the ponderous thrusting of his body.
Sweet Jesu, why was he taking so long? Reluctantly, Emma opened her eyes.
Harrison’s round, pasty-skinned face wobbled above her. His eyes were closed, and his expression was one of the greatest concentration. His hips continued to thrust himself deep into her, his massive belly crushing her against the bed, the rest of his weight supported on arms locked rigid and splayed to either side of her body.
Thankful his eyes were closed, Emma allowed herself a grimace of distaste. Everything about him wobbled—his face, his fleshy shoulders, the rolls of fat down his back, his buttocks.
And it all sweated, great glistening globules of—
Emma went rigid, her eyes starting, then she screamed and tried to writhe away.
Under his left armpit was a massive, black swelling!
“Am I driving you wild?” he whispered, his eyes still closed. “Am I? Am I?”
Emma screamed again, trying with all her strength to topple the man off her. But he was too heavy, too strong, too determined in the sating of his lust.
His efforts increased, and as he did so the bubo in his armpit swelled until the skin enclosing it stretched thin and tight.
Sweet Jesu, this was Death riding her. God’s judgement on her sinful life.
The door to the room flew open. Jocelyn, her face crinkled in worry at her mother’s screaming.
Emma saw her over Harrison’s heaving shoulders, and she screamed yet again, not only with fear this time, but with horror that Jocelyn should finally see what she had spent eight years keeping from her.
Harrison climaxed, and as he did so, the bubo in his armpit burst.
He was long gone now, his face lax, his eyes glazed, and apparently still unaware of what his body harboured. He’d left the instant he’d pulled himself free from her body, and shucked on his clothes. Then he pushed past Jocelyn, still standing, staring at her mother on the bed. When the outer door had slammed behind him, Emma pulled the soiled sheets about her, trying to not only hide her nakedness, but also to clean off the filth from the burst bubo.
Jocelyn had stood, staring, frightened, until Emma quietly asked her to fetch a pail of water from the other room so that she might wash herself.
Now, sitting shivering before the small fire in the inadequate grate, Emma knew that she, and probably her beloved daughter, were doomed.
Death had been a-visiting.
Outside a dog howled once, then was silent.
Emma shivered some more.
Jocelyn sat down at Emma’s feet, and silently held out to her mother a piece of bread. Emma took it, even though she felt ill, and forced down a few bites.
Satisfied, Jocelyn lowered her head to watch the flames, and once her gaze had turned away, Emma hid the bread in a pocket in her skirt. She reached out a trembling hand, and touched Jocelyn’s shining fair hair.
What would happen to her when I am dead? Emma wondered, then began to weep, silently, despairingly.
Then, on cue, the fever struck, and Emma shuddered.
“Mama?” Jocelyn twisted about. “Mama?”
“Jocelyn… ”
“I will fetch the physician.”
Emma smiled tiredly. “I have no coin with which to pay the physician,” she whispered.
“Then I will fetch the monks to take you to Saint Bartholomew’s.”
Emma began to laugh, a grating, grinding sound that was more sob than laugh. “I have no virtues with which to pay the monks,” she said. “I am unvirtuous, and they will not save me. Their hospital is as unobtainable to me as is heaven.”
“Then I will save you,” the young girl said with such a determined air that Emma almost believed her.
With the utmost effort, Emma raised a shaking hand and touched her child’s cheek. “You are so beautiful,” she said.
Mary leaned forward very slightly, just enough to touch Neville’s arm to stop him, then stared about in horror.
They’d entered London across the bridge a few minutes ago after a careful two-day journey from Windsor. The journey had not tired Mary as she’d feared it would. Men rather than horses had carried her litter, and they were as gentle as might be. Her physician, Nicholas Culpeper, travelled with her entourage, and made sure that she took regular doses of monkshood and opium poppy. The strength of the mixture should have fogged her mind, but Mary was so overwrought with the horror she knew had descended on London that she managed to remain both relatively pain-free and clear-headed, something for which she thanked sweet Jesu many times daily.
They’d set out from Windsor at daybreak on Wednesday. Thomas Neville led the entourage, which consisted of Mary herself, Margaret Neville, one other noblewoman, Lady Alicia Lynley (Mary’s other ladies were so terrified at the thought of returning to a pestilence-ridden London that Mary had bid them from her service), Neville’s squire Sir Robert Courtenay, Nicholas Culpeper, two of his apprentices, and an escort of fifty armed men-at-arms.
They had approached London from Southwark. Here Mary had excused from her company the greater number of her men-at-arms, Lady Alicia Lynley, and Culpeper’s two apprentices. They would journey on to the Tower by boat to apprise the king of her arrival in London.
Here also Mary had alighted from her litter, saying only that she felt well enough to ride something small and manageable, and the litter would be too cumbersome to negotiate the twisted, narrow streets of London with ease.
At this Neville had argued vehemently with Mary, saying she could do little within the ravaged city, that it was suicide to even think of entering, and that she would be vastly better off going straight to the Tower and to Bolingbroke, both of which were, at the least, pestilence-free.
Mary had listened to him with the utmost courtesy, saying once he had paused to draw an indignant breath that if he and Margaret did not fear for their lives then neither should she. Besides, she would do more good for the Londoners in London than walled within the safety of the Tower, would she not?
Neville, as Margaret, tried for another hour to persuade Mary not to enter London. In the end, Mary had been forced to command them to allow her. She was queen, and as queen she was going to enter London to do what she might.
And so they went, everyone walking save Mary who sat atop a sweet-tempered pale cream donkey that Neville had found for her in the stables of one of the Southwark inns.
Its owner was long dead, and the donkey seemed pleased at being pressed once more into service. It appeared also instinctively to know Mary’s frailty, for it stepped slow and sweetly, gently easing down each hoof so that Mary
