Infinite Sacrifice (24 page)

Chapter 1

Our cart has been stuck in the
mayhem of the marketplace for ten minutes without moving. It is
exceptionally busy this early, even for Cheapside.

“Move your horse!” a hostile
merchant hollers from behind.

“There is no way to go, short of
murder!” Hadrian shouts behind him, holding the reins in fisted
hands.

Reckless peasants, merchants, and
wayward animals dart in front of the carts, creating a constant
stream of disruption. I detest the open-air market, the way the
streets are lined with shoddy thatched cottages and shambles.
Stalls, selling everything from fabrics to spices, are set up all
over, and noisy peddlers are advertising their wares. Everyone
comes all over London and the countryside to either bring or
purchase their goods for the day. The busy and bawdy traffic is the
least of the unpleasantness experienced in Cheapside.

At dawn, butchers bring their
moaning animals to slaughter at Butcher’s Row. There is Pig Lane,
Chicken Lane, Cow Lane, and Cock Lane—each lane named for the
animal slaughtered there. Butchers tie the doomed lot up and one by
one begin slicing them open, spilling their blood, making rivers
down the street. They carve them up and discard the inedible body
parts on the ground beneath their feet. The sound of dying animals
can be heard anywhere you stand in Cheapside, all day long. Blood
sits in stagnant pools all over the streets, clotting and
thickening as the day progresses, seeping into putrid cesspools.
Entrails bake in the sun as rats and flies swarm at opportunistic
moments. Every animal has its own smell as it rots on the
cobblestones, being crushed and smashed by butchers’ heavy
boots.

All over London, people let
livestock roam the streets, in an effort to clean up the garbage
thrown from doorways into the gutters. To my right, three enormous
sows are rummage through a mixture of bones and decaying debris,
snorting away, their fleshy faces covered in filth.

Someone yells from the window above
our cart, “Look out below!”

Hadrian looks worried, as he knows
he has to try to move quickly.

“Look out below!” they warn
again.

He pulls the horse slightly to the
left.

“Look out below!”

A full chamber pot is dumped,
narrowly missing our cart and splashing up on the wooden sides. The
pigs rush over to consume greedily whatever disgusting morsel was
thrown down. Whenever I venture through Cheapside, I have to bring
a sachet of rosemary to hold to my nose, or else the smell would be
nauseating. Hadrian rarely takes me with him to go out. I’m excited
to get out of the courtyard and see something different, vile
smells or not. Hadrian has new surgical supplies and books coming
to him from Paris. We have to go through Cheapside to get to the
seaport on the Thames. Finally, we hear the steady creaking of the
cart rolling along the muddy road.

The streets open up to a bustling
harbor, every bit as smelly and crowded as the market.

“You wait here for me. I cannot get
any closer to the dock,” Hadrian says without even looking at
me.

He motions two dockhands to come
with him. I watch his slightly hunched form disappear into the
slender vessel at the end of the pier. It is a beautiful, early
fall day. The time when the summer heat has faded away and been
replaced by a slight cool breeze. The sun glistens off the water,
making even the polluted Thames look sparkling and beautiful. Men
shouting and running to the farthest dock breaks the solitude of
the moment. I turn to what the commotion is and see a large
merchant ship coming into the harbor. At first, nothing looks out
of the ordinary, but then I notice how slow the boat is moving,
like a ghost gliding among headstones.

There are no hands on deck. The
boat is coming in unmanned, with only one of its sails still tied,
two others flapping in the wind. The eerie sounds of the riggings
clanging against the masts echoes over the water. Tenders are
launched in an attempt to aid the ship, but are too late as it runs
aground on the side of the port. The whole seaport turns its
attention to this strange anomaly, and many stand
openmouthed.

Did this ship lose its anchor or
pull free from its cleats?

I watch as men pull their small
boats astride and climb up the ropes. They’re on the deck for but
an instant before they all run screaming off the ship or dive into
the water below. The whole seaport knows what that
means.

The Black Death has arrived in
London.

Hadrian comes back with the men
carrying a large trunk each. He squints toward the plague ship in
annoyed anxiety. “Stay here. I have to see about this.”

The cart jolts at the added weight,
while the dockhands stand and leer at me.

Hadrian, noticing this, changes his
mind. “You better come with me, Elizabeth.”

We reach the farthest pier at the
same time the men from the launches are landing, white-faced and
soaking wet.

Hadrian marches up to them and
demands, “What is it you have seen?”

One toothless, shaggy-bearded
mariner barks back, “They’re all dead, they are! Every last one of
them! All strewn across the deck, some burst open, guts all
spilling out!”

The others are silent.

“I am a surgeon. I need to know
exactly what you saw to diagnose what pestilence they are
carrying.”

“Guts spilling out is what I’d
seen! Jumped off before I could feel for fever!”

His mates start laughing at this.
Hadrian gives the man a stern stare.

“Aaagh,” the mariner says as he
wrings out his cap. “I saw one mate had a giant lump on his
neck.”

“Any black splotches or blood
around the mouth?”

“Look, love to gab with you, but we
have to go tell the dock master about this here grounded ghost
ship.” They walk away.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Hadrian stops at a fellow surgeon’s
house on our way back home. We are welcomed in for an early dinner.
The table is amply covered with breads, meats, and fruits. The
mistress of the house sits at the table, feeding her lapdog pieces
of ham under the table.

“The sea urchin said the bodies had
been split open. I doubt it was a symptom of the disease, probably
the result of bloated bodies in the sun hitting the mast as the
decks rolled,” Hadrian explains as I wonder how they could talk of
such things while stuffing their faces.

Our host asks, “What other symptoms
were observed?”

They’re talking only to each other;
women are not a part of men’s conversations.

“The urchin only glanced around the
deck and fled. However, he did say he noticed a lump on one of the
doomed sailor’s necks.”

“A bubo.” The older doctor strokes
his beard at this and concludes, “A strong indicator of the Great
Mortality.”

Hadrian nods. “Yes, I
agree.”

“Do you think there are any
survivors?” Our host is furiously cutting his steak like he is
trying to start a fire, causing the whole table to
shake.

Hadrian scoffs. “I doubt they gave
much effort in checking, but even if there were, London would not
take them in.”

“Well, London has been watching for
this for a year. They all thought it wouldn’t come to us. It has
ravaged Italy and France, and now the plague is here.”

“You think London has been exposed
from these few men boarding the vessel for a moment?” Hadrian drops
his fork and knife and suddenly looks concerned.

“That, and I imagine the south wind
blowing from the harbor stirring the corrupt vapors from those
plague bodies and carrying the Black Death to each and every one of
us who breathes.” He snaps for a servant, who comes quickly to his
side. “Close all the windows facing the south side. From now on,
only the pure air from the north is allowed in this
house!”

Hadrian gives me a look, and I can
tell he is anxious to get home to do the same.

“You do know it is all due to the
unfavorable planetary alignment?” A grave look takes hold of our
host’s face as he says this.

Hadrian nods somberly. “The major
conjunction of Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter in Aquarius is an
extraordinary event — an ominous event portending pestilence and
great death.”

“Very ominous indeed!” the doctor
exclaims as he tears a huge piece off a drumstick and gobbles it
down.

“If in fact the plague has its
grips on London, how should we act?” Hadrian asks.

“Depends on how much gold the good
Lord or Lady will give you!” He laughs so hard at his own joke, he
chokes on the wine he is drinking, causing it to sputter out his
thin-lipped mouth.

“You think it unwise to treat lowly
classes, then?”

He sputters for
some time and, once recovered, wipes his mouth with his sleeve. “It
all depends what price you put on your own life. I have heard many
of the leading doctors in Paris and Rome have all been killed
simply for
talking
with infected patients.”

“How can we service the public if
we are at risk by being in their very presence?”

“I tell you, Hadrian, if this
plague takes hold in London, I will run and run fast. And you and
your lovely wife should heed my advice too.”

I look up to see the doctor giving
me a tight smile with food in his beard.

Hadrian is quiet all the way home,
as usual. Dusk has set in, and the church bells are ringing
everyone to bed. Peasant children run through the street, chasing
each other with barking dogs in tow. I pray the doctor is
wrong.

My mother comes to greet us upon
entering. “I have had to eat dinner all alone tonight. Did you have
plans elsewhere?”

“I am sorry Jacquelyn. There was an
unpleasant event I had to discuss with another surgeon.”

She pulls her chin up. “That is
fine. I was forced to amuse myself at the table.” She turns to me
and kisses me on both cheeks. “Any news from the
market?”

I take her into the sitting room as
Hadrian drifts into his library with one of his trunks, barking
orders to the servants to close the windows on his way.

“A plague ship came gliding in
unmanned, the whole crew dead on deck.”

Her amber eyes widen at this news.
“It has come at last!” She pulls me down to the bench beside her.
“I knew it would come to kill us all just as it has ravaged Paris!
We could not hide on this island forever!” She begins biting her
fingernails. “We have to leave like we did during the Great
Famine.”

“We will not have to leave. We will
be fine here.” I hope I’ve stopped her before she begins lamenting
yet again about the famine that happened thirty years
ago.

She shakes her head, and her golden
hair spills around her shoulders. “You have never seen the horrors
I have witnessed. Men, women, and children were dying by the
hundreds! The London streets filled with beggars. Families couldn’t
keep the water out of their houses. Rain was seeping through
everywhere, the roofs, and the walls, under the door—”

My thoughts drift to a seed stuck
in my tooth since dinner. I try to dislodge it with my tongue as
she rants on until she shakes me to pay attention.

“Fires would not light, bread was
molding, and crops were flattened by hail. Eighteen months of
pouring rain! Even fine families like mine had trouble finding
adequate food, as others were scavenging garbage—eating bird dung,
pets, and even people!” She realizes how frantically her voice has
risen and sits back in the chair, finishing in a hastened whisper,
“It was terrible. I never want to witness such things
again.”

“That will not happen again.” She
doesn’t even hear me in her tirade.

“My father, very sensible man he
was, took us and left. On our way out, we saw families: naked, skin
and bones, on their hands and knees, eating grass like beasts! Many
fields could not return to production for years, and some were
ruined forever. I saw such horrors that I did not come back to
London for many years, until your father brought me back.” She
pulls my chin up for our eyes to meet. “We still have our manor in
Windsor. You must speak to Hadrian about leaving at once before
this spreads!”

“Let us pray together now that this
plague will not hit, and we will not have to go
anywhere.”

I help her onto her knees, shuffle
beside her with our rosaries wrapped around our clasped hands, and
we recant our Lady’s prayer.