For a few days, Joan sank into a fantasy life of a simple peasant girl living in a quaint village. No one spoke of the plague or her impending marriage. Life was just taken day by day.
She had to do more physical labour than she had ever dreamed of, but she felt accomplished helping make her own food and clean up for herself. Her simple dresses over a shift was easy enough for her to dress herself. She laughed at that. Most of her gowns her whole life required someone else to button or tie her into them or they were so heavy she couldn't lift them over her head. She hadn't even put on her own hose before. It was so freeing to take care of herself instead of a fancy doll to be dressed up and shown off.
The days were tough, but there was still time on occasion to ride their horses when the horses weren't needed for field work.
"People out here don't ride for leisure, they ride to tend to their fields. This farmer has been kind to us, so if he needs to use the horses for work, then the horses must work first," John explained.
"I know the feeling!" Joan said. "But even wary horses need to run for fun sometimes."
So even for brief trots, Joan got to ride a horse. Being in the country, isolated from society, unbound from propriety, she was free for the first time in her life.
When she wasn't helping her hosts with their daily chores, she was kissing John when they stole a moment alone. The farmer and his wife would likely not stop them if they wanted to kiss more openly, but John said it wasn't appropriate for an unmarried couple to share any affection.
"Then why do you kiss me at all?" Joan asked one evening after their hosts went to bed.
"Because I like to, and I know I won't be able to for long. You must keep your pure reputation when we are sent word we can leave Loremo," he said.
Joan looked outside into the field, seeing no civilization beyond the trees. "What if I don't want to leave?" she asked.
"You can't avoid your destiny, your highness," John said. He wrapped his arm around her. She knew he was right, but for a moment she didn't feel like a princess with an obligation.
"Say my name," she said.
"Joan. My darling Joan." He kissed her again before he told her the hour was late, and it was time for sleep.
Their utopia was brief.
Death had marked her as she lifted up the next morning her skirts to wash and felt the telltale boils on her inner thighs. Her hand reached down to touch one, the skin sore and darkened, but it was undeniable what it meant.
Her instinct was to hide them by covering herself back up and telling no one. Her first thoughts were of shame and of not wanting to worry John. It wasn't until a couple of hours that she started to feel dizzier and unable to stand that her mind started to grasp what was truly happening. She wanted to tuck away the boils and pretend they didn't exist, but even if she hid the external signs, the malignancy was already deep inside her.
It was more than an embarrassment that she developed these lumps. She was a princess of a powerful king. She was destined to be married and become a queen someday. Her life was planned out. This wasn't supposed to happen to her.
Despite pretending nothing was wrong, it quickly made her dizzy and her knees too weak to stand. She braced herself against a wall.
"I need to lie down," Joan said in the late morning.
John jumped up. "How are you feeling?"
"Not well," Joan said. She entered her small room and shut the door behind her.
"Joan, how not well? What are you feeling?"
He tried to open the door, but she pressed her body against it to prevent him from entering, "Please, leave me!" she cried out. She couldn't risk exposing him to what she had. She pictured Robert's swollen buboes and his cries of anguish.
He would not leave her. Joan lost her strength to block the door, with her head and body burning. She stripped off her gown so only her linen chemise remained, but she couldn't alleviate the burning sensation over her body. She had to lie down and could no longer bar entrance to the room.
It was how John discovered the boils had spread on her neck and her arms. They oozed pus and blood, with their putrid smell of fluids filling the room.
"Oh, no, Joan," he said, cupping a hand over his mouth.
"It hurts," she whispered.
There was no doctor in Loremo to send for, so he asked the farmer if there was a priest to bless her. The farmer vowed to seek one out but made no promises if any would be available with so many in need.
Once alone, John gripped her hand. She could barely keep her eyes open. "You must leave me. You could get it," she said.
"I will not leave you," he said firmly.
"I'm slipping," Joan said. Her head felt like it was being crushed in. She felt sleep calling to her, but sleep was a darkness that could be endless, so she begged her body to return to normal and stay in the present moment.
"Fight it, my darling, fight your body's curse, you must!" John demanded. "If you live, a priest could marry us, forget your father's war and alliance. We could live together here in France as a common husband and wife and live our own quiet life if you'd like, but you must live!"
"Yes," she whispered. A fever burned through her for the next several hours, and her abdomen ached like a heavy weight trapped her down. Never had she felt such torturous pain, but she begged herself to fight though she didn't know how. She wanted to be his wife and throw away what she'd been told to do. She wanted to live as the fearsome poison snaked through her veins.
She wanted to recant her sins in an effort to appease the Lord, but what had she ever done to deserve this? All she had ever wanted was her parents' love, but the Bible taught to honour thy mother and father. She had followed every rule ever told to her, and she was dying in an unknown town in a foreign country while Isabella remained spoiled and devious in her opulent castle. What God would do this to anyone? she wondered.
A priest was soon found who wore a mask over his face and stood only as far as the door entrance. He read her her last rites so that she was freed from any sin she had remaining on her conscience. He entered the room to anoint her forehead. "Through this holy anointing may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up, sweet child," he said.
"Amen," she said. She hoped it had worked. She felt no different. She felt no presence from God. As he turned to leave, she asked, "Father, can you marry us?"
The priest agreed, and with the farmer and his wife as witnesses, Joan declared John as her husband for as long as they both lived and he vowed the same.
"I take thee as my wife."
"I take thee as my husband."
She felt comforted to know she had a true love, no matter for how long. If she pulled through, it was a legal marriage no matter what signed agreements were made by higher powers. Joan Plantagenet was a girl who became Joan Bourchier.
But she felt weakness seep deeper into her heart. The fight was becoming too hard. Though her body was failing, she was able to make one choice for herself about her own life, and that she could say that she loved someone and someone loved her to ease some of the fears she had growing within her.
By nightfall, the chills shook her, and she had begun to vomit so much that there was nothing left to come up except blood. Her thoughts became more and more scattered and unfocused, losing her grip on time and place. The room was dark and growing darker, the chills embedding deeper into her.
An invisible, cold hand of a shadow gripped her by the neck. The shadow assassin, ruthless and quick, hovered tightly over her. Joan was delirious and no longer heard John's pleas or saw his form. She only saw the shadow, tall and looming, pressing down on her throat until breathing became strained.
She looked for Christ's light, but there was only cold, lonely darkness surrounding her. Every breath out took a little less back in until the shadow bent down and kissed her forehead and she could no longer fill her lungs with air but only blood and then there was nothing but stillness.
Death claimed Joan not two weeks after Robert Bourchier's death. She stood no chance, as the plague's strength had no precedence and no explanation on how to treat it. She never got to meet the prince she had been betrothed to for years, and she never reached her fifteenth year.
Her only comfort was a boy who she barely knew who told her he loved her, and that eased her transition from life. In the end, it didn't matter her title or her father. Death did not care that she was a princess.
She was just a scared young girl who died away from her family in a small unknown town in the late summer of 1348.
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Hi all! I know I just killed the main character but stick around while I wrap this story to a conclusion.