Hearts of Darkness (3 page)

Dowling stroked the dead man’s hair, a strange look upon his face, angry and sad at the same time.

‘James Josselin worked for me,’ said Arlington. ‘He was privy
to the most secret of intelligence and I trusted him.
He
swore his allegiance too, Lytle.’

‘Why do you question
my
allegiance?’ I snapped, anger provoked. Little good ever came of giving it voice, but my mouth was busy. ‘I pursued Wharton to St Albans. I killed him when I thought he endangered your life.’

Arlington smiled. ‘I am happy to hear you confirm your loyalty.’ He placed his hands behind his back and leant forward. ‘You will go to Essex,’ he said, daring me to protest. ‘Withypoll will go with you as far as Colchester.’

So that was it. The thin, puckered face of the man who sat next to me at dinner formed before me, the grating sound of his shrill voice echoing in my ear. He said 1666 would be a sickly year, a year when the plague would slither out of London to wreak its evil upon other towns and cities. London was free at last, like a great old bear, beaten to its knees, bloody but unbowed. The worst was over, the Pestilence gone, in search of new feeding grounds, bounteous and plentiful, and Essex was where it went, Colchester the worst afflicted. Arlington sent us back to Hell.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Because that is where James Josselin fled,’ Arlington replied. ‘To Shyam, where none will follow.’

‘Where is Shyam?’

‘Shyam is a small village,’ Dowling spoke up. ‘Where the plague has chosen to make its home. Three hundred people lived there before the Pest began its killings. They have closed their boundaries and allow no man in nor out.’

‘You are well informed, Dowling,’ Arlington noted approvingly. ‘The Reverend of Shyam persuaded them all to stay, so as not to infect
other villages to the north and east. Any man that ventures within its boundaries is obliged to remain until the plague is gone.’ He gazed admiringly into the gloom. ‘What a man he must be, that influences men to lay down their lives for others, especially the rude sort of fellow that lives in such places.’

‘You want us to go to this Shyam?’ I exclaimed, aghast.

Arlington nodded. ‘To fetch James Josselin. Alive.’

Withypoll sat on the table, grinning with all his sharp teeth. He was sent to Colchester; not a much better prospect, but he survived the plague once already. He clearly believed himself immune to further infection.

Arlington’s eyes were unrepentant. He did not expect us to return. If we did, he would kill us later. I looked to Dowling. His face was set, hard as stone.

‘Very well,’ I said. ‘We will make preparations.’ Preparations to flee, for nothing would entice me eastward.

Arlington pointed to Josselin’s dead body, mouth open, dull eyes staring at the ceiling. ‘First you will dispose of that, and dispose of it well.’

He nodded at Withypoll, who stretched his arms wide and yawned. ‘Tomorrow you take them to Whitehall, so they may see the scene of Berkshire’s murder.’

Withypoll nodded, like he had it already planned.

Arlington headed for the door. ‘Fail and you will both rot in Hell,’ he called over his shoulder as he left the room. Withypoll followed with languid stride. Josselin’s finger rolled gently off the table and landed on the floor with a soft thud, coming to a rest next to my heavy heart.

I thought I left such villainy behind on my way to becoming a
happily married apothecary. Instead I cut off the tip of a man’s finger and faced a journey back into the Hell of plague. I escaped Death last year. To court him twice was madness.

Josselin stared at the wall with dull grey eyes.

‘What now, Davy?’ I said at last.

‘God will guide us,’ he replied. With less mischief than he had done thus far, I hoped. The grey pallor painted upon Dowling’s craggy face betrayed uncertainty of faith. I had never seen him so undone.

‘What shall we do with the body?’ he asked, picking at the bindings about the dead man’s hand.

I was sick of bodies.

‘I know a place,’ I muttered. ‘I used to work here, remember?’

Jane’s green eyes burnt into my cheek as I entered the front door and removed my jacket. The tip of her finger stabbed into my midriff when I forgot to shake the dirt from my shoes.

‘It’s dark,’ she snapped. ‘Why are you returned so late? You said it would be a dull affair.’ She stood upon her tiptoes and tried to sniff my breath.

She meant the wedding, I realised. ‘So it was,’ I answered. It seemed so long ago now. I couldn’t recall the last time I returned so late, so sober.

She directed her attentions to Dowling, who followed me over the threshold. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I came to pay my regards,’ he replied slow, unable to stop staring.
‘I haven’t seen you in a while.’

I attempted to lose him twice upon the way home, but he wouldn’t be deterred.

‘Aye, well here I am,’ she frowned, perplexed, sniffing the air again. ‘Now tell me where you have been so late?’

My mind’s eye still watched Josselin’s body slowly sinking into the water. I had little appetite for one of Jane’s sermons. I needed a drink and headed for the kitchen in search of ale. I wondered how to tell her of our journey east. ‘Come, and I will tell you.’

‘You plan to talk to me?’ she declared in mock astonishment, following with quick steps. ‘Why so wormy-tongued? I have no dinner for ye, and no speech will persuade me to cook at this late hour.’

I wasn’t hungry. ‘We have been set a puzzle that may be beyond our capacity to resolve.’

She snorted. ‘If that were a reason for talking, we would spend
every
evening at the table.’ She scowled at Dowling, who would not take his eyes off her. ‘Will you have an ale, butcher? You look like you are about to faint.’

‘No, no.’ He waved a hand. ‘I will just sit a while.’

Jane clicked her tongue and eyed him, suspicious, afore fetching a jug of ale, a cup and a dish of oysters. ‘Tell me your tale, and spin it fast, for I would go to bed.’

Dowling smiled, hiding the expression quickly before she could spot it.

‘We must go away tomorrow,’ I told her, already feeling the need to defend myself. ‘And though I cannot think why I feel so obliged, I will leave you instruction should I not return for a while.’

She leant forwards and wrinkled her small freckled nose. ‘You
will leave me instruction? That assumes there is something you are qualified to instruct me upon. Since I have no desire to emulate your enviable ability to piss with one hand and drink with the other, I wonder what other
instruction
you feel compelled to share with me.’

‘Do you always talk to me like this when I come home late at night?’ I struggled to recall. ‘Perhaps you forget, you are my servant.’

‘No servant of yours could ever forget it,’ Jane growled, cheeks flushed. ‘Not the day of the appointment, nor the detail of each day subsequent.’

‘Most servants would be glad to have me as their master,’ I protested. ‘I pay you well. I send money to your brother, to the brother of your sister’s husband, and to your uncle with the swollen head. Indeed I have never declined to help any member of your family, though they are legion. Yet you talk about me as if I am the Devil incarnate.’ I suddenly remembered. ‘And I saved your life.’

‘You don’t send money to my uncle, for he died more than a year ago,’ she retorted. ‘And you didn’t save my life.’ She leant back and folded her arms against her plump breasts. ‘Ruth saved my life. You took the opportunity to gaze upon my naked body, and do not think I have forgiven you for it.’

I sighed, sat down and filled my cup. We had debated many times before. In fact it
was
I, at great risk to myself, who entered my house when she suffered plague and tended to her while a drunken nurse lay slobbering and snoring downstairs. I changed Jane’s clothes when she lay in her own foulness. It was I who ejected the wretched harridan and found a new one, this Ruth.

‘You have gazed upon my naked body too, I reckon,’ I replied.

‘Aye, bathed in sweat and stinking of ale,’ she snapped. ‘For which task I could never be adequately rewarded.’ She peered out from behind strands of blazing red hair, green eyes sparkling. She was beautiful and I didn’t want to leave her.

‘Anyway.’ I slumped back in my chair. ‘Tomorrow we must go to Essex.’ I gazed back into her bright eyes, when usually I would look away. ‘To some small village north of Colchester.’

Her top lip jumped up to her nose, revealing sharp white teeth. ‘Is this a riddle? You take me for a fool and I will poke out your eye.’

‘No riddle.’ I drained my cup and filled it again. ‘Lord Arlington summoned us this afternoon and issued those orders. We are to leave in the morning. Ask him.’ I attempted to divert her attention towards Dowling.

Dowling buried his nose in an oyster shell.

‘What did you do?’ she exclaimed. ‘Spit in the King’s dinner? He might as well send you to Tyburn. I thought Arlington was your great new benefactor, your passage to wealth and fortune.’

‘So did I,’ I reflected.

‘Tell me, then!’

I ducked quick to avoid the arm she flung at me. ‘I hoped he would be grateful I saved his life.’

Jane glowered. ‘You stripped him naked and gazed upon his body too?’

‘No,’ I replied, fist clenched. ‘I saved his life. Yet he doesn’t trust me. He is afraid I might divulge the truth of his devious, black soul.’

‘As would I be if I were him, the amount of time you spend at the Mermaid lain drunk upon the floor.’ Jane raised her brows like I was a great fool. It was a good point I had not considered.

She prodded Dowling’s shoulder. ‘So he has sent you both on some strange pilgrimage of repentance.’

‘Whether we repent or not is of no interest to him,’ Dowling replied. ‘He wants us to find a man called James Josselin.’

I watched the two candles flicker in a sudden breeze that invaded from the corridor. Jane shook her head, lips pinched tight. ‘If you two ninnies wander woolly-headed into Essex then you will both die. The plague is worse there than it was here. They say half Colchester is dead already. For what did we spend six months living with pigs if it was not to escape the Pest?’ I saw tears in the corners of her eyes and felt my own eyes burning.

‘If we do not go, Arlington will have us killed.’

‘Who is this James Josselin?’

‘Arlington says he is a murderer, though Dowling and I have our doubts.’

‘Ha!’ Jane exclaimed. ‘You have your doubts. So you will ask this renegade the truth of it and he will confide all in you two? I think not.’ She pulled a face like she sucked upon a lemon. ‘
“Excuse me, sir,”
says the butcher.
“Wilt thou reveal unto me whether or not you be a murderer, that we may inform the Honourable Lord Arlington, that doth search for you?”
The gentleman thinketh.’ Jane frowned and looked to the ceiling. ‘
“Why do you hesitate, good man?”
enquires the short fellow that doth nothing but drink.
“Do ye not trust our good intent?”
With that the short fellow doth belch loudly, thus convincing the man who doth doubt his integrity, that these two good fellows are deserving of his trust.’

Dowling laughed out loud until he met her gimlet eye.

I saw she was afraid. Strange how quick I recognised it these days.

‘We have to attempt it else he will have us killed anyway.’ I said.
‘We are to go to Shyam and fetch Josselin back to London, with the help of one of Arlington’s agents, a murderous dog.’

‘If Arlington and his agent know where this man skulks, then what use are you two buffoons?’

‘Josselin has taken refuge in a small village where the plague is rife, where the villagers have closed their boundaries,’ I answered. ‘We are appointed to fetch him out.’

She dropped her hands and stared, speechless. A rare event.

‘So the instruction I would leave you relates to the disposal of my estate,’ I said, soft.

‘Your estate!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why tell me of your estate?’

‘Because I have no one else to leave it to,’ I replied. ‘I might as well leave the house and monies to you.’

She stood bolt upright, shoulders hunched about her ears, arms held out stiff like the wings of a tall, wading bird. ‘To me?’ Her voice echoed strangely deep, like the uttering of a demon.

‘Aye.’ I watched nervous as she stepped closer. ‘I have no one else to leave it to.’

She lowered her face and breathed over my nose. She smelt of sage and mint, just as she had that afternoon in Cocksmouth. ‘Leave it to your mother,’ she hissed. ‘Or leave it to her brother. But don’t you dare try and leave it to me.’

‘You don’t want it?’

‘You tell me you are sent to Essex.’ Her hand shot out towards my neck and I caught it just in time. ‘That you will likely die.’ Her voice tremored and tears gathered in long pools above her lower lashes. I hadn’t seen her weep before.

‘I didn’t say I would likely die,’ I protested. ‘You did.’

She screamed loudly into my face, sweet lips wide apart, head
thrust forward like an angry rooster. Once all the breath was blown from her body she fell back onto her heels and gazed, wide-eyed and bewildered.

Dowling lumbered to his feet and attempted to wrap an arm about her shoulder. ‘I will look after him.’

‘What!’ She pushed away his arm and peered into his great blank face. ‘You will defend him from the plague will you, butcher? Methinks not. And why do you sit there all moonfaced, anyway?’ Her eyes widened and she turned to me. My heart sunk to somewhere close to my toes and I wished I had not admitted him into the house.

‘You told him,’ she whispered. ‘You told him!’

I opened my mouth and prayed for words of wisdom. Nothing happened.

‘We were at a wedding,’ Dowling ventured bravely. ‘He asked me what it was like being married.’

She stared at me, green eyes flashing.

‘He said I was like Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite,’ I added, unable to think of anything sensible to say.

Her top lip peeled back slowly from her teeth. I wondered where to put my hands. I edged about the wall of my kitchen heading for the door, but afore I could escape she flung herself at me and wrapped her arms about my back in iron embrace. I grimaced in anticipation of being bitten on the neck, but instead I felt hot, wet breath somewhere close to my ear. I shivered and held her afront of me. She ducked her head to hide her eyes, then flung herself at me again, lifting her head and gazing up. Her lips parted and I felt something stir deep within. And something else, not so deep within.

‘I’ll keep my estate, Jane, and be back in a week,’ I assured her, feeling helpless.

At which she chewed her lip, scowled like Dowling, and stomped down the corridor and up the stairs. Leaving me stood in the kitchen in a state of complete confusion. Women speak two languages, quoth the Bard, one of which is verbal. The other I did not understand.

I followed her upstairs and knocked gently upon the door of her room, leaving Dowling to let himself out.