Plague

by Jo Macauley

  John frowned. “But the Beargarden isn’t its real name, is it? That’s just the nickname for—”

  “—the Hope Theatre,” Beth finished. Where they bait live animals as entertainment, as Clare had just mentioned. The line from Shakespeare she’d struggled to remember at the bell foundry fell into her mind now. In Henry V, Shakespeare had referred to the Globe Theatre as a “wooden O”, because of its circular shape. Just like the Hope Theatre – or the Beargarden as London folk call it!

  “But all the theatres are shut because of the plague, as you know,” Ralph pointed out.

  “Unless this is about some special, private performance?” suggested John.

  Beth pointed at the lion’s head on the paper. “I know exactly what the special performance is. They’re going to bait a lion to death. And God help us all, I think I know why...”

  Chapter Fourteen - A Strange Meeting

  At the top of the bell tower at St Paul’s Cathedral, Strange listened in silence as Beth explained what they had discovered, as John and Ralph watched and listened grimly, interjecting when necessary. For all the emotion he showed, his craggy, impassive face could have been a stone gargoyle’s. When Beth mentioned Sebastian Peters, he held up a hand for her to stop. “This man, Peters. Did you happen to discover his nationality?”

  “We never spoke to him. He died before we reached him.”

  “Nobody else mentioned it?”

  Beth searched her memory, and looked to John who shook his head. “No.”

  Strange nodded. “Continue.”

  He remained stock still until Beth mentioned the Beargarden. Suddenly, Strange’s face came alive. He was on his feet and by her side in two quick strides.

  “You’re certain that’s what the message meant?”

  “I’m certain,” Beth said. “It all fits together. The water, the circles, the lion’s head. There’s only one part that’s still missing.”

  “And that is?” Strange snapped.

  “How the King would be in attendance at a session of lion-baiting at the Beargarden in London,” Beth said slowly, “when His Majesty is currently in Oxford along with the rest of his court...”

  Strange frowned at her, and Beth’s heart quickened involuntarily.

  “I see. Pray tell, Miss Johnson, why you are so certain that the lion-baiting is for the King’s benefit?”

  “Because it is traditional, when an ambassador visits on state business, to offer them the entertainment they most wish to see,” Beth explained, managing to keep her speech calm. “His Majesty is keen to build a secret diplomatic alliance with Germany, is he not?”

  “Go on,” Strange said.

  “Blood sports are even more popular with the German nobles than they are with the English,” Beth continued, careful to keep the distaste out of her voice. “If the King is secretly meeting with a German ambassador, with a view to making an alliance, then he will want to offer him a special kind of entertainment. Something rare and to his taste ... such as baiting a lion in the Beargarden.”

  Strange fixed her with his gaze, and then – to her astonishment – he smiled slowly. It was not a regular phenomenon. She glanced at Ralph, who raised an eyebrow too.

  “You are good, Beth,” he said. “I set you to work finding out the enemy’s secrets, but you appear to have uncovered some of our own...”

  “The King’s not in Oxford at all, is he?” Beth said, certain now.

  “No,” Strange confessed. “In truth, His Majesty never left. He is residing in London in secret, preparing to meet with the German ambassador.”

  Beth thought of the company back in Oxford, and felt a sly satisfaction that Lady Lucy Joseph wouldn’t be performing for her cousin the King at all, even if she had stolen Beth’s part. Not that she had seemed all that interested in a royal audience...

  “But what of the plague?” John said, frowning. “Is it not still too dangerous?”

  “The ambassador insisted, and the King and his court have been careful not to allow anyone even slightly associated with those afflicted with the disease to come close. Beth, your analysis of the situation was correct in every detail,” Strange continued. “Ambassador Von Karstein of Germany likes nothing better than to watch a captive animal fighting off a pack of trained hounds. His Majesty was advised that baiting a lion would be a suitably rare spectacle to impress the ambassador.”

  Mors ad Regi, Beth thought. Death to the King. The lion was the king of beasts. It sickened her to think of such a noble creature condemned to a painful death in the name of entertainment – even if it was for the sake of England, she couldn’t help thinking it was wrong.

  Strange continued, “I admit, I am impressed with your work – but also gravely concerned. His Majesty’s meeting at the Beargarden was supposed to be a state secret. Yet, somehow, the conspirators must know that the King is in London. They know about the meeting.” Strange slammed his fist down on the ledge. “Someone right within the King’s inner circle is passing on information.”

  “Perhaps it is the fourth conspirator,” Beth suggested. “Is there a L.B. in the King’s court?”

  Strange stood still with his knuckles pressed to his forehead. The master spy’s brain was like a library, meticulously ordered, with nothing out of place. Beth knew he was hunting through names, looking for a match as if he were leafing through a book.

  “There is no LB,” he said finally.

  “You always tell us not to make assumptions,” John said tentatively. “What if we’ve assumed something about LB?”

  “Such as?”

  “What if one of the letters isn’t a name? What if it’s a title? Lord Beaumont, Lady Belvedere, something of that kind?”

  Beth felt a chill. “Lord Beaumont is head of the College of Arms, where the heralds work.” Including my friend, Francis Sandford, she thought. “And there was heraldry in the symbols on that note.”

  “The heraldry is what convinces me Henry Vale is behind this,” Strange said. “The bridge must be his symbol for himself, the mark of the First Son.”

  “Vale’s made his last mistake, then. We can catch him when he attacks the King!” Ralph said excitedly. “Execute him properly this time!”

  “Vale will not attack in person. His agents will attempt the assassination in his name.” Strange sighed. “I doubt Vale is even in the country. The danger of discovery is far too great. I believe he is working abroad; we have intelligence that he’s in Germany recruiting foreign agents to his cause.”

  Beth had a horrible thought. “An attempt on the King’s life during a diplomatic meeting could plunge the whole country into a new war!”

  “Indeed.” Strange’s voice was stony.

  “What if – God forbid – His Majesty were killed, and Germany were blamed for it?”

  “I suspect that may be exactly what the conspirators hope to achieve,” Strange said. “We know this much, at least, thanks to you: the conspirators plan to strike while the lion-baiting takes place. We can be ready for them.”

  “What? You’re not going to allow the lion-baiting to go ahead!” exclaimed John, aghast. “I apologize, sir, but we’ve found out about the plot, so surely you have to cancel the meeting?”

  “I cannot,” Strange said.

  “But surely you must? The King is in danger—”

  “Boy, the danger would be all the worse if the King withdrew!” Strange retorted, silencing John. “The conspirators would know immediately that we had uncovered their plot. They would melt back into the shadows and bide their time until the next plot – and we might not be lucky enough to uncover that one.”

  John’s cheeks were red. “So we’re just going to let them try to kill the King?” he said.

  “We will watch from the shadows and catch them in the act,” said Strange, with a firm reassuring hand on John’s shoulder. “We do not have much time. The meeting begins in an hour.”

  “We’re going to help your men protect the King?” Beth felt thrilled to be working a
longside the master spy himself. Strange had never put such trust in her before.

  “No. When I said we would be ready for them, I meant solely the four of us.” He drew a dusty sack from the corner of the room. “My best men are dead from the plague. Others are too far away to help. We four are all that stands between the Crown and anarchy.”

  High on the bell tower, Beth felt momentarily dazed. Strange’s matter-of-fact words had left her reeling – they were being entrusted with something very important indeed, once again: the life of the King.

  “But ... what about the King’s guards?” she managed to ask. “Can’t you just surround him with them?”

  “Everything you have uncovered points to a traitor within the King’s own household,” Strange said through clenched teeth. “If I double the King’s guard, the traitor will know his plans are found out. We must act so as to convince him we are none the wiser.”

  Beth swallowed hard and nodded. “Understood, sir.”

  “Good. Besides, I do not imagine either the King’s guard or the conspirators know their way around a theatre nearly as well as you do.” Strange rewarded her with another rare smile. “Our blessings are precious few this day, but you are one of them.”

  Beth had all but forgotten the Beargarden was also a theatre – the Hope. She did know its layout, especially the actors’ side of it, like few others could.

  “Before we depart, listen carefully. The King’s guard are under strict instructions to admit nobody to the Beargarden unless they know the password.” He took a breath. “The password is Tamburlaine.”

  Beth’s exhilaration mounted even further. Strange might as well have entrusted her with the keys to the King’s own private chamber. This was a challenge – and a duty – beyond anything she had ever dreamed.

  “Now, to the Beargarden,” Strange declared, sweeping his cloak around him and striding down the stairs. “The King’s safety, and the future of all England, is in our hands...”

  Chapter Fifteen - Ambushed!

  Strange’s private coach was waiting outside the cathedral. Its two horses were black as silhouettes and its driver sat so muffled with scarves only his eyes could be seen.

  “To the waterfront,” Strange ordered, as Beth, John and Ralph quickly climbed inside.

  With a jolt and a jingle of brasses, they were off. The comfortable leather seats and shade from the roof were worlds away from the open-topped carts in which Beth had travelled to Oxford and back. She knew she should try to relax and gather her strength while she could, but even with lack of sleep weighing her down, it was impossible. The thought of Vale’s assassins mounting their attack on the King made her feel as though ice-cold water ran through her veins, and kept her wide awake.

  “We’re not going over the bridge?” she asked Strange, surprised.

  “We’ll hire a waterman to take us over the Thames,” Strange told her. “Even with the plague abroad, London Bridge will still be full of horses and carts at this time of day.”

  John nodded. “We could be stuck there for an hour or more. Plenty of time for LB to make his move. The river’s faster.”

  “Safer too,” Ralph added. “Someone comes at you on the Thames, you can see ’em coming.”

  Beth peered out through the blind, looking at the huge houses of London’s wealthy overshadowing them as they passed through Cheapside. Curtains were drawn behind the windows, and only a few servants could be seen going about their errands inside.

  “Nobody home in these houses,” Ralph said, peering over her shoulder. “All packed up and moved out to their country estates.”

  “Can you blame them?” John said. “What are they supposed to do, stay in London and wait to catch the plague?”

  “I wouldn’t leave even if I did have the cash,” Ralph sneered. “I’m a Londoner born and bred. We don’t turn our backs on our city. When times get tough, we stick it out!”

  “I’m a Londoner too,” Beth reminded him pointedly. “Despite having left the city for a spell.”

  “Yeah, well,” Ralph said, looking guilty. “That’s different. You didn’t have no choice, did you? You was ordered to go.”

  And I came back, Beth thought to herself. Back to save the city that I love, and the King that I serve. I just hope we’re not too late.

  The coachman took them through an alley short cut, and soon the houses surrounding them were far smaller and meaner-looking than the grand dwellings of Cheapside. Almost all of the doors had red crosses on them, and some of them stood open onto the street now. Beth swallowed hard as she realized what that meant.

  “There’s nobody living there any more,” she murmured. “Everyone who lived in those houses is dead...”

  “You must not yield to despair,” Strange warned her. “Two thousand souls were lost in the last week alone. But terrible as that is, it is nothing compared to the loss of life that will ensue if we fail in our task.”

  She nodded once, clenching her jaw and drawing in a deep breath. It hurt Beth to see London looking so ravaged, but she still could not turn away. As the horses trotted through the streets, the heartbroken sobs of widowed women and the howls of orphaned children echoed from near and far. Every church they passed had a gaping plague pit dug in the churchyard, where carts bearing bodies lined up to dump their loads.

  “I’m ready,” she said in a hoarse but determined voice. “Don’t doubt my will to fight, sir.”

  The coach rattled to a halt at the bank of the Thames, close to the end of London Bridge that spanned the water like an overbuilt street. The mysterious driver didn’t say a word as they all clambered out. It was high tide and the Thames lapped at the stones of the wharf. Watermen piloted their boats across the river, taking passengers to their destinations, and Strange glanced quickly around, looking for a waterman to beckon over.

  But just then, Beth heard a shout from behind them, in a familiar, high-pitched voice: “This is as far as you get, you King-loving filth!”

  She span round just in time to see Mott’s co-conspirator, Jack Leighton, no more than twenty feet away. He was levelling a flintlock musket right at Strange.

  “Look out!” she yelled, shoving the spymaster out of the way as hard as she could. Taken completely by surprise, he fell sprawling in the street.

  A sharp bang rang out as Leighton fired, and Beth clearly saw the flash of fire in the musket’s pan.

  The shot zinged off the cobblestones behind her. Everything seemed to slow down. The acrid smell of gunpowder awoke a vivid memory in Beth, of the explosion on Bonfire Night. It was as if it were happening all over again. Leighton raised the musket like a club and charged towards them, yelling. Beth rolled out of the way, but he swung the musket ferociously at Strange, raining blows down as though something had snapped in him. It was as if Leighton had to kill, to redeem himself for his cowardice before. Strange defended as best he could, but the heavy wooden stock of the musket smashed him down again and again.

  “Stop!” John shouted. He ran in to attack Leighton, with Ralph right behind him, yelling at the conspirator, who fell back, aiming the weapon at Strange with his eyes darting frantically between his target and the two boys rushing towards him.

  “No!” Strange gasped, blood plastering his hair to his forehead. “Leave me! I can take care of him. Get to the Beargarden!”

  Beth looked over her shoulder. A waterman had pulled his boat in at the wharf. They could still reach the King in time...

  “W-we can’t abandon you!” she shouted.

  “You must,” hissed Strange. “The King needs you! Leave this man to me.”

  Leighton was stalking closer, his hands shaking, looking for a window of opportunity for another attack, unsure whether to shoot or clobber once more. Onlookers were stopping and staring, not daring to interfere. But Beth saw the gleam of a dagger under Strange’s cloak...

  “Come on,” she told Ralph and John. “He’s right! We have to leave, now!”

  Ralph wouldn’t move. “Leighton’s goin
g to kill him.”

  “Strange can take care of himself. Move!”

  They ran.

  The waterman let them on board his little rowing boat, and pushed away from the river bank. “Where to?” he demanded.

  “Bankside,” Beth told him. “As fast as you can.”

  The man nodded and heaved at the oars.

  But as they pulled away, shouts and screams began to come from the wharf behind them. “He’s dead!” a woman shrieked. “He killed him! Murder!”

  Beth, Ralph and John exchanged fearful glances. They were all thinking the same thing. Strange’s words to them could have been his last words on this earth.

  They were the King’s only hope – and now they were truly on their own.

  Chapter Sixteen - The Beargarden

  The little boat sculled across the Thames as fast as the stout boatman could row. Beth was alarmed to see they were coming close to the dangerous passage under London Bridge, where a few months earlier they had outrun Vale’s henchman Edmund Groby but nearly lost John in the process.

  The immense bridge stood on pillars of masonry, with wooden shuttle-like constructions around the base to protect them from the surging Thames and from any stray ships that might smash into them. The archways between were so narrow that the water on the west side of the Bridge was higher than the east at low tide, causing foaming torrents of water to rush through. If the boat came too close, they’d be sucked in and risk being dashed to pieces against the wooden barriers...

  “Can’t you watch where you’re going?” John demanded.

  “You watch your tongue, boy,” the boatman snapped. “I’ve been working this river thirty years, and I’ve not drowned a passenger yet!”

  John sat flexing his wrists angrily, itching to take over the oars himself – she could tell he was still anxious at the memory too. But the boatman was as good as his word – he hauled at the oars with fresh vigour, and soon the little boat’s bottom was grinding on the muddy south bank of the Thames. John went to pay him, but the boatman refused. He gave Beth a shy smile.