P. Chisholm - A Plague of Angels

In the unnatural silence of the plague-stricken street, a plague demon paced towards them with a slow weary tread, a bag full of souls in one hand, and its head moved from side to side blindly, looking for more flesh to eat.

‘Ahhh,’ said Barnabus.

Dodd was already backing away, sword and dagger crossed before him. Would blades kill a plague demon? Maybe. Who cares? It’ll not get me without a fight, he promised himself.

‘Sirs,’ said the demon, its voice muffled and echoing eerily from the beak, as it stopped and put up one white-gloved hand. ‘Sirs, don’t be afraid. I’m only a man.’

Holy water might stop it, Dodd remembered vaguely, or a crucifix; he’d heard that in the old days you could get crucifixes or little bottles of holy water blessed by the Pope to keep demons off, and neither of those things did he have with him. He had his amulet, but he couldn’t touch it because his hands were occupied with weapons that he wasn’t even sure could cut a demon and…

The demon took its face off and became indeed a tall pale man, with red-rimmed eyes and hollow cheeks. He coughed a couple of times.

‘Ah,’ said Barnabus. ‘Would you be the apothecary for hereabouts?’ All credit to him, thought Dodd, still shaking with the remnants of superstitious terror, I couldnae have said anything yet.

‘Yes, I am,’ said the man, giving a modest little bow before putting the beak and eyes back on and transforming himself into a monster again. ‘Excuse me, please, until we are away from the plague miasmas of this place.’

That was sense. Dodd put his blades away and they left the street as fast as they could walk, trying not to breathe in the miasmas, with the demon-apothecary pacing behind them. Nobody else in the next street gave him a glance, though a few stones were thrown by some of the children playing by a midden with dead rats on it. At last they were back in his shop.

‘Peter Cheke, sirs,’ he said as he took the beak and eyes off again and carefully sprinkled his canvas robe with vinegar and herbs. He wiped his face with a sponge soaked in more vinegar and cleaned the beak with it, then opened one end and took out a posy of wormwood and rue and a small incense burner which had produced the smoke. Dodd watched fascinated.

‘Does all that gear stop ye getting the plague?’ he asked.

‘It has so far, sir,’ said Peter Cheke gravely. ‘And I have attended many of the poor victims of the pestilence to bleed them and drain their buboes and give them what medicines I have.’

‘Did ye cure any?’

Cheke shook his head. ‘No, sirs, in all honesty, I think those that live do so by the blessing of God and a strong will.’

Without the sound-distorting beak his voice was unusually deep and rotund, speaking in a slow measured way. He seemed very weary.

‘How may I help you, sirs?’ he asked, blinking at them as if he was stoically preparing himself for more pleas for his puny help against the Sword of the Wrath of God.

‘We don’t think it’s plague,’ said Barnabus quickly. ‘It’s more like a flux or something. But he’s puking blood and getting pains in his belly something awful.’

‘Who is?’

‘Robert Greene.’

Cheke frowned. ‘Greene? When did he take sick?’

‘He was well enough when he was playing primero last night,’ said Dodd. ‘Or he seemed like it. Will ye come look at him, Mr Cheke?’

The apothecary passed a hand over his face. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I will, though I was up all night.’

‘I dinna doubt it’s all the booze,’ said Dodd. ‘Ye can rest after.’

Cheke smiled thinly. ‘I very much doubt it, the way the plague is moving in these parts.’

‘Spreading, is it?’

‘With the heat, the miasmas are thickening and strengthening at every moment. I was called to three houses last night, and by the time I came to the third, every soul in it had died.’

‘Och,’ said Dodd. ‘But it’s plague, man. Why d’ye bother?’

Red-rimmed eyes held his for a moment and Cheke frowned. ‘Do you know, I’ve no idea. I suppose I come in time to comfort some of them. Once I had some notion of finding the answer, of reading the riddle.’

‘What riddle?’

‘Why does plague happen? Why is one year a plague year and another year not? When London is full of stenches, why does one kind of miasma kill?’

‘Och,’ said Dodd shaking his head at the overweening madness of Londoners. ‘Ye’re wasting yer time, man. It’s the Sword o’ God’s Wrath against the wickedness of London.’

‘What?’ snapped Barnabus. ‘What’s so wicked about London? Compared to Carlisle?’

‘There isnae comparison,’ said Dodd, quite shocked. ‘London’s a den of iniquity, full of cutpurses and trollops that try and blackmail ye oot o’ yer hard won cash.’

‘Carlisle’s full of cattle thieves and blackrenters.’

‘That’s different. That’s making a living.’

‘So’s cutting purses.’

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,’ said the apothecary, putting on a skullcap. ‘Shall we go?’

By the time they came back to the cobbler’s shop, Joan Ball was back in the kitchen at the rear of the shop and Carey was leaning on the upstairs windowsill peering out.

Greene was putting a chased silver flask back under his revolting pillow, shuddering and coughing. He bent over a new piece of paper, still writing frantically. Next to him was the jordan full of something that looked like black soup. The stench was appalling.

Peter Cheke went in cautiously. Greene surged up in the bed, hands over his belly and started roaring with foam on his lips.

‘You!’ he shouted. ‘You dare come in here…’

‘Mr Greene, your friends…’

‘I’ve got no friends and never you, Jenkins, never you, atheist, alchemist, necromancer…Get out, get out…!’

A book whizzed through the air and hit Peter Cheke on the head. He turned and walked down the stairs.

‘I didna ken that Greene had a feud with ye as well,’ said Dodd, hurrying after him. ‘Why did ye not say, I wouldnae have wasted yer time.’

‘If I had known, I would have mentioned it,’ said Cheke. ‘But we have never quarrelled before. It is clearly not plague that ails him, but nor does it seem to me a flux. For how long has he been purging blood?’

Dodd shrugged. ‘All night according to his woman,’ put in Carey as he came clattering down stairs. ‘Is there anything you could give him that might bring him to his senses, calm him down? He won’t do anything except write, and I need to talk to him.’

Peter Cheke thought for a moment. ‘A lenitive might be lettuce juice and a decoction of willow bark. If you can get him to drink it and keep it down, he might sleep and give his body time to recover. Perhaps.’

‘Aren’t you going to examine him?’ said Carey. ‘Won’t you cast a figure for him or taste his water or feel his pulses?’

‘No, sir,’ said Cheke gravely. ‘I am not a doctor. I know very little of the humours and I have never studied at Padua. I have none of your right doctor’s certainty. All I see in the many diseases of men is a great mystery. Besides, Mr Greene seems to think I am his enemy. I doubt he would let me examine him.’

‘Try anyway.’

They trailed upstairs again and Dodd and Carey ignored frantic protests and held Greene down so Cheke could examine him. Greene fought like a madman and then stopped suddenly. ‘You’re not Jenkins,’ he whispered like a bewildered child.

‘No, you know my name is Cheke. May I use my poor skill to examine you, sir?’

Greene nodded, eyes darting from Carey to Dodd and back. Cheke listened at the chest and breath, felt neck and armpits, poked at Greene’s stomach which produced a scream. At last he stepped back.