Stephen and some husky groom had put the wrapped corpse on a table board and carried him to the chapel yard for burial after a stunned Mary and silent Nancy had washed and reclothed him. Victims of the sweat must be buried immediately so their decay would not send the rampant poisons into the air, especially in the summer months when it was most virulent. There was no one to give them permission, to bury him on chapel grounds, but Mary sent Stephen and two others there to dig the grave anyway.
The next day Nancy found a kind, old chaplain on the outskirts of Kingston to come the five miles to recite over the grave and give the last rites posthumously, as was allowed for any plague victim. They stood in a tiny circle around the sunken fresh grave two days after his death. Mary still felt it was unreal. She felt nothing but a vast, gnawing emptiness.
“Perhaps we can ask the king to have him moved later and buried at Durham Priory where he would have wanted. Perhaps we can get the money for a fine brass monument so he can lie with his forefathers there,” she had said over and over that day to Stephen or Nancy or the old priest.
Now he was dead three days and she insisted on lying on the raw ropes of the bed which had supported the mattress on which he had died. They had burned the mattress and robe and all the bedclothes in a bonfire in the courtyard. There was no one left to panic but the deserted servants of nobles who had fled and no one to comfort her but Stephen and Nancy. She wanted no one. She felt dead too, and she stared at the whitewashed ceiling that had seen him die for hours on the third day.
It seemed to her she had slept in the evening, but she could not tell where her waking and dreaming thoughts began or ended. Nancy was strewing fresh herbs on the floor she had scrubbed. How dare other people go on about their duties so calmly when poor Will had died and his God-given wife had failed him so miserably. She had turned against him all the months he had needed her understanding. She had reveled in her power over the king at her husband’s expense and, when she could not care for the king, she had turned to another. She had loved another man desperately with her whole heart and slept with him willingly, gladly, while her poor husband sought to earn his way back with his king. Earn his way back for himself and for their children too.
Mary thanked God again that Catherine was safe at Hever. Explaining to Catherine would be terrible, but their seven-year-old son was old enough to grasp the impact. She had sent word to Will’s poor Eleanor ensconced in her priory at Wilton. That will be the death of her dreams, Mary reasoned through the mist of her exhaustion.
She still wore her funeral clothes. She had no black, but she would get a mourning dress somewhere, even though they had no ready coins. She had a white dress though. In France widows wore white for a husband’s death. Perhaps some of the king’s gifts to her could be sold, or one of the parklands His Grace had granted Will on their marriage. She would just lie here forever doing penance for her sins until they all came back to court in the autumn and found her here, laid out just like this. Her heavy eyelids closed again.
Then a bird’s song somewhere outside the window pierced the darkness of her thoughts, and it came to her in a rush. She must go to Hever!
She sat up instantly and a terrible dizziness assailed her. She felt weak and panicked instantly. “But no, I do not sweat. I do not feel the slightest bit hot or have any stomach pain besides hunger,” she assured herself aloud.
“Lady, are you up? You feel better now? I have watched you sleep these many hours, and I knew you were still healthy,” Nancy said bending close and still holding the herbs in her gathered apron.
“Yes. Yes, I am better now, Nance. I must have food and drink and get my strength back now.”
“The Lord be praised,” the girl recited solemnly, crossing herself.
“And then we must walk in the gardens before nightfall and get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow, as soon as we can pack some things, you and Stephen and I are going home, Nance. Home to Hever.”
“We cannot travel the road clear to Hever, the three of us and you so obviously a fine lady. It is too unsafe and especially in plague times, lady. There be robbers all over the roads. Stephen will tell you so.”
“I cannot help that, Nancy. I will go in disguise if I must. We cannot hire anyone to ride with us as we used to. And we are going tomorrow, so you may tell Stephen while I eat. Go on!”
The tall girl opened her mouth as if to protest, but instead dumped her stuffed apron on the table and strode out the door.
“Yes. One hard day’s ride and we shall be at Hever. Home to mother and Catherine.” She rapidly began to eat a peach.