Plague

by C. C. Humphreys

  “Oh, do you speak of the usurer’s daughter?”

  “I do. In Shakespeare’s play. A Merchant in Venice, was it not?”

  “Indeed I was her. But in play only. I am not Jewish.”

  She had embodied the role so utterly, her movements, her voice. Truly it would have been beyond wonderful if she had been a member of God’s tribe. Like all the Saved, he revered the Jews and their holy books. But it did not matter. Nothing did now. Nothing except her and him.

  He was surprised to discover he’d closed his eyes; opened them to apologize—and found that she was no longer looking at him. He followed her gaze, saw it settled on a young man gaudily dressed, laughing in a group of similarly clad fops and fools.

  What was in her eyes now? Was it lust? Did she desire this youth? This damned debaucher who would visit whores, sicken with their diseases, then visit her and pox her too, killing her with his fouled desire?

  “Madam,” he barked. “Madam,” he said again, more quietly when she’d turned to him again. “You are distracted.”

  “Momentarily, sir. I need to speak most urgently with the Earl of Rochester and I thought him about to leave.”

  So the dog had a name. He would remember it. “Let me caution you, Mrs. Chalker. Have nothing to do with such a sinner. He will seek only to corrupt you, to infect you.”

  “Sir, you misunderstand.”

  He did not wish to hear her excuses. He’d always known she was an actress. To raise her from her fallen state would require a little education. And she must be saved; he saw that even more clearly now. Saved from men like his own father, who’d brought his sin, his foulness, back to the marital bed. To his mother. A man like this Rochester.

  He need not linger. There was but one thing left to do. He pulled a little velvet bag from his cloak pocket. “I have a small tribute for you. It would gratify me if you would accept it.”

  She took the bag somewhat hesitantly, squeezed out its contents. Drew in a sharp breath.

  A large sapphire rested in her palm, exquisitely cut facets glimmering in the candlelight. She shook her head in wonder, and he smiled. He did not mind that she was so easily impressed. It would take time to remove the actress from the woman. He would spend that time.

  She returned the jewel to the pouch. “No,” she said, thrusting it back, “I cannot accept it.”

  This was not possible. She must have misunderstood. “Madam,” he said, grabbing her wrist, “I insist.”

  She cried out in pain, jerked her hand from his grip. “No! I am a married woman, Lord Garnthorpe. I cannot be bought.”

  He was aware now of others looking. One of the king’s party had turned. He whitened, feeling the chill surge from his stomach into his chest. He hated this public scrutiny. The cold reached his head. Another whiteness there. Blue white, but not like her eyes. Like a corpse stripped on a battlefield, left out on a winter’s night.

  Did someone murmur his name?

  He looked at her hand holding out the pouch, looked up into her eyes—and saw the pleading there. Not here, they said. Not now. Later and alone. “No words, madam. I understand completely. Later. Alone.”

  “Sir,” she began.

  But he’d taken the gem, turned about, descended to the pit and marched through the playhouse doors onto Portugal Street. A few paces further and he was on Lincoln’s Inn Fields. There he lost himself swiftly in the crowds.

  It took him longer to lose his smile.

  At first she could not breathe, as if the hand she’d felt earlier upon the stage on the back of her neck now squeezed the front of it. Then someone took her elbow again.

  “Heh oops, and steady there,” came a familiar voice. “Was your lover’s offer so high that it causes you to faint? This is what comes of obeying your commandment to let you flirt with gallants, to the advancement of your career.”

  Her husband’s tone was teasing, light enough to lift the weight that pressed her. “Oh, John,” she murmured, and was the next instant in his arms.

  “What’s this?” He held her tight for a moment, then drew back to study her face. “It is not like my Sar to be so discomfited. Nor in such a public setting.” They both glanced around. The king was still upstage in private conversation with Lord Clarendon, the gallants yet at their dice. Even so, she squeezed the arms that held her, stepped away. “What’s amiss, love? Did your admirer affront you?”

  “It was him.”

  John stiffened. “The one you’ve felt?”

  “Aye. He made himself known to me.”

  “Did he?”

  “Ah!” she cried out. John had taken her hand, the same one the lord had gripped. She pulled it from his fingers and rubbed at the wrist, a livid red mark upon it.

  “Did he do that?” On her nod, he flushed. “By Christ, I’ll … where is he now?”

  She grabbed his arm as he made to go. “Nay, John, do not.”

  “Leave me! He must be corrected.”

  “For this? John, you spent a month in Clink last year for ‘correcting’ those two wherrymen.”

  “And would again when they presume to ‘know’ my wife.”

  “This is different. He is a nobleman.”

  John ceased pulling away. “He told you his name?”

  “Aye. It was …” She had to close her eyes to remember it. For a moment, all she could see were his eyes, the frigid steel of them, like an unsheathed blade. “Garnthorpe.”

  “Lord Garnthorpe?”

  “You know him?”

  “Of him. He was one of those rare men—a baron who fought for Parliament in the late wars. He was especially brutal, so it was said.”

  “And was he not punished afterwards?”

  “Punish all who were brutal and every tree in England would stand as gallows.”

  Something had come into his eyes. Something, she realized, akin to what she’d seen in Garnthorpe’s when she’d spurned his gift. Unlike many, her John never talked of his time as a soldier. But she’d held him when nightmares sweated him. She ran fingers over his temple. “Let him be, love. You cannot hurt every man on account of my fears.”

  He caught her hand. “Well, I know where to find him if he troubles you again.”

  “In the House of Lords? Even you would not venture there.”

  “In a meeting house.” He tipped his head. “Garnthorpe is known for something other than his cruelty. He’s a Fifth Monarchist. You know them?”

  “We did that play that mocked them, remember? Cutter of Coleman Street. They await the Apocalypse, do they not? All other monarchies overthrown by the return of King Jesus, whose kingdom shall last forever?”

  “That’s them.”

  “I thought they were all dispersed. Was there not a rebellion?”

  “Aye, Venner’s, four years ago. Easily crushed. But the Fifth Monarchy Men did not vanish entirely. And some do more than wait for the End of Days, which they maintain is fast approaching.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because a former comrade, Blenkinsop, is one of them. He’s a tailor in the City now, where he and his kind still meet. If I want to track down his lordship, it will not be hard.” That look came into his eyes again. “And those streets are mine.”

  She lifted his hand to her lips. “Do nothing, husband, I pray you,” she said. “My mind just runs on dark fancies. ’Tis these times perhaps.” Before John could reply, a voice interrupted. “Ah, the Chalkers,” said King Charles, who had come downstage, “in love again upon this platform, just as you were earlier upon this same platform. Is life a play and a play always life for you?”

  The couple parted. He bowed; she curtsied. “Damn me, what is that famous phrase of Shakespeare’s?” the king continued. “It speaks to this far better than I can.”

  The Earl of Rochester struck a pose: “ ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.’ ”

  “Ah, youth! What it is to have a memory!” Charles nodded. “And did I detect, Mrs. Chalker, a c
ertain lack in yours tonight?”

  “Your Majesty is as keen as ever.”

  “Ungallant is what I am for alluding to it. ’Twas the fault of the play. This piece of Brereton’s was a trifle, scarcely worth the remembering. Have you not something more substantial on the way?”

  “Indeed, Sire,” replied John. “We present a new work by Mr. Dryden next week.”

  “Dryden, eh? He can be good. Though all that praise he heaped upon the Commonwealth still rankles me.” He sniffed. “What do you assay in it?”

  “I play Leonardo, a soldier.”

  “Ah!” The king came closer, bending slightly, for he was taller even than the player. “Were you not in several battles during the late wars?”

  “Some. I was at Cropedy Bridge and Edgehill for your father. And I was with you, Sire, at Worcester, in ’51.”

  “Were you, indeed. We lost some brave men that day.” The king’s eyes went misty. “And I my one chance to retake my throne by force of arms.” His eyes cleared, though one, as Sarah had noted when once this close previously, had a cast and so never quite shut. “Well, we look forward to seeing it played. And I will provide a handsome extra purse if I think the soldiery, what, martial enough?” He turned. “Yet now if all men and women are merely players, how much more so a king?”

  “ ‘When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.’ That’s a king!” declared Rochester. “King Lear.”

  “An unfortunate choice, given his fate,” observed Charles. “While youth can become tiresome when they know everything.”

  Rebuked, the earl stepped back.

  “Come, I must to another of my stages. Gallants away!” With a sweep worthy of a playhouse king, Charles and his entourage descended from the stage and exited through the theatre’s front doors. The crowd waiting outside gave him a cheer.

  As he paused to acknowledge it, Sarah, who had been following close, plucked the young earl by the sleeve near the entrance. “My lord, a moment, if you will.”

  Rochester turned, tossing his long auburn locks. They framed an angular face that would be more handsome were it not for lips that looked swelled by too much kissing, and a nose large enough to pass for French. “Yours ever, Mrs. Chalker.”

  “Charmed, sir. Though I’d rather you were ever my friend’s.”

  “Ah, Sweet Lucy. How I wish that I had time to visit her now. Her curtsy—’slid, it did provoke me!” He sighed. “Alas, His Majesty has demanded another bout at Pell Mell with me. He has not forgiven me for taking a purse of crowns from him last week.”

  He turned to leave, but she caught his arm, held it. “She would most especially speak with you, my lord. A matter of urgency.”

  “Urgency? The king’s business is urgent, a player’s mere impatience.” He jerked his arm free. “Tell her I may visit her later. If His Majesty can spare me.”

  Charles had entered his carriage with his first minister. As it moved away, a calèche drew up and Rochester made for it without another glance at Sarah. The earl, she thought, does not appear as much in love as Lucy believes.

  Her husband was beside her. “Angry, love? Not with me, I trust.”

  “I am angry with young and careless men.”

  “Which excuses me on both counts.” Someone shouted his name and he waved. “I am off to the Shoe Lane cockpits, sweetheart. Unless you are still upset?”

  “Nay, go. I have my part to con again—as His Majesty graciously pointed out. Don’t lose too much money.”

  “I?” He bent for a swift kiss, then joined his friends, a laughing group that merged into the larger surge. Only when he had disappeared did she realize she’d forgotten to tell him about the sapphire. Its price would have bought him a hundred fighting birds. Yet she had spurned it. Now she wondered why she had. Gifts were part of a game every actress played with rich patrons. A game that need not always end with the actress facing a wall, her skirt above her hips.

  Then she remembered exactly what had made her refuse the gem: the look in Lord Garnthorpe’s eyes. Shivering, she went back into the theatre.

  THE MONSTROUS COCK

  May 15, 1665

  Of the many things William Coke regretted in his life, the bargain he’d made with Dickon was certainly one. And he had never regretted it as much as he did that morning.

  When he’d first discovered the orphan starving in his doorway, after two weeks given to the necessities of food, clothes and warmth, he’d thought that it might calm the lad if he learned to read. Words, like music, could soothe, it was said, and Coke had assumed, even though the Bible had not impressed him much despite his parents’ and his tutors’ urgings, that the holy book might tame some of Dickon’s wilder jerks and lunges. But the boy remained uninterested; indeed, could not be made to sit even for a minute to trace with his finger the formation of the letter I. Coke had tried a basic grammar primer. Dickon had ripped out page after page by too forceful tracing, reducing it swiftly to so much “primer” for their hearth—a joke Dickon laughed at heartily when explained to him. Finally, in desperation, Coke had made his offer.

  “Here’s a sixpence, Dickon. Go to the booksellers in the crypt of St. Paul’s and choose yourself a text you’d like to study.”

  The boy had whirled off—and returned as excitedly and fast. “Th-this!” he’d declared proudly, thrusting the purchase into Coke’s hands.

  It was a pamphlet. On its cover was a poorly executed woodcut of a woman with very large breasts, her arse offered up to what Coke supposed to be Satan, though his horns made him look like a bullock and his pitchfork was small enough for the eating of snails.

  Yet a deal was a deal. Over a hard winter that kept them much indoors, Dickon learned to read—a little, at least, the choice of text always his. So he also learned rather more about some aspects of life than befitted an eleven-year-old, Coke felt.

  Not all the pamphlets were about lust, though. Some were on the recent executions of notorious villains—a few of whom, like Swift Jack, Coke had known. Some combined carnal relations with other crimes. It was one pamphlet of this type that Coke held that morning; that caused him to groan and regret, for the thousandth time, his bargain with the boy.

  The pamphlet was entitled The Monstrous Cock. The woodcut on its first page showed the interior of a carriage with three bodies heaped up, their torsos split open and what appeared to be yards of sausages trailing from each. Beneath these were the words “Captain Cock turns Bluebeard.”

  Dickon stabbed his fingers down upon the letters, trying to mouth each word—a feat made harder by his mouth being, as ever, crammed with nuts, his one true passion. He did not understand that he’d been involved in the events so inaccurately described and was delighting in each new word he mastered, yelling it out. Coke felt the ink on the pamphlet, testing its fastness, for it had probably been published that day, two weeks after the events depicted.

  His groan was echoed from the other side of the wall, startlingly loud so thin was the horsehair plaster dividing his room from his neighbours’. A Dutch immigrant, his wife and three young children lived adjacent. The man had been moaning intermittently all the morning, sometimes loud, sometimes low. Once there had come a long cry in the man’s own language, which Coke spoke a little. God was being solicited to relieve some agony.

  Coke looked away from the wall, down to the pamphlet. “ ‘Sa-sa-saw …’ ” stuttered Dickon.

  “You saw this?”

  The boy shook his head. “Sword!” A finger impaled the word.

  The pamphlet had expanded the reputation of Captain Cock as a “knight of the road” through the assumption that the weapon for slaughter had been his rapier. But Coke knew that the tool or tools that had reduced the two men to carcasses had to be thick-bladed knives, perhaps combined with a cleaver. Only the woman had fallen to a thin point, which could have been a sword but was more likely a dagger. A single thrust into her heart.

  He closed his eyes, saw her again, felt her hand wrap around hi
s wrist as he groped for her necklace. What had she said—“pale horse”? Was she giving him a clue to her killer? That would not narrow it down much. Every third horse in England was pale.

  A groan again. The Hollander or him? Both probably. “W-well?” the boy asked.

  “Well enough. Read on.”

  Dickon turned back to the page, spluttering out the words. The text purported to be eyewitness accounts from several of the party who’d made the discovery. A local magistrate was mentioned, Colonel W. A local constable, one Geoffrey Boxer, of a place called Cuckolds Haven. And—Coke peered closer. A thief-taker, distinguished only as Mr. P., had led them to the site. He knew of several: Pockington, Pitman, Pears. Why did so many of that damned crew start with P? Yet this could be just another bit of information the pamphlet had got wrong. It did not matter—thief-takers from up and down the alphabet would be after him once they’d read, as he did now, the last paragraph:

  This monster. This demon in a cocked hat. He must be taken before more worthy citizens and ravishing ladies are brutishly butchered. And so the Honourable Company of Ropewrights offers this reward for said taking: not only the hempen cravat from which this dandy will dance the Tyburn jig, but the sum of thirty guineas for his speediest apprehension.

  Coke rubbed his forehead. Thirty pieces. The original traitor’s sum. Christ’s bones, he’d sell himself for such. And though not many knew him, a few did. Three fellow “knights”—no, two: now Swift Jack dangled at Finchley. Maclean and O’Toole, Irishmen he’d worked with on occasion to their mutual profit, who would sell their mothers for a groat, let alone Judas’s bounty. In sooth, O’Toole was the one who’d let slip Coke’s name when they were taking Lord Carnarvon’s coach on the Hounslow Road last December. The coachman had misheard it and reported it as “Cock.”

  “C-c-c-c …”

  The captain glanced down. The boy was labouring over the name he’d just been thinking. “Cock,” he pronounced.

  “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” Dickon crowed, his imitation perfect.