was very animated, laughing often, making such expansive gestures with his wine cup that he was in danger of dousing the knights crowding around him.
“Is he drunk?” Baldwin sounded uncertain, for he could not remember ever seeing Hal totally in his cups.
“I think it is the fever more than the wine,” Will said, low-voiced, and then frowned at a loud burst of profanity coming from a corner where the routiers were dicing.
Seeing the direction of his gaze, Peter dropped his voice, too. “We scraped the bottom of the barrel for that lot,” he said grimly. “I tell you, Will, it grieves me to say this, but these past weeks I’ve felt as if I were riding with an outlaw band.”
Will looked at him intently. “Why have you stayed, then, Peter?”
“For the same reason that you came back, old friend.” After a moment, Peter said softly, “God help us all.” Although he smiled, it was not a joke, and Will and Baldwin knew it.
Will was up early the next morning, breaking his fast with a plentiful helping of soft cheese and sops of bread soaked in wine. He was soon surrounded by friends, and they began to tease him about his ravenous appetite, doing their best to act as if things were as they’d once been, back in those halcyon days when they’d been so proud to serve the young king, so proud to be known as his knights, and the world seemed full of such shining promise.
“My lord…” Hal’s squire materialized at Will’s elbow, asking for a private moment, and as soon as Will led him aside, Benoit blurted out that Hal had a bad night, not falling asleep until dawn was nigh.
“The doctor said I must give him a potion of comfrey root and costmary every two hours, but I have been unable to rouse him, and I do not know what to do. Should I let him sleep?”
Will knew what the boy really wanted-someone to assume a responsibility that was too heavy for such narrow shoulders. “I’ll come up to his chamber with you and see how the king is faring this morn,” he said, and Benoit’s face glowed with the intensity of his relief. As they mounted the stairs, Will assured the squire that Hal was on the mend, and he was convincing for he believed it himself. Hal was young and healthy and there was no reason to think he would not soon recover.
The chamber was stifling, so hot that Will strode over to the window and flung the shutters wide. His nose wrinkling as he breathed in a fetid, rank odor, he crossed swiftly to the bed. The sheets were soaked in sweat and the stench grew stronger. “My lord, you must wake up,” Will said firmly. When he got no response from the man in the bed, he touched Hal’s shoulder and drew a sharp breath, for his skin was searing to the touch. “My liege… Hal!”
Hal mumbled incoherently, turning his head away from the light, and Will reached for the sheet, pulled it back. Benoit had followed him to the bed, and cried out at the sight of the blood and feces, his face twisting in horror. Will swung around quickly and grasped his arm.
“You must not panic, Benoit. I need you to keep your head. Do you understand me?” And when the boy nodded, he released his grip, saying as calmly as he could, “Good lad. Now I want you to fetch the doctor straightaway.”
Benoit nodded again and fled. Will could hear the thudding of his feet on the stairs. Once he was sure that help was on the way, he leaned over the bed again. “The bloody flux,” he whispered. “Ah, Hal…” But his throat had constricted, making further speech impossible.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
June 1183
Martel, Limousin
Hal had been blessed with bountiful good health as well as beauty and had only vague memories of childhood illnesses. He was dimly aware now that he was very sick. He’d drifted far from familiar shores, his dreams shot through with swirling hot colors and hazy forebodings. He wanted only to sleep, yet people would not let him alone. They kept poking and prodding him, swathing his body in cold compresses, trying to get him to swallow bitter- tasting liquids that he did not want to drink. He’d thrashed about in bed, seeking to evade these unwelcome ministrations, but they persevered and he was too weak to resist.
Delirium was not unlike drowning, for he was caught up in a riptide carrying him farther and farther from reality. And when he finally regained consciousness, he had to fight his way back to the surface, gasping for breath as he broke free of the feverish currents dragging him down. The light was unbearably bright, even after he filtered it through his lashes. Gradually the room came into focus. Two of his friends, Robert de Tresgoz and Peter Fitz Guy, were slumped on a bench by the bed, and his squire Benoit was seated cross-legged in the floor rushes; he wondered why they all looked so miserable. When he opened his mouth to ask them, though, the words that emerged from his throat were so slurred that even he could not understand them.
The sound was enough to jerk their heads up, and the next moment, they were gathered by the bed, all talking at once. They were not making much sense to Hal. Benoit kept murmuring “God’s Grace” as if he had no other words, and Peter seemed to be blinking back tears. But Robert was acting the most strangely, wanting to know if Hal could recognize him. Hal thought that was a very odd question, for he’d known the Norman knight for most of his life. He opened his mouth again, meaning to assure Rob that he was too ugly to forget, but he was surprised to discover that speaking demanded more energy than he could muster. When he flinched away from the sunlight flooding the bed, one of them hurried to close the shutters, and the chamber was soon a scene of joyous confusion as other men crowded in.
Hal felt a great relief at the sight of Will, sure all would be well now that the Marshal was here. He was not as pleased to see the doctor, looming over the bed like an avenging angel, for he recognized the man as his chief tormentor, the one who’d kept pouring vile potions down his throat, who would not go away.
“God be praised, the fever is down,” the doctor announced, but he sounded so triumphant that Hal thought he was claiming more credit than the Almighty for that benevolence. Doctors were like that, he knew. It was always their doing when a patient recovered and God’s Will when he did not. He could not summon up the effort to tease the physician, though; since when did talking tire a man out so? He was finding it hard to stay awake, but he was loath to slip back into those disquieting dreams, and when his eyes met Will’s, he silently entreated the older man to keep vigil whilst he slept. When Will brought a stool close to the bed and sat down, he smiled. Will had understood. Bless him, Will always understood.
When Hal awoke hours later, he was disappointed that he was still as weak as a newborn cub. He must have been at death’s door, for certes. He was astonished to learn that this was Sunday; he’d lost three full days of his life! He remembered some of it now-the sharp pains in his belly, the endless bouts of diarrhea, the nausea. No wonder he felt as flat as a loaf of unleavened bread. He’d have to be patient as he got his strength back, and patience came no easier to him than it did to the rest of his family.
His stomach was not ready to cooperate, though, and when they tried to feed him egg yolks mixed with cumin and pepper, he promptly vomited them up. He could not even keep wine down, and the doctor had to settle for mixing galingale and yarrow in spring water, then feeding it to Hal one small spoonful at a time. At least he was no longer passing clotted blood, doubtless because he had nothing left to void. But he sounded like a croaking crow and looked like a corpse waiting to be sewn into his shroud, complaints his friends were happy to agree with. He thought they were much too eager to regale him with accounts of his suffering, gleefully describing how he had been “sweating like a Southwark cut-purse caught by the Watch” and “spewing your guts out” and “shitting a river of blood.”
When the doctor made ready to bleed him, that brought back another unpleasant memory, and he grumbled that “I dreamed I was stabbed by a lunatic with a knife, but it was really a leech with a lancet!” The knights all laughed, but the doctor ignored his protests and deftly opened a vein in his arm, explaining needlessly that it was done to drain away the noxious humors that caused fever.
Knowing full well that bloodletting was an approved method of treating numerous ailments, Hal thought the doctor sounded like a prideful buffoon, but it was probably not wise to vex a man with a blade in his hand and so he submitted grudgingly to the treatment, although he noticed that he seemed much more light-headed after the
