Plague (19 page)

And now she would never have him near again.

She did not know the why of it, the how. She’d had no news, from the captain or anyone. Yet she was certain that the final evil had befallen him. Up to the day before, she’d
felt
him in the world. Now she did not. And she knew she would not sleep well again until she found out both who had done it and why. Someone had murdered her John. She would look that person in the eye.

Somehow, as the noise in the next room subsided to murmurs, she dozed, exhaustion taking her to a troubled sleep. She awoke, uncertain where she was until Lucy opened the door.

“He is gone,” Lucy said, sitting on the bed. “Gone to make arrangements.” She took Sarah in her arms. “Oh, my dear,” she said, “all will be well. He even talked of eloping with me and damn his
family.” She laughed. “Can you imagine me, my dearest, a real lady? I have played so many of them onstage perhaps I might carry it off.”

She cried then, Lucy Absolute. For relief. For joy. And Sarah Chalker held her and cried also, for her own reasons.

It’s been a lively day and that is always fun, thought Dickon, as the handsome young man came out of Sweet Lucy’s house. That’s what the cap’n always calls her.
Sweet
Lucy.

He watched the handsome man step straight into a chair, a uniformed footman at each pair of poles lifting it and setting off at a trot. I’d like to ride in one of those, Dickon thought. But it would not be like the
whee
and the
whoosh
of the water this morning, not like shooting the race of London Bridge. That was the most fun—
most fun!
—they’d had in the longest time, on account of the cap’n being so worried and so not playing as he could. And they had not robbed in such a long while, not since that time in that place, wherever it was, that had ended badly, or so the cap’n said, telling him to forget it so he had. Mostly.

He liked robbing, for the cap’n always let him do things and he liked to be useful, liked to earn his keep. Then the cap’n was happy to buy him things, like Afric peanuts off the docks, and cobnuts when they were in season. They’d gone to Kent to pick them off the bushes—when was that? Last autumn? The one before it? One of the two. Had to be one of the two because before that was before the cap’n. And he didn’t remember much of that time at all, and not because the cap’n had told him to forget it. He forgot it all by himself. He knew it had not been nice. No nuts, no
nothing
, really. Just hungry and shivery. Alone too.

He shivered now just thinking about it, though it was hot. Also, he’d finished his hazels. But he could not leave and get more. He
might miss the cap’n, who had told him when they were racing that man to go ahead and wait at Lucy’s. Excepting he was not sure if “wait at Lucy’s” meant wait in the doorway opposite or wait up in the room. Sweet Lucy would give him nuts and a sip of ale. But he’d waited too long not sure, and then the actress had gone up and not come down, and then the handsome man had gone up and had come down and gone off in the chair at a clip but not so fast as a boat under a bridge.

Should he go up now? The cap’n had said, “This is the arrange-arrangeme-arrangement!” That was it. He’d said the “arrangement” would be to meet at Sweet Lucy’s. He would give the slip to the bearded giant who’d chased them on water and up the lanes and then he would come. And Dickon would be waiting.

No, he thought, settling back down after standing to see how fast the chair moved—not very fast, was the answer. He would not leave this doorway. The cap’n would come. The cap’n was probably coming now. With nuts.

Dickon pulled out the pamphlet, its pages ripped, its ink smudged. Still, he could see some words clear. He’d learn more of ’em. That would please the cap’n when he came.

“Slaugh-ter,” he said. Now, what did that mean again?

“Mr. Palmer. Are you certain that this superfluity of lace is essential?”

The tailor, kneeling at his customer’s knee, sighed and took the pins from his mouth. “I repeat, my lord—quite essential. That is, if I am to obey his lordship’s instructions—to transform you into a man of mode. Now, be still, sir, I pray, and let me pin you.”

Garnthorpe stiffened, anticipating yet another jab. Damned fellow had already stuck him twice, his apologies half-hearted on each occasion. He swivelled slightly, provoking a grunt of reproof
and, yes, a prick to his knee. At least the coxcomb’s mouth is occupied and so I am not subjected to his ceaseless prattle, mainly concerning his other illustrious clients, reaching even to Whitehall now. Merely an excuse to charge ever more outrageous sums for the attentions of the Duke of York’s own tailor. Truly, Garnthorpe did not mind the expense—he knew he could buy and sell the duke and still have change for oranges—but what was the expense for? This?

He turned so he could gaze at himself again in the tailor’s full-length mirror. He was even more appalled. The lime ribbons Mr. Palmer was engaged in fitting at the knee contrasted sharply, vilely, with the breeches
—petticoat breeches
, he reminded himself they were called. These were magenta, and that colour was continued to the item that he wore under his unbuttoned dark blue doublet—what had the tailor called the damnable thing?—his
tabby
, that was it, a kind of waistcoat, its nauseating red standing out clearly against the cream of his billowing lawn shirt.

He shook his head and saw curls sway. Another disaster, surely, though Mr. Palmer had insisted that since the king wore just such a wig, all gentlemen above a certain age must as well. He’d even sent him to the king’s own
perruquier
. A fortune spent on this monstrosity.

At his knee, Mr. Palmer went back on his haunches, took a last pin from his mouth and began to sing under his breath. There was something about the song, something familiar.

This was absurd.
He
was absurd. Garnthorpe could clearly see now what a mistake it had been to compare himself with the coxcombs and noble fops, and the preening, strutting players who were Mrs. Chalker’s daily acquaintance. To believe that she would be easier with him if he appeared before her in this fashion. Ridiculous! He’d seen what was in her eyes, that incandescent look
she gave him when she first noticed him from the stage. When he’d been plain, ungilded. What she so instantly loved, surely, was Garnthorpe himself, the natural he, unadorned.

Mr. Palmer, still humming, was leaning forward to place his last pin. “No!” Lord Garnthorpe declared. “Cease your fumblings, sir. I will no longer submit to them.” He pulled off the infernal wig and threw it to the floor.

“My lord!” Palmer protested. “Think of the cost. Why, the styling alone—”

“I care not for its styling or its cost, puppy.” He seized the tailor by the elbow, pulled him up. “Nor for any of these embellishments.”

“My lord! You are hurting me!”

Without releasing the man, Garnthorpe jerked the lace away from his breeches. They gave with a satisfying rip and soon joined the wig on the floor. “Now, sir,” he said, shaking the man to further whimpering, “you may finish the doublet since I’ve already paid for it and its colour is none so vile. I will even concede to this style of breeches if you match the colour to the doublet’s and hang no poxy ribbons upon ’em. But as for this infernal whatchamacallit—” he tapped the tabby “—it is to go. A plain beige waistcoat will do.” He released the man, who retired three paces, clutching his elbow. “Beige? My lord, I could not hold up my head among my peers if it were known I allowed—” he shuddered “—beige!”

“I care nothing for your peers, fool. My only concern is a lady.”

“If she is indeed a lady,” the tailor replied, some of his hauteur returning, “and of the fashion herself, she will want—”

Garnthorpe took a step and the man shrank back, hands raised, the last pin held like an absurd miniature sword before him. “The lady wants
me
. Unadorned. In a simple wig. In plain clothes—they can be of good cut, certain. In boots.”

“My lord!” said Mr. Palmer, who’d now moved behind his cutting table and regained some composure. “If you keep these, my breeches most
au courant
, you cannot wear those boots.”

“What’s wrong with ’em?”

“They are country boots, sir, not even fit for elegant riding in Hyde Park. Further, they are worn and—and stained, sir. Horribly stained.”

Garnthorpe looked at the boots, which lay by the door. Now that the puppy mentioned it, they did appear stained. London’s streets would do that, for he disdained to affix onto them the iron pattens that kept most above the grime. Looking closer though, he saw that not only the brown of London’s foulness had besmirched them. Those stains were red, a deep, blackened red.

What was the damn song the tailor had been humming?

While you and I, dilly, dilly, keep ourselves warm
.

“My lord? My lord? Are you quite well?”

Garnthorpe blinked. “I will attend to my boots, sirrah. I will wash them.”

“Indeed, my lord. And now that I know what you want, shall I, uh, continue?”

Garnthorpe grunted, let the man unpin him and carefully remove the clothes. He then went and donned what he’d shed earlier: plain black breeches, wool shirt and stockings, his black velvet doublet. Lastly, he pulled on his boots. The man was right in this: they were
horribly
stained. He would not like to appear before Mrs. Chalker at the theatre next week wearing boots so thick with blood.

“They kill the cats,” said Coke, pushing a feline body dangling near him. The skin, tanned on the inside, knocked the one next to it, which set the next swaying too, and for a few moments all Pitman could see was the man’s dark face, now there, now not, revealed and then hidden by swinging fur.

Pitman reached out to steady what swung. “I have never understood it. They kill all the cats, and the small dogs too, both easy to catch. But then the rats, which they also have condemned but are harder to lay hold of, multiply.” He let go of the furs, which now spun in place.

“I suppose the authorities must act if they believe the plague has come.”

“It has come. I am a constable and have had the shutting up of several houses in my parish, may God forgive me.” He sighed. “Yet perhaps between the shutting up and the killing of all vermin, the disease will be curbed.”

“Let us hope so, Mr.—?”

“Pitman. No ‘Mr.’—plain Pitman to you. And you are Coke? Are you a genuine captain or is it just your title of the road?”

“A genuine captain once.”

“Good, then.”

They eyed each other. From outside, shouts came. “They’re in the brewery. Someone saw them. Let’s go!” Metal-shod boots clattered over cobbles.

“A brewery should keep them busy,” Pitman said. “And they will be about it awhile. That damn Irishman has set the hive a-buzzing.”

“Irishman?”

“A friend of yours. Maclean. He saw us run past the alehouse and named you.”

“Maclean, eh? No friend to me.” Coke let out a low whistle. “I’ll pay him for that if I get the chance.”

“You may not. But I’ll pay him for you. I gave him two days’ grace to go back to his land, in return for certain information he provided me regarding you. He must have seen me see him and thought the hue and cry would protect him.”

“He was right. Thirty guineas was the price he called. There’s not a man in Alsatia wouldn’t sell three of his children for that.”

“Aye.”

More shouting. Both men listened, then this mob ran off too. “So, Captain,” continued Pitman, “you heard my offer. An easy time while we wait for them to go or …” He raised the cosh.

Coke studied the man for a long moment. He truly is enormous, he thought. His face. His hands. If need be, though, I will fight him. But I will hope that a better course presents itself. “You said something of sausage and a flask?”

Gentle as lambs, Pitman thought, once the game is up. Yet a memory of blood came, and though he sat when the captain did, he kept his cudgel in his hand.

He passed the flask over. Coke drank, grimaced—the beer was the same sour stuff from the tavern opposite the goldsmith’s. The dried sausage was better, and they both chewed upon it for a time in silence, as men ran to and fro below.

“This thirty guineas,” Coke said at last, pulling a bit of gristle from between his teeth. “I may be able to match it. To better it. If you let me go.”

“The necklace went for so much?”

“I do not know. I never got a chance to see what Di—what my boy brought me.”

“I cannot take tainted money.”

“Your conscience will not let you?”

Pitman smiled. “My wife will not. We are redeemed, sir. By God.”

“That must be nice for you. Baptists?”

“Nay, we are of the quiet people.”

“Quakers? I know little about them. But then, I know little about God. I leave him alone and he leaves me.”

“Forgive me, but he does not. God watches over you always and will judge you for your deeds.” Pitman shook his head. “And I cannot but think that he will judge you most severely.”

Coke chuckled. “Yet was not the thief crucified at Christ’s right hand forgiven and admitted to paradise?”

“He was not a murderer.”

“Neither am I.”

“Captain—” Pitman swallowed, then continued softly “—I was the next man into that carriage in Finchley.”

Coke started. “So you saw.”

“I did, God help me. The first to see what you had done. But not to reckon it.” He leaned forward. “I could comprehend killing in the heat if they resisted you. But the footman? The coachman? All three within? Especially the lady. In that fashion?”

“So you think you know me because you think I did that?” Coke passed his hand across his eyes. “Oh, I know what you saw. I saw it first, remember. But I did not do it.” He saw the denial in the other’s eyes. “I did not.”

“Sir, I have tried to understand. Indeed, it is the curse of my nature that I
need
to understand. And when you say you did not do these deeds, perhaps I take your meaning. For I saw many men in the late wars, uh, translated.” Pitman cleared his throat. “I do not believe in the devil as one outside ourselves, seeking our souls. But I do believe that each of us has demons within that, given the opportunity, will come out. Will come out
because
they are given that opportunity. Wars provide it. During them a man does some things, some terrible things, simply because he can.”