And it all sweated, great glistening globules of—
Emma went rigid, her eyes starting, then she screamed and tried to writhe away.
Under his left armpit was a massive, black swelling!
―Am I driving you wild?‖ he whispered, his eyes still closed. ―Am I? Am I?‖
Emma screamed again, trying with all her strength to topple the man off her. But he was
too heavy, too strong, too determined in the sating of his lust.
His efforts increased, and as he did so the bubo in his armpit swelled until the skin
enclosing it stretched thin and tight.
Sweet Jesu, this was Death riding her. God”s judgement on her sinful life.
The door to the room flew open. Jocelyn, her face crinkled in worry at her mother‘s
screaming.
Emma saw her over Harrison‘s heaving shoulders, and she screamed yet again, not only
with fear this time, but with horror that Jocelyn should finally see what she had spent eight years
keeping from her.
Harrison climaxed, and as he did so, the bubo in his armpit burst.
He was long gone now, his face lax, his eyes glazed, and apparently still unaware of what
his body harboured. He‘d left the instant he‘d pulled himself free from her body, and shucked on
his clothes. Then he pushed past Jocelyn, still standing, staring at her mother on the bed. When
the outer door had slammed behind him, Emma pulled the soiled sheets about her, trying to not
only hide her nakedness, but also to clean off the filth from the burst bubo.
Jocelyn had stood, staring, frightened, until Emma quietly asked her to fetch a pail of
water from the other room so that she might wash herself.
Now, sitting shivering before the small fire in the inadequate grate, Emma knew that she,
and probably her beloved daughter, were doomed.
Death had been a-visiting.
Outside a dog howled once, then was silent.
Emma shivered some more.
Jocelyn sat down at Emma‘s feet, and silently held out to her mother a piece of bread.
Emma took it, even though she felt ill, and forced down a few bites.
Satisfied, Jocelyn lowered her head to watch the flames, and once her gaze had turned
away, Emma hid the bread in a pocket in her skirt. She reached out a trembling hand, and
touched Jocelyn‘s shining fair hair.
What would happen to her when I am dead? Emma wondered, then began to weep,
silently, despairingly.
Then, on cue, the fever struck, and Emma shuddered.
―Mama?‖ Jocelyn twisted about. ―Mama?‖
―Jocelyn…‖
―I will fetch the physician.‖
Emma smiled tiredly. ―I have no coin with which to pay the physician,‖ she whispered.
―Then I will fetch the monks to take you to Saint Bartholomew‘s.‖
Emma began to laugh, a grating, grinding sound that was more sob than laugh. ―I have no
virtues with which to pay the monks,‖ she said. ―I am un virtuous, and they will not save me.
Their hospital is as unobtainable to me as is heaven.‖
―Then I will save you,‖ the young girl said with such a determined air that Emma almost
believed her.
With the utmost effort, Emma raised a shaking hand and touched her child‘s cheek. ―You
are so beautiful,‖ she said.
V
Friday 24th May 1381
—i—
Mary leaned forward very slightly, just enough to touch Neville‘s arm to stop him, then
stared about in horror.
They‘d entered London across the bridge a few minutes ago after a careful two-day
journey from Windsor. The journey had not tired Mary as she‘d feared it would. Men rather than
horses had carried her litter, and they were as gentle as might be. Her physician, Nicholas
Culpeper, travelled with her entourage, and made sure that she took regular doses of monkshood
and opium poppy. The strength of the mixture should have fogged her mind, but Mary was so
overwrought with the horror she knew had descended on London that she managed to remain
both relatively pain-free and clear-headed, something for which she thanked sweet Jesu many
times daily.
They‘d set out from Windsor at daybreak on Wednesday. Thomas Neville led the
entourage, which consisted of Mary herself, Margaret Neville, one other noblewoman, Lady
Alicia Lynley (Mary‘s other ladies were so terrified at the thought of returning to a
pestilence-ridden London that Mary had bid them from her service), Neville‘s squire Sir Robert
Courtenay, Nicholas Culpeper, two of his apprentices, and an escort of fifty armed men-at-arms.
They had approached London from Southwark. Here Mary had excused from her
company the greater number of her men-at-arms, Lady Alicia Lynley, and Culpeper‘s two
apprentices. They would journey on to the Tower by boat to apprise the king of her arrival in
London.
Here also Mary had alighted from her litter, saying only that she felt well enough to ride
something small and manageable, and the litter would be too cumbersome to negotiate the
twisted, narrow streets of London with ease.
At this Neville had argued vehemently with Mary, saying she could do little within the
ravaged city, that it was suicide to even think of entering, and that she would be vastly better off
going straight to the Tower and to Bolingbroke, both of which were, at the least, pestilence-free.
Mary had listened to him with the utmost courtesy, saying once he had paused to draw an
indignant breath that if he and Margaret did not fear for their lives then neither should she.
Besides, she would do more good for the Londoners in London than walled within the safety of
the Tower, would she not?
Neville, as Margaret, tried for another hour to persuade Mary not to enter London. In the
end, Mary had been forced to command them to allow her. She was queen, and as queen she was
going to enter London to do what she might.
And so they went, everyone walking save Mary who sat atop a sweet-tempered pale
cream donkey that Neville had found for her in the stables of one of the Southwark inns.
Its owner was long dead, and the donkey seemed pleased at being pressed once more into
service. It appeared also instinctively to know Mary‘s frailty, for it stepped slow and sweetly,
gently easing down each hoof so that Mary might not be jolted.
And thus, Neville leading Mary‘s donkey, Courtenay and Margaret walking on the other
side, and Culpeper bringing up the rear with the remaining ten men-at-arms, they crossed
London Bridge.
Armed men had stopped them halfway across at the drawbridge, but had let them through
the instant they recognised Mary. When the party gained the intersection of New Fish Street and
Thames Street on the city end of the bridge, they all stood still, slowly coming to terms with the
horror that had enveloped London.
Evening had fallen, but it did little to hide the hellish streetscape. Red, noxious smoke
billowed everywhere. Fires sparked and roared in the intersections ahead. People, little more than
huddled humps, scuttled from doorway to doorway. A cart, overloaded with corpses and drawn
by an emaciated limping horse, emerged momentarily from the roiling smoke, rattling slowly
down the cobbled surface of New Fish Street. A grotesquely cloaked and masked shadowed
figure tugged at the horse by its bridle, and, even after the cart had vanished back within the
smoke, Mary and her escort could hear the man cursing at the poor beast, trying to make it
hobble faster.
Through this nightmarish landscape filtered the noise of lament, and above all clung such
a stench of rotting flesh that Mary had to hold her gloved hand to her mouth for a moment or two
to stop herself from gagging.
A muffled bell tolled once, twice, and then jangled frantically as if whoever held its rope
had succumbed to convulsions.
It suddenly fell silent.
―Is this Satan‘s work?‖ Mary whispered, finally lowering her hand
There was a silence. ―God‘s retribution, more like,‖ Margaret said in a toneless voice.
Neville glanced at her. Her face was drawn and pale where it wasn‘t clouded by the
flickering shadows of the flames and smoke. Her eyes stared, unblinking, straight ahead.
Mary turned her head so she could see Margaret herself. ―God? Why would He visit us
with such agony?‖
―Because He hates Hal,‖ Margaret said.
―But if He hates Hal, then why destroy London? Why destroy the innocent?‖
Margaret looked away from the hellish landscape before her and towards Mary. ―Because
that is what He is best at,‖ she said softly.
―Madam,‖ Culpeper said, stepping forth. He was a thin, flame-haired man with a great
beaked nose that currently sported a bunch of herbs tied under it. This bundle was attached to
two strings that ran behind each ear. Every time Culpeper moved the bundle of herbs jiggled
slightly from side to side. Neville thought it made the physician look ridiculous. But, he
supposed, if the herbs gave the man comfort in this most comfortless of times, then who was he
to laugh?