The Fair Maid of Bohemia nb-9

by Edward Marston

  Anne was able to keep her Dutch in excellent repair by conversing with her employees. Preben van Loew, the veteran hat-maker, was always delighted to slip back into his native tongue. Old and emaciated, he still retained his superlative skills at his craft. When Anne stepped out of her house and into the adjoining premises where her employees worked, she found Preben bent over his latest commission, a woman’s hat with a tall, elegant crown. After greeting them all in English, she spoke to the senior man in Dutch.

  ‘Could you spare me a few minutes, please?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, putting his work aside and rising at once from his stool. ‘What is the problem?’

  ‘It is a private matter, Preben. Follow me.’

  The sadness in her voice and the shadow across her face were bad omens. After a glance at his colleagues, he padded obediently behind her until they reached the parlour of her house. Anne closed the door behind them, then took a letter from the little table.

  ‘This came this morning from Amsterdam,’ she said.

  ‘Bad news?’

  ‘I fear so, Preben. My father-in-law is dying.’

  ‘Frans!’ he said with a sharp intake of breath. ‘Dear old Frans Hendrik! Tell me this is not true.’

  ‘If only I could!’

  ‘Frans is as strong as a horse. He will live forever.’

  ‘Not according to his brother. He writes to tell me that it is only a matter of weeks. Here,’ she said, offering the missive to him. ‘Read it for yourself. As you will see, Jan asks that I show you the letter because you knew my father-in-law so well.’

  ‘I knew the whole family,’ said Preben fondly. ‘Frans Hendrik, his poor wife-God bless her! — his brothers, Jan and Pieter, and his children. Jacob, your late husband and my good friend, best of all. Know the Hendrik family? I was part of it, Anne.’ He began to sway unsteadily. ‘They were the kindest people in the world.’

  ‘I learned that for myself,’ said Anne, taking him gently by the arm to guide him to a seat. ‘Rest there a moment. When you have got over the shock, read the tidings for yourself.’

  The old man gave a nod of gratitude and buried his face in his hands. Memories flooded back into his mind and it was a long time before he was able to shake them off. He made an effort to brace himself, then held out his hand. Tributaries were soon trickling down from his already moist eyes as he read the letter, but it was not only the imminent death of Frans Hendrik which prompted them. Preben van Loew was being forcibly reminded of the loneliness of exile. Cut off from his native country, he was reading words in his own language about friends he had been forced to leave behind.

  Anne felt a surge of sympathy for him. He was clearly torn between grief and helplessness, shocked by the impending loss of someone he loved, yet powerless even to pay his last respects before Frans Hendrik slipped out of the world. Relieving him of the letter, she glanced through it again herself.

  ‘I must go,’ she decided.

  ‘Jan does not ask you to do so.’

  ‘Not in so many words, Preben, but it is there between the lines. It is my only chance to see my father-in-law again and I must take it. When Jacob died, the whole family came to England to comfort me even though the cost of the visit was crippling. For my husband’s sake-and because I love his father as if he were my own-I must find a way to get to Amsterdam.’

  ‘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 preoc
cupied 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.’

  ‘Then we are all done for!’ wailed Dart.

  ‘Only if we are foolish enough to stay,’ said Owen Elias. ‘We will quit this infected city and stage our plays in healthier places. Banbury’s Men begin their tour tomorrow.’

  ‘It is true,’ confirmed Nicholas. ‘Other companies will soon do the same, Westfield’s Men among them. If we are to keep our art in repair and ourselves in employment, we must ride out of London and try our luck in the provinces.’

  There was an awkward silence as each man weighed up the implications for himself. Thomas Skillen was close to despair. When the company went on tour, there was no chance that they would take him with them and it might be six months or more before they returned to the capital. What hope had he of surviving the rigors of the plague? Even if he did, how could an old man with no income keep well-fed and warm during the harsh winter that lay ahead?

  George Dart had his own quandary. Terrified to be left behind, he feared the consequences of going. When the company went on tour, it cut its number to lower its operating costs and made greater demands on its individual members. The young assistant stagekeeper was routinely pressed to the limit by Westfield’s Men when they performed at the Queen’s Head. On tour, as he knew from experience, he would be burdened with additional duties and taxed with greater responsibilities. Staring into his ale, Dart was beset by a crisis of confidence.

  Owen Elias was the least vexed by the notion of travel. A sharer with the company, the resilient Welshman was certain to be included in the touring company and would make the most of the situation, adapting easily to the different audiences and performance conditions they might find in each town and taking his pleasures along the way with his usual jovial lechery. Elias was a born actor and nothing could dampen his enthusiasm for his craft. But he was also a caring man who was very conscious of the prospects faced, respectively, by Thomas Skillen and George Dart. For the sake of his two colleagues, he did not talk excitedly about the compensatory joys of touring because the former would not experience them and they would be a continual ordeal to the latter.

  Nicholas Bracewell was quietly resigned. Westfield’s Men faced the stark choice between flight from London and complete extinction. Now that he and Anne Hendrik were happily reunited at last, he hated the idea of having to part from her again and he was all too aware of the fact that it was a previous tour to the West Country which had split them apart and evicted him from his lodging in Bankside. But it was not only personal considerations which saddened Nicholas. Everyone in the company would suffer. Those who embarked in pursuit of the uncertain rewards of a provincial tour would also be tearing themselves away from families and loved ones. Those who were discarded by Westfield’s Men-and it would fall to Nicholas to inform them of their dismissal-were effectively being thrown into penury. Thomas Skillen was among them, and Nicholas knew in his heart that his dear old friend and colleague would begin to wither once his beloved theatre company had left him behind.

  Nicholas finished his ale and looked around at the others.

  ‘We must count our blessings,’ he said softly. ‘Many have already succumbed to the disease. We may have lost our home here; still, we have our health and strength.’

  ‘How long will that last?’ murmured Skillen.

  ‘In your case-forever!’ said Elias with a forced smile.

  ‘I will be lucky to reach the end of the month.’

  ‘Is there no remedy against the plague?’ asked Dart.

  ‘None that has yet been found,’ admitted Nicholas. ‘We do not even know whence it comes or why it has been sent.’

  Skillen was bitter. ‘Its purpose is all to clear. It is God’s instrument for the punishment of sin. A brutal justice that carries off the innocent as well as the guilty.’

  ‘You are wrong, Thomas,’ argued Elias. ‘This pestilence is caused by a poison in the air. It strikes hardest when the weather is at its warmest. Heat and contagion have ever been yoke-devils.’

  ‘Master Gill has another explanation,’ said Dart meekly. ‘He told me that our destiny is written across the heavens in the stars. If we want to know whence the plague arises, we should consult an astrologer.’

  ‘Go shake your ears!’ exclaimed Elias with scorn. ‘Do not listen to a word that Barnaby tells you. He is just as likely to persuade you that the cure for this disease lies between your boyish buttocks, and he will urge you to unbutton so that he may conduct his search. Stars in the heavens! Ha! There are only two orbs that interest Barnaby Gill, and they lie close to the earth. Every pretty youth has a pair inside his breeches.’

  George Dart blushed a deep crimson and Thomas Skillen forgot his misery long enough to emit a loud chortle. Before the Welshman could get into his stride, Nicholas jumped in to take control of the conversation.

  ‘This is idle speculation,’ he said firmly. ‘The plague is a mystery that has yet to be divined. Some believe you may ward off infection with onions, cloves, lemons, vinegar or wormwood. Oth
ers seek a remedy in tobacco, arsenic, quicksilver or even dried toads. In times of distress, people will grasp at any false nostrum that is offered. Every quack and mountebank has his own useless treatment to foist upon desperate victims. This one sells you some lily root boiled in white wine while that one purveys a draught concocted of salad-oil, sack, and gunpowder.’

  ‘Gunpowder!’ repeated Dart in astonishment.

  ‘There are worse remedies than that,’ warned Elias.

  ‘Indeed, there are,’ continued Nicholas. ‘The sovereign cure is one that only the very rich and the very gullible may sample. It is a specific that draws out the poison and provokes a violent sweat in the patient. Its chief ingredient is that rarest commodity-powdered unicorn’s horn.’

  ‘Is there such a thing?’ gasped Dart.

  ‘Only if you are ready to believe in it.’

  ‘Nick is right,’ added Elias. ‘The only true relief from the disease is a compound made from holly leaves, horse dung, and the testicles of a tiger, cooked slowly over the flames from the mouth of a Welsh dragon!’

  ‘Has that been known to work?’ asked a wide-eyed Dart.

  ‘Infallibly.’

  ‘A Welsh dragon?’

  ‘I saw the wondrous beast myself.’

  ‘Owen is teasing you,’ said Nicholas with a smile. ‘Pay no heed to him, George. There is no remedy. Take my word for it.’

  ‘Someone must have caught the disease and survived.’

  ‘None that I know of,’ muttered Skillen.

  ‘Nor I,’ agreed Elias.

  The three of them turned to look at a pensive Nicholas.

  ‘There was one survivor,’ he recalled at length. ‘I have met him myself, so I know it to be true. His name is Doctor John Mordrake and he lives in Knightrider Street. By all accounts, he is a noted physician, philosopher, and alchemist. Doctor ordrake contracted the disease and cured himself.’

  ‘Impossible!’ announced Skillen.