Chapter Twenty-Five
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"He can't be ill!" Bella protested as they rode home. "He should be protected by my magic!"
The grooms at the palace stable had given Edward a different horse than the one he'd ridden there. That horse had been covered with sweat, its sides heaving with exhaustion. This one was fresh and eager to run. Edward tapped it with his heels and pressed it even harder for speed. Pray God that no one stepped out in front of them because he'd never be able to swerve in time.
A warm splash hit the back of his hand. Bella's tears. But he had no time to comfort her, so intent he was on wringing every bit of speed from their mount. He pounded up the lane to their house and dismounted, throwing the reins to a waiting groom. He pulled Bella down from the saddle, and gave the horse a pat of thanks before taking Bella's hand and dashing into the house. Her shorter legs weren't fast enough, so he scooped her into his arms and took the stairs three at a time. He threw the door open and deposited Bella on the floor beside the child lying on her bed.
Bella sat down on the bed beside him, laying a hand on his brow. Her poor baby was drenched in sweat, pale and tossing weakly in delirium. Bella pulled away the blankets in which he'd been wrapped and pressed her ear to his chest. His heart was beating rapidly, too rapidly, fluttering like the wings of a trapped bird.
"The physician should be here soon," Ellen said. "Wrap him up again, my lady. You mustn't let him catch a chill."
"Get me a tub of cool water," Bella commanded, ignoring her advice.
Ellen glanced up at the Duke for confirmation. "Whatever she says," Edward told her. "Do it, quickly."
"Water down some wine," Bella told Edward. "Until it's barely pink. And I'll need a clean cloth."
He went to the wine ewer and did as she asked, bringing back a full goblet and the asked-for cloth, one of his freshly-laundered handkerchiefs. Bella dipped the end of it in the water-wine and put it to the baby's mouth. As soon as the moisture touched his lips, he began to suck eagerly at the damp cloth. Bella took it out and re-dipped it, returning it to his mouth once more. "The poor baby is so thirsty," she murmured.
Ellen returned with a maid, who carried the asked-for tub of cool water. Bella stripped off Ward's clothing and slowly dipped him into the water. Ellen gasped in horror.
"We have to bring his temperature down," Bella explained. "He's burning up with fever."
"But the shock ..." Ellen protested. "Having a bath when one is so ill cannot be safe!"
Bella shook her head. "It's the best thing for him. Go, Ellen, see to Elizabeth."
"But-"
"Go," Edward commanded. I came out more harshly than he intended, and Ellen's eyes widened. She bobbed in a hasty curtsey that he did not see and ran for the door.
"I don't understand this," Bella said, cupping the water in her hand and dribbling it over Ward's head. His fretful tossing had ceased now that he was in the cool water, but he whimpered softly, a sound that stabbed at Edward's heart. "He should be protected. This shouldn't have happened. Even Margaret should ..." Her voice trailed off and fresh tears coursed down her cheeks.
"You've been so unhappy over the last week or so," Edward said. "Nigh to sick yourself with anxiety and fear." He took another of his handkerchiefs and gave it to Bella. She cast him a look of thanks and dipped it in the water, and laid it over Ward's head. "Maybe your magic is weaker when you are under stress, so far from the sea ..."
She shook her head in bewilderment. "I've never heard of such." She took the warmed cloth from Ward's head and re-dipped it in the cool water.
"Have you ever heard of a selkie at court? A selkie who watched a man burn?"
"No," she admitted. "I haven't." She new how dangerous grief and fear could be for her kind. Could the horror of that situation have caused her magic to somehow waver? Was it her fault?
There was a sound of hooves clattering on the gravel. Edward looked out the window. "That must be the physician."
"Can your physicians do aught for this sickness?"
Edward shook his head. Sorrow shadowed his face. This was why he had warned himself again and again not to become too attached to his son, but his heart had not listened to his head.
"Do you know an herb-woman?" Bella asked.
"I can have one found. There's surely one in the village."
"Tell her I need white willow bark."
"Whatever for?" Edward looked bewildered.
"It brings down fever,'' Bella replied. "Please, Edward. Hurry."
Edward kissed her and then the baby and dashed out into the hall. He plowed into one of the maids. "Beg pardon, you grace," the girl gasped, even though the fault had been his.
"Girl, run to the village and get some willow bark from the herb-woman," he commanded. "Go now, as fast as you can. He pulled some coins from the purse he carried in his doublet and dropped them in her hands, uncaring of their denominations.
"Aye, your grace," she replied and bobbed a quick curtsey before taking off to do his bidding.
He returned to Bella and the baby, where he wanted to be the most. "I sent a maid," he told her when she gave him a questioning glance.
"Bella, will he die?" Edward asked, his voice low and raspy with pain.
"If I can keep his fever down, he may yet live," Bella said.
"What can I do?" Edward asked. The helplessness he felt only added to his anguish.
"Be here for me," Bella replied. Tears stood in her eyes. "I need your strength."
He didn't know how strong he was. He wanted to break down weeping, to throw himself on the floor and beg God not to take his son, to scream and tear at his hair in anticipated grief. But if Bella needed him to be strong, he would be. He would do whatever it took to get her through this crisis.
The maid returned more quickly than he'd expected, carrying a cup in her hands. "Your grace, I went ahead and made the tea according to the wise-woman's instructions," she said.
"Thank, you, Anne," Bella said gratefully. She tested it for temperature and found it tepid enough for the baby to drink.
"I added honey to cover the taste," the girl continued.
"Anne?" he asked. "Your name is Anne?"
"Yes, your grace, Anne Askew."
Ah, now he remembered: his almoner, Kyme's wife, the woman who'd been cast out for her Protestant beliefs. Dimly, he recalled that he still hadn't got a response to his letter. "Thank you, Mistress Askew," he said. He dipped the cloth in the red tea and gave it to the baby. Little Ward grimaced, but he was thirsty enough to take it.
The physician arrived shortly thereafter and was horrified to find his patient sitting in a tub of water. "By all the saints, woman, you'll kill him!" he blurted before recovering his sense of propriety. "Your grace," he said, "It is not meet to soak him like that. 'Twill open his pores to all sorts of foul humours. He needs to be abed and bled. And you should not be giving him aught to drink! What is that?" He picked up the cup before Bella could stop him and sniffed its contents. He grimaced and recoiled.
"Willow bark tea," Anne Askew said. "It reduces fever."
"Ridiculous!" the physician sputtered. "You're likely to poison the child with some witch-woman's filthy brew!"
Bella didn't spare him a glance. "Send the physician on his way. His arts can do no good here."
"You'll kill him," the physician warned. "Mark my words, your grace. If you continue on this path, he will be dead by nightfall. Herbs and baths instead of sound medicine!" He shook his head in disbelief. He turned to Edward for assistance. "Your grace, I know that the Duchess is new to civilization, but you cannot risk your son's life with these heathen practices!"
"Leave!" Bella snapped at him. "Or I will call a footman to have you thrown out."
The doctor glared at her, grossly insulted by such disrespectful treatment. He stomped from the room and Anne Askew shut the door behind him.
"Your Grace," she said to Bella. "You may want to add wine to the bathwater as well. 'Twill make it feel cooler for him."
"An excellent suggestion," Bella said. Edward fetched the ewer and dumped it into the tub. "'Tis the most expensive bath you will ever take, son," he crooned to the baby. "Washed in the finest French wine available!"
Bella pressed her lips to Ward's forehead. "He's cooler."
"God be praised," Edward whispered. He was afraid to hope. All the way to court, he had tried to prepare himself for the worst. The Sweat was not always deadly, but when infants caught it, their chances were slim.
Ward's head drooped as he dozed.
"Don't let him sleep!" Edward gasped, patting the baby's cheeks to wake him. "If those who have The Sweat fall asleep, they never wake."
"Edward, it will do him some good," Bella said softly. "His fever is lower and he needs the rest to heal." She lifted him out of the tub and wrapped him in a linen drying sheet. She settled in a chair nearby and held the baby in her arms, humming to him softly. When he woke, she coaxed him to nurse a little, but he seemed too tired and weak to take much.
All through the night, Bella and Edward tended their baby, cooling him in the wine-water bath when his temperature crept up again, and dosed him again with the tea. The candles burned down to nubs and were replaced by Anne, who remained at their side all through that endless, horrible night. She fetched what was needed and spent the idle time in prayer.
At dawn, the fever broke and Edward dropped to his knees in grateful prayer, sobbing with relief. He would live. Their son would live. It repeated in his mind as a joyous litany.
Bella nursed Ward and they lay down in their bed with their baby between them. Edward couldn't hold back the tears. "I thought we would lose him," he confessed.
"Perhaps my magic still protected him to a certain extent," Bella said, forgetting that Anne Askew was still in the room. Edward glanced at the woman, but she didn't appear to have heard. She was collecting the items they'd used for the night. She poured the tub out the window and carried away the cloths and cups in it.
"Thank you, Anne," Edward said. "Thank you for your assistance and your prayers."
"I was happy to help, your grace. You and your wife gave me a home when no one else would help me." She smiled at them and dropped into a low curtsey. "I know you are not of my faith, but you are a true Christian man, your grace."
"Thank you," he said again. "Go and get some rest, Anne."
After the door had shut behind her, Edward leaned over and kissed his wife. He kissed her with love, and with gratitude and with joy. He stroked the side of her face with the backs of his fingers. "We need to leave," he said. "We need to go home. We need to get you and Ward back to Cullen Hall where you can both be healthy and happy."
"Soon," she promised. "The Queen goes into confinement next week and after the prince or princess is born, we can leave."
"It can't come soon enough," he said.
The court moved to Hampton Court palace, where the Queen had decided to have her confinement. She had wanted to go to Windsor, but it was deemed to far from London, though the reasons for it were unspoken. If Mary died, King Phillip wanted to have control of the capitol, ad the danger of unrest in the land was growing. At the last burning, the crowd had shouted at the magistrates and grew so agitated that the magistrates feared for their lives. Troops were raised and armed and Mary sent for loyal courtiers to bring their private armies, as her sister Elizabeth had once done at her coronation.
Phillip was trying to distance himself from the burnings as much as possible, out of concern that if the Spanish were blamed, it could start another full-fledged rebellion. He had his chaplain preach a sermon denouncing the burnings, and he was not alone in trying to pass the blame. Gardiner would one day write that it was not his doing and that he had been chastised for being too lenient, and Bishop Bonner, who attained the nickname "Bloody Bonner" for presiding over London where the majority of the trials were held, would claim that he was just following orders.
Hampton Court was not only one of the most beautiful palaces owned by the crown, it was also one of the most modern. It had been built by Cardinal Wolsey during the reign of Mary's father, but when King Henry came to tour it, he was so openly envious of its splendor that the Cardinal felt it prudent to hastily offer it to the king as a "gift".
The customary ceremonies were held outside the Queen's chamber, and she drank a cup of spiced wine before heading inside with her ladies, Bella included, to begin the wait for the baby to arrive. The ladies had been given strict instructions from the Queen's physician not to mention anything unpleasant or upsetting to the Queen. As she looked out of Mary's sole uncovered chamber window, Bella wondered if Mary would notice the column of smoke rising from the city from the burnings when now occurred almost daily.
The days crept by with agonizing slowness. Bella was permitted to go home in the evenings, as she had an infant still recovering from The Sweat. (She may have downplayed his recovery just a little because Ward was now perfectly well, back to the happy, healthy baby he had been before he had fallen ill.) And though she didn't know it, Phillip felt as she did: that every day was like thousand years. He was impatient to leave, but his father had urged him to wait until the heir had been born. If he was abroad when Mary had her baby and she did not survive the birth itself, he would be unable to hold onto his rule.
The physicians had estimated that the Queen would give birth the last week of April, but the designated week came and went without Mary going into labor. The physicians announced that the Queen, an "unworldly" woman, must have made a mistake as to when she had conceived. The baby would arrive in late May or early June. Daily masses were said for her safe deliverance and processions of praying citizens marched to the palace. Mary watched them pass by from her window, but instead of making her happy at their touching demonstration of affection and loyalty, Mary was melancholy. No one would admit it to her, but Mary had the deep, unsettling feeling that something was wrong. She privately confessed to Bella that she hadn't felt the child move in weeks. Bella had paled at this news, and she couldn't lie to Mary and offer soothing platitudes as the other ladies were doing. She had simply held the queen while she wept and promised to pray for her.
Mary spent most of her days sitting on a cushion on the floor, her knees drawn up to her chest. She didn't want to hear music, she said. She didn't want to be read to or to gossip or even to pray at her altar. Frances Grey couldn't even get her to gamble. Bella sat beside the Queen on the floor and offered the simplest comfort of all. She held the Queen's hand. And they waited.
On April 30th, the rumor spread that the Queen had been delivered of a healthy prince and all of London went wild, breaking open the casks of wine which had been laid aside for this purpose and setting bonfires. Despite Mary's recent unpopularity, all of England could rejoice at the birth of a prince. As Elizabeth had once said to Bella, the people worship a rising sun, not a setting one. Every new heir was thought to be a new beginning, a fresh start, another chance for England to be restored to her days of glory and prosperity. But then, the palace corrected the news. The Queen had not yet delivered. The people, deprived of their fun and deprived of their hope, went home grumbling.
Outside, the rains began again, like they had last summer, and the weather was oddly cold. The farmers wept as they watched their puddled fields go fallow for yet another planting season.
Inside the palace, the courtiers waited. Several times, Mary said she felt pains and the doctors and midwives would be hastily summoned only to leave a few hours later when the pains fizzled out without any labor. Phillip sent out inquiries all over Europe to secure loans to finance his military plans against France, but found few willing to loan him money and the ones who agreed wanted up to twenty-five percent interest. Mary spent hours at her desk, writing letters announcing her child's birth, leaving the date and the sex of the child blank, to be filled in later. She wrote one to Cardinal Pole, which said that God had added the birth of a prince to all of the other blessings he had conferred upon her. It laid on her desk, waiting to be sent once the miracle finally happened.
And the burnings continued. In London, the rumor spread that Queen Mary had declared that her child would not be born until she had burned every last heretic. There were plans for an uprising, but the king and the council quickly sent in the troops and broke up any gathering in the streets.
May passed. Mary's swollen belly began to deflate, which the midwives told her was a sure sign she was about to deliver. On a rare sunny afternoon, Mary looked out her window and saw Phillip walking with Princess Elizabeth in the garden. Their heads were tilted toward one another. They made a handsome couple, both of them young, vibrant, healthy. Mary let the tapestry drop and laid down on her bed, ordering that the curtains be drawn around her. Bella did it for her. She laid a gentle hand on the Queen's arm and Mary looked back at her with naked heartbreak in her eyes.
The physicians said the end of June must be when the Queen was due. Mary's spirits sank even lower. She spent hours weeping over her prayerbook as her stomach flattened and her breasts ceased to produce milk. Her pregnancy withered away as the few crops in England's fields also withered.
And then they said the end of July.
The rumors abounded and Edward told them to Bella when she came home in the evenings. It was said that Mary had given birth to a lump of inanimate flesh, or that the child had died and they were searching for a replacement that they could pass off as the heir. Bella wept in the mornings because she had to return to that sad room with its empty cradle still prepared to hold Mary's child, and the disconsolate Queen who was beginning to realize that there was something terribly, terribly wrong.
By August, Hampton Court reeked of garbage and accumulated human waste. The court had to move every few months due to the buildup of filth and refuse of so many people, especially in summer, so that the palace would be "sweetened" between uses. One afternoon, Gardiner and Pole appeared at the Queen's privy chamber door and Mary met with them after asking all of her ladies to leave. That men were being allowed into the confinement chamber, even priests, was shocking. Something must be happening. The ladies whispered among themselves, trying to decide what it might be. Several approached Bella, the Queen's confidant, but she had nothing to offer them.
When they had gone, the ladies slowly crept back to the privy chamber, worried at what they might find. Mary's eyes were red, but all she said was to pack, because they were leaving, going to Oatlands. Most of the court would not be able to follow because it was such a small house, a convenient way of getting rid of the numerous hangers-on who had come to court to await the birth. Bella took the opportunity to ask for permission to go home to Cullen Hall.
"Will you- Will you please bring Ward to see me before you go?" Mary asked, and her voice cracked.
She sobbed when she held him, laughed through her tears as his unruly shock of red-brown hair (so like his father's) and then she laid him in the cradle that had been crafted for England's prince. A silver plate on the hood carried the poem:
The child which thou to Mary, O Lord of might
hast send,
To England's joy, in health preserve-keep and
defend!
Mary rocked him, singing softly, a Spanish lullaby she might have learned from her own mother. Ward cooed at her, waving his chubby arms. He would be a year old next month. Three days ago, he had taken his first steps at home with Edward and Alice present and Bella had resented Mary for keeping her here, making her miss something so important. But now, that resentment faded away. She watched a heartbroken woman kiss her baby and lift him out of the cradle. She held him to her for just a moment longer before handing him back to Bella, tears streaming unnoticed down her cheeks. Mary had wept an ocean of tears over the last few months. Bella was amazed she had any left.
"He's leaving me, Bella," Mary said. "Phillip is leaving at the end of the month and I cannot get him to answer when he will return. Stay with me, please, until he has gone? I can bear it better is I have my family with me." She pressed a hand against her flat belly. "Susan Clarencieux and one of the midwives have told me that I must be only six months along now, and the babe will be born in November."
"Your majesty, there is no babe," Bella said sadly.
"They're all a bunch of sycophants. I see now that you're the only one who is true to me, Bella." The Queen rose and kissed Bella on the forehead. "Tarry with me for just a little while longer, and then you can go home to Cullen Hall."
Despite everything, Bella could not deny her. She embraced Mary and went home to the house on Hampstead Heath to tell Edward. He was frustrated at the delay, of course, but what could he do? To insist now would hurt Mary's feelings and she would get angry because that's how she always reacted to emotional pain.
Princess Elizabeth came to see Bella the day before they all departed. "I'm going home, to Hatfield," she said. "The Queen has finally given me permission." With no birth imminent, (and no danger to the Queen) it was safe to allow Elizabeth to leave.
"It is for the best," Bella said. She saw Phillip, standing before one of the windows, staring down at Elizabeth.
Elizabeth flicked her eyes in his direction. "You're right, it is," she said. She hugged Bella. "I'll miss you. Why don't you and Edward come and stay with me at Hatfield this summer?"
"No, Bess, we want to go home," Bella replied.
Elizabeth nodded. "All right, I understand. Write to me, promise?"
"I promise," Bella told her and with one last hug, Elizabeth was gone.
The last week of August, they followed the Queen back to London where she planned to board a barge to take her downriver to Greenwich. From there, Phillip would board his ship. The crowds rushed up to peer into Mary's litter as she was carried through the streets, for there had been rumors that she was actually dead and Phillip was concealing it until he could make sure his rule of England was consolidated. Mary smiled at those who cheered her or called blessings, for despite everything, she was still their Queen.
Gardiner got a different response. The crowds were silent as he passed, nor did many bow to the cross carried in front of him and it infuriated him. Bella heard him give orders to his servants. "Mark that house! That man, have him brought before the examiners. Such a lot of heretics I never saw! Not a bow before the cross or a shout of 'God save the king and Queen'. Well, I'll teach them to do both, I swear on my life!"
She closed her eyes. Didn't he have enough heretics to burn without plucking random people from the street?
Phillip convinced Mary that she shouldn't take the barge to Greenwich with him because she was already struggling to keep her poise in front of the crowd. He kissed her hand and boarded the barge, and Mary might have protested, but her throat was too clogged with unshed tears.
"Your majesty, let's get you inside, away from prying eyes," Bella urged her.
Mary made a soft, inarticulate sound of grief, and allowed herself to be led like a child inside the palace to her chambers. She ran to the window for one last glimpse, and Phillip may have spotted her, for he took off his hat and waved it in her direction. Now that he was on his way, he could be gallant, Bella thought sourly. He hadn't spent a private moment with Mary since she took to her chamber back in April. He hadn't discussed the sudden disappearance of her pregnancy with her; he seemed to want to pretend it had never happened, and a bewildered Mary took her cue from him.
"He waved at me!" she cried happily.
"Yes, your majesty, he did," Bella said, her heart aching that such a tiny gesture from her husband could make the Queen happy. But then, the barge disappeared from sight and Mary fell into her chair like a puppet whose strings have been cut. Silent tears rolled down her cheeks.
She hugged Mary and was vague about when they'd return to court, but Mary was so absorbed in her grief that Bella didn't think she noticed. She gave Mary a kiss on the cheek and walked out of the palace to her waiting litter. As she exited the building, she felt lighter, as if a dark, heavy mantle of sorrow and fear had fallen from her shoulders. She could have sang, skipped, danced in the streets. They were going home! Back to the seaside where she would be near her element, away from the stifling court with its jealousies and backstabbing and thousands of bewildering rules.
The wagons were being loaded when she reached the house on Hampstead Heath. Edward stood outside. Alice was next to him, with Ward in her arms. Her wedding was in two weeks, and Alice had lost weight over the last month or so, weight she could ill-afford to lose. She looked like a strong breeze might carry her off. Maybe once they were home at Cullen Hall, Bella could help her ... somehow.
Edward smiled at Bella and swept her up into his arms. In front of all the servants, he kissed her soundly and Bella giggled. "Let's go home!" he said, and it was the sweetest words Bella had heard in months.
Historical notes:
- Willow bark contains salicylic acid, an ingredient in aspirin. It's still used today by natural-remedy enthusiasts. It should not, of course, be given to anyone under two years of age, but in Bella's situation, there were no other known medicines that reduced fever. The wine in the water was the only way of purifying it. Sanitation was unknown and wells were sometimes contaminated by nearby garbage/sewage dumps (and in some cases, graveyards!). The alcohol would kill at least some of the bacteria and make it safer to drink. The existence of germs was as yet unknown, but watering wine for children was common at the time, known to be safer than plain water, even if they didn't understand why.
- Mary's prayerbook survives. When the book is opened, it falls to the page bearing the prayer for the safe delivery of a pregnant woman, which is heavily splotched and stained with tears.
- Mary could have suffered from either ovarian cancer or from a phantom pregnancy (pseudocyesis). Women who suffer from that condition have every appearance of being pregnant. Their hormone levels may be so elevated that it even fools a pregnancy test. Their abdomens swell as though they were rally carrying a child, their breasts may produce milk and three-quarters of women suffering from it claim to have felt the baby move within them.