Plague

by C. C. Humphreys

  “I will. And will return with some food for you on the morrow. Goodbye for now, madam.”

  He descended the ladder, passed down the stairs, out onto the street. Without thinking, he remounted the barrel and placed the lantern again upon its hook. As he did so, the stub of candle within it flashed bright, then died.

  Newgate, he thought, swaying there. So the place I most avoid is the one I must go to now.

  25

  THE HOUSE

  Ignoring the screams from the cellar, Lord Garnthorpe looked around the room.

  Is it too austere? he wondered again. He had instructed his upholsterer that it be decorated plainly, for the room was to function as much as a place of contemplation as a chamber for daily living. The man had obeyed, whitewashing the walls to obliterate the crude scenes of country life painted on them in case any should lift the woven hangings he then hung from ceiling to floor. However, since their weave was of a uniform brown, they made the room appear even smaller than it was. The only things that relieved the uniformity were the oak door, the window cavity from which all the glass had been removed save one small panel, and the single decoration he had allowed: a painting of some saint in the very moment of her martyrdom, her body still in the grip of her ravishers, her soul already moving to salvation.

  If she sits in the single straight-backed chair and contemplates that, he thought, breaks off only to read from the solitary book upon the table—the Bible, a newish copy purchased that morning from his bookseller’s in St. Paul’s Churchyard, with suitable passages marked—surely her mind will be the more swiftly calmed from her other life’s concerns.

  Yet something troubled him. He saw her again in that other life. Such a different world from the one he would bring her to. Perhaps he should ease the transition a little.

  “Flowers.”

  His body servant, Maggs, was standing silently by the door. “Flowers, my lord?”

  “I want some. On the table beneath the saint. Beside the Bible.”

  “Yes, my lord. What kind?”

  “Nothing gross. White and red roses. Marigolds—” He broke off. “What do I know of flowers, man? Go to Gurle’s nursery in Spitalfields. Buy what you can for a gold guinea.”

  “A guinea?” Maggs’s usually immobile face cracked in wonder. “Will that not fill the room, my lord?”

  “I do not know, simpleton!” Garnthorpe shouted. “Ask Gurle, not me. If there is excess—” he considered a moment “—then we will put it upon the grave in the churchyard opposite.”

  “Which grave?”

  “You know which one, dolt. The one I ordered you to clean last week.”

  “Oh, that one. Oh yes, indeed, my lord. I’ll be off.” As Garnthorpe’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, Maggs retreated from the room.

  Garnthorpe leaned on the straight-backed chair. He felt a little faint. He understood that women liked flowers. His mother had, would pick enough to fill rooms with their scent. Would she like them?

  Maggs slammed the front door behind him, a habit no amount of curses and blows could make him desist from doing. Immediately the screaming got louder. She had stopped for a while, two hours after he’d locked her in the cellar, her eventual silence achieved by no harsher expedient than ignoring her entirely. It was doubtful her sounds carried much beyond the walls. Even if they did, they would be ignored. London was a city of screams these days.

  He crossed to the Bible. It was open to Daniel; one of the texts she must know if she was to stand beside him when King Jesus came. And she did not have much time, judging by the way the world went.

  And yet? There was another text, something his mother had read him long ago.

  He hunted for it. First the chapter, then the verse. And when he finally placed his fingers upon the passage, a shock went through him. His father had discovered him reading it as a youth and broken two sticks on him for straying from the very few texts the man found acceptable—when he was sober enough to read and guilty enough to pray. But his father was long dead. So he found his voice was calm when he read the words aloud: “ ‘Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.’ ”

  He turned the pages back to Daniel, walked out the door, up the stairs. The cries redoubled at his footsteps, but by the time he stood in the bedchamber they were gone.

  Yes, he thought, looking about. This room’s beauty will make up for that other’s plainness. The panels of emerald silk, hung from battens to cover the oak walls; the colour picked up in the curtains that close in the bed. The rich linen sheets on that; the coverlet embroidered in silken threads.

  What was that other verse, he thought, in the Song of Solomon?

  “ ‘By night in my bedchamber I—’ No! ‘By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth,’ ” he declaimed.

  He went to the window, pushed it open. A breath of wind came and he closed his eyes to it. That is what she will say, he thought, after she has spent time in the room below. After she has learned the lessons, after she has come to God, then will she come to me. By night will she seek me.

  Somewhere near, a hand bell rang, a familiar cry with it: “Bring out your dead!”

  The End of Days was fast approaching. He had work to do, God’s work, as Brother Simeon directed him. He would see him shortly for prayer, for instruction. But first, he had a soul to redeem.

  In the corner of the room was a table, an inkpot and quill upon it. He sat in the single chair. The paper was already sealed, not with his own crest of Gryphon Rampant but with another he’d had made for the purpose.

  He dipped the quill, then wrote the words swiftly, in letters that leaned hard to the left: “To Mrs. Chalker, Percival Buildings, Sheere Street. From John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester.” He hesitated, dipped anew and added, “On a matter of great urgency.”

  He blotted, scattered some sand, blew. Outside, the cart of the dead creaked closer, while from far below came again the faintest bat squeak of a wail.

  Sarah sat at the window of her lodgings, the road below her as empty as on the Sabbath at church time. Only occasionally did someone pass by, and nearly always in the same manner: nose thrust into a bundle of herbs, moving down the very middle of the way. Sheere Street was as overgrown as any other, knee-high grasses obscuring its cobbles. Yet though its pavement would have made for easier passage, no one now drew close to anyone else’s walls. The plague might be behind them, red cross or none. And rumour spoke of some victims who would reach out to breathe upon and so infect the unwary. For if more sickened, did not that make the chances for survival of those already smitten a little better?

  Movement came, but not human. Rats, a thousand at the least, emerged from the cellar of the abandoned house opposite, then ran up the street, their progress shown by the shifting of grasses, the column vanishing into the cellar of another empty dwelling.

  “Rats!” Dickon had approached silently behind her. “L-lots more of them now.”

  “They killed the cats and dogs that hunted them. They feared they carried the plague.”

  “But what if the r-rats do?”

  He returned to the day bed and the play script she’d given him: Cutter of Coleman Street, a drama they’d performed in the early days of the Duke’s Company. The plot was a thick one, of murder and conspiracy, set among the Fifth Monarchists who’d attempted to rise in ’61 and been defeated on the streets after a bloody battle, their leaders shot then or hung since. She studied him as he mouthed words, wondering what he made of it all.

  The loud knock upon the street door made both her and Dickon jump. He ran out of the room, down the stairs. Whoever had arrived was hidden beneath the awning of the glass blower’s shop. She listened to bolts being drawn, then a murmur of voices. She hoped it was the captain she heard. For five weeks she’d seen him safe every night. One apart and she was worried.

&n
bsp; It was not him. It was a stranger. He wore livery of purple and green. After taking off a feathered cap, he bowed briskly and removed a letter from his sleeve. “His lordship’s compliments,” he drawled, holding it out.

  She took it, glanced at the seal on the back, then turned the paper over, saw the address. “My Lord of Rochester!” she exclaimed. “He is released from the Tower?”

  “He is.”

  She broke the seal, unfolded the vellum, read the note twice, looked up. “The earl wants a reply?”

  “If you would be so kind.” The insolence was not concealed: Rochester’s servant, delivering a note to an actress. “I’ll write it for you if you wish.”

  She flushed. “There is no need for ink. Tell him I will come at the appointed hour.”

  “You know the place?”

  “I can find it. Can you find the door?”

  His eyes bulged at her tone. He went, Dickon following. The noise of bolts sounded again, then some louder words. She assumed the man was insulting the boy more openly than he had her, but she was wrong.

  “L-look!” said Dickon, running in ahead. Following close behind was Captain Coke.

  “Well, sir,” she said, more sharply than she’d intended, “you are late.”

  He peered at her, surprised at her tone. “I warned you that I would get caught by the city gates. Then I needed to see someone this morning, if he was still there. He was.” He reached into the pocket of his cloak, pulled out a cloth bag, threw it to Dickon. “For you, lad. The first cobnuts of the season from Kent.”

  With a yelp of delight, the boy caught the bag and in a trice had the drawstring opened, a nut placed and jaws crunched together. “Now, share some with the lady, you puppy,” Coke said. Dickon dodged him, crammed in another nut, sheltering the bag from the man’s reach.

  They jostled until Sarah called, “Really, sir, I do not need a nut. I need news.”

  She could see by the way his face changed so completely that the report would not be good. He led her to the window seat, leaving Dickon to sit upon the bed and continue working his way through the bag.

  “Tell me swiftly, sir. What of our enterprise? What of Pitman?”

  He told her. She heard it all silently. When he was done, she sat for a moment staring ahead, then said, “He is innocent, of course.” She looked up at him. “But that does not help our cause. What can we do now, Captain?”

  Their journey was truly over. She was indeed back to calling him captain. “To begin, I will do what I promised Mrs. Pitman: I will go to Newgate this very afternoon—though it is the place in the whole realm I would most avoid. My word to both Pitman and his wife drive me to it.” He dug again into his cloak, produced a second cloth bag. “My visit this morning was to my friend Isaac ben Judah. I was surprised and happy to find him at his shop, not fled like so many others. But he said to me, ‘My tribe took four hundred years to return to London—how can we abandon her again after less than eight?’ ” Coke gave a smile, but it left his face quickly. “His tribe is paying for such steadfastness, though. As many Jews are dead as gentiles, proportionate to their numbers. Still, he was kind. Though I could offer him nothing as collateral, nor future service—coaches do not travel the King’s Highway laden with gems these days for me to acquire—he agreed to make me this loan.” He shook the bag, which clinked. “It means I was able to deliver some food to Pitman’s family and will take some to Pitman himself when I visit.” He swallowed. “If he lives.”

  “Do you think he does?” Sarah asked.

  “His wife believes she would know if he did not.”

  “And do you believe that he will have learned, before his incarceration, of the man we seek? The true murderer?”

  “If any man knows him, Pitman does. Here,” he said, holding up the bag, “I will take enough for the bribing that will come. I’ll leave you most of it.”

  “Why? Will you not return?”

  He caught a note in her voice, saw the concern on her face. “Nay, lady, of course I will. But since I go into the largest gathering of criminals in England, it would be safer not to go full pursed. A lamb might as easily walk through a valley of famined wolves.” He smiled. “Faith, is there not a psalm in that?”

  He dumped the contents of the purse upon the bed. Then she saw again what she had put aside. “Captain,” she said, raising the letter, “there’s some matter else. This is from the Earl of Rochester.” She passed him the paper. “He is released from the Tower. He says here that his imprisonment has given him much time for contemplation, that he realizes now the wrong he has done our Lucy.”

  “Does he indeed. The dog!”

  “And he wishes to make her amends. He asks that I go to a house he owns off Little East Cheap, to consider if it might make a suitable lodging for Lucy and the child, and to discuss whatever other provision I may deem fit.”

  “He does not know that Lucy is in Cornwall?”

  “He asks that I come alone, so perhaps he does.”

  “Alone? Well, I will accompany you, sure. When is the rendezvous?”

  “At five o’clock today.”

  “Five? The noon bell just tolled. That does not leave me much time at the prison. Perhaps I should put the visit off till tomorrow.”

  “No!” She surprised both of them with the vehemence of her shout, so she took his hand in both of hers. “Let us not leave our Pitman one hour more than is necessary in that terrible place without hope, food, some news of his beloveds. I will wait for you here till four. If you do not arrive, I will go on alone.” He tried to free his hand, but she held tighter. “You may join me there if you are late.”

  “You would be alone? With that rake?”

  “That boy. Truly, sir, though I may act the gullible maiden, I assure you I am not one. I am versed in dealing with such bucks.” Coke stared at her a moment, then nodded. “Well, you will take Dickon with you. For all his simplicity, he is used to hot action, and keeps a steady head when it comes. Leave him outside the house, and send him fast to find me if you have need.”

  “Agreed, sir. Shall we shake on it?”

  They did, easy since they were already holding hands. Then each retained the other’s a moment before they parted.

  Coke sorted among the coins on the bed, pocketing a few and finally selecting a gold crown. “Have you water? Some vinegar?”

  “I have both. But would you not prefer an ale?”

  “I would. Have it ready. First, alas, I must eat. Fetch me what I have asked for, I pray you. And a basin.”

  She brought a jug of water, two bottles, a little wooden bowl. He dropped the coin into that, poured water and vinegar atop it. She bent to study it. “A strange meal, Captain. What are you about?”

  “This.” He popped the bung from the beer bottle, licking the froth as it bubbled over the rim. Then he rubbed the coin vigorously in the bowl, before lifting it out, holding it up to glimmer in the sunlight. “I have been in jails before. The searches can be most thorough. There is only one way I know of to escape discovery—and clean gold is the best for it.” He lifted the coin into the light, shook off the last drops. “So, as they say among the Dutch, Prosit!”

  Then, to a shocked cry from Sarah and a delighted one from Dickon, he popped the coin in his mouth and washed it down with ale. It took a while, and the bottle was near empty before he was done.

  26

  NEWGATE

  “Is ’e dead?” A stick was shoved under his chin, his head lifted. Of course, it could not move very far, what with his ears nailed to the board.

  Pitman would not open his eyes unless the jailers forced him. Show them life and they might beat him again. Or worse. For all his agony, he was better off as he was.

  They removed the stick, only to thrust it hard into his stomach. He could not restrain the groan.

  “Not quite dead yet, then.”

  “Not long for it mind, I’d say,” added the other jailer. “I said you ’it him too ’ard.”

  The first
man laughed. “Wozzit matter? Dead of a beating, dead of the plague, he’s still fucking dead, ain’t ’e?”

  “Yeah, but Briggs don’t like to put beatings down on the bill of mortality, you know that. Maybe we should say ’e …”

  The voices faded. Only when he was sure that the men were far gone did Pitman carefully open one eye. His tormentors were on the other side of the yard, poking into a pile of rags. The body within them did not move. A harsher jab and still nothing stirred. One of the jailers now turned to two prisoners, waiting a few paces behind them, eyes down, bodies folded in on themselves. He gestured with his stick and the two immediately seized the limbs of the dead man, dragged him toward the prison entrance. Before it stood the cart of the dead. There were bodies in it already, and this most recent corpse was swung atop them.

  Pitman let his head sag, chin to chest. Like most things in life, there was a trick to it; the balance point where the head could hang without the nails further ripping the flesh. Fortunately for him, his jailers had nailed both ears at the top. This meant he could just rest the tip of his chin on his chest. It relieved some of the ache in his neck.

  “ ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,’ ” he muttered. “ ‘He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.’ ”

  Waters! When had he last had a drink? In the dungeon, a few sips late last night just before the man attacked him for the bread? He didn’t think he’d killed the man, but he had hit him hard enough to. He’d had no choice—if he hadn’t, he could have been killed himself. And then what of his family? “ ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.’ ”

  No! He’d left out a verse. He had done that too many times now. It was his weakness. He was growing weak. Three weeks in Newgate; three of beatings and starving, for he had only received the tiny bit they gave the prisoners who could not pay for more. Bread, a little gruel, fouled water. Yet what he would not give for a taste of any of those right now! A bite would be a banquet. But how to get it? If he “awoke,” they might free him from the stocks; but then they would return him to Limbo, the dungeon below the gatehouse that gave the prison its name, a place for those sentenced to die. And even though he had not been condemned, because the courts had not sat since his taking, still he was accused of murder, and that foulest of cells was reserved for murderers, for traitors, for witches—for all whose only judgment would be hemp, blade or flame. It was a hell of scant air, scant light, and foul with prisoners’ waste, warmed more than any other part of Newgate by this summer’s terrible heat. Here at least there was air, only slightly less foul from a place that made the three surrounding parishes reek.