P. Chisholm - A Plague of Angels

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.’