Dodd nodded, speechless.
‘Up that way,’ Barnabus added, waving an arm to the north, ‘that’s where the big guildhalls are and Gresham’s Exchange is that way on Cornhill.’
‘Does yer sister live here?’
‘Nah. It’s too pricey round here, I just thought I’d show you Cheapside, seeing it’s your first visit. I mean, you couldn’t come to London and miss the Cheapside jewellers, could you?’
Dodd shook his head. They wandered along for a while and came to a row of stalls selling ruffs of astonishing width, embroidered shirts, women’s wigs sparkling with gold chains and pearls, and some extraordinary hats. Dodd’s mouth fell open again before he shut it with an irritated click of his teeth. Never in his life had he felt such a yokel, but this made Edinburgh look like Longtown by comparison. Where in God’s name did folk get the money to spend on such things?
‘Here,’ nudged Barnabus. ‘Why don’t you buy something for your wife. Eh?’
‘What, for Janet?’
‘Yeh. She’s your wife, in’t she?’
‘Well, but…These are fer fine court ladies, not Janet.’
‘She may not be a fine lady, though she’s always seemed pretty fine to me, but you’re a man of importance in Carlisle and she should show it, shouldn’t she? Here, look, why don’t you buy her a hat?’
‘What, one of them?’
‘Yeh. Why not? You got Heneage’s bribe money on you and nobody’s nipped it out of yer crotch yet.’
‘How did ye ken…’ Barnabus rolled knowing eyeballs at Dodd and darted forwards to speak confidentially to the woman behind the stall. She looked hard at Dodd.
‘A hat for your wife, sir?’ she said. ‘A French hood, perhaps?’
‘Nay,’ said Dodd looking at the thing she was pointing at. ‘She’s got one of them, there’s plenty of wear in it yet. What about that one?’ He pointed at a high-crowned confection of green velvet with a pheasant’s feather in it. ‘That would look well wi’ her bright hair.’
‘And what colour is your wife’s hair, sir?’
‘Red.’
‘How charming,’ said the woman with a smile. ‘Just like the Queen. Well, I think you’ve made a very good choice, sir. That will be twenty five shillings exactly, sir, and cheap at the price.’
Dodd gobbled. He heard himself do it, but couldn’t stop. Twenty-five shillings, for a hat? ‘Barnabus…’ he growled and Barnabus took his elbow and whisked him round the side of the stall.
‘Look, Sergeant, it sounds a lot, but it’ll be worf it, believe me. There’s nuffing ladies like better than ’ats and she’d never ever get one this good nor this fashionable anywhere norf of York.’
‘But…but I could buy a field for that.’
‘No doubt you could, round Carlisle, where land’s so cheap, but would Mrs Dodd like that so much?’
‘Ay, she would, she’s a sensible woman.’
‘Look, mate. You’ve treated me right and I’m giving you some good advice ’ere. You give her the hat, and every time she looks at it, she’ll forgive you for whatever it is you’ve done.’
Dodd shook his head to clear it. ‘Ah’ve niver heard of such a thing.’
‘Look, let’s see what I can do for you, eh? I know Mrs Bridger…’
‘Och, so that’s it…’
‘Come on. You’ve got to get her somefing while you’re in London or she’ll never speak to you again.’
This was incontrovertibly true. Dodd hesitated.
‘So you might as well give your money to somebody I know, right? Anyway, let me see what I can do.’
Barnabus trotted round the back of the stall and had a long chat with Mrs Bridger, while Dodd got his breath back and resignedly pulled out his purse.
Barnabus beckoned him close again. ‘Mrs Bridger has very kindly on account of our friendship agreed to cut her price by a fifth, which pretty much wipes out her profit, so this is quite a favour…’
Dodd counted out two of the golden angels Heneage had given him and handed them over. Mrs Bridger looked at them sharply, and bit both of them. Then she handed one back with an ugly look on her face and glared at Barnabus.
‘Are you up to your tricks again, Cooke?’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘That one’s false. If your gentleman’s got no gold in ’is purse, he shouldn’t come buying things at my stall.’
‘False?’ echoed Dodd, looking at the coin.
‘It’s pewter with gold on the outside. Look at it.’
Dodd squinted closely at it and had to admit he could see grey metal in the pits made by her teeth. Simon stood on tiptoe to peer at it too, shook his head and tut-tutted.
‘You could be hanged for uttering false coin, you know that, Cooke.’
‘On my soul, Mrs Bridger, I’d no idea. Look at the other ones, Sergeant, see if they’re all right.’
Dodd fished out another angel and bit it himself and it seemed right enough. Mrs Bridger took it suspiciously, bit it, then weighed it on a pair of little scales she had under the counter. At last she nodded. ‘That one’s all right too.’
With a meaningful sniff and another scowl at Barnabus she took the magnificent hat, wrapped it in a linen cloth, stuffed the inside with hay and put it in a round bandbox with a handle which she gave to Simon to hold.
A horrible idea occurred to Dodd. He poured all the angels onto his palm, bit the three remaining and found one other was the same as the false one. On Barnabus’s advice he put the two false angels in his jerkin and the rest of his money back in his crotch and they walked on. Dodd felt he had been robbed, even though he was still carrying more money than he ever did except on rent day.
‘We’ll ’ave to talk to Sir Robert about that,’ said Barnabus. ‘I wonder if it was Heneage’s bribe or the footpad’s money?’
‘Have ye got any bad ones?’
‘Dunno. I left mine at Somerset House.’ His small eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘Hem. Let’s go see my sister first, then we’ll take a boat.’
They finally came to New Fish Street and ducked down a little alley. ‘Of course, there’s always a bit of coining going on, but they don’t generally bother with gold coins, it’s too hard to spend what you make…Now, you mind that box, Simon, if anybody swipes it or sits on it, I’ll sell you to the Falcon’s Chick to pay for it. You should be worth that much, what d’yer reckon?’
Barnabus was still talking as he bustled up to a narrow fronted house with the shutters on the two lower windows still closed, and lifted his arm to bang on the door.
He stopped stock still, frozen in mid-move, made a little short grunt in his throat as if he’d been stabbed. Dodd saw the thing a moment after and felt the blood drain down from his face in horror and fear.
There was a cross branded into the wood of the door, red paint daubed into the burnt furrows which had dripped down the door as it dried. The latch had been nailed shut, and so had the shutters. Below the cross was pinned a piece of printed paper.
Barnabus ripped it down and his lips moved as he read it.
‘“May the Lord have mercy on us.”’
Dodd had backed away from the door, looked up and down the street which he now realised was suspiciously empty for London. There were other red crosses on other doors.
‘Nah, nah,’ Barnabus croaked. ‘It’s a mistake. Easily done. Just a mistake, Simon, don’t you worry.’
Simon had his face screwed up and tears in his eyes as he looked up at the cross. ‘Mum?’ he shouted, ‘Mum?’
‘Margery!’ bellowed Barnabus, hammering on the door. ‘MARGERY! It’s me, it’s Barnabus. Where are you?’
One of the windows opened on the upper storey and a girl poked her head out. She was very pale and she had bandages round her neck.
‘That you, Uncle Barney?’ she called.
‘Letty! Letty, what’s happened? What’s all this?’
Letty was crying and looked as if she’d done a lot of it, lately. ‘Oh, Uncle Barney. It wa
s Sam got it first, and then Mary, and then George and me, and then dad got it and mum’s got it, and dad’s dead and they took him off yesterday and now mum’s all black and she won’t wake up and…and…’ She made her hands into fists and howled into them.
Barnabus was panting as he looked up while Simon had placed the bandbox carefully on the step, sat down beside it and was weeping into his sleeve.
‘I…I don’t believe it. She’s too good for this. She never done nuffing. She’s the best of the lot of us. Letty, are you sure…?’
For answer the girl pulled down the bandage under her chin and they could see the scabbed pit under her ear where a buboe had burst. Dodd had looked coolly at the pointed end of all manner of weapons, but this nearly made him lose his water. ‘I’m getting better now and so’s George, but…but Mary’s looking poorly and the baby’s…Well, the baby’s dead, of course, but me mam…It’s me mam I’m feared for, she’s all black, all black spots all over and she smells horrible. I think she’s still breathing but…Oh, Uncle Barney.’
For fully five minutes Barnabus stared up at his niece, breathing hard through his mouth and his hands opening and closing into fists. Dodd was rooted to the spot and the hair on the back of his neck standing up like a hedgehog. He had seen plague. Years ago, back when he was a little wean still in skirts, there had been plague in Upper Tynedale and his cousin Mary had died of it and his uncle had staggered through the village roaring, his face turned into a monster’s by the huge lumps on his neck and the black blotches and he’d collapsed over by the stream and none of the grown-ups had dared go near, except poor mad Peter…Big strong grown-ups, men that had forayed hundreds of times into Scotland and come back triumphantly with Elliot cattle and sheep, they had smelled of fear and some of them had disappeared forever. Dodd’s memory was confused but he knew that one of his sisters, the one he hated because she was littler than him, she had turned black and become a stiff doll-like thing and they had buried her…
He found he hadn’t been breathing and he took in a deep harsh breath. Simon was still howling on his doorstep. My legs’ll move soon, Dodd told himself, and then I’m off, I’m going, I’m out of London and I’m going north whether the Courtier likes it or not…
‘All right, Letty. You got any food in the house?’ How was it Barnabus’s voice was so calm. He wasn’t even shouting.
Letty shook her head. ‘We ate the last hen two days ago,’ she sniffled. ‘And the bread yesterday.’
‘We’ll get you some. What happened to Margery’s fighting cock? Did you eat him?’
Letty shook her head again and winced. ‘No, Uncle Barney, mum wouldn’t let us. She said he could make our fortunes if we got through this. But she’s gone all black and she won’t wake up…’
‘Now you calm down, Letty, you hear me? You’ve got to be a good girl and look after the others. Me and Sergeant Dodd ’ere, we’ll go get you some food. Have you got a basket and some rope?’
She nodded.
‘Good. Now, Simon, you stay here and look after Sergeant Dodd’s hatbox and don’t you move, you hear me? You stay there. You can get plague just by going in the house, so don’t you move!’
‘B…but me mam…’
Barnabus’s face crumpled and there were tears in his eyes too. He stroked Simon’s hair. ‘Son, your mum’s dead. If she in’t now, she will be soon. If all you’ve got is buboes, there’s some chance for you, but if you get the black spots all over you, that’s it, you’re done for. And don’t forget, you can take the plague just from the bad smell of it, so don’t you set foot in that house.’
Dodd nodded at this sense. Barnabus jerked his head at him, and they went back up the silent little street. Dodd knew he was shaking all over, but he wasn’t sure enough of his legs to start running yet.
Barnabus’s shifty little ferret-face was grim and cold. ‘Now we know what’s going on ’ere,’ he said. ‘That’s why there’s hardly anybody about and the Queen’s still in Oxford when the lawterm should be starting soon. Good Christ Almighty.’
‘Are we going back to Sir Robert?’ Dodd asked, knowing his voice sounded funny because of his mouth being dry.
Barnabus looked straight up at him. ‘You can, mate, I’m not asking you to stick around. This is family business.’
‘Ay.’ Dodd wanted to explain that he was afraid of getting lost again and maybe stumbling into some other plague spot, but couldn’t because it sounded so weak. Him, Sergeant Dodd, afraid? But he was, afraid of the plague and afraid of this huge city full of people, any one of whom might be sick to death and not even show it yet.
‘Why didn’t anybody say what was happening?’
Barnabus sucked his teeth judiciously. ‘Well, there’s always a bit of plague about in London, but it’s usually only brats and babies that get it. They don’t start shutting the playhouses and having days of penance and preaching and so on until the parishes are showing more than thirty deaths a week from plague.’
‘Thirty deaths a week!’ Dodd echoed, horrified again at the numbers.
‘Plus of course there’s plenty of rich people that want to keep it quiet because of the damage to business.’
‘Ay.’
They were in New Fish Street again, according to a dirty sign up on one of the houses. Barnabus looked thoughtfully at the various fishmongers’ shops, several of them shut up tight, and carried on down the street until he came to a little grocer’s just under a magnificent clock hanging over the street like an inn sign.
They ranged about the nearby streets, buying bread and salt fish and cheese and finished with two big leather bottles of beer that Dodd carried. And that was amazing by itself, not having to wait for market day, being able to just go to shops and buy all that food whenever you wanted. When Barnabus ran out of money, Dodd handed over one of his false angels which made Barnabus grin cynically at him.
The afternoon was sliding away by the time they came back and found no Simon on the doorstep, but Dodd’s hatbox sitting there still. That sight made Dodd feel queasy all over again. A twenty-shilling hat, left unattended in the middle of London, and nobody had stolen it.
‘Where’s that boy?’ growled Barnabus. ‘If he’s gone in, ’e can stop there.’
They shouted up at the window again, until Letty put her head out and let down a basket on a rope. First the bread, then the cheese, then the salt fish, then the beer. They did it in silence, nobody having anything to say.
‘We’ll go to the river and fetch you some water, Letty,’ said Barnabus, still quite calmly. ‘You got any water barrels?’
‘Simon’s bringing it round from the yard,’ said Letty.
‘You didn’t let him in the house, did you?’
She shook her head. Simon appeared in one of the tiny passageways between the houses rolling the barrel in front of him in a little handcart.
‘Did you go in?’
‘No, Uncle,’ said Simon glibly, tears still shining on his cheeks. ‘’Course I didn’t.’
‘Not to say goodbye to your mum or nuffing?’
‘No, Uncle, I wouldn’t.’
‘Where’d you get the barrel?’
‘Well, I went in the yard, I ’ad to, see if Tamburlain the Great was all right.’
‘And is he?’
‘Well, he’s still alive, but he don’t look very well, he’s huddled up in his cage looking all sad and bedraggled ’cos his hens is dead.’
Barnabus grunted. ‘Come on.’
They threaded through little alleys down to some worn riversteps where Barnabus heaved the barrel on its rope into the oily water, waited until it sank and then with Dodd’s help, hauled it back up again and heaved it onto the cart. Dodd pushed the barrel up New Fish Street into the alley. Letty still had her head out the window.
‘Can you get it in our yard, Uncle Barney?’ she called, looking a little bit more cheerful and munching on some of the bread.
‘No problem, Letty.’
They manoeuvred the cart up the
passageway and found the passage-gate nailed shut as well. Simon showed them where he’d climbed over the yardwall.
‘I’ll get in and you heft the barrel to me, Sergeant.’
‘Ay.’
It was a gut-busting business hauling the heavy sloshing barrel up over the wall and into the yard. Barnabus disappeared for a minute and Dodd’s neck hairs stood up again with the suspicion that he’d been mad enough to go into the house himself, but then he was lifting a wooden cage full of squawking red and bronze feathers up to the brow of the wall. Dodd took it from him, nearly getting his fingers pecked by the wild-eyed fighting cock inside, and then Barnabus climbed back into the passage, dusting himself down and shaking his head.
‘The cat’s dead of it too. I don’t believe it.’
Dodd stared at him suspiciously. ‘Ye didnae go in yerself?’
Barnabus sighed. ‘No, mate, I’m not stupid. The yard should be safe enough, no bad airs there. Come on, Simon, I need a drink.’
They trailed round to the front of the house again and Dodd gingerly picked his hatbox up off the doorstep.
‘You all right for the moment, Letty?’
She nodded and licked her fingers. ‘Thanks, Uncle Barney. I’ll tell mum when she wakes up.’
‘All right, sweetheart. I’ll come back tomorrow if I can, or the next day.’
‘Bye, Uncle Barney. See yer.’
Barnabus nodded and swallowed hard. Dodd heard him mutter, ‘Bye, Margery, God keep you, girl.’
They went back into New Fish Street again and looked at each other, exhausted. Barnabus was as grey as a man who had been badly wounded.
‘Ay,’ said Dodd. ‘Ye do need a drink. Where’s the nearest boozing ken?’
Barnabus scrubbed his sleeve along his face and coughed. ‘That’ll be Mother Smith’s, up that way.’
Mother Smith’s had a red cross on the door and the shutters nailed together. They stared at it dully and carried on up to Eastcheap and along to another little house with red lattices. Dodd bought three large horn cups of aqua vitae and some beer with the change from his false angel, and they sat by the window drinking in silence.
‘What’ll we tell the Courtier?’
4 A Plague of Angels Page 12