by L. E. Waters
“This is made from theriac, mithridate, bol armeniac, and terra sigillata from the finest apothecary in Paris. Her four humors are out of balance, evidence of the pus that is pooling under her skin in bubo form. This serum is her only hope at correcting it.”
Before he gives it to me, he holds his hand out to the lord.
“Three gold coins, my lord.”
The lord digs into a satchel tied at his side, brings out five, and places them in Hadrian’s outstretched hand. “I want two vials.”
Hadrian agrees, gives me one vial, pulls another one out of his bag, and gives it to the lord.
He speaks to me. “Drop the whole contents of the vial into her mouth and make sure she swallows. Hold her mouth closed and stroke her throat if she does not do so willingly.”
I reopen the curtains to find her breathing even shallower. I feel terrible pouring the liquid into her panting mouth but do so. She lays there with the fluid pooling under her tongue. I put down my apple, take a deep breath as I close her mouth, and I’m relieved to see her swallow. She then convulses, and I jump back. She goes into a coughing spasm, no doubt the result of forcing the liquid. I break out in tears and run from the room. I don’t stop until I’m outside the estate. Hadrian comes out after a few minutes without a glance in my direction.
He hoists himself on the cart, looks down at me, and says, “Get on.”
I don’t eat dinner that night but choose to sit out in my garden. I see from the walls of my courtyard that the sun is setting red on the horizon. I decide I’m going to try to talk Hadrian into leaving tomorrow. I don’t want to become that woman. I don’t want to see my mother like that. We must get far away from this rotting city.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
I’m flying away from the burning city when a powerful gust of wind blows me back to the center of Cheapside. I hit the ground hard and, dazed, get up to see Hadrian digging. I walk over to see hundreds of dead bodies all lined up, heads to the west and feet to the east, side by side. They all stare vacantly at me. Two small children are thrown down, one with purple eyes and another with curly brown hair. Then Hadrian shoves me from behind, and I can’t stop falling.
I awake in a sweat to Hadrian calling for a servant to come and empty his chamber pot. No one comes. He leaves the room and returns minutes later and shouts, “No servant has showed!”
I stand to throw on my clothes.
“Elizabeth, empty my chamber pot.” He goes back downstairs.
I walk over to the steaming pot with nose pinched, open the window, and yell, “Look out below!” three times, as required, and pour the contents on the street below.
Upon entering the kitchen, I see an agitated Hadrian pacing. “The fire has gone out, and not a one has come.”
“Can we find more servants?”
“Not a one!” he screams as he throws his hands up into the air.
My mother comes to see what the shouting is about.
“I was paying ours twice the going rate, and they still stopped coming!”
Mother senses an opportunity. “Well, we still have most of our staff at Windsor. This only tells us that we must leave today.”
He’s searching the shelves for something. “I agree. We leave today.” Still searching, he fumes, “As soon as we find some bloody breakfast!” He throws down a stone-hard loaf of bread and sounds as if he cracked the slate floor.
“Elizabeth, go into town for your husband and fetch him his breakfast.”
I can’t believe she would send me out. “I cannot drive the cart myself!”
“There is no need to bring the cart; few people are out. It is safe to walk into Cheapside now.” She opens her eyes wide in demand. “Go now and fetch him his breakfast!”
As I throw my coat on, she presses coins into my palm. “Hurry back. I will pack up everything we need.”
“Why can’t he go?” I say under my breath as she crams my veiled headdress on.
“He is not in a state to go right now. I want to make sure he packs up and leaves before he can change his mind. Godspeed!”
She shoves me out and closes the heavy oak door behind me. I hear her slide the iron bolt so I won’t be able to go back inside. I pry my apple out and venture carefully into the muck.
Chapter 4
If I hadn’t been prepared for the desolation, I would’ve thought I was in the wrong place. Cheapside is empty except for the occasional person covering their mouths and dashing through the streets. Hadrian talked about farmers boycotting the capital because they feared exposure. There is a deep silence. The nearest bakery is closed.
I peer into the store. The shelves are bare, and no one is to be found. Searching all the boarded-up stores, I worry breakfast can’t be found. Down the lane, a large cart is being pushed toward me. To my horror, I see two half-naked bodies, strewn like sacks of flour, in the cart. I hold my apple up, suck in my breath, and start running the other way in search of an open shop.
Someone opens a window above and calls, “Sexton! We have a body here!” They wave a black plague flag out the window to signal a plague victim lies within. I run even faster.
Finally, I watch another hunched-over person run straight to a shop around the corner, and I follow. It is an open bakery! I never was so excited to see such a sparse assortment of simple wheat and rye loaves. The person in front of me gets as far away from me as he can and eyes me suspiciously. He snatches his loaf and runs out of the store. I ask for six wheat loaves, and the baker turns his back to wrap up the package quickly. One lane down, I feel the parcel and wonder how there could be six inside, and upon peering in, count that the baker gave me only five. I turn around, reenter the store, and put the parcel on the counter.
“Baker, there has been some mistake. I paid for six loaves but have only received five.”
“This parcel’s open. How do I know you didn’t eat the loaf and come back to cheat me?”
He throws the package on the counter and turns his back. He cheats me and will get away with it. I have to get out of London. Grabbing my inadequate package, I set my mind to hurrying back to the house. A cruck house door slams up ahead on the row. A tall lean young man walks out and starts up the lane. The door reopens, and a boy of about eight runs out after him.
“Father! Where are you going?” he screams frantically.
The man picks up his pace, and the boy grabs on to his arm. He throws him off, sending him into the putrid gutters, and yells, “I can’t do this! I’m done! We’re all done!”
He keeps walking and turns the corner without looking back. The boy sits in the filth and starts to cry, rubbing the dirt all over his face as he wipes his tears. Uncomfortable with witnessing what occurred, I plan on turning down the lane, trying to avoid the boy. But as I pass the decrepit house the boy ran from, I see a small face peering out.
My feet stop as I see a beautiful little boy with ringlets of brown curls around a perfectly shaped porcelain face. He has large, honey-brown eyes and a faint scar in the middle of his forehead. His face streams with tears, and he searches worriedly to the whereabouts of his father and brother. I’m compelled to look in on this distressed child. I open the squeaky, slight door and catch the little cherub’s attention. He seems even more frightened at my invasion, hops off a little stool, and darts to the next room.
I follow, saying, “Are you all alone, little one?”
The air is thick with the smell of excrement and urine. On the floor by the window are two piles of straw with moth-eaten woolen blankets, most likely the children’s beds. The adjoining room behind is full of livestock. Chickens perched and clucking, a fat sow grunting, and a small pony eating soiled hay. Through the open back door, a skinny cow groans to be milked. There are gaping holes in the thin walls of the wattle-and-daub house, from which three fat rats are coming in and out. I see one monstrous dead rat under the small table in the front room. Full chamber pots, and items used as chamber pots, are strewn about the room. I put up bo
th my apple and a sachet of rosemary to keep from gagging on the horrendous smell.
Turning into a dark, windowless room in the back of the house, I gasp as I see the little child tucked under the arm of a woman lying on the bed.
“Oh! I am very sorry, mistress; I thought the child was alone.”
She doesn’t move or reply.
“Mistress?”
Stepping forward, I smell the same putrid odor released when I cauterized the bubo at the noblewoman’s house. I instantly know she must be very sick. I step back to leave but see the little angel poke his head out to look at me, and I can’t go. I go up to see how sick she is and peer over to search her face. I gasp as I see a black-splotched face and pale blue skin, her eyes and mouth open. She must have been dead for days.
Shaking, I try to pull the child away, but he clings on to her tightly. When I walk back to the door, I turn to see he is lovingly smoothing her hair behind her pointed ear. Feeling sick to my stomach, I have to get some air and figure out what to do. I walk out the door and take a deep breath outside. How strange that the cesspool air of Cheapside would ever be refreshing! I notice out of the corner of my eye that the older boy is leaning on the side of the house, staring at me.
“Is this your house?” I ask.
He kicks a pebble with his ragged shoe and doesn’t answer. I take a moment to think of something else to say.
“Is your mother sick?”
He looks up. “She’s dead, and my father’s gone.”
I pause, then ask, “Do you think he will come back?”
“No.” He looks down again, but continues, “Once he saw that Rowan is sick now too, he told us we were all going to die.” He gazes down the street where his father disappeared.
“Do you need some help?”
He nods slightly, seemingly unsure of what I meant.
“Can you help me get Rowan to leave your mother?”
He nods, happy that it’s something he can do. He disappears into the house to come back with Rowan awkwardly dangling in his small arms, both children smiling. I bend down and feel Rowan’s head; he’s hot. His cheeks are flushed, which gives him beautiful contrast to his pale skin. I lift up one of his arms, look down his burlap nightshirt, and see a small bubo forming. The little angel has the plague.
“What is your name?” I ask the older boy.
“Oliver,” he answers. Rowan’s getting too heavy, and he places him back down.
Rowan must be four or five years old. Oliver runs after him dutifully, trying to keep him out of the street, and herds him back toward the house. Rowan giggles while trying to escape, amazing me how much energy he has, being sick as he is. Something catches my eye at the end of the lane; it’s the same gravedigger I ran from before. I can see he’s been busy since I last saw him. There must be five more bodies piled up on his cart.
I hurry. “Children, please go inside right now and go play with the animals.” Oliver obediently takes Rowan’s arm and pulls him begrudgingly back into the house. I don’t want them to see the cart full of death.
“Sexton! Sexton, I need your service!”
He looks up in an annoyed manner and doesn’t increase his pace in the slightest. He takes what seems like hours to reach where I am standing. I cover my mouth and nose again and try not to look at the grotesque bodies staring out through stiffened limbs.
He pulls the horse to a stop and gets down, wiping his sweaty, dirty head. He’s covered in every kind of filth and smells worse than he looks.
“It’s going to cost you.” His steel-grey eyes look not of this world. I step back, wanting to put as much space as possible between us.
“I only have a single pence.”
He sees the wrapped parcel tucked under my arm. “Is that fresh bread there?”
“Yes, four loaves of fresh wheat.” I want to save two loaves for the children.
“No forr, I will take your dead for the pence and the bread, but only because you’re such a lovely little blossom.”
He gives me a leering once-over. I point inside the house, and he thankfully leaves to fetch the poor woman’s body. I take out two loaves and tuck them into my underclothes. The sexton comes out backward, dragging the corpse.
“Take keep! Take keep!” he’s shouting, trying to dislodge Rowan as he clings to his mother’s chest. The sexton drags both of them off to the cart.
“Momma! Momma!” the child’s frantically crying.
Oliver is torn between not wanting his mother being taken and understanding she must be taken. He keeps trying to pull his little brother off as tears silently run down his dirty face.
The sexton gives one strong kick to the clinging child. “Away, wenchel!”
Rowan falls off howling, and Oliver tries to pull him up to comfort him.
Oliver spits toward the sexton, “He’s a boy!”
The sexton shrugs before hoisting her limp body clumsily, and without sympathy, onto the top of the heap. Oliver shuts his eyes and leans over Rowan so he can’t see. The sexton holds his hand out for payment. I tuck the coin into the package and hand the bread over. He greedily takes it and pulls out a loaf with the same hand that just handled days’-old plague corpses. He tears off a huge piece and chews it with his mouth open.
“I usually get peasant rye, but this wheat’s a fine treat!”
I walk away from him toward the children while he gets back up on his cart.
“To which cemetery are you taking the children’s mother?”
He laughs. “No room left in the churchyard. We have to bury them in Smithfield.”
“Smithfield?”
“The king’s set aside a whole cemetery for burying the victims of the Great Mortality. Today’s a slow day.”
Makes me wonder what a busy day would look like.
“You’re lucky she won’t be thrown into the pits. Get her own box, she will.” With that, he whips his horse, and the grim reaper creaks away.
I go back into the house to see if the children have anything they can bring with them, and I see nothing. Everything is crawling with fleas and vermin. I open up the gate for the animals to be released to fend for themselves. I shoo the children back out and then slap off the fleas that are biting my ankles. I take each child’s hand but remember the loaves. I pull one out, tear it in half, and the grateful, salivating look on the children’s faces tells me that they haven’t eaten for days. I start to walk with no destination in mind as they happily chew on their bread.
Where am I going to take them? Who will take in plague victims?
I reason the only thing to do is bring them to Windsor with us. We can surely find one of our serfs to take them in once they’re cured. No one better to cure them than a surgeon! I see a loaded cart in front of our city house. Mother’s on the cart bench, and Hadrian’s making sure the items in the cart are tied down tightly. Mother, looking put out at my long absence, grows livid when she sees whom I brought back with me.
She yells, “Hadrian, fetch her at once!”
Hadrian glances up and looks confused at my company. He walks toward me briskly and reproachfully. “Where have you been? We sent you out for breakfast, and it is nearly midday now!” He looks down disdainfully on the children. “Why are these beggars with you? These are plague times, Elizabeth!”
He grabs my arms, shakes the children loose violently, and pulls me to the cart. The children hug each other in fear.
Mother shouts, “Elizabeth! Get on this cart at once! Have you lost your senses?”
I pull back from Hadrian with all my strength and he yanks back with a drawn face. “Get on the cart and do as I say!”
“Can we bring these poor orphans?” I try.
He doesn’t even look at them. “Stop this nonsense!” He pulls me again.
“Their father has left them and their mother has died of the Black Death!” I plead.
He freezes at this. “You mean to take in plague children! What is the matter with you?” He casts off my arm like it’s
ridden with plague vapors and pulls his apple out of his pocket to his mouth and nose.
Mother, overhearing this, pounces down from the cart and marches over to me, fuming. “Stop embarrassing me and your husband with your foolishness! Come at once!” She stomps her foot to emphasize the last word.
“I cannot leave these innocent children to die in the streets. We can take them, cure them with our antidotes, and find homes for them among our servants in the country.”
“I will not put those filthy children on my cart or in my house,” Hadrian says from his distance, as Mother nods in full agreement.
I fold my arms. “Then I will not go with you.”
Mother drops her head in total disappointment, and Hadrian smirks. I worry at what I just said. I hold my breath, hoping that he will give in, since I didn’t consider how I could possibly take care of myself.
“Oh!” He starts laughing. “So you think you can fend for yourself? With no money or help in a city riddled with plague!” He walks to the back of the cart and opens his trunk. Chuckling to himself, he pulls out some of his vials and closes the trunk.
He hands me the vials and says, “God save you.” He then goes to ready the cart.
“Elizabeth, get on this cart at once!” My mother rages but I only shake my head. I have never behaved so defiantly, but once I start, I cannot stop. “Elizabeth, what has come over you?” She throws balled fists down on her thick skirts.
Hadrian commands, “Leave her, Jacquelyn! I will not tolerate such disobedience! I will not stand for it!” He sees my mother’s hesitation. “She’s steeped in plague now. Who knows what filth she’s waded in to drag out these miserable creatures? Bringing her with us now could be a death sentence!”
Mother turns back to him. “Should you at least open the house for her?”
Hadrian shakes his head with stern speed. “And leave my estate open for all the scourge in Cheapside to enter? No, she can find shelter with the nuns.”
Mother reaches around to hold her veil in front of her face, pulls out the few coins she has, puts them in my hand, careful not to make direct contact. She looks me in the eyes and says, “Foolish child.”