Rory Clements - Revenger

“Though I did hear a little scratching sound coming from within this morning, Tom,” the seated one said. “Perhaps it was a mouse.”

The large one drew on his pipe and blew a cloud of smoke toward Shakespeare. “At least the rodents will be feeding well in there,” he said. “So long as they can stomach plague pudding with Puritan sauce.”

“Is Winterberry in there? The merchant Jacob Winterberry?”

“Aye, that he is. Now, aren’t you the clever fellow, Mr. Shakespeare. And we’re here to see that he don’t come out. We don’t want him spreading the plague about, do we? That would be most un-Christian of the man.”

Shakespeare bridled. “And by what authority do you keep watch on this house?”

“Why, sir, the authority of the City of London corporation, which has appointed us plague men and pays us each eight pennies a day for our pains. That and the plague masks they gives us. We brought Mr. Winterberry from his home especially to lodge with this plague family in his last days.”

“There is a family in there with him?”

“Aye, sir, a husbandman and goodwife and their two children. All grievous sickly they were when Mr. Winterberry arrived. I have to say that Mr. Winterberry himself looked in prime good health at the time. No sign of no buboes nor other marks of the pestilence.”

“So you placed a man in perfect health in a house with a contagious family, then nailed him in?”

The tall one took a long draft of ale, then wiped his grubby sleeve across his straggly beard. “Aye, sir, we did. He was not at all pleased to be brought here, mind. Begging like a little child he was, pleading not to be put in there, crying. But we knew what was good for him.”

“He was still a-whimpering as the carpenter hammered the boards across the door and windows.”

“Then you have committed murder!”

The shorter one, still sitting on the bale, nonchalantly tapped out the ashes of his clay pipe against the heel of his shoe and began stuffing in more tobacco. “Now, that is not the way we see it, sir. We see it as saving Her Majesty and the Council the cost of a trial and a hanging, for we know Mr. Winterberry to have been a felon of the worst sort. I am certain there is none more worthy of a painful and unpleasant death.”

Shakespeare pulled the man from the bale, knocking his pipe from his hand and dragging the beak-mask from his head. “Get this house opened straightway or you will answer for it, I promise you. You should know that McGunn is dead. He is dead, a ball through his face and into the depths of his brain. He now rots in a pauper’s grave in the northern wilds of England with worms for company. Now open that house or I will kill you where you stand.”

The men looked at Shakespeare with new respect, even fear. They were no longer sure of themselves. They glanced at Shakespeare’s hand on the hilt of his still-sheathed sword.

“He told us to stay here until there had been no sound from within for at least forty-eight hours,” the taller one began. “They were his orders.” His eyes flickered back and forth between Shakespeare and his companion.

Both men suddenly dropped their tankards and turned on their heels. They dashed as well as they could northward up Beer Lane, stumbling through the shit and kitchen waste that lay un-collected all along their escape route. Shakespeare let them go.

He walked to the boarded-up house and banged on the solidly barred door. From within, he heard a sound, almost like tiny footsteps on the stairs. He hammered again and called out, “Is anyone alive in there?”

Shakespeare thought he heard a small voice from within. “Hold firm,” he said. “I will have this door unbarred.”

He looked about. At the nearby gun foundry, he found an apprentice smoothing the rough surfaces of a new-forged cannonball. Shakespeare ordered him to bring his tools.

Ten minutes later, they had jimmied off the three-inch-thick planks and pulled out the heavy nails that kept the door so firmly closed. Shakespeare lifted the latch and the door opened. He stumbled back, as did the apprentice, assailed by the most awful stench of rotting flesh and disease.

Clutching his kerchief to his face, Shakespeare gave the boy a coin and told him to go back to the foundry, but the boy stayed, close behind him, peering down the dark entrance hall of the plague house. A body lay close to the door, blocking the way. It was Jacob Winterberry.

With the kerchief held close to his nose and mouth, Shakespeare touched him and knew he was dead. The body, clothed in Puritan-black broadcloth streaked with vomit and dust, was cold and still. The exposed skin was blue, blotchy, and bloated.

Shakespeare turned again to the apprentice. “Go back to your work. This place is not safe for you.”

Reluctantly the boy shuffled away. Shakespeare tied the kerchief around his face and stepped into the hall, over Winterberry’s corpse. A cloud of flies rose from the putrefying mass of pustules that had once been the merchant’s face.

“Is anyone here? Come forth,” he called into the echoing hall.

Half a dozen yards down the way, there was a staircase.

“Come to me and you will be safe.”

From the shadowed recesses of the hall, a figure appeared. A child, Shakespeare thought, or some sort of wraith. The figure stepped forward tentatively, shielding its eyes from the light of day. It was a girl, thin and shivering, clothed in a dark linen smock.

“Come, child. Come to me.”

He guessed she was ten or eleven, but it was difficult to be sure. Her long fair hair was matted with filth, and yet he could see that her skin was clear of the dread buboes. One in five survived, Forman had said. Well, she must be blessed.

She held back from him. “You will die if you touch me, sir,” she said in a quiet voice.

“No. You are well, child. Your skin is clear.”

“I saw death, but the Lord turned me away.”

“Are there any others alive here?”

She shook her head.

“Then the Lord wants you to live. Come to me. Come from this place.”

She stepped closer to him. He reached out his hand. She stared at it from beneath the sun shield of her right palm, then looked up at him, her eyes creased against the light. Their eyes met. Shakespeare smiled at her. “Come, child,” he said again, reaching out further and taking her left hand. “All will be well.” She allowed him to take her hand. It felt tiny to him. Gently, he led her from the front door out into the daylight.

The apprentice had returned. “I heard you talking. Here…” He held out a flagon and a crust of bread. “She’ll need food and drink.”

“Thank you,” Shakespeare said. “You are a good boy.”

As the boy went back to the foundry, Shakespeare led the girl across the road to the hay bale from where McGunn’s men had been watching the house, and sat her down. “Take a drink, child.”

She gnawed at the bread and sipped ale from the flagon. “They left food and water for us, but the food did run out.”

“How long were you there?”

“I do not know, sir. Perhaps eight days, nine… night and day were the same, for the windows were all boarded. And I do not know how long I had the fever. The Lord took my sister and mother and father.”

The girl did not weep for her family. Shakespeare realized she was still too full of horror.

“What is your name, child?”

“Matilda, sir. I will be eleven years of age on Christmas Day.”

“Matilda, there was another man in there with you. The man who lies dead in the hall. Did you know him?”

“His name was Mr. Winterberry. He was nailed in with us, sir. We did not know him until then. They brought him here, bound and struggling. They wore bird masks and were laughing as they threw him down, then closed the door on us. We were all sick at that time, but we unbound him. He seemed untouched by the pestilence and said he should not be there, that it was murder. He was sore troubled, but I think he was a good man.”