Paul Doherty: The Gallows Murders

Quicksilver smiled. 'Come, come, Roger.' He peered at me. 'Why lodgings here?' The city is rotting,' I replied. Ah yes, the sweating sickness.'

Quicksilver's eyes wandered back to my saddlebags. He broke a piece of chicken he was eating and pushed it across the table. He then gave me a battered cup from a shelf, filled it with wine and insisted we finish our meal. I told him about the Poppletons, my journey to Swaffham, then the sights I had seen travelling around London.

The whole world has gone mad,' Quicksilver retorted. 'Our elixirs and potions have no effect on the sweating sickness. All we can do, Roger, is eat, drink and be merry'

I studied that seamed, cunning face, those wisps of hair, those eyes reeking of wickedness, the black soiled doublet and cloak. I gazed round the shabby parlour. There were shelves on the walls, one bore pewter cups and plates, the other a row of skulls. Quicksilver followed my gaze.

They all died at Tyburn,' he declared. 'It gives my little domain a certain aura, an atmosphere.'

I saw a rat peep out from beneath the broken wainscoting and was forced to agree. The rest of the parlour was taken up with tawdry chests, trunks and coffers. A table stood in one corner, covered with scraps of greasy parchment, but there were no tapestries or hangings against the wall. The stone floor was bare and looked as if it had not been cleaned or scrubbed for months.

After the meal, Quicksilver took me on a tour of his domain. Along dank passageways and up rickety, twisting stairs. The place reeked of death and decay. Shabby, dirty rooms, beds covered with filthy coverlets and sheets. I was given a chamber on the second floor; the bolster was dirty, the drapes round the bed tattered, and the blankets moth-eaten and stained. There was no glass in the windows. These were simply covered by cracked boards, though there was a chest for my belongings, a table and stool, a nightjar and a thick yellow tallow candle fixed in an iron spigot. Now I should have been grateful, but instead I became uneasy. A slight jolting of Shallot's stomach, a pricking at the back of the neck. I gazed over my shoulder at Quicksilver standing near the door. His face looked yellow and more skeletal. I abruptly realised he was not one of those jolly rogues, but a man I hardly knew. I recalled the stories about him: whispers that he was a warlock, a lord of the shadows, a wizard who had renounced Christ and dabbled in the black arts. He must have caught my unease. He gave me that death's-head grin and invited me back to the parlour, to share what he called the best flagon of wine out of Bordeaux.

He was right, the wine was delicious, and the more Quicksilver drank, the more loquacious he became: jovial and filling my cup at every opportunity. Oh, how he babbled!

'I have seen the days,' he declared, cradling his cup and staring across the grease-covered table, 'oh yes, Master Roger, I have seen the days.' 'What do you mean?' I slurred.

'In my youth,' His eyes took on a sad look. 'In my youth, Roger, I was a great physician. An apothecary to the high and mighty. Patronised by kings and princes.' 'Such as whom?' I taunted.

'King Edward IV of blessed memory: his brother Clarence and Richard of Gloucester, who later usurped the throne.'

'But that would put you well past your sixtieth year,' I slurred. 'I started young.' He smiled back. 'I was an apothecary by the time I was eighteen, with a shop in St Martin's Lane. Summoned hither and thither by the mighty ones of the land.' He leaned across the table. ‘Potions to get rid of an unwanted child. Powders to make a man weak and fade into death. Pills to turn a man into a stallion in bed.' He tapped his narrow nose. 'Oh yes, there was a time when old Quicksilver was wanted for what he was.'

'If you're so bloody clever,' I slurred, ‘Why not concoct a potion for the sweating sickness?'

He laughed drily. 'I have, but all my patients have died.'

'It's so quick!' I declared, and told him about the victim I had taken to St Bartholomew's.

He heard me out and stared bleakly at me. ‘You are a dead man, Roger.'

Good Lord, I'll never forget his face: long, thin and yellow. The flickering candle made his eyes glitter with malice. 'What do you mean?' I asked.

‘You've touched someone ill with the contagion: it's passed to you, mixing in the humours and fluids of your body.'

'In which case,' I said, grasping his hand, ‘We'll both dance down to Hell together.'

Quicksilver did not withdraw his hand. 'I have had the contagion, Roger, and survived. Once that happens, you are safe. Your body is fortified. But, come, another flagon.' 'When were you ill?' I snapped.

'Thirty-eight years ago,' Quicksilver replied over his shoulder as he stood over a chest, opening a new flagon. Thirty-eight years ago, Roger, the same sickness swept through London. I was safe at the Tower.' He came back and refilled my cup. 'But, come, as I have said, let's drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die!' And so I did. Now it was a foolish act, but you have heard the phrase 'honour amongst thieves'. For all his strangeness, I considered Quicksilver was a friend, an ally. When I woke the next morning, I learnt the truth. Quicksilver had gone, and so had my boots, my purse, my swordbelt and all my possessions. I tore that sinister little house to pieces, but I could find nothing except a miserable note pinned to the door.

'Dear Roger,' it read, ‘Within the week you will be dead. I have left a flagon of wine in the scullery. Best wishes in Hell. Quicksilver.'

I tore the note down and stuffed it into my pocket. For the rest of the day I just raved at the sheer perfidy of that black-hearted bastard. There was nothing in the house to eat or drink except the wine. I smashed that. God knows what Quicksilver may have put in it. I have a strong head, yet for two days after my drinking bout, I-felt heavy-headed, thick-tongued and lack-lustre. I am sure Quicksilver mixed something with that wine. Nevertheless, I grew better and, as I did, hungrier by the minute. What could I do? Quicksilver had taken my horse and sumpter pony. Every item and possession.

For a day I wandered the streets but the shops were closed, the bakeries empty. No one would bring food into the city. Others, hungrier and more violent than I, were also roaming the streets. For a while I sheltered in Quicksilver's house, desperate at what I should do next. To return to Ipswich was out of the question. I had no boots, never mind a horse to ride. I admit I did try that. I went up Bishopsgate, only to find that the gates were now guarded and sealed. The city fathers, who had fled, were very determined that no one should follow their example and take the infection out into the countryside. I wandered back and sheltered in a derelict house near the Austin Friars just off Broad Street. I thought I was safe, but a gang of riflers attacked me, stripping me of my jerkin. The next morning, cold and sore, I joined the other beggars outside the friary, desperate for a morsel of bread and a pannikin of fresh water.

I continued to wander the city; it was a descent into Hell. The contagion had grown worse. Whole streets were sealed off. Houses daubed with red paint mocked me from every side. Soldiers, armed to the teeth, drove me off with blows when I tried to beg outside a church. The death-carts trundled by. The corpses were stacked high; their legs and arms flailed as the cart rumbled across the cobbles, putting a strange life back into these grey-white cadavers. The mounds of refuse grew higher: fires burned in every street and the city reeked of smoke and sulphur. At night, dark shapes flitted up and down the alleyways, armed with knives and dirks, to fight like wolves over the most paltry possessions. Now and again, those city fathers who had remained tried to impose order. Soldiers were sent into the streets to enforce a curfew, and everything became as quiet as death until they passed.