by Paul Doherty
I told him not to be surly, and demanded a cup of wine and half a loaf of stale bread whilst I sat and plotted. Now I had left Southwark speedily, so I bartered with the landlord to stable my horses. I also hired a chamber with a heavy chest fortified by three locks to keep my possessions in. I came downstairs and walked back into the taproom. Near the window a fellow was sitting, some bardmonger cheerily humming. I ordered another cup of wine and sat and watched him: he kept mopping his face and running a finger round the neck of his shirt. The day was warm but, on close inspection, I noticed the sweat running like water down his face. The landlord, too, became alarmed.
‘You were hale and hearty when you came in,' he shouted from behind the beer-barrels, as if these great vats were a bulwark against infection.
The man got up. ‘I feel ill,' he stammered. ‘I ...' He staggered a few paces, gave a groan and collapsed on the floor.
The landlord screamed and ran into the scullery, slamming the door behind him. I felt like following, but the man moaned, arching his back as if in dire agony. I walked over and knelt down beside him. His face was pallid, his clothes damp with sweat.
‘For Jesus' sake, help me!' he gasped.
Well, what could I do? I couldn't let the poor bugger die there. So, putting my hands beneath his armpits, I dragged him out into the stableyard. I swung him across my pony and made my way up the deserted streets to St Bartholomew's Hospital in Smithfield. The great market area before the abbey church was deserted. No quacks, no gingerbread stalls, no hucksters. I hammered on the door of the hospital, screaming at the top of my voice. A small postern-gate opened. An anxious-faced lay Brother popped his head out.
'Go away!' He yelled, glancing fearfully at the man whom I had lashed to the saddle.
‘For the love of Christ!' I snarled back. This is a hospital and this man is ill!'
The lay Brother sighed and, holding a vinegar-soaked cloth to his mouth and nose, stepped out. He walked over to my patient, mumbled something at me and fled back into the hospital. I went back myself: my hand brushed that of the victim. He was ice-cold. I crouched down and looked up into his face: his jaw sagged, his eyes were open.
God have mercy, the poor creature had died during that short journey from the tavern to St Bartholomew's. That was the sweating sickness, sudden and violent. I cut the body loose and lay it in the door of the church; if they didn't help the living, at least they could bury the dead! I walked back towards my tavern. It was now early afternoon. A few more people were about, but so were the death-carts. Huge, monstrous affairs, these trundled about, their drivers dressed completely in black, like shadows shot up from hell. They'd stop by a house, knock on the door, and corpses in their shifts, sometimes sewn into black canvas sheets, were thrown out like heaps of refuse. The carters, laughing and talking amongst themselves, would pick up the corpses, toss them into the cart, and trundle on. These men loved their job. They adorned themselves with black plumes and feathers and decorated their grisly carts with white-painted skeletons or the figure of death. Their bell-boys were similarly garbed: these would go in front of the carts, tolling a handbell and shouting, 'Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!' Those houses where the infection had struck were boarded up and a great red cross daubed on them.
In some streets, looting and pillaging had begun. The riflers and cut-throats were breaking into empty houses and, with all the cheek of the devil, heaping their booty up in the carts. No one dared stop them. Oh, there were soldiers and city watchmen, but they were more frightened than helpful. They were wary of the infection and kept well away from any house bearing a red cross. The only time I saw them act was at a house just off the Shambles in Newgate. A family, fearful of an infected relative, were trying to flee, only to be forced back by the soldiers.
I returned to the tavern but the door was now closed and barred. I went round to the stableyard. My sumpter pony was standing forlornly there and, beneath the window, the iron-bound chest which contained my possessions lay smashed against the cobbles. For a while I stood and cursed, screaming at the landlord to open up. At last he replied, flinging open a window and spilling out the dirty contents of a nightjar which narrowly escaped me.
'Be gone!' he cursed. 'You're infected yourself. You'll find all your possessions there!'
I called him Satan's spawn and every other filthy name I could muster. At last, exhausted, I opened the chest. I took out my saddlebags and headed for the reeking alleyways and runnels of Whitefriars to seek out Dr Quicksilver.
I found him in his shabby tenement on the corner of Stinking Lane. He was just sitting down to sup. He greeted me as if I was the prodigal son and he the loving father.
"Roger, Roger, come and dine with me.' He took my saddlebags from my shoulder, weighing them carefully in his hands. 'More medicines, Roger, for the great Dr Mirabilis’
'It's because of Dr Mirabilis,' I snapped back, that I’m in London! The Great Mouth found me out: I need lodgings.'
Quicksilver put my saddlebags down and spread his hands. ‘Roger, this is your home. All that I have is thine.'
Aye,' I replied, 'and all I have is mine!'
Quicksilver smiled. 'Come, come, Roger.' He peered at me. 'Why lodgings here?'
The city is rotting,' I replied.
Ah yes, the sweating sickness.'
Quicksilver's eyes wandered back to my saddlebags. He broke a piece of chicken he was eating and pushed it across the table. He then gave me a battered cup from a shelf, filled it with wine and insisted we finish our meal. I told him about the Poppletons, my journey to Swaffham, then the sights I had seen travelling around London.
The whole world has gone mad,' Quicksilver retorted. 'Our elixirs and potions have no effect on the sweating sickness. All we can do, Roger, is eat, drink and be merry'
I studied that seamed, cunning face, those wisps of hair, those eyes reeking of wickedness, the black soiled doublet and cloak. I gazed round the shabby parlour. There were shelves on the walls, one bore pewter cups and plates, the other a row of skulls. Quicksilver followed my gaze.
They all died at Tyburn,' he declared. 'It gives my little domain a certain aura, an atmosphere.'
I saw a rat peep out from beneath the broken wainscoting and was forced to agree. The rest of the parlour was taken up with tawdry chests, trunks and coffers. A table stood in one corner, covered with scraps of greasy parchment, but there were no tapestries or hangings against the wall. The stone floor was bare and looked as if it had not been cleaned or scrubbed for months.
After the meal, Quicksilver took me on a tour of his domain. Along dank passageways and up rickety, twisting stairs. The place reeked of death and decay. Shabby, dirty rooms, beds covered with filthy coverlets and sheets. I was given a chamber on the second floor; the bolster was dirty, the drapes round the bed tattered, and the blankets moth-eaten and stained. There was no glass in the windows. These were simply covered by cracked boards, though there was a chest for my belongings, a table and stool, a nightjar and a thick yellow tallow candle fixed in an iron spigot. Now I should have been grateful, but instead I became uneasy. A slight jolting of Shallot's stomach, a pricking at the back of the neck. I gazed over my shoulder at Quicksilver standing near the door. His face looked yellow and more skeletal. I abruptly realised he was not one of those jolly rogues, but a man I hardly knew. I recalled the stories about him: whispers that he was a warlock, a lord of the shadows, a wizard who had renounced Christ and dabbled in the black arts. He must have caught my unease. He gave me that death's-head grin and invited me back to the parlour, to share what he called the best flagon of wine out of Bordeaux.
He was right, the wine was delicious, and the more Quicksilver drank, the more loquacious he became: jovial and filling my cup at every opportunity. Oh, how he babbled!
'I have seen the days,' he declared, cradling his cup and staring across the grease-covered table, 'oh yes, Master Roger, I have seen the days.'
'What do you mean?' I slurred.
&n
bsp; 'In my youth,' His eyes took on a sad look. 'In my youth, Roger, I was a great physician. An apothecary to the high and mighty. Patronised by kings and princes.'
'Such as whom?' I taunted.
'King Edward IV of blessed memory: his brother Clarence and Richard of Gloucester, who later usurped the throne.'
'But that would put you well past your sixtieth year,' I slurred.
'I started young.' He smiled back. 'I was an apothecary by the time I was eighteen, with a shop in St Martin's Lane. Summoned hither and thither by the mighty ones of the land.' He leaned across the table. ‘Potions to get rid of an unwanted child. Powders to make a man weak and fade into death. Pills to turn a man into a stallion in bed.' He tapped his narrow nose. 'Oh yes, there was a time when old Quicksilver was wanted for what he was.'
'If you're so bloody clever,' I slurred, ‘Why not concoct a potion for the sweating sickness?'
He laughed drily. 'I have, but all my patients have died.'
'It's so quick!' I declared, and told him about the victim I had taken to St Bartholomew's.
He heard me out and stared bleakly at me. ‘You are a dead man, Roger.'
Good Lord, I'll never forget his face: long, thin and yellow. The flickering candle made his eyes glitter with malice.
'What do you mean?' I asked.
‘You've touched someone ill with the contagion: it's passed to you, mixing in the humours and fluids of your body.'
'In which case,' I said, grasping his hand, ‘We'll both dance down to Hell together.'
Quicksilver did not withdraw his hand. 'I have had the contagion, Roger, and survived. Once that happens, you are safe. Your body is fortified. But, come, another flagon.'
'When were you ill?' I snapped.
'Thirty-eight years ago,' Quicksilver replied over his shoulder as he stood over a chest, opening a new flagon. Thirty-eight years ago, Roger, the same sickness swept through London. I was safe at the Tower.' He came back and refilled my cup. 'But, come, as I have said, let's drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die!'
And so I did. Now it was a foolish act, but you have heard the phrase 'honour amongst thieves'. For all his strangeness, I considered Quicksilver was a friend, an ally. When I woke the next morning, I learnt the truth. Quicksilver had gone, and so had my boots, my purse, my swordbelt and all my possessions. I tore that sinister little house to pieces, but I could find nothing except a miserable note pinned to the door.
'Dear Roger,' it read, ‘Within the week you will be dead. I have left a flagon of wine in the scullery. Best wishes in Hell. Quicksilver.'
I tore the note down and stuffed it into my pocket. For the rest of the day I just raved at the sheer perfidy of that black-hearted bastard. There was nothing in the house to eat or drink except the wine. I smashed that. God knows what Quicksilver may have put in it. I have a strong head, yet for two days after my drinking bout, I-felt heavy-headed, thick-tongued and lack-lustre. I am sure Quicksilver mixed something with that wine. Nevertheless, I grew better and, as I did, hungrier by the minute. What could I do? Quicksilver had taken my horse and sumpter pony. Every item and possession.
For a day I wandered the streets but the shops were closed, the bakeries empty. No one would bring food into the city. Others, hungrier and more violent than I, were also roaming the streets. For a while I sheltered in Quicksilver's house, desperate at what I should do next. To return to Ipswich was out of the question. I had no boots, never mind a horse to ride. I admit I did try that. I went up Bishopsgate, only to find that the gates were now guarded and sealed. The city fathers, who had fled, were very determined that no one should follow their example and take the infection out into the countryside. I wandered back and sheltered in a derelict house near the Austin Friars just off Broad Street. I thought I was safe, but a gang of riflers attacked me, stripping me of my jerkin. The next morning, cold and sore, I joined the other beggars outside the friary, desperate for a morsel of bread and a pannikin of fresh water.
I continued to wander the city; it was a descent into Hell. The contagion had grown worse. Whole streets were sealed off. Houses daubed with red paint mocked me from every side. Soldiers, armed to the teeth, drove me off with blows when I tried to beg outside a church. The death-carts trundled by. The corpses were stacked high; their legs and arms flailed as the cart rumbled across the cobbles, putting a strange life back into these grey-white cadavers. The mounds of refuse grew higher: fires burned in every street and the city reeked of smoke and sulphur. At night, dark shapes flitted up and down the alleyways, armed with knives and dirks, to fight like wolves over the most paltry possessions. Now and again, those city fathers who had remained tried to impose order. Soldiers were sent into the streets to enforce a curfew, and everything became as quiet as death until they passed.
I went up towards Newgate. The hunger pains were so sharp I even considered committing a crime so that I could be taken and perhaps be given something to eat or drink. Yet justice had also become poor: those who were caught plundering or breaking the law were summarily hanged. The gibbets along the great, stinking city ditch, some of them six- or seven-branched, each bore the corpse of a condemned felon. I managed to get in to Aldersgate, slipping across into Smithfield only to glimpse greater terrors yet to come.
Now, in Henry's day, Smithfield not only had its fair and market, it was also the city's execution ground. Catering not only for hangings and burnings, Smithfield also boasted a strong stone pillar which soared as high as the trees; from the top hung a great black iron cage. This could be raised or lowered by a pulley, and was reserved for poisoners, especially those who had killed their masters. It was very rarely used. However, on that day, as I sidled along Little Britain Alleyway leading into the marketplace, a terrible stench caught my throat and wrung my belly even tighter. It was sharp and acrid, like the foul odour from some stinking cookshop. When I reached the great common I discovered the reason. It was early in the morning but a small crowd had gathered around the execution pillar. The cage had been lowered: it still hung above smouldering embers. Ever curious, I pushed my way to the front and saw the cage contained the blackened corpse of a man, or what was left of him. His skin and his hair had shrivelled, the legs and hands were blackened stumps, the face all burnt away.
‘What happened?' I asked a fellow standing next to me, thin and miserable-looking as myself.
‘I don't know,' he replied in a sing-song fashion. 'But this morning the cage was found lowered and the fire burning. God knows who he is.'
'It's no execution!' another called.
Two bailiffs shouted for volunteers to bring buckets of water to throw over the cage and cool it off. They offered a small loaf of bread and a pannikin of wine, so I volunteered. I spent the next hour staggering backwards and forwards across the common carrying buckets of water from the great horse-trough to douse the cage and its grisly contents. The smell was so foul, the sight so horrid, that everyone else drew off. Nevertheless, I and the man I had spoken to worked on. We just licked our lips, feeling the juices in our mouths at the prospect of a loaf and a mouthful of wine. Now, being grilled to death is the most macabre of fates. I have only seen it done once since; that was to John de Rous, the Bishop of Rochester's cook: he had tried to kill his master and his entire household by mixing arsenic in the soup. (Oh, by the way, before you ask, my own cooks are hand-picked. The captain of my guard, the jolliest cut-throat you could meet, is always present in the kitchen when my meats are cooked and my bread baked. Half the rulers of Europe want me dead: the Luciferi of France, the Council of Eight in Florence, the Secretissimi of Venice, not to mention that mad bugger in Russia, the Prince of Muscovy! He still sends letters enquiring after my health. My chaplain, the little dropping, is smiling to himself. If he doesn't stop being insolent, I'll make him principal taster. As you know, there's many a slip between cup and lip!)
Ah well, back to that hot summer morning. Eventually we cooled the cage off, opened it, and dragged out what remained of the cad
aver. No one would be able to recognise it, but the principal bailiff a sturdy, open-faced man, came over. Despite all the horror and death around us, he was one of those honest officials who took his job seriously, and still believed in maintaining law and order in the city. He crouched down, studying the blackened remains. My eye caught something glinting where the wrist had been and I pointed it out. The bailiff picked this up: it was an iron bracelet, a chain with a small medal bearing a death's-head. The bailiff scrutinised it then whistled under his breath. He polished it against his cloak and held it up.
'Lord save us!' he whispered.
'What is it?' I asked curiously.
The bailiff tossed the chain up and down in his hand. He gestured at the blackened, smoking remains. ‘Believe it or not, that was once Andrew Undershaft, the city executioner. A leading figure in the Guild of Hangmen which meets at the Gallows tavern just near the Tower.'
‘Was he convicted of any crime?' I asked.
The bailiff shook his head. The courts haven't sat for weeks, and Andrew had committed no crime.' He stared up at the great stone pillar. 'Undershaft was murdered,' he continued quietly. 'Hard to believe but someone brought him down here late last night, put him in that cage, lowered the pulley and lit a fire under him.'
'And no one noticed that? Surely the fellow's screams would have been heard in Windsor?'
The bailiff looked at me closely. ‘You speak well for a beggar.'
That's because I'm not one,' I replied. 'Just another unfortunate down on his luck.'
I was tempted to mention my master. How I once wore the livery of Cardinal Wolsey. But he wouldn't believe me: even when I am shaved, bathed, my hair cut and oiled, I still have the look of a born liar.
'Well, whoever you are,' the bailiff popped the chain into his purse, 'who cares what happens in London now? The city has become a murky antechamber of Hell. Sorcery is celebrated in Cripplegate, wholesale murders in the Vintry. Entire families are dying of starvation in their locked houses. Who'd care about a man screaming to death in a cage over a fire at Smithfield? It's a sign of the times.' He pulled a face. 'If he was alive when he was put in the cage, and I don't think he was, he wouldn't have screamed long.'