Plague

by C. C. Humphreys

  The smile that always came at this sound of home went as he turned the last corner into Cock Alley and paused before their dwelling. We’ll have to return to a single room and a poorer parish, he thought, if I don’t take another thief soon.

  They climbed to the first floor. She was awake, of course. One girl at her breast, two more round her feet. Ten years after Josiah, certain that God had withdrawn that blessing, Grace arrived. Then Faith, then Imogen. Blessings in abundance, and two more on the way.

  “Success, Pitman?” Bettina asked.

  He shook his head, too tired to speak. She sighed, and took the children into the only other room. The door closed softly on their son’s renewed weeping.

  Pitman walked toward his horsehair sleeping chair, then went past it, to the book on the window ledge. He drew Cock’s pistol from his pocket and set it down before lifting the Bible. It fell open to his touch, as it always did, to the same page, for he had had this copy since his time with the Ranters, that mad sect of drinkers, cursers, smokers, and dancers he and Bettina had run with for a time after the wars. Ranters were much taken with this book especially, for the Revelation of St. John the Divine was the most sacred of all texts. Indeed, it supported one of their fundamental beliefs, for it spoke of the imminent end of the world. With that so near, the Ranters reasoned, why face it wearing clothes?

  Revelation 12:12.

  As soon as he traced the verse he knew it, as he knew many of them, by heart: “For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.”

  He ran his hand over his shaven head and stared at the window before him, not seeing through it. He had something else in his pocket, but he was too tired to remember what it was.

  THE BUTCHER

  When he walked into the yard, there was a crowd around the well. He did not wish to wait and he never had to, for as soon as he was spotted, the cries began: “Why, look! Look! It’s Abel Strong!” In a moment, they were all pressing round him. They knew not to jostle him, but their hands hovered near his smock.

  He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “It’s there, good neighbours,” he said. “Just inside the arch.”

  He continued to the well as the crowd ran past. Behind him, the scrapping began for the bounty he’d brought. Meat fell from his cart to the ground but was snatched up, wiped down. Nothing ever went wasted in Carrier Court.

  Strong smiled as he lowered the well bucket, hauled up the water. They loves a butcher in St. Giles, he thought. No one minds how much water I pours over me. No one says nothing. He closed his eyes and let the cool liquid flow over himself.

  The blood from the shambles covered him. So he kept dipping, hauling, pouring. The red water ran off him, onto the flagstones, into the gutter channel. A baby sat beside that, abandoned while the meat rush was on; she laughed at the flood, trying to stem it with skinny fingers.

  As Abel scrubbed his smock with the stiff brush he always carried, he ran over the words again, trying to make them into a song. He’d always liked songs; they was easy to remember. Some of these words was hard to fit, though. Big words. Each had a colour and he matched them as he said each name.

  “ ‘The first foundation was ja-sper,’ ” he sang. “ ‘The second stone is sa-ph-ire. The third, that’s chalc-chalc-chalc-e-dony.’ ” He paused. He liked the sound of that one. “ ‘A chalc-chalc-chalc-e-dony’s quartz,’ ” he continued. “ ‘Could be gre-een, could be blu-ooh. Could be a tiger’s eye, aye, aye.’ ”

  He liked that too. The tiger was a fierce beast, it was said. Could tear a carcass apart swifter than he could, and he was as swift as a butcher got. Perhaps I’m part tiger, he thought, and laughed. The baby looked up, laughed too. She’d found some scrap in the gutter and waved it about. He waved his brush back at her.

  A last bucketful, a final good scrub, and he was done. Clean and shivering, still dripping, he walked to the stairwell. He passed children on the stairs, sprawled with kittens and puppies. He frowned. He didn’t like animals. Perhaps it was his trade. He hated cats special.

  He hadn’t noticed her in the mob, but he heard her following him up the stairs. She caught up at their door. “ ’Allo, Little Spot,” he said, not looking. He heard her giggle as he pushed into the room.

  “That’s Dot, not Spot—you know tha’.” The girl followed him in and he saw that she had the baby from the gutter on her hip. She set her down by another on the floor and the two babes began to struggle for whatever the one still held.

  He waited for the question that always came: “Save somethin’ special f’r us, did ya, Mr. Strong?”

  He made a little show of searching under his apron. Then he pretended to startle as he slowly pulled out a bone, watching her eyes widen. “A mutton leg,” he said, handing it to her, observing her bend a little under its weight. “Straight in the pot, now.”

  He and Little Dot, her two sisters and their mother shared one of maybe five rooms in the whole of Carrier Court with a fireplace that still worked. Some of the other rooms held ten—fifteen people, if the inhabitants was Irish or gypsy. Mrs. Queek, Dot’s ma, always had pots on the go, cooking for others. The coins from that, and the little he handed over each week, kept them separate from the crowd.

  Dot stepped past the two babies on the floor, lifted a lid on a cauldron near as big as her and crammed in the haunch. “Ma, you should see what Mr. Strong ’as brung us,” she called. “It’s an ’ole sheep.”

  She laughed again. But all that came from the other side of the hanging blanket was a groan. Dot’s smile vanished. “Our ma’s not well, Mr. Strong. Not well.”

  “Is she not?”

  Another blanket separated out his side of the room. He stepped behind it now. Nothing much there except the cot, a basin, other clothes hung on a hook.

  He stared at them, till her voice came. “Are you ready for us, Mr. Strong?”

  “Wait.”

  He pulled the apron over his head, hung it on a hook. The room was warmer than most because of the fire, but still he shivered in his wet clothes. Still, he wasn’t ready to change. Not quite yet.

  He sat down on the cot. “Come,” he said.

  A hand appeared, her pale face above it. “Will ya ’ave a look at ’er, Mr. Strong? ’As a terrible headache, she says. And the sweats.”

  “Afterwards.”

  She moved closer to him. “You’re all wet.”

  “Don’t matter.” He patted his thighs.

  She giggled, then sat on him. “Ooh,” she said, wriggling a little. “Lucky the fire’s goin’.” She put one arm around his shoulder. With her free hand, she pushed a curl of wet hair from the forehead she then began to stroke. “Which one?” she asked.

  “You know which one.”

  He closed his eyes. She began to sing:

  The water is wide, I cannot cross o’er,

  And neither ’ave I wings to fly.

  Give me a boat that can carry two,

  And both shall row, my love and I.

  The singing was high-pitched, trembling, sweet enough, even if she pronounced the words like any girl from St. Giles. Tiny grimy fingers continued to stroke his forehead. She sang the verse three times, just as he liked, and then she sang, “ ‘I leaned my back up against a young oak,’ ” so he could lean his back against the wall, while her hand on his face became another’s. One that was not grimy at all but clean, gentle to touch. And the voice?

  The voice also became another’s.

  “Mama,” he breathed, seeing her, though he did not open his eyes. Her auburn hair flowed over her shoulders within her nightdress. Her dark eyes filled with love as she sang the next verses. For him. Only for him.

  I leaned my back up against a young oak,

  Thinking he were a trusty tree,

  But first he bended and then he broke,

  Thus did my love prove false to me.

  O love is handsome and love is fine,

  Bright as a jewel when first it’s new,


  But love grows old and waxes cold,

  And fades away like the morning dew.

  “ ‘And fades away like the morning dew.’ ” He sang with her on that last repeated line. And though his mind cleared as the song ended and he knew where he was, still he wanted to linger with her. “Again,” he whispered. “Sing it again.”

  But someone was calling them away. He could see the sadness in her eyes as she rose from his lap. “Don’t go, Mama,” he said, reaching out. “Don’t go to him.”

  “I have to.” Her cool, clean fingers were on his lips now. “I must obey him.”

  “I ’ave to,” she said.

  Not her. The other had returned. He opened his eyes. Little Dot was standing at the blanket.

  “I ’ave to, Mr. Strong. Sorry, but Ma needs me. I’ll be back, don’t you fear.”

  She left. The blanket dropped back. He heard retching, then groans from beyond it. He stood, stripped off his wet clothes, dropping the rough shirt, the hand-knitted stockings and the wool drawers to the floor. Dot’s ma would get to them in time. They would always be pink from his trade, he didn’t expect white, but lye took out the worst of the stains. She’d scrub ’em, hang ’em on the hedgerows along Tottenham Court Road to dry. Ready for his next time in the shambles. Sick or not, she wouldn’t want to let him down.

  He dressed. The feel of these fresh clothes was good. Nothing fancy. Dry. Better made.

  A hand reached round the blanket. “I’m back.”

  “Come, then.”

  She came, glanced up at him for a moment, then slipped little fingers under his doublet and began to hook it nimbly to the breeches.

  He gazed down at her. Fleas crawled in her hair. Finishing the last hook, she spoke again. “Will you look at ’er now? She chucked, but I cleaned it up.”

  Silk on skin. Scratches on a shoulder, where a woman had raked him. Fleas on a girl’s head. He felt dizzy, swayed, steadied himself against the wall. “I will,” he replied.

  She left. He scratched at the grey stubble on his head, then set his broad-peaked hat upon it, covered himself with a grey cloak, tied a scarf around his neck and stepped around the blanket. “Let’s have a look,” he said, passing between Mrs. Queek’s crawling babies, now playing with kittens on the floor. Another litter? There were more cats in Carrier Court than rats. Toeing one aside, he put his hand upon the other blanket. “Mrs. Queek,” he called, “may I enter?”

  No reply. He tugged the blanket aside.

  Little Dot is right, he thought. Her mother is not well. The eyes, which flickered open as he bent over her, were sunk deep in her fever-red face. “I’m sick, sir,” she whispered. “Me bones are cold, but I’m sweatin’. And me ’ead—” she clutched it “—feels like someone ’as knives in there.”

  He had no need to bend any closer. She had a stench to her that he’d smelled before, years before. Her blouse was open—for the sweats, he supposed—and he glimpsed a small oval mark on one vast breast.

  He knew it was not a bruise.

  He was still holding the hanging blanket. Stepping back, he let it drop before retying the scarf around his lower face. Then he reached into a pocket and pulled out a silver half crown. Dot’s eyes went wide. He stooped to her, holding it up. “You know the apothecary’s next to the Maid in the Moon?” She nodded. “Run there and buy a bottle called Dragon’s Water. Give it your ma. Also buy some wormwood. That’s to burn on your grate.”

  “Yes, sir. Oh, thank you, sir.”

  She grabbed the coin, but he did not let it go, looked at the girl over it. She might be lucky, he thought. If she is not, what will I do? He looked a moment longer, then released the half crown, realizing that he knew. In St. Giles, there would always be a little girl willing to learn songs for meat.

  He turned at the door and spoke through his scarf. “Oh, and Little Dot?” he said.

  “Yes, Mr. Strong?”

  “Kill all the cats.”

  THE ACTRESS

  May 10, 1665

  When the prompter’s whistle blew, everyone upon the stage froze.

  Is it me? Sarah thought. Oh God, let it not be me again!

  She looked at the other two players. Lucy Absolute’s mouth was already twitching, about to rise into the smile that would inevitably lead to the giggles to which she was so prone; while John Chalker, her John, her rock on the platform and beyond it, was staring at her, the huge and bushy eyebrows scarce seen in nature but affixed to emphasize his character’s bluster now joining and parting like a signal whose import was obvious. It’s your line, they flashed. For the love of Christ, speak it!

  She felt that familiar vacuum in her stomach. She looked out where she had just been seeking … what? The one gaze among so many that had unnerved her with its intensity. She could not find it there, nor rediscover the line she had lost in the faces that swam in the pit below her or shone like stars in the galleries above. The audience was rapt, set up by the prompter’s whistle and keen to know which player had failed and in what manner this player would redeem themself.

  She glanced left—a mistake, for she looked into the royal box where the king himself leaned forward. She had learned over her three years of playing that Charles was perhaps the swiftest appraiser in the house.

  A few seconds. A lifetime. Oh hell, she thought, forcing her gaze from the king. Open your jaws and swallow me.

  A last, desperate glance at her husband. John Chalker was renowned for his skill at extemporizing. But even he failed her now.

  “ ‘Good my lord. You tax me with ingratitude.’ ”

  There it was. Her line, sure. Clearly and precisely delivered by Williams, the prompter, from his nest, behind one wing, on which was painted a canalscape of Venice. As the stridently Welsh voice seemed to emerge right from the middle of the Rialto Bridge, some of the audience laughed, some hooted while all waited to see the culprit who would claim the line.

  “ ‘Good my lord. You tax me with ingratitude.’ ” Sarah declaimed, and discovered she knew what followed next. “ ‘When you are the one who should be scolded.’ ”

  And on she went. There was laughter, a touch of applause, which she acknowledged with a curtsy. In his box, the king leaned back. And that other gaze, the one she’d sought and in the seeking lost her line? She felt it lift from her, like a pressing hand raised from her neck.

  Scene done, they swept from the stage. Thomas Betterton, the company’s leading actor, muttered, “Distracted by a beau, Mrs. Chalker?” as he passed her. But John drew her deeper into the offstage darkness and whispered, “What’s amiss, love? That’s the third time tonight.”

  Amiss? Where in the catalogue do I begin? The rumours from their old parish, with the first houses daubed in red warning? The murders of the member of Parliament and his family, brutal even for London, which had set the town on a roar? No. She’d settle for the most recent fear. “He’s back,” she said.

  Her husband stiffened. “Did you see him? Can you describe him to me?”

  “No. He’s in a box, I think.”

  “Royal?”

  “No. He …” She hesitated. “He is returned, that’s all I know. His gaze unnerved me.”

  Her husband’s two false eyebrows contracted into one. Even in the ill-lit shadows beyond the onstage candles, she could see his face flush dark. “You find ’im out, Sar,” he growled, “and I will ’ave words.”

  She took his hands in hers, drew his fingers to her mouth for a kiss. “John, it is my fancy alone. He, whoever he is, has done nothing but stare. I am an actress. I live to be stared at.”

  “Yet this is different. I’ve never seen you so thrown off.”

  “I know. I—” She broke off. Her husband’s protection was the reason she had been able to rise as an actress in the Duke’s Company without first lying back, the usual route to favour. But his temper sometimes made him punch before he thought. It had cost them before. “He may never approach. This may be nothing.”

  “Well, if it becom
es something—”

  “I will tell you.” She released his hands. “Are you not on?”

  “Aye, and soon. I need my coat. Sir Fidget cannot walk out during High Mall without a superfluity of French lace.” He’d returned to his stage voice, as noble as any earl’s, but now resumed his normal voice—as hers, as most players’ from the streets not far distant from where they played, “I mean it, Sar. If you sense ’im among that crowd of fops and debauchers that will plague us after the play, you point ’im out to me. Never fear—I’ll be most subtle. I’ll dog ’im far from the playhouse before we ’ave our chat.”

  “Go on, you great goose,” she said, kissing him, shoving him away.

  He went. And she must too. The finale approached in three scenes and required a change of dress. Yet, for a moment she did not stir. Out there in the gloom, someone was still watching for her. She was not as gifted as her mother had been, the most cunning of the Cunning Women in their parish of St. Giles in the Fields. Betsy, on her best day, could probably have peered into the surface of a coffee cup and described the watcher’s clothes. Sarah was used to being admired. Indeed, she craved it—the men’s lust, the women’s envy, a monarch’s smile. But this regard had been different.

  Shivering, she went to change her dress.

  It was larger than usual, the mob that crowded in after the performance, for the king had stayed. The party had been forced to spread from the smaller area behind the stage onto the platform itself and down into the pit. The musicians, persuaded to take up their instruments again, had the more drunken in the crowd gathered before them, swaying to the notes, sometimes breaking into a jig or a sarabande as the tempo required. The girls who sold oranges were also there, and their busy hands moved under cloaks, provoking, enticing some men away to darker corners or even the back alley, where they could more discreetly conclude the full transaction. Some of the sisters of the stage, if not so brazenly conducting business now, were certainly setting themselves up for trade later.