A Plague On Both Your Houses

by Susanna GREGORY

  Bartholomew began to invent a plan to warm stones on the hearths so that they might be wrapped round wet clothes.

  The house of Agatha's cousin, a Mistress Bowman, was a small half-timbered building, with whitewashed walls and clean rushes on the floors. Mistress Bowman ushered him in fearfully.

  'It is my son, Doctor. I do not know what is wrong with him, but he is so feverish! He seems not to know me!' She bit back a sob.

  'How long has he been ill?' asked Bartholomew, allowing her to take his wet cloak.

  'Since yesterday. It came on so fast. He has been down in London, you know,' she said, a hint of pride in her voice. 'He is a fine arrow-maker, and he has been making arrows for the King's armies in France.' "I see,' said Bartholomew, looking at her closely, 'and when did he return from London?'

  'Two days ago,' said Mistress Bowman.

  Bartholomew took a deep breath and climbed up the steep wooden stairs to the room above. He could hear the laboured breathing of the man before he was half-way up. Mistress Bowman followed him, bringing a candle because, there being no glass in the windows, the shutters were closed against the cold and it was dark. Bartholomew took the candle and bent down towards the man on the bed. At first, he thought his dreadful suspicions were unfounded, and that the man had a simple fever. Then he felt under the man's arms and detected the swollen lumps there like hard unripe apples.

  He gazed down at the man in horror. So this was the plague! He swallowed hard. Did the fact that he had touched the man mean that he would now succumb to the disease himself? He fought down the almost overwhelming urge to move away and abandon him, to flee the house and return to Michaelhouse.

  But he had discussed this many times with his fellow physician, Gregory Colet, and both had come to the conclusion — based on what little fact they could distil from exaggeration or rumour — that their chances of contracting the plague were high regardless of whether they frequented the homes of the victims. Bartholomew understood that some people seemed to have a natural resistance to it — and those that did not would catch it whether they had the slightest contact with a victim, or whether they exposed themselves to it totally.

  Would Bartholomew die now — merely from touching the man who writhed and groaned in his delirious fever? If so, the matter was out of his hands, and he could not, in all conscience, abandon the victims of the foul disease to their suffering. He and Colet had agreed.

  While, all over the land, physicians were fleeing towns and villages for secluded houses in the country, Bartholomew and Colet had decided to stand firm. Bartholomew had nowhere to flee in any case — and all his family and friends were in Cambridge.

  Bartholomew braced himself and completed his examination. Besides the swellings in the arms, there were similar lumps, the size of small eggs, in the man's groin and smaller swellings on his neck. He was also burning with fever, and screamed and writhed when Bartholomew gently felt the buboes.

  Bartholomew sat back on his heels. Behind him, Mistress Bowman hovered worriedly. 'What is it, Doctor?' she whispered. Bartholomew did not know how to tell her.

  'Did he travel alone?' he asked.

  'Oh, no! There were three of them. They all came back together.'

  Bartholomew's heart sank. 'Where do the others live?' he asked.

  Mistress Bowman stared at him. 'It is the pestilence,' she whispered, looking down at her son with a mixture of horror and pity. 'My son has brought the pestilence.'

  Bartholomew had to be sure before an official pronouncement was made, and before people started to panic. He stood. "I do not know, Mistress,' he said softly. "I have never seen a case of the pestilence before, and we should check the other lads before we jump to conclusions.'

  Mistress Bowman grabbed his sleeve. 'Will he die?' she cried, her voice rising. 'Will my boy die?'

  Bartholomew disentangled his arm and took both her hands in his firmly. He stood that way until her shuddering panic had subsided. "I do not know, Mistress.

  But you will do him no good by losing control of yourself.

  Now, you must fetch clean water and some linen, and sponge his face to bring his fever down.'

  The woman nodded fearfully, and went off to do his bidding. Bartholomew examined the young man again. He seemed to be getting worse by the minute, and Bartholomew knew that he would soon see scores of cases of such suffering — perhaps even among those he loved — and be unable to do anything about it.

  Mistress Bowman returned with her water and Bartholomew made her repeat his instructions. "I do not wish to frighten you,' he said, 'but we must be careful. Do not allow anyone in the house, and do not go out until I return.' She had gathered her courage while she had been busy, and nodded firmly, reminding him suddenly of Agatha.

  He left the house and went to Holy Trinity Church.

  He asked the priest if he could borrow a pen and a scrap of parchment, and hurriedly scribbled a note to Gregory Colet at Rudde's Hostel, telling him of his suspicions and asking him to meet him at the Round Church in an hour. Outside, he threw a street urchin a penny and told him to deliver the note to Colet, who would give him another penny when he received it. The lad sped off while Bartholomew trudged to the house of one of the other men who had travelled from London.

  As he arrived, he knew that any attempt he might make to contain the disease would be futile. Wails and howls came from within and the house was thronged with people. He elbowed his way through them until he reached the man lying on the bed. A glance told Bartholomew that he was near his end. He could scarcely draw breath and his arms were stuck out because of the huge swellings in his armpits. One had burst, and emitted a smell so foul that some people in the room covered their mouths and noses with scraps of cloth.

  'How long has he been ill?' he asked an old woman, who sat weeping in a corner. She refused to look at him, and went on with her wailing, rocking back and forth.

  'God's anger is visited upon us!' she cried. 'It will take all those with black, sinful hearts!'

  And a good many others besides, thought Bartholomew.

  He and Colet had listened carefully to all the stories about the plague that flooded into Cambridge in the hope of learning more. For months, people had spoken of little else. First, itwas thought that the infection would never reach England. After all, how could the foul winds that carried the disease cross the waters of the Channel? But cross they did, and in August, a sailor died of the plague in the Dorset port of Melcombe, and within days, hundreds were dead.

  When the disease reached Bristol, officials tried to cut the port off from the surrounding areas to prevent the disease from spreading. But the wave of death was relentless. It was soon in Oxford, and then in London.

  Bartholomew and his colleagues discussed it deep into the night. Was it carried by the wind? Was it true that a great earthquake had opened up graves and the pestilence came from the uncovered corpses? Was it a visitation from God? What were they to do if it came to Cambridge? Colet argued that people who had been in contact with plague victims should stay away from those who had not, but even as Colet's words of warning rang in his ears, Bartholomew saw that such a restriction was wholly impractical. Among the crowd was one of

  Michaelhouse's servants — even if Bartholomew avoided contact with the scholars, the servant would be among them. And what of those who had already fled?

  Thomas Exton, the town's leading physician, declared that none would die if everyone stayed in the churches and prayed. Colet had suggested that applying leeches to the black swellings that were purported to grow under the arms and in the groin might draw off the poisons within. He said he meant to use leeches until his fellow physicians discovered another treatment.

  Bartholomew argued that the leeches themselves might spread the infection, but agreed to try them if Colet could prove they worked.

  Bartholomew pulled himself out of his thoughts and slammed the door, silencing wailing and whispering alike.

  'How long has this man been ill?'
he repeated.

  There was a gabble of voices answering him, and Bartholomew bent towards a woman dressed in grey.

  'He was ill when they came home the night before last,' she said. 'He had been drinking in the King's Head tavern on the High Street, and his friends brought him back when he began to shake with this fever.'

  Bartholomew closed his eyes in despair. The King's Head was one of the busiest taverns in the town, and, if the rumours were true and infection spread on the wind, then those who had been in contact with the three young men were already in danger. A hammering on the door stilled the buzz of conversation, and a thickset man in a greasy apron forced his way in.

  'Will and his mother are sick,' he yelled. 'And one of Mistress Barnet's babies has turned black!'

  There was an immediate panic. People crossed themselves, the window shutters were thrown open, and some began to climb out screaming that the plague was there. Rapidly, only the sick man, Bartholomew, and the woman in grey were left in the house. Bartholomew looked at her closely, noting a sheen of sweat on her face.

  He pulled her into the light and felt under her jaw. Sure enough, there were the beginnings of swellings in her neck; she was already infected.

  He helped her up the stairs to a large bed, and covered her with blankets, leaving a pitcher of water near her, for she was complaining of a fierce thirst. He went to look at the young man downstairs on his way out, and saw that he was already dead, his face a dark purple and his eyes starting from his face. The white shirt under his arms was stained with blood and with black and yellow pus. The stench was terrible.

  Bartholomew let himself out of the house. The street was unusually silent as he made his way to the Round Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Gregory Colet was waiting anxiously.

  'Matt?' he said, stepping towards him, his eyes fearful.

  Bartholomew held up his hand, warning him to come no closer. 'It has come, Gregory,' he said softly.

  'The plague has come to Cambridge.'

  The next few weeks passed in a whirlwind for Bartholomew. At first, there were only a few cases, and one of them even recovered. After five days, Bartholomew began to hope that the pestilence had passed them by, and that the people of Cambridge might have escaped the worst of the fever, or that it had burned itself out. Then, without warning, four people became infected one day, seven the next day, and thirteen the day after that. People began to die and Bartholomew found himself with more requests for help than he could possibly answer.

  Colet called an urgent meeting of the physicians and surgeons, and Bartholomew described the symptoms he had seen first-hand while he stood in the gallery of St Mary's Church, as far away from the others as possible.

  There was much to be done. Gravediggers needed to be found, and collectors of the dead. There were few who wanted such tasks, and there was an argument between the medics on the one hand and the Sheriff on the other about who should pay the high wages to entice people to do it.

  The number of cases of the plague continued to rise dramatically. Some people died within a few hours of becoming ill, while others lasted for several days.

  Others still seemed to recover, but died as their relatives began to celebrate their deliverance. Bartholomew could see no pattern as to who lived and who died, and he began to doubt his fundamental belief that diseases had physical causes that could be identified and removed. He and Colet argued about it, Colet claiming that he had more success with his leeches than Bartholomew had with his insistence on clean water and bedding, and use of various herbs. To a certain extent that was true, but Colet's patients were wealthier than Bartholomew's, and suffered and died in warm rooms where lack of food was not a problem. Bartholomew did not consider the comparison a fair one. He discovered that in some cases he could ease the discomfort from the buboes by incising them to let the putrescence out, and that probably one in four of his patients might survive.

  Term at the University was immediately suspended, and scholars who would usually have stayed in Cambridge for the Christmas break thronged the roads leading north, some taking the plague with them. Bartholomew was horrified that many physicians went too, leaving dozens of sick people to the care of a handful of doctors.

  Colet told Bartholomew that the royal physician, Master Gaddesden, had also fled London, going with the King's family to Eltham Castle. The plague was not a disease that would profit the medical profession, for there seemed to be no cure and much risk. In Cambridge, three physicians had already perished, including the master of medicine from Peterhouse and Thomas Exton, who had proclaimed that praying in the churches would deliver people.

  The plague seemed to bring with it unending rain. Bartholomew trudged through the muddy streets constantly wet and in a daze of exhaustion, going from house to house to watch people die. He sent a note to Philippa urging her to stay in St Radegund's, and it was advice that all the nuns seemed to take, for none were seen ministering to the sick. The monks and friars at Barnwell and St Edmund's did their duty by administering last rites, and they too began to fall ill.

  College life changed dramatically. The remaining students and teachers gathered together in the church to attend masses for the dead and to pray for deliverance, but there were looks of suspicion everywhere. Who had been in contact with the sick? Who might be the next to be struck down? The regular assembling for meals began to break down, and food was left in the hall for scholars to take back to their rooms to eat alone.

  Bartholomew wondered whether unchanged rushes on the floors and discarded scraps of food in the scholars' rooms might be responsible for the sudden increase in the number of rats he saw around the College. Master Wilson withdrew completely, and remained in his room, occasionally leaning out of his window to shout orders.

  Swynford left to stay with a relative in the country, and Alcote followed Wilson's lead, although Bartholomew occasionally saw him scuttling about in the dead of night, when everyone else was asleep. The three clerics did not shirk from their religious duties, and were tireless in burying the dead and giving last rites.

  Abigny made Bartholomew move out of their room and sleep on the pallet bed in his storeroom.

  'Nothing personal, Matt,' he said, his face covered with the hem of his gown as he spoke, 'but you are a dangerous man to know since you frequent the homes of the sick. And anyway, you would not wish me to visit Philippa if I had been near the Death.'

  Bartholomew was too tired to argue. Master Wilson had tried to isolate the College so that no one could enter. There were plenty of supplies in the storeroom, he had called to the assembled College members from his window, and clean water in the well. They would be safe.

  As if to belie his words, one of the students suddenly pitched to the ground. Bartholomew ran over, and noted the symptoms with despair. Wilson's shutters slammed abruptly, and the plan was not mentioned again.

  College members began to die. Oddly, the old commoners who Bartholomew thought would be the first to succumb, because they were the weakest, were the last to become infected. The Frenchman Henri d'Evene died on the eve of his planned departure for France. He had been careful to touch nothing that might have been infected by plague bearers; he had drawn his own water from the well, and ate little from the kitchens. He bribed Alexander to let him use Swynford's room while he was gone, because the room faced north, and it was said that north-facing rooms were safe from the plague.

  But, as the bell was ringing for Compline, Bartholomew heard a dreadful scream from d'Evene's quarters. He ran up the stairs and hammered on the door.

  D'Evene opened it, his face white with terror. He was shirtless, and Bartholomew saw the swellings under his armpits, already turning black with the poisons within. He caught the young man as he swooned in his arms and laid him on the bed. D'Evene tossed and turned with a terrible fever for two days, Bartholomew tending him as much as he could, and died as dawn broke, writhing in agony.

  Bartholomew had noticed that the swellings took two forms. If they we
re hard and dry, and emitted little putrescence when lanced, the patient might survive if he could withstand the fever and the pain. If they were soft, and contained a lot of fluid, the patient would invariably die, regardless of whether the swelling was lanced or not.

  Bartholomew and Colet not only had to tend the sick, they had to oversee the removal of bodies from houses and streets. Both knew that if these were not removed as quickly as possible, the streets would become so unhealthy that people would die from other diseases.

  The first few men who took on the unwholesome, but handsomely paid, task of removing the dead, quickly caught the plague and died, and it became more and more difficult to find people willing to take the risk.

  Bartholomew, walking along the wharves one night after tending people in the rivermen's homes, heard shuffling and muttering at one of the small piers. Going to investigate, he found two dead-collectors dumping their load into the river so that they would not have to go to the cemetery in the dark.

  Bartholomew watched the pathetic corpses bob off downstream as they were caught in the current.

  'You have committed them to an unhallowed grave,' he whispered. The dead-collectors shuffled uneasily.

  'And now their bodies might carry the Death to villages down the river.'

  'It is already there,' said one of the men defensively.

  'It is at Ely already. At least fifteen monks have died so far.'

  When they had gone he walked to the churchyard and peered into the pit. It would soon be full. He and Colet had asked that a larger pit be dug, just outside the Trumpington Gate, because the cemeteries of the parish churches were too small to cope with the dead, and there was not enough available labour to dig individual graves.

  Since no one knew how the plague spread, Bartholomew did not want bad humours seeping from the bodies into the river from where some people, despite his warnings, drew their drinking water. There were fields outside the Gate that were well away from the river and its ditches, and away from homes.