The Queen's Sorrow (16 page)

December the third was Francisco’s birthday, his fourth, and the sky itself bestowed what would have been the best possible birthday present if only he’d been there to see it:
snow
. As he woke, Rafael knew that something had befallen the world. The silence beyond his window had a thoroughness to it and his room was faintly but evenly illuminated. Outside, everything had turned clean white as if a spell had been cast. He ached to have Francisco beside him to see it; imagined him spellbound, first, then avid and already halfway to the door on his way
downstairs. Come here, little man, let’s get you properly dressed up
. Rafael had resolved not to do the usual on his son’s birthday, but to mark it somehow – go somewhere, do something – and now the problem was solved: he’d take a walk in the snow.

The sound and sensation of each footfall was utterly new to him, though he imagined walking across some kinds of sand might be similar. The cold was there but didn’t attack him as the wind often did; it had lain down and rolled over, exposing its soft, spectacular underside. Every branch, every twig – the smallest thing, a nailhead on the gate, a knot in the grain of the gatepost – was edged with snow. Everywhere, it had done its delicate work. But the day was busy doing its work too and
already there was an unevenness of cover, itself glorious, complex and intriguing.
This is for you, Francisco
, Rafael kept thinking, looking around. Who else would it be for, on Francisco’s birthday?

But Francisco wasn’t here to receive it and its extraordinary presence made much of his absence. Rafael was getting tired, having to tense every step against slipping, and, tired, he was getting cold. He gave up and headed back to the Kitsons’, to the kitchen and – he hoped – a warm drink.

Huddled in a corner with the cup of spiced milk that one of the kitchen boys had been so kind as to fetch for him, he was aware that no one there knew it was his little boy’s birthday. Not even Cecily, who was elsewhere. In that respect, Rafael had his son all to himself. He wondered what Leonor was planning for Francisco on this special day, all being well.
All being well
. Even if all was well, Francisco would be lost to him, he feared, in that he’d have forgotten him, by now. Oh, he’d remember the name – Daddy – and he’d remember that there had been a daddy, someone who’d been Daddy, but nothing more specific, Rafael suspected. ‘Daddy’ would be referred to, plenty, he imagined, today –
Daddy’ll be thinking of
you on your birthday
– but he doubted that would make him any more real to Francisco. Sitting in the Kitson kitchen, he burned to insist on his reality to Francisco:
I’m here; here I am;
here
. But here would mean nothing to Francisco.

Rafael’s own birthday was eleven days later and he self-consciously abandoned it. Slipping free of it, was how he chose to think of it.

Christmas came and passed with Rafael ill in bed. For a day and a night of which he was only dimly aware, fever shook him like a dog shakes its prey. His skin felt blistered; the touch of the bedclothes hurt him.
I’m dying, I’m going to die, here, so
far from home
, but he didn’t feel how he might have expected to feel: no rage, nor any yearning.
So this is how it ends
, was all he had the strength to think. He accepted it. Had to. He’d been writing a letter home and he hoped someone would forward it. That was all, really, that he wanted. He wasn’t up to wanting anything more.

After perhaps a day or two, Cecily came into his room, but he didn’t realise it – not properly – until later. He’d experienced it and remembered it as a dream. She’d drawn back his bed-hangings a little and had talked to him, but he hadn’t understood or even tried to understand what she was saying. Later, during a half-waking, he noticed beside his bed a jug, some bread, and what looked like a piece of bark. He touched it: it
was
bark. Presumably she’d noted his absence and had come to check on him. She shouldn’t have: she shouldn’t have risked contagion. But he was too tired to think any more of it, other than that he must’ve looked a mess and seemed ungrateful, and collapsed back into sleep.

Some time during that night, he did drink the juice. His thirst raging, he returned to it several times, his body soaking it up, not needing the chamber pot.

Cecily came again, probably a day later, and this time her knock on the door and her opening it – having had no word from him – cracked into his sleep. But it was as much as he could do to open his eyes, and she would have to accept that. He did want more juice. Perhaps she’d just replenish his
supply and leave him as she found him. She wouldn’t need to wake him. Indeed, she should go as quickly as she could, get herself away from danger. She came to the bedside, spoke from the other side of the hangings: a tentative, whispery call of his name. Twice. Then a twitch of the hangings. ‘Yes,’ he replied, finally, and, as he’d hoped, she let the hanging drop. She didn’t go away, though, he knew. She said his name again and this time there was no question in it; it was gently firm. She required him to respond. He moved the hanging – just so she’d know he was attentive – but was careful to keep himself in shadow. She held something in the opening; it was that piece of bark. ‘Rafael,’ she urged, and now he paid it some attention – intrigued, albeit faintly. She crouched down, her face level with his; he held his breath, he knew it would be foul. ‘Rafael,’ she said again, and mimed chewing on the bark. Chewing, definitely, rather than eating: a deliberate gnashing of her teeth. Then, before he could have done anything about it, her hand was on his forehead and quickly to one stubbly cheek, and she was making a sound like disapproval: fever. In spite of himself, his skin sang at her touch.
Do that again
. With a flourish of the piece of bark –
Don’t forget
– she rose, saying there was more juice for him, and he murmured his thanks.

Her visit had unsettled him – he couldn’t get back to sleep – so he did end up chewing on the bark. It was something to do. There was a sweetness to it, which he would never have expected. When he surfaced from his next doze, he felt marginally better, and thereafter kept up with the bark.

Cecily came daily, and despite his fear of the risk at which she placed herself, and the awkwardness of those brief visits of hers, he lived for them. Her coming into his room while he
was in bed made for a delicate situation, with which she dealt by saying almost nothing, just bringing more juice, more bark and a little more food each day, and checking his fever – that quick, cold touch of her fingertips to his brow, his cheek – but keeping her judgement on it to herself. For his part, he’d lie almost totally covered by the bedclothes, taking care not to move: making as little physical impression as possible.

She sent someone else – a boy – for the chamber pot, which, luckily, he was hardly having to use. A bowl of water was also replenished, so Rafael could rub his teeth with a freshly wet cloth.

The days were barely days at all, the darkness in his room almost day-long: in that sense, he was missing nothing. What he did miss was the chance to check at the Spanish office for post, and he felt sure, increasingly so, there was a letter from Leonor waiting there for him, although he couldn’t guess at what it would say.

Eight or nine days had passed before he felt able to get up. Depressingly, it took all his energy on that first day to sit, stunned, on the edge of the bed. Several times he did it, though, determined to build up his strength. The second day, he got to the door to intercept Cecily, to head her off. He’d been waiting for her – it wasn’t as if he had anything else to do – and, at the door, handed over his jug and plate before receiving the fresh offering. He smiled but didn’t meet her eyes, horribly aware of how bad he must look. He intended a proper wash, later that day, but ended up back in bed, asleep. The following day, he did wince and gasp his way through an ice-cold wash, and then managed – with a couple of rests on the edge of the bed – to dress. The day after that, he tried to
go downstairs, sitting down once on the way, even if he did then turn around and – with more pauses – come back. He wasn’t yet fit to be seen: he needed a shave.

For the shave, he’d have to go to the palace. The next day, he reached for his cloak – and discovered its new, much heavier lining. Fustian. Cecily’s doing;
must be
. He touched it in wonder and profound gratitude. Not only had she risked infection but she’d thought to do this for him.

He couldn’t go to thank her until he’d had the shave; so, he slipped from the house. Despite the new cloak-lining, the cold hit him like never before and he reeled, close to tears and shocked by his feebleness. The river-journey – the walk, even, to the river – was going to be impossible for a day or two more. He almost whimpered aloud with helplessness and frustration. He’d have to chance a local barber. What would a local barber do? Cut his throat? Well, let him cut it. What he did care about was that he couldn’t go for his letter. Impossibly far away, it was. To his own letter, which he was carrying, he’d added,
I wasn’t well but I’m fine now
. As soon as he’d realised that he wouldn’t be home in time for Christmas, he’d sent Francisco a drawing of London Bridge. Francisco wouldn’t have got it, yet, though – if he got it at all, if it didn’t end up shipwrecked and dissolved into sea water. Two days of sitting on Coldharbour Steps, it had taken Rafael; he’d got in as much detail as he could. What he would really have loved to send Francisco, though, was a fragment of ice from a puddle.
Look, Francisco, see? Hard water
.

He entered the first local barber’s shop he came across and the encounter was fine: the barest exchange of words and a brisk, skilled shave before the yielding of a couple of Rafael’s
precious coins. Leaving the premises, he was ready to face the world and Cecily, of course, was whom he went to face first. She was in the kitchen, sewing, her boy nestled up to her. ‘Ah!’ – she seemed surprised and delighted to see him, so much so that he wondered if his recovery had perhaps been in doubt. She was full of praise – he knew from her tone – for how well he was looking, which only served to make him self-conscious as to how truly dreadful he must previously have appeared. He displayed the lining of his cloak: ‘You?’

She played it down: she’d had some spare, he guessed her to be saying, as she shook her head and indicated a pile of fabrics at her side. He thanked her profusely, telling her in his own language – but with an arm towards the door – how much easier it was now to be outside. ‘Thank you,’ he said again, ‘thank you,’ and she glowed even as she shrugged it off.

Christmas had been and gone during his illness but the Kitsons wouldn’t be tackling the journey back into the countryside until the worst of the winter weather was over. At his first supper back in Hall, Rafael saw that the young men who usually served at the high table weren’t there and their duties were being undertaken by the blond steward and a couple of ushers. Sitting at the high table, though, were three young men who were definitely Kitsons. So,
they
’d been away somewhere – serving at high table in someone else’s house? – but were home now for the Christmas season; and the boys who served at the Kitsons’ had probably gone in
their
turn back to
their
own homes. What a peculiar arrangement, Rafael pondered. Why wouldn’t a family want its own sons around?

A couple of days later, the three Kitson lads were gone again and the usual servers were back. Rafael had wondered if
he’d see other changes now that winter was biting hard, but there were no obvious shortages of food in the household. Less bread was left over at the end of meals than he remembered from when the full household was last in residence, but that might have been because the cold was making everyone hungrier. He suspected that the pottage wasn’t quite so thick, but it was spicier as if to hide the fact, which made it tastier. On the whole, though, and especially since his illness, Rafael longed for simplicity, for clarity on his palate. At its best, English wintertime food had taste packed into it, simmered long and hard, but this only had Rafael craving the crispness of something fresh-picked, or the rough and readiness of sausage, the melting milkiness of goats’ cheese, the honeyed gentleness of orange-steeped ground almonds. And an orange itself: how he’d love to nestle the tip of his thumb into an orange, to lever and split it and breathe in its scented gasp.

Thinking of an orange was in itself a luxury, he knew – there were plenty of people in London who couldn’t think beyond necessities. More of them gathered at the back gate at the end of the day than he remembered from the Kitsons’ last time at the house, and he noticed the paucity of leftovers that the kitchen boys took to them. That was where the Kitsons’ shortages were: at the back gate. That’s where they were beginning.

Inside, hospitality was stretched among more guests than they’d previously had. There’d been musicians when the Kitsons were home in the summer, and of course they’d stayed for supper, but now they had women and children with them, all of whom had to be fed. Not that there was any sign of a grudging reception. Everyone was graciously
provided for. When the Kitsons’ doctor came to dine during the first week of January, he was accompanied by his wife, five children, and an elderly lady, presumably his mother or mother-in-law. A couple of evenings later, one of the business associates who had come to dine with the Kitsons’ secretary in October brought a nursemaid for the youngest of his children and she ate while the child slept in the crook of her arm.