Plague (2 page)

 

April 29, 1665

Tally Ho Inn, Great North Road, near London

Just before he rode away, the captain said, “Good night, then,” and touched one blackened toe, setting Swift Jack gently swinging. It was a touch for luck, for sympathy, for memory. Not two weeks earlier he and Jack had been drinking together at this same inn, and he’d been boasting, had Jack, about the special ineptitude of the parish constables in failing to catch his scent.

“Which is astounding,” he’d declared, “seeing as how I’ve not bathed since the coronation.”

Captain Coke had laughed but cautioned, “Be wary, man. ‘Tis a dead fox that steals too often from the same coop.”

But Jack had scoffed—and now he swung from a gallows in Finchley, smelling even worse than he had in life.

Heeling his mount to the trot, Coke thrust his nose deep into his scarf, seeking a hint of sandalwood. The fragrance, though, had
long faded and the stench of death accompanied him for some distance. If this night’s work goes well, he thought, one of my first calls tomorrow will be on my
parfumier
.

And why should it not go well? Everything pointed to success. Swift Jack had lived by his nickname, always preferring a sudden action on whoever happened across Finchley Common, content whether he stole a shilling or twenty crowns. Whereas Coke planned—selecting a mark, not stumbling upon one; varying the ground across six counties. A highwayman rotting at a crossroads was a blessing too, for like a scarecrow in a field, it warned other road knights to keep away. They did, so Coke did not; while seeing one villain swing made travellers a little less watchful for others. And since the coach that was his mark had a driver in front, a footman behind and the two men within, the less wary they were the better.

Two men within and one woman. Tut, but she was lovely, the lady he’d studied earlier that evening while feigning a doze by the Tally Ho’s fire. She’d reminded him of Lavinia, his sister, dead these many years: the same graceful swan’s neck, same sharp sweep of nose, the same disdainful manner of looking down it at the antics of her two companions. He’d felt sorry for the woman, the boorish way the men had denied her request to press on while the light was yet strong, mocking her again when they’d at last called for their coach in the twilight and she’d pleaded that now they stay. The older man, her husband by how impertinently he’d pawed her, had demanded she show the other—his younger brother, perhaps, equally drunk—the necklace he’d recently purchased for her, had pulled it roughly from concealment when she’d demurred. Even in the dim light of the inn’s fire, the jewels had sparkled, and all the captain’s hunches about these travellers he’d followed from their marbled doorstep in St. James’s had been confirmed.

He would take the necklace, of course. Its price would not only buy him perfume from Maurice of the Strand Arcade, it would also clear several of his debts and fend off some others. And yet perhaps he would find a way to convey to her, in their coming exchange, that he robbed her with the deepest regret. Their
second
exchange, he reminded himself. For their eyes had met as she’d followed her husband to the tavern door, while the captain had made a show of settling in, loudly ordering another tankard with a jest. She had glanced at him then, and he had smiled. She’d looked away, as modesty dictated, yet not before he’d seen a touch of interest quicken her almond eyes.

At the thought of those eyes, he smoothed down his thick black moustache. She would not see it clearly, under silk as it would be. Still, he would know that he had looked his best.

He flicked the reins and tapped Dapple’s left flank, directing the mare down the side path he’d discovered when he’d scouted the route earlier. It took him swiftly to the place he’d selected, the secluded vale where the coach would cross the Dollis Brook.

As Dapple’s hooves splashed through water, Coke whistled the usual five notes. The same trill sounded in reply; all was well. The next moment the whistler spun onto the roadway like a whirligig. “The-the-they …? They …?” the boy called, his arms flailing.

The captain smiled. The urchin he’d discovered the previous winter under a layer of snow, blocking his doorway, ribs poking through rags and his body one welt of sores, was rarely calm; but warmth, clothing and food had stilled some of the whirlwind in him. Dickon—a hard name to stutter out—was the best of partners, for he demanded no share of the profit; nothing more, indeed, than a place to curl up at the end of Coke’s mattress, the scraps from his table, the heat from his grate.

“They come,” Coke reassured the boy, passing down the crust and cold chop he’d saved for his ward from his supper at the Tally Ho Inn. The boy started to cram them between teeth as ramshackle as an ancient cemetery’s stones, his eyes moving their opposite ways under a thatch of wheat-blond hair. “So to your place, Dickon.”

The falling, the spit, the darting eyes all halted. “Cap’n,” the lad said, briskly pulling up his mask, continuing to eat under it, moving away to the appointed tree, the one before which, if all went well, the coach would halt.

As the two of them settled into the gloom at the forest’s edge, minutes passed with nothing but birds in the trees and the flick of Dapple’s grey ears. Then sound arrived on the night-still air: the squeak of iron-shod wheels in road ruts, the snort of a horse. Closer the carriage came, closer, and then he heard something else. A cry? A woman’s, sure. Were those two bullies teasing her as they had in the tavern? Well, I will pay them a little for that, he thought, pulling up his mask till only his eyes showed under his hat’s wide brim. No lady as pretty as she should be made to cry. He’d not been able to stop his sister’s tears, when all was taken from them. But perhaps he could halt this lady’s for a time.

With a cluck of his tongue, the slightest tap of heel, he moved Dapple to the highway’s edge. The mare stood as quiet as ever, a grey wraith in the near darkness. The coach ground nearer. There was a splash as wheels spun through the brook. A horse neighed and then the vehicle rounded the corner.

The captain licked his lips. This was the moment. From the saddle holsters, he drew both his pistols and half cocked each. Then, as the coach arrived level, he pulled the hammers full back. “Stand and deliver!” he shouted. “I am Captain Cock! So you know not to fool with me.”

But the coach did not stand. The driver did not whip it on, nor did the horses bolt; they just turned wide eyes to him as the front of the vehicle passed by.

Now that, thought the captain, is a first.

In his three years of robberies, many things had happened to him. He had been whipped, foully cursed, had shit thrown at him and, on three occasions, ball discharged. But he had never till this moment been completely ignored.

He kept his pistols levelled as the vehicle slowly rolled on. But no shutter rose from the windows, and the rear was unoccupied. The footman who had clung to it when the carriage departed the inn was no longer there. Perhaps he was within, readying a blunderbuss.

Coke could now see across the roadway to Dickon, his eyebrows high in puzzlement above his mask.

“Stand, curse you!” Coke cried. “No one move. The first who does takes a bullet.” He thought of the pretty lady inside, did not like to fright her so. She wouldn’t take one, of course, none of them would—for Captain Cock did not load his guns with more than powder, something only he and Dickon knew. He might yet dance the hempen jig as a thief the way Swift Jack now did—but William Coke would never be hanged for a murderer. He had killed enough in the late, deplored wars and wanted no more phantoms stalking his dreams.

But those in the carriage did not know his secret. And they were still ignoring him, the carriage continuing on. “Stand!” he shouted once again, spurring Dapple to the front of the coach. “I mean it, fellow!” he yelled, aiming his pistols at the driver. The man did not react, did not start at all. Even in the gloom, Coke could see the man’s eyes were open, though they did not move, nor did he
lift his chin from his chest. Then, the horses, at no one’s bidding, halted, and in a moment Dickon was at their heads, taking their bits, crooning.

It was the only sound in the vale. Shaking himself, Coke uncocked and holstered one pistol, slipped from the saddle, put one foot and hand onto the carriage. “Rest easy,” he growled, though the driver still showed no will to resist him. Indeed, as Coke swung himself up to the bench, the man did not acknowledge him in any way. He had seen men thus frozen with terror when he’d been a real captain. This was nothing like that, and for the first time that night, he felt the chill on his skin.

And then he saw why the driver did not move, why the coach had advanced so slowly. For the reins were wound tight about the man’s chest, passing through a bar beside him. Coke tugged the knot—and the whole came apart, the reins slipping, the man sliding toward him. Coke put out a hand to steady him, met wetness, could not help the shove away. As the coachman fell off the bench, his head lolled back, and for just a moment Coke saw the wound, like a screaming extra mouth, under the chin.

The body tumbled off, and struck a carriage stanchion before crumpling onto the ground. The horses jerked at the distinct snapping of bones.

“Ca-Cap’n, what?” Dickon cried.

“Keep their heads!” commanded Coke.

The horses calmed to weight and whispers. And in the near silence that ensued Coke heard a bugle, a hunting call, followed by the yelp of a dog. The animal was still far enough away if it was coming for them, which the next moment he believed it was. He had been discovered, should flee straight. But he could not. Not yet.

He swung himself off the coach. With one foot on the running board, a hand on the door handle, he pressed an ear to the window—glass, the latest in fashion. The man within spent near as much adorning his transport as he did his wife. There were leather curtains beyond and not a sound emerged through them. “Do not,” he began, then had to cough to clear his throat. “Do not move if you value your lives,” he continued. Thrusting the pistol ahead of him, he jerked open the door.

The interior was dark. Thus, before sight it was scent that took him. It wasn’t the first time he’d smelled this odour. He had hoped never to smell it again and hadn’t for so long he thought he might have forgotten. But he had not—the stench of guts, freshly pierced, was such a distinct one. As ever, as here, it was overlain with the iron tang of blood.

It took him back, that special savour. He was on a battlefield, which one he did not know. They were all different and they were all the same, blended now by near two decades. Men had died swiftly and in silence, slowly and with great noise.

Then he came, the one who always did when something carried Coke back, some sight, some sound, some … scent.

Quentin.

They had served together as officers in Sir Bevil Grenville’s regiment for over a year, had laughed, got drunk, saved each other’s lives. Were as close as comrades could be. Yet the shot that had erased Quentin’s features had erased the memory of them too. Mouth, eyebrows, ears, chin, all wiped away, as if Quentin had become a fresh canvas awaiting an artist’s brush. Quentin had moved one hand before the ruin, seeking what? The other hand had held in his own guts, the source of the unforgettable, ineradicable smell.

Sinking against the door frame, the captain closed his eyes, until he remembered that nothing was as terrible as what went on behind them. So he opened them again.

At least the three figures before him had faces. With eyes accustoming to the gloom, he could see those now. And seeing, he lowered his pistol, uncocked it, for even if it had had ball in it, you could only kill someone once.

The walls of the carriage he’d glimpsed in the tavern yard had been primrose but now were mainly red, the colour splashed like a painter’s carelessness. The open door had let some blood flow out, but still more pooled among the limbs and entrails of the men, the two of them lying together upon the floor as if embracing.