‘Excellent!’ the king exclaimed. ‘Let us eat now!’ He nodded to one of the servants and seconds later various dishes were placed on our table.
For a few moments, the only sound was the clutter of our knives upon the plates, whilst we devoured the delicious food that was served to us. I was particularly interested in the main course, a delicious boar, which the king told us he had killed himself the day before on his hunting trip.
‘Oh, I must take you with me next time, Edward!’ the king said, and I accepted immediately blushing. The more time I spent with the king, the better I would learn about his ways of living. It seemed that he had taken an interest in me and wanted to please me for the sake of my father, Lorenzo Campeggio. However, I would be lying if I claimed I did not enjoy this. It was only my first day at court, and I already had all the pleasures and comforts of a nobleman. At the same time, though, I was in constant danger of losing my focus, and I tried to remind myself of my real purpose of coming back to England. Although, it would prove increasingly difficult, for I had spent four years of considerable hardship in exile…
‘Wait until you see the dessert, gentlemen!’ said a most exhilarated king. He must have drunk more wine than any of us, and his spirits had risen. ‘’Twas a special order for Your Graces tonight.’
‘You honour us, Your Majesty,’ I said on behalf of everyone. The wine had made me considerably more talkative and braver in the presence of the king. In fact, all but Campeggio looked merry, even Wolsey was grinning and conversing in excitement with Lady Anne, or maybe he was just pretending to show good will, as I was.
‘There! Feast your eyes before you feast your bellies, my lords,’ King Henry yelled whilst an enormous pudding was carried by three servants and placed in the middle of our table. ‘Com’on boy slice it up, I want an extra piece for myself.’ The king had now stood up, with one hand holding his tenth or maybe the twentieth goblet of wine and with the other pointing at the pudding excitedly. Next to him, Suffolk was trying to steady him from preventing any unexpected fall.
Thus, one of the servants took a big knife and started slicing the cake into large pieces. However, his hand was trembling, and the portions he had cut were plainly uneven. I looked at his face, and his brow was moisty and sweaty, whilst his eyes were red; he was also inhaling and exhaling heavily from his mouth, as though having difficulty in breathing normally from the nose. No one but me had noticed, but before I had time to say anything, the servant fell on the floor.
In the beginning, we all looked confused, but then Suffolk, who proved to be the smartest of us all, started shouting orders to the other servants to remove the fallen man from our presence and then bade us to leave the room in an instant for it might have been contaminated. ‘What’re you talking about, Charles?’ the king asked confused.
‘Your Majesty, we must all leave immediately,’ Suffolk said in a heavy voice looking distressed. ‘You must fetch your physician right away.’
‘My physician? To tend a simple servant?’ the king said incredulously and then laughed.
And the bubble burst. The king’s indifference and disbelief for his duke wanting to help a servant were astonishing. This was why I was here, not just to avenge my family but to try and put an end to the tyrannical rule of such men, who only cared about their own wellbeing rather than their subjects’.
‘Henry, listen to me! This is serious,’ Suffolk insisted. ‘I recognise some of the symptoms this boy has. This might be the sweating sickness.’
The moment he uttered the last two words everyone stood without a second thought and shortly after we vacated the chamber and were directed elsewhere for purification, for the sweating sickness was a highly contagious disease that could kill a man within a day…
*
The city was in disarray. Within a few days, the disease had spread thoroughly, and anyone a man knew might have been dead by nightfall. For me, it felt as if I was back to the night Rome was sacked, for the city was in such a chaotic state that one might think it had been attacked by foreign invaders. Men and women were trying to tend their family and friends, some on the streets, whilst others shut in their own houses, thinking that they could cheat death. But one could not deceive God. It is known that God sends the plague to us mortals to punish us for our sins, and England had been full of sin lately. Nevertheless, the citizens were not to blame; it was their lord and sovereign that had brought God’s wrath down to Earth. Or was it me? How could it be that my first day back to England, there was a plague outburst? I felt unwelcome as if God Himself did not want me back to my home soil…
London was covered in smoke, more than usual, but the odour was entirely different than the day we had arrived here. It was the smell of burning flesh, for the dead had to be purged by fire to prevent the contamination to spread. However, little that did, hundreds of people died daily, and within the following months, the city would look much less populated.
As for the king, he had disappeared. In the beginning, he had shut himself within his palace, dismissing most of the court and keeping only the necessary number of servants to tend him and the queen. As the days became weeks, though, and the disease was spreading uncontrollably, he fled to the open country along with the queen, Ann Boleyn and a few soldiers and servants. That was another sign of his indifference towards his people.
At the same time, I was not aware of what was happening outside of the city; whether the countryside and the smaller towns of England were free of contamination, I knew not. The only thing I cared about was that my friends and companions were safe and sound. I found Belfrigh and Aeron after a few days, searching in the city, a scarf always covering my mouth and nose. The two men had found shelter in the southern banks of Thames, which was considerably less populated, but still not free from the disease. When I explained them the situation, I persuaded them to find Eleanor and Agnese and flee the city, following the king’s example, for I was not the King of England and therefore bore no responsibility for every citizen’s wellbeing… But he? He should have stayed back in the city to raise the morale of his subjects.
As we roamed the city through the smoke and cries and coughing, we finally found Eleanor in a brothel. She was in a pitiful state, clothed in a white -turned grey from the smoke and filth- dress and had her head completely covered, save for the eyes. The place was dark and smelled strongly of vinegar and other purifying perfumes.
‘Agnese is dying,’ she said once she saw the three of us approaching.
‘Then you should not stay, Eleanor. You should leave this place at once,’ I urged her.
‘Edward, I can’t,’ she countered, her eyes red and swollen from the essences or from crying. ‘Look at her, look around you. They need someone to take care of them. To save them mayhaps!’ She placed a wet cloth on the forehead of the woman that laid on the nearest bed.
I looked down, and where I should have seen Agnese, I saw a woman only resembling her in some way, but could not have been her, for she looked almost unrecognisable. Her face was much thinner than it had been, with only flesh and bone left. She was also extremely pale; every drop of blood seemed to have left her body. Moreover, she was covered in sweat and was twitching every now and then.
I redirected my gaze to the rest of the room and saw similar situations, with more than fifty or so women lying on the floor and around a dozen others standing and moving around trying to tend them as Eleanor did.
‘Eleanor, it’s hopeless. Save yourself!’ I yelled. I would have dragged her across the room if that made her leave this Goddamned place.
‘Oh, this is what you do, isn’t? Saving yourself,’ Eleanor said lowering the cover on her mouth, so she could speak to me better. ‘Whilst you’ve been lurking in the king’s palace, drinking from silver goblets and sleeping in four-poster beds, we’ve been out there, struggling for our living,’ she continued angrily. ‘Do not forget who brought you here, Prince Edward. Maybe, your plan was just that, though. Is that why you’ve forsaken us?’
‘What
do you mean? I came back for you all!’
‘Look at you, Edward,’ she said pointing her hand on me. ‘You’re a prince now, aren’t you?’
Indeed, my attire could not compare to the others’, but what she was suggesting was enraging. ‘I did not come back to England for my benefit, Eleanor. You know that very well. I came to avenge my family. But now, you’re my family!’
‘Yet, we’ve not seen you for weeks, mate,’ Aeron said behind me startling me.
‘I… I came back for you,’ I stuttered.
‘Oh, quit whining all of ya, or there’ll be nothing left for us to whine about. We ought to leave this God-forsaken place,’ said Belfrigh this time.
‘’Twas God that sent the plague. Agnese warned me! We manipulated the Holy Father and his cardinals and brought God’s wrath upon the good Christian people,’ Eleanor claimed. ‘She knew that would happen, that’s why she was reluctant to assist you with your plan, that’s why she wished to betray you to the imperial army and have your heads…’ Eleanor was mumbling more to herself than to us, but the realisation of what she had just said hit me like a rock on the side of the head.
My eyes flashed. There will be consequences, Edward! I heard a voice inside my head saying. I closed my eyes momentarily and tried to focus.
‘You told me it was your plan from the beginning to persuade Philibert yourself before you bring us in,’ I countered Eleanor, still confused, my head aching.
‘I obviously lied, you fool,’ Elanor shouted now tears running down her uncovered cheeks. ‘When we were ready to give you up to Philibert and have you executed, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.’
‘Why? What held you back?’
‘I saw something in you, Edward. Something that reminded of myself, the resilience and determination. You were not willing to give up as I had in my past…’ It was the first time I heard her talk about her past. ‘But apparently, I was wrong. And now I have to help Agnese, I must save her,’ she added coughing.
‘Eleanor, you must leave, at once,’ I insisted looking upon her, she was now trembling. Was it already hopeless?
‘No, I’m just tired…’ she said staggering and then collapsed. ‘It’s your fault, Edward,’ she murmured feebly, whilst I was trying to raise her to her feet. ‘All your fault!’
CHAPTER VII
A Man’s Desire
The summer of 1528 was one of the longest and most dreadful of my entire life; that far at least... I am not afraid of being killed honourably in battle or die a natural death when I am old and feeble; my apprehension solely rests in occasions in which I am aware I have no control over my destiny, whatsoever. That was one of those times, and it made me question everything, even my own self, for we are nothing without God, and He could easily wipe us all from this Earth with a devastating plague. Yet how cruel is He? Punishing the innocent along with the sinners.
‘All men are sinners, Edward,’ Father Edmund used to say, and I agreed, all men. What of the women, though and the children? Are those sinners too? Do they deserve such a fate? I hardly thought so. After Eleanor’s contamination, I tried to hold on to that thought, that she did not deserve to die because of men’s sins, or more specifically, because of my own sins; for I could not bear it on my conscience to get the blame for yet another person’s death.
Agnese died that very morrow, shortly after Eleanor’s collapse, as had countless others before her. However, I could not have left Eleanor behind to perish in a place like that. We took her south-west, outside of the city. We travelled for a whole day, riding on stolen horses before exhaustion overpowered us and we had to stop. ‘We should make camp, we’re right off the city now. Should be safe,’ I said dismounting and then helping Eleanor down the saddle; she could barely stand on her own two feet.
‘We’re barely in Surrey, you turd,’ said Belfrigh irritated.
‘We cannot go farther,’ I countered. ‘She needs rest.’
‘She needs a deathbed, and her grave dug,’ Belfrigh answered angrily, still on his horse. ‘You should not have brought her with us. What if we’re contaminated too? You doomed us all.’
‘So be it, then! I could NOT leave her behind,’ I yelled at him. ‘And if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have known the extent and the danger of the disease, Belfrigh. You might still have been drinking in an alehouse.’
Belfrigh frowned but did not answer. He dismounted at last, and Aeron followed his example.
We made camp in a clearing in the woods. It seemed peaceful enough, and there was a clear lake ahead, where we could gather some water. The air was much more breathable in this area, and even the sun made a brief appearance.
After lighting a small fire, I placed Eleanor on the ground, on the softest spot I could find, making a small pillow out of fallen leaves. ‘Am I going to die, Edward?’ she whispered to me.
‘No, my beautiful Eleanor, you’re not,’ I reassured her, ‘I’m going to save you!’ I said kissing her gently on the forehead.
I spent the whole day on her side, trying to feed her water and some fruit that I had gathered, but she would not drink or eat much. She was cold, shivering and the only thing I had to cover her with was my travelling cloak. It seemed that the stages of the disease were progressing rapidly on her. First, pain, coughing, sweating, exhaustion and now the shivers. How would I hope to save her? I was not a physician, but a warrior. I laid next to her on the grass until she finally fell asleep. Hours passed, and our surroundings grew darker, whilst the twilight brought upon us a light drizzle. Then I decided to move her below a big tree to offer her some protection from the rain.
‘You have a good heart, lad,’ said Belfrigh, who had approached me in the dark, without my noticing. His face looked older than usual, full of trouble and sadness. ‘She didn’t mean what she said to you. It’s not your fault. She was devastated because of her friend. Do not take it personally. ’Tis her grief that speaks.’
I smiled at him feebly. ‘Maybe ’twas a mistake coming back, after all,’ I whispered, more to myself than to Belfrigh.
‘’Twas not, lad. You followed your instincts. To avenge your family, to bring justice upon those who destroyed your life,’ Belfrigh countered. ‘Should’ve done the same myself, years ago. Now it’s too late.’
‘What d’you mean?’ I asked confused. Belfrigh never spoke of his origins, and nobody knew what had driven him into exile.
‘Come, sit with me by the fire, Ed,’ he urged me.
‘Don’t want to leave her!’
‘She’s all right, she’s asleep. We’re close anyway.’
I nodded in acceptance and followed him a few paces afar, where Aeron sat on the ground, next to a small fire. He gave me an apple, to settle my hungry stomach and I sat down next to him to devour it. The drizzle stopped momentarily.
‘Are we going to discover the origins of Belfrigh the Valiant and maybe his connection with Captain Rogers?’ I asked him impatiently.
Belfrigh narrowed his eyes but then smiled. ‘I’ll have to start from the very beginning. Let me tell you a story, lads,’ he started, taking a deep breath. ‘’Tis the story of Sir John Howard of Surrey,’ he said smiling sadly.
Aeron and I exchanged startled looks.
‘John Howard? Who’s that?’ Aeron asked.
Belfrigh ignored him. Instead, he lowered his glare towards the flames, and when he started speaking again, his voice was eerie, as if coming from another world. ‘I was born here in Surrey, a few miles downhill to be exact, in the year of our Lord 1483. My family was, let us say, wealthy and powerful in this realm, but as my parents had a lot of children and me being the fifth-born, I was unlikely to receive any considerable inheritance by my lord father, save from the name which I could use to influence my fate in this world.
I was stubborn, though, and wished to make a name for myself. Thus, I tried to convince my father to send me to squire for a knight as I wanted to become one myself. In the beginning, he refused, told me that the meaning of being a kni
ght was different now and one needed to prove more like a man than to be chivalrous and defend the maids and their honour. Nevertheless, I pressured him, and eventually, he gave in.
I served as a squire for seven years, saddling horses, scrubbing armours and boots and preparing food for a man that was beneath me by birth but had proved much more in his life with his valiant deeds than I had. I might have been noble by birth, but my place in this kingdom had not been established yet…’
‘Wait, did you say you were a noble?’ I asked not believing my ears. ‘As in your family was… is aristocratic?’
Belfrigh did not so much as looked at me. He continued staring at the flames. Darkness had fallen now, and the rainfall resumed, bringing with it a chill into the air. I shivered without my cloak, but it was serving a better cause covering Eleanor and offering some basic protection against the night’s cold.
‘I finally proved myself to be worthy of the honour of knighthood,’ Belfrigh said as if he had not been interrupted. ‘Chivalry was in demise, and it’s almost dead now. Hardly anybody honours the code anymore. Yet I had my dreams to revive the ethos of being a knight. At the age of twenty-one, in 1504 I was knighted by the same knight I had been squiring for. I was made Sir John Howard of Surrey.’
Aeron and I exchanged puzzled looks.
‘What is your name again?’ Aeron asked, his ginger hair becoming wetter and wetter from the continuous now rain, whilst our little fire was being extinguished.
Belfrigh did not seem to pay attention to us, he might as well have been speaking to himself. ‘Once a knight, I travelled extensively throughout England, seeing the country at it really was, rough, full of scum and thieves and rapists, and abominable people who tried to cheat a man on every step of his way. I also enlisted and competed in jousting and melee tournaments; I even got myself my own squire. I quickly discovered I was quite competent in the sport. And after being crowned champion a few times, my reputation had started growing. Alas, ’twas not for long…’ He sighed and scratched his unshaved cheek absentmindedly.
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