Plague Read online

  For Tim

  Contents

  1 Plague Weather

  2 All Cats and Dogs

  3 Death All Around

  4 The Apothecary

  5 Locked In

  6 Escape

  7 Alone in the City

  8 Caught!

  9 Changes

  1

  Plague Weather

  “Sam! Here!”

  The boys were in a courtyard, kicking a ball around. Their shouts bounced off the high wooden walls of the surrounding houses.

  Sam stopped the ball with his foot, and kicked it. His friends yelled. The ball slammed against someone’s door.

  “Shut that racket!” screamed a voice.

  A woman glared at them from an upstairs window. They ignored her at first, then moved away.

  Sam wiped sweat from his forehead. The sun beat down and there was no breeze. ‘Plague weather’, his master called it.

  “A woman died of plague in our alley,” said John Jenks, picking up the ball. He was red-faced from the heat. “Stepped out of her house and fell down dead. Everyone ran a mile!”

  The boys laughed. The plague! One minute you were well, the next, dead as a doornail. It made a great game. Sam rolled his eyes, shouted, “Aargh!” and dropped like a stone.

  His friends ran out into Watling Street, shrieking and pretending to be afraid. As Sam dived after them, he spotted some of the French boys from Cheapside.

  “Get the frogs!” he shouted.

  There were three French boys. Sam and his friends often scrapped with them, jeering at their funny clothes and strange frog language.

  At once a fight began. Two of the French boys gave as good as they got. The third was slight and clever-looking, but not tough. He also had a limp.

  Sam’s master was a shoemaker and Sam had sometimes seen this boy in the shop. He needed special shoes.

  “Gammy-leg frog – hop back to France!” Sam shouted.

  The boy turned and faced him. “I was born in London, stupid,” he said.

  There was a superior air about him that annoyed Sam.

  “You’re a frog! Hop along, frog – you can’t even walk properly!”

  Sam gave him a shove. The boy stumbled and fell sprawling in a pile of horse muck. Sam and his friends hooted with laughter as their victim struggled to get up, then tried furiously to wipe the mess from his sleeves and breeches.

  Sam knew he was in the wrong, but he didn’t care. He didn’t like the French boy, anyway.

  As the fight rolled on, a brewer’s cart appeared, forcing a path through the crowded street. The two groups scattered, and the French boys disappeared.

  Sam knew he’d be expected back at his master’s shop. He ran off towards Friday Street.

  * * *

  The dog, Budge, was sunning himself on the shoemaker’s doorstep. He saw Sam and got up to be fussed. His tail thumped Sam’s leg. He was a small, scruffy mongrel with a bitten ear.

  “Come on, Budge,” said Sam. “Dinner.” He felt hungry.

  There was a smell of cooking inside. Alice, their maid, was stirring stew in a large pot that hung over the fire and talking to William Kemp, Sam’s master.

  “Five hundred across London dead of plague last week! And it’s taken hold in this parish now.”

  Sam knew she must have been to Cheapside and seen the latest Bill of Mortality – the list of the dead that was put up once a week.

  “Hallo, Sam!” she said. “Give those scraps to Budge, will you?”

  As soon as Sam put Budge’s meat down for him the dog began gobbling eagerly, his nose pushing against Sam’s hand. Behind him, Sam heard his master say, “That’s bad news. We’ll have to pinch and scrape to get by. Most of my best customers have left the city already.”

  Sam stood up. “Will we leave, Master?”

  William Kemp laughed. “I wish we could! But I’m old. I’ve no family, and no one to go to outside London. You’re my only family, Sam.”

  Master Kemp had taken Sam from the orphanage two years ago, when Sam was about seven, to work as a servant and perhaps, when he was older, to become his apprentice. Sam remembered how happy he had been to leave the orphanage. Master Kemp was kind to him, and Alice fed him well and looked after them both. Of course, William Kemp beat Sam when he was lazy or at fault, but he didn’t starve or overwork him the way some masters did. Sam had always wanted a family. Now he had Master Kemp and Alice – and Budge.

  Alice cut hunks of bread and ladled stew into bowls. “My mother says she wishes I was home. She’s afraid for me.”

  Alice’s mother lived across the river, at Southwark.

  “You won’t leave us, will you?” asked Sam in alarm.

  “Of course not, silly!” Alice ruffled his hair. “I like earning my own living here. Besides, there are four younger ones back home to feed and clothe, so my money helps.” She smiled – a small, tight smile.

  “We’ll get through this together,” William Kemp assured them both. “I’ve lived through times of plague before. It’ll come to an end when the cold weather arrives, and we’ll all survive, God willing.”

  2

  All Cats and Dogs

  The next day Sam was running an errand in Cheapside when the town crier appeared and began ringing a bell.

  “…all cats and dogs,” Sam heard as he drew closer. “Carts will be sent around the streets. Drivers will be paid a bounty of two pennies for every corpse brought in. All cats and dogs to be killed! Diseased animals carry the plague as they run about the city…”

  Budge isn’t diseased! thought Sam. He has a few fleas, but don’t we all? And he doesn’t run about – well… not much. He guards the shop, and he sits in the sun. And I love him. They can’t kill Budge!

  He ran home to tell his master and Alice.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll keep him in,” said William Kemp. “They don’t have the right to search people’s houses.”

  But Budge didn’t want to be kept in. The doorstep was his favourite place. He liked to sit there and watch all the life of the busy street. Inside, he barked and whined and scrabbled at the door.

  A few days later a cart came down the street and they heard the squeals of animals cornered and clubbed to death. The men joked as they tossed the corpses into their cart.

  “Ugh! That’s horrible!” exclaimed Alice. “Come away from the window, Sam.”

  “Tuppence a corpse – you can’t blame them,” said William Kemp.

  But they don’t have to enjoy it, Sam thought.

  It was impossible to ignore the danger now, with Budge hidden indoors, and news that the King and all his people had moved out of London to Hampton Court to escape the pestilence.

  “There’s a man in Bread Street selling medicine,” said Alice. “He says it’ll keep you safe from plague. People were queuing up to buy it.”

  “What’s in it?” asked William Kemp.

  “Some secret remedy from the East, he says.”

  “Rubbish!” scoffed Master Kemp.

  But later that day he sent Alice to buy a bottle of it, just in case.

  He drank some himself and gave a spoonful to Sam. The cloudy green liquid tasted disgusting. It made Sam feel sick. But Master Kemp said they should all take some every day.

  Alice also bought posies of herbs from a woman in the market. She gave one to Sam.

  “Hold it close to your nose and mouth when you go out,” she said, a serious look in her eyes. “It’ll protect you from infected air.”

  “And walk near the middle of the road,” William Kemp added. “Don’t get too close to other people.”

  Everyone took precautions. But the next week, when the weather was hotter than ever, they heard that Sam’s friend John Jenks had died of plague. Sam saw his friend’s body, tied in a shr
oud, put on a cart with a heap of others and taken away – no coffin, no bearers to carry him to the churchyard.

  The house where John had lived was shut up and the door padlocked. A red cross was painted on the door and, next to it, the words, ‘Lord have mercy upon us’. No one would be allowed out until forty days after the last person inside had either died or been found to be free of plague.

  Sam could hardly believe that just two weeks ago he and John had been playing together in the streets. The plague had seemed a fun game then. Now it was a terrifying reality.

  3

  Death All Around

  “Oh! Those bells! They drive me mad!” Alice exclaimed.

  The church bells rang almost all the time now, to mark the passing of those who had died. Day and night you could hear the plague carts rumbling over the cobbles, the cry of, “Bring out your dead!” and the thump of bodies being flung into the carts.

  Despite the bells, Alice was cheerful, humming a tune as she went about her work. Sam knew it was because tomorrow was her day off. She would be going home to Southwark to see her mother and sisters.

  “You can strip your own bed, Sam, since you’re up here,” she said.

  They were in Master Kemp’s bedchamber and Alice was changing the sheets.

  Sam slept on a low bed in one corner of the room. He hardly needed sheets at all, he thought, the weather was so hot. It was mid-August, a month since they had started keeping Budge indoors. In the heat of the midday sun, the upper floor of the house felt like a furnace.

  “It’s so hot,” Sam sighed. “Shall I open the window? The bells have stopped now.”

  “Don’t you dare!” said Alice. “You know the fishmonger across the way died yesterday. The rest of them are boarded up inside.”

  Sam saw that the fishmonger’s upstairs windows were open – and the upper floors of their two houses were only yards apart.

  “If you stood here and breathed in, you could catch the pestilence from their house,” Alice went on. “It shouldn’t be allowed.”

  “What shouldn’t?” asked Sam, confused.

  “People in plague houses having their upstairs windows open!” snapped Alice. “Have you done that bed yet?”

  “Yes,” said Sam. Before she could find another job for him, he added, “I’ll go and feed Budge now.”

  Downstairs, Master Kemp was busy tidying his workshop. “Just getting ready for when my customers return,” he said.

  Budge was fretting at the back door. Sam let the dog out, to a patch of earth in the yard. But he dared not allow him to stay outside for long.

  The yard stank. And over everything, in the air, was a rotten, putrid smell – the smell of corpses.

  Later in the morning William Kemp said to Sam, “Church today.”

  “Must we go?”

  “We must. You know that.”

  The Lord Mayor had ordered every Wednesday to be a day of prayer and fasting, and everyone had to attend church.

  “It’s that churchyard,” Sam said. “I hate it now.”

  The path to the entrance of St Matthew’s church led between newly filled graves. There were so many that the dead were heaped up either side of the path, one on top of another. The stench was overpowering. Even inside the church the sickening smell lingered, despite the flowers and herbs placed all around. The bell tolled dolefully.

  When Sam saw all the people on their knees and heard the prayers and weeping, he felt sure that God would listen to them. Somehow he couldn’t believe he would die, like poor John Jenks or the fishmonger.

  The congregation was reciting the ninety-first Psalm: “He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust… Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night… nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness…”

  Alice said afterwards, “I like those words. They comfort me.”

  But in the evening, William Kemp sighed and said he felt uncommonly tired.

  “I’ll take an extra dose of that medicine,” he said. “A night’s rest will put me right.”

  4

  The Apothecary

  Sam was woken early next morning by the sound of William Kemp tossing and sighing.

  He got up and peeped between the bed-curtains. “Master? Are you unwell?”

  William Kemp’s eyes were glassy, his face flushed.

  Sam began to tremble. His insides felt hollow. He ran across the landing and knocked on the door of Alice’s room.

  She opened it, dressed in her best yellow gown.

  “I’m off to my mother’s,” she said. “What’s the matter, Sam?”

  “Master Kemp is ill.”

  “Oh! Don’t worry. He often has these turns.” She smiled.

  “No – he’s feverish. Please come and look at him!”

  Sam could see she wanted to be on her way, but she followed him into the room. It had an unhealthy smell. William Kemp groaned, and said, “Alice, send Sam for the apothecary. I fear it may be the plague.”

  “Don’t say that, Master!” Alice protested. “It’ll be some chill you picked up in church yesterday.” But Sam saw that her face had gone white and she stood well back from the bed.

  She led Sam outside. “You heard what your master said? Go now, and fetch the apothecary. He will know how to cool the fever, and he’ll give Master Kemp some medicine. I’ll see you later, when I get back from Southwark.”

  Sam clung to her, tears stinging his eyes. “Don’t go! Wait till the apothecary has been!”

  “I can’t, Sam,” said Alice. She pulled herself out of Sam’s grasp. “My mother’s expecting me.”

  “Please!” he begged. “Please, Alice – stay!”

  But she was already on her way downstairs. “Goodbye, Sam!” she cried, her voice sounding higher than usual, and he heard the door open, then close firmly behind her.

  * * *

  The apothecary lived on Bread Street. Sam lifted the latch and crept inside the shop, into a dim cluttered space that smelt of herbs and spices. There were scales and measuring spoons, and rows of bottles and small earthenware pots. Behind the counter the apothecary, Master Burton, was mixing something in a bowl. Sam knew he made nearly all the remedies himself.

  “Excuse me, sir,” said Sam. “My master sent me. He’s sick, with a fever.”

  “I’ll come at once,” said Master Burton.

  He gathered some medicines and instruments. Then he went into the back room and came out wearing a long black, waxed cloak and carrying a white stick and a strange leather helmet with a long beak.

  “You’ve seen a helmet like this before, haven’t you, Sam?”

  Sam nodded. The sight of it made him feel sick with fear.

  “It’s nothing to be frightened of,” Master Burton said. “I can see through these eye-pieces – they are made of horn – and the beak is stuffed with herbs to protect me from infected air.” He put it on. “You see?”

  Inside the helmet his voice sounded muffled and strange.

  They set off together along the street, the terrifying beaked figure stalking along beside Sam like a giant bird of prey.

  Budge began to bark at the beaked stranger as soon as they entered William Kemp’s house.

  “Ssh! He’s here to help,” said Sam, and he shut Budge into the storeroom and led Master Burton upstairs.

  “Heat some water, will you?” the apothecary said, as he went into William Kemp’s room. “I may need to make poultices.”

  It was not long before he came back down to the kitchen, where Sam was heating a kettle over the fire. “I’m sorry, Sam. Your master has the plague. I found swellings under his arms and on his neck.”

  He wrung out two cloths in the hot water and smeared them with a strong-smelling paste made of herbs. He left the pot of paste on the table.

  “I will lay these poultices on the swellings to draw the poison out,” he said. “When the cloths cool, make some more.”

  He also gave Sam a bottle of medicine. “Give your master a spoonful of t
his twice a day.”

  “Will it cure him?” Sam asked. He wished he could see the man’s face.

  “It may, if God wills it,” came the apothecary’s muffled reply.

  Sam went to Master Kemp’s pot of coins in the workshop. He counted out the money to pay the apothecary, dropping the coins into a dish of vinegar on the counter to disinfect them.

  “You know I must notify the authorities?” Master Burton said.

  Sam nodded. His lower lip trembled. “They’ll lock us in, won’t they?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “What about Alice, our maid? She won’t be back till evening. “

  Master Burton hesitated. “They’ll let her back in… if she asks.” He put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “God be with you, Sam.”

  Soon after Master Burton left, two men came to shut up the house. They worked quickly, nailing closed the downstairs windows and the back door.

  “Stop!” Sam protested. “Our maid will be back later!” He was trembling. They were going to leave him alone with his sick master. What if Master Kemp got worse? What if he died?

  “We can’t wait. It’s not allowed,” one of them said. “You’ll have a watchman outside, day and night, and he’ll look after you. Do you have a basket, and some twine?”

  Sam nodded.

  “Tie it to your upper window frame and let it down when you need to bring anything in.”

  The men shut the shop door behind them as they left, and then Sam heard banging and hammering and the rattle of a chain. He was seized with sudden terror. “No! No!” he screamed. “Let me out! Please!” He beat on the door with his fists. He heaved at it, but it would not open. How would Alice ever get back in? By now the men would be marking the door with the dreaded cross and the words, ‘Lord have mercy upon us’. He shouted and hammered on it with his fists until they were bruised. Then, not knowing what else to do, he sank down on the floor and cried.

  Through his tears he heard a distant barking and scrabbling. Budge! He ran to let the dog out of the storeroom. Budge jumped up at him and wagged his tail.