by Ian Mortimer
At dusk we are still a mile from Exeter. More travellers approach – dark characters in ones and twos, shielding their faces with their hoods. A couple more carts come towards us. All these people are like shadows fleeing the city: wraiths of traders and merchants. But none of them are what you would call the naked poor, travelling on foot. The impoverished are staying behind – either to loot the houses of the rich or because they have nowhere else to go.
‘The child’s screams are like a war cry for the plague,’ mutters William.
‘We’ll find a wetnurse soon.’
‘The gates will be closed. We’d be better off staying elsewhere tonight. Either that or leaving the child somewhere while we arrange our accommodation.’
‘In this cold? William, no.’
‘Then what’s our story? We cannot walk up to the gates and plainly ask to be let in with it squealing like a pig being bled.’
‘We’ll say that my wife died on the highway.’
‘Do you think the city gatekeepers are fools?’
At that moment Lazarus’s crying subsides. The instinctive choking on his own screams has exhausted his tiny frame, and within a minute he is silent, asleep.
‘Is it dead?’ asks William.
I am about to reply but I look ahead in the gloom and see several carts parked near what appears to be an enormously long pit beside the road. It is about four hundred feet long and ten feet wide. It looks like the foundation trench for a new cathedral.
‘That is even bigger than the one in Salisbury. It could bury a thousand,’ I declare.
‘Three thousand, if they bury them three deep, as they did in Salisbury.’
Then the stench rises, like the smell of a stagnant pond that has dried out with the deaths of the plants, weeds and many of the fish, frogs, eels and smaller creatures that lived within its waters. But this is worse. This is the most terrible stink there is: the decaying flesh of a thousand men, women and children – a rotting smell that rides on the blended air of their sore-crusted bodies, of their excrement and urine, of their unclean clothes and of their death-sweat.
In the dimness the pit labourers look like ghosts. Their faces are swathed, their hands wrapped in old cloth. Each cart that arrives is laden with ten or twelve victims. Two men climb up and stand unsteadily on the lower corpses as they lift down the topmost ones to the waiting men on the ground. These men then drag them to the pit, where they pass them down to those arranging them in rows. For a moment I am touched by the neatness with which they lay out the dead – but then I remember why. After the blood-letting at Caen, we had to arrange the corpses carefully because we did not have time to dig a larger pit. The care has nothing to do with respect for the dead.
No one speaks to us or comes near. I feel sick with the insistence of the smell of decay, yet I cannot look away as bodies are laid on bodies. I see a naked young woman passed from the cart to the awaiting burial party and hear the men make some lewd comments about her. And I wonder where her father lies, and if he is in the pit too, and if she will be laid beside him or on top of some stranger. The next corpse is purposefully dropped on the ground while one of the men tries to remove a ring. He draws a knife, cuts the finger and snaps the joint, then pulls the ring off and tosses the finger into the pit. Who is buried with whom does not matter here. The wishes we express in life – such as asking that our bodies be buried in the corner of our parish churchyard, where our ancestors are all laid out – are like leaves in a great wind.
William and I move on in silence. It is nearly dark now. We come to the crossroads at Saint Sativola’s, outside the East Gate of the city. The temperature has fallen further. Ice is forming in the cold air. Ahead, the silhouettes of the gatehouse crenellations are visible against the dark blue of the sky, and just before them, the city gallows. It is chilling to see them empty: normally we would see at least one thief left hanging as a warning to others. At the same time, there is a welcoming familiarity in the stench rising from the city ditch. Things that had once been nauseating are now comforting vestiges of normality.
‘Give me your fardel,’ says William. ‘And cover the stubble on your face with your hood. It’s dark enough. I’ll pretend that you are my wife.’
‘Damn your muxy breeches, William; I’ll be doing no such thing.’
‘We have to persuade a gatekeeper to admit us. You’ll not persuade anyone that I am your wife. So this is your choice: either you accept my plan or you find a woman willing to play the role for you. Good luck in that, outside the city walls, in the cold, at dusk. Near a plague pit.’
I pass him my travelling sack, and take the long liripipe of my hood and wrap it around my face, covering my rough chin.
At the gate, William hammers heavily and shouts, ‘Open, master gatekeeper, open!’ No answer comes. He keeps hammering and calling. ‘Open, if you are not deaf to the world, you cloth-headed, nun-nuzzling jade! Open this damned gate!’
‘Whoever you are, you will not gain admittance here. The mayor has given orders. Citizens may only go out and reenter by the North Gate.’
‘I thank you, my good man,’ calls William back a moment later. ‘May the Lord in His infinite mercy spare you. Goodnight.’
William and I set off in the darkness around the city walls. We hear our footsteps crunching on the frozen ground, the whiffling and intermittent cries of the half-sleeping baby, and the hooting of the occasional owl. At moments, however, another sound can be heard: an eerie lament inside the city. At the North Gate too we hear souls breaking with grief over the dead bodies of family members.
‘What’s that noise?’ I whisper.
‘Keening. A city grieving.’
‘If our bones could sing, that is the noise they would make.’
The baby wakes and renews its cries.
‘Shush, Lazarus,’ I say.
‘You have given the child a name?’ hisses William.
‘After Saint Lazarus, who was raised from the dead. It is his feast day tomorrow.’
‘Why did you do that?’
‘It seemed the right thing to do.’
‘In Christ’s love, John. The right thing would have been to leave the child, and let God decide its fate.’
William again draws his knife and bashes with the hilt on the solid oak. ‘Good gateman, please, for the love of God, I am a mercer who has often done good business in Exeter. Now I’m on foot with my wife . . . Johanna . . . and my son Lazarus. We’ve walked from Salisbury, my horse having fallen lame since I departed the city. Please open up, for pity’s sake.’
We wait for an answer. ‘Why are we seeking entry to this godforsaken gaol of souls?’ he asks in a low voice. ‘If it weren’t for the child, I’d press on for home, walk through the night.’ But then he calls out again. ‘Good gateman! I hope to stay at the house of Richard the blacksmith, close to the priory of Saint Nicholas—’
‘All right, I hear you,’ comes the reply. ‘I’m coming, damn your eyes. And stop that child from bawling so.’
A door to the side of the main gate swings open to reveal a scrawny, half-bald man. He is holding a flaming torch that has mostly burned itself out. Red embers are falling to the ground. ‘What did you say your name was?’
‘William Beard, a mercer, from Moreton. You’d recognise my face if you were to shine a light on it.’
The gateman pushes his torch to William’s features. A cursory wave of the light in my direction, together with the sound of Lazarus’s cries, reassures him.
‘My orders are to admit only freemen of the city and their kinsmen. No journeymen, medicine traders, knife-grinders, tinkers, strollers, scullions, vagabonds, scoundrels, beggars or farriers.’
‘Do I look like a vagabond?’ William replies. ‘My wife and I set out before Michaelmas with four horses and a cart of wool-fells; now we find ourselves returning on foot with nothing. I was forced to sell my cart and horses for pennies at the market in Salisbury. Then my own mount fell lame . . .’
‘Where�
�s your lantern? Good men carry a lantern after dark.’
William shakes his head. He sets down the travelling bags and faces me. To my surprise, he opens the ties of my fardel and removes Lazarus’s purse. He feels inside and holds up a gold coin between his thumb and forefinger, in the light of the torch.
‘This is my lantern,’ he says.
The gatekeeper leans forward to look at it. I too stare. I have never seen a gold coin before.
‘Are you offering that to me?’
‘Are you offering to let us in?’
‘Your light shines brighter than mine, good sir,’ the gatekeeper replies, taking the coin. ‘I’m sorry to have delayed you. I’m sure the beadles of the watch will give you no problem. Go in peace, and may the Lord save us all.’
We climb the thoroughfare that leads from North Gate up into the heart of the city and turn right along a narrow lane towards Saint Bartholomew’s parish. We feel our way, stumbling through the muddy drains and scattered gravel of the alleys. Every so often, when Lazarus’s screams for food subside, we hear the keening as fathers and mothers come to terms with their loss. Occasionally an anguished scream breaks out. Or a cat fight ends in yowling.
Then it begins to rain.
I can barely see the rooflines of the houses against the dark sky. The raindrops splatter and splash into barrels left out to collect water for the houses in this impoverished quarter. Lazarus’s sobs are croaked and harsh now, after so much crying. He intermittently drifts in and out of sleep. The weight of the swaddling board is growing too heavy, and I ache to set it down. I long too for warmth and rest – in the way that Lazarus longs for a woman’s milk.
I slip in the mud of the road. Cold water enters my boots.
‘Here,’ says William in a low voice. He hammers on the door of what is, as far as I can make out, a low-roofed, single-storey house. ‘Richard,’ he calls, ‘it’s William Beard, from Moreton. I need to speak to you.’
No answer comes.
Several times William knocks and calls until the door is opened a fraction. The low arch is illuminated by a candle held to the crack, which gutters and splutters in the draught, shedding a little light on the black-bearded man within.
‘What brings you here after curfew?’ says the blacksmith.
‘This is my brother, John, from Wrayment, near Moreton. He and his wife, Catherine, and I were travelling with their newborn babe back from Salisbury when Catherine fell grievously ill. She died yesterday. We’ve walked day and night hoping that your Susannah is with milk and able to help feed the little one. He’ll surely die without help.’
‘Tell me truly, William Beard. Was it the plague?’
William looks his friend in the eye. ‘No, Richard. I assure you. Catherine did not die of plague.’
The blacksmith shuffles slightly, still holding the door.
‘Please,’ I say, feeling exhausted and frozen. ‘We’ve come so far. There’s precious little godliness in the world these days.’
Cold water drips down my neck and runs down my back.
‘We’ll pay your daughter for nursing the child,’ says William. He searches for another gold coin. ‘A fiorino d’oro, from Florence,’ he says, holding it out. ‘In London and Bristol they’re called florins.’
Richard takes the coin and holds it in the light, staring at the design. ‘What’s it worth?’
‘About forty pence.’
He lets us in and closes the heavy wooden door.
The hall in which we find ourselves is one part of an old merchant’s house. Smoke is rising from a blazing fire in the centre of the room and fumbling its way into the dark roof space. Around the fire are three stools and a bench. Richard’s candle throws light on a doorway, which I presume leads to a chamber. He hobbles over to it and shouts into the darkness, ‘Susannah!’ Then he picks up a stick, comes back towards us, and sits. He gestures to the stools with the stick. ‘Sit yourselves down.’
‘How do things fare in Exeter?’ asks William, warming his hands over the fire. ‘We saw the great grave by Saint Sativola’s.’
Richard grunts, resting his hands on his stick. ‘They’re digging another, beyond the walls, near the place on Crulditch where they used to hold the Lammas Fair. Your brother’s right. There is precious little godliness left in the world.’ He leans forward and pushes a log into the flames with his stick. ‘No one in this city goes to church these days. All the priests have departed, seeking refuge on their country manors. The markets are almost empty as no one wants to bring their grain to the city. Each morning those that’ve died overnight are left out in the streets to be collected by the carters. That is the last you see of your loved ones: their bodies lying in the street, flies crawling over them, waiting for the muxy gravediggers to haul them away.’
Susannah comes in. She is a plump young woman with hair that looks black in this light. Her dark tunic makes her flesh seem very white. I wonder where her husband is. These days it seems best not to ask questions of those left behind.
‘He’s asleep, at long last,’ she says to her father.
‘Good,’ says Richard. ‘This here infant is hungry. William has paid me in the hope that you can provide him with milk.’
‘Will I be seeing any of this money?’ she demands.
‘You shall, my flower. But it is a gold coin, worth forty pence. I’ll have it changed and give you a goodly portion.’
‘A goodly portion?’ she asks, looking at me and then at Lazarus.
‘Tenpence,’ says Richard.
‘Thief.’
‘Twenty,’ he says.
She nods. ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ she asks me.
I hesitate. ‘Lazarus is his name,’ I reply over the sound of his crying.
‘He needs more than milk,’ she says, taking him from me, and uncovering her breast. ‘When did you last change his swaddling?’
‘This morning, in Honyton.’ Lazarus sucks on her – but not as hungrily as I thought he would. ‘There was a wetnurse at the inn where we stayed.’ I look at William but he is staring into the fire, avoiding catching my eye. Richard, however, is looking at me suspiciously.
‘When did you say your wife died?’ he asks.
‘Yesterday morning,’ I say.
‘And you are travelling alone with the child? With only William to help you?’
‘What choice do I have? The Good Lord in His wisdom has left me in this plight.’
There is a long silence. Still William does not look at me.
‘It’s only half a day to Moreton,’ says Susannah, looking down on the child, who is alternately feeding and breaking off to cry. ‘He’ll have a good feed now and another when he wakes, and another before you leave in the morning, and I dare say he’ll be asleep all the way. Your motion will be like a lullaby.’
I nod gratefully. She answers with a smile. Her generosity to the child is uplifting.
‘Richard!’ William exclaims suddenly, turning to our host. ‘In times past you had a barrel of ale on the go continually. Don’t tell me that fine tradition has fallen victim to the plague too?’
Richard pushes himself up with his stick. ‘You should understand, we’re saving our barley for bread. But I can offer you good cider. Apples from my own trees, outside the walls.’
‘I’ll be honoured.’
Richard lifts a ladle from the cider barrel in a dark corner of the hall and carefully fills a large, two-handled wooden cup. I listen as he pours the liquid slowly. As he comes back to the fire he says, ‘A woman nearby lost her husband a year ago and gave the trees to me in return for making a pair of new locks for her house. She was worried, being there all alone. When I saw the orchard, there were rotting apples ripe for pressing all around.’ He takes a swig of the cider, passes William the cup, and sits down. ‘If I was not a cautious man, I could make a small fortune from making locks these days.’
‘And breaking them?’ I ask. ‘What about those who die in locked houses, who’ve no one to place their bod
y in the street?’
Richard says nothing.
William hands the cup to me without a word and resumes looking into the fire. I take it, lift the cider to my mouth and taste its sweetness. I offer it to Susannah, who is still trying to feed the child. ‘When I’ve got him settled,’ she says to me, and lifts up the swaddling board and starts to unwrap the bands.
‘No doubt you are hungry too,’ says Richard. ‘There’s the rest of some pottage.’
‘We’ve got some bacon to add to the supper,’ William says. ‘And a little . . .’
But before he can utter another word, Susannah lets forth a terrifying scream. One moment she is holding Lazarus; the next, she throws him down and her hands move to her mouth, and she is staring at him in his tumble of swaddling bands. She glares at William and me. ‘How could you? Damn you! Damn you!’
As she turns to me I am still looking down at Lazarus, who is screaming again, and at the excrement-soaked bands and the black blotches on the thighs and arms. I try to get up but before I can, a blow from Susannah strikes me across the face. The candle suddenly goes out and there is only the glow of the fire by which to see. The next thing I know, a stick hits my skull. Then, to my horror, I see the sudden blaze as the swaddling bands catch alight. Susannah has kicked Lazarus into the fire. With shouts and screams filling my ears, I reach for the child and burn my hands, tearing away the flaming linen to see the boiling ruptures of his skin and the fat seeping from his scorched thighs. A hard object strikes me across the back and I stumble forward, only narrowly avoiding the fire myself. I turn and roll out of the way, and take refuge in a corner of the hall.
‘Get out! Get out now!’ shouts Richard. ‘Get out, both of you!’
‘Richard,’ pleads William, ‘there has been a terrible . . .’
‘Get out!’ screams Susannah. ‘You heard my father – get out now, or I shall kill you both.’
