Plague

by C. C. Humphreys

  He quickened his pace. Why did you choose this byway to your home? This is my world, not yours, my lord. As far from the splendour of St. James’s as you can get, even if less than a mile apart. John did not come here often anymore. Why would he? He and Sarah had taken rooms—two of them, with their own privy, no less—in a house shared with only three other families, nearer Lincoln’s Inn and the theatre. But the smell took him straight back to his childhood, a compound of stench found nowhere else in London—perhaps nowhere on earth. Like the waters Sarah concocted to freshen their rooms, it had a base note of something, other notes above it. Her base could be essence of orange, or ambergris, or lavender.

  In St. Giles the base note was shit.

  That sweet-sick smell was everywhere—for the people dwelt in houses built for one family, housing ten, twenty, with maybe one privy office between them. Maybe not, and if not—well, there were marshes on the outskirts where one did not tread without boots or iron pattens to raise up your shoes. Through these marshes conduits ran, though “ran” was not a term he’d use for creeks so thick with filth. The parishioners of St. Giles added other notes, their clothes and bodies rarely washed. Animals were kept in pens or wandered loose—dogs, chickens, pigs, sheep. Rats and cats. Fires burned everywhere, burned everything. Offal boiled in pots.

  St. Giles in the Fields, John thought, breathing deep. It was good to recall the scent now and again; it made Sarah’s orange water all the sweeter.

  These inhabitants did not spend money on lights before their dwellings. The little that lit the alleys seeped through skins stretched over windows, or from open doors—and most doors were open, to let out the stench. Every seventh house appeared to be an alehouse, varying from a single room with nothing but a trestle and a cask within to larger taverns crammed with men and women. Before each, children begged for the coins that their parents would turn into liquor. Hands thrust at John, which he ignored; others grasped his coat, and were cast off. Behind the singsong of their plaints came other music: fiddles, and flageolets. Clogs stomped on wooden floors. People sang, out of tune and in.

  He had done it himself, he and Sarah—played and sung in these taverns for small change. Unlike most, they had used the skills they’d acquired here to fight their way from these streets to others that did not stink so.

  He had closed the gap with Garnthorpe to twenty paces, always keeping some bodies between them. It was too crowded to pull the man aside, but John knew he’d get his chance—especially as, for the first time, his prey was showing signs of distress, pausing at corners, looking about, shaking his head, taking longer to swipe off the scabbed hands of beggars. It was just as John’s grandfather, who had come from the country and been a great poacher in his youth, had told him: “The trick with a deer,” he’d said, “is not to run at ’im, for ’e will always run faster away. What you do, see, is sight one, leave ’im know ’e’s sighted, then follow ’im, walking, walking, all day. ’E’ll take you far, but by the end ’e’ll be so dogged by terror ’e’ll lie down and offer his throat to your blade.”

  John looked forward to laying his own blade to Garnthorpe’s throat. He would not kill him. But perhaps a scar for him to see in his mirror when his servant shaved him? Or a sharp tap from his cudgel, leaving a bruise to match the one his lordship had left on Sarah’s wrist? Warnings to remember.

  Garnthorpe stumbled as he flung off some clinging urchins. Then, just past doors John remembered well, for they opened onto the Maidenhead Lane cockpit, the man lurched right and disappeared around the corner. His quarry had entered some especially noxious, ill-lit alleys—the perfect place to lay this deer low.

  “John Chalker! Begod!”

  The voice came sudden and loud from his right. He started, gripped his cudgel but then eased when he saw who had spoken.

  “Clancy.”

  A big man detached himself from the doorpost that was holding him up. John could smell the whisky on him, and the light spill showed a nose as splayed and bulbous as a red cauliflower. “It’s been years, John lad. Look at you in your fancy garb. What brings ye back to paradise?”

  “Business, Clancy. You’ll excuse me.”

  A hand caught his sleeve. “Come, Johnnie. Let’s nip along to the Cradle and Coffin. The Maiden’s divils should stick together, eh? Yer buyin’.”

  He and Clancy had run in the same filcher’s gang for a few years. He was everything John had left behind. Pulling a shilling from his pocket, John said, “You start,” and placed the coin in Clancy’s palm. “I’ll take care of me business and return to join you.”

  He stepped away, Clancy’s rough voice following him. “A shillin’? After all this time? You cheap whore stabber. See you return or yer name will be—”

  John turned the corner. Clancy’s voice faded and sudden darkness took his eyesight. He halted. Soon he saw just another shit-strewn alley, from the gloom of which came the sound of some object being kicked, a stumble, a low curse. He moved faster on.

  The way twisted, circled back, into a deeper darkness. Then there was an archway to his right. He heard a noise beyond it, ducked through and was in a courtyard, open to the sky, a well at its centre, lit by fleeting moonlight. And no one there.

  He pulled out his blade and cudgel, then stood unmoving in the shadows near the archway. It was quiet. Had he taken a wrong turn? Had Garnthorpe given him the slip? Should he go back? Then, as he was turning, he heard a sound. And even though it was not the person he was pursuing, he could not help but listen.

  It was a child. A girl. She was singing, her voice thin and high:

  Lavender’s blue, dilly, dilly, lavender’s green,

  When I am king, dilly, dilly, you shall be queen.

  Who told you so, dilly, dilly, who told you so?

  ’Twas my own heart, dilly, dilly, that told me so.

  He’d sung this song in his childhood, not three alleys from here. He could not tell where in the yard it came from. The gloom did not help him, pierced only sometimes by the beams from that waxing moon, which revealed a broken wheel here, a cracked jug there, the entrance to a stairwell, the cloud-wrack swallowing everything again the next moment.

  “Hallo?” His own voice echoed, but no reply came; only, after several of his heartbeats, a childish giggle.

  He took a step, but the moonbeam he was following vanished, and he barked his shin on some wooden thing. He cursed; the giggle came again, not where she’d been, behind him now:

  Lavender’s green, dilly, dilly, lavender’s blue,

  If you love me, dilly, dilly … I … will … love … you!

  She dragged the last words out, not singing them, whispering them. And at their conclusion she grunted in a way that did not sound like a girl at all.

  “You,” he called. “I’ve a groat for you here, sweets. For you and your pretty song.”

  Silence. Beyond the quiet courtyard, he could hear the roar of St. Giles, and especially the roars from within the Maidenhead Lane cockpit, with which perhaps this yard shared a wall. He had begun his cock-fighting career there. Perhaps he should go there now, to light, to people.

  Then he heard the footfall. It came from the doorway straight ahead, suddenly gilded by silver as the clouds parted again. He heard a man muttering. There was fear in the voice and, hearing it, John’s own vanished. I have stormed breaches, he thought. I have stood in a field while Cromwell’s guns plucked the man from my left and the man from my right, vanished them as if snatched up by the hand of God. I have been so drenched in blood it looked like I was playing Fallen Satan in the Mysteries. What am I afraid of? An effete lord? In my streets?

  “Sir,” he called, “are you there?”

  The only reply was the sound of footsteps on a stair. He followed, through the doorway, into a dark that deepened with the next flight down, total and thick about him. He halted on a landing—then had a thought and straightaway … acted.

  “Sir,” he called again, pitching his voice a little higher than his own. “It
is Thomas Wright ’ere, sir. ’Eadborough of the parish. I could not ’elp but observe your worship, and ’ow’s you must be lost. I come to offer assistance. To guide you from the dark.”

  He liked that last—religious folk such as Garnthorpe were always seeking the light. And he was immediately rewarded with a moan. Terror in it.

  He thought that perhaps his eyes were accustoming to the gloom, noticed a little brightness ahead; looking up, he glimpsed star shine through a tumble of timbers. A man leaned against them. “Help me,” the man whispered.

  “Oh, but I will,” answered John, reaching.

  The blow came sudden. A fist caught John on the temple and he saw light then, a lot of it, all whirling. He crashed back into a wall, the man following his blow fast, hands reaching for his neck. Dazed though he was, John shot his own hands up and wide, knocking the other’s aside, the diverted force bringing the man’s face too close to make out his features—but near enough to strike him. So John did, with his forehead. But he couldn’t lean far enough away with the wall behind him and did little more than tap the bridge of the other man’s nose. Still, it was enough to send the man back a pace, which allowed John to bring his razor and cudgel up before him. “Now, you dog,” he shouted, and lunged.

  The other man met lunge with lunge, his own hands rising to seize John’s wrists. Fingers like steel bars bore in. For a moment the two men stood locked, force meeting force, neither giving an inch. John knew how strong he himself was, a strength bred in alley scrap and battle. So he was surprised when, after a time, he began to give.

  No! It was not possible, this lord, this soft man, pushing him back. He cried, bent his knees, surged. But the other took the surge, held it. And John felt his wrists weaken. He tried to jerk them clear of the man’s grip so he could slash up, gut him as John had gutted others. There was no question now of merely cutting him as a warning. He could feel the man’s intent. This had become a fight to the death.

  But the grip did not slacken. Instead the razor was bent back, its edge rising toward John’s left eye. He loosed his fingers, let the blade slip onto the stone floor—a noise suddenly bright amid all the dull grunts. Then it was the other who released, just John’s one hand, the one that had held the cudgel. Had held it, for now the other man did. Held it and swung it and John Chalker got his guard up too late. The hard wood drove into the side of his head. Immediately there was light again, a lot of it. It dwindled to black, the fading accompanied not by grunts but by a voice he’d heard earlier:

  Lavender’s green, dilly, dilly, lavender’s blue,

  If you love me, dilly, dilly, I … will … love … you.

  Another voice then. A man’s. And John’s last thought as the darkness took him was that it did not sound like a noble lord’s at all.

  “That’s right, Little Dot,” the man said. “Sing for us.”

  Light brought him back. His gummed eyes were hard to open and he couldn’t rub them clear because his hands were shackled high up on the wall to either side of him. He was slumped forward, agony searing his shoulders. Taking his weight on his feet, he stood.

  “Praise be,” came a voice. “I thought I might ’ave ’it you too ’ard.”

  A soft chuckle. Nausea swept John and he vomited. He felt the wet warmth on his chest then realized he was naked. That thought made him buck against the shackles, which did not shift. He yelled, long and loud.

  The man waited for him to finish. “They won’t ’ear ya. There’s a cockpit next door and the bets are down. And this cellar’s two below the one we met in. Even if a bat squeak comes through, well, who pays attention to a scream in St. Giles, eh?” The man laughed again. “You’d never get any sleep.”

  John managed to force his eyes open, sticky though they were with what had to be blood. A little light issued from a gated lantern placed on the stone floor. He could see the man before him, but only from the waist down. The man was wearing some sort of leather apron. He held John’s razor.

  Seeing it, John moaned.

  “This?” the man said. “Oh, no fear, friend. I’m not going to use this on ya.” He flipped the blade, caught it. “Fit only for murder in an alley, this. Like you planned.”

  “I didn’t.” John spat, clearing his mouth. “Who—who are you?”

  The man put the razor down and picked up something else. “Nah,” he said, “no such toys for me.” When he turned back, he held a long-bladed knife, which he ran up and down his apron. “For I am Abel Strong. Butcher of this parish. And I takes pride in my work.”

  KNIGHT ERRANT

  May 20, 1665

  “No, Lucy! I cannot. No, no, no!”

  As he stared at her, Coke damned himself yet again for being a fool. Why had he not simply sent the actress a note of farewell, together with a promise of some money, forwarded when he had it? No written plea could have moved him to come if forewarned that such a boon might be asked of him. Once he’d heard from Isaac ben Judah that his cousin was in York and would not return for near a week and so be unable to value the gemstones—warned by him also in the same note, and by the gunshot that had sent him scurrying, that some huge man was inquiring after them, a thief-taker, no doubt—he should not have forsaken his room at the Aldgate coaching inn, let alone have ventured here. But no, fool that he was, he’d called in—and been trapped, as he had so often before, by Lucy Absolute. Not by her charms, which he noted but was never moved by. Not by her tones, similar to his own, from the West.

  But by those damned familiar eyes.

  Though he wanted to, he could not look away from them now. It was not her fault that they were the exact same shape and colour as her brother’s. That he saw Quentin in them now, as he never could in mere memory. The man he’d loved, in every way a person can love—as comrade, as friend and once, on the eve of a battle they were sure would kill them both, as a lover. Lying in a ditch, shivering under one blanket, the youths had sought warmth in each other’s bodies, life in the face of death. He had never, not for a moment, regretted the encounter. Indeed, sometimes he felt it was the only meaningful one he’d had in his life.

  One of them had been right about death. On Lansdown field, a little after dawn, case shot had scoured every feature from Quentin’s face. But Lucy’s eyes, the Absolute eyes, blue-black as night, acted for him as a key to a casement; once he looked into them, memory opened and her brother’s face was clear before him, and the youth alive again in her. He had sworn to Quentin as he lay dying that he would look after his infant sister. Coke had kept his vow over the years, had tried to be brother and protector.

  But this? “Lucy, I came to take my leave of you. Not to undertake a quest for you.”

  “Pish, William. It is hardly a quest. I ask only that you see this letter delivered into his hand.”

  “These days, the Earl of Rochester’s hand is rarely far from the king’s. For many reasons it is best I do not go so directly into the public gaze.”

  Those eyes, so familiar, brimmed. “You know I would not ask it if my need were not great.”

  And what of my need? he thought. I have thirty guineas on my head. How can I do this? For what? A mooncalf passion?

  Then her tears overflowed—and suddenly he understood that this was not mere May Day foolishness. “Lucy, you are with child.”

  She did not confirm his statement in words. Simply lowered her eyes and wept.

  “By Chroist!” he said, anger bringing Somerset into his voice. “By Chroist, I will see this earl. And I will drag him back by his ear and hold him by it until he does the right thing by you.”

  Anger drove him to the door, boots stamping, sword sheath slapping against his legs. But Lucy was quicker to the door and placed herself before it. “I entreat you, no! You must not tell my John this news.”

  “Tell him? I’ll beat it into ’e, the puppy.”

  “William. Listen to me. Nay, listen, you ox!”

  She slapped his chest and he was so startled he gave back a pace. There was fire, not
tears in her eyes now, her accent moving west also, even farther so, to her Cornish roots. “If you go crashing in there like an outraged brother, you’ll spoil everything, you downser. Everything!” She shoved him but then continued more restrainedly, “He loves me—I know he do. But does he love me enough for …?” She gestured to her belly. “That I do not know. And will not, unless I am the one to tell him.”

  “Lucy!”

  “Nay, do not say it. Sarah Chalker has cautioned me enough: ‘He is an earl. He will not, cannot, marry you.’ That may be.” She sniffed. “But if he loves me, truly loves me, then perhaps he will do right by me. Me and the baby.” She wiped her tears away. “Yet I will only be certain of his love, or his lack of it, if I am the one to tell him first—for only then will I see the answer in his eyes.” She held out her letter. “This merely beseeches him to come. Will you risk a little to put it into his hand? And vow—vow, I say!—that when you do, you will hint at nothing more?”

  He looked down at her, at her brother through her. He had made him a promise. If he fled abroad, as he almost certainly must, this might be the last time he could honour that promise, for a time at least. He sighed and accepted the letter. “Content ye, lass. I will.”

  “Oh, Will!” She stood on tiptoe, grabbed him by the ears and kissed him full on the lips. “Now, if only you was twenty years younger. Heigh ho for a heart, eh?” Laughing, she twirled away.

  He waved the letter at her. “There is still the matter of how I deliver this. If he is with the king, where is His Majesty?” He ran thumb and finger either side of his moustache. “And how can I approach without some kind of concealment?” He had not told her of Finchley, the pamphlet, the reward. Yet she was the only one in London who knew of his other life.

  “I have taken care of that. At least, I can put you close to him.” She bent to her table, picked up another folded paper. “I have been to see His Majesty’s surgeon, Mr. Knight, at the sign of the Hare in Covent Garden.”