, my child, and fast come hither—my gentle child that is so wise.” He took hold of Piers’s other hand. “For we, child, must go together, and to our Lord make sacrifice.”
Piers gathered breath and answered, “I am full ready, my father, here. Whatsoe’er you bid me do, it shall be done with right good cheer.”
Lewis, beginning to smile, let him go. Piers turned to face Ellis fully. Ellis, still holding his hand, went on, “Ah, Isaac my own son dear, God’s blessing I give thee, and mine.”
Master Penteney lifted his head from his hands. Mistress Penteney immediately went to him, looking as if she would have cradled him if she could have. “A priest?” he groaned softly. “The doctor?”
“Both sent for,” Mistress Penteney assured him. “Meanwhile, I’ve fetched something.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “For Lewis.”
“Good. It’s taken him hard. Oh, God.” Master Penteney cramped over his stomach and sank his head into his hands again.
Mistress Penteney looked to Rose just turning from Geva with the goblet, and said, “Pour it half-full.” She slid the fingers of her right hand into the lower edge of her close-fitted left sleeve and fumbled out a small, parchment-wrapped packet. She undid the string holding the packet closed while Rose went to the table, set down the goblet, and poured wine from the pitcher there. Mistress Penteney took the goblet and dumped in a gray powder from the packet. “The doctor gave us this,” she said low-voiced to Rose, swirling the goblet to mix the powder in. “For steadying his heart when he gets like this.”
As she went toward Lewis, Ellis broke off at, “I am full sorry, son, your blood to spill . . .” and moved aside with Piers. Lew
is, plainly familiar with taking medicine, held out his hands for the goblet but she gently shook her head and held it to his lips, her other hand behind his head to steady him while he drank. When he had, she settled him back into the corner and smoothed his damp hair back from his forehead, looking long at his face. He feebly smiled at her. His breath might even have been a little easier already, and she smiled back at him, said, “There’s our good boy,” and took the goblet back to the table.
“Piers?” Lewis said. “More?”
Piers and Ellis took up where they had left off. At the table Mistress Penteney paused at setting the goblet down, gave a distracted shrug, and drank what was left in it, put down the goblet, and went to her husband’s side again. A short while later a servant brought in a priest Joliffe did not know. Master Penteney rallied enough to give the servant thanks and bade the priest come to him. Joliffe, still standing just aside from the door where he had stopped when he first came in, did not hear what was said between them but by their gaze toward Lewis it had to do with him. Maybe they were reassured by his steadied breathing. It was still shallow but no longer ragged. He was not struggling for it and his eyes were closed, his hands slack in his lap as if maybe he was slipped into a doze, the worst of it over for him. Ellis and Piers had lowered their voices almost to whispers.
Mistress Geva whispered something to Master Richard who said to his father and maybe his mother still standing beside him, “We’re going to bed now, please you. Unless we’re needed here?”
“Go on,” Mistress Penteney said with a weary smile. “There’s nothing more to be done now. We’ll all go to bed shortly.”
Master Richard was helping his wife to her feet when Lewis’s body spasmed. Once. Went still. Then spasmed again.
Everyone froze where they were, staring at him. His eyes were still closed but his hands flopped loosely and fell away to his sides as if no longer part of him. Again he convulsed. Then went still. Very still. Not noticeably breathing.
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