Anthony, eight years old, in the bigger bed, sits up. ‘What is it, Mama?’

‘Nothing, nothing,’ I say. ‘Go to sleep.’

‘I heard singing,’ he says.

‘There is no singing,’ I say firmly. ‘Lie down and close your eyes.’

‘Lewis is really hot,’ he remarks, but does as he is told.

I go quickly to their bed. The two boys sleep together and as Anthony turns on his side I see that Lewis, my darling son, is flushed and burning up. It is his fever that has made their shared bed so hot. As I see him, and hear the insistent ringing music, I know that it is Lewis, my darling twelve-year-old son, who is dying.

The door behind me opens and Richard my husband says quietly, ‘It’s all secure in the house. Are the children well?’

‘Lewis,’ is all I can say. I bend to the bed and I lift him. He is limp in my arms, it is like lifting a dead body. Richard takes him from me, and leads the way to our bedroom.

‘What is it?’ he asks, laying the boy on our bed. ‘What is wrong with him? He was well during the day.’

‘A fever, I don’t know,’ I say helplessly. ‘Watch him while I get something for him.’

‘I’ll sponge him,’ he suggests. ‘He’s burning up. I’ll try to cool him down.’

I nod and go quickly to my still room. I have a jar of dried yarrow leaves and a bunch of the white blossom hangs from one of the beams. I set a pot on to boil and make a tea from the blossom and then steep the leaves in a bowl of the boiled water. I am fumbling in my haste and all the time the music is ringing in my head, as if to tell me that there is no time, that this is the song of mourning, that all this brewing of tea that smells of summer harvests is too late for Lewis, all I need for him is rosemary.

I take the drink in a cup and the soaking leaves in the jar and run back up to the bedroom. On the way I tap on the door of my lady in waiting and call, ‘Anne, get up, Lewis is sick,’ and hear her scramble inside.

Then I go into our bedroom.

Richard has stirred the fire and lit more candles but he has drawn the bed curtains so Lewis’s face is shaded from the light. Lewis has turned a1emI can see the rapid breaths as his thin little chest rises and falls. I put the mug and the jar on the table and go to the bedside.

‘Lewis?’ I whisper.

His eyelids flutter open at the sound of my voice.

‘I want to go in the water,’ he says, quite clearly.

‘No, stay with me.’ I hardly know what I am saying. I raise him so his head is against my shoulder and Richard presses the mug of yarrow tea into my hand. ‘Take a little sip,’ I say gently. ‘Come along. Take a little sip.’