Plague

by C. C. Humphreys

  The mortuary man had returned to the yard and was standing with his ear to the door. “I have other customers coming,” the man said. “Many others. There’s a lot of death about these days. Should I?”

  He raised knuckles to the door. From behind it, they all heard her voice: “You may enter now.”

  The other man did so but Coke pulled Pitman farther away from the door. His voice was low. “Do you think we can find this killer?”

  “Perhaps. It may be that Mrs. Chalker can help us uncover some link between what happened in Finchley and her husband’s murder. It may also be time to reacquaint myself with the Saints.”

  The door opened and Sarah emerged. “Mrs. Chalker,” Pitman said, “I am so sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She gazed up at him. “May I ask who you are?”

  “I am Pitman, ma’am. The captain here brought me to your husband’s body.”

  “I see.” She glanced at Coke. “Are you a constable of this parish, then?”

  “I am a constable, but not of this parish. I am, uh—” he hesitated “—I am also what is known as a thief-taker.”

  “Are you? Well, exercise your profession, sir. For a thief has been here. He has stolen my husband’s life.” Before he could speak, she’d turned to Coke. “Captain, I thank you for your help. You have gone far beyond the bounds of all friendship to find my husband for me. I suspect you would rather not have seen him like that and I am sorry that you had to. But your duty is done. I release you from all obligation. Gentlemen, both.”

  She went past them. The nearby church bell was tolling. By its eighth and final strike, she had reached the yard gate. “Mrs. Chalker?” Coke called. She halted, her back to him. “Mrs. Chalker, I do not consider myself released. Not until the person who did this is discovered. And I believe my, uh, my friend here feels the same way.”

  “Why?” Sarah returned to stand before them. “Why are you concerned? Beyond a charity that you have both already displayed.”

  Coke looked at Pitman, received a nod. “Your husband was not the first murdered in this way. The first deaths touched us both. This second? No one deserves to die like that. No one who does should go unavenged. Nor will, if I can help it. You may trust me on that.”

  “There are some questions I would ask you,” Pitman said.

  “Another hour, of course. After you have had some time to mourn.”

  “If it helps you catch this villain, I will answer any question you put to me as soon as I am able. But now I must go to the theatre.”

  Coke caught her arm. “They would not be so cruel as to make you play tonight. Let me walk you home. Or better, let me take you to Lucy.”

  “Lucy is at the playhouse. As I must be. And we do not play at night, sir. We rehearse. I cannot afford to miss any more time.” She glanced back to the mortuary’s door. “Since I have lost my protector, the only way I can protect myself is by winning acclaim for my performances. Perhaps that will start with Othello, which we revive next week.” Suddenly she lifted Coke’s hand to her lips and kissed it. Tears filled her eyes. “I thank you again, sir. You have been most kind. Yet if you are undertaking this cause, not for me but for what is right, know this: I will not rest until the man responsible for the slaughter of my husband is dead. You may trust me on that.” She crossed the yard and was gone. After a silence, Pitman said, “An extraordinary woman.”

  “Indeed.”

  “She reminds me of my Bettina. Lorks!” He slapped his forehead. “I had forgotten Bettina in all this. We have barely a crust in our larder and I—” he felt his pockets “—I spent the last of my coin on those damned links.”

  “You have a sapphire in your coat that Isaac ben Judah would give you ten gold pieces for right now.”

  “I told you, Bettina does not allow us to prosper on tainted money.” He looked at the captain. “You have cost me thirty honest guineas, sir. That’s a labourer’s wages for a year!”

  “Well, I am sorry for it even if my neck is not. Yet surely the reward would be yours still if the real murderer were caught.”

  “If guilt could be proven. But that will not stock my larder this day.”

  They were exiting the yard, when Coke gripped Pitman’s arm. “Wait! How much is Maclean worth?”

  “That betraying swine?” Pitman scratched his beard. “Five guineas.”

  “How are your legs after all that chasing?”

  “Not so weak that some ale would not restore them.”

  “Then what say you if my tainted money supplies that, at least? And then,” Coke said, grinning, “what say you if we pull our scarves about our faces, return to Alsatia at midnight and snag the rogue?”

  “I’d say you were a bold fellow—which I always knew. But would you not feel badly about betraying one of your brethren of the road?”

  “Brethren?” Coke snorted. “That Irish dog hallooed me on the street—aye, and he’d have plaited the noose to see me dangle above it. I’ll take him for the pleasure alone, and you can keep the entire five guineas.”

  “A bargain, Captain.” Pitman held out his hand. “Thief and thief-taker. Who could stand against us?”

  Coke clasped Pitman’s hand with both of his. “Thief and thief-taker. I think that between you, me and the actress, this murderer had better watch his back.”

  18

  THE TESTING

  June 5, 1665

  Brother Simeon was halfway across the river, when the screaming stopped him.

  He moved to the parapet and let others pass him. He looked back up Ludgate Hill, to the great square tower of St. Paul’s. People were coming from the church to cross Fleet Bridge. When they reached its midpoint, the more sharp-eared heard what he had heard.

  Faces changed. Men and women each took the sound differently—with a wince, with a curse, with—if they were papist—a furtive sign of the cross. Most shrugged it off. London had become a city of screams and you could not think too long upon each.

  Simeon left the bridge and cut riverward beside St. Bridget’s Churchyard. Soon, he thought. Soon every citizen’s ear will be filled with nothing but the weeping of the ungodly, the gnashing of their teeth, the lamentations of the judged. Ignore those, if you can.

  Then he turned into Bride Lane, and the sound hit him full, halting him again—for the screams were coming from the very house he was making toward, and it was not the ungodly who dwelt there but one of God’s true Saints.

  Four other Saints gathered about the door, including the man he particularly sought this day. He hurried to him. “Brother Roland,” he said, “is it one of Hezekiah’s family who cries thus?”

  “Nay, Brother S.,” replied Lord Garnthorpe, “it is Hezekiah himself.”

  “Alas. I am sorry for it. May God have mercy on him.”

  “Amen.”

  Brother Roland’s face showed no expression. A sheathed blade, Simeon thought, so reserved. Hard sometimes to remember him as the dashing commander, the noble who’d fought for Parliament, the man who’d led their regiment in the countercharge at Marston Moor. Harder still to recall the roarer Simeon had recognized only two years before in Bedlam’s general cell, covered in his own excrement. But Simeon was ever glad he had noticed him that day, indeed had saved him from his degradation. For Lord Garnthorpe’s blade was not always sheathed. Indeed, after that famous charge, he ordered the execution of six Royalist knights. Two had died by his own hand; the corporal of their company, who was speedy in such things, had killed four—for he had been in his civilian life a butcher. Simeon had been thinking of him especially of late. “Tell me, Brother,” he said, “have you recently seen our old comrade Abel Strong?”

  The man glanced up, a light in his eyes. “I have—” he began, but a different shriek from above and the sound of feet thumping down the stairs interrupted him.

  A woman ran out. She paused as she saw the group before the door, then her face lightened when she noticed Simeon. “Master,” she cried, seizing his hand, kiss
ing it. “Thank the Lord you are here. My husband is sick with …” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “My sons cannot hold him for the doctor to treat him.” She tugged Simeon toward the house. “Please, Master, help us.”

  “I am no master, Sister. We are Hezekiah’s brethren and we will come.” He gestured to the others to precede him. They did not move.

  “Brother S.,” one murmured. “It sounds like Hezekiah suffers from—”

  “Hush!” Simeon held up his hand. “It matters not what ails him. Know you not that all our days are numbered in God’s great book? If you are marked to die, you will. Now you will come to answer a sister’s plea.”

  They obeyed, though snail-like. Only Lord Garnthorpe moved briskly, his eyes empty again.

  Inside the lodging, the stench derived of various things, none pleasant, and all there threw cloak edge or cuff before their faces and breathed through their mouths. But they did not shade their eyes, could not look away from the horror on the floor. Their brother Hezekiah Chambers writhed upon a mattress. Black ovals a finger’s length covered his reddened skin, as if inky fat slugs crawled over him. One youth was trying to hold the man’s flailing arms, another his legs with as little success.

  When the Saints entered, Hezekiah ceased thrashing to lunge up. “Brothers!” he screamed. “God’s mercy but you must help me! They wish to, wish to—No!” He fell back, his eyes fluttering shut. His sons seized his limbs again.

  Simeon turned to the woman. “Sister, what would you have us do?”

  Instead of replying, she gestured under the eaves. Someone who had merged with the shadows stepped from them now and every man in the room fell back, several crying out in terror—for the figure was from a nightmare. His long black robe glimmered with wax, cracked in various parts. White cowhide gloves wrapped his arms up to his elbows. But it was his head that was the worst—for below a high black cowl was a bird’s face with a long, moulded beak.

  “Be you the devil?” cried Simeon. “What make you here?”

  The voice came muffled from within the leather mask. “No devil, sir, though I have been called that and worse these past weeks.” The creature gave a slight bow. “I am a doctor. This is my uniform and I would be about my business. Many are waiting to receive my treatments if this man will not.”

  “Tr-treatments?” one of the other Saints spluttered. “Why must you wear a demon’s face to treat the sick?”

  “I wear it to prevent their sickness infecting me.” He tapped his beak. “This is filled with sweet herbs to prevent the miasma of contagion from reaching my lungs.” He drew closer, moving awkwardly like some great buzzard. “And I say again, if this man will not yield to my remedies, I must haste to those who will. I am paid by the patient and time is money.”

  Simeon spoke. “What must we do?”

  “Hold him. Spread his limbs so I can apply—” he was delving within a large leather bag “—this.” He pulled out a bottle with a glass stopper.

  “Is it a medicine?” asked Simeon.

  “For him it can be. If I am not too late. The buboes, sir. The putrefaction must be emitted. If it is not, he will certainly die.”

  Simeon turned to his fellow Saints. “An arm and leg each, Brothers. Swiftly.”

  The boys relinquished their father’s limbs to the men. Each knelt, gripped—and averted his eyes from the blackened, distended balls of skin protruding from the man’s groin and each armpit. Simeon went to Hezekiah’s head, taking it onto his lap.

  Hezekiah’s eyes shot open—and the first thing he saw was the approaching doctor, bottle in hand. “The devil comes for me!” he shrieked, flinging off a man at one arm, seizing Simeon by the collar. “Do not let him touch me, Brother! He wishes to do something down there.” He hissed this last, his tormented gaze toward his groin. “It cannot even be touched, not a finger laid upon it for the agony.”

  “ ’Tis only a salve he puts there, Hezekiah. Have faith. Pray to God as I do. You will be healed.” He looked at the others. “ ‘Our Father,’ ” he began, “ ‘who art in heaven.’ ”

  The prayer filled the small room, with wife, sons, brethren joining in. It stilled the patient a little. He closed his eyes, murmured the words.

  From the bird’s beak came a chuckle. “Only a salve,” the man said, “I like that.”

  Then he stooped and poured acid on the bubo.

  The scream could have been heard in the nave of St. Paul’s. Hezekiah bucked up, his eyes wide, threw off each man. Only Lord Garnthorpe retained the arm he held; indeed, endeavoured to grab the other that flailed free.

  The savour of burned flesh filled the room. The boys and their mother wept; three of the Saints turned their faces away, one to vomit, the others to continue the Lord’s Prayer.

  The doctor said, “Spread his limbs and let’s be done with him.”

  “No! No! No! No! No!”

  The men held tight again, faces averted, eyes closed despite their comrade’s pleading, his thrashing, But they could not close their ears to the sizzle of corroding flesh, nor their nostrils to its sweet-sick stench. In their grip, Hezekiah bucked each time the liquid dripped, until at last he fell back to writhe and scream no more.

  Simeon lifted one of the man’s eyelids. “I think your salve has killed him, Doctor.”

  The bird-faced man was stoppering his bottle. The beak swung back. “If he is dead, it is the plague that has killed him, God that has taken him, not me.” He picked up his bag and without another word he left the room.

  Simeon put his ear against Hezekiah’s chest. After a while, he looked up at the man’s wife and sons and shook his head.

  They all knew what it meant: when the doctor reported the plague, as he must, the house would be shut up, along with any found within it. Simeon, dispatching three of the Brothers, told them where to meet again later that night. But he kept his hand on Lord Garnthorpe. “Walk with me,” he said.

  They made for the river, to a coffee house on the water. Both sipped at chocolate; neither spoke until their hearts slowed. At last, Lord Garnthorpe murmured, “Are we all to die like that now that we have been so exposed?”

  “We do not know,” replied Simeon. “My sister lived in a house not three streets from here where a dozen died in ’47. Yet she did not contract the disease. Others never venture near one with the plague and yet are stricken straight. It is, as all things are, what God wills.” He lifted Brother Roland’s hand from the table. The man stiffened but did not pull it away. “Yet I say this: if the plague has truly come to take London, it is both a terrible and a glorious thing. Yea, glorious! For does not it say in Numbers, ‘The wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague’? Is it not foretold in Daniel, in Revelation, that before the Fifth Monarchy can be established such disasters will—must!—come? These are signs, Brother. Terrible signs. Glorious signs. They assure us that God is hastening the End of Days, that the hour of King Jesus is nigh—and that even now his Saints must prepare.” He squeezed the man’s hand hard. “Do you believe that?”

  “You know I do. I am the Lord’s soldier ever.”

  “You are. And all his soldiers are needed now, yea, now more than ever.” Simeon released Garnthorpe and picked up his chocolate to sip again. “I asked you, before the tragedy of Hezekiah intervened, how is our old comrade Brother Strong?”

  “Busy at his butchery, I believe.”

  “Is he?” Simeon studied the man before him, then nodded. “Because we have need of him.” Three merchants entered and sat down nearby. Simeon lowered his voice. “We have a Judas among us. Hezekiah had found him out and was going to tell us his name this very day. He died before he could.” He glanced at the merchants. “I would like you to take over this good work. Find out this traitor.”

  His gaze still on the table, Garnthorpe replied, “Why me, Brother? I do not move so easily among the Saints. Some resent that I am of the nobility.”

  “They do not matter. For will we n
ot all be Christ’s nobles when he returns to rule over us? I ask you to do this for two reasons. The first is that with Hezekiah’s death there is an empty place now among the Six of the Council of the Great Ones. You could fill that place if you prove yourself worthy.”

  “You do me much honour.”

  “The second is that once this Judas is found out, our friend Strong will be needed to converse with him. We must discover if the traitor works alone. Then after he must be punished.” He nodded. “Strong has the sapphire still, does he not?”

  Garnthorpe met Simeon’s gaze. “No.”

  “No?” Simeon frowned. “How can he not have—” He broke off. There was no point questioning. Only Strong would know the answer. And the butcher of Harrow Alley was not there. “Then he will need this, though it was meant for another.” Simeon held out something on his palm. “Do you know what this is?”

  The amber showed strongly within the copper. “It is a tiger’s eye.”

  “Also called?”

  “Chalcedony.”

  The pale man ran a finger across the scar that bisected his nose like a cut of light. “Should not this traitor carry this gemstone in his mouth?” he said.

  For a long moment, Garnthorpe stared at the small stone in Simeon’s palm. Then he took it up, put it in his pocket and replied, “If that is the Lord’s will.”

  “Oh, it is, Brother Roland. Doubt not but it is.”

  19

  THE GAMBLE

  “Off out, Pitman?”

  “Off out, my love.”

  “Will you take Josiah?”

  His son looked up, hope in his eyes.

  “I will not, love. I need him to be with you, in case you fall to labour. He knows where I am bound and will run to fetch me then.”

  “I’ve told you, it is not going to happen till after the Sabbath. At the earliest.” Bettina came to the doorway, wiping her hands with a cloth. “I have had enough of them to know.”

  She gestured back onto the room, where the whole tribe was busy—Josiah, Grace, Faith, even little Imogen had a cloth in hand and was scrubbing. Since the house four along from theirs had been shut up the previous Sunday, each day they cleaned every surface with vinegar in which Bettina had steeped rue, valerian and clove. Every part of their bodies had a soaked cloth passed across it daily. Any coin brought into the house they dropped in a bucket of vinegar to steep—though there had been few enough of those since he and the captain had taken Maclean three days earlier, the Irishman proving hard to find in the stews of Alsatia.