Anne of the Fens (13 page)

Simon surveyed me, squinting in the dark room. “Yes, your insect bites will give you away.”

I had given no thought to what my face looked like. There was, of course, no mirror at Davey's. I looked down at my arms, and even in the dark I could see they were mottled with bites upon bites and angry scratch marks. My hands were bleeding from the rope. My face must have looked like my arms.

“I must make my way to Marianne.” I was so tired I could barely stand. I hugged him again. We had never touched before today, but I felt so close to him for helping me. He seemed surprised when I flung my arms around him, but his arms, after an instant, pulled back. I was aware of him as a man, a strong and handsome man whom I cared deeply about. Even better, in my ragged clothes, in terrible need of a bath, covered with insect bites, my hair full of river silt, I knew in my bones that he was aware of me as a woman.

I pulled away, suddenly shy, and began to leave the room.

Simon insisted on checking that there was no one around, and in a moment I was climbing the stairs in the dark, as I had become used to doing, this time to the fourth floor. I made my way into Marianne's room. Most servants slept in the basement in the servants' quarters, but Marianne, as personal maid to Arbella, had a small room next to her, should she want Marianne in the night.

I stumbled over Marianne's shoes. The noise and my curse wakened her, and she made a small sound as she turned over and opened her eyes. Before she could scream, I spoke. “It is just me. Anne.”

She sat up. “Anne, Anne, we thought you were gone for good. Come into bed and tell me.”

“I am too tired. In the morning.”

I could scarcely take off my shoes, or rather Joan's shoes, and her skirt, before falling into the bed. I had slept at Davey's and thought myself restored, but now I was done. I was asleep in an instant.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

I
HEARD UNFAMILIAR
voices. They sounded far away. I opened my eyes and saw two Sheriff's men, one the sentry at the moat, and one whom I had not seen before. I shut my eyes again. It was too hard to keep them open.

“Look how red her face is, and the sores on it. It is the pox, like the Earl's brother. And there was the kitchen maid.”

“And the wife of the baker, someone said,” another voice added.

“It is time to be gone. A criminal is one matter, but no need for us all to risk death from the pox.” The voice had authority.

There was silence again, and I slept.

I was too sick to react to the words. Everything hurt. My head felt like it would explode, waves of nausea passed through me, chills and fever shook me.

There were other words. I knew Patience was there, and took my hand, and Mother admonished her to keep away. There were hands that lifted me and took me to another place. My head banged against the wall once. When I was laid down, the room felt like Hades.

“Too hot,” I pleaded.

“The doctor said heat. He will not come, himself, may the pox take him.” It was Mother's voice again.

An uncontrollable spell of shivering hit me and the heat felt good. Later, in a moment of awareness, I realized I was in my parents' room, on their bed, that I was wrapped in blankets, and that the fire was lit in the fireplace.

I
LAY THERE
for several days, going from sleep to wakefulness, hot and cold, tossing and turning, in pain from backaches and headaches, not able to find a comfortable way to lie. My dreams were vivid.

I dreamed of John. We were sitting on the river bank, the beggar nearby and John saying sweet things to me.

This time I said, “If you loved me true, you would not leave me here.”

I dreamed it several times in different ways. Once I woke, while saying, “You do not love me true.”

John's expression seemed bewildered, until his face gradually dissolved and became that of Marianne.

She took me in her arms, saying, “Many love you.”

She understood that I was not speaking of the love of my family, that I was speaking to a man, but she did not pry. She laid me back in the bed and since I was in a fever state, took off some of the blankets and put a wet cloth on my head.

After a few days my fever subsided and I felt better. I asked Marianne whether the Earl's sister did not need her.

“You are much too fine a person to spend your time caring for me,” I said. “You should be surrounded by taffeta and silk, helping to decide if Arbella should wear mauve or lavender.”

She laughed. “Your mother would not hear my protests even if I had any. She scoured the castle, looking for anyone who had suffered the pox and would not fall victim again. There were only me and one of the scullery maids. I do not mind a change from finery.”

I told her she was a fine nurse and inwardly prayed that, like Marianne, my face would not be pocked.

Mother came to see me. I had always known my mother loved me, but I had never felt it so keenly. She was risking her life to be with me.

“It is so good...” she began, and then could say no more for the tears.

H
ER GLADNESS CAME
too soon. That night the rash erupted, all over my body and face. I could feel the little swellings with my finger tips. The fever came back, and I fell into a sleep from which I awoke only once or twice to feel my heart beating uncontrollably, a terrible pain in my chest.

People measured sleep in time: how long did you sleep? And in depth: how deep was it, how hard to wake? This sleep was long and deep, but it seemed to me mostly a broad, wide sleep. It touched parts of me that had never slept before. Blackness engulfed my hands, my feet, my knees, my elbows. I had no thoughts. My mind slept. I did not dream. My heart slept. I did not even pray to God to save me. My soul slept.

Later, I learned what happened while I slept. The red sores became pimples, the pimples became pustules, and they dried into crusts. My skin, hot to the touch, peeled off in limp sheets.

They told me I dwelled in this black place between life and death for a week. Then one day I woke again with pain in my chest, to see Marianne leaning over me.

“Thank the Lord.”

I went back to sleep, then woke once again without the chest pain.

“Water.”

She brought me some and fed it to me with a spoon.

I slept again, and woke for longer. I drank more.

The next time I woke, Mother was there. She put her arms about me and wept.

“We thought we would lose you,” she said, through sobs.

I was too weak to realize at the time that I was better, or what she meant. I returned to sleep.

I
N THE NEXT
few days I began to recover. I remember the day I heard the raspy cries of magpies outside my window and found them beautiful. They had been there every morning, but that was the first time I noticed them. I knew, at that moment, that I would live.

I asked for the window to be uncovered. I began to pay attention to the pattern the sun made as it crossed the room through my sleeping and waking. It was sharp in the morning; in my eyes, and then warm upon my legs, and then there were shadows, and late in the day it was sharp against the other wall.

Marianne was a wonderful nurse. When I woke, she talked to me about what she was doing,

“Now I will put a cool cloth on your brow,” or, “Eat some fine stewed peaches.” I was too tired to speak. Often I went to sleep to the sound of, “Tomorrow the Fox will Come to Town,” sung in Marianne's sweet low voice. And woke to the sound of “Of all the Birds that ever I See,” which included words about drinking that Mother would not have approved of.

Mainly, I slept. Gradually my thinking returned, and I began to wonder what had happened while I slept. The next time Mother came into the room I asked her.

“Everything is fine.” She smiled, smoothed my hair, and told me not to worry.

“Has the Earl returned?”

“No. We hear from him regularly. He is in good health and he has not been tortured. There are a number of nobles being held and not brought to trial. Your father is preparing a petition about how prisoners cannot be held without trial; you know, the
habeas corpus
idea he always talks about.”

“And John Holland?” I tried to sound like I did not care.

“Thank the Lord, he has escaped to Holland.”

My eyes shut, and I felt relief pour through me.

“He may be able to come back at some point. So painful for his wife, and she with child.”

“What?” My voice sounded weak and strange.

“You did not know she was with child? She is a fine healthy lass, and to be without her husband is difficult. At least there has been no warrant out for her.”

As she bustled about the room straightening things, Mother went on about John's wife, who she was and her people, but I did not hear her. I was in torment. How could he? I had known he had not truly cared for me or he would not have left me at the river. But how could he have lied to me?

“I see I am tiring you. You are so pale.” Mother took up her basin and left the room.

Then the tears came, till I was so weak I fell asleep.

W
HEN
I
WOKE
again, not sure whether it was the same day or not, I was calmer.

I tried to remember exactly what John had said, when I asked him if he was married. He had not said, “No, I am not married.” He had said something like, “I am a good Puritan, and such do not trifle with young women when they are married.”

So he was not a good Puritan. I had risked my life to save the life of a man who was willing to ruin me. Had he thought I was simply a loose young woman, willing to walk about the castle at night in her shift? What of the Earl's hospitality? John's duty to my father? Surely he would have known that I would, at some time, learn about his wife.

Lying in bed, I had nothing else to do but think about it. I decided he was the kind of man who did what he felt like doing without thinking of the consequences. I remembered my father had called him hotheaded and impulsive. He had posted all those notices about not paying the tax. I remembered how he had ignored my counsel and chosen his own way in the fens. When I had been there alone with him in the secret room he fancied me, and he did not worry about what would happen later.

I still felt tears welling, but then anger rose within me. I wished I had pushed him into the river. I wanted to get up and find him and do something to him. I did not know what. I began to rise from the bed, fell back, and sank into sleep again.

T
HE NEXT DAY
I needed to distract myself. I was irritable and bored with being in bed, but too sick to get up. I decided to make something of the one good thing that John had given me. I would finish his verse to me.

Shall I compare thee to a summer day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

They were easy end rhymes. One could say,

Thy sunny face makes all who see thee gay,

Thy body warm to me as heaven's gate.

It was not good, but it was fun to play. It made me smile to think of nice things somebody could say of me. I forgot about the sin of Vanity.

I had come up with several other rhymes, when I heard footsteps in the hallway. Patience came through my door and jumped onto the bed to embrace me through the blankets and coverlet.

“I have missed you so!” I hugged her back.

We talked of what I had done, and I told her what Mother had said about John's wife. Her loving nature took in all my badness and turned it into good. She saw only my attempt to help John and the family, not my wantonness or desire for adventure. I told her all, as Marianne says Catholics tell their confessor, and I could see why Catholics value this cleansing.

Finally, I said, “Patience, there is something only you will do for me. Please, I want the mirror.”

Marianne and Mother had refused. They claimed my face was not bad, but why, then, would they not bring the mirror? Marianne had no marks at all from the pox, but I was sure I would have them. They had forbidden me to touch my face. Of course as soon as I was alone I did, and I could feel sores with my fingers.

“No, you should wait a bit till it has time to heal.”

“Then it is bad.”

“No, not so bad.”

“Then bring the mirror.”

After a while she brought it, Mother's precious mirror of Venetian glass trimmed in gold, three inches across. I took a deep breath and held it up before my face. There were fifteen to twenty bright, red spots. They were not so different from mosquito bites, and I could see how the Sheriff's men had earlier been misled. That thought came later, though. I put the mirror face down on the coverlet and tried not to weep. The tears came anyway.

“They will heal and fade,” Patience said, in her sweet, determined voice.

She distracted me with tales about the little things that had happened in the castle, how one of the servants had taken a bad fall down the stairs, breaking his leg, and how I should look forward to a visit from Mercy.

Then my father came. I had been dreading this visit.

“You are better, I see. You've worried us terribly.”

“I'm sorry.”

“What kind of girl did I raise, to traipse around the country with a married man? Have you learned nothing from your mother about what is proper? I give you the best education any girl or boy could desire, and you reward me by acting like a common...” He couldn't find a word that was decent enough to speak to his daughter.

His voice was the loudest thing I had heard in the sick room, and perhaps he could tell it wearied me.

“I did save his life.” My voice sounded feeble to my own ears.

“Much better for him to save his own life.”

I did not know what he meant, or if he was clear himself about what he meant.

“It was the story about the walnuts and the battle of Amiens that helped Simon and me get me back in the castle.”