Plague

by C. C. Humphreys

  Something flew up from directly below his window. He could not see what it was, until a similar thing flew up, caught on some breeze; it now lodged in the slat right before him. He stared at it: the husk of a sunflower seed. “Dickon,” he whispered, “Dickon!”

  The hair was visible first, thrust up straight and of the same hue as wheat sheaves in a field. The boy’s eyes, wide in that wide face, followed. “Hallo, Pit Man,” he said.

  “Shh! Tell your captain I am here. Softly now!”

  The boy nodded, ran across, tugged at Coke, who listened, nodded but continued talking with the constable. At last he sauntered across, Dickon following, offering seeds, which Coke took. “Easy,” Coke whispered into the slats.

  “Easy? Tell me!”

  “Your family are—well enough,” Coke said, adding hastily, “no one else has been carried out since I was last here. The constable thought one might still ail, but he is not sure. It might be in one of the other families within. But there is other news. It is what I was talking about, why one of your fellow watchmen left to speak to an alderman.”

  “What news?”

  “Three parishes in the City have this very day ceased the shutting up of houses.” Coke peered through the slats. “It is cruel and has cost each council money they scarce have, money for watchmen, for bread. They say—Wait! Someone comes!” He turned away. “Sir!” he called loudly. “What’s the news?”

  The man who’d departed was now back with another: James Morrow, headborough of the parish, in charge of all its constables. “Sir,” he said, approaching Coke, taking off his hat, giving a bow, which the captain returned. Morrow went on, loud enough for Pitman to hear, “I understand you have an interest in the people within this house.”

  “I do. Friends. I would aid them if I could.”

  “And you may. The parish of St. Leonard’s will follow the example set by our neighbours in St. Vedast and St. John Zachary and end the shutting up. I regret we cannot help you, but my colleague and I must go to the other houses. You will find crowbars and other tools at the door.” He replaced his hat, tapped its crown. “Good evening!”

  Pitman managed to wait for the men to turn the corner; and then he was out and across the street. “Bettina!” he called up. “Bettina! Dearest chuck! Look down.”

  He saw the candle flames flicker in movement. A face appeared. Pitman flushed hot, for it was Josiah.

  “Ma! It’s not a ghost. It’s Father. Father stands below!”

  “Pitman?”

  Her face was then at the window, her beauty clear even through thick glass. She held a baby in her arms, and at her hip two more faces pushed in. “Pitman!” she cried again, then all disappeared.

  “Here. Help me, Captain. Help me!”

  With his one good arm he’d seized an iron bar, began smashing at the sawn planks that blocked the entranceway. Coke and Dickon also took up crowbars and used them more effectively to pry the nailed boards out. In a bare minute the door was flung open.

  “Pitman! Father! Pa!”

  He was engulfed under a surge of limbs. He roared in pain, in laughter, in delight.

  “You were dead, Pitman,” said Bettina, pulling back from her kisses to speak. “They sent the word from Newgate. I’d have given up that moment if not for my chicks.”

  “Hush, sweetheart. I am here. Still alive. Still alive.” Pitman touched the heads of the three children who pressed him, the babe in her arms. “But not all our chicks live.”

  “They live with Jesus now,” she replied. “A happier place, sure, though I miss them terrible.” She wiped her eyes. “But whatever are you dressed like, man? You’ll be carted off as a lunatic if any sees you. Aye me! From Newgate to Bedlam. What has befallen our family?”

  All Pitmans laughed loud. The rumpus was drawing people from their houses. The two other families within had also emerged blinking into the street. Though he was home, he knew he was not safe. “Hush, dears. Let us go inside.”

  As the family crossed the threshold, Coke called. “There’s other news.”

  “Can it not wait till the morning?”

  “I fear not. Mrs. Chalker sends word of the one we seek. She says he … he hunts tonight. Says also that he does not hunt alone.”

  “I will return,” said Pitman, then he vanished.

  Coke sat before the house where Pitman had hidden. He and Dickon had their backs to it, to compete in the spitting of sunflower husks and wait.

  The bell in St. Leonard’s had just tolled again, when a familiar tall figure came through the doorway opposite, though dressed now in his own sober clothes. Pitman crossed the street, slid down beside them. Even in the twilight, Coke could see the red-rimmed eyes. “All well?” he asked.

  “Not all,” said Pitman, and rubbed his eyes. “Tell me.”

  “I’ll let Dickon.”

  The boy spoke the message again, proudly, word for word as Sarah had said it, and when he was done, Coke asked, “You told me at the theatre you knew this lord from before. So was it this Garnthorpe who struck you in the church?”

  “I cannot say.” Pitman scratched the stubble on his head. “Faces are still jumbled. It could have been. What I remember most is the bloodied apron—and why would a lord be wearing that? Yet he is known for a Fifth Monarchist man, and for his cruelty, so …” He shrugged. “No, Captain. It appears the only answer to this riddle lies in Whitehall Palace.” Pitman stood, just as another roll of thunder came. He offered his good hand, pulled Coke to his feet. “The boy should stay here with mine.”

  “I have already asked and been denied. He will not leave me again. Besides, Thief-taker, what you never realized was that in taking me you only gained half a highwayman. For Dickon is at least half your Monstrous Cock.” He rubbed the boy’s neck. “So let us to it—a winged giant, a simple lad and a thief who vomits at the sight of gore.” He spread his arms wide. “What murderer could stop us?”

  From the other side of the blanket, the girl’s voice rose higher:

  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.

  The song ended, the girl’s voice wobbling over the sustained last note. Beyond it, he could hear the thunder, drawing nearer.

  “That enough, Mr. Strong?” she asked.

  Silence.

  The blanket that divided the room shook under her little hand. “Are you there, Mr. Strong?”

  He looked down at his hands. They seemed too pale. Not white—they would never be that; they’d had too much blood on them over the years. But they were clean, which seemed wrong. Unless he was on his way to his work. Yes. He’d come here to change clothes as he always did. His others lay scattered around. He could not go about his work in those. Neither about his—nor God’s.

  He ran his hands up and down his leather apron. It crackled under his touch, stiffened by lack of use. Well, that would change. Soon it would be supple again.

  “Mr. Strong?”

  The voice again. “Yes, Little Dot,” he said, “I am ’ere.”

  He drew back the blanket. The child stared up. She smiled. “Goin’ to work, Mr. Strong? Does that mean there’ll be somethin’ for us later?” She twirled before him in her smock. “I done what you asked. Took off the lace. Scrubbed me face some more. All the paint’s gone now, see?”

  She tilted her chin so he could observe. When he’d walked into Carrier Court earlier, he’d seen Little Dot, scarce ten, flounces on her low-cut dress, ribbon in her hair, paint on her face. A harlot like her mother—her dead mother, he had reminded himself so he did not strike her. He had told her to strip it all off which she did not understand at first, reaching fingers to his waist. Then he had seized
her by the ear, dragged her to the well, scrubbed her clean. “I ’aven’t eaten ’ardly nothin’ all week,” she’d howled as he did so. And he forgave her, as the girl emerged again from the gaudiness.

  “You’ll eat today and well,” he said now, patting her head. “And I’ll give you bits to sell. You’ll come with me.”

  They left the room, and she capered across the yard behind him, followed him down narrow alleys till they arrived at the Hog Lane shambles. Other butchers greeted him. “Where you been, Abel?”

  “Got a lady friend, Strong?” they called. He ignored them all, went to his favoured bench. A pig carcass, gutted and scalded, swung on a rail nearby, one of a dozen. He hoisted it down, flung it onto the wood, picked up a cleaver, hefting its weight, gauging its balance. A finger pressed conjured a line of blood on his thumb. Blood, he thought, tasting. That’s right.

  He was always one of the fastest, and today he was inspired. Others yelled in admiration as he severed the pig in half, from snout to tale, in a dozen strokes. Then he set to on just one half, using saw and blade, separating it into cuts, joints. He stopped to clear sweat and gore from his forehead, glanced across at the girl perched on a blood barrel. “You use every part of the pig exceptin’ the squeal, Little Dot,” he said. “Remember that.”

  A dozen cuts more and it was done. He wiped his hands on his apron, supple again, then beckoned the girl over, handed her a shoulder joint. “Wrap that in your skirt. Don’t let anyone see it. Take it to your room and put it into your ma’s cauldron. Here’s a coin for some turnip, some carrot. Cook that for a day and sell the stew for a sixpence a cup, a florin a pot. And tell any what tries to cheat ya—” he bent, then lifted the uncut half of the pig onto his shoulder “—that Abel Strong will be visiting soon.”

  When Strong reached Whitehall, he paused. He had choices to make now. He knew from other deliveries that the palace was not one single entity but a vast, sprawling jumble, straddling roads, containing parks, added to over the centuries. At the end of the roadway, on the north side and beyond the Holbein Gate, were the newer, smaller, less drafty apartments the royals favoured when in residence. To the south was the old palace proper, the parade grounds, the grand dining halls, the offices of state business. On a normal summer night these would be abuzz, with soldiers, courtiers, especially with secretaries and their minions, running the business of the realm. But London was a plague city and only a few people now moved through the large spaces he glimpsed through the gates.

  He moved to one of these. He had delivered to all the kitchens of the palace before. The closest one was here. God blesses my enterprise, sure, he thought as he drew nearer, for I know that corporal.

  “Abel Strong,” said the man, eyeing the carcass, “you bring a feast.”

  “But for who?” The butcher shrugged. “Bastard master just told me to drop it at Whitehall. Dunno where.”

  “I can tell you that. There’s rumour of a special guest. Blood royal.” The man winked. “He comes but briefly, though, so they’ll not open the king’s apartments.” He nodded to the north. “Poor fellow will have to make do with the small Great Hall, and the lesser food and wine pantries. That kitchen is fired up and the cook roaring already. So on your way.”

  He stepped aside, gesturing away his two shadowing pike men. But the butcher had only taken three steps when he was stopped. “Wait!” The corporal came up. “That special guest. Everyone gets searched.”

  One of the pike men handed his pole to his fellow, then checked inside the butcher’s boots, felt up the back of each leg, reached inside his apron. High. Low. Lower. “Much more of that,” Strong said, “and you’ll ’ave to marry me.”

  The corporal laughed, slapped him on his back. “You’d best hurry.” He nodded to the sky. “Storm’s coming.”

  In the distance, across the river, lightning stabbed down, thunder rolling hard upon it. He felt the first fat drop of rain strike his forehead as he crossed Scotland Yard, entered another large parade ground. The back entrance to the kitchen was on the far side of it. The cook, a large man named Turvey, bellowed when Strong walked in, “Well, fuck the pope and thanks to Christ,” he said, “for he has answered my prayers. I thought I was going to serve three poxy pigeons to the Duke of York and make out they was pheasants.” He gestured. “Right here, my friend, on this table.”

  Once Strong had dropped the carcass, all there scurried to the cook, who started shouting orders. All except the butcher, who backed away, picked up a long-bladed boning knife and a cleaver, tucked both inside his apron. No one noticed, neither that nor the fact that Abel Strong left the kitchen the opposite way he’d entered it, as the sky flashed white and a great boom sounded just above him.

  The door gave directly onto the Court and he crossed the edge of it, with no one paying him mind, because everyone was too busy hunching against the downpour, which had already created large puddles on the red clay of the path. He ran along the path, paused while the servants he’d followed wiped their feet before entering the Great Hall, then slipped into it behind them. Some men sat at a long table, papers spread among the candlesticks, bottles, the trays of nuts and fruit. Other men with halberds, the royal guardsmen, stood by.

  He did not see the one he sought. Then suddenly he did, for the man entered not five paces from him, causing Strong to press his back against the door, ready to run if noticed. But the man paid him no mind for he was fiddling at his crotch.

  “Damn me!” said the Duke of York, doing up buttons. “I don’t know about this damnable plague. But I have been in London scarce six hours and I have already contracted watery bowels.” He waved down the men who’d risen when he approached the table. “Sit, gentlemen, and stay seated, pray. If you rise each time I make for the little apartment, you’ll weary your legs.”

  The men laughed. Strong was smiling too as he slipped the few paces down the wall, into the privy closet there. A candle burned on a shelf near the front, throwing the rear of the small space behind the commode into complete darkness. God indeed blesses my enterprise, he thought, settling on the seat still warm from the royal arse and holding the cleaver and knife on his thighs. For the one business when even a prince of the realm is truly unguarded is when he is about the business of his bowels.

  31

  THE PALE HORSE RIDES

  From the shelter of a portico, Pitman and Coke could scarcely see the Banqueting House through the walls of rain. “Any other thoughts?” asked Coke. He got no reply. “Should we go around to the riverside and learn if Dickon has found a less-guarded entry?” He patted the space at his hip, the straps where his sword should be. “At your advice I handed my sword into the boy’s care, in case we could bluff our way in and I’d have to give it up. But I sense that bluff will not work here and I’d like it back.”

  “Maybe the riverside will be our only way in. Unless … Ah!”

  As Coke looked out again, the lightning moved north; the thunder followed it and the torrent ceased as swiftly as it had arrived. Immediately people who’d taken shelter like them in portico and alcove ran again to the gate of the Banqueting House.

  Even in the small time they’d stood before the palace, trying to figure a way in, a crowd had formed. Londoners drawn by sudden rumour; sick Londoners in the main, men and women with grossly distended necks. “Of course!” he said, clasping Pitman’s arm, who yelped in pain. “My apologies. But come. These people may force the gate. They must have heard that the king is here. They have gathered for him to heal them.”

  “Can he do anything for my shoulder?” Pitman moaned, and followed.

  They joined the rear of a mob that had swelled to at least fifty. A youthful officer stood before the gates, arms raised, palms out, at his back four nervous pike men. “I tell you His Majesty is not here,” the young man was saying. “You must disperse. You all know the dangers of gathering at this time. It is prohibited.”

  “He is here!” a man, his face a mass of boils, shouted. “Else why the royal guar
ds? I know your coats!”

  Others in the crowd began to shout too, pressing forward. “He’s here! Charles is here! There’s only a few of us. Let us in. Let him touch us! Heal us!”

  “It is just the Duke of York!” the young officer blurted out. “He does not have the healing touch.”

  “Blood royal, ain’t ’e?” the man with the boils yelled. “Touch me! Heal me!”

  The mob pressed closer. The officer drew his sword. “More guards!” he screeched, while his soldiers put their pikes at port and attempted to shove back the crowd.

  “Look.” Pitman pointed toward the royal apartments to the north. The four sentries were running from there to their fellows’ aid. “Holbein Gate’s unguarded.”

  Waiting only for the reinforcements to rush past, Coke and Pitman ran the other way. The abandoned gates were still closed, but were no taller than the captain, and he was up and over fast. He turned straight, shot the bolts. Pitman was through and the gates reclosed and rebolted again in moments.

  “Now where?” asked Coke.

  “Everything to the south appears to be most guarded. So thither we go.”

  They splashed through puddles, gardens to their right, lawns and parterres stretching into the dark. A statue gleamed in the moonlight. Ahead, a brick passageway brought a waft of river to their nostrils. To their left, a passage opened onto a larger space beyond. Along it, light spilled from glass onto cobbles. “There, think you?” asked Coke, leaning on his knees.

  A distinct pop came abruptly from where they looked. “Gunshot!” gasped Pitman.

  “Champagne,” said Coke. “I suspect there’s only one who would be drinking that this night.” Pitman made to go, but Coke took his arm. “Wait.”

  There appeared another glow ahead, a trace of smoke, rising into the lantern spill. “Guards, smoking their pipes,” whispered Coke, pulling the larger man back into the shadows. “If we both charge forward here, we both could be taken. And our quarry may have preceded us. Or may still be approaching. Do you take this passage and come up from the river. I’ll go in the front.”