The Vizard Mask (13 page)

Nevertheless, alerted, she noticed little eddies in London's confident streets that indicated an undercurrent of alarm. All through Cheapside there were more sellers of hares' feet than there had been the week before. The window of a dark apothecary shop was newly strung across with wooden cabalistic letters 'to be hung round thee necke'.

A jeweller was standing in the street holding an emerald between tweezers with which he angled it to catch the light. A green beam danced across the wall, and Penitence and Peter stopped to watch it. 'See, master,' the jeweller was saying, to his well-dressed customer, 'a sunbeam passing through this will extract all malignant humours from the body.'

Tobacconists were doing a roaring trade. 'No tobacconist ever died from the "P", well-known fact,' whispered Peter Simkin.

A lady and a small boy emerged from one such shop, both puffing on pipes. When the child broke into coughing and complained, 'But 1 don't like it, ma'am', his mother cuffed him: 'It's good for you.'

The magnificent gateway of the Guildhall was choked with carriages. Penitence arranged to meet Peter back there, and hurried on to Leadenhall Street, all her dread now concentrated on the next few minutes during which she must face strangers and request Papers from a Patterson.

'Her Ladyship's papers, please, Master Patterson,' she practised. No good. Too many p's together. Her hands were beginning to sweat. Documents, I'll ask for Her Ladyship's documents. She was better on 'd's. And I'll leave out the 'please'. It would make her sound churlish, but she was used to that; stammerers couldn't afford nuances of courtesy. 'Please pass the salt' had to be pared down to the peremptory 'Salt'.

Can I leave out the 'Patterson'?

A woman buying a chicken outside the Market was staring at her. Penitence glared back: 'Master Lawyer, I require Her Ladyship's documents,' she said. Oh, Bartholomew. I sound like a highwayman.

Here was Number forty-two, a thin, elegant house with a brass plate at the door, and here she was, a perspiring wreck. Why don't I go back to the Yard and get Pa Tippin to burgle the place?

It was worse than she'd imagined. The porter was deaf or stupid or both and made her repeat the request to see his employer three times. Master Patterson, a careful Scot and a typical lawyer, proved reluctant to hand over papers without Her Ladyship's written request, despite his knowledge of Her Ladyship's illiteracy. Penitence had to stammer answers to questions designed to test her bona fides.

At last, and reluctantly, she was given a box and shown to the door. Even there, the lawyer delayed her: 'Eh am surpraised that a gairl of your . . . pairsuasion is . . . May eh enquaire what is your capacity in Hair Ladyship's employment?'

She'd had enough, 'W-what's yours?', and stamped off, careless of the existence of all plagues but her own. Until she saw Peter Simkin's face.

'The B-b-bill? Is it up?'

He was as precise as ever, though his hands shook. 'The total Bill of Mortality for London is nine.'

Nine. One of them little Jenny Bryskett. But for all London it didn't amount to disaster. 'N-not b-bb-bad then.'

'No,' he said, 'ain't bad at all. Only it ain't true.' He lifted his hat to wipe his forehead, then replaced it. He had a newspaper in his hand — he always bought the weekly quarto- page Newes so that he could read it to his wife, who liked to know what King and court were up to. 'There's a special Privy Council committee been set up.' He read her the names: 'General Monck, Duke of Albemarle - he's the one got the King back on the throne, Pen. Lord Arlington, he's the Head of State. Earl of Southampton, he's Lord Treasurer. The Lord Chamberlain. The Duke of Ormonde. The Earl of Bath. The Comptroller. The Vice-Chamberlain. Mr Secretary Morice.'

He looked up. 'Nine,' he said. 'That's nine very grand gentlemen for only nine deaths.'

They began walking. 'Know what I reckon, Pen? I reckon it's been creeping up all winter, and now it's at the gates.' Peter Simkin was looking around him as if seeing everything for the first time. 'It's a rare city, Pen,' he said.

As always, they cut through the nave of St Paul's down to Ludgate instead of going round by Carter Lane. Penitence never minded, though Cromwell had condemned the cathedral as papistical. She regarded the nave as a secular thoroughfare — as did most of London.

Steeling herself to squeeze through the stalls selling everything saleable and push away pedlars selling a great deal that wasn't, she was taken aback when Peter Simkin said 'With your permission, Pen' and slipped off into a side chapel. She saw him go down on his knees.

Embarrassed, she went back out on the steps to wait for him. He's acting as if it's the end of the world.

From here she could see over the churchyard, over the jumbled roofs beyond it to the Thames where the eel ships scudded upriver, their brown sails bellied out by the May breeze in satisfying, pregnant curves.

To her left the thin tower of the Exchange rang the bell to end trading just as, beyond it, the clock on the ornate lantern of St Mary-le-Bow chimed the hour. Between the flying buttresses behind her, the booksellers began gathering up their texts, poems, broadsheets and translations and dismantling their trestles.

From here Southwark, across the river, looked like a rural village instead of the continual alehouse-cum-brothel it really was.

Dutifully she thought: Woe unto you, Jerusalem. But it had become her Jerusalem, a city of energy and beauty and a promise it hadn't yet fulfilled. In contrast, the unknown Taunton assumed the qualities of Puritan Springfield in Massachusetts: ordered, worthy, loveless — and dull. She would stay there only until she had discovered what there was to discover about Aunt Margaret; then, somehow, she would come back.

All the way home Peter Simkin chattered about the Orders. Doctors to examine suspected cases and report, all needless concourses to be prohibited, the poor to be given relief and work, houses to be kept clean, ordure to be removed from the streets, pest-houses to be built, none allowed to travel in the kingdom without a certificate of health, the College of Physicians immediately to advise on medical procedure ...

She barely listened. 'Reasonable,' she said. What a fuss.

'That's reasonable if put in hand, Pen, but old Johnson — he's St Martin's — he says as the same Orders was issued in '25, and look what happened then.' Peter Simkin sucked on his teeth. And reasonable if they got the cash for it, Pen. But Parliament's only voted money for war against them damned Dutch, if you'll pardon my French. Now it's gone and prorogued itself and when's it going to meet again, that's what I want to know? If they put the charge on the parishes — well, St Giles ain't got it, and that's a fact. And it's the poorest parishes'll get the "P" worst, you mark my words.'

He looked around him in case anybody was listening, and touched her arm, speaking low: 'And young Pettit - he's Houndsditch — he said as how the King's issued secret orders as how the Tower's got to be garrisoned in case of panic and riot.'

What a fuss. As they passed the alley leading to the Cockpit, she happened to glance down it but saw nobody she recognized.

Full of his news and duties, Peter turned off to the High Street while she wandered on to Dog Yard - and found the place in tumult.

They were shutting up the Ship.

Have the Dutch invaded? Her first impression was of a battle; but that was ridiculous. The first hostilities on English soil weren't likely to be fought in Dog Yard. But it was a war all the same. On one side soldiers armed with pikes and parish officers lashing out with their white wands, all commanded by a small magistrate in a big hat on a white horse, waving and shouting. On the opposing side Dog Yard.

The Dog Yarders were impeding, screeching and fighting. Two Tippins were pummelling a beadle lying on the cobbles. Mistress Parker was trying to kick the shins of a soldier, who was holding her off with one arm.

Penitence saw Footloose propel himself and his tub into the path of two more beadles going to their fellow's rescue. One fell over him, but the other, an enraged fat man, plucked the beggar out of his tub, looked round, spotted a cresset-holder sticking out of the Buildings and hung him up on it by the back of his jacket.

In the shelter of the Stables chimney, a young Tippin was tearing tiles off the roof, dodging out to throw them at the soldiery, then dodging back. The Cock and Pie and Mother Hubbard's had joined forces. She saw Dorinda clinging like a monkey to the back of a man who was attempting to do something to one of the Ship's windows while hampered by a Mother Hubbard girl swinging from his arm.

From her window, Mistress Hicks was emptying her boarders' pots over the head of any member of the opposing army who happened in range, following up with well-aimed throws of the pots themselves.

The noise was horrific. In the encircled court it was like being trapped with yowling cats in a bucket battered by bricks. Between, under, through the chaos ran children, dodging and yelling: among them the hair of the Brysketts streamed like torches.

One ran up to Penitence and flung his arms round her waist. 'Don't want to be shut up, Pen. Don't let 'em shut me up.' She put her arms round him. It was the second littlest Bryskett.

A pikeman strode up. 'Let's be having him, mistress.'

Convulsively, she hugged the child closer. 'N-n-no.'

Behind the face-bars of his lobster-tail helmet, the pikeman's look was not unsympathetic. 'Orders, mistress. Plague-houses to be shut up with all inhabitants.'

A muffled voice came from the middle of Penitence's coat. 'I ain't got it. Jenny had it. Ma wouldn't let us see her.'

'No,' said Penitence again.

'Come on, son,' said the soldier. Leather gauntlets manoeuvred the boy firmly out of Penitence's clutch, carried him across the Yard, up the steps, and handed him in at an upstairs window of the Ship to the pale-faced, red-headed Mistress Bryskett.

The Ship's door was already stapled with a chain fastened by a padlock. A large figure trapped on the inside was struggling to get his shoulders through the tiny gap the door offered, bellowing a desperate litany of complaint. 'That's not right, maister. I'm clean. Hertfordshire man, me. Just delivering. You let me out. I got wife and children in Potters Bar. What of me hosses? You let me out.'

No one was taking any more notice of him than of the magistrate on the horse, whose voice had gone into the higher register of scream.

Click, click, click-click-click. Light, ordered sound did what shouting couldn't and impinged on everybody's consciousness. One by one, parish officers and Dog Yarders turned their head towards it.

The pikemen had drawn up in a crouched line with their backs to the Stables and the Buildings, the base of their pikes on the ground in a neat line sloping towards the riot.

The man who had taken the second littlest Bryskett away from Penitence went on tapping his pike on the cobbles until there was silence. He stepped forward. He was tall; only tall men could carry the eighteen-foot pike with grace.

'My name,' he called, conversationally, 'is Corporal Forbush. These gentlemen squattin' here is a troop of His Majesty's Pike. They are in the position what is adopted to repel chargin' horse.' He had everybody's attention. 'Now then,' he went on, 'when this here troop charges, they stand up, like what I'm doing, and they level the pike. Like this.'

Dog Yard's eyes became riveted on a steel-sharp tip.

'Now then,' said Corporal Forbush, 'they don't want to do this. I don't want 'em to do it and you don't want 'em to do it. So what I suggest is, we all stay very quiet and listen to what Magistrate Flesher here's got to say.' He saluted in the direction of the little man on the horse, whose mouth was still open.

So that's Flesher. Known to the Rookery with reason — and among other things — as Flogger Flesher.

'I'll arrest the lot of you,' he was screaming. 'Constables, get those men.' He pointed at the spot where the Tippin brothers had been punching the beadle. The beadle was sitting up, feeling his jaw, but the Tippins had disappeared, and with them had gone much of Dog Yard's attempt to defy the inevitable. Corporal Forbush strode up, and under cover of quietening the magistrate's horse, offered some muttered advice.

Reluctantly, Flogger Flesher took it. He put his sword into its scabbard, straightened his hat and, producing a scroll, began to read: 'By the authority invested in me by His Royal Majesty ...' The audibility of the warrant was marred as much by the clove-studded orange he now held to his nose as by the drayman, who was still shouting.

Penitence turned to the figure next to her, which turned out to be Phoebe stemming her bleeding nose on her petticoat.

'How I-long d-did he s-say?'

'Forty days,' said Phoebe. 'Fuckers. That's finished me with the King.'

The Ship, those children, shut up for forty days? 'C-c-can't,' she said. They c-c-can't.'

They were. Such younger Brysketts as were still outside were rounded up and lifted in.

As, one by one, the diamond-paned ground-floor windows were boarded over, the imprisoned Bryskett children ran to the next. Outside, Dorinda followed them, her hand raised to clutch theirs, like someone saying goodbye to a passenger in a moving coach. When the planks went over the last window she leaned back against the wall, then slid down on to her hands and knees.

Penitence ran to help her up. The girl was sobbing. 'The little 'uns. I can't bear it.'

'I know.'

Mistress Parker was still trying to effect an entry into the Ship as forcibly as the drayman was trying to make an exit. 'You got my old man in there, turd-brain,' she screamed.

Magistrate Flesher urged his horse to the Ship steps. Who's in there?'

The beadle on the door saluted: 'Landlord and his lady, sir, eight childer, two potboys, one tapster, one drayman, a skivvy — and a person still asleep with a pint pot in his 'and.'

'That's him,' shouted Mistress Parker.

'All persons found on the premises stay on the premises,' said Magistrate Flesher. He dismounted and strode up the steps. 'Give me the chalk.'