“Fetch wine and some cool rags—hurry!” George commanded him.
Anne did not remember the next few days that passed, only the comforts they brought. She remembered the sweet stinging warmth of the wine flowing over her cracked mouth and tongue, filling her empty belly and making the pain in her joints and head less worrisome. She remembered soft rags dipped in cool water from great bowls of copper, brought to her bedside and laid over her forehead and face. She remembered her first appetite for food, the way the smashed berries, so early in the harvest, tasted on her tongue. She didn’t care that the juice ran down her mouth and stained her shift. All of her bedclothes would be burned anyway.
Her brother slept on the trundle that pulled free from under her bed. He did not mind that this was a duty most often left to women. He loved Anne better than himself, he told everyone, and would trust none to care for her as he would.
Her tongue was healing, but her lips broke their cracks whenever she tried to speak, bringing tears to her eyes. She had not tried to say much, only pointing to what she needed as her brother attended her every day. But there was one name she must speak, one question she had to know. She prayed it was over, and she was home to stay.
“Henry?” Anne asked, her voice like a rusted spit grinding against its stake.
George went back to wetting rags. He laid one on Anne’s head and attempted to cover her face next, but Anne shook it off.
“Henry?” she asked again. She had to know. Perchance God had delivered her while she slept.
“He fled to his estate in Essex the moment he knew you were ill. We sent word when the fever broke. You recovered against all hope, a sign of God’s favour. The king’s heart rejoices with us. They say he has burned with a desire to know of your health, to see you once more.” He sounded flat as he recounted all this, and Anne saw tears in his eyes.
“George,” she whispered. Her heart was dead at this news.
“Why, Anne? Why did you let yourself be pulled into this? Was it not enough that he ruined our sister? Why must he have you, too? Why did you not protect us from this disgrace?”
Anne wanted to cry, but she had no tears. Her body was so dry from the fever, so used and parched, that it took great effort to deliberately wet her tongue enough to speak. George continued, busying himself with the rags, a cold, indifferent tone in his voice.
“The queen and her daughter, Mary, left the court, following the king. They are with him right now. They were not touched by the sweating sickness.”
There was still hope. Anne took her hand, the movement exhausting her once again. She raised her chin, trying to get George to stay close so she wouldn’t have to use too much energy to talk. “There is a nun. She speaks for God. Send for her.”
“The Mad Nun?” George asked, standing back, chewing his lip.
“Go!” Anne commanded.
Chapter Eleven
The scent of earth and roots woke her, and as her eyes focused, she could see a tiny figure draped in black, hunched over a bedside table, crushing something with a mortar and pestle, quietly singing a chant. Anne had heard these chants from the monasteries and found them comforting, but this one thin voice stripped the piece of its charm. Anne was cold.
Liber scriptus proferetur,
In quo totum continetur,
Unde mundus judicetur.
Recordare, Jesu pie,
Quod sum causa tuae viae:
Ne me perdas illa die.
The nun turned. The black wimple draped over her head, the black sleeves that spread as she raised her arms in greeting, unnerved Anne. She saw something in her mind—a black bird in a place of desolation—and shifted in fear, attempting to dislodge the vision.
The nun smiled. “’Tis the skullcap. I have already spread it around thy bed.”
Anne looked and saw that the floor was strewn with green leaves and purple buds, plus something else with a strong odour of old meat.
“It reeks,” Anne said.
“Not many survive the sweats,” the nun said as she worked. “Why did God spare ye?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did God inflict it upon ye?”
“I don’t know.”
“’Tis why ye called me.”
She went back to grinding at her mortar, turning a bit to keep an eye on Anne as she worked. Removing a black bottle from her robe, she poured a green oil into the crushed powder and began to stir. She dipped a finger in it and tasted it, nodding in approval.
“Here,” she said to Anne, thrusting out the pestle covered in thick green sludge.
“What is it?” Anne asked.
“Eat it. For strength.”
Anne tasted it. The taste was of lettuce and onions. The nun went to work setting onions in the foot of her bed, placing them deep within her sheets. Anne knew they would balance her humours and return her energy. She handed her back the pestle, and the nun scooped more of the green paste onto it and gave it to Anne.