The Last Boleyn(94)

Nancy was back with fresh water and fruit and Stephen tiptoed in with wine and sticks of wood under his arm. She remembered instantly. “Yes, Stephen, we must have a fire. We must drive out the poisons. And when you get it going, you must see if there are any doctors who remain, though I heard Her Grace took the last with her. Hurry, Stephen.”

“But he is asleep already, lady. We must not let him sleep,” Nancy’s voice came from behind her.

“I think it is early yet, and he will need his strength.”

“My sister said once they sleep they never wake, lady.”

“Hush, girl, and fetch the myrtle and rose leaves for the sheets.”

Mary marvelled at her own control in the next hours. She was sharp with the servants, but as the room became an inferno in the late afternoon sun with the fireplace roaring, they all dripped sweat and spoke no more. She kept Will awake as best she could, but he wafted in and out of consciousness even though his stomach and head pain increased.

“The whole room is spinning,” he whispered dazedly. “Is Eleanor here yet?”

A new fear grew in her like an ugly gray mushroom. “Eleanor, my lord? No, Eleanor is not here yet.”

“You have not sent for Staff to marry, have you?” he nearly shouted, then fell back on the bed exhausted.

Tears coursed down her face. “No, of course not, my lord. Rest. Do not fret. I am here. I will care for you.”

The stench of the room enveloped them now, smothering the sweeter scents of the medicinal myrtle, rose, and lavender from the fur robe in which she desperately wrapped him. He sucked the special powdered wine hourly through a goose quill Stephen brought as the night wore on. Yet he sweated out all the liquid and never had to urinate. She sent Stephen and Nancy to sleep in the corridor within call and kept the fire burning herself. Maybe they could escape from the smell and they would not hear his tortured ravings of his lost name and his accusations of the Bullens and his wife. In the waves of heat, she stripped to her soaked shift and began to bathe his face again when his eyes shot open and he seized her wrist weakly.

“Is that His Grace calling me? I have to go. He is wanting me to come to him.” He feebly tried to move aside the heavy covers but could not. “Is it night, Mary?”

“Yes, my dear lord. It is night.” She gently sponged his forehead.

“Then he must be calling for me. It will anger him if I do not come and we will lose everything, my dear love.”

“You must rest, Will. I am here. I will not leave you.”

“Oh, my dearest Eleanor, we will lose everything we have worked for!”

Tears flowed down her cheeks to mingle with the sweat which already stung her eyes. His love was for his sister and his cause. He had never loved her and it was her fault. She had been a terrible wife to him. He could have loved her. He gave her two beautiful children. She had hurt him so with five years of shaming his treasured name with the king while he was sent here and there on trumped-up missions. And now, with Staff, whom he had once trusted and even idolized a bit...Was that her fault too?

“Dearest God, I have sinned greatly,” her lips said and she bowed her head in utter exhaustion and hopelessness. They said the sweat was sent as a curse from God to sinners. But why Will and not the sinner?

“You look beautiful, Mary.”

Her eyes opened and she stared at him through a heavy mist.

“In dresses for revels or in your shift, so beautiful. Maybe the king will summon you to him tonight and not me.” His trembling lips tried to smile. “Then you can try to save the Carey lands again.” He made a weak attempt to clear his throat of its roughness, but only wheezed. “Is Eleanor here yet?” he asked again. “She will want to go to Durham with me, even though you do not.”

She gave up fighting to keep him conscious, for the pains increased in his head and stomach and shot him wide awake when he tried to doze. She sponged him still, and held his fluttering hands in hers, and quoted Bible verses to him for her own comfort as much as his, but he constantly interrupted and asked for water or his sister.

Near dawn she called to Stephen for more wood and in utter terror at Will’s shallow pained breathing sent the disheveled Nancy for a priest. The girl could find no one of the cloth, not even at the friary outside the grounds, which served the royal chapel. She returned breathless and teary-eyed as the first glimmer of light permeated the gray room.

“There is no one, lady, no one. I am sorry. Everything seems so deserted.”

Will stared up at the new voice and managed a wan smile. “I knew she would come. I knew she would come if I called her.”

Mary pressed his trembling, cold hand between hers. “Yes,” she choked out, “yes, she came, my lord. Rest now. All is well.”

He narrowed his eyes and they seemed to focus momentarily on Mary’s bent head. “I am sorry, Mary,” came the quiet words. His head dropped back suddenly, and his eyes stared beyond her.

“I am sorry too, my dear lord. Can you not forgive me?”

She raised her hand to sponge his forehead, but the words went unheard. With the first light of the new day upon his face, Will Carey died.



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.