‘Would that I could go with you!’
‘Your place is here, looking after the business.’
‘Carrying on the Hendrik tradition.’
‘Nobody could do it better.’
He gave a faint smile. ‘It is an honour,’ he whispered. Then a thought struck him. ‘I must make contact somehow. I will write to Frans. Let him know that he is in my thoughts. Will you carry my letter to him, please?’
‘Willingly.’
‘When will you go?’
‘I need to discuss it with Nicholas first.’
‘Ah, yes!’
‘He is the sailor among us,’ reminded Anne. ‘Nick will tell me all that is needful. And it is reassuring to know that while you see to the making of hats, he will be here to mind the house itself.’
Nicholas Bracewell had come to lodge in the house again, but the old Dutchman knew that he was much more than just a paying guest. Anne and the book-holder were close friends and occasional lovers. After a long period apart, they had finally drifted together again, and nobody had been more pleased by that development than Preben van Loew. He could see what each gave to the other. The household had a buoyant feel to it once more and it rubbed off on the employees in the adjacent building.
There was, however, one serious danger in the wind.
‘How long will Nicholas be able to remain?’ he asked.
‘As long as he wishes.’
‘He would wish to stay forever, I am sure, but that decision may be taken out of his hands.’
‘In what way?’
A forlorn shrug. ‘Plague deaths mount every day. If the disease continues to spread so fast, it is only a question of time before they close all the theatres. Where will Nicholas go then? He can hardly stay here in Bankside with no occupation. Westfield’s Men may have to leave London in order to find work, and they will certainly take their book-holder with them.’
‘That is true,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘He has already warned me that the Queen’s Head may not open its doors to them for much longer. The plague is one of the hazards of a profession that has more than enough to contend with already.’ She made an effort to brighten. ‘But the disease may yet loosen its hold, as it has done in the past. Nick may be able to stay in the city. Even if he does not, I will still travel to Amsterdam. It is a call that I cannot refuse.’
‘A thousand pities you cannot take Nicholas with you!’
‘It is not his place to be there,’ she corrected gently. ‘This is a private family matter. Besides, Nick has problems enough of his own. If a plague order is signed, Westfield’s Men will be in complete disarray. Nick will have to pilot them through some very rough water or they will founder.’
***
The exodus had already begun. There was foul contagion in the air. Nervous aristocrats turned their backs on the joys of Court intrigue and stole quietly away to the safety of their country estates. Worried professional men and anxious merchants removed themselves and their families from the danger area. Others soon followed, and every road out of London became a busy escape route for citizens fleeing in terror from a ruthless and undiscriminating enemy.
Those unable to leave were forced to stay and risk a lonely death. Plague was a hideous bedfellow. With a grim sense of humor, it liked to tickle its victim under the arms and on the feet, leaving marks that were no bigger nor more irritating than flea-bites at first. Except that these bites developed quickly into sores which in turn swelled up into ugly black buboes. Some doctors lanced the buboes to draw the poison out of the body. Others used a warm poultice made of onions, butter, and garlic to perform the same office, or held a live pullet against the plague sores until the poor creature itself died of the venomous poison.
When the victim was beyond help, he or she was abandoned to a grisly fate. Infected houses were sealed and a placard bearing-within a red circle-the words lord have mercy on us was displayed outside. Other inhabitants were condemned to isolation for twenty days or more, their wants being supplied by the wealthier members of the parish. Imprisoned in their own homes, some of the miserable wretches did not dare to climb the stairs to the bedroom to relieve the agony of their dying family member lest they caught the plague themselves. In the largest city in England, victims found themselves left cruelly alone. Even their servants would not answer their summons. Only the grave enfolded them in an embrace.
Adversity converted many back to the Christianity that they had either neglected or renounced in their hearts. Churches were full of eager congregations who knelt on the cold, hard stone to pray for divine intercession against the sweeping menace, but God seemed to be preoccupied with other affairs and in no position to come to their aid. The torment had to be borne. And so it was. As the weather grew warmer, the plague became more virulent and the shallow burial pits were filled with grotesque corpses at an ever-increasing rate. Anguish walked through every ward of the city. Elizabeth might be queen in name but pestilence ruled London.
Plague orders were inevitably signed and many restraints put swiftly in place. Great efforts were made to clean up the stinking thoroughfares of the capital, and the populace was forced to burn or bury its rubbish instead of just casting it out through the door to rot away beneath a pall of buzzing insects. Butchers were compelled to abandon their habit of casually dumping animal entrails and blood in the streets. Barber-surgeons were forbidden to dispose in the same way of any human viscera or limbs, removed from their owners in the heat of crude and often fatal operations, and encouraging packs of mangy dogs to sniff among the gory bones and add their own excrement to the general slime.
Theatres and other places of entertainment were summarily closed to check the possible spread of infection among large assemblies. The Queen’s Head was allowed to continue to function as one of the many capacious inns, but it was no longer the home of a leading dramatic company and thus a popular attraction to which citizens and visitors to London alike could flock six days a week. Westfield’s Men were forcibly ejected and their repertoire cast into the plague pits along with all the other random casualties.
This was no minor epidemic that would burn itself out in a few weeks. The pestilence was evidently set to stay throughout the summer and beyond. Poverty would come hard on the heels of unemployment. Many were doomed to starve. At the Queen’s Head, there was a mood of utter despondency in the taproom. Four men sat on benches around one of the tables.
‘It is a death sentence!’ groaned Thomas Skillen, the ancient stagekeeper. ‘My natural span is over and the sexton is ready for my old bones. I have served Westfield’s Men for the last time.’
‘Not so,’ said Nicholas, vainly trying to cheer him. ‘Those sprightly legs of yours have outrun the plague many times before, and so they will again. You are armoured against the disease, Thomas. It has not left a mark upon you.’
‘It has, it has,’ sighed the other. ‘Each outbreak has left the deepest scars on my memory because it has robbed me of my loved ones and my fellows. You are all too young to remember the worst visitation, but it fills my mind whenever the plague begins to stalk once more.’ He wheezed noisily and placed a palm against his chest. ‘In the year of our Lord 1553, I was living here in London when over seventeen thousand of its hapless citizens fell victim. Seventeen thousand! Hardly a street or lane was untouched. The whole city reeked with contagion.’ He turned to Nicholas. ‘And you tell me that I outran it. No, my friend. I lost a mother, a father, and two sisters in that terrible year. No man can outrun a nightmare like that.’
George Dart shuddered. ‘Seventeen thousand plague deaths!’
‘This visitation may kill even more.’