Plague

by Jo Macauley

  Lucy ate it up, giggling like the schoolgirl she was. She stepped down from the stage with a broad grin and headed into the back room to meet what she no doubt expected would be a company of envious actors awaiting the “curtain call”.

  But Strange was waiting behind the door. He fell on her like a hawk, his cloak spreading behind him like dark wings, and his pale hand seized her wrist.

  “Luzi Bayer, I arrest you for the crime of treason!”

  Lucy gave a terrible wordless cry and fell to her knees. “What ever do you mean? Unhand me!” But as she stared up at Strange’s stony face, she rapidly relented. “No!” she howled. “P-please, my lord, mercy! I did not know what I was doing, I was forced, please...”

  Any doubt Beth had had of Lucy’s guilt vanished in an instant. She thought back to her odd comments about the King when they’d first met, and Lucy’s suggestion that being in the King’s Company “could have its uses...”

  “Hold your tongue,” Strange bid the girl, in a voice that silenced her instantly.

  Ralph and John looked at one another. “Did he say Lucy Bayer?” John asked, puzzled. “I thought Beth said her name was Lady Lucy Joseph.”

  “‘Bayer’ is her common name,” Strange explained. “It’s German for ‘of Bavaria’, the place from which her family rule. But as a traitor she should not be afforded the privilege of a royal title. Vale must have recruited her in secret when she was growing up in the German court. I expect she listened in when the ambassador’s visit was being planned and passed the information to Vale. He would have rewarded her handsomely for betraying the King, and I’d imagine he promised her more, what with her coming over to Britain. She could have remained useful as their eyes and ears inside the court.”

  “Well, I bet they hadn’t banked on her being confined to Oxford because of the plague. At least that’s one good thing that has come from that terrible disease.” Beth turned to the young girl, disgusted. “Your own cousin,” she said, shaking her head. “Betrayed for what – for the price of a mere pretty mirror to admire yourself in? How could you, Lucy?”

  “It ... it made me look so beautiful,” Lucy sobbed. “And Mister Vale said that when I grow up I could be much more powerful without the King around...”

  Her face, disfigured by her tears, looked like a waxen doll melting. Lucy now looked every inch the young, impressionable girl she was.

  Still, Beth felt little mercy for the girl. But she did feel satisfaction that they had uncovered the plot once and for all.

  Epilogue

  Some called him Herr Messer, which was the name he gave his landlord. Most people just called him “that Englishman” or “the quiet one”. Nobody in the coffee house in Aachen knew his true name.

  His favourite seat was in the basement. The coffee house had opened up the underground drinking rooms to fit in more customers, but it had been an unpopular choice – what was the point of going to a coffee house if you could not be seen?

  Now it was long after dark. The German city embraced the night and all the shadowy business that took place there. It all suited this particular Englishman very much. He sat alone beneath the city streets, watching the feet of passing citizens above through the basement window, sipping his drink by the light of an oil lamp. It was magnificent stuff, this new “coffee” beverage. It set his mind racing like nothing else on earth.

  If Strange could have seen him sitting there, it would have struck him how curiously alike their situations were. One master spy roosted high above the city, the other lurked below its stones. And both of them had recently employed young women to serve as spies. Young actresses, even.

  On the table beside the Englishman lay a letter. It had arrived that very morning. He had already guessed at its contents, but had refrained from reading it – not out of sentimentality, but because he did not wish to be made angry until the appropriate time. His anger was a terrible, destructive power not to be invoked lightly.

  One by one, people began to filter down the stairs into the basement room. They wore cloaks and hoods, which they removed in his presence. A baroness, a minister, three priests, a gardener, a handful of labourers. They belonged to all classes.

  Patiently, fearfully, they awaited the word of their master.

  Once they were all present, Sir Henry Vale unsealed the letter and read it.

  He was silent for a long time. Then he held the letter to the lamp’s flame and watched it burn.

  “Luzi Bayer is as good as dead,” he told his people.

  They all watched him, stunned by the news, terrified of what his next move might be.

  “Imprisoned indefinitely,” he went on. “For high treason. A necessary sacrifice for our cause. She had not proved of much use as our eyes and ears inside the court in any case – but no matter. Before this night is over, some of you will face death too. This is the price you pay for failing me.” He sipped his coffee and smacked his lips. “As for the survivors? We have work to do...”

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Beth Johnson

  Actress extraordinaire at the King’s Theatre and – unbeknownst to her admiring audience – a much-valued spy. Tall and beautiful with chestnut brown hair and green eyes, Beth has risen from lowly depths as a foundling abandoned on the steps of Bow Church to become a celebrated thespian and talented espionage agent.

  Sir Alan Strange

  Tall, dark and mysterious, spymaster Alan Strange seeks out candidates from all walks of life, spotting the potential for high-quality agents in the most unlikely of places. Ruthless but fair, Strange is an inspiration for his recruits, and trains them well.

  Ralph Chandler

  Former street urchin Ralph has lead a rough-and-tumble existence, but his nefarious beginnings have their uses when employed in his role as one of Sir Alan Strange’s spies, working in the service of the King.

  John Turner

  Junior clerk at the Navy Board, handsome John imagines himself in more daring, adventurous circumstances – and he soon has the opportunity when he meets Beth Johnson and becomes part of her gang of spies.

  Sir Henry Vale

  Criminal mastermind and anti-King conspirator, Sir Henry Vale was supposedly executed by beheading in 1662 for his attempt to take the King’s life – but all may not be as it seems...

  Edmund Groby

  Squat, swarthy and with one ominous finger missing from his left hand, Groby is a relentless villain and loyal henchman. He hates the monarchy and all it represents, and will stop at nothing to prevent our gang from derailing the King-killer’s plans.

  Maisie White

  A young orange-seller at the theatre where Beth works, Maisie has been quickly taken under the older girls’ wing – but she knows nothing of her friend’s double life as a spy...

  A Letter from the Author

  Dear Reader,

  I hope you have enjoyed this book. While Beth Johnson and her friends are fictitious characters, the world that they inhabit is based on history.

  From early 1665 to early 1666, a highly infectious and deadly disease known as the plague swept through England. It affected the crowded, dirty capital city of London worst of all, and is thought to have killed around 100,000 people. This was about 15 per cent of the population of London at that time.

  During the time of the plague, newspapers kept track of the growing number of deaths in ‘bills of mortality’. The reproduction of one of these bills (overleaf) shows how many people had died during the year, and what had caused their death. You can see that the plague claimed far more lives than any other illness.

  At the time, doctors did not know the real cause of the plague, or how to prevent it. They thought that burning strong smelling herbs might clean the ‘bad air’. There were also suspicions that cats and dogs spread the disease. Today, we know that the plague was caused by disease-carrying fleas that lived on rats.

  During the worst months of the plague, King Charles II left London. First he went to Hampton Court, and then to Oxford.
Most other people wealthy enough to move out of London also did so. The poorer people had to stay in the city and risk their lives as the plague raged on. It would have been a terrible and frightening time to be a Londoner.

  Jo Macauley

  BILLS OF MORTALITY

  A General Bill for this Present Year, ending the 19 of December 1665, according to the Report made to the KINGS most Excellent Majesty. By the Company of Parish Clerks of London, etc.

  THE DISEASES AND CASUALTIES THIS YEAR:

  Abortive and Stillborne: 617

  Aged: 1545

  Ague and Feaver: 5257

  Appoplex and Suddenly: 116

  Bedrid: 10

  Bleeding: 16

  Burnt and Scalded: 8

  Cold and Cough: 68

  Collick and Winde: 134

  Consumption and Tissick: 4808

  Drowned: 50

  Executed: 21

  Flox and Small Pox: 655

  Frighted: 23

  Gout and Sciatica: 27

  Grief: 46

  Jaundies: 110

  Leprosie: 2

  Lethargy: 14

  Meagrom and Hedach: 12

  Measles: 7

  Murthered and Shot: 9

  Overlaid and Starved: 45

  Palsie: 30

  Plague: 68596

  Plurisie: 15

  Rickets: 557

  Rising of the Lights: 397

  Rupture: 34

  Scurvy: 105

  Shingles and Swine pox: 2

  Sores, Ulcers, broken and

  bruised Limbs: 82

  Spleen: 14

  Spotted Feaver and Purples: 1929

  Stopping of the Stomack: 332

  Teeth and Worms : 2614

  Vomiting: 51

  CHRISTENED:

  Males: 5114

  Females: 4853

  In all: 9967

  BURIED:

  Males: 48569

  Females: 48737

  In all: 97306

  Of the Plague: 68596

  Read on...

  ...for a sneak peek of the next Secrets & Spies adventure.

  Inferno

  Oranges and lemons, say the bells of Saint Clement’s.

  You owe me five farthings, say the bells of Saint Martin’s.

  When will you pay me, say the bells of Old Bailey...

  “Sing it with me, Lucinda – it’s the bit about when I grow rich next!”

  The little girl sat on the doorstep of her small, ramshackle house in Bloodbone Alley, Shadwell, merrily singing her favourite song and bouncing her rag doll by its arms. It was late summer and the sun was hanging in a clear blue sky above the roof of the inn across the road. The brown Thames rolled by at the end of the alley, and the girl could see a small merchant ship and a couple of coal barges at anchor at the landing stage. A small group of children who lived in this East London alley were playing a boisterous ball game close by, but the girl with the doll couldn’t join in the fun. Her thin, almost useless legs were spread out on the dusty ground before her, and a pair of walking sticks leaned against the wall. But she didn’t mind. She had been like this since before she could remember, and it was the only way of life she had known. She enjoyed just being around the other children and losing herself in her own colourful little world.

  But before she could launch into the next verse of her song, there was a cry of “Catch!” and the tallest of the boys in the little gang playing nearby sent a gentle toss her way. The girl smiled. They knew she couldn’t join properly, but they always tried to include her in whatever way they could. She managed to catch the ball and threw it back to the boy, who gave her a cheery wave then went back to the game with the other children.

  “That was a good throw, wasn’t it Lucinda? Straight into his hands from all this way away. If only our legs worked properly, we would show them how good we’d be at their games!”

  She assumed that no one but Lucinda, with her yellow hair, permanent cheery smile and cheeks painted rosy-red, had heard her.

  But she was wrong.

  With the sun behind the inn across the road, its doorway was cast deep in shadow – and hidden within that darkness was a short but stocky man, watching the children at play.

  The inn was called The Pelican, but the locals knew it as the Devil’s Tavern after the smugglers and other unsavoury characters that frequented it at night.

  Soon, a younger boy with red hair threw the ball towards the seated girl once more, but in his excitement his throw was too hard, too wide. It hit the wall beside her and bounced across the alley. Just as the boy was about to retrieve it, the figure in the doorway of the Pelican emerged, picked it up, and tossed it back.

  “Uh ... thanks,” the red-haired boy said in an uncertain tone. There was something about the man that unnerved him – not least the missing finger on the hand that had tossed the ball.

  The man didn’t say a word in reply, and returned to the shadows.

  As evening drew in, a couple of the children were called in by their mothers. Their ball game was winding down, and the remaining three children stood in a circle, chatting and half-heartedly throwing the ball between each other – but it was suppertime now, and soon they waved to the girl and said their goodbyes. The red-haired boy was one of them. He cast a wary glance in the direction of The Pelican’s doorway.

  “How will you get indoors? Do you need a hand?” he called to the crippled girl.

  “Oh, I’ll be all right,” she said, jabbing her thumb towards her sticks. “Anyway, I’m waiting for my brother to come home from work. He always gives me a big hug and carries me indoors!”

  “Well, don’t stay out too late, or the bogeyman will get you!” laughed a girl as they departed.

  The red-haired boy frowned and looked towards the door once more. “Don’t say things like that,” he chided.

  “Oh, we don’t believe in the bogeyman, do we Lucinda?” the seated girl said to her doll.

  But as soon as the coast was clear, the bogeyman, or at least the closest thing to one she would ever encounter, was already creeping from his hiding place. The girl had her back to him. His stealthy footsteps brought him closer by the second. She heard a movement behind her at the last moment, but it was already too late. She was scooped up from the ground in a pair of brawny arms and carried quickly towards a coach that was waiting round the corner. As her captor hurried along the street, he placed a great paw of a hand over her mouth to prevent her screams being heard by the inhabitants of Shadwell. But although the girl’s withered legs dangling helplessly, she wriggled her body and thrashed with her arms for all she was worth. A man emerged from the coach to help the kidnapper get her inside, and in the struggle a handkerchief fell from his pocket. Once their victim was safely inside, the two men joined her. The driver cracked his whip, and the wheels of the carriage clattered as the coach disappeared in a cloud of dust.

  Read Inferno to find out what happens next!

  Other titles from the Secrets & Spies series – Treason

  The year is 1664, and somebody wants the King dead. One November morning, a mysterious ghost ship drifts up the Thames. Sent to investigate, fourteen-year-old Beth quickly finds herself embroiled in a dangerous adventure that takes her right into the Tower of London. Will Beth be able to unravel the plot to kill the King before it’s too late?

  Inferno

  The year is 1666 and Beth is throwing herself into a new dramatic role a the theatre when the kidnapping of fellow spy John’s sister pulls her back into fighting the conspiracy against the King. Henry Vale’s thugs aim to blackmail John into exposing the King, and Beth and her friends face a race against time to rescue the young girl – and escape the raging fire that threatens to consume the whole city...

  New World

  When it seems Henry Vale is planning to extend his conspiracy to kill the King to an elaborate plot in the Americas, Beth is offered the role of a lifetime. Strange, her spymaster, requests that Beth and her fellow spies travel t
o the new world to maintain their close surveillance of the would-be king-killer. But will their passage across the ocean be interrupted before it even begins?

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