The Crippled Angel (9 page)

Tuesday 21st May 1381

—ii—

M
argery Harwood lived with her husband William and their three children in a comfortable house on Ironmonger Lane off Bishopsgate Street. Margery was proud of her house—she spent an inordinate amount of time polishing, sweeping, washing and straightening—but her pride in her house formed only one part of her general satisfaction with life. She and William had emigrated to London when they were just married, and Margery pregnant with her first child. They’d come from a small village just east of Gravesend, where there was little prospect for an ironworker of William’s calibre. So to London they had come, and if the first years establishing William’s business were hard, then all the effort had been worthwhile. Now Margery was in charge of a house of ten rooms, a pantry, cellar and wine store that was stocked with far more goods than those of her neighbours, and three servants and a cook. William not only had a thriving business, but he also had five apprentices, as well as two guildsmen, working under him. Margery and William’s children—three sons, praise be to God!—were healthy, and well ahead of their
classmates at the guild school in learning their sums and letters. Their future was assured. Life was good.

Margery was in the kitchen at five of the clock that afternoon when everything fell apart. She’d been busy all day, supervising her servants as they cleaned out the cellar in preparation for the crates of spring-fresh vegetables that would soon fill it, consulting with the cook about that evening’s fare, and then helping her to strip the eels and baste the vegetables for William’s favourite pie, and thus Margery had enjoyed no free time at all in which to stand in her doorway and gossip with the neighbours.

She had no idea of what had happened at St Paul’s that day, and, by virtue of the fact that her home was tucked right at the end of Ironmonger Lane, a reasonable distance from Bishopsgate Street which was itself on the far side of London from St Paul’s, she’d heard none of the fuss that had carried up and down most of the city’s main thoroughfares. Both William and her sons had yet to come home, and in any case, Margery wasn’t expecting them for another hour or so.

So when the scraping at the kitchen door came, Margery merely muttered her displeasure at the interruption, told the cook and the kitchen girl that she’d see what was about outside, wiped her hands on her apron, and walked to the door that opened into the kitchen courtyard.

Ironmonger Lane was a quiet part of London, rarely visited by the beggars and criminals seen in so many other streets, and so Margery had no hesitation in throwing open the door.

A massive black dog stood not three feet away, staring at Margery with yellow eyes, snarling so viciously that ropes of saliva spattered across Margery’s apron.

Margery gave a small shriek, and slammed the door closed.

“Mistress?” asked the cook, staring up from the table where she’d been rolling out pastry.

Margery took a deep breath. “A dog. A stray,” she said. “Nothing to be concerned about.” And she walked back to
the table to her duties, resolving to ask William to speak to the local alderman about the problem of stray dogs.

At that moment she heard their front door open, then, after the shortest of intervals, slam closed. Footsteps thudded down the corridor towards the kitchen.

William, their three sons, and two of his apprentices. William’s face was shiny with sweat, his pale blue eyes wide and panicked.

“Lock the doors,” he said, his voice hoarse and breathless. “Shutter the windows!”

“William—”

He ignored her, brushing past the cook and the kitchen girl to bolt closed the shutter over the kitchen windows. “Harry!” he said, looking at his eldest son. “Upstairs—the windows!”

Harry nodded, and darted away towards the stairs.

“William,
what is going on
?”

“Pestilence,” William said, staring about wildly as if looking for something else to shutter closed.

Margery drew in a deep breath. “But we haven’t suffered from the pestilence in—”

“How long it has been doesn’t matter,” William said, and directed his middle son into the front rooms of the house to shutter the windows. “What matters is that the pestilence is back
now.
Have you opened the door to anyone this day? Any beggars, anyone who has touched you?”

Margery stared at him, then very slowly looked down at her apron. Wordlessly she tore it off, then bundled it into the coals in the hearth.

It was too late. By evening one of the apprentices, the cook, two of Margery’s sons, and William himself were fighting raging fevers. Huge swellings appeared in their armpits, at the bases of their necks, and in their groins.

They were tight and agonising, filled almost to bursting point with black blood and pus.

Margery did what she could—and she was left on her own to do it, because the two still-healthy servants had fled
the house at the first signs of sickness—but that was little enough. She moved from bed to bed, wiping faces and hands with cloths wrung out in cool, herbed water. When her youngest son and one of the apprentices began to soil themselves with great clotting black messes, she changed their linens, her heart almost failing at their screams of agony as she rolled them over.

In the dark of early morning, as she was trying to change the linens under the apprentice, three of his buboes burst, and he bled to death, screaming, in under ten minutes.

And the nightmare had only just begun.

By dawn, William was dead, drowned in the mass of blood and pus that had collected in his lungs. The child and the apprentice who had so far escaped were tossing with fever, and Margery, in emptying out a bucket of blood and pus-stained rags into the courtyard refuse heap, suddenly realised that her arms were aching, and difficult to move.

There were hard lumps in both of her armpits.

Margery stood there for long minutes, the bucket at her feet, staring sightlessly at the refuse heap before her.

She moved her arms, very slightly, and again felt the painful swellings in her armpits.

Margery began to weep, great sobbing gulps, full of exhaustion and terror. She remembered how only a day ago her life had been so good, how the future shone so bright, how she and William had done so well for themselves from such humble beginnings.

Now?

Now it was all gone. Gone in less than a day.

Margery slowly sank to the cold cobbles, lay down, and waited to die, staring up at the grey sky with her weeping eyes.

Much later, dogs began to feed on her almost dead body.

Tuesday 21st May 1381

—iii—

B
olingbroke stretched tired neck and shoulder muscles, and looked one more time at the plans and documents that Dick Whittington had spread on the table. He lifted a candle—even though dawn light now shone through the windows, it was still not strong—and peered more closely at the plan of London spread before him.

He and the Lord Mayor, as also Bolingbroke’s Chancellor, the Bishop of London, and several other clerks and secretaries, stood in one of the upper chambers of the Tower of London Keep. Most of the palace was still undergoing renovation, but at least this chamber was finished, and warmed by a fire roaring in the grate.

Someone—Bolingbroke had forgotten who—had thrown rosemary and rue on the fire, and now the sweet scent of the herbs infused the chamber.

Bolingbroke didn’t think the herbs would have much effect in keeping the pestilence at bay.

The door to the chamber opened, and a man dressed in the livery of the Grocers’ Company hurried in. He bowed
perfunctorily to Bolingbroke, then whispered in Whittington’s ear before hurriedly quitting the chamber.

“Well?” Bolingbroke said.

“Over a hundred and twenty more deaths,” Whittington said, his shoulders slumping. “Sire, the pestilence has now touched most parts of London.”

Bolingbroke nodded. “That black Dog has done its work well.”

Several of the men in the room exchanged glances, their eyes filled with superstitious fear. Reports of the Dog of Pestilence had come in all night, appearing first here, then there, then somewhere else. No one could catch it, for whenever a band of men closed about it, the Dog merely seemed to vanish into the night air.

“A hound from hell,” the Bishop of London whispered, and crossed himself.

“Not from hell,” Bolingbroke said, sending the bishop a sharp glance, “but from heaven. This is
God’s
retributive work.”

“God’s work it may be,” Whittington said, forcing a brisk, businesslike tone into his voice, “but it will be man’s work to deal with it. Unless,” he gave the bishop an enquiring look, “the bishop knows some prayers that will drive the pestilence from among us?”

There was a silence. Then the bishop folded his hands before his corpulent belly, looked down, and muttered: “Prayers will be said in churches, of course, but if this is God’s work, then it is His way of punishing sinners and there is little that we—”

“Don’t tell me that this pestilence is God’s means of carrying off sinners,” Bolingbroke snapped. “The innocent are dying as readily as anyone else. Besides, if this pestilence was meant to carry away only the sinners amongst us…then why are most of London’s damned priests and friars still alive?”

There was a twitter of laughter, quickly subdued, and the bishop flushed.

Bolingbroke stared at the bishop a moment longer, then turned back to Whittington. “Well? What
can
we do?”

“We can do some things to make life safer for those still well,” Whittington said. “Already I have sent orders to set up pest houses here,” his finger stabbed at the map, “and here, and here.”

“Good,” Bolingbroke said. “They are well beyond the city walls. But should people be moving their infected through the streets?”

Whittington shook his head. “The pest houses will be used for people travelling into London, or those trying to leave, to isolate them until we are sure they are not infected. For those families already suffering within the city walls…well, men are even now moving through the streets, hanging bundles of straw from the windows of infected houses, and daubing their front doors with red paint.”

Bolingbroke flinched. “Cursed by a daub of red paint and a bundle of straw.”

“No one is allowed to leave or enter those houses,” Whittington continued. “Not even to deliver food.”

“Then pray this pestilence passes quickly,” one of the clerks muttered, “or else people will starve within their homes.”

“What else?” said Bolingbroke. He waved towards the fire. “Should we…?”

“Already done,” Whittington said. “Great bonfires salted with brimstone and saltpetre have been set up in all major intersections. With sweet Jesu’s aid they will burn the pestilence from the air. Anyone who has to walk the streets, and they are precious few—the watch, those carting away the dead, and physicians and their apprentices—have been given nosegays of herbs and waxed cloaks to help the pestilence slide away from their persons.”

None of which will protect them against God’s black hound
, thought Bolingbroke, but he did not speak his thoughts, for it was better to give people hope that something useful was being done, than to dash such hope away.

“All stray dogs are being killed,” Whittington said. “Cats as well. Perhaps they contribute to the spread of the pestilence.”

“Perhaps,” Bolingbroke said. “Is there nothing else we can do?”

Whittington looked to one of the clerks. “Well…someone has suggested that we fill a barge with peeled onions and float it down the Thames when the winds are southerly. Then the tart scent of the onions will blow over London and—”

“Then set whoever thought that one up to the peeling of the several tons of onions needed to fill a barge,” Bolingbroke said. “When he is done, and finished his weeping, I shall be willing to consider the proposition in more detail.” He paused. “Dick, this is something I would rather not speak of, but I think we must…what of the dead?”

“They are being collected in grave carts,” Whittington said, now looking out the window with unfocused eyes, “and being trundled to plague pits even now being dug in the fields beyond London.”

“Sweet Jesu help us all,” Bolingbroke whispered.

Mary read the short, terse letter the courier had given her wordlessly, then handed it out with a shaking hand to Neville.

Neville exchanged a glance with Margaret, took the letter, read it, then cursed under his breath.

“Pestilence,” he said, and handed the letter on to Margaret, who read it aloud for the benefit of the other of Mary’s ladies who crowded about with huge, frightened eyes. Rumours from London had reached them early in the morning, but to now have confirmation of the worst…

“
Beloved Queen
,” Margaret read in a low voice, “
I greet you well. Know that pestilence has gripped London since yesterday afternoon. Many have died, more are infected, and the city tosses in the throes of torment. I beg you to remain in Windsor, where I might be more assured of your safety. Know that I am well, and in the Tower, whose walls have thus far kept the pestilence at bay. Pray to Lord Jesus for our deliverance. Your loving husband and king, Bolingbroke.
”

Margaret lowered the letter, staring at Neville. “Sweet Jesu,” she breathed as several of the ladies about her exchanged shocked looks.

Mary, lying as usual on her couch by the window, now struggled to sit up straight. “I must go to London,” she said.

“Mary!” Neville and Margaret said together.

“No,” Neville continued, risking a hand on Mary’s shoulder. “You are too ill—”

“No, I am not,” Mary said.

“—and you can do little to help,” Neville finished. “Sweet Jesu, madam, what do you think you
can
do?”

Mary regarded Neville steadily. “I can give comfort, Tom. I can be with my people.”

“Mary,” Neville said, abandoning all attempts at formality, “You can barely walk
now.
You are in too much pain. You—”

“I
am
going, Tom. I cannot sit here and twiddle my thumbs while London dies.”

“Then I’m going with you,” Neville said.

Mary hesitated, then smiled. “Thank you, Tom. Your adeptness with the last rites will no doubt be more than useful.”

“And I,” Margaret said.

“No!” Neville stared at her. “You cannot. The children—”

“The children shall stay here safe with Agnes. Mary will need me as much as you.” Margaret looked Neville directly in the eye. “You know both us of will be safe.”

The archangel needs both of us alive to play out the final drama
, Neville thought, and he nodded. They would both live.

He did not see Mary’s thoughtful gaze move between him and Margaret.