He’d given it readily, saying, “Where better for them to be than in here where we can best pray for them while we tend them?” and his willingness had helped talk around to it such as might have not seen the point, though even then Gilbey and his wife would have none of it. But there was none as missed them anyway and the nave was fair cramped as it was, with straw-stuffed mattresses brought from homes laid out in rows along both its sides for the children and barely space between for those who tended them to move and sit and sometimes lie down themselves.
How did the women take it, Simon wondered? The children’s fevered restlessness and crying. The smells.
The men came and went, seeing how things were, giving what help they could, which never seemed to be much; and such women as didn’t have sick children were in and out, bringing food and drink and taking fouled bedding away and bringing it back clean. That was what Cisily did when she wasn’t helping nurse his three, but Anne and others never seemed to leave. Nor the nuns either. That was something Simon wouldn’t have expected but there they were, the two of them, as tireless as the other women.
And today Colyn’s fever had broken just ere dawn. Simon made the sign of the cross on himself at the thankful thought. The boy would better now, and Anne had been able to fall asleep beside him, leaving Cisily to watch over Adam and Lucy, still dangerously deep in their own fevers but somewhat quieted from some brew Mistress Margery had given them, and Simon had dragged himself up from the joint stool where he had sat most of the night and come home because things there could not be left to Watt and Dickon without he at least see how they did and do some of his share, too.
But nonetheless here he sat, doing nothing, and with a heavy sigh for his own weakness, he braced hands on knees, readying to force himself up and on with the day.
And found, in a little while, that he hadn’t moved at all, was simply sitting with his eyes closed, nigh to drowsing.
He was that tired he couldn’t trust himself, seemingly.
Or maybe he just didn’t want to face everything there was to do because whenever he did that these past few days, he started to be afraid in different ways than simply for the children. There was the haying, first of all. The weather could not be better for it. Save for a little rain at early morning yesterday, there had only been hot, dry skies since manor court, even the nights bringing little ease from the heat and the dew drying fast off the grass in the mornings-but here they were, like to lose more of the last haying than they kept because with so many of the women seeing to the sick and others having to do double work at home because of it and Matthew gone, they were short of folk to go to the fields, even for the weeding that needed doing, let be the haying. And workdays owed the lord came before their own work so it would be his hay that was done first anyway and already it was less than two weeks to when Simon hoped to start the harvest. The first fine harvest there had looked to be after the string of bad years, and if they lost it, there would be dying in the village from more than mesels, and he was reeve, with it laid on him to make things come out well despite of everything, and he was afraid…
Simon slapped his hands down hard on his thighs, stinging himself to better wits. He was tired. That was all. Things were better than they had been for years, and they had seen their way through those and would through this.
And after all and come what may, none were dead yet.
Except poor old Matthew, who’d had naught but his burial after all, with Simon and some others digging a hasty hole-hardly big enough to be called a grave to Simon’s mind-in a corner of the churchyard that same day he’d come home, and a few people-and Mary’d at least not grudged Matthew that much of her time-had gathered for Father Edmund’s prayers over the box before the dirt had been shoveled back in. No wake or aught else, but Simon had vowed to buy his soul some Masses later, when there was time. But what in the name of St. Chad had Tom Hulcote been thinking of, coming up to him before they’d even cleaned the dirt off the shovels, to demand whether Simon was going to decide in his favor or not over the Woderove holding? Later, with time to think, Simon had reckoned it was Mary had put him up to it, but at the time all he had been was furious at him. Even now, Simon felt a hot shadow of that anger stir in him, along with the irk of knowing he was going to have to confess and do penance for it when confession time came round again.
Simon realized he had gone off on his thoughts again and pulled himself upright on the bench and then to his feet, to stand with fists planted on hips while he looked around the yard, trying to convince himself he was ready to get on with things. Thanks be to St. Roch that Dickon had been meseled years ago and so was safe from it this time and was doing all his share and more around the place with Watt.
But where were the two of them? Simon wondered, unable to bear the yard’s quiet now he was full awake again. Lucy wasn’t raising her voice somewhere around the place nor Cisily clattering a spoon against the morning porridge pot nor Anne telling someone to wash their hands if they thought they were going to eat at her table nor one of the boys teasing the other into mischief instead of to the morning milking. There was just this… terrible… quiet.
But it was past milking time, Simon told himself sternly, grabbing hold to something that didn’t make misery course through him. That was why there was no stamping or lowing from the byre; Watt and Dickon had already done the milking and Dickon taken the cows to pasture while Watt carried the milk to Ienet Comber who was seeing to it for Anne in return for a tithe of it, which was better than letting it go to waste for lack of anyone doing anything with it at all. But had they done the mucking out yet? If not, he would. See to his own and then to rest, he reckoned and started for the barn, only to almost be run into by Dickon flinging at full run from around the house corner. The boy swerved and stumbled, and Simon reached out and caught him back to balance. In return, Dickon, gasping, caught hold on him, as Simon said, “Hai, hold up,” and held him steady on his feet, seeing he was gray-faced under a sheen of sweat. “Are you gone daft, boy, running in this heat? You’ll make yourself sick and then where’ll we be, eh?”
Still clinging to him, Dickon panted out, “It’s Tom Hulcote! You have to come!”
‘Tom Hulcote be damned. You come over here and sit while I fetch you something to drink.“
‘He’s up by Oxfall Field,“ Dickon gasped, desperate to say the words. ”In the ditch there. Dead.“
‘Drunk, you mean,“ Simon said. ”Or down with the heat, maybe.“
“Dead,” Dickon sobbed. “All broken in. His head. All… all…” He couldn’t make the words come fast enough around his need to breathe and his tears, now it was safe to cry. “His head… it’s all… smashed in.”