Plague Child (31 page)

‘It is writ by a scrivener,’ said Richard, with contempt. ‘No gentleman would write like that. When I need a letter, I employ a scrivener.’

‘A gentleman cannot be illiterate, sir,’ snapped his father. ‘Your hand is unreadable.’ He tapped the other text. ‘This is written by a boy of ten.’

Whether or not Lord Stonehouse intended Richard to know about me I cannot tell, but from that moment I became the leech sucking not just at his inheritance but, in his eyes, his whole manhood. He found out about the payments to Mr Black, which, in Lord Stonehouse’s careful management of his affairs, exactly balanced the reduction in Richard’s allowance (or so it appeared to his now fevered imagination). Then he saw my picture.

I understood more and more, but grew more and more bewildered. ‘But if what you told him about John Lloyd is true,’ I burst out, ‘why should you be so concerned about him finding the pendant? Surely you
want
it found?’

‘You know,’ Richard said. ‘You know why.’

‘I do not know.’

‘Tell him, Rich. Tell him.’ Edward broke in. ‘
Because he wants to change it, of course!
’

‘He knows that,’ Richard said.

‘I do not. I swear I do not.’

‘Liar!’ Richard lashed his hand across the deepening wound in my face. ‘Where is it? Where is the pendant?’

Change it? Lord Stonehouse was devious enough, but what was important to him was the bloodline, surely. One of them was lying, probably both. There was something not right . . . something Kate had told me . . . In the dizziness, pain and confusion I could not think – but I
had
to think.

Richard stared at the portrait of his father ‘He wants you,’ he said, with savage bitterness. ‘He wants you to inherit.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘I saw you at Queen Street. Dressed for the part.’

‘I deceived the footman at the door. Your father did not know I was there.’

‘Liar! Did he send you up here for the pendant? Of course he did. Where is it? Tell me! Tell me!’

Now it was Edward who pulled his brother away, whispering to him. I heard the word ‘cellar’. They must have seen Mr Black’s reports of my childhood fears, the cellar, the rats. My flesh began to crawl at the thought of it. They were grinning and whispering like two ghoulish schoolboys discovering a new form of torture for their victim.

‘Eddie’ – Richard struck the desk in triumph – ‘that is a stroke! That is genius! I always said you were the brains of the family.’

Edward beamed, and I could see he had no greater pleasure in life than praise from his elder brother. Richard ordered a soldier to go and get Bryson. I had no idea who Bryson was, and when he turned out to be the barrel-chested, bearded man who had shown an interest in me at Mrs Morland’s funeral I was at first none the wiser. Then, like a sudden blow to the head, it struck me where I had seen him before. It was when I was leaving Oxford with Eaton, and he stopped at the plague pit to chat about how business was to the man depositing bodies from his cart. Bryson was the driver of the plague cart.

Chapter 37

It took four soldiers to hold me down. Richard regained control of himself as I lost it. I took a blow to the head and, as I slipped in and out of consciousness, I was dimly aware of him issuing orders for his ride north to the King, telling Gardiner to take me with Bryson to the pit, confident – as well he might be – that when I smelt the lime, I would talk.

The bitter cold outside brought me round. They bound my hands and Gardiner and a soldier called Nat pushed me stumbling through the trees. Nat started back as out of the gloom a man appeared who seemed to have no face. The man moved into a patch of moonlight and became Bryson, masked so that only his eyes showed. He wore a long leather coat like my old Joseph coat, which bore the marks of his trade, staining it like an ancient map of the world.

‘Just beyond the trees, Captain,’ he said.

Gardiner stopped short. ‘D’you have another mask?’

‘No, I ain’t. Sorry.’ Bryson gestured reassuringly. ‘You’ll be all right. Not many customers this year. Habit wi’ me, that’s all. Just keep well back.’

Nat looked far from reassured as he pushed me forward. The horse harnessed to the plague cart looked up, then went on cropping the grass peacefully. Some of the miasma, that distinctive plague smell, hung round the cart, a sour reek of pus and sweat mixed with the milky-sweet odour of lime. The tail of the cart was down and, sprawled in the rotting straw, I could see two bodies. They were men, stripped naked. Deep shadows made it seem as if they had been dismembered. I glimpsed a putrefying face in which I could see the glint of bone, silvered by the moon, and a twisted, decomposing arm. Nat muttered a prayer and even Gardiner turned away.

Bryson shifted the bodies as if they were sacks of turnips, making room in the wet, dark-brown straw. ‘Did I not tell you I had two customers in there already, Captain?’

Gardiner swallowed and found his usual swagger. ‘Ah yes. I forgot. So you did. Well, come on,’ he snapped at Nat. ‘Don’t just stand there – get on with it!’

Bryson lit a clay, lifting the mask to take a few puffs, saying it was a special mixture of Virginia and herbs, good against the plague, the pox and diverse other complaints.

Gardiner bent over me, speaking gently, conversationally. ‘Now listen, Tom. You know the plague. The screaming fever.’

‘Vomiting blood,’ said Bryson.

‘Black boils.’

Gardiner nodded towards the cart. ‘That’s just a taste of what’s coming. You’re going to talk eventually, so why not be sensible and talk now, mmm?’

I stared up at him. I knew that if they threw me into that charnel cart I was as good as dead. If they took me to the house I stood a chance. However slim, I would rather die quickly than slowly of the plague.

‘That’s it, that’s it,’ said Gardiner, as however much I tried to stop them, tears filmed my eyes. It was the kindness, the sudden normality, however spurious, that did it. That and total exhaustion. ‘Tell us and you can have a hot perry and sugar.’

‘With spices,’ said Bryson, smacking his lips.

‘With spices. Better a live bastard than a dead Stonehouse, eh?’ Gardiner patted me reassuringly on the cheek. Perhaps it was the pat. Perhaps it was the wink he gave Bryson. Perhaps it was the memory of all those moments I had almost given in to George, then reacted with a rush of fury, as much at my own weakness as at him. Whatever it was, a mindless rage overcame me. I bit him. He roared with pain, lurching backwards as my teeth clamped round his finger, but I would not let go until he half-lifted me from the ground and my own weight dragged my teeth away, tearing his flesh. Gardiner sucked and stared at his mangled finger before giving me two vicious kicks. Bryson removed the clay from his mouth. He and the soldier looked at me in awe.

‘Well, I will say this for him,’ Bryson said: ‘he’s a game one.’

‘On the cart! Throw him on the cart!’ Gardiner screamed at them.

They hesitated. I suppose they had thought it would never come to this. Gardiner shoved the reluctant Nat forward: ‘On the cart!’ Bryson shrugged, pulled down his mask, and in one swift movement they hurled me on. I landed face-down in the dank, fetid straw, struggling to sit up, spitting and spitting the clammy, rotting spikes from my mouth. An eye, or the opalescent remains of it, shifted in its socket to stare at me. I opened my mouth to scream but then gagged as I saw the movement was a maggot. The corpse was crawling with them. I twisted away, vomiting, striking my head again and again at the side of the cart as if I could break my way through it, before collapsing in the straw.

‘I’m going to the house for a mask,’ Gardiner snarled.

I heard him sucking at his finger as he walked away, then the scrape of a flint as Bryson relit his clay. He told Nat to watch me while he went into the woods for a crap. I spat out straw and acid flecks of vomit, and managed painfully slowly to twist myself into a sitting position, struggling to avert my head from my travelling companions. The tail of the cart was down. Wildly I thought about rolling off it, but as if he read my intention, Nat drew his sword. An animal cry from the woods made both of us jump. Gardiner, now masked, rode up as Bryson emerged from the trees, buttoning his breeches and still puffing at his clay. He slammed the tail of the cart into place. Gardiner dismissed Nat and rode behind the cart as Bryson clicked his horse into motion.

It was that strange time when the moon has not quite died nor the sun been born. The barest glimmer of light picked out the shapes of trees, almost threadbare of leaves, through which I could see an inn that seemed familiar. The sign creaked in unison with the jolting cart wheels: it was the inn just outside Oxford where Eaton had stabled our horses, a short distance from the plague pit.

In that moment I knew I would talk. Plague or no plague. I wanted life, whether it was three days of agony, or an hour or one minute: every second was precious. I had not lived. I had written no real poetry, only a few wretched pamphlets; snatched a few kisses, but never made love. Everything was preparing for life except me. The first bird was making a ghostly, hesitant sound followed by another, then another. Gardiner was yawning and stretching himself. He was no fool. He knew that even the cart, with its crawling maggots, was life compared with the pit. He knew I would tell him, for at least I would live until he had checked whether I was telling him the truth.

The cart stopped. I sat up. Gardiner had checked his horse a little distance away, and was scratching at the morning’s first flea. Bryson was stumbling sleepily through thick, white-streaked mud, shoving open the gate marked with faded red crosses. I began to shout to Gardiner, to tell him where the pendant was, but half-swallowed a prickly stalk of straw which stuck in my throat. I coughed and coughed but could not get it out or talk. Now I began to panic I would be too late. Bryson bent over me, a shadowy figure of whom I could see little but the eyes above his mask. I spat out the straw and spluttered: ‘The pendant is –’

Bryson clamped his hand over my mouth.

Gardiner rode closer. ‘What did he say?’

‘“I’ll see you in hell,”’ Bryson said.

‘Then let him see hell.’ Gardiner jumped off his horse. I stared up at Bryson in bewilderment, starting to splutter into speech again but stopped as Bryson took a knife to the ropes binding my hands, fraying them partly through. To complete my astonishment Bryson thrust the knife into my belt as he dragged me from the cart. My scattered wits could only fleetingly bring up the explanation that it was a more exquisite form of torture; they were playing some kind of game with me to improve the sport, like the Romans arming gladiators against wild animals. My legs were already dead and I swayed and staggered in the mud until Bryson prodded me forward with a heavy stick used for propping open the gate. Gardiner drew his rapier and followed us, gripping his mask tight to his face.

I stumbled over muddy circular furrows ploughed by constantly turning carts. The mud sucked at my boots, reluctantly releasing them; it splashed up to my cheeks and seemed to streak the gradually lightening sky. The awful stench was less suffocating than the cart, but only because it was overlaid with the stealthy, sickeningly sweet smell of lime. The two men goading me on fell silent and I stopped and would go no further. The paintings of hell I had seen could not match that picture; they were a lie, a Mayday farce of festival devils and fairground monstrosities. Better to burn and scream in those mock fires than lie lifeless in that pit. Some attempt at covering the bodies with earth had been made, but the recent rains had formed a cold fetid lake covered with a thick, chalky scum, penetrated by the occasional bubble of gas in which could be seen the bones of a hand or the frozen stare of a child.

I backed away, blundering into Bryson, who held me, stolid and unconcerned as a street scavenger whose daily business is decay and rubbish. Gardiner flicked his rapier towards me, but the stench kept him at a distance, pressing his mask to his nose. ‘I can see this is unlocking your tongue, Tom . . .’

I said nothing, pulling at the frayed ropes round my wrists, but they would not break.

‘Where is it?’ he snapped. ‘Take him closer, Mr Bryson. It will sharpen his mind.’

Even Bryson seemed reluctant. ‘You do it, Captain. Your rapier be longer than my stick.’

Gardiner swore and drove me forward. I yanked at the ropes fruitlessly, slipped and fell. He shoved me nearer the edge with his boot. ‘Are you going to tell me? If you don’t I swear I –’

Bryson lifted his stick above his head and brought it down on Gardiner. It would have knocked him insensible but for his beaver hat, which cushioned the blow and flew into the pit. My mind was as numbed as if it had been tied up like my legs, into which the feeling was flowing back in painful surges. I gazed up at Gardiner, who swayed in a daze above me for a moment then gave a roar and drove his rapier at Bryson. Bryson half-parried it with the stick, but Gardiner struck it out of his hand, then flicked the mask away from his face. It was Matthew.

It seemed to take for ever running through the mud, which sucked me back at every step. For ever seeing the sword drawn back before I jumped, sending Gardiner sprawling, his rapier flying through the air. He rolled free and went for his sword, kicking Matthew away. I wrenched at the ropes, searing my skin raw, but at last snapped them. I tore off his mask and got his arm in a lock, but he levered his legs up and flung me from him. He picked up his sword as I took the knife from my belt. Matthew was lying motionless.

Blood trickled from the tear in the jerkin over Gardiner’s left arm. ‘Pendant or no pendant,’ he said, ‘you are going where he should have put you in the first place –’ He kicked at Matthew, who was coming round, groaning. ‘And where he –’ he gave Matthew another kick ‘– will keep you company.’

I did not know then the
contra cavatione
, nor the
ricavatione
, the various feints and deceptions which, by my instinctive reactions to the whirling, flickering blade, however I tried to avoid it, were driving me back closer and closer towards the edge of the pit. But I knew the
stoccata lunga
, the method of delivering the point by the shortest and fastest means to the heart – or, at least, engraved in my mind were the sequence of movements he had made when he killed Eaton. The glittering blade – there seemed several of them – darted at me from every angle, hypnotising me, but I knew I must not look at the blade but at his footwork. When his left foot went back and his right knee was moving to bend forward he would lunge. He had me where he wanted me, right on the edge. The smell was overpowering. His left foot went back. I threw the knife. It caught him in his chest, diverting but not stopping the lunge. He cannoned into me, then, carried by his own momentum, plunged into the pit. I slipped, teetering on the edge, struggling to keep my balance before Matthew grabbed me and pulled me back.

Gardiner’s screams were choked by the chalk-coloured slime, threaded with blood, which frothed and bubbled as it drew him under, until all that was left, floating on the surface as the scum began to form again, was the beaver hat. I turned away, shaking, unable to stop, and Matthew held me as he had not held me since I was a little boy.

‘I thought it was about time I stopped running,’ he said.